Re: Two new MODs from me
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You still haven't fixed the problem though, as order 3 is still more useful to them than turmoil 3.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'll reiterate that luck 3 is not supposed to be a standard part of Pangaea, turmoil 3 is.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's of course if Pangaea takes a luck scale. They gain no special benefit from doing so compared to other nations, so why should they bother?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If luck is able to overcome a 45% relative reduction in income to order 0, then you've almost certainly made luck too powerful. It doesn't depend on the quality of the rest of your economy, just the number of provinces you own, so it will likely be better than order 3.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Right, Pangaea can take order and lose a good part of their Maenad production. The point is that Pangaea is "supposed" to take turmoil,

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ahh yes, the old. "You don't have to play it if you don't want to." copout that's used whenever someone points out that your "balance" isn't really balanced, except to your particular style of play. The problem is that you refuse to accept that spending points on a pretender should be every bit as valuable as spending them on dominion scales. I'd like to see your rationale for how spending 275 points to get a green dragon to level 9 nature is going to be as effective as spending those points on order and prod 3. Remember that for it to be close the berserk, regeneration and nature spells must overcome a deficit of roughly 80 gold and 70 resources per turn from the capital province alone.

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

Wow. This mod is so bad it isn't even worth trying out. All it does is punish those who take negative scales, and reward those who take positive scales. Clearly the best choice is to put all points into scales -- far more so even than in Dom 1. 120 pts for +45% income? 120 pts for ludicrous population growth? Would anyone ever take less?

Alex, I know you like the idea of powerfull scales, and prefer low or even no magic pretenders, but do you honestly think this leads to any balance or variety?

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ahh yes, the old. "You don't have to play it if you don't want to." copout that's used whenever someone points out that your "balance" isn't really balanced, except to your particular style of play. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well it is a mod Graeme. I really think that given what you have said you don't want to play the game the way Alex does - ie more like Dom1. Sure the balence is way in favour of dom scales and thus against powerful pretenders. If Alex wants to play that way and thinks others out their might feel the same then whats wrong with that?

Your view of what is a good game is too different from Alex's to make this discussion useful and it seems to be degenerating into flames. I have found it hard to discuss dom constructively with Alex since Dom2 came out as our opinion of the changes is so different. That being the case I'm happy to see Alex have the possibility of approaching the game the way he wants even if its not my cup of tea. No point in him keeping on being annoyed at the game having changed in ways he really doesn't like. As I'm lucky enough to like the changes it seems only fair to show some understanding to the perspective of someone who loved Dom1 (and contributed heaps to its growth) who hasn't got what they want out of dom2.

Having just lost a large chunk of my dom2 race designs to the patch and having been shown little or no sympathy I can understand how irritating it is to have your favourite toys taken away. It pays not rub the salt in - certainly makes me grumpy.

Alex has a valid point regarding the need to play the mod to understand it. I have got annoyed at people who don't seem to have played dual bless effects races telling me dual bless effect races haven't been changed by the patch - so I can appreciate Alex's perspective on this.

I think you should let this one go Graeme as the discussion has become too grumpy to be reasoned or reasonable.

Its time for the good old:

Don't worry, be happy.

Keir

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

>Wow. This mod is so bad it isn't even worth trying out.

I'm surprised to hear that from you.
Just what do you think is so bad?


>All it does is punish those who take negative scales, and reward those who take positive scales.

I don't see an issue with that.
It's that way now, just to a lesser extent.

Also it does more than that. It addresses the luck issue, and is an attempt to make all scales useful.


>Clearly the best choice is to put all points into scales -- far more so even than in Dom 1. 120 pts for +45% income? 120 pts for ludicrous population growth? Would anyone ever take less?

Of course they would.
A> There are reasons to do so
B> Even if I didn't think so players still would (plenty of evidence for that).

Keep in mind that the maximum gold ajustment for Dom2 is 33%. With my mod it's 45%. That's a 12% boost. It's not nearly the outrage that many here seem to think. Your starting province generates 25ish extra gold. It's not the end of the world. In Dom1 the starting max gold was effectively +60% and that was before 200%/patrolling.

Why would you not take the max? For the exact same reasons you don't do it now. Because there are other things to spend on.


>Alex, I know you like the idea of powerfull scales,

That I do.


>and prefer low or even no magic pretenders,

No I don't prefer them. I used them in Dom1 because that's what worked. I have always lead the charge on wanting more power for the mage pretenders.

My preference is always for all paths to be of value.


>but do you honestly think this leads to any balance or variety?


Do you think that the scale pumping I did will make players forget their gods? If so what does that say about the current balance? Wouldn't that imply that the gods are more important than scales right now? I don't see that as good. I don't want any obvious best choices. You feel that my mod makes scales an obvious best choice? Possibly. But don't you think you should try it before making that assumption? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

There's a few other issues with the scales as set up that I've thought of just recently. While large supply and income reductions for mismatched temperatures might be workable as long as you only use the default theme, it makes the themes that require temperature changes far weaker that the default. Miasma, Niefelheim, Fires of the Faith, etc. all take a 20% hit in every province, which makes it pretty hard to justify the themes at all.

The other is that while DOM2 might allow a 33% income bonus with the default scales, that bonus requires you to spend 360 nation points on your scales, while order in your Version requires only 120 points.

The productivity scale also seems to give too large of a bonus. Currently sloth 3 lets you produce about half as many troops as prod 3. With sloth 3 under your scales you've reduced troops production to 5% of what a prod 3 nation gets. (190% vs. 10% of base resources) If there's some way to overcome that with a SC pretender, I can't see it.

A death scale of 3 means that after 20 turns your capital will be reduced to 20,000 people, while the population under growth 3 will be 45,000. The resources and income boost the growth 3 nation will get when combined with a 45% boost to gold and a 90% boost to resources will be awfully hard to overcome by pretender design.

I can't comment on the luck scale because of the difficulty in calculating its effects. However, it seems fairly obvious that the most efficient way to spend your points are on order 3, prod 3, growth 3 (Even if Abysia to avoid self destruction within 20 turns). Drain 3 should be fairly easy to overcome through spending on large amounts of researchers, and luck 3 also seems like a good idea since the order scale doesn't hurt it, and it ensures that you will mostly get good events. You'll also need to spend a bunch to improve your dominion to the point where it won't be overwhelmed by the people that aren't bothering to give magic skills to their pretender.

That leaves you a maximum of 140 points to spend on your pretender, which hardly gives you a lot of options to make them magically powerful. You'd have to seriously improve the pretenders, especially their starting magic skills, to make spending any more than that worthwhile. After all, they are only one unit, and will have a very hard time overcoming the massive economies that can be produced in short order under your systen.

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

>it makes the themes that require temperature changes far weaker that the default.

True. However I can't fix everything right now as the mod tools are limited. Many of the themes desperately need fixing (erm, modding).


>The other is that while DOM2 might allow a 33% income bonus with the default scales, that bonus requires you to spend 360 nation points on your scales, while order in your Version requires only 120 points.

Since you seem to feel that growth and production are so potent that you cannot do without, it wouldn't make a difference though, would it? This is exactly what I was shooting for. Difficulty in choice because every option has merit.


>The productivity scale also seems to give too large of a bonus. Currently sloth 3 lets you produce about half as many troops as prod 3. With sloth 3 under your scales you've reduced troops production to 5% of what a prod 3 nation gets. (190% vs. 10% of base resources) If there's some way to overcome that with a SC pretender, I can't see it.

A> You are comparing the most productive nation in the world to the least. I have no issue envisioning that as an extreme difference.

B> The scale had to be modified to the point that it was not obviously something you could ignore. It was my intention to make positive production very alluring and negative production very constraining.


>A death scale of 3 means that after 20 turns your capital will be reduced to 20,000 people, while the population under growth 3 will be 45,000. The resources and income boost the growth 3 nation will get when combined with a 45% boost to gold and a 90% boost to resources will be awfully hard to overcome by pretender design.


A> Growth was meant to double/half poulation in about 40 turns. I don't see that as extreme for "most growth" versus "most death". Many games are just about over in 40 turns. Without scale this potent, players would never see a significant change due to scales.

B> While very potent, you are exaggerating the power and under estimating the benefits of pretenders. Remember this boost is centered on your capital, most of your nation won't ever feel the benefits in a serious way. A magically potent pretender can help with expansion, which is also an economic boost. A magically potent pretender might have strong bless effects, which helps with expansion, which is an economic boost. A strong pretender can really pump magical research or do site hunting, which are different economies than the gold economy, but are also very potent in their own right.

You are throwing about stats without perspective. What are we really talking about? An extra 100-130 gold from the capital province on turn 40? The ability to generate 4-6 extra heavy infanty at the capital on turn 40? Do you really think that this mighty bonus will stop you from taking any magic on you god?


>However, it seems fairly obvious that the most efficient way to spend your points are on order 3, prod 3, growth 3

However, it seems fairly obvious that some players should actually play the mod before wasting everyones time with post after post of conjecture.


>You'd have to seriously improve the pretenders,

That is actually on my list of things to do.
I don't think the pretenders are particularly godlike. I'd like to see more power on them, particularly of the magic sort. However the current mod tools aren't quite ready for pretender work. As soon as Illwinter releases better tools, I'll do much pretender work.


>will have a very hard time overcoming the massive economies that can be produced in short order under your systen.

Or without the exaggeration: sligtly stronger economies that can be produced over the length of the game.

You seem to be putting an extrordinary amount of effort into complaining about a mod that you don't like, and have never played.

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

I wont play too, as of now, with these scales. Not because I dont like them intrinsically, but because there is a missing part in the mod, which will have to wait at least a patch: the modding of initial level of all pretenders.

I too would like to see scales which have a significant impact on gameplay. Hey, I have +1 productivity, look at this amazing +10% bonus in production speed. Yaaawwn. I thus concur that the changes of Apoger are ok because each scale is of importance, and has importance.

But as others pointed, the changes made unbalance the magic pretenders strategy, to the point that both Rainbow mages & blessing pretenders are unplayable, and I dont like to have less choices when I choose a pretender. So when this part too will be tweaked (thanks to a future patch), I think I will enjoy much this mod.

edited : some typos.

[ January 15, 2004, 16:49: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, to be fair to Alex and his work, I'll give them at least a few tries (starting with a "Maenads lead the way" Pangaea), but I must say my first impression is very negative. I fear this mod will effectively restricts the choice of scales (0->+3 instead of -3->+3), and that can't be good. That reminds me too much of the no-brainer choices we were offered in Doms 1. Plus, with that high growth, I fear we might see the a comeback of the high taxes/patrol routine that was overabused in Doms 1 - with the added benefit it now gives you extra corpses to reanimate.

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

Alex's mods are now available at the illwinter site.

Re: Two new MODs from me
 

>Plus, with that high growth, I fear we might see the a comeback of the high taxes/patrol routine that was overabused in Doms 1

That's an excellent point that I did not account for. I'll do some testing with that.