Re: Did you noticed.......
 

Income will surely change, but some of your loyal subjects will have to face the winter without food, as you are taking it to pay your growing armies and greedy wizards. Add patrolling armies that hunt down complaining farmers, killing their revolting kids, raping their daughters to keep the unruly in line and you have an additional bunch dead peasants. After a while you have fewer farmers to pay your taxes.

To sum up: Players dislike evil men and if they would raise taxes they would be evil, so they try to be nice, at least to their own people. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Therefore there are fewer players that would consider raising taxes. It is nice to have a community of morally correct people.

We count on the same moral standards to keep blood magic and necromancy from being widely used http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">you know as me that the standard settings will be more often than not adopted in PBEM.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yes I would like that, I think it is SC which posted (as in Saber Cherry, not Super Combattant...). Otherwise, with so much resources, the bias versus heavy units would be even greater. So rich settings ok, but only for gold then.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">quite true, some events are really crunchy. I got a visit from an astral council too.

[ November 03, 2003, 20:42: Message edited by: Pocus ]

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hold on! If I will change the tax rate, the income won't change??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yes it will change, but you will pay direly the cost, so in essence, it is not viable to fiddle with the tax rates on the long term. This is why I didnt care to post how a 200 % taxed province churn in doms II.

There is case where you want to tax at 200%, like being at bay, or depriving an enemy of the income of a soon to be lost province, but thats another matter.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

>While I may have misread it my understanding was your argument was that bless effects weren't going to make into MP except perhaps with Flagellents.

My argument back then was that I didn't see how the bless effects were going to be competitive, but that I'd wait for the game to come out before judging.

The flagellents discussion was that they are more efficient for the blesses, which is something I still believe.

The "pizza bet" was about a specific battle between wardens and flags.


>We obviously have different definitions of super combatant.

>Thats rude Alex.

You are taking offense where none was meant.
You said "all it takes to kill one is a few lizards with pokey things!".
Super combatants don't die to a few lizards with pokey things. Not what I call super combatants. Hence we must have different definitions.


>Please Alex pull back from your grump and discuss because as yet you haven't given much backing/detail at all to your claims and I, and others, need to hear examples of the SC's you are talking about. Otherwise you are responding to me like I'm just to stupid to play this game properly so you can't even be bothered explaining your view.

My apologies if I appear grumpy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I have offered examples of super combatants in a few places on these forums.

Perhaps I'll write up a new essay on a bunch of different designs. In the meantime I pasted a Manticore SC design to the thread "Second class super combatants" just a few hours ago. Check it out there.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

> a Sphinx doesn't kill fast enough with Astral

>Almost all my Sphinx's use fire and/or water in order to get fire shield and/or breath of winter. You can have both up at the same time BTW. It kills troops plenty fast, and the ability to teleport into and deal with the biggest enemy threat before it can move, is huge.

An Sphinx with 6 Astral and 3 water will be 238. Affordable but still expensive. You do expect a pretender of that cost worth its dime, right? Teleport is good but that's just the benefit of Astral. If it's too powerful, will raising the point cost of Sphinx 150 suffix? It's fixable.

>I see thunder ward gone.
>>It's there. Now you need only Air 2. You mean it only starts at 50%? And thus detrimental to game balance? May be. But I'll have to wait and see.

>Not only partial defense, but it only affects a handful of troops. It's not good enough to defend an army from wrathful skies.

True.

But if you argued from the other side, mages are now more expensive and less dispensible, storm no longer stop archers. Arrow Fend is not 100% (and never was) neither, right? My inclination is to wait and see how it turns out in the full game.

You can use this trick with an Air pretender. But then we will go back to the old arguments how much weights of the Pretenders or Scale Economy to the gameplay should be - it's better to be changeble as some game options.

>>Seithkona nether darts
>It's more than a trick. It's too potent.
>You have similar killer spells in other paths: "Flame Eruption", "Astral Fire".

>It's more than "nether darts".
>It's seithkona-nether darts.

>The siethkona are incredibly cheap and are very available. The combo is simple and cost effective. That's what makes it better than other spells.

This might be true.

I won't mind just Siethkona-Nether Dart alone. But with the new blessing effects on Woodmen and the wonderful new Woodman scouts, their extra national points, Jotun might become one of the most powerful nations.

One possibility is to limit Seithkona to capital only, like similar mages for Abysia. But again, the whole balancing issue need to tested in full MP games.

>Astral fire isn't something that any mass produced mages can cast.

>Flame eruption requires very close range. In Dom II this is much harder to get since armies start farther away from each other.

But Flame eruption is even more disruptive than nether darts. In theory, you could put the mages at the frontline and have a few hold commands for their guards, It works very well in Dom 1. But of course, most Fire mages are not as cheap as the Seithkona.

I need to test how well the spell AI handle the extra distance in Dom 2. Have anybody tried?

BTW, joke aside, nobody should complain Fire magic sucks because of how lousy the spell Fireball is. The true power of Fire evocation spells are at "Falling Fire" and "Flame Eruption". IMHO, Fireball is only level 3 and thus appropriately a low power spell. If you want to toast somebody, stick your mages near the frontline and see them use "Flame Eruption" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif .

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">As a mind excercise, I am pondering the mobility problem of HI. I'm not sure the HI is as good as it looks.

I found being only able to move one province on the strategic map per turn is a sever handicap. On the Eye map, I got stabbed hard by AI as Abysia because my HI couldn't move to save my province in time.

So, launch raid into your enemies' territory with light troops, plunder and leave before their HI catch up, might now a possible tactics.

But of course, they could try to crush you like a bug with their HI - if they still have enough gold to sustain them. I wonder how it'll work out in a real game.

At least, the mobility issue will give an incentive to use Hypaspist over the Hoplite.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

IMHO the pretender SCs in MP won't be a problem. It is not a problem in SP at all. If you don't want to abuse the AI, than do not do it. Simple. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is a better explanation as it gives me something to reply to.

I sent a Jotun Gode with a Niefel Giant against a province of ~20 Lizards with tridents and one Shaman. Pretender Earth Mother with Earth 9, Nature 9 so the Niefel giant gets +4 prot, berserk 3, reinvigoration 4 and regeneration. I was inside my dominion - neighbouring my home province. The Giant died very quickly (they either do that or live generally). The Gode retreated.

Perhaps you would argue that the enhanced Niefel Giant doesn't qualify as an early game supercombatent but I think thats hard to maintain - sure there are better and who better than you to design one.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You have been short with well meaning people which suprised me. But I figure you are much closer to Dom I than I and thus losing alot more - for there is a real loss involved here to me.

Anyway thanks for the smiley. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I will and respond. Thanks for geting into the details as I find many of the general statements being used confusing. Lacking details its hard for me to accept the opinion of someone whose experiance, on the surface at least, contradicts mine.

In the mean time are you sure you want to write an essay on SC's? People seem to be doing alright without to much encouragement http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Perhaps an essay on races using basic troops as the basis for rapid expansion - this is always a useful thing to have.

I have always used early game killer armies very effectively and I shy away from pretender SC's as I'm not prepared to accept the risk involved. I like to try to win through consistent execution of a whole game strategy not blundering over the top of someone while praying they don't have "the counter." So far I have found this a perfectly viable approach to Dominions and I'm not convinced its going out the door with Dom II.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

>Perhaps an essay on races using basic troops as the basis for rapid expansion - this is always a useful thing to have.


In that vein;

For C'tis check out
1 Lizard King - casting fanaticism
73 Light Infantry - yes the lizard LI! Orders to fire at closest.
2 Sacred Serpent - In seperate squad behind the LI square. Orders to attack closest. Do not add them to the infantry or they will fail to toss javelins.

While they do take losses, this squad can do some serious damage. Sometimes the simple things are effective. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

If you anticipate human players, add in a Shaman and have him cast 'curse'. That can ruin a super combatants day.

Re: Did you noticed.......
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Great to read of a effective LI based method of expansion - and with an easily accesible SC counter.

Now if only I'd stop spending so much time on this board I might get some experimenting of my own done plus give your chuckers a go. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

cheers

Keir