Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

>Games are (or ought to be) long over before you can cast a level 9 - especially since most take serious empowerment.

A long time ago I used to think like that. Then someone hit my army with Master Enslave. You can play a long way with little or no magic... but if someone gets some funky research done, they can ruin your day.

I'm not saying that everyone should take tons of magic. What I'm saying is that as a game goes long, you have to start worrying about the possibility that your enemies may whip some nasty stuff out of nowhere.

[ January 07, 2004, 01:42: Message edited by: apoger ]

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Remember also that even an astral 1 mage can cast master enslave if he has a full load of gems. The AI is pretty good about not wasting them on armies you can defeat easily either. Give him a spell focus or rune smasher for good measure to boost it's effectiveness.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

>Remember also that even an astral 1 mage can cast master enslave if he has a full load of gems.

Um...no.

Sadly it looks like gem usage is not explained well (at all) in the new rule book. At least I can't find it.

In Dom1 a mage can only spend one gem per level of skill. I appears that this holds true in Dom2 as well.

You need very potent mages to cast the serious spells. Beyond even the skill and gems you must account for fatigue from the spell. If a spell will take you over 200 fatigue it will not cast, since this would endanger the mages health.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Then I'll amend my statement to say that an astral 6 void lord with a starshine skullcap and a ring of sorcery can cast master enslave.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

>Then I'll amend my statement to say that an astral 6 void lord with a starshine skullcap and a ring of sorcery can cast master enslave.


Sorry, try again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Such a mage would have the skill but would not be able to eat the fatigue... all 800 points worth. Since the spell needs 8 gems and the mage is skill-8 you have no way to lessen the problem.

You either need more skill or need a communion.
Communion is the most common way to pull of Master Enslave, as the fatigue cost is staggering.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Never? Strange... I found games with shifting alliances to often Last longer. The Last game I played with 6 players on a small map had enough resources to research to 9, despite resource depleting global spells. It wasn't a terribly fast game, but it wasn't slow either, with constant warfare for me from before turn 20.

I'm curious, do you tend to play on small maps with permanent alliances? That's the only way I can imagine games consistently having such low research.

Bigger maps with more players inevitably Last long enough to see high level research, in my experience.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

I should clarify the previous post is for Dom 1. I'm not sure how research plays out in competitive practice for Dom 2, as waiting for the patch before considering joining a game.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

Level Nine spells do tend to pound the AI. I have got Mechanical Militia up and running and it went from being a closely fought contest to a walk over. They seem to ignore the fact I have a very powerful force guarding each province and are losing all sorts of troops attacking “lightly” defended provinces. This might be a possible change to the AI code in calculating defense of enemy provinces…

As others have said, Level Nine spells should kick some serious tail. That the AI does not deal with it well is systemic to all AI problems. The greater the effect something has, the bigger the impact when the AI does not deal with it well. If the AI can not counter a level one spell, it is not a big deal. After all, a level one spell can only do so much. However, if the AI can not counter my level nine spell, the impact is huge. The programming problem is very similar in each case, but the visible problem is bigger.

On a different topic, I would argue against the idea that “a game should be over well before the level nine spells come out.” I would agree that this is the way it usually happens, but I wish we could have games where the higher level units and spells come into play. This is a common problem with 4X games, where everyone starts at zero and grows. SEIV had an option of starting at higher technology levels, which got these sorts of things into play from the start. While it did reduce the importance of research somewhat, it did allow you to play with all the toys. Perhaps an option for DOM III.

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

Saxon, you can play with fast research and rich world on a big map, this should allow you to hit levels 9 before the game end's.

also a game with shifting alliances can Last quite a long time in pbem. In fact I think I witnessed levels 8 or 9 spells in all my pbem games. Not in all fields and for all nations, by far, but still you should see them quite often (and often on the receiving end!)

Re: Is Ghost Riders too powerful ?
 

Games like "Poke in the Eye" where the independents are beefed up can also lead to longer games where research means much more. Even against AI's.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...2/Poke_Eye.map