Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Clam is effectively strong, but you can handle a loner clamming if you're stronger.

But investing in clams requires a good amount of water gems, especially at starting. Sadly none can see you're clamming til lyou reveal your strenght, and this IMO is the bad thing.
If people could see you're raising your gem income every turn far beyond your province ownage chance by finding sites, probably will gang up unless they want to find themselves against dozens of horrors that run in a totally unpredictable way in your land, to have to face some wish empowered SCs or such. In a long term game you'll find yourself without any chance of global spell during more than 1 turn too.
The other bad stuff is that a scout can keep the clam and so is immune to most ranged spells and raiding (but usually they're inside a castle)
IMO Clams should work only on mages (they know how to take care of those trinkets and such) and the mage should be set to research (unless we want to change the clam working system, as the mage is required to do an action to "alchemize" the free pearls out from the clams he's bringing).

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Sopyfrog:

I would say that players have to make difficult decisions. And more importantly adopt and modify their strategies to the circumstances they find themselves in. I am not sure what you mean by devalued here, are you saying high end summons are not effective thus lack value or that they cost to little in the long run? I guess the second reading is the only one that makes sense taken with your other opinions, but then I do not quite see what you mean by that the game does not scale as your economy grows. Would you care to elaborate.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I disagree completely with this, in small agressive games resources are better spent in more direct ways then clam hoarding, especially if you are in a war.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I like this idea! This sounds (to my novice mind) like a change that wouldn't be too dangerous to make, and is worth consideration of including in a patch. Although perhaps there's some difficulty in coding this, I think this is a very appropriate change to the way clams are handled.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

What I mean by devalued is that you wont care so much if you lost that doom horror you summoned because you are summoning two more PER TURN.

Thats devalued. When high end is no longer high end!

If you want "high end" to really MEAN something throughout the game, then you have to make sure that resources are constrained so that the upper limit of you game is always tough to reach.

I think dom2 has a plethora of strategies that can be pursued that can kleep the game interesting for very very long games as long as you disallow the investment strategies that create wealth out thin air. In the real world investing works of course (not at 14% mind you, generally speaking!!) but resources are always being consumed. If wealth is created out of thin air you have inflation.

So here would be my suggestions to make these investment strategies a little more interesting in dom2:

Added Restrictions:
Only mages can equip clams/fetishes/blood stones (I see cohen agrees with me on this one!)
Only blood mages can equip soul contracts
Random horror attacks on soul contract bearers should actually work

Gem producing items:
Clams allow the bearer to convert (via an action) 1 water gem into 2 astral gems.
Fetishes allow the bearer to convert (via an action) 1 nature gem to 2 fire gems.
Blood Stones allow the bearer to convert (via an action) any 1 gem of any type to an earth gem.

The action could be like "summon allies" you can just switch it on and forget about it, so no crazy micro-management neccessary.

Vampire Lords and Fallen Angels:
Ideally imho only uniques should be able to summon allies (outside of combat summons). There are tons of mass summoning spells if you want to summon batches of stuff, no need to have unit "factories". For example, vampire lors can cast blood rite instead of having the cummon allies ability...

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Oh hey I said it would be harder to clamhoard for the reasons you mention, but if you can make it out of the dogfight intact it will win you the game, so it seems like a good plan to me!

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I like dominions and i like the lategame . I am a little clamhoarder myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

But i think it is a bit too good . I list a few things which i think are problematic :

- Clams require exactly water gems . Water is one of the weakest schools . If you are not an underwaternation you basically only spend a few watergems on boots of quickness / jade armours . You could summon sea trolls but since they require upkeep and are rather expensive they are not a top choice . In the water queens you don't invest normally too because the underwater nation will have them already probably .

So normally almost all your watergemincome goes into clams . If you are not in danger you can always convert your astral gems back to water and get clams quite quick .

- Clams and the other items are absolutely save from everything when stocked on stealth units . So you never lose this income unless you are dead .

- There could be no better output for clams than astral gems . This makes them for every nation worthy since every nation can convert the astral gems quite cheap in exactly the magic they need .

- The soul contracts give you one of the strongest troops of all , devils . Devils and Storm demons are probably the strongest troops of all costwise . If you don't look at costs then torrasquen and abominations would be good too .
The time you get the soul contracts is very interesting too : if you have a blood 5 pretender once you have 80 slaves and even without you only need Construction 6 .
Construction 6 is anyways a very important research goal for most nations and as blood nation since you have blood for summoned troops you can invest all your earthincome on dwarfen hammers making Soul contracts even more profitable .

- False horror spell : Stormbinder started a long thread about this 1 month ago . False horrors make almost all national troops worthless . 2-3 false horror casters are normally already enough to scare away even 50-100 national troops .


Finally Johan you are right that Mictlan can be defeated earlygame by rushing them . But with Caelum / Abysia this requires lots of effort .
These 2 nations are earlygame horrible strong already .
Every player is glad being at peace with Caelum in the first 20-30 turns , probably a lot longer because he knows that Caelum normally always wins the economic warfare earlygame .

I think most ppl will agree here with me :
Earlygame wars are normally not very profitable because they tend to Last very long and hurt both participants because of movement guessing / enemy dominion / castle siege . Only if the enemy is extremely weak earlygame because of special things like he chose a crappy pretender / got hurt too bad with lots of bad events like early lab/temple blow , indy attacks etc .

Last but not least most games are played with scoregraphs on . People tend to gangbang the "leader" . Because clamincome is hidden the main criterias to estimate who the leader is are provinces/income/gem income/army size .
So the early warmonger is normally very often attacked and this way kept busy while the "boomer" grows secretly and when you recognize it finally it is too late .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Or you could play in a game with difficult research; low site frequency might help slow down clamhoarding and its end results as well.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Boron: Well said!

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Random attack on Soul Contract bearers works!
I can assure, at least in 2.12 ... where I didn't known that Soul Contracts attracted horrors and assigned them to Warlocks and such ...
I'd agree in fact that only Blood Mages could get the Soul Contract.

Warlock:"Hey Scout, come there, I've sold your soul to Hell Lord"
Scout: "A well, what I've gained? Eternal Life? Neverending youth? All the women I want? To become the richest of the world?"
Warlock:"Oh yes everything of this ... put a sign on those contract"
Scout: "Wow" ... and signs
Here the first Devil appears but the Scout can't issue him any order and the Devil start rampaging for all the countryside in a frenzy killakilla.
Scout: "Mmmm there should be something wrong in that ... unless that red stuff is my first female"



About Fallen Angels, nothing to say to they Summon Allied Imps ... since Imps are good only as sieging and defending force (don't eat, and fly). Even Fallen Angel itself is far weaker than an ID for his Blood Slave cost (I know he's more magic, but why it is far less used? Probably because it's too weak even if it is not unique).

About Vamps, I'd agree to remove them the Summon Allies skill. They can easily cast the vampire summoning spell.
Otherwise may I suggest a rule that a Vampire in a province feeds himself with X population at turn (1 to 10), I mean Vampire, Lords, Count, Queen or whatever.
If the Vampire in question doesn't find any suitable pop victim, he'll dissanguate 1 troop non lifeless non undead non magical of your army (note: Commanders won't get touched by Vampires). If there're no living soldiers the Vampires that aren't fed should become an indipendant force proclaming a vampire a vampire commander (perhaps upgrading to count) and revolting against the army they're in, or they simply migrates in the next friendly owned province to seek new feeding.
This could prevent you to keep vampires in your land, going to attack forcefully unless you want to see your lands get depopulated as an Ermorian province. And usually to go in enemy land you'll need a strong dominion at least ... well not so difficult to reach with Aby or Mic that can sacrifice however, but however they eat pop of provinces that are going to become yours.
If Vamps goes hiding and eat in enemy provinces, a message like the unrest caused by spies should appear.
Solar Brillance spell should be mostly effective too against Vamps, killing them asap it is cast in battle.
The Second Sun global could burn them out too. (beware all ppl will be interested in dispelling it or attaking you because their provinces will get warmer)

If you have to issue an order to produce gems, even for a better alchemize, you probably have too many mages spending time creating gems, making this strategy totally wothless considering you strip resources to your research and combat firepower.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Not putting your income into staying alive during a war is of course a disadvantage and a risk. Winning a war is better than camping and investing, unless the camper attacks soon after you win, when you are still weak.

In general, that seems to all work fine to me.

On huge maps and long-term, peaceful games, hoarding strategies will naturally be more effective than on small ones.

Clearly, it is possible to get huge results from some of these, eventually. In some cases, perhaps some tweaks could help.

Clams - would be good to limit to mages, and/or have a world clam income per turn that caps the total clam astral income (1/water province in the world was my old suggestion).

Soul Contracts - are supposed to be risky, but it seems like the risk is quite low. Might be good to tweak this risk up a bit, and to disallow use on units that don't have souls, or that already have a soul contract (for logical, thematic reasons, mostly).

Fever Fetishes - are supposed to have some additional cost via disease. It'd be good if they didn't work on undead (was that patched yet?), and perhaps if they occasionally diseased a random unit in the same province through contagion (this would have a natural and logical negative effect of hoarding), and perhaps of occasional health crisis for the wearer (take some open-ended damage - possibly fatal, possibly causing affliction).

PvK

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Heh yeah there should be SOME kind of cost for spreading rampant vampirism through your lands... heheh I was just thinking pop death and unrest!

As for soul contract horrors in 2.12 its not working. When I get a "lesser horror attacks" message, I get the "bad vcr" crashbug when I try to watch the battle and the scout with the contract is still alive when I check. Maybe this is only hapening with hidden units?

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I don't know about it being created out of thin air but yes, there is inflation. That's a *good* thing, though. Every game has a natural life cycle and evolves through stages, otherwise research would not be a meaningful element.

There seems to have been a recent push of people who want the game to *not* evolve by discouraging the use of SC's and other mid/late game tactics, instead favoring the national troops that are more effective in the early game.

I like the way it is now. Each instance of a game evolves into different stages and you have to employ different tactics at different stages. You can talk about how powerful soul contracts are but what if someone attacks you on turn 10 by summoning troops while you are still making brazen skulls to work towards contracts ? Soul contracts are effective during certain phases of the game, in certain situations, just as pure summoning and national troops are at other parts of the game.

If you want the option to have research caps or turn limits in your game or in the program, that's fine by me, but I don't want my games turning into limited Versions of what they are now.

Summary:
Minor balance tweaking (ala the VQ changes) = yes
Major strategic element rebalancing = no

- Kel

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Yes, I like that idea (Vampire's Summon Allies order could require and consume population, just like the Unholy-1 raising of Ghouls. Seems appropritate, thematic and limiting).

PvK

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I'd agree with Boron ... he's a good analyzer.

Abysya is very rushable. And is totally defenceless except a good pretender. Aby infantry costs a lot of gold and resources and you can't pour out many of them.
You probably start recruiting Warlock type mages that are good at research but are useless in combat at early stage (and mostly in late unless you use blood magic ... please make sure in the next patch slaves don't take fire by heat aura).
I add the consideration that Aby infantry, for how much it could be strong, has a very bad morale for his cost, and thus is too weak at capturing indeps or defending. Unless you want to afford a 360 gold mage that is a pretty useless battery (due to poor aim) and that could cast fanaticism, depriving you of many gold AND a mage that can research (this is very bad for Abysya due to bloodhunters and researchers capitol only).

I've already made my proposals in previous Posts.

EDIT: About Vampires the cost isn't for Summoning Allies, but for the presence itself of vampires, so you're losing X pop for every single vampire you've, and every turn.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Although I'm sure that soapyfrog will respond to this differently than I am about to, I'd like to respond to this question. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

First off I'd like to say that one of the best things about Dom2 is how well balanced it is. Dom2 is not the best balanced game of all time, but complexity and game balance are in direct opposition. After all, Go is nearly perfectly balanced, and if balance is all that you want, you should look for a game with very simple rules. However, if you were to devise two measures one of game complexity and the other of game balance, and call game quality the product of the two, I would say that Dom2 has the highest game quality of any game I have ever played http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Secondly, soapyfrog is clearly correct in saying the value of magic sites is devalued in the endgame, if players use clams (and the like) a lot in the game. For example, if the total gem income at turn 100 is 75% due to clams, then clearly losing a few magic sites is not much of a problem any longer.

Thirdly (and what this post is mostly about), I believe soapyfrog is misguided in objecting to exponential growth. I mean every kind of bootstrapping game since the beginning of time (with recent, relevant examples being Civ, MoM, MOO2, et al) has featured exponential growth prominently.

Perhaps the real objection is to unconstrained exponential growth (maybe soapyfrog is already saying this, and I've misread). There are various ways to impose constraints, but one common method is to include maintenance costs (which Dom2 does, but only for recruited units).
Most turn based strategy games, especially those that try to give a sense of reaching epic proportions, include maintenance much more broadly than Dom2 does. In games where maintenance is not included, I think it is commonly (but not always the case, Dom2 being a notable exception), that optimal strategies devolve into races to produce the best monster/weapon of all time before anyone else does.

Now I know that maintenance for magic has been brought up before (where Boron did an excellent job of discrediting the argument for all time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif - apologies in advance, Boron http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif), but either way, it's clear that introducing maintenance is a gigantic change and IMO would require a ground up rewrite, and is not in the cards for a patch, and probably not even in the cards for Dom3. Also it is abundantly clear to me (and quite obviously to the large number of people actively playing the game, and actively debating in this forum), that maintenance is not required for Dom2 to be fun, and well balanced.

But I do believe that the lack of maintenance is what gives me the sense of the Dom2 magic economy not scaling. I know that Dom2 is a fantasy game, but there are certain basic elements of the real world, that when carried into a fantasy game help give the game depth, and a sense of realism that aids in the suspension of disbelief. One of those elements is a sort of "Conservation of Energy", or "There's no free lunch", kind of principle. And, clams, soul contracts, fever fetishes, and the like violate this princple and at least for me, break the suspension of disbelief.

I think for many of us newbies, coming into the Dom2 world after having played the more commercial games, the lack of maintenance cost in Dom2 does contribute to a sense of unrealism. And I think soapyfrog is right in some sense that the economy does not scale. However, I just don't see that it is all that critical for the economy to scale. After all, who really wants to play to turn 300? As things stand, based on empirical evidence, it is 100% clear that many people play Dom2, many people get to end games that are interesting and exciting, nobody has solved this game. Therefore, the game is balanced. Therefore the game is fun.

All that said, if it should ever happen that the Dominions devs are ever in a position to undertake a rewrite, I would love to see maintenance costs incorporated, from the ground up, for all continuing magic and physical effects. If done in the context of a rewrite, I think this could be very clean, and would ultimately support a system that is more easily balanced, not less. Such a system would feel more natural, and more real, and would as soapyfrog says, scale better. Also, for those that fear the game becoming mundane, there's no reason whatsoever that this would have to be done at the expense of lategame magic being dominant, and omnipresent - you just have to know that that's your target at design time.

Short of a rewrite, I am in agreement with those conservatives that don't want to see the system dramatically changed. The game is clearly working, and has an extraordinarily large following, given it's non-commercial nature. To argue that the game is broken, or dramatically unbalanced is ludicrous. It flies in the face of the fact that so many smart people are playing this game, and so few can agree on what constitutes an optimal strategy.

- Thufir

PS

Apologies for the long post - it's a result of a character flaw and can't be helped. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Yeah that's the good thing that each school has something what is nice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . Against everything there is at least 1 countermeasure .
Perhaps i am too critical with clams/soul contracts etc. because i am a typical lategamer . But until you get lategame you can of course be wiped out already .

The only nation where i tend to say it maybe a bit imbalanced is Caelum because of the false horror spell .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Unless someone is playing Atlantis or is astonishingly competent clams don't really come into the picture until turn 60 or so.

No. Preists are essentially useless against devils devils have very high MR. The solution to devils is usually either ( 1 ) wrathful or ( 2 ) a SC that can tank them. Best to combine ( 1 ) and ( 2 ).

I have to say I totally agree with this point. My only objection is ROI on some investments ( IMO soul contracts ROI is a little too high).

In general it is all about ROI vs. the speed at which the game progresses. If you are in a game in which you can be over run in 5 turns then even a 10% ROI may not be sufficient to entice you to invest. However in a game where you would not be badly hurt after 20 turns of war even a 5% ROI would seem godly.

Totally correct.

I agree. However water gems are not amazingly useful they have some uses boots of quickness, perhaps swords of quick, but in general they are not going to swing the war. Any extras might as well go to clams. I have to say I would love clams going to 2W1N.

That actually makes sense.

That's just an EXCELLENT post KEI. I could quote the whole thing and I pretty much agree with it.

I still think that the ROI on all investment type strategies should be carefully monitored though.

Again, excellent. I love the natural progression of the game. I do think that SC's are a *little* too powerful pretty early in the game. And I think that almost all of this "power" comes from life draining weapons. Without them SC's would have a hard time soloing huge armies but yet would still be awesome forces. But I don't think I totally want to get rid of life draining weapons since that is removing a choice from players. Probably a small tweak to the damage of all life draining weapons would be sufficient ( at least in my eyes ).

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH! They have 1st rate troops. Please. This is not Miclain we are talking about here.

Sermon of courage works dandy.

Pretty much dead on. You can still argue though, that tweaks can be made on prices of certian units. Nothing major, just small changes.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Well I do not object to exponential economic growth, of course, if you take Moo2 or Civ as examples these games integrate such growth very well into the game itself: You MUST grow to survive and economic growth is ubiquitous. Further, the games scale very well... you dont start producing the best unit in the game on turn 60, thats for sure.

Secondly growth in these games is tied to and constrained to various factors such as population, resources, geographical areas, whichs caps your maximum growth, and as the game continues you will constantly find youself resource constrained, so if you want to REALLY grow exponentially, you must physically expand and thus conflict with your neighbours.

In Dominions2 you have this exponential growth strategy in clamming etc. as well. However it is not tied to expansion, it is self-sustaining (i.e. you will never really be resource constrained once your clamming etc oeprations get going)... so you do NOT need to attack your neighbours, in fact you shouldn't since its counter-productive. That's not a very good game mechanic IMHO.

The clam/fetish/stone hoarding strategy needs to have a continual external cost to constrain that growth. My "conVersion instead of creation" suggestion would accomplish this, i.e. a fever fetish would let you produce 2 fire gems a turn, but you need 1 nature gem to feed it. At some point you will need more nature gems, and have to look beyond your borders to get them.

In the end it is not the exponential growth specifically whcih is bad, it is the self-sustaining nature of that growth which is highly unnatural for most games.

I hope the suggestions this thread have generated have been constructive. I would love to see some of them implemented. Hopefully with item/unit modding some of it can even be done without the need for an official patch...

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

And if I save _all_ my gold by not buying troops, thus not having to pay upkeep on them, it will win me the game if I can make it out of the dogfight alive.

And when boxing, if a fighter can Last through the first 8 rounds without ever swinging at his opponent, he'll be able to win the fight in the 9th round because his opponent will be tired while he's fresh.

You go ahead and invest as much as you can in clams while in wars on small maps; as you say, if you survive you'll be in good position, but I expect your opponents will be eating your lunch.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Actually my suggestion doesnt work sicne you'd just alchemize the nature gems from your astral/fire production. Doh!

Well I dont know. For sure forcing Mages to use them would be a huge step in the right direction.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Because I spent some water gems on clams? I really doubt that would lose me the game.

I have lost games becuase I spent those gems on things OTHER than clamming though. So I know that happens http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

You seem to labour under the absurd notion that 1 turn in one game is directly translates to 1 turn in another. By turn 60 in MOO2 you would have researched less than half a dozen technologies and would just be getting started with the game, in dom2 you could very well have, for all intents and purposes, won a midsize game by turn 60.

If you do not expand and use your resources in other ways than trying to get clams and hoard them you will get stomped, even if you play just 2 players on a enormous map. If you are to acquire any significant number clams you will have to expand etc in order to get the reources you need to produce the clams and the money to get the mages you need in order to use them.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

You will use resources in other ways, and you will expand in the early game, clean up the indeps around, maybe shoot a cripple or two if its convenient, but once your clamhoarding operations get under way, the actual NEED to expand to continue your growth will disappear.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I guess I must be "astonishingly" competent because, in my Caelum SP game (Orania, 15 nations) at turn 42 my astral site income is 1/turn and 21/turn from clams. I'd say that a 21:1 clam income ratio is by most anyone's definition "in the picture". The clams (and astral gems) do not change my strategy at all (I could live without any whatsoever), but they are sure handy to have for alchemy, which speeds some of my summonings or forgings by several turns. Oh, and I haven't been diligent in site searching, either. I'd have more clams (from more water gem income) had I been deliberately seeking to maximize my output of clams. As it is, I've just been using the water income I've come across through conquest.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Expansion is always not bad . Gives you more income .
On 50% magic site frequency ,the most common setting in mp games i guess in average a fully searched province nets you about 3-5 gems , you get gold and you find perhaps even very special sites like special mages / boni for summoning . And not to forget you can perhaps bloodhunt the new province .

Those investment strategies are good but only if you are in a relative good position like 3rd or 4th . If your enemy has 10 provinces more which are searched this is like if he has +30-50 clams , perhaps more if you include blood etc. in the calculation .


But clamhoarding is of course very powerful . A problem is that those nations who can sitesearch bad and are bad hoarders of one of the good hoard items like marignon/man etc. are disadvantaged after earlygame .

If you see clamhoarding from another side it is perhaps more a bless then a curse because it is a possibility to do inner growth .
In master of orion 2 the bigger nation had normally always an advantage because 20% more planets meant 20% more supplies/income/researchpower .
In civilization it is better handled because of the corruption mechanism and the map is rather small .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

You misquote me. In the sentence right after you chop my quote I said:
So, we are in agreement, at least at a theoretical level. The problem is that in practice, building in constraints in growth needs to be done at design time. It's not just clams (or even clams +ff's +soul contracts +summoners +...) it's really the way the whole magic system works. In a real sense, anything that has an ongoing effect, without an ongoing cost constitutes a "free lunch" or a perpetual motion machine, of a kind.

And the fact is, that the game as it stands is not broken, so I'm pretty happy with the current state of affairs, myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I like some of the changes that you list, namely that clams could only be used by mages (as Cohen had earlier suggested), and soul contracts could only be used by Blood Mages.

However, undoing the unconstrained growth of clams and other items will unbalance the game, as it stands. For example, Tien Chi S&A (one of my favorite themes, but already weak to begin with) is truly hosed. So, I would guess are Atlantis and R'lyeh.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Right and 21 per turn does not have the same kind of impact that the frog is talking about. He's talking about the 50-100 astral per turn income which feeds wishing. 21 / turn is nice and you are on the way. In maybe in 10 or 15 turns you will be GTG.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I think I agree with everyone here!
Late game your gem income can be far higher if you spam gem items than if not but you have to survive. Diplomacy can sometimes replace armies for this MP. These strategies give exponential growth while any other growth in the game is not exponential. In general late game admin means I am not interested in playing game with more than about 10 provinces each or 120 ish in total. PLus I prefer the early wars & using the whole of the tech tree. So while I do think the game is a bit flawed in way I think it is soluble without any code changes by choosing maps that suit me. Admittedly if I liked teching all the way before I attacked anyone I might have issues.

So to slightly drag this in another direction has anyone considered ULM spamming. I played one MP game and was able to get a Forge of the Ancients. This with a smith (or hammer) reduces the cost of a fever fetish to one fire & one nature gem & allows any mage to make them. It reduces clams to 3S if you can get a water (1) mage.
This is a 2 turn payback or worst case - alchemising fire into nature - 5 turn.

Now that is insane growth - too much to be bothered with for me after only 30 ish but it does not take long for that to be a ludicrous number of fetishes or clams. The fire gems can be alchemised to pay for scouts to carry them.

Around turn 30 when the forge is likely to be researched Ulm will have at least 30 smiths so even one turns use of the forge would allow 30 fetishes - adding 90 earth gems to the cost makes them 5 gems each. Or if you get 2 turns use 3.5 gems each. I think the forge saved me its cost almost every turn I had it up, it is grotesque but especially for spamming.

I also got contracts for 20 slaves (from an empowered smith) which makes the ROI very good, (& I did lose at least one to a horror attack). You can make this 10 for one smith if you use the unique hammer but it may need a second empowering.

Anyway there you have a truly horrible exponential micro hell of forging

Hmm lost the plot now

dum dum

Pickles

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

By the time I can have a 50-100 astral/turn income (turn 60-80) I've already effectively won the game (ie: I cannot be stopped), even on a map the size of Orania, and the whole issue of clamhoarding for wishing is thus moot. All wishing does is hasten what will happen anyway. For me that is; YMMV.

The boys at IW have more or less said the same thing re: clams. If you're aggressively expanding and building units, you'll be overrunning the map long before a massive clam-bake will matter. Clam-hoarding only matters if you have a laid-back play style. IMO (which I have said before, as have others), the whole issue of clams is way overblown. Also IMO, those who appear to have the most trouble coping with other's usage of clams have fundamental play style issues and they'll get crushed by opponents regardless, even if clams didn't exist at all. The clams are just adding insult to injury. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

That game was a bad example though pickles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

You were in a very special , extremely good position diplomacywise . I as arco was at peace with you so i had no interest in dispelling your forge . The only other good astralnation in the game , Ryleh was very peaceful too .


But normally dispelling is not so easy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . If you can avoid it you always avoid it normally because you never know how many gems your opponent put into it and so unless verylategame or because you are at war with the one with Forge up it is not so likely to get dispelled .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Yep we agree on this... and the game is just not really designed with this stuff in mind, it was kind of tacked on as an afterthought.

I disagree that removing it would unbalance the game in the other direction unduly, though... Tien Chi has excellent sacred summons and a dynamic capital only mage, Atlantis and Ryleh are effectively unassailable for the first part of the game, these things are very good even in the absence of clamming.

I would however agree that the BEST thing to do (as upposed to simply excising the items in question) would be to add some additional constraints to these strategies as has been suggested by plenty of very smart people in this thread. Simple things like making them mage-only items and eliminating vampire lord summon allies ability would be welcome changes that might result in a common ground being found between those who think clamming is too strong and those who think its just fine.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

You are too optimistic here i think . On a 17 player orania you haven't won already by turn 60-80 . You may have 100 provinces but the map has about 280 provinces .

I think you can't win that quick against 10+ players which are skilled too .
Did you really win once a Mp game on a full house orania on turn 60-80 ? Then congrats .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Boron, please note the perhaps-too-subtle distinction I made: "won" as defined as "cannot be stopped". There are still many turns to go after such a point before all other players have either been crushed or they've given up. In SP games on Orania I reach that point in the 40s (as the AI is a much weaker adversary), and sometimes as early as the 30s. Just because the map has almost 300 provinces doesn't mean I have to conquer even half of them before I'm certain of a victory. Sometimes all it takes is 10-15% of them. The rest is inevitable.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Yeah some imo nice modifications would be :
- Leave clams as they are . But make them stockable only on mages or at least not on scouts which can't be targeted by flames / seeking arrows etc. .
- Remove a few allysummons and give them instead the ability to summon one special unit with a small bonus if that is possible .
A soul contract would give the possessor e.g. 20% discount on summoned devils and a vampire lord would get 40% discount on bloodrite or get +x vampires as a bonus when doing this special ritual .

Vampires and devils are both top 5 troops . Because of the get 1 / turn per allysummoning vampire lord / soul contract they become a bit too cheap and so they are really first choice for all nations who can afford them .
There is really nothing else which is similiar powerful which you can get out so quick and with little effort .

Only a wraithlord is similiar because he has too autosummon . The only other troop you can get in quite big quantities quite cheap is the vine ogre . But a vine ogre is only a living wall while a devil beats almost every other troop and can be dangerous to thugs too .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Sorry but that sounds arrogant . How can you declare you victor in a mp game when you control only 10-15% of orania ? This should quickly lead to an alliance against you and 2-4 allied neighbors should at least weaken you extremely .

You are perhaps the major power in your edge of the world but in the other edge there is probably one who is as strong . So how can you see that you are unstoppable that quick ?
Once you control 40-50% of the map and the other players , especially the 2nd and 3rd biggest have given up you have won but not with only 10-20% of the map .

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I think she was saying thats the case in SP...

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Clams should be given to a mage that has to research!!!
Otherwise someone could have less costy mages that could hide (see Man Bards, or Ryleh Starchild).

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Another solution is Lamias, storm, and iron dragons. You shouldn't take too many, if any losses that way.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

This wouldn't be good. This would have no more effect than making people right-click through 50 scouts a turn to check their hitpoints. As it is now, they cost more resources when you can spend 3 death gems to put them on a mound king.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

This wouldn't make any difference, because I'm going to have 50 mages researching in my capital underneaeh several domes by the time I have 100 clams anyways.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Hm but this would perhaps make dome wars a bit more interesting . If you bombard the domes with dozens of cheap spells like seeking arrow and at the end of the spellcastchain include a few fires i think this would be funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Spells are cast in random order. You have no way to make your spells go in any particular order, and a proper set of domes only gives a 7% chance that any one spell will make it through.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

for the soul contracts, making them give an extra 1-3 devils, when casting the summon devil spell, similer to the ivy crown, would help balance them. Giving 2 extra devils would make them pay off twice as fast, but you would still need a blood income to use them, along with mage time.

odd_enuf

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

I have to say that is a solid suggestion. But it makes devils an abysia only type of thing.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Yes but: they take up a slot you could otherwise be using for a research item, or something else.

Also I think USING a clam or fetish to generate a pearl should be an action: i.e. you cant research while you are generating them. That would make it an interesting tradeoff!!!

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Well, since I'll have another 20-50 sages in some other province, they can hold the research boosting items.

It's not yet even been established that there is any imbalance inherent to the clams.

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Oh i thought you can influence the order http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
At least bringing them to fall by seeking arrows or similiar is cost effective http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

Graeme has a supberb knowledge of the game mechanics, but I believe he is wrong on this one:

Casting order is actually fully deterministic.

Every single trooper & commander in a Dominions game is tracked with an ID number (ranging from 1 to aprox 30,000) that is used to track experience, afflictions....
Spell casting orders (rituals+forging+battlefield spells) are resolved according to this number.

Back in Dom PPP you could use the debug screen to gather this data regarding your mages (& get the exact order in which spells would be cast), tho I believe this is no longer possible in Dom II. You can get some clues however if you pay atention.


This issue can & does decide games:
will you claim that Last unique commmander that just died or will you get a "Nobody answered the spell" because somebody else did?
will you forge that disputed artifact or will your opponent pull it instead?
Are you capable of getting your slaves to cast communion slave before their master runs through his script?
Will you burst the air dome with arrows & other cheapo spells before your MW/FFS have to roll vs it?
will you nail that teleporting SC with an assasination spell before he jumps away?

Re: Are devils worth 7 blood each?
 

This are damn good to know if we could know the number of the guy ...

So you can dispel too and cast a global in the same game-turn, if the dispel is cast by someone with a previous number that the guy that casts the global.