The next patch

[Wendigo]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
and the fact that your tastes lies in some particualar settings doesn't mean that everybody should play it, or that any unbalances that manifest themself outside of these settings does not matter.

You are not going to get a game with nations perfectly balanced for both the long & short term. Some nations are better short term & some long term, same with designs.

I asked you specific question that you haven't answered - you were refering to some other strategies that were as effective/abusive as clam hoarding. Can you name any?

Check this one for example for another 'economic strategy':
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=001570#000004

Others with a similar focus: Anything blood-slave related or concerning hoarding the Elemental kings/queens that produce free (and good!) troops-> It does not feed on itself as gem generators+ alchemy, but the troops provide gems+coin by giving you the provinces of your enemies.

In the end, you should not forget that the game is won & lost by winning & losing battles. The economy is not everything.

[ April 02, 2004, 21:40: Message edited by: Wendigo ]

I have nulled the advantage of Clams in Zenmod 82.3.

It takes out Wish. Now you must use normal ways to use your Astral Income either converting or using the pure Astrals.

Now if I could find a way to mod away the whining of people who build 'forts' then it would be 'balanced'.

[Wendigo]

I am not going to answer everything because it would take us nowhere, many of the arguments we are using are being circular & repetitive.

I will stick to my main point (yet uncontested):

Atlantis and I were allied from turn one, and Ermor was busy dealing with Atlantis and the other nations surrounding it.

This basically confirms my earlier Posts, you were an unchallenged water power..as previously noted:

"this 'geometric growth' strategy only works in some very specific settings: big map, long game, water income, passive players, relative early invulnerability."

Really, the unballance in this game seems to be the R'lyeh-Atlantis alliance, rather than the clams.

[ April 02, 2004, 21:51: Message edited by: Wendigo ]

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
You guys seem to defend that dumping huge amounts in clams is both necessary & compulsory to be able to compete. I have certainly won more than once without doing that, so I dispute this line of reasoning.

Wendigo is one of the best players I know of, with a good grasp of the early game and a punishing grasp of the end game. I deeply regretted having invested water gems in pearls when losing to him. I lost many to murdering winter, and regretted not having spent them on something as simple as frost resist rings, or summons.

Frankly, you guys have _still_ done nothing to counter his points, and merely repeat your astute observation that Clams can pay off in the very long term, or resort to circular logic.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zen:
I have nulled the advantage of Clams in Zenmod 82.3.

It takes out Wish. Now you must use normal ways to use your Astral Income either converting or using the pure Astrals.

Hmm, interesting. Sounds like a good mod for MP. Care to post link to it? Also are there any other changes there in addition to the to that you have mentioned?

BTW if it's funny that you were arguing with me on the previous page of this thread, saying that clams are just fine the way they are now. Did you changed your opinion or just created the mod to satisfy the other side of the argument?

Whatever the case I appreciate your mod, thank you. To use it in MP should it be installed on every player's comp or only on the host?

I'm still of the opinion that Clams are of a very slight imbalance (only situational in one type of game or one type of player).

The reason I made the Mod is because I got tired of the lure of Wishing. It was for a very specific game (with Easy Magical Research) and we didn't want it to turn into a wishfest as that is very, very boring.

I don't have the file on me, but I'll be happy to Email it to anyone who wants it to try for some different starting settings of games.

Edit: I think that the reason Jasper and Pepe and a few others feel the way they do is they are of a similiar temperment (as I am) of aggression, I don't believe ethnic and religious cleansing should have alot of peace and at the very least vicious backstabbing to find the one true God. With that kind of temperment, having someone be able to sit by and make Clams unmolested until the game is more boring than fun is hard to imagine happening enough to be imbalanced.

[ April 02, 2004, 22:43: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
Really, the unballance in this game seems to be the R'lyeh-Atlantis alliance, rather than the clams.

Well, it's not like there's anything that R'Lyeh can spend water or astral gems on in great numbers that will help them in underwater battles against Atlantis. R'lyeh has virtually no capacity for casting ritual spells, and the number of underwater spells that cost either kind of gem is very low.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Wendigo:
[QB]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
and the fact that your tastes lies in some particualar settings doesn't mean that everybody should play it, or that any unbalances that manifest themself outside of these settings does not matter.

You are not going to get a game with nations perfectly balanced for both the long & short term.

It may be true, but it doesn't mean that there should be no attemts to improve the overall balance of the game, even considering the fact that the ideal balance can not be archived because it doesn't exist. In particular case with clams, you seem to admit that they are very unbalancing in long games. If this is so, and if they are as uneffective as you claim they are in short games, than why not make them harder to forge as suggested earlier?

Short games that you like to play will not be affected in any signifcant degree according to you, and medium and long game where clam hoarding can be a big issue will definetly be improved. I see it as clear win-win situation.

I asked you specific question that you haven't answered - you were refering to some other strategies that were as effective/abusive as clam hoarding. Can you name any?

Check this one for example for another 'economic strategy':
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=001570#000004

Others with a similar focus: Anything blood-slave related or concerning hoarding the Elemental kings/queens that produce free (and good!) troops-> It does not feed on itself as gem generators+ alchemy, but the troops provide gems+coin by giving you the provinces of your enemies.

---

I think you've answered your own question. These strategies that you describe with blood and King/Queens summons are just what you said - some free troops. But because none of these tactics, as you put it, are "feeding on itself" it's very different in its nature from clam hoarding as I think you reilize yourself.

In mathematical terms Clam hoarding is geometric progression. What you descibing are ariphemetic progressions. As you probably know they are very different.


The argument that using thess strategies will give you more provinces is not really relivent. So would any other good strategy, that allow you to conquer enemy territory and by doing this would allow you to become more powerfull. These are just efficient strategies, some of the many available ones. But because they don't have "snowball" effect ("feeding on itself" in your own terms), which is the main attribute of geometric progression, they are not abusive, but instead are just good valid strategies that can be countered with others equaly good ones - and that's what this game is about after all.

In the end, you should not forget that the game is won & lost by winning & losing battles. The economy is not everything.

True. But the economy matters a lot as well. And if one decent player have 10 times more economic resourses than the other, than he will very likely win even aginst expert opponent, not by superior tactic in battles but because of his economic might that will alow him to have 10 times more soldiers, summons, etc.

[ April 02, 2004, 22:57: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zen:


I don't have the file on me, but I'll be happy to Email it to anyone who wants it to try for some different starting settings of games.

Perhaps you could send it to Gandalf and he would be kind enough to host it on his brand new "Dom2minions" website? It's would be nice to have some link from where those who don't have it could download it before the start of the game. (if it has to be installed on every player's computer - is it?)


EDIT: NM, I misread your post (geting tired). I though you took out Wish _and_ Clams. My fault.

Guess I'll have to wait until Clams are fixed (hopefully) in the patch. Or if not than perhaps somebody would make a mod for it. Or maybe I should do it myslef - how difficult it can possibly be?!?

[ April 03, 2004, 00:04: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
I'll be damned! Thanks Peter. I knew it was scary, but I didn't realize it was _that_ scary. ;(

Well, the scariness all depends on the other players letting the astral user getting away with it. It takes 20+1 rounds for astrals gems converted to water gems made into clams of pearls to pay off (14+1 rounds with a dwarven hammer, but then you need to pay for the hammer as well) so it takes a medium to long term game with a heavy investment in astral for a long, long, time to become truly scary.

I guess it is easier to get away with the more players there are, as it becomes possible to be overlooked for some time by not acting particularly aggressively and by being hard to attack. R'lyeh would probably be the best candidate for that with an "We're just a bunch of squid-faces on the bottom of the sea who want to live in peace" - while hoarding astral clams.

But even so, for my money, it is not all that abusable as it requires active collusion from your enemies for many dozens of turns in order to reach critical mass (unless you fight a large number of very good sites nearly). If your enemies hit you hard, it is going to be hard to avoid diverting a fair number of gems into various magical defenses and summonings.