Blood stones and MR
 

Hi everybody, I am curious to know couple things I can't work out on my own:

- do Blood Stones (B3E2) still exist in latest CBM? Looks like I am unable to manifacture them.

- Is it possible to use multiple spells to increase an army's MR, like Antimagic and Army of Lead?

All help appreciated! :)

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I believe Blood Stones are CNST 8 in CBM. Key word Believe.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Mattyburn7 is correct - bloodstones are now unique items.

No, they do not stack.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

That's the one reason that I dislike cbm.

Gem gens are unique...

And they are the best things in this game...

I was playing Helheim in a vanilla game and had 100 bloodstones...

That rocked...

Pun intended...

:D

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Oddly enough, the one reason that I enjoy CBM more than vanilla is the lack of Gem Gens. Worst part of the game. If I want to spend my days keeping track of who is producing what kind of gem and what not, I'd probably have studied accounting.
Gem Gens are probably the worst design aspect of Dominions 3.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I look at it as a engineering project...

Making toys for end game conflicts...

There's a lot of love for clams and blood stones...

At least in my crowd...

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Well you're hanging with a stupid crowd then.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

... and illustrates perfectly how one man's ceiling is another man's floor.


Ideally, if Gem Gens could be made optional...

Best wishes,
Steve

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I Have No Gemgens And I Must Micromanage

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

If anyone wants CBM without the gem gens removed it would take less than five minutes to make such a version, *including* looking up the documentation. It's only a text file, you can open it in notepad.

However, personally I think removing gem gens is one of the best things CBM has done (it was quantum_mechani, not me). A very brave decision given the number of people who'd become attached to their gem gen strategies, but one that I think greatly improves the enjoyability of the game.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Yeah, I am also glad they are gone in the CBM. I never spent the time massing them before so always felt I was missing out on something. This wasn't a big deal with single player, but in multi-player it could put you at a big disadvantage.

Now that I am finally back in the game and trying out MP for the first time, I am glad they aren't there ;). Now I don't have to worry about fitting them into a strategy.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Yea, hurrah for no gem-gens! And no dwarven hammers! I still play around with them in SP (MA Agarta is a blast and a half with bloodstones...), but MP is much better off without them. As llama has pointed out before, with gem-gens/hammers available, you can't afford not to make them part of your strategy, and that makes the game less interesting.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Come up with a crew and we'll see who's crying...

Really...

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I'm sure you talked about getting your group of great players to play a game here before, but nothing came of it. Perhaps they were too busy schooling you? (as you phrased it before). Plus why don't you try naming some of these players that are in your group of super vets then? Or are you afraid that will destroy the facade you've been building up for them? Since one thing for sure is there's no way I'd play in any game with (literally) unknown players, as any number of them could either be on my banned list, or complete newbs who I have no interest in playing against.

So why don't you try naming some names. If I've heard of the players, have no previously bad experiences of them, and I'm impressed with your line-up, then I might consider it. Since there were certainly any number of old vets who I never got to play with before they retired from the (main) scene :( But if your group is either too ashamed to be named, or too full of completely unknown players to the (wider) Dominions community (yet are somehow super vets?!), then forget it and please STFU about them in future.


Oh and ps, please learn how to write proper paragraphs

As this

is not how

you should post

on the forums

As it makes you

look like a

10 year old kid

Really

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Instruction regarding paragraphs typically starts at ages seven to eight, so that ten year old children have anywhere from one to four years practice depending on when exactly they started and how recently their tenth birthday was. As such, the above is not what one would expect stylistically from a ten year old due to their capacity to write paragraphs. If anything, it is an extended paragraph with no line breaks that is to be expected, as essays are usually not taught until age eleven or twelve, and aren't normalized until age thirteen or fourteen; this leads to what should be several paragraphs being a single inordinately long one.

I have also never seen ellipsis abuse within that age category. Punctuation errors tend to be in commas and apostrophes, with the occasional grotesque misuse of parenthesis. There's no reasons to insult ten year old kids for any of these actions.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I have never been in a game where the outcome was determined by hammers, dousing rods and gem generators. I've heard a lot of stories about how bad they are. I've heard people who have never played in MP games with these items tell me how bad they are. Few have even attempted to explain properly why and how these items have a 'negative influence.' It's like their eyes glaze over, then they start spewing some hyperbolic morality tale filled with circular logic.

Don't use gem gens...
'Coz they're bad...M'Kay?..
So don't use gem gens...
'Coz they're baaaad...




I'm eagerly awaiting totally honest accounts of the Turtle Gods shuffling their hundreds of Clams throughout their dozens of forts while cackling evilly and ruining everyone's fun. No really, I have not heard that story before...

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Gengems are bad cause we (the vets) say so and as the rulers on this puny forum our wisdom is absolute and finale.

I don't see how it's anyone's job to school you in such matters.
If you don't know why gemgens are bad perhaps you should dig up some old threads on the matter instead of practically calling everyone who's against gemgens an idiot.

There are indeed plenty of discussions of the subject and descriptions of bad games.

Consider the case where one nation expands to a small/moderate size, then just sits there. You ignore them because you're involved in a series of wars, all of which you win through considerable skill and cunning. Your empire expands until you're apparently the inevitable winner. However, it turns out that the turtling nation has been doing nothing but building clams. Every turn he's just loaded up his turn file, forged another couple of clams, recruited a couple of commanders, given last turn's new commanders clams, and moved everyone into his capital. He also put a few domes up over his capital and summoned a load of chaff so the walls are all but unbreakable. Over the course of the game his clam income has allowed him to forge clams faster and faster.

Now at this point you're sure you've won. You certainly deserve to have won, with all the amazing battles you've fought. But in fact you're probably screwed. You've got a "huge" gem income of several tens of gems per turn, but clam boy has more than a hundred and growing. His S9 pretender has woken up and is wishing for gems every turn, then using the water and nature gems to make more clams. You declare war on him and capture all of his provinces apart from the capital in a single turn. But that hasn't helped you at all! His gem income remains almost unaffected. He can sit there as long as he wants. Eventually he will just summon a huge number of SCs (having empowered mages to get the required paths if necessary), equip them all and storm out and massacre you. Before then he could wish for a load of Armageddons so that your gold income is destroyed and it really is just a battle of gems. The longer the game goes on, the greater his advantage, *despite* the fact that you own almost all the map and have played much "better".

This happened lots of times in real life and eventually people got really annoyed.

Edit: An additional factor is that gem gen income doesn't show up on the graphs. So you don't know what the clamming player is doing. You might well assume he's just lost interest in the game or is a noob, sitting there doing nothing every turn while you conquer the world.

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

No. I want the court jesters to dance for my amusement.

If the case against gem generators, dousing rods and dwarven hammers is so compelling, no doubt it is worth repeating.

Or perhaps you can't explain your bias coherently?

edit: and the Turtle God lives again...

Lets see. 20 gem investment in a clam of pearls. 15 with a hammer (not counting the gem cost of the hammer, empowerment, summoning and/or path boosting items). So, 16 turns after you build a clam, minimum, you get a return, assuming an unempowered/unsummoned mage with a free hammer.

You have to take a mage out of commission to start mass producing clams, spend upward of 15 gems a turn and depending on your initial outlay, you're looking at 15+ turns (most generous circumstances) to start recouping on that investment in the form of a netincome. The more mages you need to summon, empower or forge booster for sets you back even further. Claims of hundred of clams are patently ridiculous except in those rare instances where every nation turtles...In a game like that, Clams are not the problem.

...And all this somehow puts the nation that invest in research, thugs and SC's instead of clams, at a distinct disadvantage? I do not think so.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Looks like we posted at the same time TigerBlood. :) I have done my little dance for your amusement.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Look, if people want to act elitist, I'll happily play that game.

I'm going to make a Turtle God Mod now. Includes a pretender with a forge bonus, gem income and castle defence bonus. I should probably include a +100 research bonus as well, just so you can start clamming efficiently before turn 10...I am so going to pwn single player.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Ok I'll probably regret this, but work is slow and I'm feeling lucky. So what the hell, lets give educating players yet another go, as maybe this time something will get through to someone... Prepare for a wall of text like you've never seen before...


First off, while the theory behind gem gens is sound, as it's a gameplay mechanic that has been seen in numerous strategy games, and in several of them implemented well, in Dominions it doesn't work in its current form. Not even slightly. As the basic gameplay mechanic is "investment", which means to invest a proportion of resource X now, to hopefully get a ROI (Return On Investment) later in the game so that you get back "X + profits for rest of game".

But whereas in games such as Civilization it is implemented well via city improvements like Marketplaces or Libraries (so invest X resources in A to get a 25% boost in output of B), the way it is implemented in Dominions has several flaws. Some of them huge.

(all Civ comparisons are I-IV, not touched V)

Some problems with the concept

1 - There is no real limit on how many gem gens you can create. (ok, 50 per turn, but that is not a good limit)

So whereas in Civ you can only build one Marketplace per city, in Dominions you can build unlimited Marketplaces in every city. Do you really need your hand held to realise how stupid that would be to game balance?

2 - There is no barrier to entry on where you can build them.

Again whereas in Civ, even if you could build unlimited Marketplaces (so lets say every turn you can build and complete one Marketplace per city), you still need an actual city to build it in. So if you wanted to increase production you would have to go out and gain more land to build more cities. In Dominions all you need is another mage with the right paths, which are easy enough to summon up. You literally never have to leave a single fort to ramp up production to maximum (ie. such as can happen when all your lands have been invaded).

3 - There is practically no barrier to entry to creating gem gens.

This is one of my personal favourites. As one of the common arguments in favour of gem gens is that...

"if they are so powerful, then why don't nations that can forge them with national mages dominate the game? As if they are so powerful then logically Kailasa, Pangaea, the Niefs etc. would win every game, and nations that can't forge them with their mages wouldn't stand a chance. But this doesn't happen, therefore gem gens are not that powerful"

That is just about the biggest load of crap ever. If ONLY nations that had the right paths on their national mages could forge them, then this argument would likely carry more weight (such as if you could mod in national items the same way you can with spells). But any nation that takes just W1N1S4 on their Pretender can summon Naiads (using boosters) which gets you Clams.

So any nation that gets a good start, can summon a Naiad and hey presto, your clamming. So nations still have to be able to compete in the early-mid game, which some of the native gem geners are not always good at, leading to the obvious consequences. But nations without national gem gen forges can easily get a good start which enables them get what they need to start Clamming. Heck it wasn't uncommon to empower N1 tribe mages in Water to start clamming, as the up-front cost (50W) is easily recouped once the Clams start rolling in. (and this was a route several players took to get clams, even though in today’s gem scarcity days it sounds crazy to blow 50W on that)

So the pitiful barrier to entry on gem gens is another huge part of their problem, that and the fact ANY nation can forge them.

4 - Return on investment is way too quick, and initial investment required is too small

This is an argument against all the current pricing of gem increasing effects (especially globals, that all have a stupidly quick ROI), but with gem gens Fetishes pay for themselves in around 9 turns (or 6 if you pre-disease the carriers). Stones in around 9 (using 5.5:1 slave:gem ratio), and Clams in a crazy 7. That is all way too quick. And because the initial price is so low, it's almost never a bad idea to forge them at any point in the game. ie. If you had to pay an upfront cost of 110W+30N to get back 70 pearls in 7 turns time, then it's harder to come up with the initial cost, and you do have to think if the upfront fee can be spent better elsewhere. But if it's just an upfront fee of 11W+3N, then you don't even have to think about it. As an analogy....

Loads of people play national lotteries because they only cost 1$/£/Euro for a ticket with the chance to win a huge amount. So the upfront fee is easily small enough that it won't be missed when they don't win. But if tickets cost 10,000£/$/Euro for a prize that was 10,000 times bigger, then hardly anyone would play because they simply couldn't afford to risk losing such a high upfront fee. Even though the odds and prize ratios are the same.


Some problems on gameplay

5 - The defender advantage synergies too well with high Astral.

Clams means Astral, high Astral means Wish, Wish means access to more Wish casters, which means access to potentially unlimited Master Enslavers. If you have never played in a mid-large scale game which has gem gens, and with competent players, then IMO you are simply not qualified to comment on the effect they can have on the game. As storming forts against dozens of 1st round Master Enslavements is simply impossible. And because the defender goes first, there is nothing the attacker can do about it. And I know there will be players reading this that will say...

"Well then cast Flames from Afar/Murdering Winter/Assasian spells/Wish for Armageddon/etc. ie. Do whatever you can to kill what's in the fort."

Well good luck getting past all the Domes, and even when you do, good luck with killing fully kitted Seraphs with full immunities with whatever bag of tricks you care to try (as every important commander in the fort will have full immunities and gear to survive every method of killing them if playing against proper players). And then I know players will say "Well dom kill them then". Yeah, good luck with that as well when they can simply summon endless Juggernauts with their Clam income. And when I say Clam income, I am literally talking about games where players have had several hundred Clams. The most I think I remember seeing/hearing of was 700+. That sort of volume simply goes beyond breaking the game into smashing it existence into tiny particles.

There might come a time in the game where you can dom-kill someone who is forted up like in the above, by gaining 1-2 candles per turn over them. But when the game is already past 100 turns, and there are 100's of candles to remove, the game has long since gone past the point of being fun or enjoyable. And to continue is the very definition of painful gaming (and indeed many games ended in draws or undecided when they got to this stage)

6 - The income is hidden

Another huge problem is that the income from gem gens is hidden. So whereas in games without them you can get a fairly reliable picture of who the most powerful nation is by doing scouting and checking graphs (when they're on), with gem gens any nation could be more powerful than all the others combined. As 200+ Clams likely tops the income of all other provinces combined on a 150 province map. So an innocent nation with a dozen provinces could in theory be the top dog and is happily watching and growing whilst everyone leaves him alone thinking he's a nobody.

7 - They make conquering lands an irrelevance

Here is one of the biggest arguments against gem gens. In that once you are getting 80%+ of your gem income from gem gens, then who needs or cares about your lands? I've by no means played a wide variety of strategy games (either computer or board), but I can't think of any game where conquering all your opponents lands does nothing to either dent their power, or even stop them from getting more powerful. As there has to be consequences for losing all your lands, and there has to be ways to reduce/remove/ruin your opponents economic income trough successful warfare. But gem gens remove this vital strategic aspect from wars, unless of course you can get past all those Master Enslavers to capture the fort(s).

8 - They are Micromanagement hell

This is probably the biggest negative of all. Every proper game with proper players reaches a stage where dozens of mages need to be constantly equipped every turn with gems in order to be able to cast powerful spells should a battle occur. And when this happens the "Pool Gems" button of the user interface instantly becomes your worst enemy. As all the gems being generated need to be collected in order for them to be used, but if you use the Pool Gems button to do this you immediately remove all the essential gems from those battle ready mages that happened to be at labs. So this means you either have to use the Pool Gems button and then go around every mage in your empire giving all of them back the gems they need for battle (hope you've taken notes!). Or you have to go round all commanders carrying gem gens and individually transfer their gems from their inventory to the lab. Most serious players ended up choosing the latter, as the consequences for the former (ie. mages not having gems when needed) would often result in disaster. Especially so when talking about Returning/VoR/AM Casters. (ie. The Astral Pool button was the most untouchable, while also being the one you needed most)

And again, unless you've played in a game where you are literally spending hours each turn just to put gems into the lab then you are not qualified to have any opinion on gem gens. And if you haven't experienced this then you are honestly a very lucky person indeed. And please do yourself a massive favour and believe those of us who have gone through this unbelievable misery in many games, when we say that gem gens in their current form are broken beyond belief.


And before anyone even dares to mention it, having to spend all your time managing gem gens is not the price you pay for success. That sort of attitude really pisses me off as it's completely illogical and positively discourages a player from trying to succeed. It's the same as when a player is doing well in a game and needs to ask for delays or extended hosting to manage his (successful) empire, and some douche bag replies

"That's your own fault for doing so well. I think forcing you to rush turns is fair as it means you are more likely to make mistakes that gives me a chance to beat you" (ie. I can't beat you if you play properly; therefore my only hope is you make mistakes by not giving you enough time to play properly).

Any system that punishes success is strategically flawed. The barriers to success should be made the obstacle, and not punish the player for overcoming them. (as it should be up to the other players to bring the successful ones down, and not need the system do it for them)

9 - Games get stupid.

Once you've seen someone running around with dozens of S5 empowered Wraith Lords, and MLichs with 200+ HPs, then you know for certain that gem gens are just a joke, and allow players to stop even trying to play well, by giving them free reign to start doing stupid things. (which is not a good gameplay feature)


Right I'll end there because I am just getting very bored and fairly annoyed at having to explain so many obvious things. There are still further reasons why gem gens are bad, but someone else can take over from here if they want to. And if you still don't get why Gem Gens are bad then that's your own problem. Or maybe you can....

....go and organise a load of large scale games with Gem Gens with various other disbelievers. Play these type of games constantly until you get to the point where you are all highly skilled players. Then organise another bunch of large scale games with these skilled players, where most game are lasting over 100+ turns with multiple players having hundreds of Clams each. Then continue playing these games even though a single turn in any game is taking many hours to complete. As then and only then can you come back in 4-5 years time and give your opinion about Gem Gens based on actual experience from high level games. As if you do that then you will have recreated the MP history of Dominions 3 that has taken place on these forums, and maybe then you will understand why those who have been through all of that, or even just a part of it, have firmly concluded that Gem Gens ruin the game completely.


A few final points...

Gem gens might work in newb games or casual games where players either simply don't know or simply don't care what's going on ("I just Pool Gems, and if my mages die so what, it's only a game"). But if you believe that players generally try to improve at the game from playing (if they are new), or have even the slightest care about how they do (why invest any time in the game at all if you are happy to see it ruined later?) then just accept the word of those of use who have played the game a long time, and invest our time in trying to play to a certain level.

Also bear in mind that Clams are exactly twice as good as either Bloodstones or Fever Fetishes due to the Wish mechanics. So in all the above I am mostly talking about clams.

Crap players in crap games with other crap players know nothing about how proper games with proper players can play out if gem gens are available. So until you are good enough to understand why they ruin games, then just concentrate on playing without them, and accept the likely fact that you might not understand why until you are better at the game. Yes I am a Jerk. And yes I am an Elitist. So when you combine those two facts you get the obvious outcome of what position I am posting from.

Oh and in my experience any vets who argue in favour of gem gens, and I know they are out there, are either only interested in playing in newb games where they can abuse gem gens due to the lack of knowledge newbs will have about them (Hi Frank!), or they are simply incapable of playing the game unless they can horde gem gens (hi to all those regular players who coincidentally gave up totally once CBM 1.6 came out).

Everything is priced with Hammers, because the game is better with Hammers, I only intend to play games with Hammer, so therefore I am using Hammer prices. And people who claim Hammers have the same negative effects on gameplay that Gem Gens do are almost as clueless as those who say Gem Gens are fine. As there is no way they can be compared directly like people tend to do.


tl;dr - Just listen to players who have experienced it, and accept it when they say that Gem Gen items ruin the game.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Have fun with your Turtle mod games. You've been around a whole 6 months, so please post again in 6 years when you have a lot of experience with your Turtle mod from vet games, and when you also have the skill needed to understand all apsects of the game and how they combine with one another.

I must say I am eagerly anticipating some great feedback from you in November 2017. Can't wait.


You are right, my bad. Think I over reacted there for certain, for which I apologise.

I really need to make sure I get more accurate infomation on the age of person I am responding to next time, as otherwise I could be holding them to blame for skills they simply haven't been taught yet through no fault of their own (and that really would be unfairly harsh)

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Here's a part of what the F1 screen looks like in gem-gen world:
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/2379/clamss.png
I have more than ten times what shows here. Not many fetishes, because the disease handling is even more painful. Not that many bloodstones either because repeated armageddons (like ten of them? can't remember) made this turn 266 hard to find provinces with people to actually blood hunt in.
+1 to all what Calahan said.

And indeed, hammers are not gem-gens.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I hope that wasn't directed at me, because I spent quite a bit of time trying to give a good concise explanation when I could have just suggested you read the CBM1.6 thread where there are many many pages on this debate.

I know reading Calahan's post will probably make you feel aggravated (Calahan: people are less likely to read what you say when you insult them at the same time), but his points are valid. There was enormous resistance to removing clams, because people liked them. However eventually everyone got so tired of games with players having hundreds of clams that most people agreed.

If you're accusing us of lying, then that's quite annoying to be honest. There's no motivation for us to do that. Games with hundreds of clams were common. Why do you think we modded them out if they were actually fine? It would have been much easier not to.

You're right about the 16 turn payback time or whatever (off the top of my head I think it's 14 but never mind). However a mid-sized game can easily reach turn 80, and the exponential nature of the clam process makes it easy to get to the hundred(s) of clam point by that time. Once you've got 30-odd clams you can fund another clam per turn just by alchemizing your pearls. If you get Wish then you can make another clam for every 14-odd clams you have. So once you have about 40 clams and Wish, you can make 3 clams per turn just from clam income. Compound interest at nearly 10% PER TURN racks up crazy fast.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I'm pretty sure I'm not misremembering when I say that in removing gem gens CBM was following a growing trend. Up to and including 1.6 I'd say CBM followed a fairly conservative path and removing gem gens didn't come out of nowhere (unlike hammer removal which I think was a surprise to most people). Which isn't to say that removing gem gens didn't cause an uproar since their fans probably viewed this as formalizing their elimination and now most games would not have them, rather than it just being an increasingly popular setting. Personally I think even if CBM hadn't removed them they would have largely disappeared from MP since for most people they are not much fun - and the more you play the game they more tiresome they become. There were some games where I just wouldn't bother even though I knew I was shooting myself in the foot by not clamming.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

The thing is, Cal, when one thing is removed, sometimes unintended consequences occur. Without those vast ever-replenishing resources, I believe assasians have become OP.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

water bottle, phantasmal warrior, frozen heart, body ethereal/spells, rise skelleton, vine arrow(not as effective as other paths), entangle + 1 troop at guard commander , blind, bleed. And the most important outwitting your opponent, if he thinks that you are going to storm the castle, he will send his assassins, so instead of waiting for 1 turn(storming with the usual scout first), wait for 2 turns and storm on the third scripting your mages so that they can be safe against assassins on turn 2. When you kill the assassins storm the casle.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Since Im the one who mentioned hammers, let me clarify that I didn't say that hammers were game breaking, just that I felt the game was better off without them. I totally understand that saving gems with hammers is a completely different animal than increasing gem income to insane levels with gem gens. My comment was that hammers, like gem gens, are too valuable to ignore in games that allow them- as you said, forging costs seem to assume hammers. Since you would have proportionately higher gem expenditure without them, nations without earth access MUST either take it on their god, or trade for hammers. I don't like this necessity, or the fact that any one item should be essential in the game, so I support CBM's decision to remove them.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

That's me!!! :D

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

But my posts are never meant to be read, as they are meant to be framed and worshipped for posterity :D

Clams are 7 turns due to the Wish mechanics, where 1 pearl = 2 gems. Hence Clams being exactly twice as good as other gem gens.

People thinking it's 14 turns is what starts making them think gem gens are less powerful than they really are. (and if someone doesn't understand the Wish mechanics then once again their opinion on gem gens is instantly rendered meaningless)

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Theoretical limit. In a vaccum there is nothing wrong with this statement. In the context of an actual game, there are actual limitations imposed by any number of variables. Given ideal circumstances, 50 free mages all comfortably established, a steady gem income, sure you can fill your lab up every turn.

Practically, at what stage does this occur in a vanilla game? Turn 150, 200? The only reasonable explanation for a game dragging on that long would be multiple players all sitting in the corner turtling.

In a lab. In provinces you control. Otherwise true.

No barriers aside from paths, gem income and the oppotunity cost associated with devoting a commander to the task when they could be doing something else.

Just because these obstacles are surmountable in ideal circumstances does not make them nonexistant or insignificant.

Return on the investment...

You're not just pumping gems into the ether. You have to have a mage craft the item. They do that at the exclusion of another task. Suppose they need a ring to get up to W3, you're adding that cost to the initial investment. A hammer requires more gems. A Naiad, Nushi or whatever requires yet more gems. A Naiad creating a clam with a hammer is going to require a lot of time to see a return on the initial outlay, even cranking out a clam per turn. 50 Naiads with hammers is not a small investment. 50 recruitable W3N1 mages is not a small investment.

See above. It takes an incredibly long time before you start seeing a returns on your initial outlay sufficient to perpetuate further investment indefinately. Assuming you're up against an opponent or opponents with a similar base gem income, one that is using the majority of those gems for more immediate purposes, who do you think is going to have the advantage? To be clear, I'm talking about turn 30, not turn 260+. It takes some fairly unique circumstances or active collusion to bring about the scenario you are alluding to.

Yeah. In the land of the Turtle Gods, Astral is King. If you're going to leave another nation to their own devices for 100 turns, you deserve to lose. I'll also add that your Astral Misery Scenario can occur in a game without gem gens. Big nations unwilling to overcommit against a foe in case they overextend themselves or get ganged up on. Not as epic though, and likely to get stale a hell of a lot faster

Oh noes. Ban Blood. Hidden Income is Bad!

You're talking about a paradigm shift in warfare after multiple players have set up perpetual gem generation forges. Territories are still important.


I disagree. Then again, my preferences lean toward blood nations. Putting hours into a late game turn is not an issue for me assuming the game is hosted at a reasonable schedule (3-4 days) once the game moves toward the late and end game.

It only becomes a chore if the game has been allowed get to that stage and I'm clearly going to lose via eventual attrition. I usually have the sense to concede well before that point, assuming other victory conditions have not been put in play.

Unless I was the guy running around with a dozen empowered wraith lords, I probably would have conceded the game by that point.

Yeah yeah. I'll go dust off my brothers well used copy of PPP. You can go back to measuring your post count with whatever account you favour the most and pretend it means something.

I disagree.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

LOL!
Dude, you have no fricking idea do you?

Yes Calahan, you are obviously a bias wanker. How dare you and the rest of the vets, who have played dozens of games under scores and hundereds of clams and wishes and armagedons and went 100+ into the game just to give up, think you know better than TigerBlood who's never actually played a game with gemgens?!
I mean really...

BTW around turn 60 I'd say. The forging of 50 clams I mean.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

In the lands of the Turtle Gods, games don't officially start until everyone has Alt 9 researched and an S9 caster.

Lets be clear. 20 gems spent on turn 1. turn 2, you get 1 gem. Turn 21 you recoup your costs. Turn 22+ you make a profit.

Cost reduction items, boosters and specialised summons modify these cost accordingly. They do not modify them downward unless you are using the same cost recuction item exclusively for a significant amount of time.

Sure thing. You can probably do better if you really applied yourself. All the players sit in the corner and have a race to see who can get to 50 clams first. Send me pictures.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

In the lands of the Turtle Gods everyone rushes The Forge and get's a 5-6? gem clam.
In a normal game whoever gets The Steel Ovens wins.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

You're being really weird TigerBlood. Do you just think everyone is lying as part of some bizarre conspiracy?

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

No. In the turn 266 game mentioned above, the only player that'd been turtling has been killed swiftly (well...) for turtling.
The game drags mostly due to one player (me)'s inability to take out opponent's forts while another one manages it but still. It also drags because bringing dozens of gate cleavers on a capital and hundreds of troops doesn't harm walls a bit, but the besieged player doesn't stay idle. The thing is that raiding provinces with 200 pop doesn't do much damage to anyone.

No. In a lab you control. If the province is besieged and thus controlled by someone else, you can use it too.

These are in fact insignificant as every survivor in long games managed to build lots of clams, blood stones and whatnot.

You don't need 50. Plus after 100 turns, you've paid off whatever initial investment you made, without even considering Wish.

Games rarely end at this stage. They often last to turn 50 or 80. At this point, a RoI of 7 turns (Wish) is definitely worth the cost.

When a player is being defeated and retreats in his last fort, he has little choice but to turtle. If you don't pick winning conditions like majority of provinces or something clever, it happens. Dominions IS the land of turtle gods. Even when you don't let other players to their own, they can still manage to get huge defender advantage.

This does not compare. Blood requires hunters, provinces and population. All of these are easily spotted and it's easy to guess what kind of blood economy a player has by counting his number of provinces for instance. You can't do that with BS or clams.

No, they are irrelevant at this point in the game.

When people reach the end-game after fighting several wars, defeating several opponents, they sometimes have researched all the way to 9 in every path and have had enough gems and spare wizards to start a clam economy in order to defeat some of the four or five remaining players who also fought some wars. It's not for people who turtled from the start. It's for everyone that clam-hoarding is a reality and a necessity in order to compete.
Seriously, when you have researched 9 in every school, you usually have enough boosters to spare a pair on someone who can build gem-gens without even planning it or turtling for it.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Ahem.


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Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I for one would also like to note how gem generators are a retarded mechanic that deserved to be removed. The hammers I'm not as sure about, but I do agree that they were important enough for about any nation design to consider a way to get them so they obscured strategies other.

But about gemgens. Along with the absolutely horrible micromanagement the biggest issue for me is that the gemgen income was next to impossible to stop. Blood income can be stopped with (good enough) raiding or advancing armies as can site based gem income. Globals can also be dispelled or replaced. Gold income stops as provicnes are lost or unrest is high enough. Gem generators you can have on a horde of scouts hiding somewhere and in general very safe from any threat.

If gemgens were fairly fragile and easily spottable and not very mobile things you had to spread around your lands (like let's say they'd each improve output of a magical site with diminishing mariginal returns or some non-gem income related reason) they would be fine. Blood hunting is fine since it requires peaceful provinces, continuous mage turns and bringing your mages in the open to risk death or building forts everywhere. As a bonus even if the forts are everywhere they are stopped from getting slaves by sieging the forts. Gemgens in vanilla are not even nearly comparable to blood hunting in vanilla due to this.

I do also prefer gameplay that doesn't reward turtling as much as gemgens did. I mean, even after the removal some nations and strategies are still fine with rather passive playing.

I suppose everyone is entitled to an opinion on the gemgens, but I personally find them as implemented in Dominions 3 a horrible mechanic that deserved to be removed (or well, items made unique). I cannot understand anyone who thinks they are an universally good thing for the game (multiplayer anyway) and I have yet to see an argument for the gemgens that doesn't make the writer seem dumb in my eyes.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

I use them on battlefield mages, its just such a convenience not to have to shift gems around as much. ;)

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Well, sure, if you play singleplayer absolutely any point for or against gemgens is moot since the AI is so very retardedly terrible anyway and it's not like gemgens are going to turn the tide.

If you do that in multiplayer... good god.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

We have a rule at my house. When the relatives come over... No discussions of religion, politics, or gemgens. Aunt Mabel once tossed a hot sweet potatoe filled with butter and brown sugar at grampa Mick when an innocent gemgen discussion escalated a couple Thanksgivings ago. Monkey pd is also off limits as grampa Mick likes to talk trash when he gets a couple Sherrys in him.

ssj

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Monkey PD would be awesome if their commander generated a gem at the start of every battle so they could cast the summon monkey elemental spell in battle.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

good thing your house isn't a discussion forum I guess

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

You must mean this guy.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

But which are better, bows or crossbows?

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Ah that is easier to answer.

For the unskilled, the crossbow is most definitely King, bar none. You just can't beat it for ease of use and power.

For those with skill in the bow, the Bow is better. It doesn't have quite the force the Crossbow has, but it fires at a much faster rate.

Against me, neither, for I am unstoppable!

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

In the interest of full disclosure, I reported this message for baiting Calahan. Dude, you are not a mod, don't try to act like one.

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

And you should know I've reported you for being a snitch!

Re: Blood stones and MR
 

Really? But you didn't report my (clearly trolling) bows vs crossbows post? I'm sad.

And thanks for the full disclosure. I can deal with disagreements or people not liking me, as long as they simply make it clear. :)