Dom I Strategies which WON'T work in Dom II

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Oh, I have another favorite DomI strategy that won't work in DomII!

"Getting the demo, and never bothering to get the full Version, because the demo basically is the full Version."

Saber - you are funny!

[apoger]

>No surprise here, we have held opposing views on this topic before in the newsgroup.

Yes, however my view is that both types of players should be able to get what they want. You seem to want to limit everyone to your style of play.

>- Right of passage.
>To which I answered same as here: it would only make gangfests easier.

Since gateway has been crippled in Dom II, I think that offering some method to cross non-enemy territory is apporpriate.

>- Exchange of commanders/mages/troops.

I never asked for this, and don't like the idea.

>In any conflict involving multiple nations, diplomacy is critical to success. It's an essential facet of strategy and has every reason to be modeled into a wargame. Particularly one as complex as Dominions.

>This is a false analogy with RL.

While real life and games are certainly different, this is a multi-nation game of conflict. I honestly don't see how anyone can argue that dippy and cooperation aren't compatible with such a theme.

Again, I'm not saying that YOU must play dipplomatically, nor that dipplomacy should be forced on anyone. What I'm saying is that it's a very important facet to many players and as such should be included as an option for those that want it.

>I do not oppose cooperative gameplay per se, but the limits of it must definitely be stated beforehand when the game is launched (looks like we at least agree on this), otherwise it only results in fustration as players develop different expectatives of what is, or not, allowed in a game that requires a heavy time investment.

I agree whole-heartedly.
Don't you think having the dippy functionality inside the game would help define such limits? I submit that the lack of structured dippy is precisely what leads to the issue you just brought up!

>And I definitely do not see any need to increase the power of what is already the most powerful MP weapon with further coding favoring its use (or abuse), for me this would detract from the game, by making it duller and less challenging

You don't like dippy. Got it.
Don't use it. Stick to games where all players agree to the same. Why force this view on others?

>I would rather have the devs spend their time in stuff that improved my enjoyment

That pretty much says it all.
What about *my* enjoyment? Or the enjoyment of *other* players? The whole idea here is to have a discussion about what many players want. If there is a good deal of support for dippy (as seems the case) then why should IW program for your enjoyment at the expense of others? I don't mean to be rude, but this comes across as a rather selfish point of view.

This is obviously someting that many players care about passionately. As such I see no reason why IW shouldn't implement options for everyone, so we can all play the game we want.

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by apoger:
>>I would rather have the devs spend their time in stuff that improved my enjoyment

That pretty much says it all.
What about *my* enjoyment? Or the enjoyment of *other* players? The whole idea here is to have a discussion about what many players want.

How true, that is why were making polls. We know that most of the players are preferring SP, and that lot of players want SP diplomacy.
Period.

[ October 16, 2003, 19:55: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[Wendigo]

Originally posted by apoger:
Yes, however my view is that both types of players should be able to get what they want. You seem to want to limit everyone to your style of play.

Definitely wrong. I do not want to define how others play or enjoy the game. If they enjoy a different set of rules let them play their way via house rules. What I oppose is the hard-coding of something that goes against the very definition of the game. If you want allied victory you can have it via house rules, why do you need any coding to support something which doesn't fit with the world? Do you need an official clap in the back?

>- Right of passage.
>To which I answered same as here: it would only make gangfests easier.

Since gateway has been crippled in Dom II, I think that offering some method to cross non-enemy territory is apporpriate.

So you want totally _free_ passage through enemy lands to replace gateway?. Colour me unconvinced.

>- Exchange of commanders/mages/troops.

I never asked for this, and don't like the idea.

Sorry, it seems after a Google search that my recollection of this was inaccurate, you campaigned for Allied victory instead. My apologies.

>This is a false analogy with RL.

While real life and games are certainly different, this is a multi-nation game of conflict. I honestly don't see how anyone can argue that dippy and cooperation aren't compatible with such a theme.

Because in the Dominions world in the end there canbe only one. You can cooperate up to a point, when your ally will become your enemy. While you can play differently if you feel like it or in a scenario it would make no sense for IW to code such possibility which would not fit the story of the world as defined in the colourful background. In your house games, you are king.

Again, I'm not saying that YOU must play dipplomatically, nor that dipplomacy should be forced on anyone. What I'm saying is that it's a very important facet to many players and as such should be included as an option for those that want it.

You can play diplomatically: You can forward gems, coin, slaves & items, and you can trade information & coordinate attacks. It sounds like quite a lot to me.

That pretty much says it all.
What about *my* enjoyment? Or the enjoyment of *other* players? The whole idea here is to have a discussion about what many players want. If there is a good deal of support for dippy (as seems the case) then why should IW program for your enjoyment at the expense of others? I don't mean to be rude, but this comes across as a rather selfish point of view.

Why so? are you not capable of defending your point of view & what you like? do you expect me to do it for you in addition to defending mine?

I will tell you a secret: I will defend what I like & you can defend what you like, that way we can have...a debate. If we are to 'have a discussion about what players want' why do you label as selfish the opinions that disagree with yours?

Targeting the poster when you run out of arguments to target the post?

[HJ]

House rules are impossible for SP, unless we're refering to ironman rules, therefore the only option is to have them hardcoded. OTOH, they are quite possible to ignore in MP. The option has to exist to be ignored/switched off, so which scenario happens to take more players into account?

[ywl]

I won't really called myself a vet in MP - just 2 to 3 games. I might even occassionally sound like a know-it-all of the system but I'm not really a very skillful player.

But since Pocus asked...

I think most of Alex's whammies are fine in terms of game balance. It might catch people off-guard. But to me, they're the fun parts of the game - expect the unexpected and prepare for different situations. Otherwise, I worry that the end game will become nothing more than a race to enmasse the largest army of HIs.

1) Super-Combatants. Except for Ice Devils, I think that most super-combatants are fine. To have a good super-combatants, you usually need to invest at least 50 gems and have at least level 3 in two magic paths (earth, etc). Morever, most of these supercombatants can be killed by "Soul Slay", "Opposition", "Disintegration" et al. Or a moderate number of ethereatl beings (e.g., 10 ghosts). The ability of such an expensive commander to kill 100+ cheap heavy infantries is a reasonable thing (50 gems ~= 500 golds ~= cost of 40 HIs).

Blood summons are painful in most game but the problem is more because of the easy availability of Blood Slaves.

Ice-Devils at the 4th level is too much of a bargain. Something has been done already and I'll need to see how it turns out. I think the other Blood Summons are priced reasonably.

2) Teleport and Gateway. Not sure.

3) Magic Duel. It's fine in its current form. Or Astral would be too powerful . The only nations severly hurt by MD is Marignon. But to me, Marignon's mages are powerful enough in its current form: Astral Fire, Flame Eruption (both are only level 6!), Body Ethereal, Luck. Astral lets you boast up your magic level easily ("Light of the Northern Sky" and "Power of the Sphere"). And you can also use the Communions circle to increase the magic power of your mages. With so many variable, I don't really that MD is such a safe tactics even for Pythium.

4) Ritual Summon... what does it mean? Summoning magical creatures are what make the game fun - right?

5) Battlefield Summon. Not sure - I haven't seen enough. To me, it is just some tricks that make the mages worth their gold... If Storm is tuned down and the archers can get to the mages, it shouldn't be that dominant any more. Moreover, even in the current system, there are other spells to kill the mages hid in the back, e.g. "Howl", "Earthquake", "Rain of Stone", "Acid Rain".

6) Battlefield spells. Does it means "Wrathful Sky" and others? I find most of them fine. "Wrathful Sky" is better raised to Air 4 or 5. "Astral Tempest" should give more damage to make it worthwile. But otherwise, to me, these spells are just something to be factored in during a battle. Without them, Dominions will lose a lot of the richness of tactics and strategies.

7) Storms. I agree . The current modifications are in the right direction. I'll need to play Dom II to see whether they've gone far enough (or too far).

8) Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual. FftS is at Level 9. Leprosy is cheap and probably should be a higher cost (15 gems?) but it's very slow acting. For common fodder units - you shouldn't care. For important mages, it's easy enough to give them ice-rings, fire-rings or the poison-rings.

9) Province BLasting spells. An useful and fun part of the game. I don't see any problem other than the sinking feeling while I'm the one receiving them .

10) Assassination. I haven't seen anybody using them with effect more than mere annoyance. In theory, you can equip some commanders to be super-assasain but it'll be expensive to lose them. And you can never sure whether you'll hit a good target - easily countered with a bunch of cheap scouts or monks.

[ywl]

Some more thoughts on army bLasting spell.

In terms of game-play, "Vengeance of the Dead" seems to be a good way to counter army bLasting - if we can make them good even for undeads.

If we still found army bLasting still too annoying, we can introduce a few new spells in other magic paths to make mass murderers more vulnerable. Some examples:

"Curse of the Deads", a spell to curse a commander with a large body-count remotely.

"Mark of Kurgi", a spell to horror-mark a mass murderer from a distance - for later Horror attack.

"Smite of Justice", a thunderbolt to strike whoever kill too many.

"Scythe of Conscience", renders whoever kill too many feeblemind ?

Just some random thoughts.