New Dawn - EA Dawn of Dominions

[Teraswaerto]

An early SC that can take indies alone is much much easier to counter than heavily blessed Helhirdings.

Perhaps we could agree that pretender must be awake or sleeping, not imprisoned. That would make a heavy bless harder to pull off.

The thing is, though, that EA Vanheim and Helheim are so strong they can rush many nations even with no bless and usually win.

Mods are installed by placing the .dm file in \dominions3\mods folder. The host determines what mods are used in any given game. I attached the Worthy Heroes mod to this post.

[Mind Elemental]

Based on geography, can anyone other than Ulm and Vanheim easily reach Helheim? And similarly, does anyone other than Marverni and Helheim border Van? Diplomacy is always an option, but mobbing the Heims might not be too easy on this map.

I'm most concerned about the W9F9 Heim bless, even though that's not invincible. I see two alternatives, which we could use individually or together:

- Limit 9+ blesses to awake/sleeping pretenders, similar to what Teraswaerto suggested. (I'd favour letting people pick imprisoned, non-bless pretenders, though - although I don't know if it would be very wise to pick a scalemonster on a smallish map like this.) This may have the side effect of encouraging SC pretenders, though even then they'd be one lucky Soul Slay or Horror Mark or even Sleep away from being stopped. It may also go a bit far in nerfing Kailasa, whose sacreds are IIRCC horribly vulnerable to missiles.

- Have a truce for the first X turns, as Darrel suggested.

Thoughts?

[Teraswaerto]

Helheim practically borders Kailasa, there is a tunnel under the big mountain, 143 and 145 are connected.

[Reverend Zombie]

Mind Elemental said:
I'm most concerned about the W9F9 Heim bless, even though that's not invincible. I see two alternatives, which we could use individually or together:

This is my first time as Helheim in Dom 3, and I won't be using W9F9 bless, for whatever that is worth...

[StrictlyRockers]

This is my first time playing Vanheim MP. I am not planning to be using an imprisoned or a dormant pretender. It is probable that I will go to level 9 in one path of magic so I can get one good bless stat boost on my sacred troops.

I think disallowing imprisoned pretenders would be a simple solution to uber-bless strategies. Having a dormant pretender would still be allowed.

SR

[Covenant]

On a small map, a Dormant pretender could be an okay defense. As the Ulm player, I am well aware of my awfully violent neighbors and not too happy about it, to be completely honest. My mages are fairly awful, so it's not like I'm going to be laying down area-effect fire spells enmasse to wipe away the hordes, so W9 anythings are already pretty painful. I'm all for fairness and not unfairly gimping one side or the other, but since race selection is restricted on this map, I'm a little worried about people exploiting their neighbors' weaknesses if we let blesses get too potent. I certainly don't think Ulm is weak, but this isn't MA or LA Ulm we're talking about, and a smithing price reduction is hardly the game-winning advantage when you're facing a rush-heavy force like the Heims.

[Mind Elemental]

Perhaps we could just stick with No Imprisoned Pretenders? As others pointed out, the Heims and people with SC pretenders can be deadly even without a bless, and there's not much we can do to prevent that short of a truce for the first X turns - which I'm still open to, but might be excessive regulation - or dogpiling would-be rushers.

Still, further thoughts are welcome.

[Teraswaerto]

The 10 turn forced truce is fine by me.

[lch]

Okay, it seems like everything that needed discussion is clear now(?), I'll try to get the server up this weekend.

I will use the Dawn map from the game, 3.06 version and the Worthy Heroes mod that's the most current one then.

[Reverend Zombie]

lch said:
Okay, it seems like everything that needed discussion is clear now(?),

Clear as mud! Where do we stand on blessings, truce, etc.?