Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

You forget hard work.

Usually the reason I fail at late game is that I don't have the stomach for microing everything. Best late game guys are the ones with early game just strong enough, who are nice enough not to get ganged mid-game and who have invested enough time to be a late-game power.

Mind you, there have been quite creative builds even in this game, but some things fail and succeed depending on their environment.

And while you are spot on about experience and situational advantage, people usually don't consistently " just get lucky". ;)

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

oh, of course you don't get lucky consistantly, but I've run into enough hiccups of luck that it seems a big enough factor in these games at times - Like that marignon mage that won three magic duels with higher skilled mages and wasted three of my cap only mages - just to get killed by a random slinger stone the turn after the marignon army routed. Luck usually won't win a game, and it isn't a common occurrence, but I've lost to it before.

And yes, I'd considered hard work, but I wasn't sure how to phrase it to be clear, so I left it out. Its easy enough to see how a person could get lazy toward the end of long games - it's always a challenge to avoid doing this in big SP games. I'm playing one testing my current eight mod nations against each other on a 600 province map.
The only reason I chose to be that masochistic is because I hadn't done it before. It hasn't managed to annoy me quite sufficiently yet though. I'm enjoying an SC I'm using with a nice chassis and ember, the aegis, aseftiks armor, Amon Hotep, the boots of calius, the chalice, the ark, and kurgi's gift. I designed my pretender specifically to be able to forge ridiculous things like that for that game just to amuse myself. I imagine I'll find out quickly just how good that SC is when a doom horror comes to take back kurgi's gift.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Heh, Invite the Doom Horrors at your own request. They are terrible.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Terrible-weak? or Terrible-own-your-face?

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

terrible like i don't think it's possible to design a unit which can survive through being attacked by a doom horror every turn


although if you have astral magic just script returning on turn1 and you'll be fine

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I'm not insulted, however you should reassess the way you think about "experience". You say it here like any player who plays dominions long enough will just become an exceptional player given enough games and enough time. This is absolutely not true. I've played dominions 2/3 for like... 4 years now and I've watched many players start as noobs only to plateau at about average or decent skills levels. Only occassionally does someone rise above the pack.

Again, I think you are looking in the wrong place for your perception of ability. So much of what goes into a well played nation happens behind the scenes. Nation design, research plans, strategic positioning, defensive planning, effective unit assessments, etc. None of this displays itself in some flashy battle or crazy SC kit. The other player just seems to have more gems, have just the right spell at the right moment, have just the right troop makeup and numbers exactly when and where he needs them.

And lastly - the proof is really in the pudding. If you are convinced that its just a matter of knowing strategies and playing a couple of games then you should step up play yourself against 2:1 odds. See how long you actually can hold up or win under the same conditions. Perhaps then you'll have a better sense of what it takes. :)

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

oh, I understand this. I didn't mean to say that becoming very good is ONLY a matter of experience. Many players won't reach the level of planning and forethought. My point was that experience is the biggest visible difference, and that it is a very large part of what makes a vet good - the experience allows you to know what you need, the forethought and planning let you do it.

hey now, that's a bit unfair. I never said I was a vet, in fact, I said quite clearly that I'm a noob and very green. It obviously takes more than a few games to become that experienced/good. I'm not going to get into a "I'm as good as a vet" line of baloney because I'm well aware that's baloney.

That being said, I'm not intimidated by vets, and if I picked my opponents, I'm reasonably sure I could beat two players. There's obviously skill differences among noobs. Facing the team that beat Lingchih in this game for example(twobits and Raiel), I'm quite certain I would be soundly trounced.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Here's a newbie question for the vets, why do some games ban Arcane Nexus, Utterdark, fever fetishes, bloodstones, etc?

Well rdonj, my goal for this game was to reach at least the same popularity (# of views, posts) as Artifacts (21,000) views, and I dare say I think we are in the running (along with Legends of Faerun).

Looks like combined, the series may have reached/exceeded the stats of either the first Mega Age game Perpetuality (apparently some 37,000 views) or possibly Kingmaker. Wow. Brings a tear to my eye.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Arcane Nexus just is too good with high number of players as it scales, Utterdark just makes game not fun for any mortal race, gem generating items just make game not fun for anyone not hoarding them. Simple as that, why not ban them.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

This is certainly an absurdly long thread.

To elaborate on what atul said, Arcane Nexus is so powerful that, if you have enough players in the game, even if it is dispelled the turn it goes up you can easily make a profit off of it and cast it again. Basically it scales in power with number and strength of opposing players. It's one of the closest things the game has to an "I win" button.

Utterdark makes it almost impossible for most nations to effectively fight. While it's not only are most units not able to hit the broad side of a barn, you also probably can't recruit anything due to the massive income loss.

Gem generators, even aside from being unfun, are micromanagement hell. You have to have hundreds of commanders running around with gem gen items on them, and in the case of fever fetishes they'll eventually die. So you need to pass the fetishes off before that happens. Which means you need more than a constant rate of commander growth, eventually it will balloon preposterously. Gem generators are also too much of a strategy in and of themselves. If you just make enough more of them than anyone else, eventually your gem income will be so high that no one can affect you and your territories are more or less meaningless. Ask micah :)

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

The last part of that is the reason gem gens are banned. You build more and more and more and eventually your territory becomes irrelavent, since the lion's share of your gem income comes from gem gens. And then you use them to empower up a wish caster and wish for gems every turn and it gets totally ridiculous. And then you realize that every other player who also made it to turn 90 has done the same thing and it's near impossible to kill them because they've stacked 30 domes with the gems they've generated (ok, so that was patched out, mostly) and everyone quits since the tenacity needed to kill someone with an invisible gem income like that is something few players have.

And that's the main reason gem gens are unfun, nevermind the micromanagement (you click a pool all button, then readjust anything you needed to hold pearls. big micro there...).

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I think part of the issue is the things you're looking for us to do are just things that we'll do naturally, when the situation arises. I mean, how am I supposed to know what clever tactics you don't know?

No negativity intended here, but how about if/when we pull something you haven't seen before, you let us know what it was, and then I know I'm doing my job right.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Two or more members of the noob team seem to be about to be absent at the same time, and I'm not sure we'll be able to find subs for everyone. I think it may be best to institute a delay until everyone returns. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, but here's the heads up.

Also, as it is now turn 25, here is the earnings report (turns 4-25):

Noob Gold Total - 514,775
Noob Gem Total - 3,152
Vet Gold Total - 183,816
Vet Gem Total - 1,495

Gold advantage: 2.8x
Gem advantage: 2.1x

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

TwoBits: Hi, missed me? :)

And Caelum, bad time to go awol. :/

Damn those income scores, I seriously need to get my own dominion in my own lands...

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Yeah, the noobs per turn income is actually just under 5x gold and 3x gems of the vet team right now.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I certainly did. I mean, I start fighting you, build an army to try and counter yours, and you run away and leave Marignon's angel to mess with me! Now I've got an army raiding your lands and he can't even find a single opponent!


Gladly. I do love the coordination you guys are using. 5 thugs/SCs at once?

I have to admit though in fairness, that my comment about nobody beating me with superior cleverness is somewhat irrelevant, as this being my first game, nobody has beaten me yet. Woohoo! I'm undefeated!

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

The way I remember it that I was happily minding my very own business in the west, when your big army rudely tried to camp on my capital. Just came out of nowhere. Now, I naturally objected to that and sent your army away at the last possible moment (had to research even rudimentary elephant counters, boy I was in hurry), might've even given a chase at that point.

Anyway, since you weren't bothering me anymore I deemed it suitable to double back and make a mess out of Jotunheim. No running, and apparently you were building your army to counter mine for ten or so turns afterwards.

That aint raiding (since it's the very border of my lands, and that aint raiding army (since it's costing you more in the way of upkeep than what you're getting out of the land). But, if you want to fight me you better come to my capital. You've probably noticed, I'm busy elsewhere bashing your friends. :)

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Aw, what, I'm not good enough any more for the Father of Winters? Or is he still cooling his heels in the Abyss? ;)

Yeah, so you can raid me with impunity, for now, and kill a bunch of Hoburgs (Frodo will pay you back, Sauron! :mad: ) - don't see how that's really helping your good buddy Ashdod though.

Score so far: Noobs 1 (still 12 to go), Vets 0 (only 5 left, and one seems quite on the bubble!). Eriu ain't looking so good either - Baalz must be playing his cards extremely close to the vest... :shock:

Hopefully, such a lengthy delay will not be necessary.

Most interesting about these often banned spells and gem generating items. I know some games ban nations as well, sometimes Ashdod I believe. I generally don't subscribe to such things (perhaps in my naivete, as I often trust too much in the developers/designers judgement/patches). Had Ashdod been banned, it would make for a less interesting/diverse game and we wouldn't be able to learn the effective counters we have learned. Ashdod has provided us with great sport.

Though I agree I don't like too much micromanagement, though I do like a certain amount. Tell me vets, can these spells be dispelled like other globals? Would removing these gem gens entirely have a specific negative impact on certain nations?

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Arcane Nexus is pretty much impossible to dispel and keep dispelled, since in games of a certain size it generates far more gems in one turn than it costs. Utterdark certainly can be dispelled, but were I a player who had high level astral under Utterdark, I'd simply let the other players suffer through it and cast Solar Brilliance every battle. Course that's not fully practical, but personally I don't think Utterdark is as much of a win button as it's made out to be.

There are a few nations that would suffer under the removal of gem gens. In my opinion, Oceania and Kailasa really suffer from loss of Clams, since not only are the nations tailored for forging them but they also rely on extremely expensive astral summons that are really hard to afford otherwise (wish and the Kailasa uniques). Most ages of Abysia suffer from loss of Blood Stones, as does most ages of Argatha. Marveri relies a bit on both Clams and Blood Stones. Machaka and Yomi both can really spam Fever Fetishes, although it's more rare since a large fetish farm requires an insane ammout of extra micro.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Arcane Nexus is pretty much impossible to dispel and keep dispelled, since in games of a certain size it generates far more gems in one turn than it costs. Utterdark certainly can be dispelled, but were I a player who had high level astral under Utterdark, I'd simply let the other players suffer through it and cast Solar Brilliance every battle. Course that's not fully practical, but personally I don't think Utterdark is as much of a win button as it's made out to be.

There are a few nations that would suffer under the removal of gem gens. In my opinion, Oceania and Kailasa really suffer from loss of Clams, since not only are the nations tailored for forging them but they also rely on extremely expensive astral summons that are really hard to afford otherwise (wish and the Kailasa uniques). Most ages of Abysia suffer from loss of Blood Stones, as does most ages of Argatha. Marveri relies a bit on both Clams and Blood Stones. Machaka and Yomi both can really spam Fever Fetishes, although it's more rare since a large fetish farm requires an insane ammout of extra micro.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I'm glad to know I had you sweating a bit there. You seemed to deal with it handily enough.

I didn't quite build for ten turns. From where I was sitting I saw you sitting on my border sending little probing one commander attacks for three turns after Caelum arrowed your commander for me, while marignon attacked me from the north, then you attacked and took a prov or two, and when my army killed marignon's, both of you left off with your armies and marignon brought in his angel. I just assumed that you heard a report on my battle plan from marignon and decided not to tangle with it, and that the angel would be a more prudent means of dealing with me.
It was rather designed for killing skinshifters, though it performed well enough on marignon's crossbowman. I had another fun surprise in there for you and marignon, but one of the other noobs outbid me on my merc.

well, apparently the definition of raiding I meant was different from the accepted Dom3 one. Will remember that. I meant it in the 'running about and taking your land' sense.

Yeah...if only I didn't have five thugs/SCs on my face, I'd be working on that.

as a random question, do those angels qualify as SCs?

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Instead of dispelling, could you just recast Arcane Nexus with a higher boost than the original cast? Then it'd see-saw back and forth between you and the other guy and you'd potentially spend a lot of your extra income stealing the nexus back and forth. I haven't used globals much so I could be missing something.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

That would only work if two people became capable of casting Arcane Nexus at within one turn of each other - unlikely.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I was assuming several players would coordinate the effort to make sure that the one player didn't run away with the game. Perhaps that's expecting too much from diplomacy, but I'm thinking of it as a game where people are actively opposing the strongest player. And presumably you wouldn't pool gems to give the nexus to the 2nd strongest player, just a player who the first guy couldn't destroy easily, perhaps with an agreement on how the profits should be doled out assuming it wasn't dispelled.

Kind of a pain to work out diplomatically, but better than having someone with a ridiculous gem income just destroy everyone.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I'm on the road and won't be able to submit a turn before Monday morning; please delay the hosting of Turn 26 till 19:00 GMT on the 10th (I've just submitted turn 25).

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Done, though I seem to have overshot a few hours.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Thanks, but I was actually talking about NEXT turn... I know it's early to ask for that and it makes for a bit of an admin headache, but I'm going to be camping this weekend. My cell phone might give me access to forums, but I can't be sure till I get there.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

I would say the angels are borderline between thugs and SCs. Certainly, I am using them as SCs right now, since they're taking on armies on their own, but they have their limits and counters and they're not geared especially well.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Corrected, current turn will host as normally scheduled (Sat Aug 8, 07:55 GMT), let's get those turns in.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

You must miss your turn enforcer, Sept. ;)

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Ah yes, I suppose I do, though you may still act as such. From beyond the grave that is. :D

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

15 hour delay added to turn 26 ala Raiel.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

On the topic of Utterdark, I think it's not so much an "I win" button as it is just overpowered. Like if it just crippled combat everywhere or just crippled income everywhere it would probably be ok. But both in a single spell?? It's too much

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

But do you think utterdark is a spell designed for some of the weaker nations?

I think Yomi, and Argatha come to mind as nations that benefit from this spell, as they have troops with darkvision.

Or is it still cheesy anyway you look at it?

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

While it's true nations with DV benefit, nations that can summon Demons and Undead benefit the most, since they don't have to rely on gold income. AND those nations are already very powerful, since demons and undead are already very powerful. Yomi and Argatha and other nations with troops with Darkvision can benefit from casting Darkness in the battles, but thye need gold to recruit troops, which utterdark takes away.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

About 3.5 hours to go, still waiting for Marignon and Ulm.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Yeah, sorry about that. I could have sworn I sent my turn earlier. Well, mind plays tricks on me :o

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

No worries :) That's why I guess reminder posts like this are useful, if still somewhat cluttery (is that a word? not according to Mr. Spell Checker, it seems :cold: ).

So now we just need to hope Marignon reads this in the next two hours...

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

You would not believe how hard it was to get that gear, or how long it took. In the hopes that I not be seen as a complete and total nooblet, I didn't ask for that gear a turn or two ago, I asked for it the very first turn I checked my turn and saw that angel take out my army. Some of it I asked for before that.

I must admit the miscaculation on my part. Should have tried to take prov 53, but that result didn't occur to me. I wasn't thinking of your relatively low morale.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

The morale didn't have anything to do with it, I routed on 75% hp loss thanks to my PD and retreating mage. You didn't have any fear effects anyhow. And had you tried to take the other province, you would have had to deal with my other, better harbinger. Who died this turn to a lucky arrow prevent his fire resist buff. Sometimes the RNG is not kind...

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

The bad thing about having a designated forger(s) is that they have their own will, too.

The bad thing about being a designated forger is that you usually have better things to do than to forge stuff for those complaining people.

Never a good thing. But thanks for those booster items anyway Caelum, sorry to see your pretender go.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

what items? feel free to elaborate. I am sure we are all curious.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Can anyone explain this to me? I had a commander move east from ashdod to white peaks, while at the same time 200troops and a dozen commanders moved west along the same path.
both movements were hostile territory movements.

The only possibilities I was aware of were that these two forces meet in battle at ashdod, or meet in battle at white peaks...

Yet somehow instead my scout ended up in white peaks fighting and the enemy army ended up in ashdod fighting... without having met along the way?


I wasn't this was aware except possibly in the case of all flying armies or something?

Anyone have any idea what happened? I mean the gameplay ramifications are totally irrelevant and don't matter, I'm just curious about a mechanic I thought I understood that apparently I don't understand...

I try to pride myself on understanding all the gameplay mechanics as well as anyone else :(


Actually this could possibly be explained if c'tis had teleported onto ashdod on this turn thus making the movement friendly and occurring before hostile movements...

hrmm but in that case I think my scout should've stayed inside the fort and done nothing having had his avenue of movement aborted? I couldn't afford any pd because I have no income so I didn't actually have anyone in position to witness a teleport... could c'tis please state weather they teleported onto ashdod or not? I already know the army has astral mages there anyways so I would gain no additional information (still having no idea what possible changes were made to the army since the last time I saw it)... this would help me analyze the mechanic better... (no units were left on patrol due to my certainty about the trigger of battles in the manner I've already described turned out to be false)

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Two armies don't necessarily meet if they move past each other.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

....and it happens a lot more often than you might think, at least in my experience. I'd say maybe 5% of the time.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Heard of it happening but never seen it myself. 5% sounds really dubious.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

If you mean armies moving at each other, and passing on to the other's original position without fighting, it happens plenty. It happens even more in SP since your armies are much smaller than the AIs. If that's not what you're talking about than I am not sure what you mean :P

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Yes, this is what my post refered to. Although obviously I can't speak for namad's post, so it may not be on this exact mechanic.

Re: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Let's get it on!
 

Sorry, namad, but answering that question at this time would give the vets more information about my research priorities than I want them to have.