Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design?

[Daynarr]

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:

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Originally posted by Daynarr:
Oh, and BTW level 9 in any path of magic is NOT particularly expensive if you use right pretender (for example, use Cyclops for Earth). I still get excellent dominion scales, not weak dominion and level 9 Earth at the same time. Getting 2 of level 9 is another story, though.

Going from 3 -> 9 costs 168 pts! Four points less gets you Earth 4, plus a 3 and a 2 in magic your faction doesn't have. Or you could just go with Earth 4 and tip 4 dominion scales.

It doesn't seem worth trading these powerfull effects for more skill on your pretender than you can really use, plus +2 further protection and some reinvigoration for troops you can only produce in limited quantities. Even if you pay this many points, you still get a less powerfull bless effect than the default bless in Dom 1.


I very much like the intention of increasing the value of magic on a Pretender so that competitive players will actually take some, but I don't think this is enough. On the other hand, I think it's a good idea to make changes in this area slowly to avoid overcompensating.

Perhaps this area will be tweaked later if people find it to be unbalanced. I think it would be cool to see some dominion scale like effects tied to magic skill, to let higher skill levels make more of a difference on spell casting power, or even a small cost reduction in casting ritual spells.

Of course, this is all without having seen Dom 2. Perhaps many of the new spells require or give significant bonuses to a strong caster, which could be a real boon.

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Ok, here is the design I used in that particular game:

Cyclops pretender with Level 9 in Earth magic.

Fortified City

Dominion scales:

- Order +3
- Production +2
- Growth +1
- Misfortune -3
All the rest are neutral.

Dominion Strength 3; Note that Man has cheaper temple (100 gold) so getting higher strength during is quite easy for them.

Of course those scales can be a little different (+3 production and neutral growth, or –2 misfortune to get special commanders and neutral growth) but I like having positive growth since it gradually improves your income over time. Also, growth has larger effect on larger maps where having supply bonus from growth counts (large armies are more common) and having more provinces with growth means you get significantly more money from taxes over time then you would on smaller maps. This was large map with no Ermor player so I went for growth. I believe this is quite good dominion and it ensures that I get enough income and production to make lots of Wardens and get fast and efficient expansion with almost no losses at the start of the game. Also, my pretender will be able to empower himself later in air and nature magic while I will be able to find those resource/gold bonus sites with him. It was good combo, but not only one. I'm just pondering what possibilities I would have using other bless effects, like fire weapons bonus and improved attack, quickness and better defense, etc.

Bless does matter, but must be used carefully as not all bless effect will be beneficial to your sacred troops. For example, if you have sacred magic Users that you will employ often you will avoid nature blessing that will make them go berserk as soon as something touches them. Air or earth (or both) blessing will work better on them since they will be better protected from missiles (especially if they can’t cast air shield on themselves and you are up against nation that like archers) or reinvigoration, which will reduce fatigue significantly (getting level 6 or 8 in earth there seems good choice there since mages wont get much benefit from def+4).

O boy, another long post.

[ October 27, 2003, 08:31: Message edited by: Daynarr ]

[Pocus]

Regen effect :

IIRC the regen effect from blessing is a 10% regen, which lead to a 1 HP/round regen for the wardens.

Seems not that much interesting.

[Psitticine]

I have a question for the Dom I players. I've been a bit surprised while reading this at how many people prefer Pretenders with such weak magic skills. In Dom II, the really good stuff, like Arcane Nexus, Undead Mastery, Master Enslave, and so forth all require powers of 6-8. Is that a new thing, or do you just find other ways to meet the power criteria?

I can think of Empowerment, Communion/Sabboth, and magical items as ways to unlock those world-shakers, but they all have their drawbacks.

Empowerment can certainly boost one's Pretender up to a more godlike potency, but that would be so costly, and those gems can be used for so many other things! Communion and Sabboth are potent, but they only work on the battlefield and are no help at all for rituals. The magical items seem a good choice, but they are limited in how far they can boost you, plus they are expensive as well, and often also require a high level of power to forge in the first place!

I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

[apoger]

>Is that a new thing, or do you just find other ways to meet the power criteria?

In Dom I'd say 75% of multiplayer games ended before anyone was able to cast such spells.

Frankly, I don't see this changing much in Dom II. You have to understand that multiplayer is vastly less laid back than single player. In single player you can lay back and generate all sorts of funky stuff. Against live players... if you don't maximize every turn, you will get savaged.


>I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

The change from Dom 1-2 is that in Dom II the scales are less potent, thus you are inspired to spend more on the pretender in Dom II.

[Kristoffer O]

Several spells are more difficult to encourage people to create more powerful gods.

We were surprised that players (especially competetive MP:s) created weak and ungodly gods. Feeling instead of efficiency was not a trade off they were willing to make.

The blessings, weaker scale effects and more difficult spells are all efforts to give boring MP:s some reasons to increase their gods powers.

Spells were available through magic items and empowerment, but this cost was always low compared to the economical advantage that enabled you to early conquer enemies and take their gold and gems.

Divine titles are another way to encourage people to make interesting gods, but this feature is only a PR thing. I suspect that it will make overly competetive players avoid high magic skills as it gives a hint on what their gods are skilled at. Personally I would very much like to be known 'God of this World' by my opponents.

[Jasper]

[quote]Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Several spells are more difficult to encourage people to create more powerful gods.

We were surprised that players (especially competetive MP:s) created weak and ungodly gods. Feeling instead of efficiency was not a trade off they were willing to make.

IMHO it's more a kind of "operant conditioning"; making an inefficient Pretender in multiplayer is a very Pavlovian experience. I started my first few games making Pretenders with higher magic skills, but it cost me badly and I was only able to make up for it through lucky multiplayer dynamics.

It's fun to be thematic, but it's not fun to lose because your neighbors are _twice_ as big as you. This naturally convinces most players to try to find something that is still fun, but doesn't make you feel like you're doomed.

IMHO this is largely due to the exponential growth of early dominions games, where investment in wealth increasing scales quickly compounds. This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.

Spells were available through magic items and empowerment, but this cost was always low compared to the economical advantage that enabled you to early conquer enemies and take their gold and gems.

More accurately, these costs are fixed, while scale investments yield compound interest.

One way I've seen this addressed in other games is to split the points available into several pools only applicable to certain things. For example you could have a magic pool, a dominion pool, and a flexible pool that could be spent on anything.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
I have a question for the Dom I players.
I can't imagine wanting to have less than 6 or 7 in at least one magic path for my Pretender. Is it that the path requirements are higher in Dom II, or am I missing something in my equation here? The high power levels seem so very worth the cost!

In MP you can rely on items more than in SP, and stay at 4 for example. Mainly because you can generally trade with several other players the items you cant build initially. I never had a problem getting a ring of sorcery or a ring of wizardry, if I wanted one, and without any astral skill on my own eg.

Also, getting high levels in a magic field, just so eventually, one day, you can cast a cool high level spell is too much hypothetical in MP. You must be efficient somehow, and not only base your design choice on cool rpg concepts. This is not to say that sometime I dont indulge in tweaking a race toward a more roleplaying feel, but as I'm not very masochistic, I prefer often to be efficient, and not suffer dozen of gaming hours, being mauled badly by other players

The balance problems are accutely felt in MP. In SP there is no big issues, you fight only AIs. Who care if you try Ermor with +3 growth?