Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

I won't really called myself a vet in MP - just 2 to 3 games. I might even occassionally sound like a know-it-all of the system but I'm not really a very skillful player.

But since Pocus asked...

I think most of Alex's whammies are fine in terms of game balance. It might catch people off-guard. But to me, they're the fun parts of the game - expect the unexpected and prepare for different situations. Otherwise, I worry that the end game will become nothing more than a race to enmasse the largest army of HIs.

1) Super-Combatants. Except for Ice Devils, I think that most super-combatants are fine. To have a good super-combatants, you usually need to invest at least 50 gems and have at least level 3 in two magic paths (earth, etc). Morever, most of these supercombatants can be killed by "Soul Slay", "Opposition", "Disintegration" et al. Or a moderate number of ethereatl beings (e.g., 10 ghosts). The ability of such an expensive commander to kill 100+ cheap heavy infantries is a reasonable thing (50 gems ~= 500 golds ~= cost of 40 HIs).

Blood summons are painful in most game but the problem is more because of the easy availability of Blood Slaves.

Ice-Devils at the 4th level is too much of a bargain. Something has been done already and I'll need to see how it turns out. I think the other Blood Summons are priced reasonably.

2) Teleport and Gateway. Not sure.

3) Magic Duel. It's fine in its current form. Or Astral would be too powerful http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . The only nations severly hurt by MD is Marignon. But to me, Marignon's mages are powerful enough in its current form: Astral Fire, Flame Eruption (both are only level 6!), Body Ethereal, Luck. Astral lets you boast up your magic level easily ("Light of the Northern Sky" and "Power of the Sphere"). And you can also use the Communions circle to increase the magic power of your mages. With so many variable, I don't really that MD is such a safe tactics even for Pythium.

4) Ritual Summon... what does it mean? Summoning magical creatures are what make the game fun - right?

5) Battlefield Summon. Not sure - I haven't seen enough. To me, it is just some tricks that make the mages worth their gold... If Storm is tuned down and the archers can get to the mages, it shouldn't be that dominant any more. Moreover, even in the current system, there are other spells to kill the mages hid in the back, e.g. "Howl", "Earthquake", "Rain of Stone", "Acid Rain".

6) Battlefield spells. Does it means "Wrathful Sky" and others? I find most of them fine. "Wrathful Sky" is better raised to Air 4 or 5. "Astral Tempest" should give more damage to make it worthwile. But otherwise, to me, these spells are just something to be factored in during a battle. Without them, Dominions will lose a lot of the richness of tactics and strategies.

7) Storms. I agree http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . The current modifications are in the right direction. I'll need to play Dom II to see whether they've gone far enough (or too far).

8) Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual. FftS is at Level 9. Leprosy is cheap and probably should be a higher cost (15 gems?) but it's very slow acting. For common fodder units - you shouldn't care. For important mages, it's easy enough to give them ice-rings, fire-rings or the poison-rings.

9) Province BLasting spells. An useful and fun part of the game. I don't see any problem other than the sinking feeling while I'm the one receiving them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

10) Assassination. I haven't seen anybody using them with effect more than mere annoyance. In theory, you can equip some commanders to be super-assasain but it'll be expensive to lose them. And you can never sure whether you'll hit a good target - easily countered with a bunch of cheap scouts or monks.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

Some more thoughts on army bLasting spell.

In terms of game-play, "Vengeance of the Dead" seems to be a good way to counter army bLasting - if we can make them good even for undeads.

If we still found army bLasting still too annoying, we can introduce a few new spells in other magic paths to make mass murderers more vulnerable. Some examples:

"Curse of the Deads", a spell to curse a commander with a large body-count remotely.

"Mark of Kurgi", a spell to horror-mark a mass murderer from a distance - for later Horror attack.

"Smite of Justice", a thunderbolt to strike whoever kill too many.

"Scythe of Conscience", renders whoever kill too many feeblemind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif ?

Just some random thoughts.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>1) Super-Combatants. Except for Ice Devils, I think that most super-combatants are fine.

Said like a person that never had a Sphinx dropped on their capital on turn 7. The abuse can get a lot worse than the loss of a 100 HI.

I'm glad to hear that Dom II may have worked towards limiting this. I hope to see the new game balance in action during the upcomming months. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

>Blood summons are painful in most game but the problem is more because of the easy availability of Blood Slaves.

I'm always concerned when players have control of a resource that ramps up, such as blood slaves. I hope Dom II really has addressed this.

>3) Magic Duel. It's fine in its current form. Or Astral would be too powerful . The only nations severly hurt by MD is Marignon.

C'tis and Jotunheim also often field mages that have astral-1. Even the astral-2 mages are dangerously behind the astral-3 nations. The tricks that can be done to pump astral are available to everyone. The astral-3 nations are always ahead of the curve on this, and as such it makes life hard on the lesser astral nations.

It's something you must always consider when playing with astral magic.

>4) Ritual Summon... what does it mean?

This is a reference to players showing up with large numbers of summons such as Summer Lions. It can ruin someones day for sure.

>5) Battlefield Summon. Not sure - I haven't seen enough.

This shouldn't be a big issue in Dom II (I hope).
In Dom I, Groups of mages could often take down conventional armies at no loss.

Massive summons of lesser air elementals was single handedly corrupting the game, IMHO.

>6) Battlefield spells. Does it means "Wrathful Sky" and others?

Combo's like thunder ward/wrathful skies, or poison ward/foul vapors. This sort of spell combo could often dissolve entire armies. The way IW has altered wards in Dom II will probably help lessen the frequency we see this stuff.

>8) Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual.

Not too expensive by the time it's in play. Much less "expensive" than allowing the 600 troop army to stroll into your area. If your enemy has a stack of mages in there, knocking out 20-40% isn't shabby. You can't protect them all...

Once MW and FFTS start getting thrown about, conventional armies with mages become much less important. You must start to rely on super combatants and larger summoned creatures. I'm not a big fan of this kind of endgame. I much prefer it when things resolve before this much magic becomes available.

>9) Province BLasting spells. An useful and fun part of the game. I don't see any problem other than the sinking feeling while I'm the one receiving them .

I never said it was a "problem" as in bad for Dominions. It's a "problem" in-game for the player who is getting slammed by repeated spells.

>10) Assassination. I haven't seen anybody using them with effect more than mere annoyance.

I was talking more about assassination spells than assassin characters.

If you have never been the victim of a serious Arco 'mind hunt' festival then count yourself lucky! (arco can use their priestesses to undo afflictions from bad results)

I can't wait to see what goodness Dom II will bring to the table. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>In terms of game-play, "Vengeance of the Dead" seems to be a good way to counter army bLasting - if we can make them good even for undeads.

Not as easy as you are thinking...
A> How does the enemy know where I am keeping my bLaster mage?
B> Domes. The bLaster mage is always hidden under domes.

It's often difficult to counter.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

Oops! That went away a little bit to fast...

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Excellent post! Some comments on the Wendigo's whammies:

Economy: Only the order scale affects income with 5% per step (just forget the old system!) Growth and production scales no longer affect income. High taxes kill population (fast!!). Negative order/prod/growth scales are now quite viable and allow many more points for pretender design. Most betatesters have used expensive/very expensive pretenders compared to DomI.

Summoners: Battlefield summons (for example lesser elementals and Howl) now cost gems. This will address the relief/summoning combo.

I fully agree with you concerning diplomacy. No doubt the strongest weapon - very frustrating if you don't have the time to indulge in it. I guess specific setups/rules like HEXBlitz can be the solution.

Supercombatants have been altered with increased costs, limited availability and changes in the damage shields etc. Early pretender supercombatants might still be an issue, on the other hand the bless effects can give you really potent counter troops (Regenerating berserking giants, Spider knights with flaming weapons, prot 29 black knigths etc).

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Patrik
The order scale has been rescaled to since you Last participated in a beta MP, it is 7% per step now. The growth and production give a 2% income bonus per step.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">it is anyway better to reach a consensus about these spells. Something like 40 to 50% of the people here (according to two polls) play MP. It would be far better to have a common set of rules accepted in this case.

In solo you will encounter the problem too with most of the scenarios, if modding tools are allowed. The scenario author will have surely modded some particular aspects of doms, to better fit the setting of the map. Thus you will have to play with his mod, not your.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not really. Check out my reply in the diplomacy thread. Your own poll will show you Pocus, that the majority of the fans here will buy the game, because of the singleplayer.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not really. Check out my reply in the diplomacy thread. Your own poll will show you Pocus, that the majority of the fans here will buy the game, because of the singleplayer.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">anyway, game balance issues should be discussed. Even if more than 75% of players would only play solo, I suppose they prefer a balanced game.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The problem is their efficiency. If you can kill 600 troops with a 30-gem spell, why would you consider summoning 3 cool-sounding 10-gem units (that can kill 20 humanoids each), or arrowing 3 commanders (who would die in the MW anyway), or calling several swarms of black hawks to attack (who would accomplish nothing at all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ), or whatever... once you get that kind of spell, most other usages of gems become wasteful. I think that army and province bLasters should be WAY more expensive, and scaled with dominion strength.

As for assassins. I never found them to be useful no matter how I kitted them out, as they always died after a couple attempts. Until I read the newsGroups and gave them lifelong protection, which makes your assassin virtually unstoppable, except to things with trample. Actually, my fully-loaded, lifelong protected Slayers were conquering provinces all by themselves. In other words, I thought normal assassins were too weak, and assassins with unlimited free summons were way too strong. How does the strength of assassins seem in Dominions II?

-Cherry

P.S. Is Vengence of the Dead still bugged to count undead as kills, so that it doubles effectiveness each time it is cast on a commander?

[ October 17, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">this will adress the power of Howl, but wont change anything about relief, as Wendigo pointed it. With 3 druids, you basically suppress the fatigues incurred by your mages during the 5 first rounds. Dont appears very balanced too me, for a 0 gem spell.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

IMHO leprosy is the worst army bLaster there is:
It is dirt cheap, and even if "just" diseases and wounds the troops, the effects are crushing:
Instead of dead units you will end up having dying troops, who still eat, figth(propably not for long though) and have upkeep cost.

You can also get it ealier than other army bLasters, and it think requires less skill to cast than others.

[ October 17, 2003, 06:07: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The problem is their efficiency. If you can kill 600 troops with a 30-gem spell, why would you consider summoning 3 cool-sounding 10-gem units (that can kill 20 humanoids each), or arrowing 3 commanders (who would die in the MW anyway), or calling several swarms of black hawks to attack (who would accomplish nothing at all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ), or whatever... once you get that kind of spell, most other usages of gems become wasteful. I think that army and province bLasters should be WAY more expensive, and scaled with dominion strength.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think that you can kill 600 troops with a single MW. As Alex said, it can only kill 20%-40% of an army. If your enemy has a 2000 units army, Mw won't help you.

In my experience, 30 water gems is a significant amount even at turn 30. 15 water gems per turn is a very good income already.

I can think of many other good ways to use 30 water gems. 30 water gems give 30 winter wolves, or 3 Boots of Quickness - neither is too shabby.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I kinda like them, but they are commander bLasting spells, and "Assasination" was one of the ten whammies... Curse of Death and Mark of Kurgi are good, but Smite of Justice and Scythe of Conscience are commander bLasting spells for sure.

Edit: I wonder why there isn't an "Earthquake" province bLasting spell for earth... I don't mean it would be the temple killing earthquake, but an earthquake in general.

Edit Redux: I also predict that Star Child will become the new king of assasins in Dom II because of the singletarget, range 50, precision 100 no AoE paralyzing Mind BLast. Just put SC in the other edge of the batlefield and bLast away with Mind BLast. Extra paralyzation does 2 damage/round, it may not be the fastest way to kill someone, but powerfull nevertheless. I however think that MR can be used to resist Mind BLast. But he still has Star Fires, Luck, Twist Fate and Body Ethereal with him if the enemy resists. And if you give him Astral Skullcap, he can Horror Mark commanders, Mind Burn commanders, and in fact, he can Mind Hunt commanders from some cozy laboratory.

But this is just what i predict.

[ October 17, 2003, 06:39: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The murdering winter spell, aside from taking out group of mages along with mundane units (thus weakening them even further compared to magical summons) act as a very strong deterrent to gather any sizable force in a given location. A nation which is capable of MW'ing his opponent has already strategical and tactical superiority, even before casting the second one, as your opponent will have big difficulties (to say the least) resisting any sizable land attacks of your. When the MW'ing nation has national units immune to cold, as Caelum, it is even worse, as you cant force him to break down his force into defeatable stacks.

In the house rules some of us plays, we interdicted the casting of the 3 army bLasting spells in no dominions was in the province. Perhaps too extreme, and a solution could be to tie the cost of the spell to the dominions level : if you dont have a presence in a province, harnessing magical energies in it should be more difficult somehow.

To understand the problem, you have to play games which Last reasonnably long, on medium to large maps. It seems to me that dominions is failing in his game balance when you reach this point, but this is seldomly seen as most tests and games are stopped before reaching this extremity.

If Daynarr or Psitticine can give their opinion on how these spells play in doms II, then perhaps further conclusions could be drawn.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">lifelong protection is one of the item which must be nerfed, IMHO.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">this is not a bug, this is a 'work as designed feature' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Simple nerf: just increase the probability for Horror attack.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Simple nerf: just increase the probability for Horror attack.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">instead of an endless stream of imps, which enable an assassin to take out all but the nastiest commanders, I would have prefered something like 5 rounds of imps and then no more. Sufficient IMHO compared to the power of the item.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Simple nerf: just increase the probability for Horror attack.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">instead of an endless stream of imps, which enable an assassin to take out all but the nastiest commanders, I would have prefered something like 5 rounds of imps and then no more. Sufficient IMHO compared to the power of the item.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or 1 imp/round instead of 2 (my preference). Or a swarm of 10-20 imps when the battle starts (similar to the Wraith Crown).

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i feel that we are reashing again and again the same things :

1. it is always better to have a game balanced by the devs, they know all the intricacies and implications incurred by a changes, it is their game after all.
2. it solves the problem of players which dont have time to browse all the mods to asserts which ones balances things the way they want. Also, not all players are aware enough of the game subttle mechanisms to make the best appraisal about a given issue.
3. it solves the problem of MP games where you have to decide democratically which one to use.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I kinda like them, but they are commander bLasting spells, and "Assasination" was one of the ten whammies... Curse of Death and Mark of Kurgi are good, but Smite of Justice and Scythe of Conscience are commander bLasting spells for sure.

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They're for targeting mass murderers.

Magic save can always be allowed. I was just being light in detail.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If cold resistance is now only partial, it might give Caelum a smaller advantage. I agree that cold-resistant or underwater nations have a major advantage here.

On the game of game balance in the late game. It could be the key of the issue. Or it's just because magical endgames in MP have different rules or foci from what everybody is used to. Such endgames so uncommonly played, and the player base of Dom 1 is so small that I don't think we've explored them well-enough.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>I don't think that you can kill 600 troops with a single MW. As Alex said, it can only kill 20%-40% of an army. If your enemy has a 2000 units army, Mw won't help you.

A single MW or FFTS will kill very close to 20-25% of an army that is made of conventional troops. With multiple castings you can get the damage close to 50%, and yes I have seen/done multiples many times.

As Pocus points out, one of the big effects is strategic. Once an enemy gets hit by MW/FFTS he tends to split his forces up to mitigate the potential damage. Now the attacker can focus while the enemy is split up.

I usually don't cast these spells to nail troops. I am almost always more interested in depleting the mage strength in the army. Many opponents use communion, relief, or wards. If I can knock out any part of a combo pre-battle it's worth almost any gem cost!

On the other hand... we are discussing Dom I, who can say what will happen in Dom II after players have worked the new system for months?

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i feel that we are reashing again and again the same things :

1. it is always better to have a game balanced by the devs, they know all the intricacies and implications incurred by a changes, it is their game after all.
2. it solves the problem of players which dont have time to browse all the mods to asserts which ones balances things the way they want. Also, not all players are aware enough of the game subttle mechanisms to make the best appraisal about a given issue.
3. it solves the problem of MP games where you have to decide democratically which one to use.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree Pocus. The vanilla game must be balanced.
However I agree with Aristoteles as well. If you feel that something is unbalanced you can remove it. That is always good.
Just check out the various balance packs for SE IV. It is a good things, if the players are able to balance/tweak what they want.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>I also predict that Star Child will become the new king of assasins in Dom II because of the singletarget, range 50, precision 100 no AoE paralyzing Mind BLast.

The Star Child was already king of assassins. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

It's all about Star Fire.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">IMO undead summoning assasins were/are better, but Starchilds were/are very good also.

Actualy, Lord of the Nigth with Black Heart is the king of assasins. Heliopagus with Black Heart gets close. Dusk Elders with Black Hearts are quite nasty too.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>Lifelong protection must be nerfed

Let's see it's effect in the new game before passing judgement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">darn, I forgot my main point : I dont want to end with a dominions game stripped of many spells and items, just because they are overpowered. Because this is what you will be able to do with a mod. To imagine that the game mechanics of a particular item (number of imps generated and for how many turn eg) will be tweakable is very optimistic to say the least (naive would fit better). So it is better to balance, and not just suppress them (less strategies).

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>IMO undead summoning assasins were/are better, but Starchilds were/are very good also.

>Actualy, Lord of the Nigth with Black Heart is the king of assasins. Heliopagus with Black Heart gets close. Dusk Elders with Black Hearts are quite nasty too.

Ok, when we say "assassins" I took that to mean regular assassins without items. Otherwise why would we even mention the starchild in the same post? Of course it pales next to funky supercharged stuff.

The starchild has always been the most dangerous unaugmented assassin coming from a national list.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Really? I will believe you. I guess I need to play with Ryleh abit. I always thought the Abyssia one with fire aura was pretty cranked. Or the Ctis one with two magics and the ability to lead in invisible troops.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There's no comparison between Slayer and Starchild - Slayers get taken out by normal commanders often, in my experience. Starchilds annihilate any normal commander with no damage, and outrange most magical commanders. I don't know about Empoisoners - only used one once, and I remember that fatigue limited him to a few skeletons before passing out.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's the problem of a Sphinx, not Super-Combatants in gerneral.

I've seen it in action. I'm not impressed. A minimally configured Sphinx is good for disabling one castle of one enemy in a small map. It's good for a small, cutthroat game. But otherwise, I don't really find it very useful.

Actually, I don't really think a Sphinx with only Astral can even qualify as a Super-Combatant... It's good for routing your enemies but Astral alone kills *too* slowly. It'd be different if it also had Fire or Death but that'd be quite an expensive pretender. The Super-Combatants I've used, tested or seen can easily demolish - in the sense of wiping out of their existence http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif - 100+ HI in around 10 combat rounds. An astral sphinx falls far behind.

And also, the pretender is the center-piece of any nation design and should be powerful. The Great Mother, Nataraja or Moloch isn't bad at combat neither.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Marignon was singled out because their lesser Astral mages are expensive. C'tis and Jotun's low level astral mages look quite expendible to me.

I agree that Mind Duel should be a factor to consider while using Astral. But Astral also have advantages that everybody need to look at when they prepare the game strategy.

I'm also curious, has anybody managed to slaughtered a large number of enemy mages with MD after the bug-fix? It's theoretically possible. But to pull it out, it seems to be quite an achievement in scripting and guessing your enemy's move to me.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">To me, all these magical twists of tactical combat are what make Dominions fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif . The battlefield can't be dominated just by the largest army. And magical creatures, demon lords, mages that single-handedly demolish an army are all stuffs we read in fantasy novels anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As I said, I don't have enough experience. But it could be just because the end-stage is a different game.

Or we can always have an game setting option for limiting the spell level. Everybody can then tailor the game to his flavour.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Most commander assasination spells are slightly on the cheap side. But since they can be easily defeated by a large number of cheap priests or scouts, so the cost might be reasonable. I don't know.

Yes. I understand that most of the whammies are advice to newer players rather than problems of the game.

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

Just as a guideline for these discussions IMHO

Having administrated MUDs for decades Ive gotten to play alot with concepts such as balance. People who program or admin such games tend toward either fixing by addition (boosting the low stuff which players refer to as "upgrades") or fixing by subtraction (taking things away from something that is too high-end, which players refer to as "nerfing"). In my experience the best MUDs (and probably any other game) are where you have both types at work.

As far as Dominions goes... my preference is that I dont want anything to disappear which might be a tactic. Even if the programmers dont see how it could possibly be used tactically, Id like to see it go in so that WE can try to figure out how to use it.

Along the same line, I dont want to see anything become an automatic default, or an unarguable "best strategy". I think that anything which seems useless should be examined extensively and if a hidden use cant be found then dont remove it, upgrade it (this was one of my favorite things to work on in Dom 1). Also, anything which seemed over-powerful to the point of seeming to be an automatic choice should also not be removed, just nerfed in some way (others in the newsgroup were hot in this area).

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

>I'm also curious, has anybody managed to slaughtered a large number of enemy mages with MD after the bug-fix? It's theoretically possible. But to pull it out, it seems to be quite an achievement in scripting and guessing your enemy's move to me.

Duel happens all the time in Dom I.
In recent past - As C'tis I lost about 25 shaman in one battle to Duel (was doing an aggressive communion/relief engine). In another my Marignon got slapped silly by a Pythium player when he gated in a stronger astral mage and popped my communion master "grand master" who was casting the critical spells. One game earlier I teleported/trapezed in a group of astral mages to blow away a concentrated Jotunhiem Seithkona "nether dart" stack.

The short answer: Yes, it happens. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Dom I Strategies which WON\'T work in Dom II
 

Lifelong protection must be nerfed, OR

as we all know, the disabling spell ability in the mod tools is a must have. If we will be able to disable spells, these discussions will be pointless. We can disable the unbalanced/disliked spells by our own, and we wont have to whine, that 'plz fix this, fix that'. IW is already flooded with work.