Clams overpowered?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
So a strength 9 unit with a spear is supposed to kill a unit with more than 20 protection that has soul vortex, breath of winter, and a charcoal shield before they end up dead?

The theory goes that if you were to hit hard enough BEFORE it could raise shields and put up soul vortex + breath of winter, you would be able to kill it: Zeikko already demonstrated that this works with Devils.

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Petrify always paralyzes, and after 4 or 5 turns, you'll just cast it again and freeze your opponent again. There's no save against petrify.

So what? Your troops are dead anyways. The triple damage shield makes sure of that.

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Once again, the idea is to hit hard and fast, not wait around to trot over on foot. The devils did this nicely. Elemental Armor, the fact that a VQ has some 35+ def....none of that held up in the face of a giant dogpile of devils. They're not unstoppable, and having to tow around fodder sort of ended the reign of VQ supremacy there.

Her hitpoints are unimpressive in neutral dominion. Everything else is top of the line.

Special attributes are definitely top of the line. Base physical attributes, not so impressive. Att 12, Def 12, Str 13....not that impressive. You can definitely get better on other chassis.

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The enemy pretender, especially if a goodly 400-500 points have been invested into making it godly, SHOULD require a great deal of effort to kill!

It should be no more difficult than the army that those points could have supported.

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Troops can be produced and summoned, as income permits. Pretenders cannot. Troops can be in many places at once. Pretenders cannot. Troops can siege. Pretenders cannot. Once again, troops have their roles to play, but you can't expect them to just brute-force their way through everything. There were situations in other games where the VQ simply was an inappropriate option for the fight, and so I used other troops. And they worked. Different strokes, different folks.

Yes, that is unreasonable, since every single nation must be able to deal with it. Where's your solution for Pangaea?

Pangaea, eh? I'm in a Pangaea game right now, pitted against an Ermorian VQ. I'll let you know how it goes.

You are continually trying to dodge the point. You've admitted that they are the best use of water gems, and that's enough to make them unbalanced.

I see the problem as being a deficiency in water magic. What would you *DO* with water magic? Summon Sea Trolls? Those are only useful if you're a land nation trying to get a toehold on the sea. Otherwise they're subpar.

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This is grossly exaggering the case: It is impossible to completely and totally ignore something in its entireity and expect to do well. Gem-producing items are obviously an important component of the game, as is anything that enhances one's income.

More dodging the point. There are no income enhancing items other than the gem producing ones.

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Gems *ARE* income.

Thanks for illustrating the imbalance once again. No nation should _ever_ have to build a specific item in order to compete.

Fine. Try not building any mages, see how well you compete. There are simply things you have to do if you expect to stay afloat and competitive: There's multiple ways you can attack the problem, but ultimately, you DO have to do SOMETHING.

On the other hand, fighting, say, 50 against 100, is a perfectly doable thing. If you have nothing, and he has everything, though, it's going to be nearly impossible....but even then, I will fight to win, or die trying.

Let me make this perfectly clear. If you are required to build a certain item in massive quantities just to prevent someone else from winning automatically when they have done so then there is a serious balance problem.

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Wrong. A lone VQ cannot be everywhere at once.

More of your bull**** I see. She doesn't need to be everywhere at once. She only needs cloud trapeze to wipe out an army per turn.

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Trapeze/teleport can only land you in a few places: Inside of your own castles, or in front of an enemy castle. If you CT to your own castles, you simply sit in the castle uselessly, unless the enemy storms your castle. If you try to break the siege, he can be gone before you can kill him. If you CT into an ENEMY castle, you're now staring at a wall. VQs can't siege. If you CT to an enemy empty province, you kill some PD. Anyone can do that.

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A lone VQ cannot siege worth a damn. You're going to still have to do better than a single VQ alone.

Not for defense against normal troops you don't. And most nations mages won't be able to hurt her either, so they are out of the picture as well. Looks like that matches up quite nicely with the build no troops vs building a lot of troops argument.

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Bullcrap. I've used plenty of troops on both defense and offensive. I tend to favor summoned troops over produced troops, but nonetheless, they're troops, not SCs.

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In one of our more recent game, in fact, I sank your army with absolutely no VQ involvement whatsoever, at which point you apparently gave up and went AI.

The Machaka game? I gave up because it's obvious that there was no point in playing against an Ermor that had no opposition in its expansion from the players that were nearby to its start position.

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Bullcrap. I'm pitted against a giant Ermor that rules half the world in another game(See above). I think I can lick this.

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The fact of the matter is that troops fill an important function at all points in the game, but that role changes, and so too must your army composition.

Troops should _never_ become just cannon fodder for SCs.

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Wishful thinking. SCs can be equipped, troops can never be upgraded. At some point they'll fall due to obsolesence. Still, there ARE options, and you can use them: Mass Flight would put your ordinary troops in the same competitive situation as the aforementioned flying devils.

I'm getting really tired of your hypocrisy. WHy don't you actually play a game where you build no clams, and don't use a VQ, instead of just claiming that they aren't necessary to win against someone who does. A person who expands at several times the rate of a clam hoarder, should reasonably expect to win.

What a coincidence. I was just beginning to get so tired of your constant snivelling that I was just looking for you on the channel earlier to do something which was entirely not a VQ. Maybe play scales or bless for a change. I was so hoping to squash you and end your constant whining for good.

Alas, you weren't there, and I'm not sure we have enough people for a game now.

However, just as you cannot expect to win with NO territory, you cannot expect to win with no side income, for if everything you own is tied to territory, then once you start taking losses in territory, you are doomed as your efforts to resist grow steadily more feeble.

That's kind of the point.

Alternatively, you can diversify your assets so that you can extract income from multiple sources, so you can actually survive a setback, rather than simply die.

Ultimately, I hold a dim view of people screaming "nerf, nerf, nerf".

[ April 16, 2004, 06:38: Message edited by: Norfleet ]