Re: Did you noticed.......
 

90% of the game will be about SCs. Just take a look at the pretender SC abuse.
Don't forget, we have many more problems other than these anyways.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

HJ --

I seem to recall that the devs have stated that the sanguine dowsing rod no longer helps non-blood commanders find blood slaves (haven't checked this yet in the demo personally).

This will make it a LOT harder compared to Dom I to really get a blood economy rolling...

It used to be possible to hand out SDRs (cheap at 5 blood slaves, once you get a blood mage -- e.g. certain indies and magical sites provide them) to cheap commanders and harvest. The SDR would boost their base chance of finding slaves from something like 10% to something like 50% (!). And once you got started, more SDRs could be cranked out, and you could feed the machine with yet more cheap commanders.

Now you'll have to use genuine blood mages to do well in blood -- which means either having native mages, or getting quite a few relevant indys / sites, unless you relish empowering non-blood commanders at 50 slaves a pop.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't see how this is different than empowering them in any other magic that you don't start with. You won't have the ability to find the right sites, and therefore will have a hard time getting the right gems to empower your mages. Random magic picks on native mages helps a lot as well, and you might get some blood mages.
The very similar thing applies for the blood slaves as well, the distinction being that once found the site will pump out the gems by itself, and here you need to dedicate a mage to do that. So you lose a mage to a dedicated service, but it ends up being the same thing, when you disregard the difference stemming from the fact that blood is inherently different from other magic school in general.

Thanks for the info.

[ November 03, 2003, 03:24: Message edited by: HJ ]

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

I'm a reasonably experianced Dom I PBEM player and I have a very different take than the negative one expressed on this and other threads by some toher Dom I players.

1. I think you are seriously jumping the gun Alex. I read your Posts on the new bless effects being underpowered and you made some pretty firm statements - before you had seen the demo. Well I've played the demo and I think you owe someone a pizza with Anchovies - the bless effects are my biggest worry for being canidates as overpowered.

Don't decide what the game balence is like before you have seen the full game and played it awhile!

2. Stick with Dom I?? Err, aaah, do you remember target mages orders for archers? "We'll just get our flying observers to signal us angle of fire and velocity of release so that we can take out the mages somewhere in the back of that there huge army - got em!" Taking that out is a huge bonus for mages that few seem to have considered.

Thats just one of many, many improvements in game balence and play including dealing with the insane elemental summoning that nerfed many other forms of magic because they couldn't compete. To have increased the power of other magic so it could compete with the old uber magic would have ruined much of the game.

If the Dom II isn't a step forward for a Dom I player I would suggest they have been sucked into the world of Dom I and are criticising things just because they are different from Dom I.

3. Have you been trying out some of the new thematic possibilities? Race design has taken a huge leap forward with the addition of themes and bless effects. "Right I think I'll design a Jotun race which is going to win by bringing back the Ice Age before collapsing under its own decay setting off a new thawing" - finally I can do it.

4. The interface. I could not play single player Dom I beyond test bedding - to fussy. Now I can.

5. MP = early game supercombatents? Am I the only one who finds early game super combatents dieing left right and center when used carelessly? My "Back to the Ice Age" Jotun race has awesome early supercombatents and all it takes to kill one is a few lizards with pokey things! Sure they smash low damage dealers but I wouldn't have thought two handed weapons were a hard to achieve counter?

I would suggest starting MP games with each race having ~6 provinces and two Castles - I think you will find this will reward better balenced races as it reduces the fear of the early overrun which changes the whole meta game of race design.

6. Evocation. Johan seriously the fire magic thing is silly. Very silly - it makes mages look like clowns. I have given it a good go, cast many, many fireballs and if you are happy with the overall balence then please reduce the damage of evocation fire magic and increase the accuracy so we don't all feel so stupid using fire mages. Its just a really unfun/kill joy feature.

Guys lets not jump the boat because our favourite strategies have died and we are worried for the future - take some time and give it a good go.

As a race designer with a love of synergy I couldn't go back to Dom I. To me the increase in this area is a massive step forward as I though most Dom I races lacked synergy. The addition of the themes and bless effects creates many new possibilites for synergy.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

I guess Alex has posted his experience with the demo. Correct me if I am wrong.

[ November 03, 2003, 09:20: Message edited by: MStavros ]

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree with everything you said. #5 and #6 are important. I have yet to see a fire spell kill anything other than a LI.

When I first read about the bless effects and played with them I thought they were useless (Rainbow Mage, 4 Fire / 4 Nature / 4 Earth). Now that I have tried Water 9 / Nature 9 I have changed my story. As long as you go all out the bless effects can rock.

Sammual

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">care to develop your argument? Everything prove the contrary, as already explained.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

HJ -- A big difference is that blood is far less tied to magical sites than the rest; at least in Dom I, anyway, even the Damned Merchant (blood 1?, gives 1 slave/turn) was pretty rare. Hence you can't just conquer a province somebody else searched and get free slaves, normally. Nor can you find the sites with a handful of mages searching or casting divination spells, and reap blood income for free (i.e. no further action); your blood income is heavily tied to population and blood mages (since SDRs won't help as much). It's harder to get started, but it used to be easier to boost your capacity once you did get started so long as you had heavily populated provinces.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

>I think you owe someone a pizza with Anchovies -

Ahem... that was in response to a specific warden versus flagellent fight. We will do the testing when the full game comes out and we have access to the flags.


>5. MP = early game supercombatents? Am I the only one who finds early game super combatents dieing left right and center when used carelessly? My "Back to the Ice Age" Jotun race has awesome early supercombatents and all it takes to kill one is a few lizards with pokey things! Sure they smash low damage dealers but I wouldn't have thought two handed weapons were a hard to achieve counter?

We obviously have different definitions of super combatant.


>I would suggest starting MP games with each race having ~6 provinces and two Castles - I think you will find this will reward better balenced races as it reduces the fear of the early overrun which changes the whole meta game of race design.

I have developed a scenario offering just such a theme. Check out Sunrays site for the download.

[ November 03, 2003, 15:37: Message edited by: apoger ]

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

can been done with scripting, remind me the specifics? it was 35 wardens against 100 flags, and what magic levels should their gods get?

Taqwus : nicely explained. In doms I blood income would allow a nation to get increased blood income, because of a kind of snow balling effect (I had Abysia reaching between 150 and 200 slaves a turn in a MP game).