Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

The problem is that _ALL_ the mages you'd want to use to research towards those Boots of Youth are going to be getting diseased and dying of old age before you get them, making it rather difficult to get the research done - and you have to focus insanely on Construction, whereas Abysia usually wants Evocation and Blood.

Then, all those mages who are dying, you have to choose between research, and blood hunting. And then use your hard-earned blood slaves to save your mages, when even the petty mages need protection.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Boots of Youth is not a fix for aging. Research is twice as difficult, sages are almost impossible to find (in 4 SP games I've seen one library), and most independent researchers require a lab and temple. With your good researchers old (and therefore not acceptable as researchers) you have to research with low-end researchers. It takes *forever* to get to Con 6 - 1040 research points with 4 point researchers is like bailing a bathtub with a teaspoon. It takes even longer if you want to have your mages *do* anything in the first 25 turns or so, because some have to come off the research line to, well, do something, and because you need to research whatever they're going to cast. My SP games are basically won by the time I get Con 6, and in MP, players will often be dead before that kind of stuff starts showing up.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Your blood mages can cast Rejuvenation too from the Blood school which is a temporary fix. Not that finding sages is going to be a huge help anyway, as they too have old age.

If you need a research boost to get there you can also take the Magic 1 or 3 scale and use Demonbreds who don't have to worry about old age at all realistically as they have like 200 years before they hit old age.

Abysia actually has more tools available to deal with old age than most nations do. I think the only thing old age does with Abysia is pigeonholes it into take an imprisoned pretender so you can get good scales; you basically need Order, Productivity, Growth, and probably Magic to be successful.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I would be extremely disappointed if Abysian mages were modded "younger". I realize losing mages is frustrating for players who try to make every gold piece and every blood slave count, but Abysia is hardly broken with old mages. Just because you can't play a nation the same as you used to doesn't mean that it's broken.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I think a better solution would be to move either the Boots of Youth or Rejuvenation further down their trees, so that way old age prevention is across the board rather than for just Abysia.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Abysia suffers greatly from being one of the few nations to have multiple capital only mages, while at the same time having most of those mages suffer from old age. They can get around this, but would benefit greatly if warlock apprentices were available at any fortress with a lab. Then they wouldn't have to sacrifice as much research potential just to get a blood economy going.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

The benefit of E1 is that it gives them the ability to cast ironskin so that spells like rain of stones won't wipe them out.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I do not think that is a good idea, I think luck is already to powerful of a scale. I do kind of like your idea though, and I think that it should be tied to the magic scale (which is lame)

Another thing I would like to see is ME Tien'Chi's conscription bonus for order territories be beter. I think it should give additional PD every season or year.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

And yet in Dominions 3 it's not an uncommon assessment.
Growth and Luck have real proponents in Dom 3. It's a whole new world.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I'm certainly biased towards luck, because I'd play it often SP in Dom2 just because it's more fun. But the things that happen to me in Dom3 even at flat or light luck make me totally terrified of Misfortune. I really notice the effects on conquered Misfortune provinces. I just had Bogus drop in on a critical bottleneck province (with my first outside temple, even), cutting my empire in two and leaving my pretender almost alone facing Ermor. In Dom2 I got the feeling - notwithstanding my preferences - that Order was ohsogood and Turmoil was asking for it, while Luck/Misfortune was flavor. Now, I feel it's reversed.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Order is still ohsogood, but now Misfortune is asking for it as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Actually luck is even less common among vets than in Dom II. At least in dom II you have turmoil nations, in Dom III,you have ... AE Ermor. And that's it. If you want the most competitive edge possible in any MP, you should almost always be taking Order/Misfortune.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Luck is quite random. Sometimes you can take Misfortune/Order with minimal harm, sometimes Plague will hit your capital, followed by Indy Knight Revolution.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

As others had said before, the benefits of Order/Misfortune far outweighs the one out of maybe twenty games it will actually hurt you.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I suppose so. I've had enough plague/flood/earthquake hits capital/Barbarian carpet bombardment to make me wary of Misfortune.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

With Order: 3, Misfortune: 2, unless you've had the worst of chances, you're exaggerating their effects by far.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

So perhaps I have had bad luck with Misfortune. I don't like bad random crap happening, so I don't like Misfortune.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

That's fine if YOU don't take the scale. Personally I don't mind people who don't abuse the current Order/Misfortune imbalance. It makes it easier to beat them. What I do mind is misinformation being spread to newbier players. Luck is no means "too powerful". In fact, I'd not even say it's "powerful".

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

What about changing luck/misfortune scale to +8% events chance and order to -3% ? (don't remember if it was done in CB for dom2 or another mod I've tested, but it was a good idea anyway). Also the chances of good/bad events may be increased, ie +15% / luck scale.

So with order 3 / misf 3, you' have +15% of having events (with 95% of bad events it's not really attractive), and +33% with luck 3 / turmoil 3 with 95% of good events (instead of +0% / +30%, and 89% of the events being good/bad).

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Heck, I mind people going off as if their personal play style were somehow divine writ and that other playing styles were somehow "wrong." Telling people about your play style and how it works when you use it is not "misinformation."

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Stating which effects are more powerful than another isn't playing style. It is mathematics. Considering this is a thread about BALANCE, I don't even say what playing styles have to do with it.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I'm sure you are right in saying order is clearly better in most cases, but:

Have you actually done math on how powerful luck is? Seems it would be rather complicated to calculate a thing like that, especially since you get more than money with good events (magic items, etc.).

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

It's true, you do get some really uber events with Luck. I had a lot of fun with my old max all positive scales but Turmoil 2 back in Dom II because everytime you get that 1500 gold event, you just want to jump out of your seat. But you've said it yourself, Order is clearly better in most cases. Luck's problem is, not all the extra events it adds are positive. Which is EXTREMELY LAME. In order words, you have actually a good chance of having a crappy event from those extra events you're getting from turmoil or luck! Even worse is some of the "positive" events aren't even positive! Oh look, you got 60 militia in the same province as your army who's now eating up the valuable food from your REAL troops. Yay =(

Balance wise, Luck needs a buff, Order needs a nerf. It's obviously not as simple as simply saying that but I'm actually pretty convinced that some of the current imbalances we're seeing is simply because of the Order scale's existence. I'd like to really play some test MP games where you ban the Order scale and ONLY the order scale and seeing where it goes.

Edit: Dom II. not III.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

The main difference between Luck and Order from Dom2 to Dom3, is that gold across the board was raised, and Order as a base % modifier was raised at the same rate as the general gold per population.

Luck's events, max number of events per turn (3) have not been scaled, like the gold per population or even resources. So bad events are a drop in the bucket of gold (what is 100 gold as a bad or good event in Dom3's rich gold world, gem events while nice, have less of an impact since Magic (especially summons) has less of a total gamewide impact as opposed to Dom2).

Also, Order not only gets you the gold you want, but allows at the very least a free 40 points (Misfortune 1, with order 3, is pretty standard when hunting for points as it's overall impact is very low).

Luck with a different eventlist would be as strong as in Dom2, if it scaled to the changes that were made between Dom2 to Dom3.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Well, I think the problem with Luck/Misf is rather with ..events themselves !
As Zen said they were not scaled to new gold standard
Plus we still get the damned Militia as "good" event
And then some gamebreaking events (such as Plague) can occur even with Luck and Growth on the first game turn !! So the best solution is to have the less possible events (Order3) and just hope the bad won't occur too soon - after that they're not that bad.

With that there's really few point in taking Luck, the good'ol O3/M3 combo is still the thing to do.
But no amount of balance tweaking will solve the real issue, the real solution would be that events become moddable...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I don't know the numbers but I certainly think the percentages for luck have been changed. My luck scale certainly seems to make way more of a difference than it used to. The number of bad events certainly decreases with luck - "is good" goes up faster than "% events". There's also some tweaking to the severity. I just had a 6000-gold event on Luck 3 and I've never seen that with less luck.

Luck becomes more useful over the long term. A significant number of the good and bad events involve permanent income changes - gaining mines, population, and occaisionally sites, versus losing population. Eventually a luck country would pass an order country.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

There's a maximum of three random events per turn. This means means that luck is luck can only be more useful than order in the long term if the number of provinces you control is at or below the point where you receive your three events per turn.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

M3 is just crazy in a longer game, even with O3. M2 is better, but you'll still be constantly attacked by Barbarians to where you'll need a significant amount of PD in every province you want to keep.

But really, the only big advantage that Luck/Turmoil gives is you'll have a lot more gems that route, it's not even close. Nations that need a lot of summons/battle magic gems would probably do better with Luck than Order IMO.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Mm... I'm not sure you'll get constantly attacked with M2. I never take M3 though since it does seem a little risky and not to mention you'll never get a hero. Also while Luck is better late game since gold isn't as important, you need to factor in that Order gives you a very strong early/mid game which transitions into a stronger late game compared to turmoil/luck. Though I could see a possible argument for Luck/Turmoil in a low magic sites setting.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I recall posts complaining about this good event, yet the event remains unchanged. Personally I would love to see the event changed saying something such as... "Many units from nation (XXXX) have defected and chosen to serve your nation." The units which appear would be a random set of recruitable units from XXXX nation. It would only use nations which exist within the current game.

I asked Illwinter to add events as something which can be modded and/or creating custom events. Perhaps when Dominions_4 arrives.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I guess that depends on how big your empire is. The bigger it is, the more provinces you have, the more events happen.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Or if at least it gave useful standard units (archers, hvy inf, whatever)...
A possible simple solution to implement by IW would just be to create dedicated unit ids for those event guys so they could be modded without impacting national and indy unit pools.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I've seen the "max of 3 events per turn" rule mentioned, but I also seem to remember, in my SP games, some turns with 4 events reported - none of which looked like they could have been caused by a ritual, though I could be wrong here. But it's still true that, with a largish empire, I tend to get exactly 3 events per turn, most of the time.

Still, I tend to be a fan of Luck over Misfortune, even though I do get the occasional bad events. With Luck 1, I get enough gem events, or additional gold events, or "free mage/assassin/item" events, or even permanent gold boost events, that it seems well worth the points. Now, this is SP, but still, SP vs good numbers of Impossible AIs...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Here I am again, back for a repeat performance as "the newbie with a question." Thank you for the applause, I'm here all week.

Today, I have a question related to the AI balance of the game (and, I think, this thread). My question is this: Is there a way to set up an "AI Smackdown" with Dom3?

What I mean and where I am coming from is this: in Space Empires IV, with a little bit of work, a person could set up a game with only AI empires, and run that on their machine until one of the AIs won. If you do this enough times (taking care to be statistically/analyitcally honest, so keeping the same difficulty, skill, era, maps, and other settings for the AIs in play), you can come up with a pretty defensible and statistically signficiant understanding of which empire or empires is/are 'better' than the others, and to what degree.

So, I wonder if there is a way to run Dom3 games using all the AIs (and only the AIs) on a given map, with a given era, and the same skill levels etc...It seems that Dom3 is much more command-line friendly than SE4, and so might even allow this to be done with graphics turned off, thereby making any single AI smackdown game take just a few minutes...and so perhaps hundreds if not thousands of games could be run to test the balance of the empires...and that would certainly give some statistics on how balanced the empires are...

Just curious.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Gandalf ran a few tests with all nations of all ages in the same game.

This is from memory, so it might be wrong, but...

The nations that did best were LA Ermor in the early game, but Oceania got past, and much later Arcoscephale got to the first place. I'm not sure which era of Oceania or Arcos was the one that got the upper hand.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I don´t think that those AI tests say much about the relative strength, since the AI still seems to have only a very poor understanding of magic and no understanding of bless strategies.

Both of those aspects are probably far more important to find out the true strength of a nation than to determine who has the better national troops.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Not a balance problem per say but perhaps Lady of Love should have Fire instead of Water magic? As of now she is pretty close to that spring goddes with Water/Nature. Fire seems to be a more passionate element anyway.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

She is a literal picture of Aphrodite, a goddess who is most famous for rising out of a sea shell.

So it is of no surprise that the "Lady of Love" is designed to, among other things, make clams.

http://www.cuttingedge.org/seashell-aphrodite.jpg

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Mmm, that's true. But she is still very close to Lady of Springs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I'd prefer a solution in which the Lady of Springs gets a new job. For example, if her magic was changed to WND, she would be able to put together both kinds of Naiads (the WN Naiads and the WD Naiads), which means that she'd be able to cast all the appropriate "springs" spells.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Zen - I'd consider trying to do something myself, but I'm notoriously _not_ impartial or well balanced. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Oh, and working almost two full jobs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Any chance you might follow past history, come out early with a pretender CB mod that also fixed blatant mistakes? ( IE, accuracy / encumbrance for Aby, Oceania's roadkill "stealth" commanders? )

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I am releasing the first portion including Scales/Pretenders very soon, then the discussion about how I'm a powermad despot can resume. There are more solutions to Pretenders (and problems) than Dom2, so the balance of that, coupled with the new goldrich enviroment, lesser impact of SC's, and slottablility have caused me to reevaluate almost all the pretenders. Not to mention that on the nationend, you have to deal with double blessing imprisoned pretenders, which is mostly handled by nations, but again, Dom3 is rife with Pretenders who do exactly the same thing, or another one does it better, so there is no reason to choose one for a lesser effect.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

If you're saying a version 1.0, either just with Scales / Pretenders, or with Scales/Pretenders/other things broken out into sections, is coming, that's awesome news. Those two things tended to be much less controversial with Dom2, as things that definately needed to be fixed. Even with the Sleeping/Imprisoned/Lazy Athiest (sleep most turns, and don't give a blessing no matter what http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) making it more complicated, it'll be a lot easier than balancing magic properly again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

So - thanks, definately looking forward to it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)Drakaina
 

Hi all,
Iwas browsing the web and came accross your forum and had the surprise to discover my name (and registered trademark http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) in your game... I am very honored thanks.. I've been a professional fantasy art model and actress for 6+ years and was already featured on a non official Magic the Gathering card (named Drakaina®) and as many fantasy characters but i had no idea I was part of D3 too lol
Cheers
Drakaina
http://drakaina.com Official Drakaina website

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)Drakaina
 

Since this thread has been brought back to the forefront, I thought I'd point out that I've made some CBM versions of popular LA nation mods.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

More are on the way too. I'm also considering making a modified version of CBM that addresses some stuff that bothers me (improving or reducing the cost of more national troops that are 'useless' among other changes). It would also probably incorporate rejuvenation for all pretenders, the strength based slingmod and maybe some bits from other mods.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)Drakaina
 

Welcome, Drakaina! Nice to have you here.

It was a "Drakaina" (or "Dracaena")-part woman from the waist up, part serpent-who was the first ruler of Scythia. Another one made a bargain with Herakles after she stole the cattle of Geryon, that she'd only give them back if he'd sleep with her-effectively treating the mightiest of Greek heroes as a prostitute. She eventually had 3 sons by him-Agathyrsos, Gelonos, and Skythes. The older two were banished from Scythia, but the youngest, Skythes, became king and founded the royal line of Scythia.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)Drakaina
 

This is by far the strangest thread resurrection evar. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)Drakaina
 

I thought Zen posted again -.-.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)Drakaina
 

Thanks HoneyB http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif