WTF? Gold?!
 

The gold to resource ratio is NOT balanced correctly at all. I understand this was to help people build bigger armies but it gives high gold to resource ratio nations way too big an advantage IMO. I'm playing games where I'm surplusing 1K+ gold because I just don't have the resources to keep up, this is WITH splurging on mercs as well. Nations like Ctis, Ryleh and Jotuns are going to be terrors it seems while the Japanese Late Era and other high resource themes seem kind of screwed.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Then set the multiplyers differantly. You know the way of it.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

I'm not directly disagreeing, but since the way we should play the game is going to change, might I suggest burning the gold on more castles? Come up with a system where when you notice a particular surplus developing, put down another castle. I know in the beginning this surplus outpaces the speed with which you can actualy build commanders to place the castles, but if you hire like 1 scout dedicated to raising castles, it might work.

Also try more labs for faster mage production and temples in every province. I'm sure there is a balance somewhere, but I wouldn't be surprised if things are a little unbalanced in the midst of all these changes right now, too. I might even restart my current Mictlan game simply so I can get a grip on managing my finances better. I too have a huge surplus that is running away from me. I also have that damn R'yleh spilling out of the seas running around in the lands I claimed as my own. I just can't quit this one ... just ... yet ...

=$=

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Yeah.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Well more gold just means you can build more castles to be able to build resource intensive units. Also in most cases in the late age from what I've seen a ton of gold just isn't a replacement for resource-heavy troops. Sure you can throw tons of no-armor troops at heavy infantry but they are going to die in droves, especially if you've got good archery support. With all the crossbows and whatnot in the late age you pretty much need the heavy armor to stand a chance against massed archers.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Word. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

IIRC, different ages have different amount of resources in the world. Did you notice the gold surplus in early or late age? The starting terrain also factors into this, as C'tis probably starts in a swamp or fresh water province or something, while Ulm starts in/near forest/mountains, and Agartha in mountains, etc.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Once you have a sufficient number of castles you can't have too many gold.
If a Ct'is player spend all his gold on 1 ressource troops instead of making forts, he must rush all other players fast, or one of them, making 10 castles then spending his gold on 30+ ressources troops, will destroy him . I think it's balanced as it is.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

I've never enough gold... It may be that you don't build enough castles and labs, so can't recruit much mages.
Magic goes a long way towards improving fragile troops - for example a lowly prot-8 unit is rather scary once Protected, Legions of Steeled-ed and Ethereal ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Thats good as it is actually. We can't spam so many mages at least like we could in Doms 2. In fact I still think that the mages should be even more expensive.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

see ... that's what confuses me. I had thought they wanted to stop the castle spamming technique. Instead, I find it even easier to do so as I can ALWAYS recruit a mage and still almost find time to build castle every other turn.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Yep, that is why I say, that mages should be even more expensive, especially because of the huge gold income. Perhaps the best national mages should cost ~600-800 gold.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Building few castles is not really spam, and that is what it's being suggested.
Why stop castle spamming anyway? Castle spamming was bad in SP because AI didn't build forts so it was almost like cheating. Now AI will also castle spam if he has enough money (on higher levels he will very often have money).

In MP it was just another tactic you or anyone else could use.

Note that castle, temple and lab prices also doubled so it's not really that easy to castle spam.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

I don't want to get into the balance of castle spamming + mass maging for nations with better non capitol mages but rather I'd like to go back to the original point that there are nations with purely heavy troops (aka Jomon) versus nations with the ability to switch with both and even having their most gold expensive troops be up on par or even better than most nation's resource heavy troops. (Van, Jotun, Ryleh, etc)

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

The TC AI out-castled me by a factor of two last game if you don't count fallen capitols. This is a much appreciated feature!

But seriously... don't bring up a "balance" issue unless you have sufficient evidence to suggest there is only one good strategy that is directly correlated to the excess gold available in Dom3. Even if that was true, suggest a change in the parameters for future games you wish to play in. Otherwise, you're just whining. If YOUR gold/resources are not balanced to what you would imagine would be efficient, YOU are the one responsible for picking the wrong scales.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Alright, I'll play anyone here in a duel with my blessed van's. And maybe after I trounce your 40 resource troops with them, you'll start seeing things my way?

PS.If Van doesn't convince people since they're supposed to be the elite sacreds, I'm sure my five million lobo guards + illithids later on will.

Plus I've already suggested it, the resource/gold ratio SHOULD be balanced. I thought dom III was supposed to encourage more use of non mage tactics, etc and give nationals more time on the field? Instead, now I see ZERO reason you wouldn't want to recruit your best mage every turn.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

As has already been stated, the key to the issue you think you're experiencing is that you need to build more castles. Building castles will allow you to build more resource-intensive troops. In essence, building castles is a way of 'buying' resources with gold. as simple as that.

The reason why this is not the same as Dom II castle-spamming is because you cannot control the type of castle you build now, and so it is often times more expensive and perhaps more importantly takes much longer to build than in Dom II.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

Well, I'll just go with the flow that time will tell. Personally I play all the gold intensive nations most of the time anyway, so it doens't effect me negatively in the first place.

Re: WTF? Gold?!
 

I think the resource gold ratio is better now then earlier since there is now a reason to build light infantery. Slingers have become useful.

The reason not to buil;d your best mages is that you will have gold over to build more castles and labs. Building two cheap mages at two diffrent labs is probably more research efficient and cheaper then recruiting your best mage.

If you are recruiting tons of your best mages to stand and research I doubt that is optimal in the long run.