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

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by apoger:
>This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.


I must agree with Jasper on this. I don't like the whole one province, then expand dynamic. It heavily favors strategies that involve brutal fast expansion. I'd rather see players setting up to fight each other rather than "speed trampling unowned provinces".

It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

I think this would be a good step forward for the game.

This would be cool. I don't know if I'd want every game to start this way, but I see some definite advantages - e.g. faster games. My suggestion would be that a "nation" in the sense we're talking about would consist of the capital, and every adjacent province. That way the really strategic choices come into play from basically turn 1 onwards. It also makes your castle choice very important, because a high admin castle will start you off with plenty of resources!

The downside would be trying to make sure that each player gets a roughly balanced deal with regard to starting money (how many provinces doesn't so much matter as how rich they are). Nonetheless this is an intriguing suggestion.

If any of the Illwinter team is reading this, what do you think of the idea? Do you like it? and if you do how likely is it to be implemented?

-

With regard to the whole magic-on-pretenders question, In Dom I there were very few spells that required more than 4 in any one magic path - and those that did were levels 8 & 9 particularly. In Dom II there are still relatively few such spells, but a few more than in Dom I. Getting your mages up to lvl 4 in a magic path isn't that hard, depending on the path, and getting up to 3 is pretty easy, since you have items which boost power and spells which boost power.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by apoger:
>This would be much less of an issue in games where more than half the provinces started off in players hands.


I must agree with Jasper on this. I don't like the whole one province, then expand dynamic. It heavily favors strategies that involve brutal fast expansion. I'd rather see players setting up to fight each other rather than "speed trampling unowned provinces".

It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

I think this would be a good step forward for the game.

I agree. I'm not too fond of 'early rush with stupid god' tactics. Interesting idea also with the presearched provinces.

*Edit: perhaps not a bad idea with 'earmarked' (is this a swedish expression or is it viable in english as well) design points *

[ October 29, 2003, 14:44: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

[Kristoffer O]

Mikko: Just curious, in what ways do you feel astral magic is more important.

[E. Albright]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
... 'earmarked' (is this a swedish expression or is it viable in english as well) ...

It parses cleanly in English.

E. Albright

[ October 29, 2003, 14:59: Message edited by: E. Albright ]

[Endoperez]

Just how many spells need level 5/6/7 in given magic? I just ask this because you need level 6(in fire and blood) to get bless effects of Dom1, and I was wondering is there any other bonus you would get from pumping you pretender up to that level. The Living Element -spells seem to fill this gap, and there are propably others, but how many spells of these levels do we have?
It seems like we should have many low-level spells, some of a little higher level and some uber-killer spells, or just very good ones, that are costly and force you to go without something else, like a scale or two.
I think there are enough cheap spells now, but I have no idea about the medium-level spells. Are they weighted towards any particular path(s)? I'm mainly asking someone who has a spell manual...

[st.patrik]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
Just how many spells need level 5/6/7 in given magic? I just ask this because you need level 6(in fire and blood) to get bless effects of Dom1, and I was wondering is there any other bonus you would get from pumping you pretender up to that level. The Living Element -spells seem to fill this gap, and there are propably others, but how many spells of these levels do we have?
It seems like we should have many low-level spells, some of a little higher level and some uber-killer spells, or just very good ones, that are costly and force you to go without something else, like a scale or two.
I think there are enough cheap spells now, but I have no idea about the medium-level spells. Are they weighted towards any particular path(s)? I'm mainly asking someone who has a spell manual...

You can check for yourself, if you want, by clicking on each school in the research screen.

[licker]

A possible solution is to limit the amount of points available for scales (and dominion) based on the pretender chosen. This is an extention of the pooled points, but its tied onto each pretender so that you can further try to balance the combatants vs. the mages.

Or you can just make the design costs of pretenders higher, or give some pretenders lesser (or greater) costs for certain scales. Or you can specify a minimum amount of magic that a pretender must take (again this is like the pooled points approach, but it allows a little greater flexibility in how to not underspend the points).

There are a lot of ways to address this problem, of course in MP if you have a good group you can all agree on limits or restrictions before hand, though I figure that takes alot of fun out of it (short of handicapping players).