The next patch

Graeme Dice · #1 April 6th, 2004, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AhhhFresh:
Without wish as the light at the end of tunnel, I don't think there is anyway that a person solely focused on getting 100 clams by turn 70 or whatever is going to win a competative MP game.

It's not turn 70, it's turn 60 or sooner. Most likely by turn 40 if the person has good water income.

Like I've already said, there's really no use for water gems. You don't need dozens of quickness boots if your mages already have water magic, murdering winter is useful, but only against a limited subset of your opponent's armies, and the water summons are fairly pathetic. Sea trolls have horrendous attack and defense stats. Now your astral gems on the other hand are going to be useful to you, but by spending only your water gems and those astral gems from the clams, you will have built your 100 clams by turn 38 of the progression. That means that you've given up 380 water gems, but it will have more than paid for itself just 8 turns later.

AhhhFresh · #2 April 6th, 2004, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:
Originally posted by AhhhFresh:
Without wish as the light at the end of tunnel, I don't think there is anyway that a person solely focused on getting 100 clams by turn 70 or whatever is going to win a competative MP game.

It's not turn 70, it's turn 60 or sooner. Most likely by turn 40 if the person has good water income.

Like I've already said, there's really no use for water gems. You don't need dozens of quickness boots if your mages already have water magic, murdering winter is useful, but only against a limited subset of your opponent's armies, and the water summons are fairly pathetic. Sea trolls have horrendous attack and defense stats. Now your astral gems on the other hand are going to be useful to you, but by spending only your water gems and those astral gems from the clams, you will have built your 100 clams by turn 38 of the progression. That means that you've given up 380 water gems, but it will have more than paid for itself just 8 turns later.

But the gems are only a small aspect of the total cost of clam hoarding. I agree that water gems are of limited utility.

For R'lyeh, you're talking about a 280 gp spellcaster(who needs a random to land in water) for each dedicated clam forger... that upkeep cost (which is not small), as well as the fact that they're not researching, or using that Astral 3-4 to win battles or gatewaying your troops to the front lines or whatever...

If you're not using the astral income to cast/forge astral things (ie Wish)... then cut it in half, which doesn't seem so impressive to me.

Especially when you consider the research you've lost in those 40 turns...

EDIT: Just pointing out that in this case, we're talking about sacrificing ~1000 RP's over 38 turns for these 100 clams. And during these 38 turns, the clams are providing no benefit other than begetting more clams.

[ April 06, 2004, 20:28: Message edited by: AhhhFresh ]

Daynarr · #3 April 6th, 2004, 09:16 PM

How about just doubling the cost of clams? That way it will take longer to hoard clams, which makes lots of difference in MP.

Daynarr · #4 April 6th, 2004, 09:26 PM

[quote]Originally posted by AhhhFresh:

Quote:

Especially when you consider the research you've lost in those 40 turns...

True, Wish has to be researched.
I really wonder how can somebody make enough mages to produce clams, produce army that will conquer more land to get more water gem income, cover your borders so someone just doesn't walk over you (it shows in graphs if you have small army), get mages to search those provinces to find magic sites, research all the way to level 4 construction and level 9 alteration and do it all in 40 turns.
I'm sorry to say it but I just don't believe that is possible. It may be possible to get such gem income but you research will be practically 0 and you will have no army to speak off after first 40 turns.

AhhhFresh · #5 April 6th, 2004, 09:47 PM

[quote]Originally posted by Daynarr:

quote:
Originally posted by AhhhFresh:

Quote:

Especially when you consider the research you've lost in those 40 turns...

True, Wish has to be researched.
I really wonder how can somebody make enough mages to produce clams, produce army that will conquer more land to get more water gem income, cover your borders so someone just doesn't walk over you (it shows in graphs if you have small army), get mages to search those provinces to find magic sites, research all the way to level 4 construction and level 9 alteration and do it all in 40 turns.
I'm sorry to say it but I just don't believe that is possible. It may be possible to get such gem income but you research will be practically 0 and you will have no army to speak off after first 40 turns.

Besides the research you lose (~1000), you also need 50 commanders to hold the damn things... who need to be sitting on a lab to make the clams useful.

Duncanish · #6 April 6th, 2004, 09:51 PM

What if Clams only had a chance to produce a Pearl, rather than the guaranteed 1 per turn? Maybe 25% chance per turn or something? Just a suggestion from someone who's never experienced hoarding. But it wouldn't really break them, and it wouldn't completely nerf them either. Less of a payoff, even with a huge number available, and you wouldn't be guaranteed to have the number of pearls you need when you might need them.

Chris Byler · #7 April 6th, 2004, 10:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:
Originally posted by Chris Byler:
However, there's another issue that I think is being overlooked. Graeme has said several times that "there is nothing else to do with your water gems besides forge clams" (or words to that effect) and therefore you are not hurting your military power by using water gems for clam forging.

Cleary an exaggeration IMHO. There are definitely usefull things to do with water gems, and not using them does have a cost. Sea Trolls, Water Queens, Frost Blades, Quickness boots, Quickening, Frozen Heart, and Murdering Winter are all effective. The contention that Murdering Winter isn't usefull borders on ludicrious IMHO.

Well, that's what I thought too. So why aren't the clam hoarders getting steamrolled when they dump half their total gem income into clams and then dump the clam income into more clams? Is it just the water nations doing this because it's too hard to attack them before they get rolling?

If that's the case, some of my suggestions for Water magic would help there too. Giant Turtles would be amphibious and summonable on land or sea, so they help a nation going into or out of the water, and improving the water breathing benefit of Water mages would obviously help too, as would the one-province "anyone can breathe here" spell. If the water breathing limits aren't raised, a strong summon would at least make more effective use of the limit you have.

Quote:

quote:
In the opinion of the DomII playing community, is this statement correct? And if so, isn't THAT the real problem? Water was too weak in Dom I - everyone agreed on that. Is it still too weak? And if so, shouldn't it be strengthened?

I definitely agree that water is the weakest path, although not by so much as I used to think.

I like the ideas you have for improving it, especially the new summons and passive abilities. Another way would be to lower the casting level of some existing spells, as one of the things really hampering water is the lack of usefull lower levels spells.

That would also lower their effective fatigue cost for mages of any given level - good.

I'd also like to see a mini Falling Frost available at a lower research level. It's a long time from Cold Bolt to Falling Frost, and other paths have already gotten several more combat options by the time FF becomes available.