Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..

[Kel]

alexti said:
In all games I've played, the winner was somebody who has successfully (and quickly) conquered 1 or more neighbours in the early game.

I find it hard to believe that all your games were like that, no offense. I would certainly say that has not been my experience, though all of my games haven't been absolutely one way or the other.

- Kel

[Cainehill]

baruk said:
The bugbears:

- Defending unfortified provinces from raids is too hard.
Solution: Initiative system for movement.

- Defending from raids using castles is too easy.
Solution: Castle speedbump effect removed.

These two contradict one another. On the one hand, you imply raiding is too powerful, and on the other hand, you want to make it more powerful.

The first one I think could use some improvement - random movement sequence would fix this.

The second one is insane. Fortifications are _supposed_ to provide defense from raids, that's one reason they were built all over most of the world. The idea of an army being able to come zooming right in, and in less than a month travel, siege, and storm is .... Well, I already used the word insane. Albeit it might be acceptable for mausoleums / watchtowers, which really aren't proper fortifications.

- Sphinx lost teleport. Effectiveness of magical movement over standard movement for defence and offence.
Solution: Planar sickness.

Your "solution" simply makes combat teleportation unusable for many units, while once again allowing the Sphinx to plop right down on an enemy capital, easily surviving the couple of turns it takes to regain consciousness before casting fire shield, astral shield, etc, and winning. You also don't mention why cloud trapeze should have "planar sickness", since it doesn't involve plane shifting. Or why flying units shouldn't have "air sickness".

[alexti]

Kel said:

I find it hard to believe that all your games were like that, no offense. I would certainly say that has not been my experience, though all of my games haven't been absolutely one way or the other.

- Kel

There were few blitzes on a small maps where things were different (usually because somebody was able to conquer enough VP's without totally conquering anybody) and there were few MP games that were never finished, because of uncurable game crashes (in 2 of them which were in later stages it was very likely, that one of early conquestor would won). I don't know the result of my first MP (because I was quickly eliminated). There was also game won by Norfleet (I'm not sure if he has conquered somebody in the early game or not, but all his games are under question now anyway). In all other games the game was won by somebody who had successful early conquest (plus a couple of still going games, where one of the early victors is very likely to win).
So it would be more correct to say that I'm yet to see the game won by somebody who have stayed out of wars and {something}-hoarded.

I've faced clam/fetish hoarders several time myself in the late game. In one case the real war Lasted about 5 turns before hoarder conceded. In another case the hoarder conceded the game even without trying to fight. Of course, I had much larger empires at that time. And if I didn't have a large empire in the late game, that was usually because my lands got added (contrary to my wishes) to somebody else's large empire, which wasn't making things any better for the hoarder.
Concerning the size of the maps, they ranged from Aran to Orania. Nothing super huge, though I've found even Orania to be too much micromanagement for my taste.

[alexti]

baruk said:
The bugbears:

- Defending unfortified provinces from raids is too hard.
Solution: Initiative system for movement.

- Defending from raids using castles is too easy.
Solution: Castle speedbump effect removed.

I'm not sure if making defending unfortified provinces from raids easier is a positive thing. Some strategies rely on raiding rather than taking on the clash of armies. And I'm on receiving end of such strategy in one of my MP games. I keep winning major battles with minimal losses and a good loot from the enemy, but I'm still losing the game, because of massive raids. That's an interesting experience, and one thing that makes Dominions 2 great is the variety of different strategies that can lead to success.

In any case, this kind of change would affect the game a lot and it wouldn't be easy to rebalance other things to keep everything in balance.

baruk said:
- The spell AI ignores my orders.
Solution: Change AI, and the way gems are used in battle.

Actually, it was changed in one of the patches (was it in 2.12?) Before, AI tended to waste gems without a reason. Now it is much smarter and uses the gems sensibly (in most cases). The one problem that I see is that sometimes the mages won't use extra gems to bring their fatigue lower. But this is one is not easy to resolve. Sometimes I'd give the mage extra gems, so that he can lower his fatigue and in another situation I'd give more gems because I expect to fight 2 battles in the same turn. Making it configurable would add even more micromanagement, but if AI would just use spare gems only in the castle battles (storming or defending vs storm), which are bound to be the Last I'd be glad.

Generally, spell-casting AI is not that bad if you brought right mages and gems. Several times I was surprised by AI switching to his own plan (better than mine) after running through my scripts.

baruk said:
- Gem generators, used every game, by everybody, yawn.
Solution: Add a dominion based per-province limit.

Is there actually a problem here? I highly doubt that there's a problem with bloodstones, fever fetishes is not likely to be a problem either, so only clams are candidates, but there's no agreement on that issue. Maybe the latest change (non-stacking gem generators) will be sufficient to close the whole issue.

baruk said:
- Sphinx lost teleport. Effectiveness of magical movement over standard movement for defence and offence.
Solution: Planar sickness.

Personally, I like Sphinx being non-teleportable, it makes him a unique pretender. Magical movement really helps in the late large games. Just imaging dragging that large army of yours across of 15 provinces just to get anywhere close to the enemy. And then the enemy can avoid you infinitively. So in the end it may become just a matter of filling all provinces with a large armies (sooner or later one will have enough gems to do it). But this will cause "army-size-inflataion". Those "large" army will be considered a small forces, while the real "now large" armies will have to be dragged across the map again. So the magic movement is needed at least to avoid horrible micromanagement. If there're too many penalties for teleporting (stands for any kind of magic movement) armies, nobody will use them to engage in a serious battle, which will result in all that extra micromanagement.

Suggested 20 fatigue per size is too much of a penalty, in my opinion. Though just 20 fatigue (or some similar number) can be an interesting option. Another option would be to make teleporting defenders lose initiative, meaning that in this case the turn sequence would be: defending garrison - attacking army - teleported defenders. Dom2 engine probably doesn't support such a sequence, but it can be emulated by making teleporting defenders skip their first round. Attackers (whether they move magically or not) are already at disadvantage, so I'm not sure that any extra penalties would be good.

baruk said:
It is arguable whether these concerns are necessarily valid or important. Its likely the solutions would provoke as much outrage and gnashing of teeth as the problems they are supposed to fix.

[Soapyfrog]

Graeme Dice said:
The only spells that might be too cost-efficient for death would be Tartarian Gate, and that's assuming that you can keep Gift of Health active, or can keep wishing back the chalice every time someone steals it from you, and that you have a nature gem income that's high enough to cast gift of reason constantly. As for alchemizing, 10 casts of summon Lamias will would be a good use for 100 astral pearls, and would possibly be quite a bit more useful than a single doom horror that also requires 20 more nature gems. Or you could put those pearls into gift of health, or forge of the ancients, or haunted forest. All of which are more likely to have game altering effects than a doom horror.

Hooray for bloated gem incomes. Seriously you think this an interesting way to play?

In any case re: doom horrors I would love to hear how you would kill them so quickly and effectively. Frankly unless you get super lucky or have a serious mass of casters you are unlikely to be able to kill one, let alone two, or three, or four that you will quite likely encounter in a clam-hoarding game.

Since I have to fight doom horrors, I'd love to know what SPECIFIC counters you would propose to kill them.

[Alneyan]

My main concern on the matter of clams is the impact of their removal (or at least, their nerfing) on the nations for which clams are the saving grace. For example, while Arcoscephale or Pythium are likely good enough without clams, what about T'ien Ch'i? The Celestial Empire isn't exactly regarded as being the most powerful nation around, and reducing their access to clams will probably have a negative consequence on them.

It would be even worse for Spring and Autumn T'ien Ch'i, and possibly other nations/themes (R'lyeh? Atlantis? Pythium Serpent Cult? I am not a scholar on these). Magic sites remain a solution, but T'ien Ch'i is probably not among the nations with the means to lead the expansion race on its own, and its jack-of-all-trade mages are almost begging for these hefty items boosting their magic paths; since such items are quite expensive, clams are more than welcome here. And of course, Astral pearls provide these versatile mages with a more varied source of gems through alchemy; it isn't so good to have access to all the magic paths if you do not have a steady income to actually use all your nice spells.

[Graeme Dice]

Soapyfrog said:
In any case re: doom horrors I would love to hear how you would kill them so quickly and effectively.

If they don't have a lightning ring. Thunder strike and orb lightning. If they don't have a ring of fire, incinerate. If they don't have a ring of cold, frozen heart. Skeletons or lifeless troops will also work. Any semi-tough SC should also function quite well.

[Gandalf Parker]

Alneyan said:
My main concern on the matter of clams is the impact of their removal (or at least, their nerfing) on the nations for which clams are the saving grace. For example, while Arcoscephale or Pythium are likely good enough without clams, what about T'ien Ch'i? The Celestial Empire isn't exactly regarded as being the most powerful nation around, and reducing their access to clams will probably have a negative consequence on them.

The devs have specificaly mentioned Atlantis as a nation where clams are a basic part of the strategy. And that any clam-nerfing would have to be considered for what it would do to them. They dont have alot going for them now.

[Soapyfrog]

Graeme Dice said:
If they don't have a lightning ring. Thunder strike and orb lightning. If they don't have a ring of fire, incinerate. If they don't have a ring of cold, frozen heart.

For frozen heart or incinerate to work, you would need several mages casting simultaneousl AND hope your opponent is foolish enough not to know what your mages can do and provide the correct elemental resistance.

Thunderstrike and Banefire tend to miss alot, at which point the doom horror(s) eat your lunch.

Orb lightning you better have amazing air mages who are also lucky, since orb lightning is also quite imprecise... and furthermore short ranged. Again nevermind the fact that the DH will PROBABLY have a ring of tamed lightning.

Skeletons or lifeless troops will also work. Any semi-tough SC should also function quite well.

Sure you could throw out some chaff to slow the doom horror down, maybe. Although when I have tried this tactic, the Doom Horrors ignored my massed skeletons and kept eating casters.

As for semi-tough SC... have you looked at a DHs stats/attacks? Good... freaking... luck... maybe say 15-20 bane lords armed with moon blades will do the trick.

Only time I killed a doom horror was when it foolishly stormed a castle, alone, with no AMA, and fell victim to 20 or so sauromancers mass-casting disintegrate with one sauromancer casting earth grip to hold him in place... only two sauromancers died. Of course, next up were TWO doom horrors, and they had no trouble eating everyone alive.

Feh.

[Graeme Dice]

Soapyfrog said:
For frozen heart or incinerate to work, you would need several mages casting simultaneousl AND hope your opponent is foolish enough not to know what your mages can do and provide the correct elemental resistance.

If you are at the stage in the game where your opponent is using doom horrors, then you will certainly have plenty of your national mages along with you in an armies.

Thunderstrike and Banefire tend to miss alot, at which point the doom horror(s) eat your lunch.

Thunderstrike doesn't miss that much, and you only need about three hits to kill it.

Orb lightning you better have amazing air mages who are also lucky, since orb lightning is also quite imprecise... and furthermore short ranged. Again nevermind the fact that the DH will PROBABLY have a ring of tamed lightning.

Which is why you use multiple types of elemental magic. It can't resist all three types at once.

Sure you could throw out some chaff to slow the doom horror down, maybe. Although when I have tried this tactic, the Doom Horrors ignored my massed skeletons and kept eating casters.

Skeletons should be able to kill it actually, since it won't regain any life from them.

As for semi-tough SC... have you looked at a DHs stats/attacks? Good... freaking... luck... maybe say 15-20 bane lords armed with moon blades will do the trick.

A bane lord with quickness will have attack/defense of 17/17. With a moon blade, that's 19/20, which isn't far off from the doom horror. Put a lucky pendant on them both to make it even. With a strangth of 19 and moon blade damage of 11, the bane lord will do 60 damage on a successful hit. Two such hits will be enough to kill the doom horror.

You could also give the bane lord a spirit helmet or a sculuta columnus and some other type of weapon if you want.

Of course, next up were TWO doom horrors, and they had no trouble eating everyone alive.

You'd have been far better off casting drain life.