abysia strategies

[alexti]

Caseus said:
What about the part where I said:

The actual fun parts of the game -- the huge variety of spells, magic items, and units -- are lost in the intense competitiveness of multiplayer. "You can't do X, that doesn't work in multiplayer!"

You need to specify what you mean by X. I've written earlier that for particular units/spells/item there's a use in MP, but most of them are useful only in specific circumstances.

If you understand X as: "summon all Ice/Arch Devils, Air and Water Queens etc" it won't work. If you can use some strategy, others can use it too, so only strategies that can be executed concurrently are possible. Or let's say reliable.

Caseus said:
Am I wrong about that? Is Dominions 2 multiplayer free of rabidly aggressive, hypercompetitive players who destroy any semblance of fun in the game?

That depends how you define fun. If you have fun only if you're winning, then MP is not for you. Most people here lose much more often than win. And in the beginning you'll probably be losing every time. To me it's more fun to play with aggressive and competitive players, the game progresses faster, and they force me to invent new strategies by attacking before I'm ready for my favourite plan. Also, passive games tend to involve much more micromanagement.

Caseus said:
Do you have to use only certain key strategies or you might as well not play? Your own Posts seem to indicate this is the case.

So tell me about me being wrong, please?

There're some key parts of the strategy that repeat itself in most games: conquer indies fast, minimize your losses, try to conquer your neighbour with minimal losses, use the diplomacy to buy magic items you don't have access to otherwise etc.

But the details of implementation widely vary. From nation to nation and from player to player. To some extent, from map to map too.

And diplomacy can change game quite a lot too.

[Cohen]

I tried that strategy, I had luck too, I started in a good position with many neighbours, I managed to pump out til 8 Lava Warriors at turn ^^ but they got slaughtered too.
An army of 200 devils caught by trapeze/wrathing ... all dead.

An F9 Moloch has problems as SC, he can't cast many buffs.
However I'd like to see u in action, probably I'm not so good even if I adapt that strategy.

[Edi]

Cohen, I'm starting to get sick and tired of your whining about Abysia being weak. In my VERY FIRST mulstislayer game (and with relatively little SP experience) I'm playing Abysia and I'm one of the top nations so far. Not the most powerful, but maybe in 3rd or 4th place.

I'm using a Scorpion King with E6F4, Order 2, Prod 3, Heat 3, Magic 2, castle, and while I've not managed to max out everything the way Graeme described (and I've used a slightly different priority on research early on), I'm not in a difficult position by a long shot. Ulm is giving me trouble, but that's because Soapy had a Forge of the Ancients up for a good long while before the astral nations came up with the capital to dispel it. I've lost a couple of armies to Wrathful Skies, but it's not deterring me one bit.

I'm not playing to the fullest extent of Abysia's capabilities by any measure because of my inexperience, yet I'm doing well. If I were to give a setup like this to someone who has extensive MP experience (like Graeme), I'd bet even money on him winning the game. I won't, because I just don't have enough experience of MP to manage against some of the people in that game.

If I can do this, in my vbery first MP, Cohen, it just means that you are completely plain incompetent with Abysia.

Edi

[Arralen]

I sometimes wonder what game(s) some people are talking about?

Problems with the gameplay degenerating into a race for the first SCs? Killerspells obliterating every army?

Try your next game with the following settings:

indies - 7 or 8
site frequency - 40 or less
research - difficult or very difficult

No of provinces per nation - 10..14
Max number of players - 12

Than come back and tell me that Abysian HI doesn't rock during the first 25 turns at least ...

[Gandalf Parker]

Arralen said:
Try your next game with the following settings:

I find that the map makes a big difference also. If they play always play on a map where each nation only gets about 5 provinces before forcing war then please dont complain to me that the game is broken because the same nations always win/lose. Obviously some settings carry great advantage for some nations over others.

[Kristoffer O]

Arralen said:
I sometimes wonder what game(s) some people are talking about?

I couldn't agree more.

200 devils ??? Why isn't the game over ???

I have never seen a doom horror. I hear they kick ...

In Dom1 I cast Utterdark once (It was quite fun).


Not that I'm complaining. It just feels strange that people play this game I made and I don't recognize it. It could as well have been some other guy's game.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Kristoffer O said:
200 devils ??? Why isn't the game over ???

At a guess? There are at least three strong parties remaining, all hunkering down rather than being the first to launch a major attack which carries the significant risk of losing to the third party. Each player raiding and building up forces to hopefully gain an advantage - or waiting for the opposition to make the first misstep.

Another possibility would be that 200 devils quickly become 50 devils if they face a Staff of Storms + Wrathful Skies without sufficient protection.

Still, fortress mentality and the "let the other guy commit first and overextend" line of thinking probably counts for a lot.

[Soapyfrog]

I have had 180 devils (and 2 arch-devils) slaughtered by a single Golem (high prot, wielding 2 blood thorns) and a Harbinger who cast wrathful and fled.

On the other hand, with soul contracts, you can recover from that loss startlingly quickly. In that particular game I was on the counter-offensive 5 turns later.