Re: Enough whining!
This is an excellent thread. I love whining about whining!
Of course, it is impossible to balance a game as complex as Dominions. I mean, Blizzard worked a long time and nerfed several pet things (like the muta rush) over the course of several years with a programming staff maybe 5 times that which Dominions has avaliable. Blizzard even spent nearly a full year with the expansion to introduce just 6 new units! And they had only 3 races and a few dozen units to balance. Even that proved darn hard to do.
Balancing 17 races? Balancing 8 schools of magic with 10 levels each? Balancing hundreds of artifacts plus all those summons? No way! Forget it!
So, there are several unbablanced things. It can only be expected. That is just the way it is.
It would be interesting to make a list of things that people believe are overpowered or too inexpensive, and a list of things that are underpowered or cost too much. Like, for instance:
Overpowered: Pythium, clams, false horrors, wraithful skies, astral and death magic, blood summons, life drain, Air Queens, devils, order, mad castling, ghost riders, and so forth. This is the stuff that top players do.
Underpowered: T'ien Ch'i, Ulm, sea trolls, water magic, national troops in general, sloth, luck, far too many summons to list, and on and on. This is the stuff that good players avoid like the plague.
Anybody else would have their own personal lists, of course. In fact, I would like to see a top player compile a list of all the artifacts that have been built in a game on about turn 70. That way, you can see what is thought best and which ones never get built.
I like to see people talking about the balance issues. It makes for an interesting forum. And it also gives people an outlet for complaining, which is always needed.
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