Please don't take my toys away!

Hrm. Keir, what did you ask about T'ien Ch'i? I must have missed it. Was it regarding the S&A and BK as well as summons type of thread?

I thought your Dancers of Death was a well formulated approach to the C'tis and put them in the running of potential MP candidate because of their fast expansion (akin to Caelum, Arco, Pythium and Micatan).

I don't particularly like the dancer unit later in the game even when you *can* mass produce it because they seem to really take a beating against a human opponent.

Maybe we could make or gauge a race/theme/pretender by a Triple T test. The Ten Turn Test.

What has it accomplished in raw numbers by turn 10 before you arrive at conflict (as a standard).

And I do apologize about our misunderstanding - though you shouldn't be grumpy

Is it more economical in Dominions II (in terms of money per person killed) to raise taxes to 200% and patrol, or to pillage? Assume the units used take no upkeep.

Pillaging produces unrest that you would have to clear as a 'clean up' after/while you were taking your money. If you wanted to do *Per Person* instead of resources used to produce X amount of money then it wouldn't have value based on how fast you get the money.

Unless you are going to try to pillage provinces completely out of population. I've never actually done that. You would have to calculate how much money lost over time as well.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
Is it? As you put it so eloquently "I'm unconvinced." I'm also unconvinced of the zealous crusade to change the game in sweeping fashion by people lacking enough experiance to have a good judge of the question.

I have made a case Jasper and two sentence responses telling me you find it unconvincing and want more arguments are . . ."unconvincing." So you are "unconvinced" *shrugs* so I'm "unconvinced." And? Doesn't read like a discussion to me?

I did point out why I was unconvinced -- that I would need to see some specific example. Without pinning down a specfic context there's simply too much subjectivity for much debate.

I have seen your race designs, and don't see the problem you mention. Sure, you couldn't max out the bless effects quite as much if order and misfortune were balanced, but then other races couldn't take advantage of them either. I do not see how the general concept your're aiming for would be impossible.

What I do see is that any design that uses Turmoil or Luck simply sucks. IMHO this greatly reduces variety -- much more so than the degree to which one can max out bless effects.

If you don't read the race designs I put up so don't know why they only just have enough points to work then thats your issue. I had the impression that my Posts on race design were getting little attention. Sorta funny as I was reading how one couldn't get decent race designs out of bless effects when I first came to this forum and when I post some decent bless race designs the complainers don't seem to notice or be interested in discussing the question - though some are keen on changes which would wipe out my school of race design. To this you are "unmoved and unconvinced." Cheers mate.

The lack of a response is an answer of sorts. You made some good points, and left doubt in my mind. I'm still not sure bless effects are worth it, but I'm no longer so sure they can't be strong. I'm left with no opinion, and so nothing to post on the issue.

It doesn't help that I don't really care to play the kind of explosive start scenarios where strong blessings would be most usefull. I prefer an already established start, which dampens the effects of capitol only troops.

Fortunately for me I'm happy with the general thrust of Illwinters approach and the over enthusiatic attempts to rebalence fundamental game features are unlikely to be taken on. That being the case I think its time to get back to posting on interesting race designs and realistic options to fix minor problems. If I'm lucky people will look up from the balence debate long enough to make comment. I never did hear wether people thought the data I put together on patrolling was right - why? People were busy with the great balence debate and as they had already written off patrolling as useless why respond to someone trying to make something of it?

I missed whatever you had to say about patrolling, and don't really see much to discuss about it to be honest. Constantly patrolling seems like a mistake to me, but if you're desperate quick cash may help. If there's anything more to it, I just don't see it.

Sorry Jasper for being grumpy but after working hard to clear up the misunderstanding with Zen your "unconvincing" pose is a bit on the nose.

I wrote my response before seeing what Zen had posted...

I left this group the first time I joined it because it struck me I was wasting my time. I just got drawn into largely pointless game balence debates and I get little feedback on my race design Posts - though I appreciate what I do get. When I have asked questions people don't even answer. Sure its no big deal but nobody looked up from the game balence debate to tell me the details I asked about Tien Chi - to busy doing important things.

I find debate about game balance interesting in it's own right, so I guess our mileage varies. I don't really care much whether my ideas get implemented, but find that debating game balance brings me to a finer understanding of how the game works and improves my play. For example, I'm entirely willing to be convinced that Order/Turmoil isn't a far better buy than any other combination of scales; most of the point for me posting such opinions is to offer a chance for others to poke holes in them.

I'm not sure what questions you had about Tien Chi that weren't answered, otherwise I'd try to help you out... As far as I can tell standard Tien Chi is only worth playing if Magic Duel is Banned, and there's really not much more to it. The turmoil requiring variants are even worse, as they can't take advantage of Order/Misfortune.

[MStavros]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
The kids are with the neighbours so I was lying down to an afternoon nap when a horrible thought occured to me - what if misfortune did become like the old dom and increase chance of events? What if order does get toned down in terms of income?!

120 design points down the tube is what this would mean. Most race designs I have come up with for dom2 would be scrapped, not adjusted, tinkered, but scrapped. Minus the ability to take order 3, misfortune 3, most of my bless races are custard. For me the biggest improvement from dom1 to 2 is variety created by the bless effects and you can only just use them afford them - many races can't. Order3/misfortune3 is the engine that provides the necesary gold and design points.

So in a fit of selfish, self centered, egotism I cry "please don't take my toys away!"

If things are going to be changed lets make more things good not more things bad/mediocre - there may be many, many, options in dom but many of them are bad ones for MP.

Please lets not nerf anything. Lets concentrate on making idea's work.

Cheers

Keir

Dude....your constant whining makes me sick, but seriously. You don't like lot of things, because of your beloved MP screwed in your opinion.

What about waiting for the mod tools, and make your OWN MP mod.
If your friends will like your mod, they will play with you.

I myself find the game very balanced, my only problem is the weak-mediocre AI.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by MStavros:
Dude....your constant whining makes me sick, but seriously. You don't like lot of things, because of your beloved MP screwed in your opinion.

Dude you obviously haven't followed my Posts since I'm arguing in favour of keeping things as they are. The original much misunderstood post was supposed to be funny - so "dude" chill out. I was saying "hey guys don't argue for too much change or we will lose the really interesting balence they have created." Seeing as you seem to agree with me why are you accusing me of constant whining?

So dude if you want to be a smart arse try reading, then digest, then shoot - or you might hit your foot.

Sort of ironic that I am being castigated by those who seem to agree with me - the moral of the story is don't try subtle humour on the net or somebody will throw mud in your face. Bleergh.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
Hrm. Keir, what did you ask about T'ien Ch'i? I must have missed it. Was it regarding the S&A and BK as well as summons type of thread?

. . .

And I do apologize about our misunderstanding - though you shouldn't be grumpy

I know - apologies to both you and Jasper.

I asked what the prot of Tien Chi HC was and wether you could find orders to get them to utilize both lance and bow. I was waiting for the game to arrive and dreaming of HC hordes. Like I say its no big deal but as Jasper says the lack of responses is in itself a response. I'm just feeling a bit sad that what I'm interested in - all the new race possibilities and how to play - seems secondary to largely pointless (IMO) debates on the grand balence. But hey thats just the way the cookie crumbles and so I haven't written up any races for awhile.

I was looking at putting together a compendium of
radical race designs but have given the idea away for now. Its alot of work getting the races designs written up and tested and the response has been fairly patchy - mainly silence or vague scepticism from vets and some interest from newer players. I believe race design possibilities have opened up to such a degree that race design is a different thing in Dom II and I have put this thesis forward with little response. Meanwhile other vets argue about game balence and think thats what is interesting. Its a funny world.

Cheers

Keir

[Rainbow]

Keir wrote:
>Order3/misfortune3 is the engine that provides the necesary gold and design points.

Eh, whut? That would be –120 design points for order and +120 design points for misfortune, resulting in a big fat zero. I have to assume that these “provided” design points you refer to are the ones from misfortune, which you think of as free points, since you have max. order, and are thus somewhat protected from too many bad events.

Anyway, to get to the heart of the matter, you are both right, and you both have the exact same concern, but you are not listening to each other. Keir is saying that there is a game balance issue because a lot of things are not viable options IF the order/tumoil and fortune/misfortune scales were not as they are. Zen is saying there is a game balance issue because these scales are so strongly biased towards one configuration that it leaves no viable alternative configurations of the scales themselves.

So you both want game balance and to be able to play in a game rich in diversity, with unlimited viable combinations of choices. You just have different perspectives on how to approach the matter.

That said, I have to add that Zen has nailed the real problem. If there is only one viable choice between the scale settings, then the scales are imbalanced (pun not intended).

If there is a design point problem that makes some play styles unviable, then that is a separate issue.

When I learned that there were pretender bless effects based on starting magic paths I was thrilled. The possibilities! But I think that these bless effect are meant to be flavour, or a feature, another option, rather than something to build an entire dominion on. I would love to discuss how to make the most of bless effects as they are however.

/Rainbow

[ November 24, 2003, 12:07: Message edited by: Rainbow ]