Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Hi guys!

How is everyone here? I am back at Dominions 3 after quite a long absence.
I have enjoyed setting up my previous games and I would like to fire off a new game soon.
It will be a MA game where ideally there would be a balance between the newer players with less experience and veterans.
The whole idea is to learn a bit more about the game, while playing against human opponents.

Perhaps it is a good idea to have the vets assigned a random faction, while the newer players can choose one they like?
This to balance the and early game ending tactics by the vets. ;)

I would encourage asking questions on the forums about the game, although you will always have to weigh what consequences it might have for you in-game, regarding spoilers.
Still, first and foremost this would be a learning experience.

Of course still a loose draft, but we will narrow things down once there is some interest.

Cheers!

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I would suggest the vets being assigned the weakest nation people agree on instead of randoms, as they will still probably roll over the newer players. Plus you might be able to better entice vets to join with this handicap.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Yeah that's fine as well, of course. :)

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

just got the game 3 days ago. have a good working knowledge, and would love to participate.

count me in. i certainly have plenty to learn. it's fine if there are non newbs. i have no illusions about winning, just want to have some fun!

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I'd be up for it as well. I've had the game for about a year, but my MP experience is limited.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Thanks Torgon and Parone.
Ive had the game for about a year and a half as well. Hosted 2 mp games but got wiped in the first 20 or so turns on both games.
Almost no SP experience so I am still a noob as well.

For learning the game I would say we go WITHOUT CBM in this game. My vision is that you can only enjoy the changes that it brings if you first know what it actually changed.
Perhaps you dont even prefer CBM.
Worthy Heroes might be a good mod if people stand on playing with improved heroes as opposed to the vanilla setting, but I would prefer keeping it as stock as possible.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I've actually only played CBM games. In general I'm somewhat in favor of it for several reasons.

1. It's fairly standard. I just don't see many games (at least on the this forum or the z7 forum) that don't use it in some way. If you're going to learn, you might as well learn what everyone else is using. Why learn how to spam gem gens when you're never going to spam gem gens outside of this game?

2. Except for a couple big things, its not that dramatic of a departure from vanilla. Most of the changes are balance tweaks to cost, spell requirements, a couple extra units or unit buffs here or there.

3. The big changes that it does make, removal of gem gens and removal of hammers, are good changes.

4. It makes some significant improvements to some nations that just aren't viable choices in Vanilla. There are a few that may be a little over the top now (Argatha and MA Ulm seem to be good examples), but they're the exceptions.

5. Its not like vanilla is any easier to learn than CBM. i.e. its not that much better documented (lets be honest, the manual as a reference is pretty bad). We could just as easily say that learning CBM prepares you for playing a vanilla game. So given 1, 2, 3, and 4 I'd prefer going for CBM, but that's just me.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

If you are starting a cbm game, I'd love to get on with it, but maybe not quite yet. I just started a non cbm game, and I think I'd like to stagger it so that I don't have to games in the same stage of the game.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I mostly agree, except that I think CBM *does* make big differences, and good ones. I think that the point at which magic starts making a big difference comes much earlier in the game. So there's more flavor early on. CBM also adjusted the infantry/archery/cavalry balance so archery is not overwhelming in large armies. Finally, the scales are better balanced, particularly Order/Misfortune vs. Turmoil/Luck.

Although not without flaws, CBM is a substantial improvement over vanilla at all stages of the game. At the same time, there's enough to the game that it will take you a long time to to exhaust the variety. So go ahead, enjoy the good stuff, there's plenty of it.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I must confess my ignorance. What changes in CBM cause these effects?

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

There's no one change - you have to get down in the readme files. But in general, many spells had gem costs and research levels dropped, archers had stats cut and bows impaired, and cavalry and infantry are cheaper (especially cavalry).

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

personally, i'd love to play a non-cbm game, since this is my first outing. but if it's a deal breaker, i'll certainly play either way

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Ahhh. I guess it's just a difference in wording. Its these types of changes I mean when I was refer to minor balance tweaks. Sure it changes some of the relative effectiveness of units and spells, but there its not really even on the same level as stuff like gem gens and hammers.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I rather think it achieves a different balance, not necesarily a better one. And it splits the playerbase.

If the mod had stopped at a dozen changes moving from one system to another would be more manageable, but I can understand how there's been some kind of a snowball effect.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

At least what I understand from my limited perspective is that Llamabeast is hoping to reach some kind of stability with it eventually. The big thing that hampered that were the major changes in the last few iterations.

Overall, I'm pretty much in agreement that its a much better balance. Read any of the strategies guides that are not CBM focused. Basically everything comes down to forge a boat load of gem gens, forge a bunch of hammers, get GoH or chalice, summon Tarts, win.

I think the bigger problem is not that there's a balance mod out there, but that these issues, which were pretty obviously issues, were not just addressed in the vanilla version of the game.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Does CBM do away with all gems and hammers? Or does it merely streamline it?
Gathering gems and forging hammers is a big gameplay feature in the game IMO, and every nation is able to do so, so where lies the problem?

If gems are dropped, doent this make the game a much more standard wargame with some magic added for kicks instead of the cool wargame where you have to build your strategy around magic and gems?

I might be totally ignorant here, because I have not yet played any CBM, but if the above is true I dont find them to be 'little gameplay tweaks'.
Could someone elaborate please?
Besides, I dont think the devs where ignorant as well. Game design takes a lot of forethought and I would like to experience the real game first before I could agree or disagree that it needs balancing.
In my many years of gaming I have learned that 'balancing' is something very personal for many players. Most are stuck playing a certain way and scream fire and hell when their tactic gets nerfed in a patch eventhough it might actually improbe balance. They will scream it has become unbalanced, however, because they are unable to win anymore. Instead of adapting.

Edit: double post

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

All gemgens are artefacts in cbm, dwarfen hammers too.

Vanilla has one big advantage: the wiki lists the vanilla stats.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

The problem is that when every nation does that they have to manually equipt/ forge hammer every turn and forge gem generating items a turn then you would have to either manually(because you would have some commanders carrying some gems in them) remove every gem that has been generated this turn by the gem generators or use collect all button and having to assing gems to your battle mages/commanders again.

Also late game the game doesnt boil down to who was the most active/conquered most, its about who played it safe and forged 1000000 calms. Also Tartarians would be the only SC you'd ever see(ecept for the occasional Seraph) making even elemenatl royalties obsolete. That gave armies more of a support role. Why have an army when you can steamroll someone in 1 turn teleporting/cloud trapezing 100 tartarians everywhere.

The problem is that if you were nation without earth, you'd have to make a pretender with earth to be somewhat competitive.

Also late game people were able to use the spell 'wish' like 2-3 times a turn which cries for an unfun game.

Also sometimes a nation could just try and stay out of harm's way, turtle for a whole game. get insane ammount of calms and then just claim the victory, while others who fought hard to gain territories and conquered other 2-3 nations just loose because their gem income was connected to the magic sites not the items their commanders wear.

All in all I really like how CBM plays making armies a bit more important(late game) than just vanity items. And also adds a diversity now people actually have to think with what to counter certain armies rather than the standard "equipt tartarian with fire brand and vine shield" and drop 3 of them on top of an army and you win.
It also made some items that were never used useful, so now you have a choice of what to use with its drawbacks and good sides.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Also the advantage that Korwin states is half an advantage since the wiki shows plain stats and not the columative stats with the added gear for some soldiers.:)

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

You have the settings ingame to limit all of the above, if they are a problem in your games:
Play games with harder research, or 8 provinces/player with 6 player max, lower magic sites...and you will not see a single Tartarian. Or play against more agresive players.

I played many games of Dom PPP and we hardly ever got to lv9 spells. Pretty much the same with Dom2. Dom3 I have played little in MP, but I know it is even more customizable that those were.

I would also like to add that endgame strategies need some kind of imbalance (from a game design perspective) in order to avoid stalemates and draw games to a conclusion. With this I do not mean that "I win" buttons are fine, just that lv9 spells being slightly over is not bad per se.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

the problem is not with the imbalance, you cannot have perfectly balanced game, the problem is that everyone uses the same strategy and it gets boring and tedious in the late game. And as the best thing about dominions is its diversity(among other things)its rather a shame that by the late game all nations have to become the same(to be competitive).
Whats CBM does is introduce more choices, like now you have all the EDM summons or tartarians and they seem sort of balanced.(still some tweaking needed) But for example if you are stuck with fire or air or water, and not death you at least have some options rather than just forfeit the game.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I really like scales pretender. I think in every cbm game I played, I took extreme good scales.
The reason being, I dont need my pretender to break into another gem type, I dont need to plan how I get into clams, I dont need a Way to get hammers...

I am no Way an expert player.... so if I am wrong Tell me :D

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

But with those options you have to play artificially short games, or play with few magic sites, etc. I guess I would just prefer to play the game where you can get to level 9 spells and have the game still be interesting and diverse.

And I agree that level 9 spells should be powerful, absolutely. It's just that there should be powerful spells available down all path and for all nations without forcing everyone down the same trajectory.

But this isn't the CBM thread, so I'll stop after this. Bottom line, I'd prefer to play CBM, but I'm not 100% averse to playing a vanilla game.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I begin to understand what CBM tries to balance out, but I am not really convinced yet that the 'imbalances' are not just in the eye of the beholder.
Has there ever been any statement from Illwinter about CBM or imbalances of the game in general?
Thing is; when they designed the game, they must also have seen the issues which have been brought up above. If they were so glaringly obvious, why didn't they change it?
Aren't there counter-tactics against the 'Tartaren tactic'.

Are there nations that are excluded from said tactic and therefore inherently have a hard time winning the game no matter what?
Or are these issues more subtle?
These are the questions I would like to see answered with funding.

It might be that everyone plays the same tactic because every Nation's guide comes down to the same tactic, rather than there being other alternatives.
I have too little experience with Dom 3 to make a statement on that either way, but I am a little hesitant towards accepting claims towards gameplay changing mods being the 'best way'.
Mods of other games in the past have proven they were the best only on personal basis.

I am not against CBM at all. Do not get me wrong, but I would like to make sure that it actually improves the game (for me).

While this isn't the CBM thread, I do think the discussion is a valid one for my purpose. We need to confirm the setting before setting up the game.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

cbm. hate farming for gems.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

So without CBM Tarts are by far the best SC chassis in the late game. Nothing else is really viable. And while there are counters to tartarian spam (anti-undead spells, weapons, etc.) The shear dominance of SC in the late game just tends to tip the scales in their favor.

So one big change is that CBM incorporated EDM that gives some other options outside of death for endgame summons. There's still controversy over whether these are actually on par with tarts, if the eclipse vanilla summons in those paths, etc. But it seems like there is pretty broad agreement that they provide many more viable options.

Take a look through the vanilla options and you'll quickly realize that the other top level summons just don't really compare, especially since most of them are unique. A tart summoner can have 20 Tarts rampaging around to your 3 queens of elemental air.

And yes. There were nations that were pretty much excluded from the tactic unless they specifically geared a pretender around it. Nations without death access just had a very difficult time being competitive.

Another big change was the removal of gem gens. From what I understand, as long as these were in you just had to gear you game around producing them, especially in any longer game. They had all sorts of bad effects on the gameplay, number one being that they complete disassociated income from territory control. You could be sitting in a besieged capital, but if you had pursued a gem gen strat and your opponent had not you could have a higher income.

Final big change was removal of hammers, which while they were included basically forced you to have E on your pretender or face a pretty huge penalty compared with other nations who did have them.

I'm not really sure what the developers have said about the existence of CBM, but I would be very surprised if they thought that the base game was perfect. I would guess they probably just decided to leave it up to the modding community to work out the issues with their own changes, which is exactly what CBM seems to be doing.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Ok, well after some research and the comments in here I can accept CBM into the game.
I will open a new thread in the MP section shortly to rally everyone.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Game thread can be found here !

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Actually I suspect that good nature magic access is much more important than death magic for the purpose of tart spamming. Partly because GoR'ing of the 80% or so of tarts that start as non-commanders are more expensive than the actual summoning of the tart. And partly because there's only two ways cure the 80% or so of tarts that are feeble minded from the get go. Both of these ways requires nature magic.

Also Tartarians are a bit interesting in that they are great at breaking stalemates. Only two nations can make tartarians at the same time due to there only being two ways of healing them. This means there will be a tug-of-war for these ways. For example, I once payed 250N to overcast Gift of health in order to steal it from an enemy in a vanilla game once. It was worth it. So yea, Nature is much more important than death for tarts.

It also does not help that Bootstrapping death is very easy. Just recruit one of the D2 mercs (Göte or Nergash) and there you go. If you have traded for death gems you can have them summon a couple of revenants (Ench 3, D2 9d gems, comes with D1) and have them cast dark knowledge. Have the merc forge a skull staff and that revenant can make more revenants. Give the skull staff to Göte and he can summon a mound fiend. (conj 7) The the mound fiend can then summon tartarians eventually. (Skull Staff, Skull helmet, RoS, RoW = D7 = Tarts.

I have actually done more or less this in an MP game once so it is feasible. I got some D1 indies to site search for me though.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

If this were a game for learners/newbies (like the guy who said he has had Dom for 3 days), how would they possibly know whether some level #9 Tartarian summoning would or would not be a better SC than something else? And even if they did, what difference does it make to a new MP game they play?

Unless it's for the benefit of those who have already played a lot, and would like to do gem-gens or whatever for the pleasure of beating beginners.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

I think you did too much thinking there JonBrave. Also the game as the host said was to check if there is an interest in a game for a learning purpouses where both new players and more experienced ones play so that the new players could learn.(always a good idea to spread as many scouts as possible to see what kindoff strategies the more experienced players use for example what gear what script on the SC and from that you can learn a lot) Also the host stated that newer players can make their own choice for a race to play with, wheres more experienced players should play with what are considered "weaker nations".

I understand your concern with people newer players not wanting to play against vets because vets would trash them, but I also think that this comunity is quite nice and would sound an alarm if it sees someone trying to do that:)

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

JonBrave, even beginners read guides. So not knowing isn't an argument.

The problem with only allowing weak nations for vets is that in CBM most old weak nations have received significant buffs. :)

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Yea the problem is that CBM is too balanced now eh:P good times.
What I said was 'preceived weak nations' and as the game is CBM then the preceived weak nations for CBM should be assigned to veterans.:) Like for example I've see quite a few complaints about ashdod becomming weaker(or not so OP lets say) in CBM(although I dont believe it:P). And at the end of the thay if eveyone in the game is fine about someone's nation choice it doesnt really matter that much if it is too powerful.

Although I would suggest that if you get some players that have been in HoF or seem to be experienced, then you should use your diplomatic skill and join up focusing on exterminating the early threat:). This way you either get to destroy them of if they manage to beat you in a 2v1 or 3v1 war, to learn a lot about how they did it what you did wrong and use the knowledge you gained in your next game.

Re: Back again after absence, polling interest for a MA (learning) game
 

Weaker nations in CBM and MA, imho, probably includes: C'tis, Eiru, Caelum, Marignion and Pangaea. Man and Machaka was considered weak in vanilla but I have not looked through their changes much. MA Ulm is definitively not weak any more.

MA Oceania could be considered weak if another water nation is also in the game, as the other two are better. Otherwise they are just plain boring. Its hard to judge a water nations strength compared to a land nation though. It depends a bit on the map layout.