Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Yeah when you're talking about SP you can still talk about balance (you can deduce the relative strengths of a lot of units etc) but you can't use the fact that you can beat the AI as an example that a nation isn't overpowered. Because of course you can beat any AI nation with any other nation. You can beat them even if they're improved 500%. You can beat them even if you stale the first 5 turns. If you want to assess whether Vans are overpowered you could try playing with them and see if it's actually worth using any other kind of strategy with Helheim / Vanheim.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Which ofcourse is exactly what I WASN'T saying.

I am saying that they're overpowered. In SP. I don't have an opinion about MP since I don't play a lot of MP.

I wasn't saying that, "just because you can beat the AI in SP that they're not overpowered". Infact, I'm not sure how you got that. I did say you can beat them in an SP game with Tien Chi, but that's entirely in another direction from the point. What I'm saying is that, if you compare them to other nations, they're clearly more powerful. Human intelligence (or a clear lack thereof) is entirely aside from that.

I wonder if anyone actually reads my posts before replying to them, or takes them in any kind of context?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I read up to this point...

... before I stopped caring what you were saying.

But hey, I'm sure I took that out of context.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I can't fathom why you're trying to be rude, Velusion, but I haven't noticed you posting anything I cared about either, ever, so I guess we're even?

And, since you don't seem to know what the word "context" means or how to use it, and since the last two times you've posted in this thread, you haven't made any particular sense, contextual or otherwise, then perhaps you ought to look into it?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif Whatever.

Edit: Many of us here ONLY play MP. To ask "Who cares about MP?", as if it isn't worth discussing, isn't exactly being very diplomatic or polite. I would never think to say "Who cares about SP?"

....

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I don't think he was being rude, I think you were / are. Dom3 is a game with a big MP community so saying 'who cares about MP?' is obviously going to cause problems.

I hope your post along the lines of 'learn to read' wasn't directed at me because I didn't misunderstand what you said at all. I question the relevancy of it given the context of this thread and think you should have clarified from the start you were talking about SP, but I wasn't accusing you of claiming Vans aren't overpowered based on SP. I was just pointing out that it's a bad idea to do so in case that's the direction things were about to go.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Can't we all get along?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Again, it's a simple matter of context. I wasn't saying that "nobody cares about MP ever in the history of the world", that would be ridiculous. To put it very simply and directly, I was saying that MP is a much more volatile environment than SP. SP is the control. If something is unbalanced in SP then it's a much bigger deal than MP because it's objective. I don't think that's too difficult to understand.

No, I wasn't directing anything towards you, Sombre, I realize that it was a misunderstanding, and I could have been clearer. SP is what's important to me (obviously) but it's also a good measuring stick for balance, since the human brain is capable of a relatively infinite amount of permutations, whereas a computer is a finite thing-especially where AI is involved. I didn't intend that to be misunderstood, but if it was, I take the responsibility.

And Velusion was being rude. I wasn't speaking to him directly, and he wasn't making any real point that I could see, other than that he seems to have got his back up about MP. I accept responsibility for being unclear, and I realize that people care about MP, but I'm not a Pagan and he's not a Christian (well, ok, so I am a Pagan and he might be a Christian, but that's the metaphor I'm going with here), and we can go our separate ways without trying to convert one another.

There's no reason for him to chime in, unless he was looking to pick a fight. If I want to say "who cares about MP?" I can. I had a reason to say it, and it wasn't to be rude. If I had wanted to be rude, I would have said something along the lines of "screw people who play MP". I happen to like that this game is multi-player, and I happen to like people who multi-play. It's also useful for improving the game and the experience, since it's a great way to figure out everything that can be done with a particular nation.

The context was, "who cares about MP (in terms of the objective balancing of nations, because SP gives us much clearer and more useful data"). I admit I got a little irritated when people started telling me that I was wrong about things I'd never said, but that's ok, I can let that go with a smile, it happens. What I don't like is someone deciding they can pick on me without having anything like a well-formed motive, and when that happens, I feel I have the right and the duty to defend myself, which I did.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Hmmm, I think I need a little bit more clarification on what you're trying to say. You say the human brain is relatively more infinite than a computer AI, and tie that to SP being a more objective environment. I'm a little confused because I would expect that balancing by playing against a limited intelligence (the AI) gives you inferior balance to playing against a good intelligence (presumably human). It may be that there's a devastating counter Y to tactic X, which the AI will never find. (For instance, the AI can't handle SCs, and in fact doesn't seem to do much research at all.) That doesn't mean that X is too strong, it means it's risky with a payoff, except that against the AI there's no risk. Evaluating nations by playing them against the AI carries a high risk of identifying false positive imbalances. Conversely, evaluating nations by making the AI play them against you proves nothing--perhaps an imbalance exists but the AI isn't set up to exploit it. Therefore, I'm having trouble seeing how MP can be dismissed when you're trying to analyze balance, since it's the only opportunity you have to play against an opponent as intelligent as you.

Speaking as an SP player, I highly appreciate the MP players' finely-honed insights into the strategy of Dominions.

-Max