Black Forest - Ulm

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Zen:
Jasper is mean to the furry ears

If you didn't notice, it does Saber

Hey, what are you two implying? I knew that!

But still, I think national bad events would be very thematic... involving peasant uprisings, garlic farmer uprisings, silversmith uprisings, bloodslave mercy-killings by the kindly old butler who found the key to cellar door, national antiheros like Buffy appearing... the birth of daywalkers / compassionate vampire rebels, lynchings, vampires accidentally sucking the wrong blood type and dying from massive hemmoraging... those things! Floods, barbarians, earthquakes, and such tend to be much more rare in vampire-rich areas.

Any chance we'll get national events in the next patch?

[Jasper]

National Events would be very cool. I'd settle for exported and modifiable events however.

[Kristoffer O]

There are events tied to the presence of particular creatures at the moment, such as a dragon pretender munching up a few bloodslaves.

[Jasper]

Cool! I'd never noticed one of those happening.

[neurosis#5]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Next theme is an Arcoscephale theme. It is missing descriptions, heroes and some other stuff, but they are in the works.

That's great! Arco is already one of my favs.

On a side note, I should have remembered the AI uses themes after the Last game fighting Miasma C'tis (shudder). Sometimes I have a hard time remebering which is the "main" theme!

[Pocus]

About a core team of betatesters:

I know Zen that one week cant be sufficient to test all aspects of new themes, and even more if you take into account MP.

But its better than the current situation, where there is overbooked IW, and thats pretty all. The aim would be to filter out the biggest loopholes (like having the possibility of getting a vampire count at turn 8). Sure some issues would still be there, but hopefully of less importance. Old MP veterans here (Pepe Mus, George McGinn, Nagot Gick Fel (Jacques Vidal), Alexander Poger, etc.) have sufficient insight to be able to spot issues even without playing actually. Give them a themes with all the parameters attached, and they can pretty well round down what can be abusive just by looking at it.

As of now we get a patch which can have big issues or exploits, and we will have to wait some time before having it fixed (no disrespect mean to IW, they dont have 8 arms...).
I say, elect a squad of people which are on a special mailing list that IW read, and lets them debate about what a patch change before releasing it.

Alright, as I played with this more I can offer maybe a little more input (other than just the quick Counts).

Banishment should target the greatest chance of success. As of right now the Ghoul Guardians that people say are up the Gangi's without a paddle can be kept alive with even 9 MR by using the Vampires.

A Vampire Count with just an Amulet of Anti-magic will often outregenerate (and definitely out life drain) 4-5 banishments a turn from 3 Holy Priests (so I would guess they could resist 2 5 Holy Preists laying down the banishment). As the targeting is right now and with the Vampires Ability to fly, they can shotput to the rear (as close as they can get) or a flank and all banishments will target them while the Ghoul's close and mess up almost everything they find. Not to mention that with an Antimagic cast on them Ghouls resist (or have enough HP) Banishments greater than I expected.

Commanders are not an issue at all, since the best one you can recruit has 25 Leadership, you just use Indies since they are just as good and split your forces up into multiple commanders

The Rangers are like Longbowmen for Crossbows. They move 2, have good precision and are 12 gold, 8 resource. For an already resource rich Ulm you can make these by the metric ton. Also when fighting Independants you only need 1 (or possibly 2) Heavy Infantry in front and a crew of 20+ (240 Gold, 160 Resources) of the Rangers behind to mop up even Heavy Cav provinces (on Indep 6) and take minimal losses. Most rout before they ever get to look at the xbows.

In my just early tests I was able to get a Count on Turn 8 with Equipment (Construction 2, Enchantment 2) and have 8 Provinces 3 out of 5 games I played. The other 2 I placed a little off and only got 6 and 7 respectively.

Later in the game the Heavy Troops become more of a factor as you need 'mop up' crews. I haven't found the Zweihander to be very unique in this aspect (mostly because he is one slow motha).

[ January 14, 2004, 17:46: Message edited by: Zen ]