Air Dome
 

Did anyone notice that you can cast multiple Air Domes over the same province?

Did anyone notice that ALL those air domes have effect in protecting the province?

So for example in CBM where air domes are only 5 gems and are upkeep free, meaning they don't need aditional gems like fire or water domes, still with it's 80% chance of stopping a spell, you are not limited to a single dome but to as many as you can cast, say 10 domes, and they all have a protective effect, meaning you knock out a single 5 gem dome and there are still 9, with 80% chance of stopping the next spell and so on.Their effects don't stack but casting several 5 gem domes is rather cheap, and a damn good way to protect yourself.

Oh yeah, and there's something I forgot, it's not just the air domes, but all of them.

I'm not sure if that's how this should work.

Re: Air Dome
 

The additional gem domes don't break, so you only need one in a prov, I don't see any imbalances. If you want to burn 50 gems per province stacking up multiple air domes I think you've pretty much already lost that battle, especially since a spell still has a 20% chance of getting through since only one dome is actually checked, so it doesn't make you any more resistant to the heavy artillery spells (flames from the sky and murdering winter) than a single dome would.

Re: Air Dome
 

Maybe 10 is a bit extreme, but having a spare or two in waiting could be handy.

Re: Air Dome
 

Depends, in late stage of the game people usually concentrate most of their troops and mages in a few forts and protect them with all kinds of domes.
And with the air dome being the cheapest and most effective, stops 4/5 spells cast, having more than one surly is an advantage. How much does flames from the sky cost? or any other spell you need to break the air dome? VoD is the cheapest and yet you'd be using 15 gems on average to take out a 5 gem dome.

But also what if you only have the ability to cast nature dome with Pangaea for eg.? Casting a few more would be safer.
With Cealum also.

Re: Air Dome
 

If someone attacked your domed province with say 10 spells and the 3rd one got through your dome would the remaining 7 have to do a check vs. your remaining Domes? Or would they no longer have to make a check vs. Air Dome for that turn...

That might be the actual strength of having multiples up regardless of the effect that they dont stack as far as stopping power.

Re: Air Dome
 

Yes they would have to make checks against the remaining domes, until all the domes are down.

Tried it with arouse hunger, first one stopped, second passed and shattered the dome, third stopped, and so on, but I'm not sure it that one that does shatter the air dome if it get trough, but I am certain the remaining spells make checks.

Just tried it, the one spell that passes and shatters the dome does hit the province.

Re: Air Dome
 

You misunderstand, the big gun spells wouldn't be used to take down the domes, just to get one cast through (taking the dome out is incidental at that point). If your opponent has a pile of mages/boosters in a single province it can be well worth it to suck up the gem cost to lob in 5 flames from the sky. It will leave you far, far ahead in terms of economic damage. Taking out just 3 tart-casting liches (skullface, ring of sorcery, and skull staff) is 155 gems worth of gear in S and D gems (after hammers). 3 Flames from the Sky is 175 F gems, which is already a worthwhile trade. If there is a pile of mages with dwarven hammers and other boosters forging away as well you're going to clearly come out ahead.

Re: Air Dome
 

edit: nvm, ninja'd.

Re: Air Dome
 

Yes I know, I understand, just having two air domes and a astral dome changes things a bit.
For example the first flames from the sky knocks down the air dome, but gets stopped by the astral dome, that still leaves the second one both the air dome, again, and the astral dome, now if this is indeed how domes work, it's a bit advantageous.

Another example, one province with one air dome, against a province with 3 air domes facing 5 flames form the sky.
The very first flames from the sky knocks down the air dome and hits the province, and logically all the other do too, since no domes are protecting the province no more, but in the second case there are still two domes that can "possibly' stop the remaining 4 flames from the sky from completely killing everybody.

Re: Air Dome
 

One of the many reasons I don't like CBM is that the philosophy of making everything useful and used cannot be reconciled with actual game balance.

So yeh, if you play CBM feel free to magic-proof all your fortresses and chokepoints from ritual magic instead of just one or two.

Re: Air Dome
 

I should point out the 5 gem air gems are an artifact of a less-than-current version.

Re: Air Dome
 

That would be the point I was trying to make earlier.

Re: Air Dome
 

Er, that should read '5 air gem air domes', annoying no edit rule...

Re: Air Dome
 

Lol I didnt even notice the typo. I guess my brain Autocorrected. :D

Ever see the trick where someone can write

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_nlB2iavXqv...aris+trick.gif

Or


Paris
In The
The Spring



With a triangle drawn around it and get people to read it out loud Most people just automaticly skip over the second The and get confused when you tell them that thats not what it says. :D

Re: Air Dome
 

The key here is that defense should be stronger than offense. It is largely immaterial to a balance discussion if the last 4 flames from the sky get through in the example provided (one with a reasonable amount of high-value targets), the Flames caster is already ahead economically as soon as the first one gets through. I don't see how it is in any way "unbalanced" to have the other 4 bounce off of a second dome, the dome caster has still lost, just not by as much as they could have. Stacking a ton of valuable stuff into a single province just isn't a good idea, stackable domes or no, since there comes a point when artillery spells will still pay off on average. Spreading out forces and popping out domes everywhere comes with its own set of problems, since it drastically limits your defensive mobility, and of course every small outpost would cost more gems to set up.

Multiple types of domes stacking is a different issue entirely, and really doesn't interact with the multiple air dome issue very meaningfully. (The only way it comes into play is if someone was determined enough to launch enough artillery strikes to knock down the single air dome and continue casting through the now-somewhat-lowered defenses. With an astral and frost dome in the same province that still knocks out 3 out of 4 spells. Not a good ratio for single target spells, and pretty impractical for anything expensive, since you'd need about 20 casts to get through the air dome on average, assuming proper ordering and interaction with the domes.)

Re: Air Dome
 

It almost sounds as if you are saying you think that a person is better off getting hit by 3 or 4 Flames from the Sky than to get hit by just 1 because the 1 did a lot of damage already.

I kind of fail to see the logic in that.

Re: Air Dome
 

Personally if I was dealing with someone who liked Flames from the Sky that much I'd just forge a ton of Fire plate or Rings of Fire resistance :D Throw in some hammers and you can protect about 11 Mage's for the gems they spent on just one Flames from the Sky

If they were going to cast 6 of them thats about 66 mage's you could protect and the Plate would help against other stuff as well.

Re: Air Dome
 

Yeah, FR items would be an excellent idea, but again, not one that really interacts with stacking air domes. The single-target assassin spells are the only ones really hindered by multi-air-domes, but casting spells into a domed province SHOULD work out less well for he attacker than the defender, so I once again don't see the problem. The fact that the domes don't stack with themselves is really the key point here, since it means a province can't become completely invulnerable by stacking 5 of them together.

Re: Air Dome
 

I think the Air Dome is probably the best dome. It's cheap, and lasts forever until it is undone. That said, I don't really see the value of multiple ones.

But, I also equip all of my most important mages under the air dome, in case it is dislodged.

Re: Air Dome
 

Some people have obviously not been reading the Spells section of the bug shortlist. Multiple domes of the same type, especially air domes, are one of the worst exploits still left in the game, so if anybody is stacking them in MP, it's a safe bet that there's a crapload of stuff there and losing it will really hurt.

Re: Air Dome
 

Mm. I think stacking air domes would have its uses (were it not an exploit).

When facing an air dome, fire cheap chaff 2-gem spells at the same time as a few big damage spells. 3 Murdering winters would cost about 100 gems and have just over 50% chance of no effect. However, cast two MWs and 15 chaff. That's still spending about 100 gems, but there's a very good chance the 2-gem spells will destroy the air dome before either MW hits.

Re: Air Dome
 

I'd like to know one thing: can Astral Window/Projection dispel an Air Dome and if can't (my experience says so) then I just don't understand, why.
Also, it seems that domes can't be dispelled with spells from items and moreover, these spells in most cases pass through them.
Any experience/thoughts here?

Re: Air Dome
 

The problem with this is that you can't know the order in which your spells will be cast and your murdering winters can be cast before chaff spells and stopped by the dome.

Re: Air Dome
 

Well, you almost can know, since casting order is semi-deterministic based on UnitID. You can't know whether it will cast in descending or ascending order, but tossing in a few cheap 2-gem spells on both sides of your Murdering Winter guarantees you that half of the cheap spells will get cast before the expensive one.

If you don't know your UnitID ordering, you can have them ALL cast cheap 2-gem spells beforehand and write down the casting order. For instance, site search spells.

-Max

Re: Air Dome
 

I certainly viewed it as a nice feature after Executor described it. The description in the manual gives no indication that the behavior is a bug (or intended behavior). I looked in the bug shortlist, and it seems that the real problem is (emphasis added):
From a developer standpoint, it might be difficult to fix the bug without removing the "feature" completely. But, it's not clear that that is the case. I would lobby for retaining the feature, while fixing the bug in it, if not too inconvenient.

Re: Air Dome
 

Bug exploits are specifically banned. That makes casting multiple domes an exploit.

Re: Air Dome
 

If the bug shortlist is still saying that, it's out of date.

In 3.23 you can put multiple air domes up but incoming spells only meet one of them. Having extra ones only means you have something ready to step into the gap once the first one shatters. A spell that shatters one of your air domes doesn't encounter any further air domes before impacting.

Re: Air Dome
 

ano:

Astral window/projection cannot be stopped by domes afaik. So it cannot break them.

About that stacking:
Stacked domes worked earlier, the fix made them not stack. That is if you pass one dome, it shatters and it doesn't check all air domes for same spell. Stacking is good against multiple spells still, but you can no longer get 99,99% protection.

Re: Air Dome
 

I'm not suggesting that anyone exploit a bug. According to the description, which I assume Edi was referring to, the bug is that all of the domes come back, if one or more of them is left undestroyed - and that is undoubtedly an exploitable bug. (I did a search in the thread and saw no indication that this was fixed. Probably some testing is in order to verify this.)

I'm suggesting that the bug be fixed (if it hasn't already been), but that the feature of allowing spare domes of the same type be continued. How is having spare domes an exploit, provided they stay destroyed after they are destroyed?

Re: Air Dome
 

I understand that. That is not what we are talking about here.
Executor described behavior whereby only one dome of a given type is encountered per incoming spell. If that dome is shattered, then the next spell will encounter the next dome of that type, if there is one. The same spell that shattered the first dome will not encounter the next dome of that type, as you say. If someone has up 2 air domes, the probability of stopping a spell is not 0.96 but only 0.8. I get that, but unless I'm totally misunderstanding the OP, that is not what we are talking about.

Re: Air Dome
 

It was 96% chance to stop before, not it is 80%, as it should be. I think someone did some tests confirming it.

Re: Air Dome
 

Tested (after some time...). I put two air domes up in a province, one got shattered, and only one remained.