Dominions II. Version History


Version 2.18

This version has updated hardware support and is only available for Desura customers. The old computer used for windows patches has died, so there won't be any standalone patches made for Dominions 2 any longer. Also there is no Mac version any longer, that computer has died too.

New features / Bug fixes
* Support for modern screen resolutions.
* Default to highest screen resolution.
* Network stability and performance improvements.
* Stability improvements.
* Improved sound support in Linux.
* 64-bit linux version added.
* Fixed bug that could crash the game during turn generation.
* Message for arcane nexus was a bit off.
* Fixed Light of the Northern Star to only affect friendly units.

Version 2.16

This version of Dominions II is fully compatible with version 2.12 to 2.15. However players participating in multiplayer games should always use the same version or the unfolding of battles will not be displayed correctly.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* Ability to mod different gui looks for different nations.
* New monster modding commands, #magicboost and #castledef.
* Shape changing god automatically start with low HP form.
* Assassination victims will now override a retreat order.
* #selectitem accepts numbers too.
* Maximum number of mods increased 50->100.
* Improved error message when a mod needs to be installed in order to play your turn.

Bug Fixes
* Fixed battlefield grid.
* Destroyed local enchantments were sometimes still displayed even though they were no longer in effect.
* Fishes with 'amulet of the fish' can now retreat to land provinces.
* Goto province works on assassination messages too.

Version 2.15

This version of Dominions II is fully compatible with version 2.12 to 2.14. However players participating in multiplayer games should always use the same version or the unfolding of battles will not be displayed correctly.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* Support for the new Oceania mod that replaces Atlantis with the new Oceania nation that will appear in Dominions III.
* New monster mod command: #reinvigoration, #siegebonus.
* New weapon mod commands: #secondaryeffect, #secondaryeffectalways, #twohanded, #fire, #cold, #shock, #explspr.
* Dispel can now be cast under water.
* Utterdark has been slightly altered.
* Numbness castable UW.
* Voidlord has become headless.
* Smoking Mirror's jaguar shape, MR 5 -> MR 18.

Bug Fixes
* Two Dominions games could get the same temp directory, resulting in errors after a crash (cannot start Dominions again) or when running two games simultaneously.
* Blood slave sacrifice (Abysia and Mictlan) could corrupt the amount of blood slaves that nation has.
* Some network fixes.
* Fixed bug concerning certain spells (e.g. Looming Hell) and sneaking commanders. This bug made the game crash when trying to view the resulting battle.
* Fixed some typos.
* Evening Star and the Shrapest Tooth didn't have correct stats.
* Holy deep one now has magic leadership.
* #nratt changed ATT instead of the nbr of attacks.
* Thunder whip did not count as a magic weapon.
* Blink, Rage, Mist of Deception and Lobsters could result in battle inconsistencies.
* Stability improvement.
* modding commands #secondarypath and #secondarylevel didn't work properly.
* No more Theurg attacks during utterdark.
* No more underwater wolves.
* No more uw snowfalls.

Version 2.14

This sixth patch for Dominions II is a small bug fix patch. This version is fully compatible with version 2.12 and 2.13. However players participating in multiplayer games should still use the same version as the host or the unfolding of battles will not be displayed correctly.

Bug Fixes
* Network bug that could lock up Dominions has been fixed.
* Alt-tab graphics corruption fixed (Windows and Mac OS X).
* Certain magic misc items could be used twice on the same commander for twice the effect (most notably gem and xp producing items).
* Magic duel did not work properly (favored the little guy).
* It was sometimes possible to instantly transport magic items to your lab when sieging enemy castles.
* Sometimes an enchantment was not entirely wiped when dispelled with the spell Dispel.
* Casting item unique rituals with cheat detection on crashed the game.
* Removing item unique ritual orders crashed the game.

Version 2.13

This fifth patch for Dominions II is fully compatible with version 2.12. However players participating in multiplayer games should still use the same version as the host or the unfolding of battles will not be displayed correctly.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* Basic Magic Item modding implemented.
* Improved cheat detection.
* New switches: --noscoregraphs, --nonationinfo, --enablemod.
* New switches: --vicprov, --vicdom.
* New weapon modding commands: #nratt, #aoe.
* New monster modding commands: #shapechange, #secondshape, #firstshape, #secondtmpshape.
* Unit recruit lists are greyed out while besieged.
* Main screen commander scrolling works in full rows only to make it easier to keep track of individual commanders when there are many in the same province.
* Rehiring mercs will start bid at half the usual value.
* Possible to combine more 50% fire/cold resistance items to gain full immunity.
* Flooded province possible only during summer and in fresh water provinces.
* Some minor graphical polishing.
* Linux text output is now more redirection friendly.
* Dryad hoplite got a roundshield.
* Lord Warden strat move 2.
* Lord Guardian castle def.
* Mother of thuatha stealth fixed.
* Demon knigth 30 mrl.
* Adept of iron order studybonus.
* Couatl can now wear helmet.
* Grotesque one hand equippable.
* Heliophagus sneak 20 except mabakiel who has 30.
* Heliophagus increased undead ldr.
* Burning pearl fire res 100 -> 50.
* #nametype works for heroes too.
* Added an esc shortcut.

Bug Fixes
* It was impossible for some rare independents on plains to appear.
* Using the Alchemist's Stone could falsly trigger the cheat detection.
* Bows could be used after one arm was lost.
* Magic swords could be used even if one arm was lost.
* Primal forest works (summon hamadryad).
* Skratti and Great Warlock available once more.
* Changing score graphs disabled renaming as well.
* Flight and Blink works properly now.
* Juggernaut didn't spread dominion.
* --startprov, --preexec and --opacity could disturb further switches.
* It was sometimes possible to see the VP graph even it there was no VP victory condition.
* Roc ate too many elephants.
* Immigration message sometimes listed an incorrect province.
* Ulm black forest home site units not recruitable by others.
* Network changes.
* Typos fixed.

Version 2.12

This patch is the fourth patch for Dominions II. Version 2.12 can read save files from older versions but not the other way around. This means that everyone in a multiplayer game must upgrade at the same time.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* Name modding.
* Master Password usable for network clients too.
* Warning before replacing existing pretender god at network game startup.
* On demand texture loading. This results in about one second faster startup and alt-tab times.
* Improved cheat detection. The host will send out messages to all players if someone has had an unexplainable increase of wealth.
* Elemental Armor yields 50% protection only.
* Vampire Queen, domininion 2->1, cost 110->150, path cost 40->50.
* Vampire Queen cannot be used by Ermor.
* Some chariots are now ambidextrous to eliminate 2 weapon penalties.
* Arch Druid now has recuperation.
* Immortal land lubbers owned by underwater nations will not rise again unless they have learned to breathe water.
* Many cost and stats changed for Pangaea (mostly New Era).
* Two new units for Desert Tombs.
* Desert Tombs can no longer recruit slave lizards.
* Desert Tombs cost 200 -> 150.
* Desert Tombs starts with Terror like ordinary C'tis.
* Carrion Woods gets different amount of magic gems depending on world richness.
* Carrion Woods gets extra sagittarians in forest temples.
* Improved X11 handling for PPC Linux and Solaris.

Bug Fixes
* Windows network bug fixed.
* Eliminated a minor memory leak when alt-tabbing in windows and Mac OS X.
* Squad sizes were sometimes wrong in the army setup screen.
* Crash during host fixed.
* Cheat detection is now actually togglable.
* #nametype didn't work.
* A unique independent didn't get her intended magic items.
* --preexec should work now.
* Descriptions weren't restored properly after using mods.
* It was possible to set the 'capture blood slaves' order with 'B' while sneaking.
* There could be 2 Admiral's Sword in the world at once.
* One superfluous dracolich choice removed.
* Prophets lost twist fate effect before any battle.
* Paralyze on modded units resulted in weird graphics.
* A Machaka shield was actually a body armor.
* Some typos fixed.

Version 2.11

This patch is the third patch for Dominions II. Version 2.11 can read save files from older versions but not the other way around. This means that everyone in a multiplayer game must upgrade at the same time.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* Press 'f' in battle for fast forward and 'n' to skip on turn.
* Network server is now more responsive and slow connections will no longer bog down players with fast connections.
* New stuff for Abysia's Blood of Humans.
* Possible to add new gods through modding.
* New weapon mod commands, #bonus, #flyspr.
* New monster mod command, #nametype, #female, #douse, #ambidextrous, #sailing, #pillagebonus, #supplybonus, #clearspec, #researchbonus, #forgebonus, #healer, #itemslots.
* New switch, --renaming.
* Reduced cpu requirements during text server game startup.
* New divine titles.
* New monster: Sagittarian Carcass.
* Flying carpet now yields a map move of at least 3 in addition to the flying ability.
* More structured modding manual.
* Major cpu usage reduction on army setup screen.
* Arco priestess and others can no longer heal undead and inanimate beings.
* Carrion Woods growth requirement 2 -> 1.
* Carrion Woods will get more and better manikins in provinces with high growth.
* Freak Lord size 6 -> 5.
* Gods are sorted in decending dominion strength order.
* Dracolich has switched place with its bog mummy form. Issue a change shape order in your ongoing game and you'll get back to your previous form.
* Carrion Woods can receive mandragoras too.
* Non blood mages are worse at finding blood slaves.
* Deviation for arrows and spells has been altered.
* Never Healing wounds affects gods relative to dom str
* Shortcut for Heal (H).
* Hama Dryad takes severe damage each month outside home province.
* Hama dryad can sneak.
* Cheat detection can be disabled.
* You can now set score graphs, hall of fame size, renaming and master password when creating a scenario game too.
* Miasma dominion no longer affect creatures with swamp survival.
* Miasma dominions spreads slightly more disease.
* AI less fond of Burden of Time.
* Improved spell repertoire for Nethgul.
* Giraffe edited text incorporated.
* Permanently blessed astral 9+ people receives one twist fate per month (in healing phase).
* Strands of Arcane Power works for holy sites too.
* Several weapons and some stats altered according to Saber Cherry's mod
* New switch --badmouse that inverts mouse y-coords in windowed mode. Workaround for SDL bug in OS X.
* Two new resolution settings.
* OS X: easy to use patches.
* Windows: SDL (graphics library) updated to version 1.2.7.
* Windows: A small performance increase, due to less compiler optimizations.

Bug Fixes
* Battle inconsistency problem fixed!!! Yihaaaa!.
* Fixed Jotunheim Utgård theme, bug introduced in 2.08.
* Fixed bug in map editor.
* Killed a battle crashing bug. (oneautomove: bad destination)
* You could lose design points by pressing cancel when entering a God's name.
* Travellers on Stygian Paths transfered their damage to the commander.
* Stygian Path report could indicate that one person too few had died.
* The Nerid is no longer a male.
* Setting a God's name in a map file works better now.
* Paralyze is not eternal any longer.
* One twin spear didn't work.
* #startdom was wrongly called #domstr in the modding manual.
* Weapon and Armor modding didn't always work correctly if you didn't restart Dominions between games.
* #animalawe, #swampsurvival, #wastesurvial didn't work properly.
* Fixed a potential countdown problem for --uploadtime.
* Fixed some gender problems with divine titles.
* It was possible to get no divine title if you had a low dominion score.
* Revelers didn't recuperate.
* Living water/earth can now be used under water too.
* Cloud trapeze did not trigger a combat on time.
* Fixed some å,ä,ö names.
* Tail chopped off affliction didn't work if the afflicted used magic weapons.
* #clearmagic didn't always work.
* Windows network stability improvements.
* Cannot set Heal and Summon Allies order on grouped but unable commanders any longer.
* Eliminated a slim chance of two Dominions started simultaneously getting the same temp file directory.
* Regeneration items doesn't work for inanimates any longer.
* Tower Shields no longer usable by mounted troops.
* Sea of Ice works properly now.
* Negative #fireres etc now works in order to gain susceptibility.
* Many typos corrected.

Version 2.08

This patch is the second patch for Dominions II. Version 2.08 can read save files from older versions but not the other way around. This means that everyone in a multiplayer game must upgrade at the same time.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* New theme for Arcoscephale, The Golden Era.
* Selectable number of starting provinces.
* Armor modding.
* Basic weapon modding.
* Basic spell modding.
* Epic messages for some global enchantments.
* Dominions can now connect to name ip addresses like mydomserver.cnn.com.
* Improved spell AI.
* Commander renaming.
* Speedup of particle effects.
* Trippled maximum nbr of particles on screen.
* Symbols for Ocean Sailing, Inquisition Bonus, Supply Bonus and more.
* New switches: --closed, --easyai, --normai, --hardai, --impai
* New switches: --preexec, --startprov.
* Sphinx cannot teleport.
* Most travel spells (all but teleport) cannot be used by immobiles.
* New battle afflictions.
* AI can use new dominion themes as well.
* New resolutions, 1600x1200, 2400x1800.
* New monster mod commands, #gemprod, #startdom, #pathcost, #noheal, #demon.
* Leadership is now moddable.
* Resistance modding (#fireres etc.) fully implemented.
* Atlantian scout protection 4 -> 2.
* Jotun Hirdman ring mail -> chain mail.
* Ermorian Cultists are holy.
* Serpent Acolyte gained 50% poison resistance.
* Units with 'Hold & attack' fire during hold if possible.
* Can cancel on 'enter name of god' screen.
* Cold blooded is printed among enc modifiers.
* Sphinx cost 100 -> 60.
* Nether darts dmg 20 -> 15.
* Jade Emperor gets air magic.
* Jaguar Warriors not capital only.
* New weapon, Light Lance.
* Charriots have lower defence
* The 'View Active Mods' button now displays the active mods.
* Witch doc, research 5 -> 3 and cost 90 -> 80.

Bug Fixes
* Microsoft C-compiler upgraded 5 service packs. That should fix a whole lot of bugs according to Microsoft's change log. Also an impressive almost 1% speedup. This fix is Windows only.
* Unix systems slept for too short a time. This resulted in a non working --fps switch and a higher cpu usage than necessary.
* Caelum likes cold +3 again (bug introduced in 2.06).
* It was possible to summon many of one unique Heliophagus, fixed.
* Fixed battle weirdness when troops would refuse to attack.
* Many non area spells were twice as effective and/or hard to resist as they should be.
* No longer possible to give assassinate order to non assassins.
* AI no longer chooses a special dominion after they have been disabled in a mod.
* Shortcut 'P' didn't work for sneaking preachers.
* No more 'lost one eye' for eyeless beings.
* Local province defence is now affected by Gift of Health too.
* Flaming Arrows works with composite bows too.
* Description for Sanguin Heritage.
* One Ulm Commander had wrong weapon.
* Astral Serpent & Stone Bird no longer yield attack reduction.
* Fires of the Faith could raise dominions too high.
* No more underwater void summons overwater.
* Demons no longer affected by Burden of Time.
* Carrion dragon has wrong bless effects, fixed.
* Modding commands #startscout and #clear didn't work.
* Mod version numbers are printed correctly.
* Some typos fixed.

Version 2.06

This patch is the first patch available for the public. Version 2.06 can read save files from version 2.02 but not the other way around. This means that everyone in a multiplayer game must upgrade at the same time.

New features / Game Balance Changes
* Modding possible for monsters, nations and scales.
* New theme for Marignon, Conquerors of the Sea.
* New theme for Ulm, Black Forest.
* Master password.
* Two new gods, Divine Glyph and Carrion Dragon.
* (Mis)fortune affects event frequency with 5% per step.
* Order/Turmoil affects event frequency with 5% per step.
* New Divine Titles.
* New magic sites.
* Pressing 'I' on unit info shows monster/weapon/armor numbers.
* Fires of the Faith is more powerful against enemy dominions.
* Num Pad can be used to enter numbers too.
* Symbol for recuperation.
* Map screen speedup.
* Three new independent sea provinces.
* Bonus resources for the difficult AIs now depends on the game richness setting.
* Master Alchemist -> 50 DP
* Black Bone -> pirate captain
* Improved cheat detection
* Pangaea has different start units.
* New environment variables for maps and mods directories (DOM2_MAPS & DOM2_MODS).
* Can now hold 5 times as many maps.
* Added one more resolution setting.
* New Sauromancer for desert tombs nature-> fire
* Warning before deleting server game.
* Fatal error messages are sent to stderr.
* Queen of the Lake can no longer summon allies.

Bug Fixes
* Bug left the highest resolutions permanently greyed out.
* Crystal Heart never expired.
* It was possible to appoint the god as prophet.
* Some afflictions couldn't heal when recalling god.
* Fires from Afar affected too many targets.
* -p works properly now.
* Send Horror works properly now.
* Fire susceptibility wasn't displayed correctly.
* Fixed temp file error with long (>500) temp dir path.
* One Comander of Ulm, strat move 1 -> 2.
* Error message if old Dominions I file is present in maps folder.
* When casting wish you didn't see what you typed.
* Niefelheim could recruit Gygjas in underwater forts.
* Fixed minor network memory leak.
* Serpent King snake form was sacred.
* Knight of avalon, hoof -> alicorn.
* Arch Censor doesn't eat any longer.
* Twin spear has serpent kryss stats, fixed.
* No more random hill forts in the sea.
* No longer possible to drown mercs by recruiting then in underwater provinces.
* Incorrect stealth value was displayed sometimes.
* Couldn't be immune to bog beast poison.
* Arcane Domination is now an alteration spell.
* Carrion Reanimation didn't work correctly.
* Raven Feast didn't bring any death gems.
* Some humanbreds had wrong equipment and movement rate.
* It was possible to bid a negative amount of money on mercs, fixed.
* Revenant no longer eats.
* Sharks had too many item slots.
* Dancing Trident resulted in attack skill reduction.
* Naga had wrong path cost.
* Fixed an error when changing victory condition.
* Fixed potential memory screw up.
* Some popups were wrong when under siege.
* Routed unit has -4 def after combat, fixed.
* Black Sorcerer doesn't change back if hit by global, fixed.
* New Era Pan had wrong weapon.
* Many typos corrected.

Version 2.02

This was the first version released to the public.