[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
What I feel Norfleet is missing is the rich variety of strategies available in Dominions, and so a clear hierarchy is not necessary. Now, if Norfleet believes there is one best strategy to win Dominions, then his comments make perfect sense.

I've never said I believed that. I'm fully aware that there are many different strategies one can opt to pursue in Dominions II. However, it's also the case that many options available for the creation of a pretender do not seem to fill any niche involved in the formulation of any known or conjectural strategy, or are outclassed in practically all ways by something else of comparable or lesser cost(see: POD vs. Lord of the Gates). These options are, in essence, crap. Whether this is something that should be patched or modded, or just something that exists to serve as a warning to others, is another matter.

Originally posted by Blitz:
Giving me a reason to play Golden Age as a MP race can wait. Hopefully these and other "bad" choices will be fixed in time.

There's nothing wrong with GA Arco as an MP race. I've played them and was rather satisfied with the results. There are a few nagging issues of everything about them being capitol only, but they're far from unplayably bad.

However, I refuse to believe that Golden Age Arcoscephale is crappy to trick bad players into using it. This race was the first I latched onto with this game, and in time I came to realize that it pretty much stunk.

Perhaps you're just not getting them: I rather liked them, myself. In fact, my initial opinion was rather like yours: A cursory glance suggested they sucked. Then somebody asked me for my advice about them, forcing me to actually evaluate them critically. As I looked over their actual strengths in greater depth, I realized, "Hey, you know, these guys really suit me. I'm gonna play 'em!". And so I did.

Hopefully it's dealt with at some point, because I love the concept... but I find it very hard to believe that it was intentionaly made bad to reward players for not playing it

Well, *I* like them. Maybe you're just not finding their niche. There are certainly worse, crummier themes out there, some of which are awful enough to have gathered attention lately.