Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Hey everyone, I am opening this thread because the Noobs and Vets thread keeps getting spammed with CBM vs Vanilla arguments, and personally I think that's a bit silly. Such debates should happen where everyone can see them, and I'm quite sure that not everyone on this forum reads that one, particular sprawling and enormous thread. So you get this one. Now stop cluttering the MP threads with CBM vs Vanilla!

P.S. Try not to flame each other too much about gem gens.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I think that's just called revenge isn't it? :p

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Vanilla is easier for newbies since there's always a "go to" choice that stands out above other choices. ie. Tarts, clams, Gorgons, etc. CBM is more enjoyable for vets since those "go to" options are nerfed to be more in line with other choices. Over all, unless one enjoys stomping players with the same strategy over and over, there's little reason not to upgrade to CBM once one gets the basics of the game down.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Likely, good sir!

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Gandalf calls it upon himself by making claims that are totally out of line with reality. Seriously: [paraphrase] '[Vanilla] frost fathers are one of the few chasses that can take a triple 9 bless, and have points to spare.' Just blatantly false by inspection.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

CBM rocks your shorts out of tangent space cakes for real, capische?

Vanilla iz teh suxors wtf noob woot!

Just adding my 2 cents.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Short answer CBM version of the game is miles better than vanilla...

Longer version, newbies should play vanilla until they get bored (probably take a while), then switch to CBM for a whole new game to spice it up.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

in italian is "capisce".

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

CBM, among other things, broadens the scope of the MP game...there are tons of things that you would never use in Vanilla-MP but are useful in CBM.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Noobs should never touch vanilla as it's not used at all in MP. So why make bad habits? It's more boring and less cool. And then you have to learn again...

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I have played both and enjoy both, but you BETTER know the differences (other than Pretender design etc) before you get to the mid-game portion or you will be in for a shock.

I would really like to see a comparison between them lined up next to each other (and I suspect a lot of other players noob and vets alike would also).

I know there are a ton of different threads but I really don't have the time to chase them down, and then sift thru opinions. I would love to see someone with the knowledge just put up the differences side by side.

Might be a pretty big task and too much to ask.:(

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I haven't played CBM, so take this with a grain of salt, but...

I feel like Vanilla is more thematic and "realistic" if there were such a world as this (based on mythological descriptions and things) where CBM tries to balance the gameplay by making more options viable.

Still not sure why GoR in CBM is so cheap, though (as everyone seems to use it, a lot).

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I'm not even sure what 'realistic' means in this context. As long as things follow rules, they're equally good fantasy.

GoR is cheap to encourage people to use it on things other than tarts. Its still too expensive (and tarts are still too cheap).

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

CBm has 8,680 modding commands in it covering (every nation in the game?)

It takes down the highs and raises up the lows.

Answers, guides, hints, need to be qualified as referring to vanilla or CBm.

Many of the mods for solo play or variant dom3 game settings, are counter to CBm's purpose. Rather like having diet soda with a banana split.

Many people love CBm. Most of the challenge king-of-the-hill style games here use CBm

CBm makes Dom3 miles different than Vanilla. So it tends to be that you learn how to play Dom3 or you learn how to play Dom3-CBm

What is there to debate?

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Wow. Well trained.
You might mention this was in response to your challenge to find a purpose for the Frost Father in vanilla dom3. It wasnt the rarity I was pointing out, but the use.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Obviously, quite a bit or people wouldn't be doing do. :)

More seriously, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "challenge king-of-the-hill style games"? King-of-the-hill, I assume, means non-team MP games? The basic style that the game's victory conditions support? And all of the variants of that, random nations, no diplomacy etc.
Are team games more often played with vanilla?

I have no idea what "challenge" means in this context.

Newbie games are more often vanilla. Is that what you mean by challenge?

Is there another style of MP game more often played with vanilla?
Aren't "challenge king-of-the-hill style games" the vast majority of games here? And probably of MP games in general, though I'd assume games not organized here or on the new forums would be less likely to use CBM, due to lack of exposure if nothing else.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Gandalf's Original Quote: "But I meant Frost Father. He is one of the few that can get 3x9 plus some left over (if you want to pay for it). And of the ones that could get there, he had some other features that could be worked to his advantage over the other choices."

From here. Emphasis added by me.

My specific response which addresses the veracity of the claim can be found here.

Note the following:
1) Gandalf claims he is one of the _few_ that can do it. Literally half the pretenders in the game (minimum!) can do it as well or *better*. (See my response for a brief listing)
2) Gandalf claims there is "some left over", i presume points. There are no points left over in any meaningful sense, you need to take 12 net negative scales and be imprisoned to do this, and you only have dom 5 at that point. Note that there's only 6 more scales left to sack, and most people aren't going to ever play worse than T3S3H3D3L3M1, which is only 8 negative scales.
3)Gandalf claims 'other features' that could be 'worked to his advantage'. See my response for disproof of this claim as well - you can do at least as well with titan chasses or better 3x9 bless suites.

Basically, Frost Father may be the worst possible chassis for a 3x9 bless who can do it with *only* imprisoned and -12 net scales or better. I mean, I won't deny some chasses can't do it even at that level of awful. But if you set that as your baseline for acceptable, nothing I've found is *worse* than the frost father. That makes it hard to claim a 3x9 bless as either a purpose or a use for the frost father, since no one is actually going to use him in such a way because he's so bad at it, disproving Gandalf's new claim on face.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Maybe Im doing it wrong. My math sucks. Your tests seem more extensive.

All I do is select any random nation, set the scales all to -3, then start picking pretenders. How many 9's can I get and what is left over. Most dont let me get 3 9's, or dont have anything left. The Frost Father can get 9f/9a/9w and 3 in something else. Plus has cold power if played by a chill nation.

Obviously it would be unlikely to play with THOSE settings. This was just an easy way for me to see which pretenders could be bless pretenders. I was rather surprised at the results. I would never have considered Frost Father or Freak Lord over Titan.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

You're definitely doing it wrong

Lets look at it this way:
a 9 bless costs:
168 starting at 3 path length
224 starting at 2 path length
288 starting at 1 path length
360 starting at 0 path length

3x9 in the *worst case* scenario (all 0 length) = 1080 points

You also need to pay for:
Chassis Cost
Some Dominion (A Dom 1 bless chassis is useless)

Points:
350 starting
+250 imprisoned
+120 per 3 scales sacked (ie, totally sacking a category, 6 categories available)

Max possible points: 720 + 250 + 350 = 1320

1320 (max points) - 1080 (most possibly spent on bless) = 240 for chassis and dominion.

So if you ignore dominion, *every single chassis in the game* can afford a 3x9 blessing by your metric.

Ok, you didn't actually say you made them imprisoned, so you're working with 250 fewer points. But you also aren't factoring in the cost of dominion. So, by your metric:

-Any chassis which costs 0+ points and has no paths can't do it. (off by 10 points). So no Manticore, Wyrm, etc...
-Any chassis with only 1 path at length 1 can be worth up to 62 points and still do it. I'm not sure there is a chassis with only a single length 1 path that's worth more than 50 points...
-Any chassis with only 1 path at length 2 can be worth up to 126 points and still do it (covers every single chassis in the game with only a single length 2 path)
-Any chassis with 2 paths at length 1 can be worth up to 134 points (covers every single chassis in the game with 2 paths at length 1 iirc)
-Any chassis with 2 paths at 2/1 can be worth up to 198 points and still do it, so even the VQ can do it!

Any chassis with more than 2 paths or better than 2/1 path depth can do it.

That's all just mathematical certainty.

Of course, the main reason you're doing it wrong is you're not buying *survivable* dominion, much less reasonable dominion for running a bless strategy off of. Dominion is important because it limits how many of those sacred troops you can actually buy, after all. Once you factor in dominion, the frost father looks much worse because he starts at dominion 1. All those titans start at Dominion 3 and sometimes 4.

You're also taking negative scales over imprisonment, which is really weird, since everyone imprisons pretenders carrying a big bless.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

A couple of years ago when I started playing, I preferred to play vanilla Dom3 instead of CBM because the mod itself was changing a lot in a short time intervals, giving highlight to different new strategies without much use of anybody who knew about them, other than people who spent the time to find out about those or talked to qm. Which I sarcastically remarked upon at the time by saying "CBM is qm's tool to win that many games", as he was or is one of the top Dom3 Multiplayer veterans against whom other people regularly gang upon (and still get beaten up). The biggest problem was that there were no references for important things like lists with the magical items and other documentation, so it was difficult to plan ahead.

It is my understanding that nowadays most of the drastic changes of the past have been removed and CBM is "mostly like vanilla", and there is a great amount of CBM-specific documentation and even a few guides written especially for nations in CBM games, so outside the realm of personal preference I see no reason for not using CBM in Dom3 multiplayer games.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Granted I wasn't around when CBM started up. But it seems to me the CBM changes these days are more drastic with each version. For example, unique gemgens, giving sea trolls to r'lyeh, the waterbreathing items major cost/paths reduction, half price blood summons, major changes in recruitables for MA argatha, dragon master buff. Upcoming: endgame diversity included, removal of major discount sites, nerfing of kelp forts.

I'm not saying any of this is a bad thing, and certainly there are many many CBM resources available these days including the majority of new guides. But it isn't like vanilla anymore.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

My take is that CB makes the game more fun. It does that by trying to make choices more interesting and in the case of gem generators, eliminating an aspect of the game that led to burdensome micromanagement. A noob is better off in a CB game because things are generally more balanced and so theoretically there are less bad choices. Not to mention it is always disheartening as a noob to survive into the late game and then learn about clamming when you start getting dumped on (oh wait was I supposed to be building clams every turn???)

The only reason a vanilla game makes sense to me is if you just have the manual to reference when you are learning and want to look things up. But even then, there are a lot of mistakes in the manual or things that have changed in patches so even that doesn’t make much sense.

CB foshizzle!

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Vanilla is the original Halflife. CBM is Counterstrike.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I like the piecemeal edition CMB from Edi, it should be easy to control what mod to use in MP games? so you have the choice to activate gemgen if you want, disable easy water access ...etc

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Just to add a slight counter point, I still play vanilla. But I play mostly SP, I can't commit the time to a competitive multiplayer game. I'm more interested in the story that unfolds between two epic nations of mythology, the "theme" of the game, and other Gandalfy things. ;) I have the self discipline to not use the overpowered strategies against the computer, and I will do crazy things to give them a boost. For instance, give the AI a 3 year head start, limit myself to 1 commander per province I own, recruit all troop types in equal numbers rather than loading up on a nation's only good unit. Pretty much anything that either severely reduces micro or makes the game interesting or unusual.

I am not against CBM per se, but I would have to relearn everything and I'm not really that concerned with MP balance or some spells being useless, etc. If I had a nice uninterrupted 3 day weekend maybe I could get into CBM and I'd probably never look back but it hasn't happened yet.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Having just started CBM 3 days ago, I didn't see all too much that I need to adjust to (though I played vanilla for 2 weeks only before that).

Seens to be mostly cost change for unit and spells, spells moving up and down spell lvl charts and artifact cost / lvl, maybe some unit cap-only status change I haven't seen yet. Maybe I haven't tried long enough to note any significant changes, but I don't see any thematic difference so far, the race I played still have their theme intact, only a lot more spells/artifact become viable and making sense cost/lvl wise, all in all seems good so far.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

QM has tried very hard to keep the theme of the game intact for CBM. There are a lot of changes, but the nations still *feel* like the nations they're supposed to be. There have been a few that do alter that a bit (the biggest one I think being the UW breathing item change, to make getting underwater less painful for land nations).

Personally I was resistant at first to playing CBM, thinking it would require a lot of relearning. Then I got into a game that required it and realized that anything that worked in vanilla would work under CBM, too. The biggest initial draw for me was the pretenders. Many vanilla pretenders are overpriced for what they do, which really cuts down on which ones you can justify using. There have been a few changes in CBM that I question a bit, but overall I feel its had a very positive effect on the game, and especially the state of multiplayer.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

agreed with the viable choices on pretender, and summons! too bad I use mostly rainbow humans (+1 path boost to most of them is great!). I'm really itching to try out vampire queen now with that cost fix though.

I especially like Edi's piecemeal edition CBM, to turn on and off portions that you like or not, maybe waterbreathing can be seperated out as its own piecemeal option.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Endgame Diversity may be a very nice mod, but I really hope it will not be included in CBM.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I think its too early to talk about including endgame diversity. Maybe in 6 months when its been playtested a bit more.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I on the other hand (once its been sufficantly tested) really hope it gets included in CBM because it solves once and for all the tartarian problem.

The reason why its all tartarians in the endgame is because there is really no other choice, with the endgame diversity mod the tarts will get a much deserved rest well players explore the other options available to them.

Making tarts insane was a mistake on the part of the developers who have admitted, that they don't really get the endgame of dominions. Making the tarts insane just results in wasted turns well they sit around doing nothing, rather then ending the game. When you reach turn 70+ in MP you really want the game to end (preferably in some massive, impressive battles) because the turns become massive and anything that slows the fighting down is bad.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

What about undoing the shattered soul, then? Now that there's alternative and all.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

you'll still need to tone them down, without shattered soul you eliminate much of the risk with acquiring tarts. also, the other options in the end game diversity mod are alternatives however tarts are still very much superior, just cause more of a headache. thus by default lessening the headache makes the other options less viable.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Well, there was/is a mod around that changes the tart costs to some reasonable levels, and you can choose which tartarian to summon (though Monstras and monstrums are still nearly useless). Add in a removal of shattered soul and they would make sense. 12d gems (+gor+healing) for a SC is way too low at the moment, but Shattered soul makes them slightly more reasonable at that low cost. Heck, wraith lords cost 40 gems and most tartarians are better in every sense except being immortal (which requires quite different planning before the game).

I simply prefer CBM over Vanilla because it opens up more midgame and early game options, and overall game quality is very much better (no gemgens, nations more balanced).

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Shattered soul is thematic, fun and balancing. No reason at all to take it away.

Even with the endgame diversity mod implemented, tartarians is one of the most powerful alternatives. For nations strong those paths (death and nature) it will probably remain the goto endgame SC. Which is alright, tartarians are cool.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I'm not sure I'd call shattered soul either fun or balancing.

Its frustrating, not fun.

Being overpowered 75% of the time and useless 25% of the time is not balanced.

Now, it certainly is thematic... I just wish they didn't destroy temples, or at least I had a chance to move them guaranteed their first turn of commander-hood. Because that's really frustrating.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

What I mean is there are reasons not all magic is the same, Haruspex isn't in the same school as Dark Knowledge, and it costs 1 less gem, but requries one higher path. The game isn't made to be "completely balanced."

In a high-magic fantasy world with intelligent smiths and spell-makers, there's a good chance people would find ways of creating things that generate quintessential magic items (gem-gen). While it's not certain, but it's likely.

Basically, to me, CBM seems to be a (Conceptual) Balance Mod, while the original game's focus is more toward flavor (while of course trying to keep it from being overly unbalanced).

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Trade ease of casting with cost? Sounds perfectly reasonable and plausibly balanced.

That depends on what the laws of magic are. If the laws of magic make it impossible, it can't be done. It feels like an artifact level of accomplishment - distilling raw magic should be *hard*. The accomplishment is cheapened considerably if you have hundreds of them.

Where does CBM ever lose flavor? Heck, how do you 'lose flavor'? Flavor is whatever you make it. Anything can be justified post hoc, and if the person telling the story is good, it'll sound just as good or better as whatever flavor might have been trampled on to get there.

There are plenty of things in the base game that don't make sense conceptually. A lot of the handling of resources is confused, for example. So claiming vanilla as a paragon of flavor is doomed to failure.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

CBM for me is just that - mod that focuses on balancing to make as many existing options available as possible. Endgame Diversity is fan-made content, an while I have nothing against it, I do not want it included in games by default.

As for tartarians, it actually would be nice to try a game where they are completely banned. I strongly suspect that the game would lose next to nothing in terms of fun, since SC-centered endgame is quite dull anyway, and probably gain something - by prolonging the midgame, which is fun, and by encouraging diversity.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I wasn't necessarily saying that CBM does lose flavor, I was saying that the focus of CBM is balance, while the focus of vanilla is flavor. Obviously, CBM is based on Vanilla, so a lot of the flavor of the original is retained. As I previously stated, I haven't played with CBM, so I don't know how much (if any) of the flavor is lost.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

IMHO, CBM adds flavor as well as balance, because so many things are just not feasible in vanilla mp for whatever reason (overpriced, underpowered etc). For example, playing Bandar I wouldnt be want to use their cap unit, the tiger rider in vanilla mp because I would be paying out the ear. I mean, 100gold? I could almost buy an elephant for that! So, why not just buy an elephant?

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

The issue being that GGs do not have enough power to be considered unique. If it's unique, it better be darn well powerful - and one astral pearl a month is hardly powerful.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

GemGens still give you a useful and unique ability that no one else has. Clams allow you to perpetually, albeit slowly, replenish the astral gem supply of a given army, which can be handy for logistic purposes. Or just permanently boost the gem supply of your nation, if you really hate the idea of sending it out. Bloodstones are actually pretty good as uniques, being a very rare earth booster as well as the gem resupply purposes. The bloodstone is easily comparable to the ruby eye, for example, except better relatively due to the greater usefulness of earth gems and earth boosters being so rare. And I think that a clam of pearls is probably reasonably equatable to some of the lesser pre-existing uniques, like say igor konhelm's tome, or the headless hoburg :P

And of course, when you allow clams of pearls to be mass craftable, that is what happens and the most powerful person in the game is the person who has the most clams and the greatest capacity to forge them. Making them literally THE most powerful item in the game, greater than any artifact.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Does CBM require the latest patch?

what patch does it require exactly? It looks amazing and i want it.

I want it nao('.')

In any case, ive played with half of the nations in all ages. Vanilla definitely needs the nerfing/fixing that CBM supposedly gives.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I have no idea if it "requires" a certain patch. But why not use the latest anyway?

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

I'm having problems with it. Some sort of bug or whatever is messing with my game when i use the latest patch. It works (to a point) so that the turn ends and my actions go through but the game immidiately closes after that with an error message.

Either way i was curious.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

It is possible CBM might conflict with versions of the game that do not have certain spells. So it's possible you'd need the last patch to introduce spells. I'm not sure of the number, but it wouldn't need to be quite the most recent one. Just the last one with jomon changes.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Sounds good. I should probably contact shrapnel games and ask them if i could download up to a specific patch.

Who knows, it might work.

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

You can get older patches off various gaming websites. Here is the link to them on Gamespot for example.

http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/d...lt%3Btitle%3B0

Although note that you will have to get the most recent patch version working if you want to play MP games.

Edit: I'm guessing CBM will need at least patch 3.17, as that is when Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath were added. But don't quote me on that :)

Re: Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread
 

Bawwwww. Stupid latest patch. T.T

In any case, 3.17 should work for me.

One last question s'il vous plait. I tried using the method in the FAQ on installing a mod but i always get an error of the game not being able to open one of the .tga files despite the fact that i have the .dm file right there.