Dominions Enhanced Mod used in MP?

[wabbit]

I play with the Dominions Enhanced mod. So far I have only been playing single player games. I hope to eventually try out some multi-player games in the future.

While I enjoy what the mod offers - looking ahead, is it wise to skill-up without this mod so I'm not disoriented during mp?

Or is mp not necessarily vanilla only, and I shouldn't have much trouble finding games where this is used?

[Althaea]

Dominions Enhanced is perhaps the most widely used of the big mods. Vanilla games, or near-vanilla (using mods like Worthy Heroes or Better Arena) are the most common.

[Alpharius]

I've never touched a Dominions 5 mod. What's the split, players that play vanilla vs players who play one of the big mods? Do they bring something new to the table? tweaks?

[Zoli]

RedRob's Magic enhanced mod is imo the single best thing that happened to dominions. It makes every nation feel unique and interesting while not altering the overall gameplay. Its like having an already good-ish meal then a master chef comes and adds only spices to it and it becomes superb.

[Alpharius]

Give me an example :)

[Red_Rob]

Originally posted by Warsmith:

Give me an example :)

I'll give you three...

Firstly, Magic Enhanced adds spells to the general spells list to help expand the available options and buff the weaker paths. Take Fire, it's often highlighted as being a little one-dimensional and limited in the base game due to focusing mainly on simply dealing Fire damage in various ways. It lacks the variety of spells that makes mages of other paths useful in many different situations and can be quite heavily weakened if the enemy gains Fire Resistance. Magic Enhanced adds spells to broaden Fire's usefulness in combat including an aoe spell that buffs soldiers Attack Skill, a personal buff turning the caster into a living flame with many of the benefits of a Fire Elemental, a spell to unforge enemy equipment to weaken their armor, and a spell to remove all of the casters fatigue by burning a Fire gem.

In terms of rituals Fire gains a spell that grants permanent Awe to the caster, aswell as the ability to light a Heroes Beacon, drawing a random Adventurer to serve the caster (which can have useful paths aswell as the coveted Healer trait). Later on they can summon powerful Fire Dragons or even transform a mage into such a beast. Fire also gains access to several battle spells including one that grants all friendly units a Fire Shield, aswell as an endgame spell that inflicts a mindless rage on an entire enemy army that can lead them to fall upon each other if they fail to resist. This helps to make Fire a more rounded path that has a variety of options at each stage of the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1350406281

Secondly, the mod tweaks magic items. It mainly makes most of the rarely used items cheaper in gems or occasionally lower in Construction research. Items like your bog-standard Enchanted Sword or Blacksteel Helmet now cost just a single gem (in addition to your mage turn), which allows the creation of some fun extreme-budget thug builds. In addition moving some of the weaker Const2 items to Const0 makes them accessible from turn 1, opening up options for Titan Pretenders to quickly forge some actually useful gear in time to help with expansion. Water breathing items are a lot cheaper, and the number of troops they affect is increased by 5x to allow land nations some chance at actually interacting with underwater enemies. Artifacts are mostly around 25-50% cheaper than in the base game to make aiming for Const8 a reasonable goal.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1931683505

The mod also adds new items for each path. These include items aimed at widening out the useful thug gear from just Vine Shield & Brand to include comparable options in several paths. From a Thunderhammer causing lightning bolts where it strikes to a Bane Fire blade unleashing clouds of banefire, and a Mind Shield paralyzing attackers that fail MR, to a Shield of Many Colours dazzling and stunning nearby enemies. There are also new utility items such as a tool that can create Clockwork Soldiers every month, or Healing Herbs that grant Recuperation once consumed.

Lastly, Magic Enhanced includes additions for each nation that try to enhance its flavour and provide additional tools for enacting their main game plan. Take EA R'lyeh. The Aboleths have tons of cool flavour but often struggle in-game to interact with their land-based neighbours and project force to take and hold enough Land thrones to threaten victory. Firstly the mod adds several national spells and Aboleth-only items to the nation. They get Mind Burn researched at the start of the game for free, so every S2 mage can be useful right away. Later on they get special aoe versions of Mind Burn and later Enslave Mind. The new items help to counterbalance the Aboleths lack of slots and grant abilities such as airbreathing, reinvogoration, boosts to Astral and Water magic, or even grafting a Prehensile Tentacle which grants a single Hand slot.

In keeping with the Lovecraftian theme of R'lyeh they gain land-only spells that summon the Chthonians, ancient worm-like creatures that pledged to aid the Mind Fish in ages past. Finally the mod expands the mental abilities of the Mind Lords in several ways. Firstly through several Mind-Lord only rituals that can create mentally-broken servants to aid R'lyeh or attack their enemies, or to find hidden magic sites. Secondly by having a secondary roster of recruitable mind-broken human slaves available in land forts where a Mind Lord is present. These include enslaved human soldiers of varying types, truly mindless Lobo guards along with Enslaved Mages. This helps R'lyeh establish recruitment centres on land and allows them to advance across the land enslaving and dominating the populace to feed their war machine.

Other nations get similar tweaks and changes aimed at making them feel more unique and different in play, along with balancing tweaks and additions.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=730563522

The mod comes with a PDF detailing all of the changes and new items and spells that can be downloaded separately here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=19gXGa2vtVSVJeQh5jrdyEYk2s4x-3jev

If you want to give the mod a try it is available here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/722060/discussions/2/1697169163413110594/

The mod is also part of my mega-mod compilation Dominions Enhanced, which also includes rebalancing and additions to the Pretender roster, tweaks to rare sites to make them more varied and impactful, all the new heroes from Worthy Heroes, changes to the Arena including granting an Artifact as the prize, along with 21 new nations across all 3 eras designed in keeping with the original game: https://steamcommunity.com/app/722060/discussions/2/1727575977537869414/

[Alpharius]

Beautiful, you sold me with Heroes Beacon lol. Thank you! Amazing.

[Avazander]

I second that, Dominions Enhanced makes all the factions feel unique and play to their strengths and still feel competitive. Its quite fun.

[mazirian72]

Ive never played with the mod but I have mixed reactions to the examples cited. At the risk of starting a flame war I’d like to hear from both proponents and detractors regarding the mod and multiplayer.

[CHI LONG QUA]

There's plenty of MP games which use the mod. It is good, it adds many things and largely improves balance.