[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
If I read you correctly your desire is for pretenders with strong bless effects to still be viable. They are so in your mind because viable scale settings are more affordable than they were in dom2.

yup.

What I think is the problem with your argument is that if other scales were to be changed so that you percieved them as useful as the order scale you would feel compelled to raise them as well.

Nope - Its an absolute question of not having the points to get started not a relative scale of value. I'm lowering all my scales to the abo****e minimum I can and survive (hopefully) long term in order to get points for magic paths. I'm not going to raise one of my scales because its got a bit better because the only place to take the points off is magic - do that and the race dies as its the magic choices that define the entire race design. Some designs either work or don't in MP. Some designs could play with 120pts off and still work fine because they can still do the fundamental things they need to and get by.

Jasper the Medusa you mention is inadequate as a pretender for most of the bless effect races I'm working on. Earth mother with two 9's or Son of Niefel with Water 9, earth or nature 9, Lord of the Desert Sun with two 9's, Prince of Death with a 6 death and 9 water - these are the sort of pretenders I'm using. Only the very best sacred troops work as a basis for a race design, IMO, with one 9 or less to boost them and I'm more interested in the borderline sacred troops.

I'm generally playing drain3, Growth 0, and sloth2 or 3. Someone suggested I shouldn't take growth3?! If it were so easy I would indeed be blowing smoke. The only reason I don't play death as a norm is that its crazy to kill off the population in the only place that can build sacred troops.

On luck Johan there is for me one central consideration - MP games I'm in take a couple of months to play. Of course I don't want to get an earthquake on the first turn as my carefully crafted race (that I will probably never play again) suddenly can't start as planned and if I'm playing a borderline race design (and I generally am) that can mean can't start enough to be in the game. I don't take that risk. I'd rather weaken my race to avoid the chance - oddly enough in Dom II I don't have to as I just take order3/misfortune3. That is why I take order3/misfortune3 - to cope with luck not to get the gold - thats just a bonus. If you want to make order less effective in bringing in income I don't mind as I'm taking order for order not gold. Sure the gold is nice but its just not fundamental to what I'm trying to do and losing some of it will not break the back of the races - just slow them a bit.

I personally don't see the problem with improving specific races which should use turmoil and luck so that they are happy. I have been testing a nice looking Tuatha race with luck +1. If Barbarian Kings gets to recruit through the success of their Khans then playing turmoil won't bother me in the least and if recruiting is turmoil related I'll be +3 turmoil every time. As for Pangaea main theme I wouldn't play them without luck3/turmoil3 and don't see why they can't be a decent choice with a bit of tinkering if they aren't now. Turmoil should be bad for most but good for some in my opinion not a reasonable choice for anyone. How many races can play death3 and pretend its a decent choice?

I guess my approach to race design must be a bit odd as for me what is fundamental and obvious can't be seen be other perfectly intelligent human beings. If its just my particular bent that is at issue then go on - throw my toys away. If in fact the toys are only of interest to my particular subjective bent then they don't really matter to game as a whole. I still believe what I'm describing has a basis in objective reality based on my experiance of MP - my race designs tend to do very well - but of course this has little or no validity for others.

I know I'm trying to avoid balence questions and said I'd stay away, and sorry for stealing your Last word Johan, but when a developer joins in there is an added incentive. And maybe just maybe if I state the point in a different way people will get what I'm saying about the difference between quantitive increase in race power vs qualitive changes. Enough small changes makes for a completely different thing.

Ciao

Keir

[ November 25, 2003, 23:19: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]