Balance on small maps
 

It seems to me that on small maps Dom3 has lost a lot of its depth. Now it seems that the only and obvious plan is a bless plan. I was trying to think about alternatives, but to begin with, not many nations have much to offer. Caelum looked like one of candidates. To test it I setup duel vs trivial Helheim rush. I pick good scales, awake high-research pretender and go for evocation. Conflict with Helheim happens at turn 8. I'm obviously coming short of Evocation 4, so it's 2 eagle kings and 5 seraphs with bunch of mammoths and regular troops vs 22 F9W9-blessed helheim cavalry, Caelum regular troops can't do much, the only saving grace is that mammoths require few hits to get killed. seraphs kill about 3rd of enemies with lightning bolts before the battle is lost. Practically any regular troops are nearly useless vs power-blessed armies, some fire nation might have better chance with fire spells, but generally prospects look very bleak.

I think that the main problem is the cost of research. Basically early game doesn't play like Dominions now - it's more like a regular mainstream "rush" game. As an experiment, I've decided to wait few turns (neither hellheim nor caelum were moving or recruiting) just to get Evo-4 before the battle. With Thunderbolts Caelum won (though losing most of its army). But with current rules, it's unlikely to get to 4-th level before 8-9 turn rush. Maybe it would be good to lower the cost of research. Or permit buying research levels for design points (for example, spending 200 points to start with Evo-4). Then different nations could find various strategies instead of relying on trivial rush. Another idea is to disable bless effects until the pretender awakens... Buying research for points or delayed blessings are not likely to change the late game balance. Changing research cost can also be done only for lower level (while keeping higher cost for higher levels) - then it wouldn't affect the late game balance either.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

When you guys are playing these small maps, are you using standard research or easy research?

Re: Balance on small maps
 

If on game creation you set the money multiple to 50% and research to easy, the balance will move close to what it was in Dom2. If you use the default settings, you're right, bless rushes are much more powerful than they used to be.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

@alexti, I want to point out that the example you give isn't neccessarily a rule. You picked up for your example one of the best bless nations in dom. This alone is not enough to conclude that dominions now plays like a main stream "rush" game. If tests and/or players experience would indicate that *all* nations with ubber bless are unstoppable rush machines then that would have been something else.

As for example you gave, maybe an awake SC with access to fire resistance (or inherent fire resistance) and high prot. would have fared better?

I'm not saying that bless isn't a better strat. in dom-III then it was in dom-II, may very well be that it is, I'm saying that there may be specific counters available for different nations to deal with them.
If someone would do the research and find no such counters, well then, I hope to devs will introduce some, to keep dominions interesting.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Problem is that some nation's sacred troops are just extremely good. Best example is Helheim's Helhirdings. Not the blessings are causing the problem, but some imbalanced national sacred troops. They are just much better than the other national sacreds.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Not true, Helheim is somewhat easier to counter because they are not that numerous. Against Mictlan things would go much worse - you have only so many lightning bolts. And you can't really call a strategy viable if it will only work against one particular blessed nation. What are you going to do if you don't know whether you're going to meet Helheim or Mictlan?


So far that appears to be the case and those from beta team had quite a bit of time to come up with something.

Pretender SC will just allow you to defend one province while the enemy takes everything else. And have you tried it? All those plans require research either for casting or for forging and that's again hit the same problem with research speed.

I think that most experienced Dom players have tried and I'm sure if somebody has found a good approach we would read about it (or about encountering it in a blitz http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

This thread is just in hope that somebody would post the working plan.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I agree. Maybe playing small maps with 50% gold and easy research and large maps with default settings is the answer.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

DominionsFan is making a good point. Some nations have very good sacred troops, but not all of them. I wonder if it is a part of overall balance. How would Helheim do if blessed troops were banned? I think it would still be a decent nations - good access to magic, good battlefield mages and decent national troops. The only thing against them would be lack of cheap researchers.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

No-one will post such a plan, because there isn't any.

Those player you speak of are themselves rushing their enemies with SC-pretenders and/or overly-good blesses (which is F9, W9 and any N after the change) using overly-strong sacreds with multiple weapons/attacks (some even have light lances..), some of them even not capitol-only and most of them quite cheap ressource-wise.

They pay for this point-wise with Sloth:3, Death:3, Misfortune:1+ .
And it works, because Order:3 gives so much more gold that you 'grow' faster by your accelerated expansion than anyone with growth scale can. And order gets you rid of most events, therefore misfortune isn't a big problem. And even if disaster strikes in a provine - you have so much gold, so many provinces that it hardly matters.

As long as growth is negligible, order overly strong, some blesses double the combat value of sacred units, while other do next to nothing, this will not change.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

On first thought, I *really* like the idea of a sleeping or imprisoned pretender not granting bless effects... It makes sense thematically, and seems like it would be good for game balance - you might even be able to boost the points granted for sleeping or imprisonment a bit, if you did this. I also agree with others that for a small map (i.e. a short game) easy research makes a lot of sense. You're still unlikely to see a lot of level 9 spells, but it opens up a lot more of the research map.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Totally agree with Arralen, it has been agreed by the vast majority of the dom channel frequenters that bless effects are a bit too strong at the moment and the idea of sleeping/imprisoned not granting blesses is interesting. Though might call for a bit of rebalancing of some nations that seems fine with an uber bless. S&A's W5e's are devastating with a f9/w9 bless but balanced by the fact that they are relatively fragile and capital only. Van's on the other hand...

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Actually I like idea that dormant/imprisoned pretenders give no bless effect until they wake up. It would balance things nicely.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I agree. It seems logical, and fixes what appears to be a problem.

There would still be other reasons to take dormant but to use it for bless means you need to be banking on a long game

Re: Balance on small maps
 

It would certainly make the impending awakening of dormant or imprisoned gods feel more ominous. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Or, mmm, dormant pretenders giving only the minimum bless for each path until awake? It seems harsh to totally negate blessings, but if it takes 1 or 3 years for the full uber-bless to take effect, F9/W9/etc don't help with rushes, while still leaving moderate setups alone.

Going further : dormant (1 year) could give minimal bless for each bless path, while imprisoned gives none until awake, which would help balance wise, and also be thematic. A sleeping god's influence seeps through but not at full strength, while imprisoned pretenders have their influence caged until they escape.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I think that idea of dormant/imprisoned pretenders not giving bless sounds better and better. If dormant pretender awakes at turn 13, it still in time to benefit from sacred blessed troops while giving time other strategies to prepare. So dormant pretender will still make sense with blessing strategies. Of course dormant/imprisoned pretenders are useful in other cases too. Rainbow mage is probably practical dormant, if one takes a pretender to cover missing magic or to cast big spells later, imprisoned pretender look attractive. SC pretender can also be dormant while the required spells and items are being prepared.

So it seems, that there would be plenty of options and everything would have some use if non-active pretenders wouldn't provide blessing effects. Or if they were providing only minimal effects as it was suggested.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I dont have any mp experience.


But in Sp Blessings Really makes it feel like easy mode with the dormant option

Playing with Sauromatia

Using the Ophedia Lizard calvary things. With a 9f/9w bless.

40 of those and about 40 archers killed like 130 Jotun Giants of varying kinds with all of 6calvary losses and like 10 archers...

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I support the change with the sleeping pretenders aswell. Helhirdings are strong...(thinking of my last battle with them) ouch!

Re: Balance on small maps
 

What about Atlantis Living Pillar rush? Or Carnute rush? Or Caelum Temple Guard rush?

Lets compare some simple things. Helhirding Vs EA Ermor' Equite of the Sacred Shroud.

Hel vs Equite
hits: 14 vs 13
prot: 10/15 vs 12/18
morl: 13 vs 13
mag.r.: 14 vs 12
str: 12 vs 11
att: 13 vs 10
def: base 14, total 19 vs base 12, total 17 BEFORE Glamour
move: 3/26 vs 2/22

Vanir also have Stealth +25 and Glamour.
Equites of the Sacred Shroud have Rejuvenation, or heal their afflictions.

Which one is better?

12 vs 20 resources.
75 vs 65 gold.



EA Ermor Principes, with 11 hp/str/att/def, cost 15 gp.
EA Helheim Huskarls, with 13 hp, 11 str, 12 att and base def 13, cost 25 gp. I'm not sure Principes bought with equal amount of gold could stand against Huskarls, even if their equipment gives them the same defence and much better protection. Of course, as recruiting Principes takes more resources, it's rare to see numbers balanced by gold cost. And of course, Vanir Huskarls are only base troops; its Hirdmen Principes should be comparable to.



I'll offer another comparison, Marverni Boar Warriors and Vanheim Vanheres.
Vanhere vs Boar Warrior

hits: 15 vs 14
prot: 12/15 vs 12/15
morl: 15 vs 13
mag.r.:14 vs 10
enc: 6 vs 5
str: 13 vs 12
att: 12/11 vs 11 after ambidext. and weapon penalties
def: 12 vs 11, before glamour
base def: 13 vs 10
move: 2/11 vs 2/10

berserk: +5 vs +3
Vanhere has Stealth +25 and Glamour.

50 gp, 15 res vs 35 gp, 15 res
Boar Warriors have better equipment. Their armor is less encumbering. They have a shield. Their final attack skill is lower than that of a dual-wielding Vanhere. Their defence with a shield is lower than that of a dual-wielding Vanhere.



It's not blesses alone. If it were, Oiorpata rushes and Equite rushes and Boar Warrior rushes would be commonplace. It's Glamour, and Stealth, and superhuman stats, and the fact that these abilities come for just 10-15 more gp. Principe is 15 gold, Hirdman is 30. If Equites and Oiorpata are 65 and 50 gp, Helhirdings should cost more than 75 gp. If Boar Warriors are 35 gp, Vanheres should cost more than 50 gp.
Another interesting comparison would be Equite of the Sacred Shroud against a White Centaur. 65 gp, light lance and better armor against 70 gp and spear and javelin, stealth, berserk, forest survival and mapmove 3, better strengh and better magic resistance. Att, def and morale are identical before berserk. Centaur Warrior's hoof is 0 dam + str, so 13 before and 16 damage after berserk, while Equite's is just 10.
Normal Equites and normal Centaur Warriors cost the same, btw.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

How about you people play something else than Early Age and against someone else than EA Vanheim/Helheim before you complain? EA Vanheim/Helheim are easily the most grossly overpowered nations in the whole game and they would own even with no blesses. For Umor's sake, almost all of their units have freaking Glamour!

Niefelheim is another very powerful nation because their Niefel giants have awesome stats AND they have built-in mob counter (to an extent) in the form of Chill. They would be very nasty (though cost inefficient) even without any blesses at all.

Mictlan is very, very efficient with blesses but then again, if you are a Caelum (or pretty much anyone with missile weapons) why not just buy archers and let their units perish under a rain of arrows? I didn't see A4 bless mentioned in that W9/F9 bless... Works perhaps a bit worse in action than on paper, but I'd expect that missile weapons would work fine against them. OzeLOLs excluded, because they fly. Ouch.

Early Tien's recruitable sacreds are glass cannons for 3/4ths of the game with that 1/4th being Spring. Even on spring they are vulnerable to missiles unless you take Air with that Fire and Water. Their summonable blessables are nice though.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

It's worth noting that these hard to stop rushes seem to have a number of points in common:

Nations with fast sacred troops with multiple attacks that synergize extremely well with a major fire blessing, boosted even more with a major water one.

Contact with these troops is particularly painful in EA because of the low protection around, and I guess most games are played in this Age that seems to have more of a novelty feel.

Maybe fire blessing should be changed to say:
5ap in EA
6ap in MA
7 ap in LA

That way 12 protection troopers would have a chance to survive the first hits in EA, instead of just dying in droves.

All the above is even more painful with regards to the various Vanir troops, that are maybe too good as it has been pointed (they destroy anything they run into, but they are almost untouchable themselves).

Re: Balance on small maps
 

If the Vanir are too good, IMO it would be better to increase costs rather than make them weaker.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

The Vanir troops should be more expensive. They are almost untouchable and from what I remember Glamour allows them to even dodge magic! Not only that, this allows an Air nation to tie down sweet, sweet targets which are then ripe for Lightning Bolt shooting. No nation has better tanking units AND cavalry than EA Vanheim/Helheim. Who care about armor when it take a severe Def penalty from swarming just to freaking hit a van/hel unit!

To put it shortly, they are grossly overpowered. I'd say that anything short of equal number of Niefel Giants or Jag Warriors with solid mage backup and with some ridiculous bless will get obliterated by a semi-skilled Van/Hel player.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I think the default game settings are not supposed to be balanced on very small maps and have no reason to. Dominions is a game about gods fighting for the domination of the world, not of the Luxemburg.

On maps of 50 provinces or less, try settings like 250% gold & ressources (or like 50% gold if you want less sacred instead of more normal), easy research and 70% sites, then the number of normal troops would probably be sufficient to counter high bless rush a sufficient time to make battle magic efficient and summons available (and to have good scales would be far more important).

PS : I dislike the idea of suppressing the bless effects before awakening, except for making a new awakening *option*, eventually coupled with a little less points for normal awakening. But I'd like to see this choice as a new one. Something like :
- dormant 125pts
- dormant out of this plane (no bless) 150pts
- imprisoned 200pts
- imprisoned out of this plane (no bless) 250pts (or even 300 as no bless during 36+ turns is a real handicap)

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I fail to see how dormant/imprisoned pretenders not resulting in bless effects is in any way "logical" in the Dominions game world. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

It has been repeated time and again that the bless effects arise from the people's faith in their pretender and his divine attributes as directed towards those considered sacred in society, specifically, it is not an effect that is granted by the pretender to his people. This is most commonly trotted forward every time it is explained why the pretender does not count as sacred and, in fact, has no way to get the blessing effect - and it is manifest throughout the game design: your pretender can be feebleminded, a gibbering madman, or even dead - it does not affect the effects caused by people's beliefs in his divine attributes as carefully nurtured by your priesthood.

The ONLY thing that an alive and present pretender grants a nation is an increase in belief in the province he is present in and the ability to let the pretender physically interact with the world.

There is nothing "logical", in the Dominions world, about blessings not being present when pretenders are dormant or imprisoned or dead, for that matter. Such a tie-in would require a substantial change to a number of game mechanics and make the pretender a much, much, more important game-piece on the board than he is already, where it is optional in the pretender design phase whether he is to be important on the board - or important as a remote aspect to be venerated.

It looks much more like a case of a few nations having incredibly powerful sacred troops (we knew that already) which results in a power disparity in certain specific game setups (by no means in all game setups). Solving that isn't best done by changing the basics of blessing design which affects all setups - but by playing with other setups or to enforce house rules.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Doesn't work.

with both gold and res at 250%, both Van and Helheim can produce 10 sacred units/turn, WITH Sloth 3. Order 3/Prod 3 nations would have a huge surplus of gold (1500+ gold on turn 4), but second castle can't be built quickly enough for it to matter, and the numbers aren't comparable to the devastation the Glamoured sacred units bring. 150 units aren't enough. Perhaps 200-250 untis recruited at max, little more if they are unarmoured bowmen. Sounds big, right? That'd have to cope with 10 sacred units/turn that have taken no losses. 60, 70, 80, 90 Helhirdings? Won't do.

I also tested 250% resources. The same problem, in a smaller scope. It didn't actually slow down the recruitment of non-sacred units, but there was less surplus gold. 150 units can't deal with few dozen Helhirdings. 90 units can't deal with 8 Helhirdings and 10 Glamoured Huskarls.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

One thing which contributes to the unstoppable dual-bless is the proliferation of fortified cities as the starting fort. That 50 admin goes a long way to making sloth manageable and boosting the player's gold supply.

I'll stick my neck out and say that in the Early Era, fortified cities should be extremely rare, if not absent altogether. 10, 20 and 30 admin castles should be the norm. All those cities are anti-thematic for the tribal Early Era nations, anyway.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Endo... Have you tried a non-blessed rush with these scales ? I've made a fast test solo. Small random map, 250% all, indie 7, easy research.

Maverni take an awake wyrm dominion 10, no magic, prod 1 ord 1.
Vanheim take an imprisoned pretender, dom 10, sloth 3, cold 3, drain 1, w9f9 bless

I think it's not far to be balanced...

turn 1 : vanheim make a prophet and can make 8 vanherses + recruit a van (or may take 1 province with starting troops if they are lucky in a blind attack) ; maverni make a prophet, take a province (except in case of very very bad luck), make 14 carnute nobles and a mage (or can take 2 provinces if they are very lucky with a blind attack, and recruit 13 nobles and a leader).

turn 2 : vanheim can take a province, and make 8 vanherses + recruit a van (or can make 9 vanherses) ; maverni take 2 provinces, make 17 eponi knights and a new 80 leader + a commander and 22 archers on the first province taken

turn 3 : vanheim can take 2 provinces and make 10 vanherses + 2 hirdmen, maverni take 3, make 22 eponi knights, a new leader, 2 new commanders, 22 archers, 14 indep heavy infantry

turn 4 : vanheim attack 3 provinces, maverni chose to take just 2 as a vanheim army is just 1 province away from the the wyrm (they know it as they have moved their scout since the beginning) ; 3 maverni armies (2x22 archers + starting maverning troops) with the wyrm encounter and defeat the first vanheim army in a neutral province, but suffer heavy casualties ; finally vanheim has just taken 2 provinces, and lost 8 sacred units + some of its starting troops (the prophet has escaped) ; the two nations continue to build troops (+ a mage for maverni)

turn 5 : the wyrm is now with a remaining pack of archers in a province neighbouring vanheim, they can probablty destroy vanheim province defense, except if the 2 remaining little vanheim armies move and patrol it ; the two nations continue to build troops (+ a 80 leader for maverni)

turn 6 : vanheim take 0 province as they must defend ; maverni take one, build troops everywhere (+ a mage), move one army with 17 cavalry to the province with the wyrm (neighboring vanheim capital) and add 21 pd to it

turn 7 : vanheim with all the troops on the capital has a good chance to take back the wyrm province (in my game they easily massacred province defense and killed the wyrm and some archers at this point suffering only 7 losses, but wiped as their leaders were killed by cavalry ; with bodyguards or more luck they should have succeeded ... But the wyrm may also have avoided them and attacked another province neighbouring Vanheim, or another one without risk to be killed by Vanheim forces, many possibilities at this point) ; anyway maverni is now building another castle, vanheim has 4 provinces to take before sieging the first one and maverni 3 times more troops + 3 mages researching (they know a school at 2 at this point)

PS : with death or misfortune 3 instead of sloth 3, vanheim may have more chances (4 more sacred units built in the first turns, 2 more in the army fighting maverni the 1st time) ; as well an heavy bless is far better on a slightly larger map (I think dom3minions server maps are a little bigger than the small random map I've used) , one more province between the capitals = 10 more sacred units recruited before being threatened (and a probable victory in the 1st encounter)

After all, imagining the same pretenders on a little bigger map, I finally agree with you, heavy blesses may be overpowered with most duel settings/maps.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I didn't test with a SC.

If Vanheim takes additional Order 3 Death 2, and just Dominion 9 (still not quite what it would be in a MP), they can make 8 Vanheres every turn including the first, except if they recruit another resource-heavy commander before they've taken other provinces. In a small map against many AIs, on the second turn I took Sauromatia's capital, with high losses. The third turn, I destroyed Arcoscephale's whole army, with high losses, and let Sauromatia have their capital back. Fourth turn, I destroyed Caelum's 20 man army with 5 mammoths with heavy losses. Fifth turn, I moved into position and destroyed 20-strong Myrmidon army of Arcoscephale - this time without losses. Seventh turn, I took Arcoscephale's capital's PD and a province from Caelum.

The eight turn, Sauromatia's 150-strong army attacks me and kills 12 of my Vanheres, and killed about 40 units. I also defeated another Arcos army without losses.

Ninth turn, I defeated Sauromatia's 110-man army.

I quess I could play a better test, but I know I couldn't defeat this kind of nation if it came knocking on my gates on turn 9.

Oh, and I could recruit a mage every turn.

I recruited nothing but 9 Vanheres every turn, even if I could've produced e.g. several Mounted Hirdmen, or some Serf Warriors to work as arrow fodder, which would've made those horrible losses I suffered even in the battles I won much more reasonable. And of course, 2x the Vanheres are more than 2x as good, because the enemy infantry is killed/routs faster and enemy archers are killed/routed faster.

EDIT: "Second turn" etc are the turns I ordered the attacks from. It gets a bit confusing once it's enemy that attacks me, but the last turn was turn 10.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Sure, that is a point. Perhaps the blitz playing population is a small percentage of the dom3 buyers. But settings cant fix it, unless we gain a setting like 'disable L9 blessing untill the pretender is awake / out of prison'.

More like 6, since they cant afford higher dominion, but it doesn't matter.

Reasoning/info/whining about why helhirdings with water8-9 are silly hard to kill without good magic:
Glamour: every attack has 50% chance to hit the mirror image. They need to actually lose a hitpoint to an attack for this to disappear. (Mirror image is better for mages with air magic skill)

defence 23 - most things will never hit in melee.

Against other sacreds shortbows is the solution, but not here:

An arrow from a normal archer that hits a square with two helhirdings:
Attacker rolls: DRN + 6 (from size points in square)
Defender rolls: DRN + 2 + 8 (from shield parry x2) - 0 (from fatigue / 20, meaning they get easier to hit once they have attacked 5 times)
Handy chart at mage 5 in manual says: 18% chance.

Then: 10 damage vs protection 11: 38% chance to cause damage.

Then 50% chance to miss because of glamour.

So: 100 shortbow arrows that land on Helhirdings will remove glamout from about 3.4 units. I suspect that blade wind follow the same rules.

If lvl 9 blessed were disabled at first, they'd still be hard to kill, but battles would last a lot longer.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I have made a short experiment as follows:

Pretnders:
Arco:
Virtue, D-6, order 3, sloth -3, heat -0, growth -3, luck -0, magic -2. A6,E4. Awake.

Van:
Blue dragon, D-10, order 3, sloth -3, cold -3, death -3, misfortune -3, drain -2. W9,F9. Imprisoned.

Default settings.

Turn 1
Arco:
Recruit 9 peltast. Virtue to research. Myrmid. Champ prohpetize.
province count: 1.

Van:
Recruit 2 vanhere, 1 vanherse. prophetize vanherse.
province count: 1.

Turn 2
Arco:
Recruit Myrmid Champ and 2 peltast. Invade two provinces - 1 with virtue, 2 with first army.
province count: 1.

Van:
Recruit 2 vanhere, 1 vanherse. Prophet Vanhers invade one province.
province count: 1.

Turn 3
Arco:
Captured two provinces. one adjacent to Van. In this province set defense to 20 and move army. recruit in all provinces. Virtue to search province.
province count: 3.
Van:
Recruit 2 vanhere, 1 vanherse.
Capture province, plague strike and half pop. are dead.
Invade Arco province with main army and a lightly defended indie province with Vanherse and vanhere.
province count: 2.

on turn 4 Van army is defeated. The Vanherse survived but most of their troops died. Arco took medium casualties. In this battle the Virtue was untoucheble and killed Vans units with impunity.

Of course Van could have focused on defense but Arco would have invaded them with increasingly bigger armies.

Now, this experiment doesn't suggest that bless isn't useful. Only that even on small maps its possible to counter if one set in mind that he's going to face a bless heavy nation.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Settings can't unless something is changed. As I posted earlier in this thread, Helhirdlings are only slightly more
expensive than other sacred cavalry that is clearly inferior to them (even if Rejuvenation is a nice ability). Increased price, as an example, and perhaps lower def and/or loss of stealth, could help. These can be changed in mods. That drastic changes aren't probably needed.

Fire 9, Water 9 and Dominion 10 CAN be done by both Vanheim and Helheim, thanks to Father of Winters who starts with Water 2, Dominion 3 and for whom new paths cost only 50 points.

Fall in the First Year, or turn 8, I had 8 Helhirdings in the first expansion force, 10 in the second (they lost one) and 14 in the third. I only took Misfortune 1, and lucked out in getting a hero to lead the third group, otherwise I'd only have had 12 in that one. 30 Helhirdings with F9W9 on turn 8 is bad enough.


You did a nice job explaining why arrows won't work against Glamour. I don't like the result, but you presented them well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Balance on small maps
 

You take unnecessarily bad scales with Van and it hurts you. Take Father of Winters, imprisoned, F9W9 Dom6, Order+3, Prod +1, cold 1, death 1, misfortune 3, drain 3.
Don't recruit vanherse on the first turn, you don't need extra commander yet, just vanheres (likely 5). Prophetise scout. Next turn add vaheres to starting army and send them together with prophet to conquer. After that you should be able to recruit 6 vanheres and 1 vanherse or vanjarl every second turn. You won't be losing any vanheres, only minor losses will come from your starting army. When you meet Arco, you'll defeat them easily, losing only your easily replaceable starting troops.

You can vary starting scales a bit. Dom 10 is a bad decision, at high end scale one extra vanhere doesn't worth 100 design points. Something in 6-8 range is reasonable.
If you don't play for uber-rush you can swap drain 3,cold 1 for drain 2, cold 2, for example.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

25 points won't make a real difference, in worst case it will cost one scale step, in the best it will just be use for leftover points. But maybe it might work with something like 50-150 for dormant and 85-250 for imprisoned.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I've proposed it as a design option not changing too much the game, not as a way to force everybody (even on big maps) to take awake gods or gods without blesses for 36 turns, like it would be the case with normal imprisonment giving less than 100 points.

For the balance problem on duel maps, a simple game setting "no bless effects" (or "no level 9 bless effects"), or a player agreement not to take ***heim nations, are IMO the best answers. Changes affecting the balance in all kinds of games should IMO be done only if heavy blesses strategies (or ***heim nations) are proven overpowered on big maps too.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

@alexti, I will try your modification and see how better Van will fair. Though on a small map an awake SC isn't negligible. For example to virtue is very strong against small groups of vanhere because their chances of actually striking at her are low.

Also I could take better scales for Arco as well. Giving up E4 for the virtue (not that useful until alteration research) and take high prod scales, what will allow me to produce myrmidons or chariots (trample!) instead of peltasts.

Again, this is just an example, I tend to agree to the usefulness of blessing, but I think it can be countered. But if so much evidence from experience says otherwise, well then I'm probably wrong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balance on small maps
 

The difference from awake SC comes just a bit too late. You need to get some research done to make it really work vs blessed troops (for example, Alt-3 and Con-2). Easry research may the answer to the problem. I haven't experimented much yet with easy research.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

With blessed strategy dormant/imprisoned is essentially free design points. I think that the idea of dormant/imprisoned was to allow more interesting strategies by permitting pretenders with various magic ability (for later game casting, acccess to magic paths, forging and summoning, or uber SC) at the cost of slower research and expansion in the beginning. In Dom2 rainbow pretenders were pretty weak - dormant/imprisoned are certainly make them more attractive. Bless strategies were already powerful in Dom2 and current dormant/imprisoned status just give them huge boost.

For example, I see no good reason not to play bless strategy with dormant pretender with many nations on any map (not necessarily uber F9W9, but one high bless or few minor blesses, depending on the nations and what magic paths need to be covered).

Re: Balance on small maps
 

The more I think about this the more I come to like the idea of tying bless potency to the pretenders arrival. Doesn't necessarily have to be all or nothing (no bless until pretender arrives) rather a few steps of increasing bless potency reaching full potency upon arrival.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Uber bless strategy will be still available even with an awaken pretender. Truper's suggestion is excellent, just adjust the settings before you start the game, if you want to "nerf" the bless strategies.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Uber-bless with awaken pretender will mean really bad scales, which would mean somewhat limited ability to produce sacred troops quickly. So overall, it will become much less dominant strategy.

What uber-bless would you suggest with awake pretender?

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I'd try f9w9 Mictlan, ME Ermor, Van/Helhiem/Midgard, or e9n4 Pan.

The problem with blesses is many fold, first there is the option of imprisoned pretenders, as mentioned. Then there is the also mentioned slower research/more gold. But those aside, there are still some nations with sacreds far above the rest.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I'm looking at F9W9 father of winters Dom 6, order 2, sloth 2, cold 1 everything else -3 (maybe sloth 1 cold 2 would be better?) for Van/Helheim/Midgard. It doesn't look anywhere near as strong as with dormant pretender. Initial start will be slower and even if the first neighbour is successfully overrun, I think that the further game is not going to be easy. Facing someone like Caelum at turn 15, even having twice as many provinces doesn't look promising. I think it's better to take F6W9 or F4W9 - blessed troops will still be very good, but it will allow sort of reasonable scales with some future prospects.

For Pan E9N4 is a good strategy, I don't consider it an uber-bless. Giving their weakness in magic they must have something http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Mictlan F9W9 looks pretty good (they can easily take sloth-3 and they don't even need high order). Dominion has to be somewhat lower, but with non-capital sacred it's not a big problem. But that's Mictlan - no matter how you play it, it's going to be very strong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Balance on small maps
 

I can't see why you would not go full order and full sloth. My build would have order 3, sloth 3, cold 2, drain 2, all else minimum. If you need faster expanding, try a e9w9 cylcops that can expand from turn 2.

For pan, it may not be as unbalanced looking at the whole nation, but it is a far better option than most else you can do with them, particularly early era. And it is still very suffcient for an early rush.

And saying Mictlan is good no matter what is like saying balance of any kind is pointless.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Awaken really doesn't hurt too much of most of the imbalanced bless strategies. If anything it hurts the nations that can make an effective uber bless without teetering in the imbalanced range.

The REAL tweaking needs to happen around the order/magic/luck area ...

Re: Balance on small maps
 

There's a second thread running about the bless balance. In this thread Twan has made a suggestion I really like - why not give holy units different costs according to their strength. vanhere for example can have a holy cost of two which well reduce their number by 50%.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

"I am holier than thou"?

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Yeah, I'd imagine that KotC's are more revered than Flagellants. For example.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

Arralen's post on this thread was spot-on and nobody seems to have replied to it, so i'll make the point again.

The growth scale has negligible effect so you can take death-3 to pay for your uber-bless strategies with no real harm. So basically, you can go and kill off your *believers*. By the tinker-bell effect, it stands to reason that your dominion should die off and yet it doesn't. In extreme cases, you could conceivably have your lands at dominion 10 and... empty of believers. Worse, if I take a growth scale and choose a thematically life-related god, I have not even a mildly effective way to counter and repopulate your laid-to-waste lands again, so why bother to even invade and defend them? This effect is more severe in small maps, but even in large-ish ones, the speed of your expansion and the devastating effects of your dominion can more than pay the loss of gold from your population dying.

Re: Balance on small maps
 

The only problem I see with that is that currently holy is too small an integer to use with different costs, if perhaps you would have dominion*10 holy points of recruitment and most sacred would cost 10 points, then you could perhaps differentiate the different sacreds a bit more.