The next patch

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Jasper:
What do you like about Death on a Combat Pretender? The fear effect, or some spell combination? I've always thought of death mainly as support magic, with only Soul Vortex ever standing out for close combat use.

Good guess. I take Death for Soul Vortex, the fear aura is mainly a bonus. One of the biggest threats (if not the biggest) that even the toughest supercombattants have to deal with is fatigue, and Quickness only makes this concern worse. But with Soul Vortex on, this is no more an issue (well, as long as you face "leechable" enemies). This makes Water+Death (or more accurately, Quickness+Death) a fearsome combo IMO.

And, BTW, a bit of death magic makes your pretender more resistant to Decay. Although pretenders easily resist it, this spell is so cheap and easy to cast it shouldn't be underestimated if you send your god in hand-to-hand combat every other month. Same concern later in the game with Disintegrate. Last night I tested a Wyrm with Water 2 (Quickness, BoW), Earth 3 (prot 30, Iron Will) and Death 4 (Soul Vortex, resist death spells +2) and I can only say: it rocks. I'll have to try something similar on a Manticore soon.

[Jasper]

I can see how the synergy would be nice, although that seems like a really expensive Wyrm. I have this image of your Wyrm with 2 Starshine Skullcaps , plus an anti-magic ring and a lightning ring on it's tail...

Alot rides on how much the tactical AI likes to cast Soul Vortex after scripted orders run out -- I take it from your sucess that it casts it frequently?

I would still fear getting trumped by someone else's combat pretender, as by the time you can put Soul Vortex into action you're potentially facing combatants who will destroy such a Wyrm, e.g. the classic Arcoscephale Nataraja. Still, imagine this would work with a Prince of Death as well.

The bit about extra resistance against Decay is new to me. Do all the paths work that way, or it just Death?

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Jasper:
I can see how the synergy would be nice, although that seems like a really expensive Wyrm. I have this image of your Wyrm with 2 Starshine Skullcaps , plus an anti-magic ring and a lightning ring on it's tail...

I tested with Midgard, so the 2nd cap was actually a Spirit Helm. And although expensive it's quite affordable. And more importantly, it was good fun to play with. Especially with a nation like Midgard. It wouldn't suit Ulm so well.

Alot rides on how much the tactical AI likes to cast Soul Vortex after scripted orders run out -- I take it from your sucess that it casts it frequently?

I prefer to leave no room for randomness when scripting SCs -> buff x 5, attack.

I would still fear getting trumped by someone else's combat pretender, as by the time you can put Soul Vortex into action you're potentially facing combatants who will destroy such a Wyrm, e.g. the classic Arcoscephale Nataraja.

I'm aware of this. I controlled 2 other nations in this test, and I can confirm a well decked-out Nataraja usually wins 1-on-1. Yet the Wyrm was very impressive in most scenarios and did some truly awesome job.

The bit about extra resistance against Decay is new to me. Do all the paths work that way, or it just Death?

Not only death - Astral magic protects vs Soul Slay, Nature magic protects vs Charm, etc. You get +1 bonus for every 2 levels in the relevant path.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

quote:

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Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
All recent MP games I have been in have had victory conditions set. Either by VP or dominion. They didn't Last very long (20-60 turns).

I think VP's is a good workaround on the clam hoarding. Let him hoard while I grab these VP sites. Battles for VP's will change the goals of the players and the way the game is played.

I dont see a need to "fix" every way of winning the game as long as its not an automatic obvious choice. It kills a game for me to discover that there is strategy which will always win.

Which leaves me still undecided on this subject. On the one hand, game settings can make it not such a major deal which makes it not a major fix need IMHO. On the other hand it sounds as though its killer enough to make one type of games in Dom2, a rather popular type of games, to be less chosen or a fairly easy win. So it sounds like some sort of change might be good.

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That's exactly my point.

Kristoffer is right, it is clear that some people do not have problem with clams, and some people do. I think it is mostly due to the different types of games people like to play (plus some of the people who say that they don't have problem with the clams perhaps just haven't meet their first dedicated clam-hoarder in thier game yet. But still mostly it is due to different game types).

But if clams would be changed by making them a bit harder to make (like 10 water 5 nature, or one of the many other suggestions on this thread), than the first group of people would not be affected much. But for the 2nd group of people, who liek to play differnt game types and for whom clams are a big issue, this type of fix would be extremely beneficial.


And btw, I mostly play not-blitz games, and in some of them (usually in long and some medium ones) clam abuse is a real game spoiler. So from my experience it is definetly not blitz-only problem. Although there is certanly some truth in the argument that in Blitz game clam hoarder could be easer to overlook. Unfotunatly with graphs disabled (as most people play their MP) there is no way of knowing if the person is hording the clams or not. And killing every nation with astral and water income in the begining of the game is not a good answer to clam-abusing strategy.

[AhhhFresh]

Not only death - Astral magic protects vs Soul Slay, Nature magic protects vs Charm, etc. You get +1 bonus for every 2 levels in the relevant path.

empahsis mine

Presumably that Astral bonus applies to paralyze resistance as well?

That would explain why my astrally strong Void Lord in an MP game was able to wipe out an Arco army that had several mages spamming paralyze and soul slays...

I'm curious as to what exactly happened (I thought he was toast), but the replay bug... c'est la vie.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:

But if clams would be changed by making them a bit harder to make (like 10 water 5 nature, or one of the many other suggestions on this thread), than the first group of people would not be affected much. But for the 2nd group of people, who liek to play differnt game types and for whom clams are a big issue, this type of fix would be extremely beneficial.

Except that this is not, as you suggest, making astral clams "a bit harder" to make - it is making them much, much, harder to make for most nations due to lacking paths and increasing their cost by 50% - and making them take 7.5/15/30 (depends on how you count) rounds rather than 5/10/20 to pay off (sans dwarven hammer). In such a situation they would not really be worth making except if you were basing your strategy around them and the acquisition on WWN mages, rather than the situation now where they can be used (but not necessarily abused) by players for whom they are not the focus of the playing strategy.

I dislike the idea that the "solution" to what I perceive as a playing-style issue (players not attacking each other ruthlessly enough allowing nations to allocate resources to go clam-crazy with dire results in very long games) should be to make the clams all but useless in general.

[Kelan]

Perhaps something as simple as removing the ability to alchemize astral gems to water gems could work, or increasing the ratio to 4 or 5 to 1 or something.

This would allow people to still create clams with their natural water gem income, and help curb the abuse of hoarding clams in the ways explained here.