patch 2.06 out

[Keir Maxwell]

I haven't had a chance to look at the new features in full but I do have a few questions.

1. Is there any plan to change the way orders work allowing some sort of fire and attack, or firing on the hold part of "hold and attack" or while not otherwise engaged on guard commander?

My concern is Tien Chi Cavalry - particularily Barbarian Kingdoms. Is it intended that at any battle you either use them as lancers of archers or is there a way of getting around this I have been unable to discover?

Mictlan - is there any plans to improve Mictlan?

While I have achieved moderate success with Mictlan it was after many, many abysmal failures and was harder to achieve than dramatic success is with most other races. Part of what kept me trying was the hope that Mictlan would be patched and my cunning idea's would become more viable. If Mictlan (read Barbarian Kingdoms and Spring and Autumn) is finished as is it would be good to know so I can stop waiting and hoping.

I find it hard to celebrate the arrival of new themes when we already have alot of new themes/nations and some of them seem to be badly in need of work. I lost alot of my designs to this patch and I'm not sure that I have gained many new possibilities. My two favourite nations remain bottom dwellers who struggle to utilise their thematic advantages (the two Tien Chi themes) and dual bless effect races have been slaughtered.

Oh well I guess its time to take a break from playing anyway and put some serious work into the "War of the Rings" mod.

Thanks for the mod capability - I do really appreciate what you given us with this.

cheers

Keir

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I lost alot of my designs to this patch and I'm not sure that I have gained many new possibilities. My two favourite nations remain bottom dwellers who struggle to utilise their thematic advantages (the two Tien Chi themes) and dual bless effect races have been slaughtered.

What are you talking about? What has been done to weaken those nations/themes, and how was dual blessing weakened?

[Keir Maxwell]

Saber:

My first reaction to dom2 was to build lots of pretenders with over the top magic - two 9's being commen. Someone else described the two 9 combo as dual bless effects races and I picked up the name.

Obviously paying for two 9's is really hard and you end up with really bad dominion scales. However you didn't suffer too much because order3 misfortune3 still gives you the money you need and safety from bad events - being so dependant on your home province makes the thought of flood really horrible. I can't imagine I will be playing order3/misfortune3 as its roughly the same as it was in dom1 and that was brutal. Basically its 120 design points gone from a very tight race design that is already playing with most scales at -3.

Sure you can now play order0/misfortune0. Its scary in terms of events and only the best of the races will cope with the loss of income as the start can be hard with that little gold.

At the bottom line its a cost benifit thing and its just looking alot more tempting to play with a 9 or 10 and maybe one 4. Still Neifel dual bless might be able to get by - now that I know the Woodsmen work well the race is alot more versatile. I'm not ruling out other posibilites reshaping but a large body of my previously successful designs are history.

Many races will have been reshaped or trashed by this patch and the more radical designs will suffer worst. Sort of inevitable once it became clear that the order3/misfortune3 combo was so powerful.

C'est La Vie - I had lots fun with extravegent bless effects while the opportunity existed.

As for the Tien Chi themes nothing has been done to them specifically (the problem) but in general they have become a bit stronger as while turmoil/luck races haven't got better order races have got worse. While this is good the problems with them remain.

I have done okish (ie not anything like one of the more powerful races) with BK but thats by relying on the foot arhers and spearmen not the barbarian horse the race should be defined by - and you are left a bit hanging as the game goes on and your early armies become redundant. I believe the horse need the ability to fire and attack to be used efficiently and at present they are a bit of a mockery of the Xiongnu they represent.

Spring and Autumn was weaker than BK in my tests (in threads on the subject others had similar experiances) and the chariot mounted commanders with nothing to support them are very frustrating. Spring and Autumn China had large bodies of charging chariots according to ancients rules so why be so miserly on them in a fantasy?

Cheers

Keir

[ January 13, 2004, 03:58: Message edited by: Keir Maxwell ]

This only means that you can no longer ignore one scale while reaping the rewards of another.

I don't feel this is particularly weakening, but I've never been a fan for making some ugly monstrosity of a pretender with 90% of my points into him.

Even taking a 9 Path pretender sometimes makes me cring and wonder where I'm scraping the points up from. So that's more of a personal bias and I don't fault Keir's thinking for it.

IMHO it makes for just as many options, just not as 'complete' in the mindset of some of the players (If I'm doing a blessing, I might as well go hog wild!)

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Zen:
Even taking a 9 Path pretender sometimes makes me cring and wonder where I'm scraping the points up from. So that's more of a personal bias and I don't fault Keir's thinking for it.

What one 9? Pah - thats nothing.

It is one of those head first things and once you get you feet wet it looks different - sorta upside down . When I find myself with really strong scales I start to worry if I'm not being a bit to cautious/old fashioned. Dom1 is dead long live dom2!

Cheers

Keir

[Kristoffer O]

>Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
>I haven't had a chance to look at the new features in full but I do have a few questions.

>1. Is there any plan to change the way orders work allowing some sort of fire and attack, or firing on the hold part of "hold and attack" or while not otherwise engaged on guard commander?

Plans exist.

>My concern is Tien Chi Cavalry - particularily Barbarian Kingdoms. Is it intended that at any battle you either use them as lancers of archers or is there a way of getting around this I have been unable to discover?

>Mictlan - is there any plans to improve Mictlan?

Considerations, yes.

>While I have achieved moderate success with Mictlan it was after many, many abysmal failures and was harder to achieve than dramatic success is with most other races. Part of what kept me trying was the hope that Mictlan would be patched and my cunning idea's would become more viable. If Mictlan (read Barbarian Kingdoms and Spring and Autumn) is finished as is it would be good to know so I can stop waiting and hoping.

Keep hoping

>I find it hard to celebrate the arrival of new themes when we already have alot of new themes/nations and some of them seem to be badly in need of work. I lost alot of my designs to this patch and I'm not sure that I have gained many new possibilities. My two favourite nations remain bottom dwellers who struggle to utilise their thematic advantages (the two Tien Chi themes) and dual bless effect races have been slaughtered.

Dual bless effect races slaughtered?

>Oh well I guess its time to take a break from playing anyway and put some serious work into the "War of the Rings" mod.

Good!

>Thanks for the mod capability - I do really appreciate what you given us with this.

Yore welcome

[Pocus]

a note about the patch and the changes done or not done... I was thinking that some of the weakest themes would get a little boost. There was a good amount of discussion regarding blood of humans for example, and it was in the end rather obvious that it lacked a bit compared to standard Abysia. That just a top of my head, but Return of the Raptor comes close. Themes add fun, but should somehow be on par - power speaking - with the main theme, or they will be restricted to single players play, where optimization is not of the upmost importance.

Whats more, tweaking a theme reckoned as slightly weak can be done in a matter of seconds. If you want a quick fix for blood of humans, *while* staying on the safe side of not giving him too much power, just add 25 design points when you take it. There is absolutly no chance it comes overpowered with that (in fact it should get 50 points, as you loose one heat scale with some additional capabilities).

I hope it will makes in the second patch. Do you maintain a master list of changes?

Thanks for your time.