Did you noticed.......

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by apoger:
There's still no reason to take a fort other than wizards tower or fortified city.

Disagree. The Mausoleum and Watch Tower are good cheap picks for most setups. Compared to a Watch Tower, the Wizard Tower will give you, what, less than 20 more gold/turn with optimal scales? For 120 more design points? I'd certainly invest in a Wizard Tower with, say, Ulm/default - but that's the exception rather than the norm.

[Pocus]

I dont know if my opinion was asked (or even valued), but as I played doms I for one year and a half, here it is:

- the interface is far better, and does a good job in reducing the micromanagement, and accelerating the infos gathering. There is still some issues with it, but I can live without (sorting by column on the overview eg, etc.).

- many minors, or not so minors mechanisms have been improved in the right sense (cant use dousing rods with scouts, improved targetting AI in tac battle, etc etc.). In a sense doms II appears to have many refined mechanisms compared to doms I.

- Many new & good ideas (themes, blessing effects stemming from magic, individualized Demons Princes, etc.). This give a new feel to the game.

Now what I think is detrimental to the game (my major issues) :

- Toning down gold output emphazize even further on a combatting pretender at start. Such a pretender double your initial expansion speed, as you will have problem fielding, rapidly, several provinces-taking regular armies (in dominions I it was possible to have 2 such armies before turn 10).

- Super combattants problem far from being fixed.

- no speed replay in the tac engine. Battles can Last 15 minutes real time now, and I dont feel it is suitable to take a book each time I want to watch the end of a battle.

- Evocations spells wich dont affect the whole battlefield (except a few ones) are even less accurate, and as mages are rarer (not a bad thing per se), I suspect nobody will ever cast a fireball in competitive game environement.

[ November 02, 2003, 09:19: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[MStavros]

Originally posted by Pocus:

? Nice reply.

[Fyron]

When quoting really long Posts, please do not post the entire thing again... post the first line or two, followed by an ellipses (...). All it does is slow page loading times down, and forces everyone to scroll past a big chunk of material they already read. Thanks.

[Pocus]

MStavros :

I was editing the content

[Nerfix]

My only real gripe this far is that army bLasting spells are still there, but i don't know have they been nerfed or not. And we have a new, low level army bLasting spell, but i'll have to see if it is unbalanced or not.

Astral magic turned even more important, but i'm not sure how this will affect the game. Propably more pretenders with Astral.

And Apoger, Curse and Star Fires aren't the only supercombatant counters...

[ November 02, 2003, 10:07: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by apoger:

Blood magic was diminished less than everything else even though it was a major problem in Dom I. What were you thinking? Limiting the super blood summons was good, but it's not limited enough. Still plenty of super combatant chassis to go around. Extra blood slaves can be used for "hordes from hell". HfH, by the way, is also going to be a major issue. Blood magic was too easy and too cheap, and your response was to make it easier and cheaper? I simply do not understand.

How is blood magic easier and cheaper? The only nation in the demo you can possibly claim this about is Abysia. Abysia now has a warlock apprentice for 150 gold. The warlock apprentice is certainly not cheaper then a scout with a sanguine dowsing rod. The warlock apprentice is only recruitable in provinces with castles and labs. I fail to see how this is cheaper and easier, especially since you have in other Posts claimed that the new reduced gold incomes will make mages scarce. Also the big blood summons are more expensive. And a popular blood summon like Father Illearth is now singular.

Death magic was not changed. Death summons cost the same, and death mages can still summon skels. Any reason that elemental magic got crushed, but death comes through with no change?

Death summons where never as much of a problem as air and fire elementals, the death magic required for raise dead is primarily posessed by nations traditionally considered on the weak side, such as Ermor or Ctis.

Wrathful skies. Did I not make it clear that this spell is an issue in Dom I? It's going to be much worse in Dom II. Having an enemy air mage cloud trapeze into my army and blow it away with wrathful skies... not fun.

How will this be worse in dom 2 than dom 1? Because of the reduced efficiency of the wards? This is a step that most people seems happy about otherwise.

Almost all evocations got nerfed, however I predict that the classic quickness-orb lightning, will be back in force.

The Seithkona nether darts problem will also make a return.

Meanwhile most other evocations have become stunningly inaccurate. It brings new meaning to the phrase "can't hit the broadside of a barn". Mages can't hit AN ARMY that is standing out in front of them with a fireball. OK can't is too strong... can't hit 4 of 5 times. Spells like flying shards and fire flies are jaw dropping as they fan out across the entire length of the battlefield! Funny, yes... but not fun.

Evocations have not been nerfed, in fact precision above ten improves precision more than in dom 1. The source of your problem is the wider battlefield. The wider battlefield was introduced to make missile weapons more useful. Position your mages closer to the front if you want results similar to dom 1.

High taxes destroying population in droves while low taxes have no effect. A design choice that I just cannot support. And not fun.

I still think this is an excellent design choice.

various parts of the text snipped
There's still no reason to take a fort other than wizards tower or fortified city.

Sorry that this post has become a bit of a rant. However the "feel" of Dom II is slow. The "low resouce model" exacerbates the problems with game imbalance since any issue means more since players have less.

Nobody was as big a Dominions fanboy as me, and I'm not upset because the system has changed. I am upset because I percieve that the system has changed for the worse.

The various other castles are now more viable than ever before, part of this is due to the reduced income increase of admin.

Your claim that any imbalance means more because players have less is at best to vague to judge and at worst downright false. If players have less they also have less to produce imbalances with. By your argument the richer the world in dom 1 the more balanced it would be, this might be true by virtue of special sites or indeps blurring the distinctions between different naions, other than that I do not think it is much to support the conclusion.

Many of the complaints you give as reasons why things have gotten worse are complaints that things have not changed. And some things that have obviously changed for the better, such as with bloodsummons, you claim they have changed for the worse. Sure there might be instances that could do with balancing, but as you make out your case you grossly overstate it.