Vampires?
 

Whats the deal with vampires? Without ethereality they are completely useless. I fought with 50 vamps against 50 regular undead and there is no contest. I lost badly. I lost about 2 vamps to 1 skeleton.

Re: Vampires?
 

I agree they are pretty rediculously bad now

Re: Vampires?
 

Life drain doesn't help nearly as much when fighting undead.

Re: Vampires?
 

I'm going to mod ethereality for vampires back. They weren't great at the best of times but now...

Re: Vampires?
 

I'd rather put them 1 or 2 research tiers lower in the game.

Re: Vampires?
 

Have vampires ever been really strong?

I have had no dealings as yet with them in Dom3, but in Dom 2 I had vampire lord takes over a province, random event. A vampire lord + 20 vamps + a horde of undead. Scared the hell out of me, but when I attacked with a army of national troops, playing Machaka at the time, my Black sorcerors, priests and spider mounts wiped them out real easy...

A long way from my AD&D roleplaying days, when we use to abandon the adventure and run away at even the hint of a vampire. 1 level life drain...shudder... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: Vampires?
 

Vampires really aren't the problem, Vampire Queens are.

Re: Vampires?
 

Any idea why ethereality was removed from an already weak creature?

Re: Vampires?
 

Because Vampire Queens fit the Vampire template and ethearility on her was overpowered. Also, she could spawn ethereal life-draining flying monsters much easier than some nations could summon them or counters to them.

I don't mind Vampires getting their Ethereality removed, they however should have made them far less up in the research tree.

Re: Vampires?
 

I like them better with ethereality, and I think VQ could have kept hers as well together with having her cost raised some more.

Re: Vampires?
 

But then people would just take a biiiit more worse scales...

Re: Vampires?
 

I suppose the main draw for Vampires is that they keep coming back. And, since they can fly, you can just make them attack the rear mages. I do agree, though, they should be one or two levels lower... I really like Lords and Queens, though, but that's possibly because Death and Blood are my two favorite schools of magic. And, if you use Pale Ones like me, you really need fliers.

And yes, Vampires in D&D are really challenging. Our DM once talked of making a city of them as an adventure sight... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

Re: Vampires?
 

Nay, you need Magma Children, and then some more, and some Ancient Lords with Brimstone Boots and Charcoal Shields and Swords of Swiftness, and a bit more Magma Children and a King of Elemental Fire for the kicks, and a bit more Magma Children... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Vampires?
 

With the Dom2 patches and CB mod, the VQ didn't seem particularly overpowered or underpriced anymore - one very rarely saw her used in CB games, and yet she was nerfed again, while All Father went back to uber-status. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Vampires?
 

Who exactly uses Allfather? He's not a W/F pretender now is he?

Re: Vampires?
 

VQs were never that big of a deal!

There is a small, but extremely vocal group of Dominons 2 players who use VQs virtually exclusively and compare sizes a lot and complain about how broken they are. It flies and it is stealthy, and for a very specific strategy it is the only and therefore "best" option.

So the designers get bombarded with tirades about how brokenly powerful the Vampire Queen is, and they raised her price to 150. But the people using that strategy still couldn't use anything else so they still complained. And complained and complained and... you get the idea.

Vampire Queens aren't that good. They've never been that good. They weren't all that and a bag of chips when they were Ethereal and cost 125 points. They weren't all that when they were Ethereal and cost 150 points. And now they aren't even Ethereal and they cost 175! Vampire Queens are total crap and aren't good for anything.

Even in Dominions 2 you could get better scales, better dominion, and better magic with a Prince of Death. You could get better Ethereality and Magic with a Ghost King. The Vampire Queen's only meaningful advantage is that she's thematically awesome - especially for Black Forest Ulm.

But no. People complain and complain and complain... and now Black Forest can't have nice things. I hope you're happy.

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

Well, the problem was mostly that she was ethereal, flying, lifedraining, *immortal* and could pick magics perfectly suited for buffs. And with Dominions 2 research times and spell placements it meant that in few turns she could research a vast array of buffs for herself and we all known how few things can stand up against an ethereal ironskinned quickened mirror imaged fire shielded lucky life drainer.

The VQ version 1 w/o Ethereality & Dom 3 research would be good IMHO.

Re: Vampires?
 

Oh honestly who gives a crap? By the time you're slapping all that magic on somebody you might as well add "body ethereal" and start with any creature at all.

There is exactly one spell on that list that uses any of the VQ's actual abilities, and it's "Life Drain". She's a Blood God and your dream list uses no blood at all! The Vampire Queen is used for these comparisons because thematically she is awesome, not because of any intrinsic capabilities of the chasis. After all, you just described a character that would go down to a Bane Lord with a Dusk Dagger. I'm severely unimpressed.

The legend of how awesome Vampire Queens are was started by a man who played Ashen Fields Ermor and cheated for hundreds of gems starting from turn 1! Sure, he was unstoppable, but it wasn't because of the Vampire Queen.

The Ancient Olhm can do everything the VQ is claimed to do except that he starts with magic that is actually useful (Water and Earth) and a decent pile of hit points. Vampire Queens have an awesome mystique about them, but they aren't even particularly good unless you happen to be a blood power.

Their one unique ability is that they are a potential Blood God who has hands (for hammers) and is available to people who aren't Pangaea. That's right, the VQ is and always has been a consolation prize for not having the Lord of the Wild. Now that the Deva is in play there would be even less nations that would care about the Vampire Queen even if she didn't get nerfed to the point where she totally sucks. And not in the good way that VQs are famous for.

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

Actually, no, you couldn't. It took a mix of paths that would allow buffs that could be afforded by rare few pretenders, namely VQ, GK, rainbows and nagas.

VQ was naturaly ethereal and that alone is a huge bonus against troops without magic weapons. Alteration 2 (60 research points in Dominions 2) would allow her to cast Stoneskin (armor), Mirror Image (drastic decrease on chance of getting hit) and Quickness (def/attack bonuses and two actions per turn). If you took a smitter of Fire with her and researched Enchament 1 you could cast Fireshield and effectively do damage while defending. And this isn't particulary expensive in design points or magetime.

The Ancient Olm cannot do all the VQ could potentially do because he has harder time getting the multidute of magic paths. You'll be paying through your nose to get a 1E 1W (and Quickness was nerfed) 1/2 A and the Olm is not Ethereal to start with like VQ was. You seem to ignore how good ability being ethereal is, especially when that can be topped with a damage shield, mirror image, stoneskin and so on. High HP is not that helpful, especially since Olm is easy to gang on and gets no recuperation or regeneration. Oh, you seem to ignore that VQ was and is IMMORTAL meaning that she could joyously ignore the possibility of death in friendly dominion AND afflictions!

And I don't get what being a Blood power has to do with VQ's since their best potential abilities (low pathcosts thus magic versatile thus the buff mishmash, life drain from the start, flying, stealth, immortality and etherality) has nothing at all to do with Blood magic. In fact you're propably better off ignoring her starting blood and death magic.

I do agree that VQ was nerefed to oblivion now.

Re: Vampires?
 

Actually, I'm fairly sure the second nerf to VQs came from IW playing againt them.

Re: Vampires?
 

She's a pretender who can kill most Bane Lord thugs, without equipment, most of the time and will come right back after she loses thanks to immortality. If she kills even 5% of your army every turn, as she can, you'll slowly diminish. Agarthan undead Oracle pretender doesn't fly, but is immortal and used in a similar fashion.

Re: Vampires?
 

Oh, the Agarthan lich is a monster. He's pretty lumbering and needs equipment but the HP's are mean. And Agartha can easily forge (on EA and MA) the Fireshield - Elemental Armor - Boots of Quickness Holy Trinity of SC Equipment. On LA they can kit him with Lucky Pendant and Amulet of Antimagic.

Re: Vampires?
 

I take offense to you saying Blood and Death are useless! They're my favorite paths! (Also the main reason I use VQ in the first place) I always found water to be the more useless school. (And in Agartha, I have no shortage of Earth mages)

Re: Vampires?
 

Certainly they are not useless paths, but they are useless when it comes to combat buffs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Their strenghts are elsewhere.

And poor Water and Fire have always been at the bottom of the barrel.

Re: Vampires?
 

Vampire Queens are not rainbow mages. They have a pathcost of 50. There is literally nothing that you can afford on a VQ that you can't get cheaper on a Prince of Death.

You're talking about Earth/Water/Air/Fire/Astral spells - a VQ gets none of that natively. Now, she can buy it. But that costs 250 points just for the first pathlevel in each. You can do better with a Phoenix, because even though his Pathcost is higher, he already has Fire and Air - and 3 times 80 is still less than 5 times 50.

The VQ unstoppability is a myth. It was started by Norfleet, and he suckered a lot of experienced people to use a lot of Vampire Queen Strategies. And if you have a lot of experienced players playing a disproportionate amount as Vampire Queens, they'll... gasp... win a lot of games.

But it doesn't have anything to do with the vampire queen being any good at anything. She's not even a second rater. She's a bad god, she really isn't good.

Right. Because she's immortal in so many places with her big bad Dominion score of 1. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Seriously, where are all these points coming from? She has a pathcost of 50, starts with her primary magic irrelevent to super combatanting. What's the killer app?

The legend of the unstoppable Vampire Queen fighter is huge. But it's not real. No matter how much you mess up your dominion, the Vampire Queen just isn't an efficient platform to stave peoples' heads in with. You'd be better off with a Risen Oracle, or a Great Mother even.

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

I remember that she first had a significantly lower pathcost. Like 20.

If that's not true, then I'll apologize for arguing for nothing.

Re: Vampires?
 

It's really, really easy to boost Dominion...

Re: Vampires?
 

Regarding Blood - I agree. As for Death - Soul Vortex is a great buff. It became even better for Dom3 , due to the nerfing of life drain weapons.

Re: Vampires?
 

But Soul Vortex is hard to get.

Re: Vampires?
 

This really can't be emphasized enough.

One lucky crossbow can make your Olm useless for a looong time.

The ability to heal your afflictions is just incredible.

Re: Vampires?
 

I don't have an unpatched version of Dominions 2, but at least the Patched Version of Dom2 already had her with a Pathcost of 50. She's just a Titan who has some neat special abilities instead of having a good stat line. But then she also has a lower Dominion and a higher cost to go with that.

I know she used to cost 125. She might have had Pathcost 40 as well, but I don't recall.

True. It really shines in the hands of Niefel Jarls and Dai Oni.

Hey, if you're going to pay out 175 points for a god, over 300 points on a scattered bunch of new paths, and over a hundred points to get her dominion up to 6 - well, you're probably an Imprisoned god. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect you to have Alteration 6+ by the time your god finally breaks free.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

Yes, it is harder to get than most other buffs. Neverthelss it is one of the best buff in the game, since it not only take care of fatigue on you SC and restore his hitpoints, but is also the only remaining AoE damage buff, now that BoW has been nerfed. Which makes Death school far from "useless" as far as buffs concerned.

Re: Vampires?
 

I swear she had a pathcost of 20 when Dominions 2 rolled out.

Re: Vampires?
 

yeah, she have been nerfix

Re: Vampires?
 

But then you have to give up one of the other five buffs.

Norfleet cheated? huh. I played against him a few times.

Dominions 2 vampire queen....
If you accidently run an ancient olhm into some undead, it'll get tired. And die. A VQ has 0 encumberance.

If your opponent hates your ageless Olm enough, he'll cast vengeance of the dead 20 times, which will get through sooner or later. Doesn't work on undead.

An ageless olm, fighting constantly, will eventually get horrible afflictions. On a VQ they go away quickly.

And if you slightly overestimate an indep province, or a huge enemy army in your dominion, you're screwed with the Olm.

You cant put a hat and armor with +magic resistance on an ancient olm. Nor boots of quickness.

You cant attack a province 3 steps away any time you want.

Re: Vampires?
 

Yeah. Here is a report from his last game on turn 22:

And that's the story of how the Vampire Queen got put into the hall of fame as the top pretender. It was his favorite until she got nerfed, and then he switched to the Ghost King. Of course, his success was based on pulling in extra gems through a (now closed) turn report bug and playing a team that allowed him to conjure leaders from turn 1.

So the basic impetus to nerf the Vampire Queen in the first place was based on false information. Vampire Queen positions were able to crush all opposition but the same could have been accomplished with a Crone with the same "strategy".

Sure. She essenntially has Recuperation. That's a great power. The Ancient Kraken was one of my favorite gods even in Dominions 2 when he was bugged so that he wouldn't ever cast Resist Poison on himself. The Lord of the Wild and the Black Bull are also great gods.

But they are also much cheaper than the Vampire Queen. All of them are. The Vampire Queen has advantages and disadvantages vs. other gods, but she is costed like a pretender with only advantages, and that makes her blow instead of suck.

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

I tell you what; what do you say to a game, you use the lord of the wild, and I take a VQ? You can choose all the settings, even what nation I play.

Re: Vampires?
 

I'll tell you what, we'll play a two player game on a large map. That way we can have an unsatisfactory ending in like 6 months after we've all forgotten what point we were even trying to prove?

The fact that you can beat me in a game doesn't prove anything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

Wow, heavy cheats.

There were huge flamewa- discussions beond that though. It was also popular as the best way to fight with your pretender without any risk at all, among newer players. Etherealness is nasty against any normal army.

Now, I guess so. NOW. In dominions 2.02, it was 110 points, path cost 40, dominion 2. Available to ermor.

Re: Vampires?
 

BTW what was this turn report bug was about? How do you know that this particular bug was indeed what Norfleet used for his cheating?

Re: Vampires?
 

There was a lot of discussion about it. Here's some of it:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...&Forum=f74,f82,f127&Words=cheating&Searchpage=0& Limit=100&Main=285610&Search=true&wher e=bodysub&Name=&daterange=1&newerval=5 &newertype=y&olderval=2&oldertype=y&am p;bodyprev=#Post285751

-Frank

Re: Vampires?
 

Dom II VQ was the premier chassis for pretender. Especially if you don't use CB. You get tons of free points with sloth 3, death: 3, misfortune 2. Counting the necessary Order 3, Magic: 3, that gives you 580 points, 150 less for the VQ. If you can't buff dominion and paths high enough for your VQ with 430 free points, I have no idea what you're doing with her then. That said, it is still safe to say that VQ is excessively nerfed in Dom III, but to say she was a consolation prize for Lord of the Wild is just misinformation.

Re: Vampires?
 

Just remove Immortality and add Ethereal and Recuperation for all vampires. Problem solved. No more cheap tactics.

Re: Vampires?
 

So, basically, she'd be a Ghost King with Blood Magic?

Re: Vampires?
 

Ghost king doesn't have recuperation or immortality to heal from afflictions in Dom3

Re: Vampires?
 

The queen isnt the problem. The vampires are. Its like throwing the baby with the bath water.
You have got to have ethereality to simulate immunity to normal weapon, and recuperation to simulate their self healing ability. Otherwise its not a vampire. Add 1000-3000 max age and why do you need immortality for? Immortality is thematically correct for high power vampires(like vampire lords).
Its a very simple mod in any case.

Re: Vampires?
 

But then the only real difference would be recuperation. I said basically like a Ghost King...

At any rate, I think the VQ is about as thematically sound as it gets, considering this game's world seems [b]heavilly[/i] based off the D&D campaign settings. Going by the sourcebooks there, Vampires are really resistant to normal weapons because of their regeneration ability, and flee in Gaseous Form if 'killed' by normal means. So regeneration and immortality seem just about right.

>_> And why are we talking about nerfing her even further?