Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Perhaps if you had gone to any kind of school that taught manners you'd be able to refrain from using that bloody rolleyes icon every time somebody disagrees with you. It gives the impression of you having your nose stuck up in the air so high that it rains INTO your nostrils. So don't be surprised that you get a response in kind. We have a saying here that goes something along the lines of "So the forest answers as it is called" and you're just seeing it in action.

See what Graeme posted. As well, you still refuse to address the distinction between "strong" and "ridiculously lopsided". Of course there are stronger and weaker nations, just as there were in Dom1 and Dom2, but that does not mean that some have to be orders of magnitude above others. You do understand the concept "order of magnitude", I hope?

Then they can either mod them or play with self-imposed handicaps such as not maxing out everything as per competitive MP style play.

Provided they know which nations are the strongest and that they are not already taken. See Graeme's point again. New players do not need excessive security guarantees, they just need a decent chance and the more experienced people giving them a few breaks instead of ruthlessly exploiting every mistake they see the newbie making.

There's no balance problem what with certain natiuons being ridiculously stronger than others because there's a lot of nations total. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
In case you aren't familiar with logic, that's a non sequitur.

As Graeme said, the MP aspect is one of the most important aspects of the game and a driving force behind the community. Hence things that detract from it, such as obvious balance problems that are not within the normal variation, are bad for the game and for the community. Why the hell do you think the CB mods were such a big hit with Dom2? They removed the most glaring problems while maintaining the game as it was meant to play. This issue is no bloody different.


Yeah. What you've been saying all along. It's perfectly all right as long as you exclude these strong ones, which detracts from the game far more than nerfing them enough that they'd still be strong instead of ridiculously powerful.

As I recall, Dom2 experienced a resurgence after the CB mods because the most glaring issues of ridiculous lopsidedness were fixed in those. So why the hell should we not have it addressed now while Dom3 is still young?

Perhaps I'm not as interested in making snide remarks from behind a false veneer of mock-politeness as you are. I'm treating you in just the manner you deserve and as you might have noticed, I've been quite the opposite of rude to others here. If I think something is a stupid idea or at least not well thought out, I'll say so directly. Just as I did when I first called bull**** on your opinion and you chose to try to put words in mouth to make it seem as if I was advocating a far different position. That goes beyond being just rude, it shows you to be a deliberately dishonest person so I don't see why I should be kissing your rear and nodding sagely to the tune of your droning.


So, in addition to me busting my arse creating documentation that will enable better modding and mapmaking, I should also go and do the specific mods to address an issue that the majority here see as a problem just so that you can sit on your backside and pontificate without ever providing any kind of evidence, calculations, or even logically consistent reasoning for your positions?

Why don't you go back to playing AoW:SM and polluting the AoW Heaven forums? You've been so bent on turning this game to a micromanagement hell what with all the suggestions down the years that I'm inclined to give actual bull**** far more value than your opinion. After all, it can be used for fertilizer where as your views amount to little more than hot air most of the time.

Edi

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Hmm, nice are we http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I'm somewhat surprised about the development of this thread. Keep the discussion, but quit this [censored], please! (sorry about the language, I usually do not include feces in my posts).
Belittling someone, or their work, is not nice. Showing the entire forum that you disrespect another member is not nice either. Do that in PM's, if you have to.

You have good things to say, so do that! Not this!


Hmm, consider this a warning in disguise. I don't think I have to be more stern than this, but it is a warning none the less.

BTW, 'I'm sorry' is a nice phrase http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Hmm, seems I got caught by some rudeness filter. I suppose that is good.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Very well. I think I'll take a step back and concetrate on the DB project for a while. I'll make sure that this will not happen again.

Edi

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Thanks Kristoffer.

I'm not intending this to be a kiss-bottom post by any means, although I suppose it may seem like one. It just touches me that, for a game with only 2 principle designers, one of them is willing to take time out of his day to make an effort to keep not only the forum friendly, but a specific thread, said thread furthermore questioning that developer's judgement and published design.

I've lived too long to expect that we can all get along at every moment, or even consistently, but I hope that atleast we can remember that this just a friendly game, and that one of the purposes of a game is to make friends and build relationships. I hope that our common interest in helping to make this great game even better will in the end outweigh any enmity that differences of opinion and the weight of the past may engender.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

It's important that you aim for some sort of balance in the standard game. Vanheim/Helheim are obviously overpowered and therefore should have some kind of nerf. I don't expect it ever to be perfectly balanced. If new people really want to have an easy nation to stomp all over the AI with, they can add a mod that does that. For someone that is new to the series and has never been a good game player, I found the Easy AI easy enough that I won my first game.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I think the trick to the Vans is not to give them a fight, just go around them and take out their principle provinces until you've destroyed their ability to make war. It also seems to me that a Death-Curse/amulet of vengeance strategy with some cheap sacreds would start to really irk the Vans, when you did have to fight them. Even if they win, they lose.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I'll echo HoneyBadger's words. I should also add that it does not seem at all fawning and that the point about the dev's approach is dead on target.

I would also like to extend an apology to NT Jedi and to the community at large for being party to fouling up this thread. I can get rather vocal at times and sometimes anger can cloud my judgment. This thread has been one of those instances when it got the better of me.

Edi

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

That's not a workable strategy. If you send your army to the front and they send the Van army to the front, then you go around them and attack the backfield, they will have another Van army building up in the capital that you must contend with. You'll still lose your army, just a few turns later plus you'll be losing all your home provinces from the original front line Van army as they take out your "principle" provinces and ability to make war.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Yeah, a raiding strategy against Vanheim doesn't sound too workable.

They have the reputation as one of the best raiders in the game. They'll be better at it than most nations. Caelum might be able to make it work.

Add to that glamour, meaning you can't find their armies to avoid and you'll need to use significant force in your raiding parties to handle running into even a few blessed Van.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

We could both throw endless insults yet it doesn't provide any benefit to the topic of discussion. The rolleyes icon is used when someone cannot keep the conversation civilized and that's the only reason. I really do hope you can control your attitude so the discussion can be more productive.

As mentioned earlier there are LOTS of nations(over fifty) so even if Vanheim and Helheim are "very strong" there's plenty of other options for nations to choose. I could understand if the game only had about 5 nations, but that's not the case. Order of magnitude would be relevant if Vanheim and Helheim had to exist in every game. It's not mandatory for these nations to play in every game which removes them as a variable when not in a game.
The purpose of having some "very strong" nations serves multiple purposes. First newbies reading the forums and questioning their skills will more likely join a game knowing their first game is playing a very strong nation. Second in singleplayer games many gamers enjoy playing the very strong nations and as their experience grows they enjoy playing against the very strong nations. Third whether its singleplayer or multiplayer winning a game against a "very strong" vanheim is more rewarding than winning a game against a "nerfed" vanheim because the greater the challenge the greater the reward. And a fourth reason is for mapmakers which desire a few of the nations to be "very strong" allowing more options for creating maps. Even now I'm developing a map where the SP gamer will be playing the "very strong" Vanheim and going up against computer opponents which will be given great advantages which should provide some great battles.

Here you're suggesting a change so others have to do the modding or self-imposed handicaps instead of you accepting the game in its current state or making the adjustments yourself.

In most cases the newbies have to be on the forums to find the multiplayer games. As a result they will be curious enough to skim the bug thread and more popular topics such as this one.

There is no problem with balance when these nations don't have to exist in every game. I would agree with your balance concern if these very strong nations absolutely were part of every game, but there presence in the game is not mandatory. The host can easily remove them as an option using the #allowedplayer command.

First the MP aspect is not the only part of the game and those non-MP gamers must be considered as well. If the developers wanted a MP only game then there would be no AI opponents. For the greatest success of the game it must grow with consideration to both MP gamers and SP gamers. And having Vanheim and Helheim as very powerful when over fifty nations exist will not hurt the MP gaming sessions when the host can easily remove them as an option.


Because Dominions is not a MP only community... changes to the game must consider those which play SP only, MP with AI opponents, and MP only.

Sorry you view my posts in such a negative manner. Yet as I mentioned earlier you're looking at this from a MP only view... which is why you don't understand the reasons I've provided.


Hopefully the post from Kristoffer will water down your tainted mind. I've listed many reasons above for all ways the game can be played and why Vanheim and Helheim should not be nerfed. All your reasons revolve around MP only games. Changes to the game must consider those which play SP only, MP with AI opponents, and MP only.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Its definetly a workable strategy. What I see is that Vanheim/Helheim are not imbalanced. They ARE the balance. Against certain nations and certain strategies. This is a variation on other threads Ive seen about Ermor, or Ulm, or Jotunheim, etc etc.

Dominions does not balance nation to nation. It balances by rock-paper-scissors. So a nation is not imbalanced if its extremely difficult to beat on a certain map size with certain game settings when facing certain nations who are playing a certain way. (altho, the devs will certainly examine that and see if a tweak might improve one type of gameplay without affecting others)

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

yep, that`s exactly what I mean, but can`t tell because of lack skills in English http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I'm sorry, but are you doing any MP play at all? That statement seems to be completely unsupportable. Dual Blessed Van/Hel against anyone else in an MP game is going to go in favor of the Van/Hel sacreds assuming all else equal. Unless there is vastly unequal skill involved, or third party interference from another nation, the Vans/Hels are almost a lock to win.

Obviously there are a few counter strategies that work but they all revolve around being very specific nations and playing with very specific anti-Van strategies.

If the choice is between playing only a limited list of nations/strategies or losing, then the game is sadly broken.

I'd like to think I'm overlooking some obvious F9/W9 Van counter but I don't I am. Most nations simply can't beat the F9/W9 Vans without having a lot of research and being able to spend more significantly more resources defeating the Vans than the Vans themselves cost.

I'd generally agree with that statement, but the imbalances that do exist and have long existed are not severe ones. Some nations didn't match up well with others but that just meant having to use clever tactics or get allies or simply be bigger/richer before engaging X with Y.

The Van/Hel dual bless thing is a bit different. If you want to start charting out all the possible scenarios and all the possible situations Van/Hel can face the sad fact is they should win almost all of them, all else being equal in terms of player skill.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Nerfing pisses me off.

Let's compare two sorts of cardboard crack^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcollectible trading car d games: Magic the Gathering and Shadowfist.

MtG tried to rebalance the cards by nerfing everything. The result is a very flat game with no cool and powerful stuff in it, because if anything was any good it might be unbalancing.

Shadowfist, on the other hand, starts with more robust underlying mechanics, and then rebalances cards by making them *better*, not worse. As a result, shadowfist is a very well balanced game with lots of cards that do awesomely powerful stuff.

It is absolutely untrue, and I think demonstrated by various posts, that it is impossible to beat *heim. It may be true - and I admit that I haven't played every nation - that *some* nations have no viable strategy to oppose vanheim, particularly in the early game.

If that is the case - the question becomes, what can we add to those nations that would enable them to oppose vanheim more effectively, without changing them beyond recognition? Note that if you have a 33% chance of repulsing the rush, you are mounting effective opposition, especially if you can cause significant losses even in defeat.

So, in the *modders* forum, I have included a "which nations need bennies" thread, where I discuss this in some detail.

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

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

And I also really hope you learn to stop making snide remarks and destroying useful threads with your complete inability to change your mind. I really wish that the mosas would have banned you years ago so that you wouldn't continue to stink up threads with your complete inability to reason.

How about you prove it by doing something other than repeating the same incorrect statements.

Really? Where's your evidence for this?

I see, they enjoy demolishing the AI without having to admit to themselves that they are cheating.

What's rewarding is playing a properly balanced game, not one where a single nation comes to the forefront in every single game.

Then the mapmaker can use mods, you know, just like you've suggested the multiplayer players do.

That's unlikely. The AI isn't capable of defeating a competent player unless you give it enough advantages to defeat them in the first 20 turns through sheer swarming.

I see, so we're supposed to use house rules to limit multiplayer games, which are the entire point of Dominions, so that those people who want to demolish the AI by playing F9W9 Helheim can still do so.

The SP game comes in at a distant second to the quality of the MP game.

Once again you repeat your asinine assertion that the game isn't hurt by removing nations from the game. Do you ever get tired of being wrong?

Why are you personally threatened by the thought that a ridiculously overpowered nation might be weakened?

What you've actually done is repeat your unsupported assertions over and over again, but then, you're never been smart enough to do anything else. You're almost as useless in this forum as Gandalf is.

That's because the MP game is by far the most important when balancing the game. SP balance doesn't matter one bit.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

He doesn't and it is. Gandalf approaches every single post in this forum from the fanboy position that the game is perfect in whatever form the devs have currently built it and that any problems people have are problems with the people, not the game.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

While I did start another post about Helheim, I thought I might post here as well after reading all 8 pages :O

First I agree that van/hel are STRONG but I never yelled Nerf I just asked for a tactic to beat them, if these are hard to find they should still exist. Dont wave the nerf bat too widely please, just give us a new spell or something.

On tactics that can hold off or beat hel/van I think I may have found a passable one. Im playing a Single player/hotseat game with a friend and I am Agartha. Our world has both Van and Hel and the only thing that really works is in fact blade storm (It does hit more often than not but takes a lot of tries) and turtling in forts. I am able to repair the walls faster than they can take them and this has enabled me to stall them on a few forts and expand away from them and into the oceans, which allow me to raid without losing many guys or being chased down. It is tough but works somewhat. My friend is Bandar Log and was able after some initial losses to use the magical and horde troops they get to beat Van, which shocked me as I suffed under Hel.

Lets do less bashing and more what we can do to fix or deal with this, please? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I think it's illogical to have to make mods for so obvious balance fixes.

Most MP games don't use the mods with the new nations players have created because they may be unbalanced, and many even don't use worthy heroes. Cbmod won't be as popular as in Dom2 as it would make the very well done dom3 manual obsolete.

The vanilla game *is* and should be the default MP setting when mods of all kinds are mostly a thing for SP.

So I vote adjust glamour / **heim nations in the official vanilla game, then allow to unnerf them (or not) via a mod for the minority of SP players that would do so (personnally even in SP I can't find the interest of overpowered nations, they force me to chose all my opponents instead of letting them be random if I play at high difficulty levels -try playing against an impossible AI with glamour units and compare with any other nation-).

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I agree... I remember all the threads about the dreaded Ermor in dominions_2. In my opinion this adds nice variety into the game as players are challenged to improve strategies. During blitz games Vanheim/Helheim is too much, yet these nations can be modded or removed using the #allowedplayer command.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

This is what I'm trying to avoid, where these nations are nerfed without considering how it affects SP games or MP games with AI opponents.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

The problem is that we are not in agreement that glamour nations are overpowered. You have asserted that they are, and I have disagreed, I will summarize:

a) It is fair for some nations to be stronger early on, and some nations stronger later.

b) It is fair for some tactics to be easier to use. This, I think, is where the "newbies play vanheim" argument has merit. I don't think glamour rushers are actually more likely to win, even in highly experienced hands, but the double bless strategy is accessible, so it allows new players to at least participate in big MP games, and have some measure of success. You may not like being axed by my little sister on turn 9 with her pretty magic horsies - but somebody is going to get eliminated early and you can at least take it like a man.

c) It is fair for people to be eliminated on turn 8, especially if they adopt a long term strategy. Taking a dormant pretender with good scales and strong diversifying magic should be a calculated risk, with significant risk of death before your god even reappears - vs. for example taking a great sage with a lot of early research or a supercombatant, either of which goes a long way towards repulsing a rusher.

d) It is fair to expect the other players to devote 100% of their effort to repulsing an attack from you, provided you devote 100% of your effort to attacking them. It is fair if strategies exist that will successfully kill your first neighbor 75% of the time, even under such a state of total war, provided that the rusher expects to suffer sufficient losses to allow other players to take advantage of their weakness, most of the time.

e) The game is meant to be balanced on medium sized maps. On postage stamp maps rushers have to be better, because otherwise they'd be weaker on larger maps.

f) It is fair that the game has a significant element of chance. Being next to a rusher position stinks - the only way to make it not-stink is to make all rush strategies worthless, because even when you repulse a rush, you probably suffer losses such that winning is a lot less likely.

There is a problem that I am willing to admit may exist: some nations may be unable to resist the glamour rush at all. It's all well and good to say "rock, paper, scissors" but no pairing of nations should be so unbalanced that you might as well give up - unless you pursued a long term strategy in which case you took your chances and it didn't work, sucks to be you.

If that is the case, those specific nations should be given new tools so that they have means of repulsing glamour rush - NOT a majority of the time (since then glamour rushing would become an unviable strategy) but a significant fraction of the time.

I think that the main game should be altered, if it is altered at all, with the same philosophy. Since it is possible for you to make a mod that nerfs glamour rushers - if this is what you want to do, do it. You can make a much more convincing argument for incorporating such a nerf into the main game if you're willing to take the ten minutes to script it yourself, and then post what you consider to be more balanced results, than if you just, to be blunt, whine about what vague changes someone else should be making. If you can make a "nerf" that leaves glamour rushing as a viable but not, to your mind, overwhelming strategy, great. If I agree with you that it doesn't unacceptably weaken glamour rushes in my games, I'll support including it in the main fork. If it doesn't get it, you'll have your mod and you can try and find opponents who agree with you and play against them.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I don't understand this discussion here. If something is overpowered it should be nerfed.

A nation in which i need just 1 sacred unit (in my test example a helheim helirding) and a priest commander (Vanherse) and can conquer Level 7 independence provinces without bigger problems is somehow in such a catagory.

- the sacred troops have no undead/demon weaknesses of being banishable.
- instead they are the best stealth units from all national troops.
- they need a F9/W9 blessing for this true but this didn't means very bad scales just some researching disadvantages and some unluck. Order 3 is still possible.

With most of the other nations i've to stack some troops even the blessed one to attack more then 2-3 provinces in a row but here very few troops and a leader are enough to conquere province after province. Casualties are very rare.

Thats to strong in my eyes apart from any player vs player strategies.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Actually the only thing that can be made by a modder to balance glamour is suppressing it (+ giving simple stealth or another thing to these units) only a modification in the code may allow to balance glamour in an interesting way allowing this ability to keep an use in battles (ie I would like to see glamour working against melee attacks ***OR*** missiles, an illusion hasn't to work at all ranges).

PS : DrPraetorius I had the same opinion but I've tested since then, my opinion now is : glamour is overpowered on all maps against all nations minus one or two. Glamour is particularily powerful on big maps because only players can find some (hazardous) counters. Glamour + bless often allow to take big indie provinces without a loss with only 10 or so units, and keeping your sacred troops alive is a valid long term "strategy". Vanheim has an advantage from turn 1 to turn 40 or so and has very small chances to be weak after considering the empire they could have made.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

But which game is played in every school cafeteria in the nation and which game do I find almost impossible to find? This isn't making your point.

The proper response to a game imbalance too big to live with is to fix it by whatever requires the fewest fixes. Fixes are a lot of work and often introduce their own problems. If *one* nation is a basket case you should buff it rather than nerf 25. But, if *one* nation is too tough, you should nerf it rather than introduce 25 major buffs - mostly because you can be virtually guaranteed that one of the buffs will overdo it and you'll just have a different supernation.

So far there have been several counters proposed - almost all of which hinge on AOE effects, which is basically what us nerf proponents have always said. AOE isn't available for a quite a while. (Nobody's yet considered countermeasures, either) If the majority of the nations get early AOE, Dom becomes a VERY different game. I really don't want most nations to be able to handle armored def 24 units early in the game. I LIKE the fact that human-level units have some use as opposed to becoming soap-bubble screens from turn one.

Incidentally, although I think it's high priority to fix the Heims I don't think it's the prime "official" priority. The Conceptual Balance mod became almost standard, so balance issues can be fixed without designer action. I think it's a better approach for the players to work on balance mods and the designers to work on bugs and modability. An example where things can go awry would be the VQ nerfs due largely to Norfleet's rampages, which turned out to be cheating.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

It's more like... we have a game of scissors-paper-rock-dog-cat-mouse-pony. Scissors beat paper, which beats rock, which beats dog, which beats cat, which beats mouse, which beats pony, which beats everything but mouse.

White centaurs with dual bless are very strong, but vans/helhirdings are twice as hard to kill (for 5 gold / 4 res more), and can be combined with better battle magic. A big step over the next-best.

I dont remember much ermor whining from experienced players, I do remember a lot of ermor-with Vampire Queen whining, and a lot of VQ whining in general. Some of it fueled by a cheater, some of it was warranted... changes were made to the VQ. I dont think the changes by dom2 patches were too much, the loss of ethereal in dom3 might have been but had that anything to do with the whining?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

AE Ermor is certainly a bigger problem in SP than the Heims, even now (partly, of course, because the AI doesn't exploit double-bless). However, in multiplayer, it's more controllable. Ermor takes a while to crank up - it starts a bit weak, actually. Player politics can usually control it. The Heims are gross right out of the box and they can cause a lot of trouble before multiplayer interactions kick in.

I much prefer games that are relatively balanced on their own. Multiplayer dynamics are fun and it's sad that they have to be directed toward rebalancing the game. And, of course, they're not available in SP.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Guys, can I please weigh back in for a moment? I left this post behind me and it exploded, leaving shrapnel (no pun intended) all over my back.

Okay, I have to agree with all of Graeme's points for once, even if I don't agree with him breaking forum protocol so regularly. (Grame, trust me, I have a feeling you are going to get into some trouble if you can't be more polite). I agree that Vanheim and Ermor's overall power are completely overlooked by the developers, even though Doms 3 is a great game. NT Jedi, I'm sorry but you've had each one of your points about strategy game balance shredded to pieces, yet you still maintain your position. I don't know why it's so hard for you to admit that balance is a positive thing. Balance does not have to mean a lack of diversity, options or strategy.

Which brings me to my response to all this. DrPraetorious, I don't know which version of Magic: The Gathering you are talkng about, but I have played many, many, many tabletop and card strategy game and I always come back to Magic because it is one of the most robust and well crafted complex strategy games in the world. There are plenty of cool and powerful cards (ridiculously powerful) in MtG, but each of them requires some kind of sacrifice in order to field that kind of power. There are cards that can make you win the game instantly, but even the most powerul ones all have their requirements.

DrPraetorious, you seem to have the strongest defense in favor of leaving Vanheim alone, so let me challenge you. You made a lot of very valuable points in your last post, but the problem is that they don't apply to this situation. Let me exlain what I'm thinking.

Yes, this creates a diversity of strategy in the game.

I'll remark on this potentially being a good point, except that for Vanheim it doesn't work the way you seem to imagine it. Let us do something here, Doctor. Let us pretend that every nation has something called a "Power Strategy" (PStrat). Some nations' PStrats are easier to field, while others require the experience and skill of the veteran to make work. Assuming that all PStrats are at least somewhat balanced, this would be quite a yummy aspect of the game. Many games are balanced in this way -- PC and live games. As you say, it gives new players the ability to at least be competitive, yet not necessarily guaranteeing them the win. For this to work, however, you have to be careful to make sure that the easy to use PStrats can not be further empowered by the more skilled players, turning them into something we shall call (for the sake of discussion) an "OverPowered Strategy" (OStrat). PStrats are good; OStrats are bad. The point people seem to be making in this thread, and I tend to agree, is that Vanheim (and in other news, Ermor...) utilize OStrats, not merely easy to discover PStrats.

Yes, rushing is quite legitimate, even if newbies can do it. I hope nobody argues with you here, because the topic of this thead is not called "Should Rushing Be Allowed?". It's about whether Vanheim should nerfed. If Vanheim's rush happens to be an OStrat, then Vanheim should be nerfed, but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to field a PStrat rush strategy.

Precise and congent.

Exactly. I like NT Jedi just fine, and I have nothing but positive things to say about his forum contributions, but I do think it's counter-prodctive to reply to peoples' concerns with "If you don't like it, MOD it." Not only is that an ideal that ends opinions and discussion; not only is it an ideal that promotes the notion the game is perfect as it is; but it also goes without saying. Of course, if we, the community, think the game needs fixing, we will mod it. That's what the Conceptual Balance series is all about. But because of DrPraetorious' points above, we shouldn't have to do too much to allow ourselves a fun MP experience.

Finally, let me throw a bone of discussion back into the pit

I've seen blade wind and archers mentioned as a counter to Vanheim. When I originally asked the question that embodies this thread, it was if Vaheim needs nerfing, in general. You see, I don't pick F9W9; nor do I rush. I choose Air magic for Vanheim. Not only does an A10 bless give high air shield to my Vans, but it also gives me the spell that turns the entire world stormy for the mid/late game. This further reduces the effect of missiles against me. So, as you can see, my sacred troops are never afraid of missile counters. That is easily prevented by Vanheim.

=$=

Play nice, children!!

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

The game has balance and since there's over FIFTY nations within the game this means there's plenty of room for a few to be very powerful since each game does not need to have Vanheim/Helheim. My points have been responded with statements which basically say, "We want Vanheim Nerfed for our MP games and others which don't like the changes can go use mods". Basically they don't want to mod their multiplayer games.

Two nations out of fifty nations can be powerful... since the host of every game has the option to remove them. (ex=#allowedplayer)

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

If you rephrase this as "It is for a nation to be either stronger than average early on or stronger later on" i'd sign it. This is one of the big problems with Van/Helheim though. They don't actually sacrificy late/midgame power for their rush power.
As BigJmoney pointed out aptly, it is important that easy to use strategies don't get more powerful in the hands of a skilled user than hard to use strategies. Or to put it another way, ease of use and power of a strategy have to be proportional. Or else the skill of the players is far less important than dumb luck.
Yes. As in all good games there is an element of risk vs. reward coupled with return on investment to modify the mere basics: stone/paper/scissors. With regard to rushs, the player taking a long-term strategy sacrifices early on survivability for an advantage later in the game. I.e. he risks being taken out very early for the reward of having a better pretender design for mid/late game. Again, it is very important for balancing that the reverse is also true. A good rush built must only be possible if you have to sacrifice lategame advantages for it.
No.No.
In both cases, a player putting all resources into defense needs to have the advantage over a player putting all into offense.(note: defense. That is not the same as production buildup) This is very basic game balancing. Resources invested in defense are only useful in one special case: you being attacked. In dominions that means that for every viable offensive army/SC design there should exist and anti-built that can win against it for less cost. See for example priest spam and Ermor AE. Priest win consistently against undead, especially on a cost per cost basis, but are pretty useless against most everything else. There is no real counter to dual blessed sacred troops of some nations.Agreed.
Only where chance and skill are seperate. I.e. positioning is random. Landing next to Helheim with a longterm strategy even on a large map is bad luck. Having your temple earthquaked in turn 3 is bad luck. However there are other things were player skill is important, i.e. which strategy to choose, rush/buildup/balanced, and in those areas luck should not be more important than skill. It should never happen that one nation always looses against another, no matter what the player does.
Yes, this is a problem, but not the major one. The problem is that some nations are in effect Rockscissors.Incorrect. If you use an offensive strategy, and the guy you attacked knew about it / made a good guess and employs a strategy specifically designed at countering yours he should nearly always win. Having one strategy that can beat all other strategies the majority of the time, as you want glamour rush to be, is plainly imbalanced. It is the very definition if imbalanced. The point of rock/paper/scissors not that rock is a "means of repulsing glamour rush - NOT a majority of the time" but that rock ALWAYS beats scissors. Period.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

If you are going to propose altering the game, write a mod that carries your alterations, that's all I'm saying.

It's true that you can't nerf glamour directly - but you can nerf all the units that *have* glamour - I recall lowering their protection was proposed at one point. You can make them cost more gold. You can lower their combat stats. You can make them trade their light lances for swords or axes. There are all sorts of things you can try doing, and we can load up the mod and see how it affects the various sources of complaint.

Personally, I don't think anyone has made a persuasive argument that the glamour rushers are stronger positions than the other double-bless rushers - Abyssia is my favorite, by I think a double-blessed Niefelheim is probably the strongest, and Niefelheim has some of the best (if most expensive) magic even in the early era. Since I find the argument that glamour troops are uniquely broken (as opposed to the other double-bless rushers) unconvincing, I'm not inclined to code this up myself.

Now, the counters to these nations are more obvious, perhaps, than the counters to glamour, but they are every bit as capable of early expansion - in SP I've always expanded faster as Neifelheim with a 9N dragon than as Helheim with a 9W dragon.

On the subject of making light infantry irrelevant - a spell with a large area of effect that does ~3 damage is less of a threat to light infantry (since they usually live) than existing spells like falling foo, let alone blade wind.

On the other hand, it is death to vans (since they almost always lose their images,) and you can legitimately put it earlier in the research tree, especially as a national spell.

So if you're worried about vanheim's rush, as opposed to other rushes, you can fix that by giving a low damage area of effect spell to the nations most vulnerable to the rush - which probably isn't Caelum, but Caelum has other problems.

If, on the other hand, you are concerned about rushers period, see my original post.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I think making glamour ineffective against all kinds of ranged attack would do a great deal to balance the issue. I don't think they are overpowered in general, though overpowered when played as heavily blessed nations since they don't really have to sacrifice enough for the amount of power they gain in the early game.
Also, one kind of cookiecutter defense that works against pretty much everything is also unbalanced. There needs to be some weakness to offset that.
And no, increased costs are no such weakness, since troops that are lot better at surviving will recoup those costs very, very quickly.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Since my post was long and I had less obvious statements to make, Dominions does not effectively have 50 nations. It only has 17- that can be compared to each other at one time. Thus, if Vanheim is unbalanced, it is potentially unbalanced x3. I imagine you to be excitedly dancing around with the number 50 as if that fact alone makes a valid point, when it's irrelevant. But, I'll admit, nobody had commented on that point yet.

And if you don't cease with the "but the problem can be worked around" arguments, it may drive some of the people in this thread to jump out a window to their deaths, or get banned for flaming. Offering unlikeable workarounds instead of arguing ideas will offend people. Nixing Vanheim from multiplayer is a lazy, unimaginative and undesirable workaround -- not a solution. As DrPraetorious stated, it should be just fine for there to exist nations which have powerful strategies that are easy to make use of, as long as they are ultimately well-balanced with other nations' powerful strategies. You can have your cake and eat it too, NT. You seem to think that for there to be easy nations for newbies to play that it requires the game to be unbalanced; which is false. Look at the Mortal Kombat series of games as an example.

=$=

[Edited for sharpness]

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

The game should have a few nations which are both rock&scissors because the game is not MP only. Balance is a major issue when the races/nations are limited to about 11 choices, however Dominions_3 has over fifty nations and more coming with patches. I would hate to see a patch delayed because the developers are worried of releasing a nation which doesn't meet balance expectations.
This balance discussion revolves around games which involve Vanheim/Helheim and there are many ways to not include them in the game or mod the changes for these nations. Bug fixes are more important in our upcoming patches than providing balance for less than 8% of the total nations available in the game.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Glamour rushers are still good late game because opponents can't see them on map, and they are great raiders. Niefelheim or Abyssia aren't, so it can be argued that they actually do trade early game power for late game power.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Not irrelevant... even from your statement Vanheim is only one of seventeen nations during an era. So all this noise over one nation when so many other nations are available. It's like a sultan complaining one of the 17 girls in his harem are fat instead of enjoying the other 16. If vanheim is so highly desired as a "MUST HAVE" for gaming a small mod can be made available for the multiplayer gamers.

I have provided other optional suggestions besides nixing Vanheim from multiplayer. Heck if desired I'll even create the Vanheim nerf mod for the multiplayer gamers. No reason for the developers to take away time working on patches to NERF wack a powerful nation which any gamer can do in a MOD. Fixing bugs/crashes should be the primary focus of the patches, adding new nations and new content a close second not balance tweaking stats/units of nations.

Thus that's why we have Helheim.

It does not require the game to be unbalanced, however it does help. Whether you examine the nations individually since they can be all played on the same game(see Gandalf) or whether you examine the nations by era... it's less than 8% of the nations available. The developers can spend their time more wisely fixing known bugs instead of tweaking one or two nations that gamers can MOD on their own.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Consider the following situation. The Pantokrator, in all his un-vanished glory, was added (By the devs, of course) as a pretender for, let's say Mictlan. They have a lot of sacreds. Pantokrator had 10 in every magic path, cost 0 points, and started with a Dominion Strength of 4. Don't even get me started on attributes. This would, naturally, be ridiculous, but one pretender counts for much less 'of the game' than the 2% Vanheim does. That pretender could be easilly banned, but many out there prefer to allow all options if possible. Why is it that parts of the game that unbalance it are our problem? Also, say that people did ban Vanheim. Turning the nation into something balanced would, effectively, be same as adding another nation, though it would take less work. And it makes the game feel more solid overall.

At one point in this thread, more than once, both sides have told each-other that, if they don't like change/the way things are, just make a mod. However, only true modding masterpieces could ever be as in-step with the rest of the game as something the developers created. Really, though, when it all comes down to it, it needs to be seen what the majority is. If only two people dislike Vanheim, they can't very well tell everyone else to make a mod. Unfortunately, it's much harder to tell here whether most prefer mods or not.

I haven't ever used, or experienced a Vanheim rush, though it ticks me off in principle, so I'll leave arguing whether or not it's actually unbalanced up to you lot. Still, if it is unbalanced, there's little reason for the developers not to fix it.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

regular moderator warning
The devs are interested in this thread. So please do not endanger it. Discuss the subject, do not discuss each other.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

If the devs are watching, please consider introducing very effective counter units to underperforming nations instead of nerfing the nations in question! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

If the devs agree with that assessment then Im sure they will consider it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Ok, second day. I decide to drop Atlantis (Atlantis, despite having lots of advantages over Helheim doesn't stand up sacred to sacred, only due to the fact that you can't produce sacred living pillars nearly fast enough. I'm certain that Atlantis has lots of ways to beat Helheim, but not in a blitz. That doesn't mean that Atlantis conveniently folds before SP Helheim W/F, it just means that all day I kept doing poorly when I played poorly, aka at the level of normal AI, fighting Helheim on it's terms. In a Multiplayer, the Living Pillars and the ocean home province should and most likely would ensure that Atlantis remains untroubled by quick blitz.)

So, since the experienced players and regulars with more posts than me seem to agree that Tien Ch'i generally and Spring and Autumn in particular is one of the weakest, sorries, no hope nations out there, I spent today playing them vs Helheim, again on their terms, on land, with a high-bless strategy (in this case D10/B9/F4), vs Helheim W9/F9 Father of Winters Dom10, Order3, Magic -2, Cold1 etc as recommended in an above post.

I promptly beat Helheim like a red-headed stepchild.

I captured their home province in the first 6 months, successfully defended it, demolished their fortress, raised a province defense of 105, and finally gave up playing the game so that I wouldn't have to experience my very first total victory with a test game.

Now for the critics: I realise this is SP. This is also the first time I've ever played Tien Ch'i, so I don't have the advantage of nation familiarity. It's on a small map-intentionally, both because supposedly Helheim starts strong and gives good blitz, and because my strategy for dealing with them is to find their home province and take it out, killing their god in the process, which I did many times. AI was on normal. Basically I discovered a few things. 1-cheap troops with length 6 pikes are very effective against Helheim. 2-death bless 10 gives hearts like crazy, combined with added attack, 2 attacks per round, and death curse horror marking, I usually killed the few Hangedrotts leading whichever army without a hitch. I could produce 16 sacred troops for every 1 Hangedrott, and I did better than that because my scales were better, even though until the last big land-grab, Helheim had twice my overall territory. 3-composite bows help. They're not all that, but they take out some glamour, not as good as my warriors of 5 elements though. In the end, it came down to massed, cheap, pike. Helheim simply couldn't get to me before I got to them.
It was pitiful.

Now, in MP games, better strategies are going to be used by both sides, yes, but in MP games one knows one's playing vs a human, and one tends to think more deeply on both sides. Helheim has powerful mage/warriors in the Hangedrott, but Tien Ch'i has just as powerful mages, who are much, much more flexible, and who cost far less. Tien Ch'i comes ready-made with rainbow mages who can find almost all the special sites, and masses of those truly evil pike in combination with Tien Ch'is other national troops are enough to hold territory from Helheim.

Result of the day: Tien Ch'i 1, Helheim 0

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Obviously the post from Kristoffer was unable to make you post politely - wonder if a previous poster was correct, and you won't even get a proper warning, one so blunt that you realize that it was referring to you also?

Sheesh. I don't so much mind the forums being hostile and whatnot - but I do mind the way that Dominions 3 is so broken in terms of balance, and yet a few rabid people insist that it's fine the way it is.

*shrug* As people have pointed out, people kept / went back to playing Dom2 largely because of the Conceptual Balance mods - the base game was _never_ fixed. And Dom3 essentially ignored all the play-tested balancing touches in the CB series, and introduced worse imbalances.

And yet two or three of y'all keep saying it's perfect, it's working as designed, etc. Feh.

It's working _so_ well as designed that I've found myself unable to even think of providing friends with the demo, much less suggesting they consider the full game.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Actually, until the Vampire Queen was severely hitten by the nerf stick, Ermor was still extremely dreaded. Say - _why_ would one pretender being overpowered have been such a problem in Dom2? After all, there's umpteen different pretenders, and we need one or two overpowered pretenders for the newbies, and for people who want to be able to beat the SP AI without ever bothering to learn the game.

Isn't that essentially your argument regarding the Heims?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I think the VQ should get Etherial back, personally. In Dom 3, SCs just aren't as powerful as they apparently were in Dom 2. I've equipped massive SCs with riduculous stuff and sent them against independents armed with nothing and they still get bit with hearts. I wince every time I send my Pretender in battle unless I've chosen one with rejuvenation (and that's what? ancient kracken? maybe 2-3 others?) and even then I worry about curse and horror-mark. I think the argument about Vans etc. is really just an old argument dredged up from Dom 2 when individual fighters and their abilities were more important than overall armies, and when magic outweighed basic economics. I don't honestly think anyone has been playing Dom3 long enough to say that any nation is totally broken, or to get as emotionally attached to this argument as people have. That's my gut-feeling anyway.

I'm still testing, and I plan to test atleast every Early Age nation against Helheim and post the results and my interpretation of those results to this thread. Hopefully it'll add some insight. I don't know if I can say that I'm totally objective, but I'll attempt to be, where Helheim's merits and flaws are concerned. Personally, I'd rather be playing on Glory of the Gods with Yomi or Aboleths or something vs 18 odd randoms. At the very least, the exercise should give me a deeper understanding of the game as a whole.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

For what it's worth, I agree that these mounted sacred glamorous high-defense types are too good a value. They were also quite powerful in Dom2, but people didn't cry about them as much. The dual-bless vans were acknowledged to be powerful, but not overpowering; why are they a bigger problem in Dom3?
I don't think it's just the extra design points that it's possible to get, since it's possible to build an absolutely brutal Helheim nation even with an awake pretender.
I don't think it's that other nations have gotten weaker; they're not.
Maybe it's that it takes longer to research useful counter spells? Or that gold income is so much higher, allowing the purchase of many more of the cavalry in question? Any other ideas as to why they seem to be relatively more problematic than in the previous edition? I can't think of any, offhand...
Seems like pretty much everyone agrees that the number of viable strategies that lose to this strategy is greater than the number that lose to any other strategy. Not everyone agrees that this is a problem, but I do - as has been already said lots of times, if you want an easier game, play single-player against wimpy AI, or against other new players, or against an experienced player who's fooling around with a weird sub-optimal strategy. If you do think there should be built-in handicaps, make a mod to do that. I don't see any reason why the pure game should be unbalanced ("flawed"?) in any preventable way.
Assuming everyone out there now agrees with me (ha!) it doesn't seem very hard to fix. Glamor is a nifty ability, and I'm happy with it the way it is - just make the troops that have it cost more (and especially the problematic sacreds). I'm pretty sure dual-blessers would still happily buy Vans and their cousins at 90 or 100 gold a pop, or even more. I'm also pretty sure that they'd still do well with them, just not as overpoweringly well. Folks not going the mega-bless route would then probably do a bit better to stick with the non-sacreds (whose cost might only be slightly increased), which seems fine to me.

There are plenty of good strategies out there. The mega-blessed, glamorous, super-high-defense unit, though, is very good against most of them. Those strategies which can counter it are (I think?) not nearly as universally powerful. An army of blessed Vans does very well in nearly all early-mid-game circumstances; slave-lizard hordes not as much. My opinion of this strategy is not as high as that of some folks, and I think some very nice tests have been run by people here showing that it is definitely possible to beat MBGSHD (especially in pitched battles), but even so it is so generally powerful that I'd be happy to see it weakened.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

A point or two if I may.

Is SP, which is all I play, it seems that most games end up with me having to knock out Vanheim at some point. Either I meet them early and have to kill them to live or I meet them late, where their early expansion leads them to have huge resources and they are a monster. Either way, pretty much every game comes down to me vs. Vanheim. That takes some replayablity out of the game.

They run over independents and take next to no casualties. They expand fast and stay strong. Sure, magic can help, but I am also finding that in vanilla games, magic is slow to come. This is for another thread, but magic comes so late in Dom 3 that many, maybe most, games are already decided. In any case, my point is that the higher level spells come when Vanheim is already the 300 pound gorilla, having stomped most other nations out of the way.

The raiding strategy is a good one and I have used Joton’s troops to do it. However, you have to get lucky with Vanheim going after someone else’s empire, rather than eating the heart out of yours. In other words, it works sometimes.

Also useful are the armour destroying spells, particularly destruction. However, you need good earth paths, so again, it works sometimes.

Ermor has (had) an easy counter, available to all nations. Priests. And to get those you needed temples, which gave you the bonus of dominion, it was an attractive solution. Sure, they would run over a newbie in SP, but after their first trip to the forums, Ermor was in trouble. I argue that Vanheim does not have an easy or even somewhat easy counter.

To summarize, in SP, this nation dominates all map sizes and takes some of the flavour out of playing. They do not have an easy counter (unlike Ermor). In my opinion, they are too strong and it is all about those glamoured troops. Having played Dom 1, 2 and 3, I have never before felt something was so badly unbalanced (I did not use the CB mod, I thought vanilla Dom 2 was good). I am not an amazing player or a terribly competitive one. I am Joe Boring and Normal, so I won’t even pretend to give you numbers or detailed analysis. I just want to say the nation is too strong for SP and it really stands out. I don’t want to use a mod (someone else said the vanilla game should be the standard) and I don’t want to take the nation out, it has a nice flavour.

Thus, I vote for an increase in price, probably in both resources and gold. It would reduce the numbers available, particularly early against independents, yet retain the cool unit. It would make the massing of armour and morale to counter it possible by all nations, at a cost, but a cost which has other benefits. Really, who doesn’t have a use for armoured units with good morale? Just like everyone has a use for more dominion.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

My experience.
For me Dom3 (and Dom2) is only MP, I find exrtremely boring playing with AI, I'd prefere read a book. In MP s beautiful.
But we banned Vanheim (and Helheim), it is overly unbalanced and it has ruined our first MP game.
For me it is painful because it is way long my favored nation (along with the Tuathas, hoping they return soon ...), has a wonderful theme and it is very fascinating in general. But it is ovewrpowered, no way.
I think that the argument about people saying it is not overpowered are made by boys that easily win MP using Van and are very satisfied of this. I can't find any other reason to say "it is clearly unbalanced but I like it.".

I too prefer Devs correct bugs before expand, I think Van is bugged.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Tien chi *what*? Who told you that? I am playing EA Tien Chi in our forum game, and my main arch enemy is Helheim. (who is played by very good player BTW). Just this turn I've smashed 300 strong army of Helheim which included a lot of sacred, using 200 strong army of my own, and Helheim is currently losing the war. (granted, it's not 1 vs 1 war since Helheim was allied with Ulm, and I was allied with Caelum. However this was the first real battle that Helheim fought in our war, and Helheim has been preparing for this battle for many turns. And before the war started Helheim was by far the most powerful nation on all graphes except one - they hold almost twice as many provinces as nation number two for example).

Perhaps you are confusing Dom2 S&A Tien Chi with Dom3 EA Tien Chi? In Dom2 S&A Tien Chi was pathetic, it's true. In dom3 they can be quite strong nation, if played right. Sure, their sacred are not nearly as strong as Hehleim's sacred, and would lose 1 vs 1 short blitz. But they are very far from "the weakest, sorries, no hope nation out there", as you put it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Seriously, I would realy recommend you to play some MP. Your conclusions of nations strengths and weaknesses based upon your SP experience are often very far from reality when it comes to MP. Humans plays very differntly from AIs.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Balance does not matter as much in the single player arena, but I will add that in my last 3 EA games Vanheim was the last remaining nation versus me. But the AI Vanheim was massing serfs and other cheap troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

HoneyBadger, your tests do not prove anything because the AI is not going to play as though it were using a bless strategy.

A few nations are overpowered... it happens in a game this vast. Will it get fixed? Who knows, but I imagine if it does not, players in multiplayer games will regulate it by choosing bless nations in blitzes to fight (insert uberbless here) or several players will gang up on the bless nation in larger games, hopefully before the nation is allowed to expand too much.

I think you can determine if a nation/strategy combination is overpowered by holding it up to the following test...

If you have no concern about what your enemies are doing, and are able to focus on YOUR strategy, then the nation may be overpowered.

If you have to completely adapt your nation to stand a chance against a certain enemy, then the enemy nation is probably overpowered.

From my limited experience in multiplayer, it seems that the idea is to have a mixture of both, trying to work your strategy and trying to adapt to enemy strategies. If you place an overpowered nation into the mix, that goes out the window, and your either the overpowered nation massing a troop, or the balanced/underpowered nation trying to work a strategy to survive.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

@beorne

I love tuatha as well, but I am afraid that vanheim/helheim may RUIN tuatha for us because the sidhe may not have glamour this time around due to the issues with those two nations.