Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Yeah, I am also glad they are gone in the CBM. I never spent the time massing them before so always felt I was missing out on something. This wasn't a big deal with single player, but in multi-player it could put you at a big disadvantage.

Now that I am finally back in the game and trying out MP for the first time, I am glad they aren't there ;). Now I don't have to worry about fitting them into a strategy.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Yea, hurrah for no gem-gens! And no dwarven hammers! I still play around with them in SP (MA Agarta is a blast and a half with bloodstones...), but MP is much better off without them. As llama has pointed out before, with gem-gens/hammers available, you can't afford not to make them part of your strategy, and that makes the game less interesting.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Come up with a crew and we'll see who's crying...

Really...

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I'm sure you talked about getting your group of great players to play a game here before, but nothing came of it. Perhaps they were too busy schooling you? (as you phrased it before). Plus why don't you try naming some of these players that are in your group of super vets then? Or are you afraid that will destroy the facade you've been building up for them? Since one thing for sure is there's no way I'd play in any game with (literally) unknown players, as any number of them could either be on my banned list, or complete newbs who I have no interest in playing against.

So why don't you try naming some names. If I've heard of the players, have no previously bad experiences of them, and I'm impressed with your line-up, then I might consider it. Since there were certainly any number of old vets who I never got to play with before they retired from the (main) scene :( But if your group is either too ashamed to be named, or too full of completely unknown players to the (wider) Dominions community (yet are somehow super vets?!), then forget it and please STFU about them in future.


Oh and ps, please learn how to write proper paragraphs

As this

is not how

you should post

on the forums

As it makes you

look like a

10 year old kid

Really

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Instruction regarding paragraphs typically starts at ages seven to eight, so that ten year old children have anywhere from one to four years practice depending on when exactly they started and how recently their tenth birthday was. As such, the above is not what one would expect stylistically from a ten year old due to their capacity to write paragraphs. If anything, it is an extended paragraph with no line breaks that is to be expected, as essays are usually not taught until age eleven or twelve, and aren't normalized until age thirteen or fourteen; this leads to what should be several paragraphs being a single inordinately long one.

I have also never seen ellipsis abuse within that age category. Punctuation errors tend to be in commas and apostrophes, with the occasional grotesque misuse of parenthesis. There's no reasons to insult ten year old kids for any of these actions.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I have never been in a game where the outcome was determined by hammers, dousing rods and gem generators. I've heard a lot of stories about how bad they are. I've heard people who have never played in MP games with these items tell me how bad they are. Few have even attempted to explain properly why and how these items have a 'negative influence.' It's like their eyes glaze over, then they start spewing some hyperbolic morality tale filled with circular logic.

Don't use gem gens...
'Coz they're bad...M'Kay?..
So don't use gem gens...
'Coz they're baaaad...




I'm eagerly awaiting totally honest accounts of the Turtle Gods shuffling their hundreds of Clams throughout their dozens of forts while cackling evilly and ruining everyone's fun. No really, I have not heard that story before...

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Gengems are bad cause we (the vets) say so and as the rulers on this puny forum our wisdom is absolute and finale.

I don't see how it's anyone's job to school you in such matters.
If you don't know why gemgens are bad perhaps you should dig up some old threads on the matter instead of practically calling everyone who's against gemgens an idiot.

There are indeed plenty of discussions of the subject and descriptions of bad games.

Consider the case where one nation expands to a small/moderate size, then just sits there. You ignore them because you're involved in a series of wars, all of which you win through considerable skill and cunning. Your empire expands until you're apparently the inevitable winner. However, it turns out that the turtling nation has been doing nothing but building clams. Every turn he's just loaded up his turn file, forged another couple of clams, recruited a couple of commanders, given last turn's new commanders clams, and moved everyone into his capital. He also put a few domes up over his capital and summoned a load of chaff so the walls are all but unbreakable. Over the course of the game his clam income has allowed him to forge clams faster and faster.

Now at this point you're sure you've won. You certainly deserve to have won, with all the amazing battles you've fought. But in fact you're probably screwed. You've got a "huge" gem income of several tens of gems per turn, but clam boy has more than a hundred and growing. His S9 pretender has woken up and is wishing for gems every turn, then using the water and nature gems to make more clams. You declare war on him and capture all of his provinces apart from the capital in a single turn. But that hasn't helped you at all! His gem income remains almost unaffected. He can sit there as long as he wants. Eventually he will just summon a huge number of SCs (having empowered mages to get the required paths if necessary), equip them all and storm out and massacre you. Before then he could wish for a load of Armageddons so that your gold income is destroyed and it really is just a battle of gems. The longer the game goes on, the greater his advantage, *despite* the fact that you own almost all the map and have played much "better".

This happened lots of times in real life and eventually people got really annoyed.

Edit: An additional factor is that gem gen income doesn't show up on the graphs. So you don't know what the clamming player is doing. You might well assume he's just lost interest in the game or is a noob, sitting there doing nothing every turn while you conquer the world.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

No. I want the court jesters to dance for my amusement.

If the case against gem generators, dousing rods and dwarven hammers is so compelling, no doubt it is worth repeating.

Or perhaps you can't explain your bias coherently?

edit: and the Turtle God lives again...

Lets see. 20 gem investment in a clam of pearls. 15 with a hammer (not counting the gem cost of the hammer, empowerment, summoning and/or path boosting items). So, 16 turns after you build a clam, minimum, you get a return, assuming an unempowered/unsummoned mage with a free hammer.

You have to take a mage out of commission to start mass producing clams, spend upward of 15 gems a turn and depending on your initial outlay, you're looking at 15+ turns (most generous circumstances) to start recouping on that investment in the form of a netincome. The more mages you need to summon, empower or forge booster for sets you back even further. Claims of hundred of clams are patently ridiculous except in those rare instances where every nation turtles...In a game like that, Clams are not the problem.

...And all this somehow puts the nation that invest in research, thugs and SC's instead of clams, at a distinct disadvantage? I do not think so.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Looks like we posted at the same time TigerBlood. :) I have done my little dance for your amusement.