Did you noticed.......

[ywl]

>>Alex, sorry, to me, your post is borderline troll and I didn't even want to respond to it. But since it's cause such a stir, I'd put in my two cents.

>So I'm a troll just becuase I have some negative opinions? Get real.

Your comment is trollish, or as the other had said, jumping the gun before seeing the whole game. I don't mean that you're a troll (a faithless backstabber who keep winning the game, maybe . Trollish because of there were a lot of complaints without much constructive criticism. You also expected the game to follow a certain way and therefore complained a lot of aspects wouldn't be as fun. You're totally entitled to your opinion, but I guess some of us are quite thrilled to see the high power magic-fest.

But let's not call each other's name.

>>Give the developers a break

>I'll give them a break when they give me a price break on my purchase. Fair enough?

A fair complaint .

>1) Resource. Dom 2 stops the patrol-and-tax trick. Other than that, I don't see much is changed?

> You haven't looked closely then.

As close as my ability limit me to .

>>Order now actually gives you more bonus for income (+10%). Productivitiy and Growth now give less bonus but it's just a shift of balance.

>Order is 7%... for those that are paying attention.

I saw two numbers on the board. One said 7%, the other said 10%.

>In Dom I order was an effective 10% due to the ability to rasie taxes without penalty. With prod and growth the combined bonus was 60%. With a fortified city it was 110% (more really due to bonuses stacking).

>In Dom II the combined bonus is 33%. With fortified city 57%.

>That's a pretty big difference, and that's before any patrol tricks.

>See a difference yet?


I don't think Castle admin add to tax income, only resource? Am I right?

If I'm right, it's 21% + 18% (39%?) - (growth and productivity add 3% each level?) versus 30 + 30% (60%). Assuming your base income is 3000 gold by turn 30, it would be 4800 vs 4170. Big enough but I don't see it very significant - could be my play style.

>>2) Pretender SC. It has always been like that. I can't even count how many Wyrms or Molochs I saw in Dom 1 games. What have changed?

>The cost of everything besides the pretenders. This effectively makes the pretenders vastly more potent.

>That's what has changed.

For a MP game, you can raise the richness of the world. Increase the site frequency. Or give everybody a few starting provinces. You need to tweak the game settings to your flavor and find like-minded people but I don't see that a fundamental fault of the game.

But if you like the patrolling routine, then we'll need to persuade the developers to allow adjustment of population loss. Harder but not imposssible.

>Rainbow mages are now less expensive and more viable.

>A bit, yes.

>The only problematic combo I saw is a Prince of Death in Ulm's hand, equipped with full armor and the Boots of Behemoth. It could be more or less unstoppable by turn 10. But I'll have to wait to see how things turn out in the full-game.

>That's the only problem you have seen?
There are dozens (if not hundreds) of combinations that are just as bad if not worse.

Show me .

I was limiting to the amount of gems you could get from your capital site. So, no boot to most except for Ulm and Vanheim. Great Mother is usable but her fatique will be quite high after a few turns. PoD is undead and can abuse his melee advantages easily. It's before turn 10. So I'm limiting to only one magic path, below level 4.

The cost of the pretender I used was less than 100 points. If you invested enough in your pretender, of course he will be powerful. But that's a conscious and risky choice of stratgy, not an abuse. People can of course use a Titan with water and air, but they're doing it at their own risk. We all know how risky it is to put all the eggs into one basket.

Yes, I understand that you don't like too much emphasis being put on the pretenders, any suggestions that can allow the game to accomodate both sides of the spectrum? An option to double the cost of all points related to pretender power?

>>The only pretenders SC which I found disruptive to the game in Dom 1 are Sphinx,
>They're less attractive and powerful in Dom 2 because of less item slots. Or should we just take them off the list?

>No, the Sphinx is back in all it's cheesy glory.

I don't see that.

Sphinx is expensive and limited (one misc item only now). You can't even use it to break a seige!!

You can totally decapitate a player in the early game. A good and intimidating move but you're asking for diplomatic trouble that way. Moreover, unless you put more magic on it, a Sphinx doesn't kill fast enough with Astral and (incredible it may sound) it doesn't really qualify as a super-combatant to me. If he has more magic, any death will be the loss of a lot of points, which is especially probable as a Sphinx can't retreat.

But of course, all of these are related to my preferrence of game strategy. Your mileage could be very different.

>>3) Blood Magic. All the major blood spells are more expensive now and most are at higher levels.

>No they are not more expensive!!!!

>Blood summons were only raised 50% in cost while other economies were increased MORE. In effect blood summons have been made cheaper.

I don't see that.

Gem economy in general is not more expensive. It's less affordable to hire mages. But it will be the same as Blood hunters.

Gold economy is worse (though it's around 20 to 30% worse in my calculation). That's everybody agrees on. It's just some people hate it, some love it, some find it tweakable and tolerable.

>I am about to post a long essay on blood magic, I hope you give it a read.

Not in a sarchastic way - I can't wait .

>>Wrathful Sky is less powerful than Dom 1.

>In what way?
>I see thunder ward gone. No easy defense (and it wasn't easy for most to begin with).

>If anything it's much more deadly.

It's there. Now you need only Air 2. You mean it only starts at 50%? And thus detrimental to game balance? May be. But I'll have to wait and see.

BTW, does anybody know whether higher level mages get higher resistance while casting the ward spells?

>>Seithkona nether darts is not a problem - it's a trick for Jotun.

>It's more than a trick. It's too potent.

>You have similar killer spells in other paths: "Flame Eruption", "Astral Fire".

>Not even in the same universe as nether darts.

"Flame Eruption" is more powerful and at a lower level than "Nether Dart". Some nations have very dispensible mages to use them. They have short range - their only limitation.

"Astra Fire" is not as potent but cheap and of a lower level.

And the "Wrathful sky" you've mentioned.

There are other killer spells. I don't see them anywhere worse them the "Darts". Even "Rain of Stone" is quite useful as long as you have somebody with high enough hp to use it.

"Nether Darters" are also very vulnerable to "Mind Duel". You can also counter it by increasing the MR of your troops. It's powerful but it's a level 7 spell.

If you don't like high-power army-devastating spells in general, that is another discussion. That'll involved putting in some options to tone down magic in the game. Not a bad idea at all. How do you want to implement it?