Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I like WC and I think it is a valid, if somewhat boring, tactic to use it. I do think, however, that options for utilizing valid counters to it could be increased. Here are a couple of small suggestions.

1. Make Staff of Storms a Very Powerful magic item

2. Some counter-spells could be thought of, here is one idea I posted in the Wishlist:
Sunburst: Conjuration 6, Fire4 Astral1, Fatigue 200-, calls for the warm rays of the sun upon the battlefield, clearing the skies, and thus has a chance (mage casting strength + d6oe vs. opposing mage casting strength + d6oe) of eliminating any any storms, mists, or rain currently active; in addition, it automatically casts "fanaticsm" once upon coming into effect.

What do you think?

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Adding +2 Air magic required (bringing it to 5), and 3-4 air gems required.
Put it on 7th or 8th level of research.
Staff of Storm = lvl 6 construction, 40 air gems.

I'd think this is sufficient.
It will be more or less on pair to Fire Storm and Astral Tempest.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Yeah wrathful skies is too cheap .

It could be increased to air 5 needed and 6 airgems must be used and 600- fatigue .

Atm wrathful skies with A3 , 2 airgems and 200- fatigue is very cheapo .
The similiar fire storm requires F5 , 5 firegems and 500- fatigue .

And together with a storm wrathful skies is stronger + the storm makes firemagic weaker + avoids flying almost completely so the grounded enemy army has to suffer the wrathful skies probably a bit longer .


But in lategame you will face anyways only strong armies + SCs + strong mages which are all immune to wrathful skies anyway so it is probably wrong to worry about wrathful skies at all since it is only effective for a couple of turns in midgame .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

you are speaking of MP here Boron? I never saw an end game where a wrathful skies cant be devastating somewhere.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

What he means, I think, is that in the late game, Wrathful Skies is a fact of
life, and almost everyone is immune to it. As for me, I do not think that
Wrathful Skies is what needs to be balanced. Instead, I would allow protection
spells to stack. Thus a casting of 'Storm Warriors' and 'Gaea's blessing' would
make your troops immune. I think that anyone who can stack two mass-protection
spells deserves to laugh at elemental damage.

I understand that, because of the way protection spells are coded, making them
stack is no easy task, so I have little hope for Dominions II... but still
expect that Illwinter will at least look into it for Dominions III.

If people really feel that Wrathful Skies is a problem in Dominions II, which
is agruable at best, I think that the way to balance would be significantly
reduce its power. Why? Because we have Fire Storm, which is a much harder
spell to cast. Instead of homogenizing the two spells, why not have Fire Storm
as the much more powerful spell, and Wrathful Skies as a more common, but less
effective alternative?

How weak do I think Wrathful Skies should be? The average damage on a tough
troop(30hp) should be neutralized if the unit has 50% shock protection and
regeneration. With Storm it would still be double that.

But once again, I do not think there is anything wrong with Wrathful skies.
There are enough air nations, indy mages, and alternative methods of clearing
the battlefield of wimps...

Nerfing whatever works for the sake of the mythical beast called 'Balance' is a
certain way to a boring game. The choice between removing a feature and adding
a counter should be very easy to make.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Wrathful skies makes armies a waste of resources very early in the game. Many find that this "ruins" the game since so many unit types become irrelevant so quickly.

I personally find that a nice A7 casting requierment ( and a similar bump to all battlefield spells ) works quite nicely. It still possible to cast the spell, but it is very expensive to get a caster than can do it.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

From what I've heard, in Dom I national troops were too good and spells too weak. Now, it appears in attempting to balance it out in Dom II they've overshot the mark, and troops are useless and spells too strong. So, hopefully, they have something else in mind for Dom III (kinda like halving all income from Dom I in Dom II) that will balance things.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Yeah basically as Tuidity said .

In lategame you just field then either almost only SCs or cheap troops en hordes which replenish for free , mainly vampires + devils or really tough troops , e.g. tartarians , abominations or airimmune troops , mainly mech men and storm demons .

All your SCs are airimmune anyways so Wrathful skies is not such a big danger imo .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

The troop mix you describe is a consequence of wrathful skies, amongst other things, though. So saying that the spell is spell is not a problem based on that is arguably a little disingenious.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

You could then say that Airmagic is in general too strong .

Even if Wrathful skies wouldn't exist Air would still be 1st priority for most players because Air is AN damage and has good precision .

Lightning , Shimmering Fields , Thunderstrike , Orb lightning and Shock wave are excellent spells too .


But since there are already enough counters in the game it is imo balanced enough .

And Airnations have 2 big problems already anyways :
Problem 1 : after 5 turns normally your Airmages just spam battlesummons http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif
Problem 2 : If you face Air immune stuff your Air mainly mages are rather useless in this combat , especially true for caelum , vanheim and man . Most severe though for vanheim because the Vans are Air-blood mages so they have no other battlefield spells while caelum mages could at least cast water spells like frozen heart and Pythium has good astral magic .


Airmagic is indeed the most lethal battlemagic but expect for boots of flying , AQs and staffs of storm + of course the few gems needed for wrathful skies you don't need Air Magic much .

Imo it is really quite fine as it already is :
Air : Best direct damage battlefield magic , AQs
Fire : 2nd best direct damage battlefield magic , artillery via flames from sky
Earth : dwarfen hammers , good summons like mech men
Nature : fever fetishes , GoH , GoR , good summons like lamia queens , ivy kings , charm
Astral : best indirect battle spells with soul slay and the like , mind duel , wish , Sc items like lucky coin , Amulet of antimagic etc.
Water : Clams , Water queens , Boots of quickness , Jade armor
Death : Summons , Summons , Summons ... , Wraith swords
Blood: Summons , Summons , Summons ... , Blood thorn , Hell sword

So to really do well you should have about 6 of all 8 possible magics at least covered , even better all 8 .
This is a sign of good balance .

In a further patch Wrathful skies requirements could be upped to air 5-7 and false horrors could be a bit nerfed but that's really all that should be considered . If more is done it really harms the game imo and maybe even those 2 changes harm the game already .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

> The troop mix you describe is a consequence of wrathful skies, amongst other
> things, though. So saying that the spell is spell is not a problem based on
> that is arguably a little disingenious.

Exactly, so instead of trying to get rid of all the other things, let us allow
the nation's mages to protect their troops. Here are a few 'other things' and
a few suggestions:

Wrathful skies, Fire Storm, etc... - allow elemental resistance spells to stack.
Astral Tempest, Soul Drain, etc... - allow magic resistance spells to stack.
Life drain - introduce a 'Hold Life' flag, as well as caster, AE and mass buffs.
Monstrous, etherial, magical, undead meat shields - create spells similar
to 'Weapons of sharpness' that enchant the troops' weapons accordingly.

Speaking for myself, I would love to be able to use magic to make my troops
matter in late game. It's a bummer to have to shelter one's three-stars
principles behind walls because they have become irrelevant.

And as an additional bonus, by introducing all these protection/buffing spells
in Dominions III, Illwinter can strenghten Water magic, which, right now, is
somewhat lacking.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Tudijy: Stacking enchantments/buffs would reward players trying to cover all possible paths in order to reap the full benefits of the buffs. While this might serve to deal with wrathfull skies and increase the duration of national troops it would promulgate an unappealing warlords III'ish mischmasch buff approach. I would prefer if you did not stand to gain from buffing soldiers with combinations of the type: warriors of muspelheim + warriors of niefelheim + army of lead + army of gold + body ethreal + barkskin. I find ethreal, cold and heat aspected, soldiers with bodies of both lead and gold with bark for skin a little unaestetic.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Will there be a 2nd form of upkeep in form of Mana or something like that for spells too in Dom 3 ?

Then the issue could be solved imo by making "permanent" spells which give this way "enchanted" troop 50% resistence but cost upkeep each turn .
E.g. a spell for lightning resistence which costs 1 airgem per creature to cast + 1 Mana as Upkeep each turn and gives the troop 50% lightning resistence .

Mana is then e.g. 5 per Province + 5xNumber of Gems gained from sites/turn + 1 per 1000 Population if you have a magically skilled nation like Ermor etc. .

I would wish some more possibilities to enchance troops like Tuidjy as well because i agree with him .
In current Dominions you can outfit all your leaders very well and prepare them well for most situations with the right equipment but with your troops you can only do battlefield buffs which are expensive and not good enough .

So you just try to get the really good troops as quick as possible which are mainly the 200+ hp beasts like abominations , then Mech men and finally the really cheap creatures which are still very powerful , mainly vampires from Vampire lords + devils from soul contracts .
After turn 50 if you see troops you will only see troops from the above mentioned types which are about 10 out of about 500 possible troops .

So a system with permanent ritual like buffs for troops in Dom 3 would be imo a good idea . This is quite well done in Aow 2 SM already (one of the few things where it is a bit superior to Dom 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif) .

A 2nd form of magical upkeep for all summons would also reduce the extremely exponential growth in lategame a lot because you would have to household with your resources a bit more and wouldn't be able to do things like summoning 30 new Vampire lords from turn 70 or 80 on each turn .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

This is wierd. One hour ago, I downloaded the Last turn of the multiplayer game
I'm playing, and as I was looking at my Arch-devils, Ice devils, Storm demons,
and plain old devils, shielded by Abysian Intantries, led by a Virtue, and
backed by hordes of archers and crossbowmen, I was reminded of my favorite
Warlords III stacks - based on the orc race's debuff units (disease, poison,
fear, etc...) and padded with Allies like Archangels, Demons and Dragons.

I am afraid that as a card carrying member of Powergamers Anonymous I should
just shut up and not draw too much attention to myself, lest I suffer the
wrath of the Powers that Be.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I think JO's point should be taken more seriously.

Very early in the dom2 manual (dont have it with me, cant quote, but I will paraphrase), we can read in the section "Choosing A Nation" that some nations will have certain advantages over others, but by using proper strategy, a balance should able to be obtained. I think this is a very important vision.

It would be foolish to want to make, for example, Air Magic non-advantageous. But it would even more foolish to implement a feature which is either a no-brainer (since this will reduce the *fun* of the game, if nothing else, and that is more tragic than any maximizer's nightmare) or for which there is no plausible counter.

If it turns out that WC is good against so many things that using national troops is foolish, or that it is risk-free in that it is just too good an investment, then it seems that it is imbalanced. It would be obviously imbalanced if there is nothing which can be done against it whatsoever in many contexts.
If it turns out to be the case that if you invest in large forces of national troops backed up with strong spellcasters of your nation who have researched excellent spells, and that with these forces you are unable to beat back a few evocation-6 casters whose implementation cost a fraction of yours -- even if you successfully utilize the counters available for you -- then this seems sad to me.

Wrath Skies requires Evoc. 6 and Construction 4, but you can even forget Construction 4 if you summon storms yourself and go with Alteration 1 for resist lightning. It is easy and relatively risk-free to cast. If you lose some mages -- then so be it, there are more where those came from.

It seems to me that for such a minimal risk investment, the spell is simply too cheap. It should either be harder to cast (require a4 or a5) or require more gems or both, as well as being an evoc-6 spell. I think there should also be a way to counter the storm aspect of it (see my original post).

I think this, used for other contexts in dom2, would make the game simply more *fun*, because more options are open, and this game has LOTS of options. I dont care as much about winning or losing as much as having fun.
In other words, despite claims to the opposite that the spell is not over-effective (which may be true), I still feel that by changing it, the game would be optimized by making it more variable and hence more fun.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

@ Tinktank ( quoting would be too long http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) :

You are not argumenting for the games sake but only for your preffered playstyle .

You love national troops but wrathful skies is just a good counter vs. national troops .
There is the really obvious solution of SCs against this though . And there are enough good summoned troops that can withstand wrathful skies long enough .

Because of supplyissues you will rarely have big enough national troop armies anyways that wrathful skies can really hurt you !

If you have e.g. 60 national troops , e.g. as marignon 30 x-bows and 30 flaggelants + 2 mages leading them this force costs you approximately 1000 gold to recruit .

The wrathful sky user has some difficulties :
If he uses cloud trapeze he can't bring with him an army .
But if you do this then he is alone and he is the attacker and could very likely be killed in the first battle round by your troops .

Furthermore you have to invest 20 airgems for a staff of storms most likely .

The wrathful skies is not the problem . As long as you don't have an army more worth then about 1000 gold using wrathful skies against you is not cost effective .
In early-midgame you rarely have greater armies and in lategame you have countertroops + SCs en masse anyways like mech men , tartarians , whatever .


Have you really played a mp game so far where wrathful skies ruined your game or do you just speculate like i did some months before with my "invincible" vampirehoard idea which turned out in practice as garbage ?

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

There is a figure of speech :
Strategy is about winning .
Dominions is a hardcore strategy game so its fangroup should be powergamers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif .

Fortunately there are so many things to think of that you always forget something so dominions is complex enough and you can't really powergame http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif .
Unlike e.g. Age of Wonders 2 or most other games where it is quickly obvious whats powerful and what is not .

Cause as soon as i find lots of cheap exploits normally a game gets boring for me . In dominions this is nearly impossible http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

huh? how is killing an army worth 1k gold not cost effective?
For example to take out that marignon army I would stick a bottle of living water(so that the mage doesn´t retreat), a ring of tamed lighning and a robe of missile protection(or boots of quickness to cast air shield yourself) on the wrather and position him in the back so he is unreachable by the mages.The crossbowmen won´t hit with halved precision and only half of them firing. The flagellants will be busy with the waterelemental if they even come that far.

You stick the staff of storms on another cloudtrapezing mage, scripted to retreat.
So for 8 gems and the time investment of two mages I can kill your army worth 1k gold. Sounds like a very nice deal to me.

And this is even without considering things like immortal pretenders casting wrath, or hard to kill units like airqueens.

wrathful skies doesn´t ruin the game, it just makes it not cost effective to build national armys after the first 15-20 turns. And that means that lots of the individual nation´s flavor gets lost.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I think one big problem in Dom 1 was that the battlefield spells such as wrathful skies were totally negated by the 100% immunity protection spells granted. And when all the battlefied-wide protection spells were nerfed to grant only 50% protection while BF-wide damage spells were left as they stand...

And in addition to that, wrathful skies has the perk of being lightning damage - armour negating and stun.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I'm a big proponent of spells that counter others. WS may be too strong/too easy to cast, but adding say a battlefield version of dispel or changing the dynamic of battlefield enchants--maybe working them like globals so that only the most powerful one(s) can exist at a single time would be interesting. In such cases spells like Gaia's Blessing that place an effect on all friendly units could be changed from Battlefield enchants (spells that produce effects on a cyclical basis) to Mass enchants (spells that create a durable effect).

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

As has been said in this thread, in order to compete, you must field a force that can survive Wrathful Skies. This forces everyone to use the same small subset of units (lightning immune leaders and units). The great variety of unit types present in the game (and therefore, in my opinion, a lot of the flavor) is rendered meaningless.

Even if Wrathful Skies was more difficult to cast, the ability to build gem producing items combined with the superiority of certain summoned units, makes national units unviable. Similary, unit producing items (i.e. soul contracts) product the same effect. Why have any unit except a devil (assuming you have any units at all, you could just field leaders) ?

The game is deep and it is a shame that MP is reduced to a few units and strategies. I'm not very experienced, but from what I have seen and what I have read this is true.

But, I've heard a lot of good possible solutions that would make more units viable. I would love to see large armies of both National and Summoned troops backed up by mages and not just mage armies and SCs.

Regardless, I'm having a blast http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It's good to see Illwinter here discussing this stuff. It bodes well for Dom 3.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Question: Where exactly does the staff of storms-bearer retreat to after cloud trapezing?
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Cloud Trapeze: 3 gems
Storm: 1 gem
Staff of Storm: 20 gems
Ring of tamed Lighting: 5 gems
Copper Plate: 5 gems
Living Clouds: 3 gems
21 Black Hawks: 5 gems
Wrathful Skies: 2 gems

Fires from Afar: 10 gems
</pre><hr />
So if you use Wrathful Skies aggressively with nowhere to retreat, it is quite a little gem investment: You must bring along an expensive Staff of Storms, for otherwise all flyers present at the defensive side will easily wipe out the mages before they can even cast storm! Even if you bring a couple of decoy air mages (1000 Gold = 4-9 mages), which in turn increases the investment for cloud trapezing! So a sensible distant attack with two mages will cost about 300 gold and 41 gems = 2*3(CT) + 20(SoS) + 2*5(CP) + 2(WS) + 3(LC), not counting gems (or path-boosters) possibly required to make a mage casting wrathful skies (Air3, 200 fatigue)!

A naked AirQueen costs 50 air gems and is reusable after destroying one army...

What is the expected damage of four castings of Fires from Afar against non-abysians?

So I do not think that Wrathful Skies is too powerful: Just try out to rely on it and see where that ends! Sure, you can destroy an army with seemingly nothing by using it, but the cost-effectiveness results from the fact that your opponent will never rebuilt that army because he thinks that wrathful skies is so powerful. I use Wrathful Skies once or twice and then I rely on the fear that it invokes!

However, I do agree that Storm Warriors and similar spells should yield a bit more than 50% protection, say 60-70% and should stack differently (see earlier post somewhere else). Same is true for most other protection types...

Another thing that bugs me are those small area protection spells. Why isnt there anything in between 'battlefield' and 'area 1+'? I think that a capable air mage should be able to shield a group of 20 archers with, say 65% protection, with a single spell...

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

But I think this is just the point. Jeffr just said it very well: Because Wrathful Skies exists as it does, there is a strong disincentive to produce armies of national troops. This is not a "problem" from a balance perspective, since you can make something else (as Boron does) but from a "fun" perspective, which is in my opinion even more important: Viable, multifaceted options with which this game is overabundant become suboptimal, and that reduces the number of competetive strategies, and that is -- for me and obviously quite a few other players -- *less fun* if we are also interested in winning. Yes, WC can be dealt with; but doing so hampers a lot of the goodness of this excellent game and may potentially turn it into a less good one.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

No! Just keep on building those armies and keep on running against the enemy! It might be depressive, but you should grinde them down. One cannot defend every single province at once and wrathing squads are limited by the available gems. For 1000gp you can produce quite a nice number of troops (in case of a sensible productivity scale). Does wrathful skies protect against Ashen Empire in a long run? Propably not, and neither against hordes of average men at arms backed up by few better units...

PS: I think the problem really is that people are just too afraid to loose/use all those affectionately built little neat toy soldiers, even though it would be sensible to do so!

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I'd like to think as you do, but I can't.

Once the initial investment has been made (3 or 4 Staffs of Storms, with Vanheim these are automatically forged with hammers, a couple of Air mages, perhaps some path-boosters, and AQ if you want) there is an exceptionally small diminishing return to continue to cast WC. 3 or 4 WC raiding-parties (and note: they dont *have* to Cloud Trapeze in; in fact, they are usually quite more devastating if they use normal movement, since then no normal army can move on top of them during the movement phase -- also note that some of the more conspicuous WC casters are also exceptionally stealthy (Van, Man LoT)) will be able to raze more than you can produce, and they need 6-8 air gems per turn. It is very difficult to make armies to match that. Almost any nation will have 8 airgems per turn by midgame, and an Air nation will often have a lot more than that.
So although I would like to continue to beat my head against a wall in a fun way, I will eventually run out of money while my opponent will fail to run out of air gems.

Also, I was taking what you said (what I quoted) very seriously: He who meets a WC-spammer will, as you say yourself, no longer build those armies. Schade!

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

No Chazar is right imo . Normally there is plenty of money available . 100 fire gems give you between 1500-4500 money . By early lategame you will have 100 fever fetishes .

So just keep storming with e.g. 10 armies of 30 flaggellants or pikeneers and 20 x-bows and 1 or 2 inquisitors almost every turn . Such an army costs about 600-700 gold but can overcome small obstacles and maybe even thugs .
Firegems and thus money is in much higher quantities available then airgems in a normal game .

As Chazar says Wrathful skies is still quite an investment .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

umm why would you want to cloud trapeze in the middle of nowhere in the enemys mainland? I´d just let him pay upkeep for that army and wait till he moves it to my border and is a threat to me. It´s obviously no problem then to retreat.

to point out how ridicolously powerful wrathful skies is:
in the game "god is a bullet" c´tis invaded me with a force consisting of about 120 vine ogres 40 mages(lamia queens and shamans mostly), 50 longdead archers, 20 fairies and 4 tartarian titans. He has the gift of health up, so his troops were extra beefy even after entering my doinion.
So I did three things to greet him:
I cast flames from the sky(20 fire gems) , it killed 39 units.
I cast murdering winter(30 watergems) which killed 19 units

I cloud trapezed my wrathful skies caster in(4 air gems).
When the battle started 16 fairies,20 archers, 12 mages and a few vine ogres were already dead from the artillery spells. The battle lasted 5 turns(until his forces had reached my caster and triggered his ritual of returning) . During that short time wrathful skies killed 17 mages 23 archers and a few vineogres. His mages had mostly 15-20 hp due to the goh effect.

So the lvl 6 spell was far more powerful than the other two artillery spells(note that the battle resolved last, so there wasn´t as much to kill for wc) and it cost only 5 air gems.

What could c´tis do to avoid such a disaster?
1) Equip every mage with lighning immune items. This however is very expensive and it would hurt even more to lose them due to other battlefield killing spells.
2) only field scs like his tartarians. This however means the game winner is the one who has the better scs, which is pretty boring.

Of course your point is valid, that if you use wrathful skies in the worst way possible(aggressively while losing all the equipment) , then it might be a big gem investment.
This doesn´t prove however, that the spell is not overpowered.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I don´t know about your math, but you could just alchemize those 40 firegems you need for 600 gold(27 with alchemy stone) into 10/7 air gems and fuel your wrathful skies with them. You have to factor the upkeep of that army in as well(with strat move 1 they will take a long time to reach the enemy forts) . And the wrather doesn´t even have to cloud trapeze.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Turin,

I am glad to see that someone else is playing the game game I am playing.

I don't have any idea why people would like to keep wrathful the way it is. The only possible reason I can see is so that they can beatdown on people who do not know about it's power and that is sad.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Or they have not witnessed first hand how early it can be obtained and how devastatingly effective it is. Saying you should just keep throwing troops at the wrathful squad is insanity... there is no effective counter at the research levels that wrathful can be obtained and effectively implemented.

Just for the record, I agree, wrathful is way too powerful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Cause it is boring to nerf everything into oblivion just for the sake of "perfect" balance .

Dominions is not Starcraft or Battle for Middleearth where balancing is easy because of only about 30 different units .

Maybe the requirements should be upped a bit but that's all . It should not be nerfed into oblivion like the VQ .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Who said anything about "oblivion"? I would love to see wrathful nerfed but not into oblivion I want it still to be a choice but I don't want it to dictate how the game is played either.

What is boring is to have one dominant strategy ( wrathful ) and have all other stratgies be a concequence of that strategy (ie: only deploy lighting immune troops ).

The VQ was hardly nerfed into oblivion. It was nerfed such that it was not the most optimal pretender. The GK filled that role and hence he should be next on the chopping block.

I agree. Something like A7 works dandy.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

If some unit/spell (in this case Wrathful Skies) is used by everyone, then it must be more powerful in relation to other units/spells. In this case, it's value for the cost(i.e. bang for the buck) should be reduced. You could decrease the bang, up the bucks (casting cost, casting level, research level, etc.) or both.

Units/Spells that are not used by anyone or seldom used should have their bang for the buck increased. Increase the bang (unit/spell power) and/or decrease the cost.

I believe Zen's mod attempts to do this.

Maybe in Dom3 there would be some way of capturing MP statistics on what spells/units were used the most/least. Over time, this would give a pretty good indication of what needed to be scaled up and what needed to be scaled down.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Yeah but that's the problem . I agree that the VQ was too good but now after the VQ is nerfed if the GK gets also nerfed then if this is continued we end up by having all pretenders having equal stats .

Especially that the nerfed VQ is now taken away from Ermor is a thing i still don't understand as well .


The problem is really to know when to stop .

If the Gk would get a small bit nerfed like 25 new path costs and Wrathful skies needs A5 or so to be cast that could be a good idea but i am still not sure if it is really necessary at all .

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I have actually played Caelum quite often, and I have won most times, although my local friends were newbies like myself.

Despite being Caelum, I found it pretty difficult to use Wrathful Skies. Most times it did nothing or destroyed my own troops. Later on I learned some occasions where it was pretty useful to cast Wrathful Skies, but that are only a few. E.g. once I was overrun by Ashen Empire and Wrathful Skies seemed just ineffective. Another thing are enemy armies having scattered squads of fast troops (e.g. cavalary) which wipes out the chaff and the caster too fast for wrathful skies doing significant damage...

So maybe I am just stupid or inexperienced, but I learned that wrathful skies is not a cure to all situations, especially for the aggressive player.

However, these discussions avail nothing. Let's play rather...! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Hardly. Perfect balance would be where every pretender has equal utility when employed optimally which in a rich game like dom2 != equal stats.

The classic forumla seems to be: 1 tank designed to last a good 10 turns (3 or 4 of those closing of the other side) + 1 wrathful caster with SoS scripted to retreat (for most nations this is a harbringer with Air nations they can use national mages ). This forumla, seen time and again, works wonders.

I agree, hard stats help a lot in figuring out what is going right/wrong.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Add a battlefield dispell of some sort.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

What was the battle plan of the C'tis army? I can't figure out what was planned. Why were there 40 mages? and longdead archers with faeries? What would happen if somebody RoS-ed that army?

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

the battle plan was probably to build up mass communions(most of them were c´tis shamans). He had a titan scripted to army of lead vs RoS, the fairys were probably just leftovers from a fairy queen, the archers were there for the banefire effect.

RoS would be a good counter as well as wrathful skies, but it hits only once and his mages had mostly 15-20 hp from the gift of health.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Only if you assume everyone makes good choices.
Besides, not everyone uses Wrathful Skies.
Nevertheless, I tend to agree that I'd like to see Wrathful Skies be more difficult to cast, for my own tastes. I think it's a neat spell, but would rather it require a more powerful (and/or more expensively-prepared) mage.

Well, if it were a program which auto-generated an optional Nerf Du Jour mod to shut up forum whiners, maybe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

PvK

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

&gt; &gt; &gt; It should not be nerfed into oblivion like the VQ .

&gt; &gt; The VQ was hardly nerfed into oblivion. It was nerfed such that it was not the most optimal pretender.

Actually, I have not seen a VQ in play since the nerf, so I'd say 'oblivion' is indeed accurate. Personally I think that the VQ downgrade went WAY too far. I was never too afraid of undead pretenders, because there are a number of spells that take care of them real well. I was a newbie, and I cannot say I could have handled the VQ in her prime, but I have since killed a number of GKs in middle/late games, and frankly I do not see how the VQ pretender deserves the ridiculously high cost and the expensive paths.

By the way, I have not seen Black Forest Ulm much lately, either. The VQ was a way to make them half-way viable.

Right now, the only nations that can take a VQ without dooming themselves are Jotunheim, Caelum and Abysia (guess why!) and each of them can do a lot better

&gt; &gt; The GK filled that role and hence he should be next on the chopping block.

&gt; Yeah but that's the problem.

Hear, hear!

&gt; I agree that the VQ was too good but now after the VQ is nerfed if the GK gets also nerfed then if this is continued we end up by having all pretenders having equal stats .

Yes, and in any case, the good players, defined as those left standing after the smoke clears, are the first to move to the new Uberalla. I am in a game with Zen's mod, and I look at my boyfriend's turns in another. Funny how popular the Virtue has become, all of a sudden... or how well the Asinja leads Vanheim.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

&gt; Actually, I have not seen a VQ in play since the nerf, so I'd say 'oblivion' is indeed accurate. Personally I think that the VQ downgrade went WAY too far. I was never too afraid of undead pretenders, because there are a number of spells that take care of them real well. I was a newbie, and I cannot say I could have handled the VQ in her prime, but I have since killed a number of GKs in middle/late games, and frankly I do not see how the VQ pretender deserves the ridiculously high cost and the expensive paths.

Have you ever played a lich? Do they need to be un-nerfed from oblivion? The VQ was nerfed with the lich in mind. GK is not immortal. Immortals are difficult to evaluate as the immediate use of immortality might not be apparent (perhaps if you are flying).

&gt; By the way, I have not seen Black Forest Ulm much lately, either. The VQ was a way to make them half-way viable.

Half-way viable? I thought they were considered one of the most powerful nations by some players at a time. I never got the impression that the VQ was the main reason for this. But you are right, there is not much talk about BF Ulm anymore (in either direction, wich perhaps means that it is balanced http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ).

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

I use a VQ all the time... but that's just cause I am lazy and only use immortals so I don't have to be so careful with early creeping http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Besides... vampire chicks are hotttt.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

In actuality, BF is not what it once was, due to the Scout Bloodhunting. Most half-blood hunting nations (no nations with cheap blood hunters) were hurt when this change was done (which I was for). Because of it's mages, it's not at the front of the pack, but somewhere near the upper middle IMO. It has it's share of "What? Why would I recruit this when survivability/cost says I should just recruit Rangers so they can stealth" units, including Ghoul Guardians, Zweihanders and a total lack of priests. Their mages are subpar because there is no real mage in the selection, only half-mages that do other semi-cool things.

If I had to play Ulm and I wanted to have a competitive edge as well as wasn't in a game that has uberlow population so Blood Hunting has it's place, I'd still always pick BF. But it's still has Ulm's basic flaw. It's pretender has to do all the heavy lifting for that theme because nothing will really work without it. So your actual selection of Pretenders is much smaller than you'd really try.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

BF-Ulm seems to sit in much the same position as Pangaea. Since so few people play sneak-nations well, when they are played they tend to come as a big surprise. (hmmm almost a pun in that)

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

&gt; Have you ever played a lich?

No. I do not play male pretenders, and the Lich Queen loses 40% hps, 3 protection, 3 attack, and 3 strenght, compared to the Lich, and gets 2 Dominion for it. But even the lich itself is hugely underpowered. It is vulnerable to fire, and is both an undead and a construct, which makes it useless in middle-late game as a combatant. Immortality in my book is mostly a crutch for weak players - sure it is useful in the initial expansion, but I have never lost a pretender in the initial expansion. The lich does not fly, it is not etherial, its paths are relatively expensive for a low power combatant... Basically, it has nothing to recommend it.

&gt; Do they need to be un-nerfed from oblivion?

Oh, yes, please! For starters they should be cheapers, in base cost as well as path cost.

&gt; The VQ was nerfed with the lich in mind.

Well, if you want to balance pretenders with the lich in mind... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif Nevermind, keep going, nothing to see here, forget I said anything... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

&gt; GK is not immortal. Immortals are difficult to evaluate as the immediate use of immortality might not be apparent (perhaps if you are flying).

Immortality has two benefits for the good player. Recuperation and willingness to fight to the death in friendly domain. The first is a major benefit, but the undead are poor middle game combatants anyway, so it applies less to them. The second is only important if you are supporting your pretender with troops. But if you are fighting in your domain, you are either in trouble (because you are defending) or the other player is weaker than you (because he could not maintain his domain when he knew he was against an immortal)

&gt; &gt; By the way, I have not seen Black Forest Ulm much lately, either. The VQ was a way to make them half-way viable.

&gt; Half-way viable? I thought they were considered one of the most powerful nations by some players at a time.

That must have been before my time. I was fully indoctrinated over the Summer vacation. By then BF Ulm was labeled as limited in late game, too dependant on indies, and 'a few tricks pony'. Not as bad as the other Ulms, which are completely useless, but bad.

&gt; I never got the impression that the VQ was the main reason for this.

I don't know, using a VQ with Black Forest felt right. Now, it's impossible.

&gt; But you are right, there is not much talk about BF Ulm anymore (in either direction, wich perhaps means that it is balanced ).

Or maybe that it lost its charm, and no one bothers with it?

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

You haven't met uber-militiaman yet, who can kill half-equipped VQ (or dragon) in one hit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Well, usually you always have to fight in your dominion, any sensible opponent will first try to disrupt your better provinces with his hordes from hell, calls of wild, sneaky troops etc. With those, half-SC pretender can deal fine and immortality is a good insurance against opponent cunningly dropping couple of well prepared ID on top of those hiding wolves who took the province originally. It's always nice to get your pretender back after such surprise http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And also immortality allows you to take some astral on your pretender without fear of mind duel.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Once again a topic that has gone way off the road. VQs and Liches is a nice small-talk subject, but what does it has to do with 'Balancing Wrathful Skies'-topic? Nothing! So please, stop arguing about it or make a new topic...

Hope you guys won't give me the notorious "offender"-stamp. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

&gt; With those, half-SC pretender can deal fine and immortality is a good insurance against opponent cunningly dropping couple of well prepared ID on top of those hiding wolves who took the province originally

My sending a pretender to deal with a pack of wolves is about as likely as a couple of ice devils managing to scratch her.

A shot of my pretender in my ongoing game... of course, in that game, I would not be risking my pretender in combat unless the stakes were very high. She is equiped for forging and fighting off horrors, or she would have been sporting a few artifacts.

Re: Balancing Wrathful Skies
 

Is it turn 15 or something? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif