[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

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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.

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The fire resistance is irrelevant. The flaming weapons are magical and penetrate the ethereal defense with only line troops.

The autoparalyze duration of petrify is dependent on magic resist, and it no longer Lasts more than about 4 or 5 turns.

Petrify always paralyzes, and after 4 or 5 turns, you'll just cast it again and freeze your opponent again. There's no save against petrify.

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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.

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Surprisingly for you, I've actually lost fully-armed and powered up VQs to devils. Yes, devils. Freaking devils get me very time, dogpiling before I can raise shields. A VQ without all the defensive shielding spells is far less impressive, and "running through the script half as fast as normal" is not an inconsiderable effect: When you consider that all of those spells being cast are shields to protect you from enemies, and you are being prevented from raising them as quickly as possible, you are vulnerable! Being struck by a flying dogpile on the defender's opening move before you can get ANY shields up leaves you VERY vulnerable: The VQ is exceptionally weak against this because its base stats are unimpressive.

The enemy pretender, especially if a goodly 400-500 points have been invested into making it godly, SHOULD require a great deal of effort to kill! There's a world of difference between even a low-end VQ, and a 500-point combat-tweaked anything. Is it unreasonable to expect that you should have to put together an actual force designed to kill it, rather than simply expecting to be able to win anything by dogpiling troops at it?

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

Yes, perhaps, but only in the underpoweredness of water magic. This is not really relevant to the clams themselves: it is water magic that is weak.

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.

This is grossly exaggering the case: It is impossible to completely and totally ignore something in its entireity and expect to do well. Gem-producing items are obviously an important component of the game, as is anything that enhances one's income. Zero vs 100 is a gross exaggeration: Of course you're going to lose, if you've completely neglected your revenue stream. On the other hand, fighting, say, 50 against 100, is a perfectly doable thing. If you have nothing, and he has everything, though, it's going to be nearly impossible....but even then, I will fight to win, or die trying.

That's a perfectly functional strategy if you've selected the magic paths properly on a vampire queen. No amount of normal troops can defeat her, so it doesn't much matter how many get thrown at her.

Wrong. A lone VQ cannot be everywhere at once. A lone VQ cannot siege worth a damn. You're going to still have to do better than a single VQ alone. In one of our more recent game, in fact, I sank your army with absolutely no VQ involvement whatsoever, at which point you apparently gave up and went AI. The fact of the matter is that troops fill an important function at all points in the game, but that role changes, and so too must your army composition.

To get an income of 100 astral pearls from territory, you'd would need to control something around more than half of the world map at 75% magic site frequency.

I entirely fail to see why you hold "territory" as some sacred cow. Territory is only one of many components to an empire, and hardly the most important one. It is not some sacred cow where the only thing that matters is having the most of it: Just as you can win without having the most income generating items, you can win without having the most territory. However, just as you cannot expect to win with NO territory, you cannot expect to win with no side income, for if everything you own is tied to territory, then once you start taking losses in territory, you are doomed as your efforts to resist grow steadily more feeble.

[ April 16, 2004, 04:21: Message edited by: Norfleet ]