Game balance suggestions.

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by Karacan:
In my opinion (and mine only ), the luck scale is simply sub-par to the order scale.

But it is so much more FUN !!

Even with luck+3, you only have a 80% chance of a random event being a good one... that means that every fifth event is a bad one. Since bad events are usually much worse than average good events, I usually go for order scale to reduce the amount of events at all happening to me - I am more scaerd of floods killing of my population than looking forward to getting a random magic item and a couple of gold for free, as well in early as in late game.

I am not so sure of that. Don't forget that the luck scale influence also what events you can receive. And that the big bad AI's love to send you bad "natural" events. For example, in my AAR, playing at order -3 luck +1, I have in 50 turns had :
- two emigration events (-20% pop), one in my capital
- two events that took 50 gold each
- quite a few hurricanes, but some of those I suspect are gifts from the AI's
- 6 attacks by independants on my provinces (dark vines, barbarians, vampires,...), 4 of which succeeded.
- Various bad omens, growing unrest, and lack of faith
- Two raids on my slave dungeons to steal my virgins

On the other hand, I was gifted with two labs, one fortress, 600 gold, an average of two handfuls of magic gems per turn, three + 5 province defense, and one gold site (arena I think). Oh, and an animist as well.

I am quite happy with the results : My events are mostly good, and while the worst one was harsh (that emigration in my capital is costing me 30 gold/turn for the rest of the game), some of the good ones were very good (+500 gold, arena site, free hill fortress, free labs). Plus, that extra gem income is coming quite steadily and usefuly...

[ January 09, 2004, 17:15: Message edited by: General Tacticus ]

[Gandalf Parker]

I think that like alot of other things in this game the Luck scale is something that either fits a persons mode of play or it doesnt. I like Luck but the events can swing you back and forth alot. Some people like to play this game with long running well thought out strategys and plans. Luck is not something they would like. Im not so good at planning so I do better with quickly making use of random changes in luck both Pro and Con.

[Windreaper]

Hmm, I got some additions, too.

Devs, please put Clam of Pearls and Staff of Storms to Const 6 and consider increasing the cost of the clam. I hope I don't have to explain the staff but the clam probably needs an explanation.

By converting all your gems into water (easiest with water nations, naturally) and making solely clams and again turning the astral back to water will get you an astral income of over 100 by turn 40. Couple this with concentrated research and you'll be casting Wish per turn from turn ~40 on. This strategy has been used extensively in finnish PBEM games and has pretty much always resulted in a win. We've been trying to bug the occasional dev at #dominions with the issue but it'd appear that it's still unchanged in Dom2.

The Clam of Pearls strategy is a key one. Though perhaps it should be toned down. Maybe if you could create a maximum number or change the resource cost of the gems. Though in consideration the Fever Fetish should be adjusted as well as the potential is still there to abuse; but not the key path.

The Staff of Storms has (in Dom2) always been overpowered. It's way to easy to totally negate archers.

[apoger]

>the clam probably needs an explanation.
>By converting all your gems into water (easiest with water nations, naturally) and making solely clams and again turning the astral back to water will get you an astral income of over 100 by turn 40.


This doesn't sound like a good strategy to me.

In order to have a clam income of 100 you need 100 clams.

The cost of 100 clams is 1000 water gems.

Lets be generous and say that 30% of your gem income is water, 30% is astral, and 40% is other.

That means the construction of 100 clams cost somewhere around 2500 gems.

This strategy includes waiting 40 turns to use gems while you horde, and won't accumulate 2500 gems in return for an additional 25 turns.

The way I see it the clam strategy doesn't start turning a profit until about turn 65, and takes quite a bit of dedication.

Is this really a good strategy? What am I missing?

[apoger]

>The Staff of Storms has (in Dom2) always been overpowered. It's way to easy to totally negate archers.


The SOS on the other hand... should be a unique artifact.

You don't let key parts of your empire growth and maintainance (and domination) falter because of it.

The reason for the clam strategy is you can Wish every other turn by turn 40.

If you Last that long, guess what? It's hard for other nations to cope with a Wish every other turn (or every turn, depending on your other gem incomes).

The clams pay for themselves by turn 25, making 2 clams a turn I believe, I broke it down to Sunray and I don't remember the exact numbers. Not quite 100 Clams by turn 40, but 75 is more than possible.

The potential should be obvious.

Whether or not you consider it cost effective is whether or not the game allows you to do it and you arn't desperate for gems to maintain your growth.

And if you really want to, your first wish can be for gems.

Edit: Yes this strategy does have weaknesses. As should be apparent, but the application of it has worked more often than not.

[ January 10, 2004, 04:09: Message edited by: Zen ]