lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

i think immortality is a bit too powerful .

how do you beat a vampire horde lategame ?
on turn 100 i have probably 100-200 vampire lords which all summon allies . so +100-200 vampires / turn .
i summon 2-5 new additional vampire lords at least .
so by turn 100 i have probably accumulated about 1000-2000 vampires and at turn 120 about 5000 if i clamhoard + wish for blood and summon only vampire lords or if i play abysia/mictlan and bloodhunt heavy .


abysia and caelum are extremely shining for this :
abysia can dominionpush via blood sacrifice , caelum can stealthpreach cheaply .
abysia can bloodhunt really well , caelum can clamhoard really well .


so how do you beat such an immortal horde ?
i think the only variable which determines success or failure is who can push his dominion .
but caelum / abysia with either stealthpreach or blood sacrifice should be the winners in this fight .

so slowly but surely they will just overwhelm any opponent .



if you make a wither bones artillery brigade with a staff of storms the vampires are delayed but they have quite high ground movement of 14 too .

wither bones has "only" 25 range and -1 precision .
requires DDD and creates 50 fatigue .
it does 16+ an damage .
a vampire has 22hp that means normally he survives 1 wither bones hit .

so you need really quite a few wither bones casters + lots of tough guards .
but vampires are so cheap and i never lose them .
so i should have way bigger numbers than you .

i use either the vampire lords themselves to lead the vampires or wraith lords or demilichs or a combination of all 3 .

unequipped demilichs i can script to drain life x5.
unequipped wraith lords are not too bad too and i can just script them to e.g. soul vortex / attack closest .

same with the vampire lords .



the common vampires have 11 att and 13 strenght and most important SIZE 2 .
so 24 can swarm a sc .

even a 30 prot sc gets damage because with the ap lifedrain attack his protection is reduced to 15.

then it is 13+2d6 damage oe vs 15+2d6 protection oe .

so the vampires will hit + fatigue him . with a bit luck they make the sc unconscious and then he is finished .
and you have to add that my leaders with e.g. drain life script target the sc too .


so you would need a combination of scs / lots of tough heavy troops to hold of the vampires long enough and good antiundeadmages .

this is really expensive .

and remember : as long as i inflict casualities on you i have won because my whole force has 0 equipment and is revived .
so i LOSE nothing and throw it almost every turn on you .

in the first encounter e.g. i kill 20% of your force .
in the second encounter which follows soon depending how far away you are from my capitol about 1-3 turns on most maps i half your force again and on the 3rd encounter it is dead .


so did i miss something or is my estimation quite true that my described undead horde is even totally unequipped just a bit too powerful ?



if you share my concerns and agree i have 2 or 3 simple suggestions as a solution for this problem which i will say then .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

There are a few mitigating things:
One you briefly mentioned: Dominion.
If I'm defending from your attack, it is on turf I hold; with good use of preaching, that pretty much means that unless I just recently conqured the province, it is likely in my dominion. While you are attacking me, chances are it is in my dominion, and any casulties I inflict on your forces are rather permanent.

Another thing to consider is the low morale of vampire thralls. If I have a fair number of tough lifeless troops gaurding several priests, with the priests scripted to spam banish (especially if I include the staff of storms thing to slow the vampire attack), many of your vampire brigades will break before reaching my priests and their bodygaurds, and so never reach them at all.

Another thing to consider is the chance that I have similar recourses at my disposal. Suppose I've done the clamhoarding as well as you have, but instead of wishing for blood slaves, I have been wishing for Dominion, or money, or whatever.

Another thing to consider is that vampires are undead. If I happen to have the spell "Undead Mastery" at the disposal of my highly equipped SC (or a lot of mages with the spell Control The Dead (or whatever it's called)), I can harvest a fair number of those vampires from you, very effectively eliminating them from your grasp regardless of whose dominion we are fighting in. With MR penetration items, I may even be able to arrange to steal more than half of your army out from under you in any given encounter. Wouldn't you just love to face that undead horde you took so much time to build, with pretty much only troops that are vulnerable to the same attack the current leader of said horde can harvest to add to his army?

I'm not saying any of these are foolproof counters, or even that I could properly beat such a strategy for certain, just that it isn't as invulnerable a strategy as you might think.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

staff of storms + storm demons eats your army without losses and sieges your castle.
course you might have your own storm demons since you seem to have a well researched and large blood industry.
or a windmage to caste the spell that makes lightning resistance.

it's all about the rules thought, most people(that i play with) dont want wish allowed in the games they play.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

each blood sacrifice is an additional temple check iirc .
so if i station my god on your border , my prophet and blood sacrifice i think you have to preach really heavy to hold off my dominion .

if you haven't castled everything i mow down your preachers simply by ghost riders unless you guard your preachers really well .
if you have castled i decimate them by some flames from the sky or similiar spells .

so i should normally win the dominionwar if i am just patient enough .



undead mastery is a really good idea .

fortunately this spell has some drawbacks though :
7D required to cast .
7 gems required to cast .
700- FATIGUE

AND mr easily negates .

according to the manual this means that it is only a base penetration of 7.

vampires have fortunately a quite high mr of 15 .


if someone wants to think it through in detail i am grateful http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
but in a brief estimation i think you need at least about 10 base death skill and use all your gems for fatigue reduction to go to less than 200 fatigue to be able to cast the spell and survive it .

the highest base death you get from summonable creatures is 4 death for a demilich or one of the heliophagi .

ring of sorcery + ring of wizardy are both + 1 penetration and +1 deathskill so this is gooood http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
with your weapon you can take the unique sceptre of dark regency for +3 death .
with skullface helmet you get +1 death again .
and you can take rune smasher as 2nd weapon .

so with this equipment a heliophagus / demilich / pretender should be almost able to get the needed skill + 4 extra penetration .

the final result is probably about 12-13 penetration vs 15 mr .
so this special leader probably can convert about 20-30% of the undead vampires .

but with 7 gem cost + further need of gems to decrease fatigue you can cast it only once / battle .

and the +3 death sceptre is unique .

so if you want a second undead mastery caster you need probably to empower him in deathskill which is horrible expensive .


even very lategame you probably don't have the resources to build more than 2 of these special undead mastery casters i would suppose .


so all in all perhaps this one single strat beats my vampire horde strat .
fortunately for me though the spell is pretty lategame .
by this time i will be able to wish myself probably .

and i have developed a counter strat against this too :
i summon storm demons + a few pazuzu / air queen scs .
these i use first against anti vampire wither bone mage squads and second against your undead mastery strat http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


i think this dual combo where i invest about 70% of my resources in vampires and 30% in my anti-antivampire special elite army with airqueens / storm demons is almost unbeatable .

you need probably at least 3-4 times higher resources than me to beat me then when it comes to lategame .

unfortunately i have developed this strat only in the Last week .
so once i get abysia in a new mp game and until i can test it about at least 4 months will be over http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

yeah this special army probably defeats the vamps too.
but storm demons are quite hard to accumulate .
the lvl 9 spell where you get 7+ storm demons for 50 blood needs some empowering .
a good candidate to cast it is pazuzu with 1 +1blood item .

so you can wish some pazuzus to mass summon those storm demons .


fortunately storm demons are much easier to counter though for me i just need to make a few lighning resistent scs and your storm demons should be wiped out again and i can use my vampires save again against almost everything you can throw in .

so i rely MAINLY on the vampire horde but of course for special purposes i build a few scs of my own.
or i decimate your storm demons with some flames from the sky etc.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

can you name me other troops / leaders than my mentioned immortals which you can use without equipment at all with great success when you win the dominionwar ?

so far really only DLC1 storm demon / air sc counter strat and JACK SIMTH undead mastery counter strat seem to work and probably my own suggested mass wither bones mage brigade counter strat .

so 3!! strats which are all extremely expensive compared to vampires .

and just remember i could e.g. with storm warriors / warriors of muspelheim make my vampires immune to lightning / fire .
i could mix in my own scs .

BUT vampires ALONE are already enough to defeat almost every army / sc .... .




so i suggest : remove summon allies command from vampire lords .
same with summon ghosts from wraith lords it is almost as overpowered .

make all immortal leaders (demilich / wraith lord / vampire lord ) cost 5-10 gold as upkeep .

these 2 things should be easy .
then the immortals would still be powerful but it would prohibit you to accumulate extremely huge vampire hordes lategame and 100+ immortal leaders .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

A couple of points...

The immortality aspect of your vamps has one downside - lose your capital and then you're left with only sub-par troops (as vampires without their immortality are hardly anything to write home about in late stages of the game).

The assumption of game being turn 100. How big a map you're thinking of? I'd think most games would be by far been resolved by that time. Also, you shouldn't dismiss Undead Mastery as a too lategame spell, currently I'm in a MP where turns are in the 50s and my research is around levels 8-9 in all circles bar blood. Granted, I do value research much... and also, by that time players have had a good time to forge crystal and slave matrixes so with communion you can get a lot of Undead Mastery squads even if you aren't Pythium.

If you push the dominion with lots of priests blood sacrificing, they can be dealt with all those nice far-slaying spells.

And remember, when you invest into blood, other players may do the same or work their way into other schools. For example, the nation to get the Chalice has an option to Tartarian Factory, producing easily 50 SCs by the turn 100 you specified. And unlike vamps, they aren't limited by dominion. And of course, elemental royalty is usually the first to be reserved.

Anyway, I'd be a bit sceptic about that turn 100, but of course it depends on your map and people you play against.

There's probably a lot more to be considered, but that's what I came up with...

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

yeah atul those tartarians are my other thing i think which is tooooo cheap .
10 deathgems for an at least top 5 sc .
when you consider their price they are probably resourcewise the best sc .


my concerns are only true for maps with at least 200 provinces .
but on karan and orania which are very liked mp maps the game normally goes until turn 100-150 .


a vampirelord is just a toooooooooooooo good investion .
55 blood slaves for a quite good leader who gives your 1 vampire / turn for FREE .


as it is i think these are the only 2 units left which are striking underprized .
1st your mentioned tartarians
2nd my mentioned vampire lords

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

well once boron starts kicking everyone's asses 3 months from now maybe you'll listen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

While I enjoy reading these tactical analyses, I am not yet experienced enough to comment one way or another. But I have played enough strategy games to say that the statement that late game is unbalanced in no way, shape or form means that the game is unbalanced.

It's perfectly reasonable from a game design perspective to pull 3-4 nations out of 17, and say these nations will be the strong in the endgame. It's perfectly reasonable from a game play point of view, to know going in that if you're playing Ulm or Jotunheim (those are strong in the opening game, right?), that if Abysia or Caelum are in the mix, you had better have them eliminated or crippled by turn 80 (or whatever turn it might be), or your endgame will be hopeless.

Much as I find these arguments very educational, and useful for getting through my own endgame learning curve, this in no way sounds like a cause worthy of changing this game.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

You can also communiun priests with the Slave/Crystal matrices - if you split an 80-priest squad between the two, even using little H2 indy priests, you are talking about 40 effectively H6 priests. Using those nifty H4 priests some nations own, it does even better. Add a staff of storms and a bunch of lightning-immune lifeless chaff (e.g., mechanical men) to gaurd the priests; you then have penetration 2 vs. undead/deamons that does a fair chunk of damage to a rather wide area. A few banishments from the priests and the vamps will likely rout en masse (those that don't perish; after that, the only targets for the banishment is your undead commanders, so they are gone soon after), the storm demons will also fall rather quickly to the same thing (especially as they can't reach the priests due the mechanical men gaurds). The priests also help with the dominion war (which, by the way, if you are winning as a pre-requisite to the strat, makes much of the strat icing, no?) so they will be on hand anyway. After that all that is left are some anti-SC SC's (or anti-SC thugs) to deal with your SC's.

Other possibilities are heavy use of anti-commander stuff (assasins and assasination spells, to strand your vamp army), taking your capital to neutralize the immortality, other raids (you did say you were commiting your pretender, prophet and most your forces to a border dispute on dominion at a specific location, to push your dominion into opposing territory; that pretty much means your opponent can arrange to raid pretty much at will; sure, you can do the same thing with your vampires and vampire lords - but then you can't drag the air queen SC and storm demons along to deal with the vamp counters) to burn your temples and cut your dominion elsewhere. Likewise, stealth priests (anyone can find druids, a few nations have stealth priests)

Don't get me wrong - the vamp horde is a good strategy; but like any strat, especially those relying on a particular unit / commander type, there are different counters available to most nations. Dominions is a surprisingly balanced game.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Both of those spells only give 50% resistance. Wrathful skies with storm and false horrors can hold off a very large number of vampires. High-level fire magic will also quickly decimate their numbers. Flames from the sky can also kill huge numbers of vampires.

If I was planning for a game to Last to turn 100, then I would probably actually forge soul contracts with my slaves, depending on what nation I'm playing. Devils are superior troops to vampires, and if you can afford 100 vampire lords, I could afford to have 70-92 soul contracts. These also have the added benefit of being able to survive when you use heat from hell and firestorm.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

This means that about 9% of the vampires will be converted. This is not insignificant, as they will be among the ranks of the other units, and become the immediate target.

6 death magic plus 7 death gems in the base cost, 1 for skill boosting, and 5 to reduce fatigue. Total cost of 13 death gems to bring fatigue down to about 116.

Your vampire horde is also a rather late game strategy, so you really should include everything else your enemies would be able to throw at you.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

yeah you are right dominions is really well balanced http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

your priest idea is nice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif hm i thought it works only against undeads but you are right banisment works against DEMONS TOO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif
with h6 priests ........ they have probably a good chance to come through the rather high mr of demons / vamps .
if you add a w9 blessing for quickness to your priests this is probably horrible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif


i personally like to castle . so your raiding is far less effective . so i can defend against weak raiders with ghost riders and against stronger with some reserve scs hopefully .
one second thing :
do you forge a ring of fire resistence and a ring of cold resistence for all your priests ?

otherwise i still have left the 2 options murdering winter / flames from the sky .

crystal matrix + slave matrix require both SE .
this is a rather uncommon combo so it is not so easy to massproduce them unless you have forge up .
AND both are misc items .
so either you don't defend against flames from the sky / murdering winter at all or you can only forge 1 cheap resistence ring and for the other resistence you would need to take a more expensive solution like a ryme hauberk .
all in all this is relative expensive .
for 3 priests + equipment you could build a quite good sc too .


finally another strenghtening lategame for my strat :
i use no vampire lords as leaders for my vampires but tartarians or banelords .

so at turn 100-120 i will probably generate 200 new vampires each turn and it is always increasing .
because clamhoarding + vampire summoning increases exponentially .
from turn 20-40 you summon e.g. 1 vampire lord / turn + produce 1 clam .
turn 40-70 you increase it to 2 / turn .
then you start with wishing and increase it to 3 then 4 then 5 etc. per turn and it goes always quicker .

so if we really really continue playing until turn 150-200 i can start to even sacrifice my vampires by using them out of my dominion since i don't need to care anymore because i produce so much new each turn from allysummon in my capitol .

the only "allysummon" which comes close to this are devils from soul contracts .

all in all the nonunique (like devils from 1 archdevil) allysummons are rather limited :
ghosts from wraith lord
draconians from draconian leader
wolves from werewolves / bf ulm wolfherd
vampires from vampire lords
imps from fallen angels
sprites from fairy queens

similiar maenads from pans
devils from soul contract


the vampires + devils are the strongest ones .

if you look at the RoI the vampire lord has probably the highest in the game .
quite good unequipped immortal anti-sc unit .
and the vampires themselves are really good too .


so if i do it correct i always have much huger forces then you .
furthermore if i force you to build priests / mass wither bones squads etc. etc. this is even better because these troops are so highly specialized that i can beat them very cost effective with other things .


especially your 2 ideas with the priests or the undead mastery are good but after i saw it the first time i can quickly make a special antiforce against this .

i think vampire lords with vampires are TOO ALLROUND .
they are good against almost everything and if you need to defend they are really great too .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Decent earth magic can also decimate them - blade winds should cut a huge swath through the vampire ranks, and isn't reduced by any elemental resistance (mass protection would help, but makes them more vulnerable to fire; legions of steel is thus the only real counter I can think of).

Vampire hordes are only truly impressive against the AI in single player, or against an opponent who is out-matched anyway (in player skill, in research & gem income, or provinces & gold income).

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

[quote]
Graeme Dice said:
I don't think so, based on experience with other spells like Summon Lammashtas. A level 1 death mage can only use _1_ death gems, so can't cast SL no matter how many gems it's carrying.

The gems required for the spell itself seem to count against the gems the mage can use for skill boosting and reducing fatigue. Thus, 6 death magic wouldn't be able to cast the spell at all, 7 death magic couldn't use any gems to reduce fatigue, 8 death magic would incur ... 233 fatigue by using 1 gem max to reduce fatigue, thus winding up dead if the spell is cast.

So unless there's a bug in S.Lammashtas, it would seem that you need to reach at least death magic 7 via communion with lots of slaves to absorb the fatigue, or death magic 9 without communion.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

[quote]
Graeme Dice said:
it depends who uses it .
but as mictlan/abysia i can bloodhunt early and start early summoning my first ones .
especially mictlan is a formidable clamhoarder too .
so their blood income will always be huge .

and there are really few better uses in the long run for 100 astral pearls than wishing for blood .
250 blood are almost 5 vampire lords who are quite formidable on their own already .

if you wish scs you need to GoR so lets say either you get 1 unequipped sc or 5 vampire lords .
you need to equip the sc normally .
so lets add about 50 gems at least to equip.

i think it is fair to say then at least 6 vampire lords vs 1 equipped + GoRed sc .
if the vampire lords only summon 10 turns vampires it is already 6 vampire lords + 60 vampires vs the 1 sc .

the more time i have the more i grow out of control with the vampire strat then.
as long as i stay in own dominion you can't kill them with anything .


so you almost can't attack me in my own territory and everytime i get positive dominion in one of your provinces which neighbors me i can conquer this one easy again .

and i can throw ghost riders / flames from the sky etc. on your provinces with effect or make raids with special forces for this purpose .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

The thing is that this appears to only be the case for mages with only 1 skill.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Actually, given your previous Posts mentioning clam hoarding and using the wish spell, it sounds like Wish is the thing that is too powerful, because you can make any number of very highly overpowered late game strategies using it.

Which is why, I believe, there's an official mod that removes Wish from the game. End of problem. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Without Wish, you don't have a relatively cheap way to boost all your magic paths, you don't have the incentive to put high astral magic on your (typically immortal) pretender, and it becomes quite difficult to have _all_ the spells, items, and summonses you're talking about.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

This is true for any strategy.

Better hope you don't run into Marignon then, because any province they take will only stay in your dominion for one turn.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

removing wish would be really bad because it disadvantages those nations for which it was designed more likely too much .
especially ryleh + atlantis are those nations .


abysia + mictlan can get a pretty high blood hunt blood income too .
so not wish is the real problem but that vampire lords are just too cheap .

all in all it is a combo :
-blood is easy aquireable
-clams are good
-with the astral pearls from clams wish becomes quite useful
-one of the best wishes is wishing for blood
-vampire lords are probably the nonunique bloodsummon with the highest RoI

all these facts play into the strength of vampires .
every nation can start making clams midgame when you summon a few spectres .


the only other thing which is similiar effective because it is too cheap is massproducing tartarians in combination with healing + goring the good ones and turning them into SCs .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

true but marignon is relative 1 dimensional and hard to play .
in the mp games i have played until now or are playing marignon was never a top 5 choice and i never saw them winning a mp game in which i am in so far .


another thing you wrote that you can decimate my vampires with flames from the sky too .
if you kill them in my dominion they are respawned in my capitol .
so you invested 20/40/60 or more fire gems for just 1-3 turns delayment until they arrive at the front again .
not a really useful use of flames from the sky imho .


the 2 nations which i think are best for my hoardstrat are atm abysia and caelum .
abysia earlier , caelum later because there midlevel alteration/conjuration/construction are my research priorities earlygame-midgame .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Actually, I think Wish was designed for SP games more than it was "designed" for R'lyeh and Atlantis.

The other thing about your strategy - it might work once against a given set of players, but the next time they play against you and see you taking one of the blood or astral nations, they're simply going to go out of their way to stomp you early, instead of going after independents.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

i dont think your concerns are all that grave, vampires are generally weak, any kind of devil with the late game blood 9 summons are better.
cept mebbe frost devils

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

players should play without having earlier games in mind .
nobody can win if several players ally earlygame against him .


since most ppl who play dominions are very mature and know that this would be childish making pregame alliances only to take revenge because they lost in an earlier game i hope it doesn't happen anyways .

edit :
p.s. i remember that in an older post i think either gandalf or johan said that clams were designed for atlantis especially .
so i think you can say wish was designed for them too cause wish is one of the best uses for your clam astral pearls http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Marignon isn't that hard to play. They just need to figure out a good strategy for the lategame, since they are about the second most powerful nation in the very early game.

Astral fires can deal with flame immune units, and they have no trouble getting that spell. They also have a fairly easy time with covering the battlefield with fire, which vampires will fall to quite easily. Once they capture your province, four or five high inquisitors will bring the dominion down to zero in a single turn, and then you can't bring your vampires into it anymore.

You would time the flames from the sky with a major attack so that the enemy would lose territory.

[quote]
Well, take Machaka for instance, they have little problem with throwing more than 100 fire gems a turn at any given problem by the time you'd reach turn 100. Hit a province you're invading with 5 flames from the sky, and there won't be many vampires left on defense. Hit a besieging force of vampires with that same 5 spells, and they won't be able to breach your walls anytime soon.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

you neglect 1 thing there :
you pay 55 blood for 1 vampire lord
you pay 50 blood for 7+1/lvl above storm demons / devils etc. with the lvl 9 summon


after 20 turns 1 vampire lord has generated 20 vampires .

so the vampire lord beats after 20 turns with his 20 vampires which are for free surely the devils / storm demons etc.

in a 1on1 a vampire loses of course against a devil / storm demon .

but after 20 turns it is rather 3 vs 1 and after 40 turns rather 6 vs 1 for the same cost .
+ you have further costs to get a leader for your devils / storm demons .


and finally vampires are blood 7 so you can start casting them earlier . once you have your first vampire lord giving him a death staff he can then chainsummon further vampire lords .
getting a summoner for e.g. storm demons with blood5air2 is much harder .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Why? If I know that a particular player always does the same thing, why on earth wouldn't I use that knowledge? I'm not saying pre-game alliances, I'm saying that I'd target that player differently from another. If someone continually backstabs and breaks alliances - I'm not going to make treaties with that player.

If someone constantly plays wild gambles and then quits the game in a sulk when the gamble fails, I'm going to remember that and be prepared to counter it.

And if someone continually uses a particular strategy, why should I be stupid enough to cooperate with them by not attempting to disrupt it?

How is it revenge? If I know that you are playing to hoard astral gems and build vampire hordes, why should I ignore that, leave you alone, and let you get to your "unbeatable" end game strategy?

If you want to play the same strategy over and over again, damn straight I'm going to try and counter it. It's an old military chestnut: Know your enemy. Know what a given commander is prone to do, and try to use that against him.

Sorry, but I'm not going to play dumb - I know certain players are untrustworthy, and I keep that in mind. I know certain players like to use "rush" tactics, and if they're near me, I'm going to change my strategy to repulse them. If I know a certain player is going to do the same things over and over, like running a lone Virtue pretender way ahead of his armies, I'm going to try to trap and kill Anya.

And if I suspect someone is going to clam hoard and vampire horde, I'm going to try and clean their clock before they get that working.

(And for those who say, "Well, some games I play completely trustworthy, and some games I play completely backstabbing" - you get jotted down as untrustworthy.)

Feh. There is a _lot_ of good uses for astral pearls, clam produced or not. For example: with a mere 20 clams, you can produce an extra 10 gems of _any_ kind each turn. Only have 1 nature gem coming in each turn but want to GoR or GoH? No problem - convert those clam pearls into nature gems. Now you want a lich, but don't have any death income? No problem.

Wish is basically a cheesy spell in MP games. IMO. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

A grave concern about vampires is an interesting pun. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

i thought caine you meant you would simply berserk on me in every future game then and would be content if you had only killed me and are shortly after killed by someone else.


but as you describe you would act it is fine and not what i meant . i would do the same http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
of course i don't do only vampire hordes but different things too .
it is just whenever i can get some clams / vampires i hoard them knowing that they are good .


if i play e.g. abysia i plan on vampires or soul contracts and stock my blood . if i notice that someone wants to attack me early then of course i do summon devils e.g. and not wait until he kills me .

i just still think that vampires with all their special abilities and their cheapness are a bit too strong .

if someone masses storm demons you just counter by a few lighning immune summons / scs .
same with other examples .


but vampires come again and again which makes them the perfect defensive weapon and once you win the dominionwar or you get so many allysummons that they become disposible too they are even perfect offensive weapons .

so i can use 50% of my resources on vampires and 50% on other things for offense and send all offensive weapons knowing that the vampires are most probably enough to defeat anything which attacks me anyways at least after a couple of attempts .


if you can only beat a vampire horde by rushing the one trying to use it it is actually a proof that it really seems a bit overpowered . otherwise there would be no need to rush .
vampires are just the ultimative soldier in dominion . totally exposeable but strong enough to win many battles on their own already .



if you can name me one other unit which is an even better allrounder than the vampire and explain why then i will agree that i was wrong .
but otherwise this proofs that i am probably really right .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

You are worrying for nothing. Hordes of vampires are available only in late
game, and there are plenty of strategies that are at least that good. I have
to admit that I have never faced vampire hordes, but I have messed up devil
hordes simply by teleporting three independant sorceresses on top of Cohen's
main spawn point, and casting wrathful skies and enough horrors to keep the
devils from sprinting to the casters, and then reteating. (I brought a SoS.)
Yes, vampires are immortal, and yes, they will be back, but they are nothing to
write home about. If anything, they will rout much more easily that the devils.

Furthermore, I have had three supercombatants (two arch devils and a heliophagus)
run into a small pack of vampires (30-40) and demolish them... I was surprised,
because my guys were not decked out for undead hunting. But if I had the
chance to properly outfit them (fire shield + fatigue regeneration) I would
bet on five SCs against 500 vampires. (Storm is a must, though) But frankly, by
the time you have hundreds of vampires, your enemy will have something else.

As for domain pushes, you do not need stealthy priests. You need to take
territory, and convert it.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

A devil is a better all around unit. It has better attack and defense stats, two attacks, more hitpoints, 15 armour, radiate heat, and have fire immunity. They can be produced by soul contracts in extremely large numbers, and these contracts provide an effective blood income of 7 slaves per turn, which is larger than the vampire lords effective income of 4.3 per turn.

No, they aren't immortal, but they are harder to kill. Blade wind won't have too much effect and fire spells do nothing. They are less vulnerable to air magic with their higher hitpoints, and are also less vulnerable to ice strike, which will decimate vampires.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

also devils don't run like frightened chickens, which vamps have a definite tendency for.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

devils have only 8 protection .
they are 50% susceptible to cold .
this means that your mentioned spell ice strikes works quite well against devils too .

staff of storm cancels both for vampires + devils flying .

a devil has 14 str + does 7 damage with his trident .

a vampire has 13 str + 0 ap damage .


on high protection units so the vampire does better damage than the devil .
a vampire has att 11 a devil att 18 .
but a vampire is size 2 while devil is size 3 .

so with swarming against scs the vampire hits about the same time too .
and the vampire does fatigue damage with his drain life . this reduces att + defense furthermore .


vampires suffer from fire spells true .
but from ice strike both suffer the same .
from lighning spells both suffer too .
a vampire takes normally 2 hits from e.g. wrathful skies lighting while a devil takes 3 to be killed .

vampires are undead so antiundead spells are evil too .


vampires should damage high protection scs a bit easier .
devils are though fire immune so immune to fireshield damage .


all in all the devil is really good too but you need a dwarfen hammer to forge a soul contract for 60 slaves .
the soul contract may be killed after a couple of turns by the horror attack too .

so the vampire lord summoning a vampire is overall normally about 10-30% cheaper .
add the fact that vampires are immortal and can be thrown at you repeatedly .


finally with murdering winter i could inflict probably huge casualities to your devil horde thnx to 50% cold suceptibility .


devils are really good too but especially when i am defending and you are only 2-3 provinces away from my capitol you will face the vampire horde each turn repeatedly .
+ of course other things too .

but the vampires are really a great unit worth being a central part in an caelum/abysian/mictlan strat especially .

oh finally soul contract is b5 . so you need to forge normally 2 items for your mages like a brazen vessel + a blood thorn for abysian warlocks e.g.
vampire lords can chainsummon themselves with a cheap skull staff only .



true but a banelord / vampire lord can lead 125 vampires .
so this prevents routing as long as they are reduced to 20-30 vampires normally anyways so it is not that severe http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Not nearly as well as against vampires, where the 18 damage will have a good chance of killing them in a single hit. Devils can survive about 2 ice strikes.

The devil also has a tail that gives it a second attack.

Not at all. Vampires take the full 18 damage from ice strike. Devils reduce the damage by 8 by their armour, and it is then only increased to 15 damage. They can take twice as many hits as vampires.

Except that the devils can survive 37% more damage.

You don't need to use dwarven hammers. For the 5500 blood slaves your 100 vampire lords cost, you can build 68 soul contracts without hammers, 91 with hammers.

Throwing them at someone repeatedly doesn't matter that much when they can be defeated without any real losses.

Not that many will perish. Virtually none if they sit in a castle.

But since they are mediocre summons, it's possible to defeat them without suffering too many losses.

This really doesn't matter one bit. The one time costs to create the necessary items are washed out in the long term, and 40 blood slaves for two boosters is still cheaper than 10 death gems for a blood nation.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

ehh, vampires are over-rated, IMO.

sure, its nice having a couple small hordes available for internal security, but otherwise they definitely seem to lack in punch. or as a takedown squad for a couple SC's, sure.

Devils are tougher, have far higher attack and defense, better MR, and vastly superior morale. Sure, vampires come back if they're fighting in your dominion, and they aren't taken over by undead mastery, but it seems to me a strategy that takes as it's premiss the fact that you are already winning by dominion push is, well, somewhat optimistic.

and the cold susceptibility, while potentially deadly, just doesn't seem to come into play so much; so many things are immune to cold that it is the least used of the battlefield attack magics.

the only time i've encountered vampire hordes I used undead mastery myself. Vamp's usually have a 14 MR or so, undead mastery is usually cast for a base 11, and easy to cast two times in a row. that will generally do a number on the invading horde, especially as it stops to fight amongst itself, all the while taking some sort of battlefield damage hopefully.

using vampire hordes against pythium is especially amusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

I like the sight of endless hordes of vampires coming on the Ether Lord and Harbringer taking a stand in the corner of the battlefield. The rate of the wither-boning seems to be about equal to the rate of the vampires movement, so it looks that vampires are just coming and coming to get slaughtered until they finally break down and try to flee while getting killed by wrathful skies while they're crossing the field in the opposite direction http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

I think this is really quite a cool idea. But I agree with the others that it seems like mostly a defensive measure.

Some points:

1) Vampires reincarnate in the capital, which can be a long way from the front in a big map.
2) When vampires route, you need to gather them up from neighbouring provinces again which wastes you time.
3) In theory, it is true that if you continue to whittle down an enemy army while your own vampires reincarnate again and again, even if you lose an indefinite number of battles, you will eventually win. However, in reality, there is no indefinite number of battles. Your enemy only has to win a limited number of battles in order to take your capital, and then your vampires can no longer reincarnate.
4) IIRC, having a vampire lord summon a vampire takes up his action for that turn. Having a devil generated from soul contract is automatic. So you could have the guys will soul contracts travel with the army and it would grow over time.

However, I still like the idea of a vampire army a lot. I'd personally like to see a White Wolf type vampire nation mod.

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Well, for a vampire centric nation, there's already Black Forest Ulm, which has a vampire national summon, and a general Transylvanian feel as opposed to the more Teutonic feel of the other Ulm themes. It's not ALL vampires, but what would an all-vampire nation eat? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

I know about Black Forest Ulm but I'm talking about a really all vampire nation. Maybe something like Ermor, but with no auto-summons, something like Death -3 required, few or no gold recruitables, everything summoned with blood slaves. The ultimate expand or die nation. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

You'd have vampire spies able to instill uprising, vampire mages (maybe with ilithid type paralyzation powers), vampire / werewolf gangrels (no etherealness, no flying, berserk, high regen, lots of attacks per round) etc.

Edit: I was mucking about White Wolf's site when I found this. Quite aan interesting read:

Vamps vs Wolves - How Should It Balance?

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

yeah but it is -2 damage or something like that .


i would like to know though because it does paralyzing damage what this effect does ?




that the vampires are undead is probably their great weakness . but if it forces your opponent to consider some wither bone mage squads when you mix in then something different it is good too .


since the vampires + the devils are more or less generated for free they are special .
you can get no other quite good summon in this numbers so cheap .

they are both excellent fodder at least .
the devils are toughter true but the vampires on the other hand can luckily kill perhaps a few scs and quite reliable thugs .
if you enemy considers really casting lots of wither bones this is even greater because your other troops mixed in are then not targeted at all .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Hey Boron, I agree with almost everything you have said and analyzed here. Caelum and Abysia incredibly strong late game with these strats.

But... didn't I beat you in an MP game with me playing Marignon? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

lol yeah sure but this is what i have said anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
i said marignon will probably rush 1-2 opponents to death but then a stronger opponent will kill you in mid-lategame anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


since in a 2 player game on urgaia i am the only opponent this is different though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


it is for games with 1-4 players and less than 100 provinces vanheim , marignon , ulm etc. are extremely strong .
in midsized games like inland they still have a good chance but it is already quite hard to win with marignon especially there .

in orania / karan / faerun / world map etc. it is almost impossible to win with vanheim / marignon etc .
the good thing though is that if you take d3 on your pretender midgame with spectres even marignon can reach enough magic flexibility to start clamhoarding / fetish hording / blood hunt etc.


so with getting magic flexibility by opponent rushing and getting their searched provinces and then midgame relying on spectres/indy mages for flexibility even marignon is probably quite good lategame too .

i think though vampires are strong and so are devils as graeme pointed out i saw it all in all though a bit too narrow .

marignons knights of the chalice + flaming arrows x-bows are quite dangerous too .
sure especially by lightning battlemagic they get killed quite well .

but vampires get killed by wither bones quite well .

devils get killed quite well by staff of storms + wrathful skies + lightning battle spells .



so everywhere is a counter .


the only thing which makes vampires so special is their immortality .

in a 1on1 they lose though probably against fire blessed knights of the chalice / vans too .


the only "sad" thing is that most national troops are kinda useless .
all archers with wind guide / flaming arrows are not bad , but friendly fire is an issue .
most blessable troops are good , expect vans + were jaguars all are capitol only though afaik .

finally the berserk troops ( minotaurs ) and jotunheims troops because they are so tough are good .


almost all other troops are somewhat really bad though which is about 3/4 .
as pickles said in the other thread as ulm especially i don't really care which of my 10 different HI's i produce since they are all very very similiar .
they are unfortunately though so slow that their use is anyway limited .
i prefer x-bows/sappers + knights over all kinds of ulm HI because the knights can luckily reach at least the enemy archers/mages with luck quite quick and the sappers/x-bows can do some damage .
the hi though is just too slow , gets decimated extremely by magic damage spells already earlygame , then is swarmed and routed .
enc 6-10 + move of 5-9 makes the ulmish hi ****ty.
att is "only"10 but with fatigue it drops a bit to 7-9 depending on fatigue .

so the ulmish infantry will be quite fatigued when reaching finally the enemy + be at least 3-4 battle rounds under full fire .
even early game a caelum army with just quickness + aim + lightning will decimate them pretty quick .
midgame either massfalsehorrorspawning or massorblighntnings will be a pain .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

lol yeah sure but this is what i have said anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
i said marignon will probably rush 1-2 opponents to death but then a stronger opponent will kill you in mid-lategame anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


since in a 2 player game on urgaia i am the only opponent this is different though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


it is for games with 1-4 players and less than 100 provinces vanheim , marignon , ulm etc. are extremely strong .
in midsized games like inland they still have a good chance but it is already quite hard to win with marignon especially there .

in orania / karan / faerun / world map etc. it is almost impossible to win with vanheim / marignon etc .
the good thing though is that if you take d3 on your pretender midgame with spectres even marignon can reach enough magic flexibility to start clamhoarding / fetish hording / blood hunt etc.


so with getting magic flexibility by opponent rushing and getting their searched provinces and then midgame relying on spectres/indy mages for flexibility even marignon is probably quite good lategame too .

i think though vampires are strong and so are devils as graeme pointed out i saw it all in all though a bit too narrow .

marignons knights of the chalice + flaming arrows x-bows are quite dangerous too .
sure especially by lightning battlemagic they get killed quite well .

but vampires get killed by wither bones quite well .

devils get killed quite well by staff of storms + wrathful skies + lightning battle spells .



so everywhere is a counter .


the only thing which makes vampires so special is their immortality .

in a 1on1 they lose though probably against fire blessed knights of the chalice / vans too .


the only "sad" thing is that most national troops are kinda useless .
all archers with wind guide / flaming arrows are not bad , but friendly fire is an issue .
most blessable troops are good , expect vans + were jaguars all are capitol only though afaik .

finally the berserk troops ( minotaurs ) and jotunheims troops because they are so tough are good .


almost all other troops are somewhat really bad though which is about 3/4 .
as pickles said in the other thread as ulm especially i don't really care which of my 10 different HI's i produce since they are all very very similiar .
they are unfortunately though so slow that their use is anyway limited .
i prefer x-bows/sappers + knights over all kinds of ulm HI because the knights can luckily reach at least the enemy archers/mages with luck quite quick and the sappers/x-bows can do some damage .
the hi though is just too slow , gets decimated extremely by magic damage spells already earlygame , then is swarmed and routed .
enc 6-10 + move of 5-9 makes the ulmish hi ****ty.
att is "only"10 but with fatigue it drops a bit to 7-9 depending on fatigue .

so the ulmish infantry will be quite fatigued when reaching finally the enemy + be at least 3-4 battle rounds under full fire .
even early game a caelum army with just quickness + aim + lightning will decimate them pretty quick .
midgame either massfalsehorrorspawning or massorblighntnings will be a pain .

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Boron, I think you have a tendency to discount what your opponent can do too quickly. When you post a strategy and ask for a counter, usually you get three or four counters which you immediately dismiss with a counter-counter. In practice, I really don't think it's that easy. As others have pointed out, you are presuming turn 100 and having 50+ vampire lords and being able to push dominion. First of all, how did you get to that point? Opponents aren't going to idly sit back and let you collect vampire lords without doing something of their own.

You state that Flames from Afar or Murdering Winter can take care of opposing preachers, mages, etc. Well, the same goes for them, they can use either of those spells to decimate your leaders, too. You say you will protect yours with domes, well, your opponents can too. The point is, everything you say you will use to nullify your opponent's threats, your opponent can likewise use to nullify your threats. Because each side has limited resources, it then becomes a matter of which counter is used at which point in the game.

Having said that, I'm not trying to be harsh, and I hope that I never, ever, ever, face an opponent with 50 vampire lords.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

This is the problem with with posing game balance changes based on theory that hasn't been adequately tested.

- Kel

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Vanheim? What are you talking about? Vanheim is top tier.

Don't bother with wither bones if your opponent is using vampires. Ice strike, falling fires, blade wind, since they all do the same amount of damage and cost less fatigue.

We've already explained that marching doesn't cost fatigue.

Are you not planning to use any mechanical men or or clock wirk horrors, or any master smith's with blade wind?

Re: lategame balance . are my concerns true ?
 

Aye, I agree with Graeme and other posters. There are many ways to screw pure vampires armies. They certanly have their uses, but I don't feel they are overpowered in any way, comparable to other end-games strategyies.