[Thufir]

As a newbie, I'm speaking out of school here, but I just can't help myself

One question out of the box: what does 'MM' mean?

Originally posted by tinkthank:
I really don't think S&A need a boost, at least not as a priority. I quite enjoy them as is and would worry that they would get broken with increased power. I certainly think Tien BK is more in need of tweakage.

I can't argue against BK being more in need of tweakage, but I am still inclined to think that Tien S&A could be better than it is (without being unbalanced). From my rather limited experience, I would have to guess that few people are winning MP games with S&A - am I wrong?

It seems to me that the design intent of Tien AS is to be the best, of the mage oriented races/themes. I started my first SP game w/ TC after reading Zen's guide on the race (on Sunray's now locked site), and aesthetically it made it look like the kind setup I'd most enjoy in Dom 2.

If S&A were successfully implemented, I'd expect that in an MP game where no one gets screwed in the opening turns and the players are roughly equal, that S&A would be at a slight disadvantage in taking indies, and at a significant advantage in acquiring gem income and developing large numbers of useful mages.

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Also, I'm sure I'm not the only one who despises the concept that a theme is only going to be viable if you totally trash your scales and make an ungodly SC, especially a VQ.

I agree completely. Boron, with all due respect, I'd have to say that if your aproach is necessary to make the theme viable, then the theme is truly broken.

I don't have enough Dom2 game experience to pronounce a solution to adjusting S&A, but I would certainly like to see this theme be tweaked to the extent that it is a reasonable choice, oft taken and (reasonably) oft won with in MP play. Also, I'd say that a successful tweakage of S&A would mean that good play with this position was less SC dependent, and more mage dependent than others. I imagine that good play with S&A would probably require clever scripting with large numbers of CMs.

One ingredient of a well implemented S&A theme should include Heavenly Demons that are useful in MP play, at least into midgame. Arralen, based on your post, I think we should be asking for the following code level fixes in an upcoming patch (would 2.13 be optimistic? )

1) Increase accuracy of Demons of Heavenly Fire? I certainly have noticed their inaccuracy in SP play, and I'd think that would be crippling in MP play.

2) Increase the number of Demons of Heavenly River per summoning - perhaps with increased gem cost? It might be reasonable to do the same for DHF, as well.

Also, CMs must be viable in a well implemented S&A, but so far, I can't say that this is not the case. In SP play at least, the odds that my CMs get either a second air (giving them lightning bolt), or an earth pick (giving magma bolt) out of their impressive two randoms, are pretty good. Together with boosting items, it to me that CMs are viable as is, though I'd defer to those with more experience. As to their expense, it would seem to me reasonable that S&A must face a difficult choice of paying for their very valuable mages, and never having enough mundane troops (especially in the opening game). One thing I've been wondering - would it be reasonable for Mot5E to be recruitable in non-capital provinces?

I understand Arralen you are suggesting a fix via mod, but I'd guess I'd like to see S&A tweaked in a patch, in which case doing code level patches for the celestial demons becomes an option. I would have to guess that these are easy code changes to make, and if there were broad agreement, I'd imagine we could get these into a patch.

I would also say that adding to S&A's gem income goes in the wrong direction. S&A can start it's clam hoarding earlier and easier than any other nation. On top of that, with a combination of a CM plus Mot5E, it gets a broad search team very easily, so should find it easier to search for sites than other nations. All in all, I expect that S&A would tend to be more gem rich than any other nation, as is.

All that said, Arralen, if you produce a mod that strengthens S&A (my favorite theme ), I'll be more than happy to try it out!

[ July 29, 2004, 16:56: Message edited by: Thufir ]