[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
In other words, something that will drive off the casual invader who hasn't thought his moves out.

No, more like something that will drive off virtually every other nation in the entire game, no matter how well together they put their army. How do you expect Marignon, for example, to be able to deal with it when their mages can't touch it?

What the hell are you doing in my dominion anyway? When you fight a tweaked SC on its home turf, it's SUPPOSED to be uphill.

Why should a lone SC be able to wipe out an entire mage backed army? You can't require that every offensive battle be fought on friendly dominion, or the game would never end.

Actually, we were just kicking this around the other night, and the best shot we've found at taking out a VQ conventionally is a Fire-9 bless on Valkyries backed by Dwarves.

That's not a particularly good strategy, since it is totally nullified by 100% fire resistance, which is far too easy to obtain. The autoparalyze duration of petrify is dependent on magic resist, and it no longer Lasts more than about 4 or 5 turns. That strategy also applies only to Vanheim. If only 1 of the 17 nations can counter a VQ, then there's a problem.

VQs aren't really that tough if you can nail them before they raise their shields:

How exactly are you supposed to do that, when it will just run through your script half as fast as normal, and spend every other action attacking? Give her protection over 25, and virtually nothing will get through.

Plenty of other options exist for targetting an SC's weaknesses.

Such as? Elemental magic is useless thanks to the overpowered elemental armor. Instant kill spells are useless thanks to MR boosting items. Curse is useless as it can't cause Lasting damage.

You see this as a problem, I see this as a fact of life that SOMETHING will ultimately climb to the top of the heap as the most potent chassis to build on.

That's ignoring the affliction issue entirely.

It's not as if planning around affliction removal is some sort of onerous chore, either. If affliction removal is such an immense problem for you, you haven't planned out an SC core strategy in sufficient depth.

The VQ requires no such strategy to remove her afflictions, and there are very few other pretenders that have the recuperation ability and any combat potential of note. The Lord of the Wild, for example, costs 150 points, 50 points for new paths, and is Pangaea only. Any other affliction removal strategy requires large amounts of nature gems, playing Arco, or late game magic.

Considering how often I'm the first to GoH anyway, you can clearly see that I've planned this in advance.

If you weren't abusing clams then you wouldn't be able to guarantee that GOH stayed up for more than a few turns.

I don't see how this is an imbalance against clams, more that water magic could use some better spell options.

If there is no better use for water magic than to convert it into astral magic, then that is a clear imbalance.

Clams are a long-run investment that don't truly pay off until the late game. I see no reason why people should be forbidden from aiming at a late-game strategy.

No late-game strategy should allow you to totally wipe out every other player simply because they didn't build exactly the same items as you. If you have another late game strategy of equal power, to a wish per turn, then why don't you spell it out, instead of claiming that clams aren't overpowered.

I have no objections to seeing clams increased in cost to something like 20W or 10W/5N, but I also do not see them as a serious problem.

That's because I doubt that you've ever played a game where you didn't plan to build hundreds of them yourself.

I do, however, feel that it's worth making a counterpoint, lest the only people with something to say be exclusively the whiners.

Whiners? Please. If you don't see a problem with clams, then I suggest you play a game some time where you build absolutely none of them, and your opponent builds a hundred.

[ April 16, 2004, 03:06: Message edited by: Graeme Dice ]