[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
In Dom2 most races I design have order3/misfortune3. Thats 160 extra design ponts over Dom1 and that, in my estimation, is what makes the possibility of a wide range of bless effect races worth trying. Without the points only the most extreme temp races have enough points for the high level starting magic. Its not a question of quantative differrence in race power, as you suggest Jasper, but qualitiative - thats how the bless effects work. Its the level 9 ones the tend to matke the race desing viable or not. Got enough for the effects you need to make the troop type work - yay. Not enough and the race is simply lame. To me the difference in power between a tight race and a bitsa is not 10-20-30% but more like 50-150+% because of the way low casualty expansion feeds upon itself.

There's the nub of our disagreement! I think it is possible to get to level 9 just fine, though not really 2 level 9s. In doing so you will have less effective scales, but IMHO that's as it should be. I'm not seeing the cusp effect you describe.

For example I've toyed around with a Medusa with 9 Earth, 3 Nature, 40 admin castle, dominion 4. This still leaves 80 pts for buying scales, which seems just fine to me.

I'm sorry for not providing lots of concrete examples on this Jasper but it would take alot of work to do. All I can say is that the races I am trying to make work are very hard to get enough points for to make viable.

I wasn't so much asking for lots of examples, just a particular example that you already had worked up -- something like the above Medusa.

I asked because I figured you were interesting in talking about your designs... Perhaps it's possible it could be made to work even without free points from Misfortune -- for example if Order wasn't so damn good it wouldn't be so necessary, and perhaps you could get away with Order 0, Misfortune 0.

IMHO being able to get 120 free pts out of Misfortune 3 after taking Order is just broken -- constraining the viable choices enough in these scales that they may as well not exist. Perhaps it would be interesting if Pretenders were built out of 600 pts instead of 500, but that to me is a seperate issue.

I really do believe that a formalistic approach to balence which says that every feature should be individualy balenced with every other feature is just plain wrong. Its the overall balence and the possibilities this produces I'm concerned about and not wether certain options are necessary to get a good race. Does it really matter that much if most players take order 3 misfortune 3?

Yes. It does matter to me whether the scales are roughly balanced. I don't want to always have to play an Order/Misfortune faction to be competitive. It's too great a reduction in variety, and it constrains me to roleplaying only one flavor of race -- I very much dislike it.

The first 3 races I considered for Multiplayer in Dom 2 are Pangaea, Tuatha, and Autumn and Spring. Pangaea despite it's theme is only viable taking Order, Tuatha must take luck, and Autumn/Spring must take Turmoil.

Moreover, I very much believe that far more variety is lost through the dominance of Order/Misfortune than is gained by effectively allowing Pretenders 120 extra points.