TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

Post here if you've ever won or lost a game using a combination of any or all of the title strategies.

Also indicate whether anyone else in the game used the same strategies.

Tales of losses using using the title strategies are perhaps even more welcome than tales of victory.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

I tried this strategy ... always lost.
There was always Norfleet in the same game.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hopefully the Tales of losses will provide more information then the previous post.

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

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Hmm, I wonder why?


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ May 26, 2004, 22:24: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hopefully the Tales of losses will provide more information then the previous post.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

Doing very simple arithmetic, you can easily come to the conclusion that no matter how leet your strategy is, if its widly popular there will be far more losses than successes. In order to really gauge the effectiveness of a strategy you would need to eliminate so many variables as to make it extremely difficult if not almost impossible in practice. If you ask Cohen how effective the strategy is, he would tell you not very (as he said earlier in this thread). But if you were to ask Norfleet you would get an entirely different result. But how much of this is dependant on the strategy, and how much on simple skill with the game? Norfleet might be able to completely ignore the conjuration branch of magic and still win more than 50% of his games... does this then make ignoring conjuration a valid strategy? If i could find a strategy where i was guaranteed to be one of the Last 2 people left in the game i would consider that a very effective strategy even if i lost every time.

Not sure if i really have a point... but this game has so many variables that i think the only real way to know if a strategy works is to try it for yourself and see if you have fun, if you do, then it worked! hooray for you.

[ May 27, 2004, 01:08: Message edited by: Cheezeninja ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

I'll tell you instead it's very effective.

I played many times against Vanheim ... he raided all my provinces with his glamouring troops, except those castled. And my abysyan infantry was too slow, to resource cost, to keep the pace with Vans!

But at least my castles saved my temples.
And provinces too.
The fact is even with fiends of darkness patrolling you can catch Vans! And they can get rid of PD quite easily.

Every time I castled, I found myself better, til Norfleet come to knok to my castles gate.

The fact castling is long and requires time and efforts ... since I'm not a skilled player in having quickly some SCs I get bashed.
Get some SCs that can avoid you to buy troops, so you've more money for temples and labs, and the bigger job is done.

However to prove the effectiveness, you should hear Norfleet who's skilled not a noob like me.
Best thing to evaluate how is effective? Play against Norfleet.

[ May 27, 2004, 01:44: Message edited by: Cohen ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's because having done enough castling of my own, and played against fellow castlers that I trained, I'm familiar with the techniques for kicking in the doors and taking over the castle. Castles are not impregnable....but they *DO* impede anything other than serious attack: No more raiding.

It can greatly slow the advance of an enemy army, giving you time to regroup. However, if you have nothing to regroup WITH, then what's the point?

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

dp

[ May 27, 2004, 06:09: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Abysyan infantry why do you spend resources on that crap? It's devils who worth the effort. You should better spend your money to get huge army of devils and do not build castles. Then you can take enemy castles in two turn and build your temples in enemy castles! As simple as that.

I have to admit i don't have huge MP experience but every time my enemies tried to templing/castling they failed. It's easy to take casetles in two turns, and enemy spends his valueable resources to build castles instead of army or mages (or in terms of Abyssia blood hunters)

NB I havn't played agains Norfleet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ May 27, 2004, 07:39: Message edited by: mnoracle ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">And that's highly unlikely, since the regrouping will be all those troops built at all those other castles that aren't under siege... You end up with the nation-equivalent of a porcupine... except there is no soft part http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
The maneuver seems to work at top efficiency when the national troops are extra-cheap on resources (Marignon anyone?) or junk (Mictlan comes to mind) or a bit of both (um...Pangaea) . At Wizard-Tower level you start getting near-useless provinces (surrounded by 3+ of them) so it starts getting dicey (and yet: careful placement in high-value spots will work wonders for Caelum and Arcos... I may test one of those in my next test-match with T'ien Ch'i, tho it lacks the appeal with the top-class mages capital-only)

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

Umh, I'm using the VQ myself because of her flavour, but I dont see the problem with a VQ. Can someone explain to me the problem again concisely?

Sure, the VQ is immortal, but without the right items she's not really useful - and even an immortal unit looses its items upon death...

(Or is it necessary that SC-VQ are equipped with Fire/Earth magic?)

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Some people are under the belief that VQs, inside their dominion, particularly in conjunction with "mad castling", can be lobbed over and over at an invading army with no real risk.

What they're forgetting is that if you got killed the first time, you're going to get killed again EVERY time you try that same stunt, and while it doesn't really hurt, it doesn't really accomplish anything either, and you'll just die repeatedly while losing castles and temples one by one.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Some people are under the belief that VQs, inside their dominion, particularly in conjunction with "mad castling", can be lobbed over and over at an invading army with no real risk.

What they're forgetting is that if you got killed the first time, you're going to get killed again EVERY time you try that same stunt, and while it doesn't really hurt, it doesn't really accomplish anything either, and you'll just die repeatedly while losing castles and temples one by one. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">2 obvious faults and misleads in such a small post. norf is really pushing it.


VQ may very well kill significant part of the army even if it loses at the end. If she did that, she will almost certanly wipe out the remaining army completely in the next battle or two, unless they recieve massive reinforcements in the same turn.


And even if VQ loses without inflicting much loses on the enemy, nobody said she had to attack alone all the time, making the same mistakes. She may very well take few strong SCs and army to help her in battle, and to distract attention from her while she is wiping the enemy's best troops.

After all you would have to be very stupid "to pull the same stunt if it doesn't accomplish anything".

[ May 27, 2004, 12:49: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

The VQ will be slightly nerfed in the next patch. The reason being that she was very obviously more priceworthy than the other immortal pretenders, especially if you compared her to the liches. So she will get a cost increase.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

Huh, sorry, keep it low - I didnt want to start another flame war...

I just like the VQ and are about to start a PBEM game with local friends and want to make sure that I am not using a tactic that is invincible...

I using a VQ with Blood3,Death2 with Caelum, because I like access to Blood and Death in order to forge boosting items for my mages. There is no cold-resistant earth mage available which could also satisfy my needs, and the VQ-stealthiness is big boon in order to push my dominion (and hence the cold of my lands) to prepare my attacks.
I was also put off by the blue dragon I tried first, which has only the water magic and gets crippled to easily (the VQ immortaility is another boon, true).

Yet I do not see how a VQ can kill an army without being fully equipped, which is also probably a problem with my magic paths (i usually give her a wraith sword, armor of souls, boots of strength, magic resistance and luck amulet), but even with access to soul vortex I really fear loosing her to my enemies, so i stick to my own dominion and use her and her vampires for defense.

But without her items, I think that she wont stop a whole army. So what am I doing wrong here?

The answer I'd appreciate would be something like: yeah you must give her other magic paths in order to make her the super VQ everyone is complaining about - so that I can use her the same way I did without having a bad remorse... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yah, that's right. what you have, a minimal VQ, isn't unbalancing. You need to pour hundreds and hundreds of points into her to make her truly deadly.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

(this is a ha-ha, a funny, dont get mad)

I can tell you what is in the patch.
A) enough work to represent about 1 change a day (pretty good for not a full-time job)
B) something in response to a subject being hotly debated on this forum
C) something added to the favorite fun-thing of each of the devs. For Johan at the moment something in modding? From Kristoffer something in new in the area of maps or units?
D) some typo fixes and repairs

Of course this is true of every patch, and if you want you can just keep that list handy and post it 5 days after this patch release when people start asking about the next patch. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ahhhh come on people. Im only half serious.

[ May 27, 2004, 14:52: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I won't go into any imbalance issues but to answer your question and make the VQ effective requires low level path magic to give her access to combat magic. This is true of many SC pretenders, not just the VQ. The advantage of the VQ (whether she is balanced or not) is her immortality plus the fact that she doesn't really need items at all to be effective (until the late game), she has numerous traits, built in, that you would normally use equipment for (ethereal, flying, regen).

You can build her a lot of different ways but one example would be 2 air, 1 water, 2 earth, scripting her to quickness/mistform/mirror image/Summon earth power/invulnerability (or ironskin for earlier game). Or 2 air, 2 water, 1 earth and swap in breath of winter and ironskin for invulnerability.

You can do a lot of other things with her, like giving her fire for phoenix pyre or more death for soul vortex or what not but the above should be a good start for you to play around with, I think.

- Kel

[ May 27, 2004, 15:01: Message edited by: Kel ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You might not want to hurray as much as you are. It's not a drastic change and the VQ is still virtually the same. Only in line with the appropriate cost to the Liches. There are other more significant changes that might make you hurray more that impact the same 'problem' with VQ's.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are these other changes of which you speak included in the next patch, or not included in the next patch?

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

In fact a raise of the cost of the VQ would be not so nerfing ... especially if you play Ermor non default theme.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

In case no one has noticed...
Cohen is the president of the Norfleet fan club.

website is still in production.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is this tested for reverse-compatibility with existing games, or will all existing games be broken by this?

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

Just for you Norfleet I'm sure there will be some sort of incompatibility where you'll have to spend hours fighting and reinstalling and doing any number things that we will hear self-righteous complaints about them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Baring that, I can assure you that both IW and the Beta Testers are looking for any 'Utgard'-like issues for the next patch.

[ May 27, 2004, 16:50: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You might not want to hurray as much as you are. It's not a drastic change and the VQ is still virtually the same. Only in line with the appropriate cost to the Liches. There are other more significant changes that might make you hurray more that impact the same 'problem' with VQ's. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmmm, sounds great Zen, thank you. But it is a little unfair to tease me so much without providing any details. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Still I only advocated very few issues on these Boards, and if some changes are being made in new patch to adress any of them, it would indeed make me "hurray" developers even more. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif


As for VQ - personally I think she is a great concept, and I wouldn't want her to be nerfed into oblivion. You are right, I'll have to wait and see how much these changes will affect her (personally I would prefer to see a substantial additonal magic pathes cost increase, rather that a "chassis" cost increase, since having a lot of magic pathes is an essential element of any "uber-VQ". Or making her more on the level with bog mummy stats/abilities-wise (without turning her in mummy#2 of course)). But in any case I am happy that developers are doing any steps to address VQ issue.

[ May 28, 2004, 00:30: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hooray! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Thank you Johan, that's a very good news. It's great to know that developers are dedicated to continuous balancing and enchancing their game long after the release, not to mention being so active and in touch in the players community. It is very rare sign these days.

I am very tempted to ask what else will be in the patch (especailly if there will be, by any chance, something about 2 other hot topics being discussed here and elsewhere - "mad castling" and "clam hoarding", in the next), but I guess I should better cultivate my patience and wait for it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Anyway, thanks for sharing it with us Johan.

Re: TRUE effectiveness of VQ/castling/clam-hoarding
 

I think we underappreciate the developers. I have favourite authors, and think they are fantastic artists.

These people create a work of art just as complex, but interactive. The big thing is that they continue to update it. What if the entire community agreed that there is no way Faramir would have led all those uesful men out to die - it would have been much cooler if he lined them up for inspection, then found an excuse to dismiss each one, before riding out alone so he still fulfilled his father's will. Would Tolkein have spent days rewriting the book? Nope.

Thankyou developer people! You are great!