Blood?

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by apoger:

>A good army (including mages generally) will crush a small number of fully equipped SC's in my experiance. And this isn't even taking paralyse into account.

In Dom1? You'd better cross your fingers on those mages.

No I gave them protection. Sure the cost was significant but not crushing and they only need the protective items vs other nations so you can use them fairly safely vs indies until the magic itmes arrive

I played the ID's before turn 10 races in Dom1 and they were nowhere near as powerful as the other races I played. Its just not worth the expense until you can equip the ID's so you need to get your gem income going by searching etc. Same as the mages need to get protection but in the meanwhile the mages are still great helping conquering indies and don't need protective items for this.

I'll just repeat the point in my other post - want Dom1 fast monstrosities then look no furhur than Seasonal spirits and Air elemntals. ID's didn't compete in that role - however later they rocked.

The big problem with ID's in Dom1 was not the power of 1 ID but the power of 1 ID a turn - and that was achievable by about turn 20. That is why I stress the issue of quantity.

Cheers

Keir

[apoger]

>Air elementals
>Seasonal spirits

These certainly were two other very potent Dom1 paths. Both got ripped to shreds in Dom2, so what is your complaint in relation to ID's in Dom2.

All three strong strategies got nerfed. I don't see what you are complaining about.


>could end the game before you could get enough ID's to do much.

Not in my experience.


>ID's were only good with magic items and that takes time to get.


They were good without items... just BETTER with.


>Alex I have a fairly good idea how to use ID's in dom1 and have used them just as you say (I was following your advice) and early on I followed your and others advice that they were insanely poweful and you only needed one to kill an enemy army/conquer a province - only it didn't work.


If you didn't get ID's to work then you were doing something wrong (in Dom1). I'm sorry, you can complain until blue in the face, but it won't make them any less abusive in Dom1, nor will you convince people to make them cheaper in Dom2. Feel free to try, but you're just spinning your wheels.


>After losing my first 4 in PBEM I used them in packs and they kicked butt.


If you were losing ID's often, then you either had outragously bad luck, were putting them into bad battles, or were under equipping them.


>I think there was a good degree of sensationalism about ID's based on peoples very real and horrible experiances facing 4+ in one army.

The bad experiences with them went well beyond that.


>I have never found single SC's to be a signifcant threat to a main army.

"Main Army"? As in what? The biggest enemy stack including mages? Of course you don't send the ID after that. Use some common sense.


>They are more use raiding

BINGO!


>and even then can die to bad luck.

As can most anything.


>You posted your ideas on what a killer SC was


Actually I have never posted any "killer SC's", I have only posted SC ideas to help others get started or gain some insight into how to make their own.


>and people wrote back saying they tried it and did ok for awhile and then got unlucky.

Some. What do you expect? I never said that supercombatants were invincible. In fact I have gone out of my way to help people deal with them.


>I tried your ideas in Dom1 Alex and kept losing the pretender.

You lost a pretender! Shocking!

Seriously Keir, I'm pretty clear when describing my suggestions. Did I say "Do this and your pretender will be invincible"? Or was it more like "Try this and it will aid your initial expansion"?


>I remember one idea you had for a quick start using the Earth Mother and some black plate. I tried and and she died relatively early.

Try again. I never suggested black plate. It would fatigue the Great Mother too much, which is already an issue for her. The Great Mother doesn't need armor since she can cast ironskin or invulnerability.


>I have always though you must be a dedicated, and skilled, gambler with your love of SC's.

In Dom1 there was no gamble.
In Dom2 there is more danger, but it's still worthwhile.


>I tried and others tried against me and I am convinced its not worth the all your eggs in one basket risk involved.

I never put all my eggs in one basket. SC's are just one of many tools.


>Give your opponent a heap of threats and targets is my approach and was in dom1. Its just alot more flexible.

Hrm... you mean something along the lines of flying 7 ID's into my enemies territory?

I assure you that my play style is all about the "heap of threats".


>I remember being told how nasty Lammashta's are just before an opponent tried them on me and guess what - they got bLasted off the battle field and only did damage when he found my scout - damage to him.

I'm not sure why you are mentioning this... however Lammashta's are tricky to use. Sometimes they can be used to tremendous effect. Other times not. If I were you I wouldn't dismiss them so quickly.


>If you want you can run around with single ultra expensively equipped SC's but opponents I have played doing this have mainly been gifting me magic items though they often take a few provinces before I nail them.

Have I or anyone else every suggested that anyone set-up a "single ultra expensively equipped SC"?

You are reading more into what has been written than was there.


>What I want is to be able to get use out of blood playing Dom the way I do.


While I have no issue with players making suggestions, you can't expect Illwinter to alter the game just to accomodate a playing style that is near unique to you.

I suggest that you wait for the mod software, and make yourself a "Blood magic works fast, so I can play quick games abusing that one facet of the game" mod.

[Bowlingballhead]

I just want to say: Truper, I couldn't have put it better myself.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
As you never used them competetively this is a strange claim and I think its wrong - Air elementals made ID's look tame. Seasonal spirits could end the game before you could get enough ID's to do much. ID's were only good with magic items and that takes time to get. Seasonal spirits and air elementals were absolute massacre material and affected play far more than ID's in my experiance. Seasonal Spirits defined dom1 play for me.

Both air elementals and seasonal spirits had easy and effective counters if you were prepared. In my experience they weren't even in the same league as IDs, which didn't really have a powerfull and cost effective counter.

IMHO Air elementals and Seasonals were in practice only really nasty against new players who hadn't considered their effectiveness. Their window of effectiveness was brief, whereas Ice Devils were effective for the rest of the game.

Moreover, equipped Ice Devils were only a few turns slower than Seasonals due to ramping research totals. IMHO your claim about "the game being over" before IDs is exaggeration. Equipped Ice Devils cost roughly as much as two castings of Summer Lions, and would mop the floor with them -- plus they could lead, cast spells, and generate gems. Well worth waiting a bit for IMHO.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Bowlingballhead:
I just want to say: Truper, I couldn't have put it better myself.

IMHO it's worth pointing out that Truper lost in his example because he made several mistakes. He had the wrong equipment on his Ice Devil for the task, and sat still for several turns while his opponent brought in an appropriate counter.

In particular Wraith Swords don't work against 0 encumberance undead, Ice Devils can cast Quickness without needing 10 gems for boots, and one can expect the possibility of Mandragoras from C'tis and prepare with higher MR.

Even still it looks to me like he lost due to bad luck, as his Magic Resistance and defense should have been high enough to be mostly immune to Sleep Vines.

Keir,

I think you need to try them more in an MP situation instead of test-runs. Things take on a totally different light when dealing with living, breathing opponents. A 10 turn test run is all I'd ever take any credibility to tests, as it gives you a shaping of whatever strategy/tactic you're using more often than not tainted by MP experiance. After turn 10 most of what can be conjectured is hypothetical and dependant on circumstance(s) so it's irrelevant to make broad generalizations until you have quite a few games under your belt. Which with this game is more difficult than your standard twitch game. Especially since you'd have to play a single nation repeatedly against a diverse swath of opponents.

Scout blood hunting is the only issue I think needs to be addressed. Whether it was intended or not; I'd prefer to know. Because it seems that the 'added benefit of blood magic' nations don't have any sort of edge with it. the scouts ease of getting slaves and low requirements for getting the 'good' blood spells (HfH and ID's) lets any race early (if they have mages or find some) or later use blood magic just as effectively. Maybe an added bonus to searching for an entire nation (Like Mictlan or Pangaea) could represent some sort of difference.

[Jasper]

I like the idea of varrying the effectiveness of most units blood hunting according to the controlling faction!

A similar thought is to varry the effectivess of hunters depending on the power of blood mages present. So mundane units couldn't find slaves without blood mage present to tell them where to look, and hunting efficiency would increase (but taper off) as more/more-powerfull blood mages are added.

This way nations with access to blood mages would have an advantage, without hard coding it. It would also give you some reason to recruit blood mages beyond the few needed to summon demons.