Now I realize this might not be possible to do from a game programming standpoint, but I thought I'd propose this. In Armada 2, Species 8472 had a unique resource (biomatter, I think). Would it be possible/worth it to give the Dominion a unique resource of Changelings/Founders? The more I think about it, the more it seems like something they should have since the Founders are a large part of what makes the Dominion so threatening. How many DS9 episodes revolved around panic because a shapeshifter was (possibly) around? Espionage and sabotage obviously would benefit greatly from the use of Changelings, but also the Founders inspire and motivate workers to behave more efficiently when they are around. Translating that into a game scenario, dedicating a Founder overseer to some task would give maybe a 5% bonus to efficiency, experience, morale, etc. Possibly, this could even be the Dominion's intelligence branch?

This is just food for thought I was pondering and couldn't find discussed anywhere, so I'm proposing it here.

not a bad idea but i dont think it would be right to use it as a recource, if anything ketracel white should be a unique recource for the dominion, however im sure some sorta structure may be availble to imporve intel involving founders

The idea of a race-specific special resource was indeed discussed before and I believe rejected as being non-workable.

The problem with adding special resources in, is the fact that they can unbalance the whole game.

If we give a special resource to one race, it either makes the game a lot harder (They can't function without it, so you have to spend valuable resources on getting it) or it makes it too easy (The bonus is too big compared to the the cost of acquiring it)

If it were to be in, you'd have to balance it with a special resource for the other races. The question is: what exactly?

If we used Ketracel White for the Dominion, then we're stuck. None of the other races use drugs to control their people. The other races don't need great amounts of a particular substance to keep them going, in fact, unless you count Deuteriunm/Dilithium.

The only problem with that, is the Dominion would be using Deuterium/Dilithium to power their ships anyway.

Whilst it's a nice idea, this has been suggested before, and we alays ended with the same problem. There just isn't a way to make the game fair in that respect.

Of course, if you can think of a way, then please, let us know, coz it would be great, but toherwise...sorry, I just don't see it being in.

the dominion get as a race specific structure the changeling training facility which gives a boost in intel. this was decided ages ago. but the chanelings are not really a resource are they

Maybe destroying the changeling homeworld could be a optional victory condition. For ballance there would have to be destroying the federation council, destroying the klingon high council, etc as victory condtions as well.

yer like an alternate victory condition, if you want it on, you turn it on, if not...

that would be good

Maybe have a dominion building 'the great link' which also give a small bonus. you could have both building and the ygive a smaller boost each or something.

surely the dominion are completely unbalanced anyway?

they nearly wiped out all 3 major races and they didnt have the support of there full empire, theyve awesome intel, brillant ship building, superiour soldiers, unwaivering loyality, sucide bombers.... if u wanted to make the game realistic the dominion would destry every1 without much of a problem!

there is no point to this rant!

yes but they do have a major weakness. their dependance on drug dependant soldiers. without the jemhadar they are vaunerable. they are only as powerful as the amount of ketracel white they can maintain. so its prob best to make it a resource. i know matress doesnt think it could work, but i think it would be worth investigating. i will give it some serious thought.

how about, instead of having it as a resource, have it as a ship, it has an overal range of say 3 sectors of influence. If it is destroyed and not replaced in 3 turns ships start self destructing by 50% per turn. and make them really expensive to build. it gets round adding it as a resource, and means that fleet actions away from bases etc will require a ship to come with them. If those ships are destroyed by the enemy, the fleet has to either return home to meet up with another ship, commit suicide accomplishing the target, or try and get a new ship to meet them at the front.

know what i mean?

I never said the resource was pointless, Silvercliff, I just said it would be difficult to implement effectively.

I'm all for it though, if it can be done.

...

That's a cool idea, Undated. Having self-destructive fleets could be a nightmare for the Dominion - and be a great balance. You could make the Dominion an uber race, but such a devastating drawback would be the counterweight that could allow you to defeat them?

And just imagine if you could focus your Intel on destroying their White-producing capabilities? Whilst it would be difficult due to their immensely powerful Intel capability, it would tip the balance of power in your favour, and would be something that both the Romulans and Cardassians would be inclined to do.

And perhaps at the same time as the suicides, there could be mass rioting/terrorism throughout the Dominion because the people lhave lost faith in their Gods' ability to provide for them?

Afterall, if the Gods can't provide for their troops, how could they provide for the people? And without any troops, who would defend them from the "heathens of the Galaxy?"

Maybe each occupied system could have a suply of Ketracell and every so offen a ship needs to deliver more. If a plannet runs out then control of the system is lost.

That way another race just needs to blockade a system.

Another possibility is if another race can capture a jemhadar cloning facility then they could be able to produce their own soldiers if they have enough genetics research. This should be limited to Cardasians, Romulans and possibly Klingons because the Federation wouldn't do this.

i dont know, im human and wouldnt mind having millions of jem hadar bow down to me...

dafedz will be finalizing the structures list within a few days, so pm him if you want him to think about this. otherwise it won`t happen.

The shipping idea of white sounds good for gameplay, and it would be more like the show, but I'm not sure as this would be much of a balance. If I were the Dominion, I'd just start sending massive fleets out to protect my convoys. Then it would take a huge enemy fleet to actually impact the shipments, or an incredibly advanced intelligence branch. Either way, it seems like it would be difficult enough to prove not much of a balance unless 2 or more powers were coordinating their efforts--Starfleet tries to intercept the convoys while the Tal'shiar tries to destroy them from within. Also, going off of the original BOTF combat play, wouldn't the white ships be able to withdraw from combat quickly as a non-combat ship, making an attempt to attack it difficult at best when it has guards? All of these thoughts just seem like it wouldn't serve as much of a balance.

Actually, I would think of changing the "Food" resource to something more like "Sustenance" for all empires. Then white would fall into this category since it seems like the Dominion largely uses Jem'hadar, but the Jem'hadar don't eat. That would make more sense to me.

Obviously, the Dominion is by nature ridiculously unbalanced, but for gameplay you don't want such an overwhelming foe to contend with unless you can start mining wormholes. Honestly, I would think a balance for the Dominion would be that their ships have weak shields/hulls--a Bird of Prey seems to take a Jem'hadar fighter out with a couple of shots--on their easily produced ships. Powerful weapons, probably, but easily destroyed.

Now, responding to the Matrress's point about balancing the Changelings out with other resources, I honestly hadn't been thinking about giving the other empires a counter resource since Changelings would be difficult to have, few in number (maybe at the highest development level get 1 every 2 or 3 turns), and only stick around for so long before deciding to return to the Great Link. However, when you mentioned the idea of giving the other empires a counter resource, I started thinking and figured this might be a way actually to play to each empire's strengths. This is what I came up with.

Each empire would have a unique personnel resource, like a separate officer pool. The Dominion obviously would have Changelings which offer a small bonus to anything they are assigned to with a heavy bonus to intelligence, the Klingons could have Order of the Bat'leth Warriors (major bonus to all combat actions, especially ground combat), Cardassian and Romulan Obsidian Order and Tal'shiar Operatives, respectively (major bonuses to all intelligence operations), although the Federation I'm a little less sure of. I was thinking of either Starfleet Engineers ("those legendary Starfleet engineers who can turn rocks into replicators") who would give a considerable bonus to build/repair times/costs or Starfleet Support Personnel who would be Medical, Scientific, and Engineering officers who give considerable bonuses to all of their fields when assigned (including all of these might be too much of a bonus depending on other weights, I'm not sure).

Of course, these unique groups would have to have drawbacks. I think a needed weight would be that they only stick around for so long, maybe each only being available for deployment for 20 turns or so. Otherwise, the Dominion could spend years building, saving up all of its Changelings, until they encounter an Alpha Quadrant race, then suddenly flood the race with 300 incredibly effective spies which cripple the enemy. For the Dominion, this could be because the Changelings refuse to stay away from the Great Link for too long--something which the shows have portrayed--while the other races could simply say that the people eventually die off since no one's immortal.

Also, there would have to be a strict limit to how quickly this resource can be created, although it would have to be somewhat different for each empire. The Klingons could probably put together a small fleet crewed by Order of the Bat'leth Warriors while Starfleet could put together and entire corps of engineers to assist in building/repairing/upgrading fleets. The Dominion, on the other hand, would have to be limited to individual Changelings since those few would be incredibly powerful/useful (there were only 4 Changelings on Earth).

In this way, each empire could more easily fall back on its unique strengths. The Romulans could frame the Federation for sabotage of the Klingons with their Tal'shiar operatives, spies virtually guaranteed to succeed in their tasks. In response, the Klingons mobilize their Bat'leth Warriors to launch a devastating first strike against the Federation while Starfleet Engineers rush starship production and system defenses through to respond to the threat. With the Klingon ueber-warriors busy, the Romulan navy can strike the Klingons from behind. This might be difficult to program, and granted there are other means of tapping into the natural talents of a race, but this would give a sort of emergency boost which allows more fine-tuning to a race's special talents. (Think of Age of Mythology's god powers.) The bonuses of course could be dependent on the technology level--at the very beginning Starfleet Engineers might reduce build/repair time by 1% whereas by the highest technology level the bonus maybe is 15%.

The only reason the Dominion was so powerful in DS9 was because they had a thousand years head start on everyone else.

howd u know it was a thousand years?

This may not be really canon but in the game Dominion Wars in the opening movie for Dominion Weyoun said: ''the Dominion has ruled the Gamma quadrant for more than 2 thousand years''.

Now that's strange. I could have sworn that they said somewhere that the Dominion has been around for TEN thousand years!

Now chances are i'm wrong. I certainly don't have any quotes to give here, but i'm absolutely sure it was said somewhere...

Maybe Dominion ruled Gamma Q for 2000 years and existed for 10000? They said that in DS9 episode? If that's the case it's 10k years then, but 'been around' indicates existance, not status of the sole ruler of gamma Q. I'll do some searching there.

On the Great Link Dominion arc, they say that over 2000 years ago changelings started to explore galaxy etc...
So it seems 2000 is more 'realistic'.

2,000 years is more "realistic" than 10,000, as you said, Praetor.

Afterall, a 10,000 year-old Empire is a bit much - it's never been done on Earth before - yet...

Well, unless you count Stargate...

There aren't that many ancient Empires in the Galaxy either.

to be honest i think the game will be fine if we add these things i know that we want to be as good as posible but so things people as sugesting are very complicated and would make the game too easy or too hard and not to metion it would set eveything backfor a longer period of time i think we should just stick to the thing jig said with the changeling training buliding and leave it at that.

Its a fan based project and some of the tings that are being sugested would be very difficult to do

How dificult is it??
What should need to be done?
I dont understand this yes or no? Will there be or not?

jig said no, and that structures would be implemented to train changlings. Unless either MOE, jig or dafedz say different then were going with that for now. about the other ideas i have no idea...

Ritter's ideas are interesting, and possibly workable, I don't know, but it kind of incorporates a missmash of different abilities, which does little for game balance. Instead, I think its better to have exactly the same abilties for each empire, but simply with different strengths and areas of focus.

The Empires structure list was done ages ago anyway. All the empires have to draw from the same tech tree, and hence same Resource List. They have the same kind of structures in place for each resource, but the profficiency, efficiency, and general abilities in the fields differ. Just to remind everyone, these are the strengths and key race-specific structures (for the full list see the Empire Structures thread.)


FEDERATION
Strength - Research
FEDERATION COUNCIL - +1 Morale EW, 25% Bribe Res EW
STARFLEET COMMAND - 50% Ship Exp, 50% Officer Training
DAYSTROM INSTITUTE - 15% Research EW,
ASDB COMPLEX - 15% Propulsion Research EW,
FEDERATION NEWS SERVICE - +1 Morale EW, 25% Officer Loyalty


ROMULANS
Strength - Intelligence
IMPERIAL SENATE - +1 Morale EW, 25% Bribe Res EW
TAL SHIAR HQ - 15% Intelligence
NAVAL ACADEMY - 35% Ship Exp, 40% Officer Training
PLASMA PHYSICS COMPLEX - 10% Weapons Research
IMPERIAL NEWS NETWORK - +1 Morale EW, 25% Officer Loyalty


CARDASSIANS
Strength - High Morale control
DETAPA COUNCIL - +1 Morale EW, 35% Bribe Res EW
CENTRAL COMMAND - 40% Ship Exp, 50% Officer Training
OBSIDIAN ORDER - 20% Intelligence
METAGENICS LAB - 10% Bio-Tech Res, 5% Sabotage
STATE BROADCAST BUREAU - +1 Morale EW, 45% Officer Loyalty


KLINGONS
Strength - High Industry/ship exp.
THE HIGH COUNCIL - +1 Morale EW, 25% Bribe Res EW
KLINGON DEFENCE FORCE - 60% Ship Exp, 60% Officer Training, 60% Ground Combat (on home system)
PRAXIS RESEARCH BASE - 15% Energy Research
WAR ROOM - +1 Morale EW, 25% Officer Loyalty

DOMINION
Strength - Economy / Int. Affairs
VORTA CLONING LAB - 80% Officer Training
GREAT LINK TRAINING GROUND - +1 Morale EW,
KETRACEL-WHITE FACILITY - 20% Officer Loyalty
KETRACEL-WHITE distribution centres - 15% Food, +1 Morale (per system)
CHANGLING NETWORK - 15% Intelligence
LOGISTICS COMMAND - 10% Intgernal Affairs
POLARON ACCELERATOR - 15% Weapons Research

jig just said that there will be a structur is all so meh i dont see what you mean by sayin difficult thought ????

the structure database is now completed, no further structures will be added.
go look through it to see what will be in or out.

I believe ull find it in the following area:

http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/botf2_races.htm

although there may be a seperate list, this should keep u occupied!

Thanx for that link UnDated.