LA Ermor's Dominion Change in 3.15...

[Wick]

Once upon a time (dom2) I toyed with a choir nation. It would have been based on the Call God mechanism to summon angels ranging from Putti to Angels of the four hosts to unique angels, with a little bonus if the paths of the Singer or Matster of Harmony matched what they were calling. The Celebrants were troops that could join a Singer and there would obviously been spell songs. The troops were weak and the mages overpriced but calling units whose priestly abilities would let them call more units would probably have made it a late game powerhouse.

Another non-standard economy could be your basic d&d goblins. The troops would freespawn but cost upkeep so you have to keep attacking your neighbors. Although this might not work too well given the clever ways people found to dispose of militia. Hmmm...

[Xavier]

dragons are famous gold-hoarding - make the upkeep costs for units and commanders 10x normal.

and yes, quality over quantity is a big effect in this game, but if you balance the costs and don't make the units *too* absurd you should be fine. I mean, Niefelheim can produce a jarl every second turn at the beginning, and it doesn't take long to get the income going to produce one every turn.

you could also force the pretender to be one of the dragons, which have insanely expensive magic paths. You'd also have to be awake. This would mitigate the strength of your pretender or starting scales some, since you'd obviously be able to go 3 sloth.

there's a fix for every balance issue

[WraithLord]

I suggest to stop abusing this thread and move the discussion to this dedicated thread

[BigJMoney]

B0rsuk said:
Hey, correct me if I'm wrong.

Growth scale gives +0.2% population per turn. This means +0.6% at Growth3 . I'm not sure, but I think there's no upper cap for province, no environment capacity. Some terrains just tend to start with more people than others, for example Swamp or Wasteland seems to have lower initial population. But from that point it's only affected by Death/Growth scale.

Apparently some nations (or their dominion) kills civilian population at alarming rate. There's pretty much no way of restoring that population reliably. That +0.6% from growth will take you nowhere. This is, I believe, consistent with the theme of the game (the end days, god wars, mortals die by thousands...). But there seems to be a consensus that Growth scale is unusually bad. There's an opportunity to make it better by simulating (simplified) laws of ecology.
How about this: Growth scale effect is 5x higher (or fixed at certain number) for provinces having population of 2000 or less. For provinces 2000-4000 , the multiplier would be 3x instead (3x of usual 0.6%). This is to simulate the fact that, in ecology (especially for animals, which are almost exlusively hunters and gatherers) population growth booms initially, and slows down as it reaches environment capacity.

What do you think about it ? This way, Growth scale could be used to at least partially regrow provinces devastated by Ermor dominion. It's not like Growth scale is very useful at the moment...

I agree. I've always thought growth could do more for its namesake than it does. I also think it could without negatively impacting Ermor's gameplay/theme combo. What if when a pop reaches 100 or less, it is unrecoverable, but above that, it can be regrown with growth scales along a stronger curve like B0rsuk suggests? Would it hurt Ermor if it were possible for territories to be taken back from them if you can manage to prune their dominion?

Basically what would happen is
1) Ermor puts dominion in a province
2) Ermor captures the province
3) Ermor depletes the province heavily (but does not get it down to 100 or less)
4) Opponent retakes province
5) Opponent removes Ermor's dominion from province
6) Province regrows

This is probably pointless, but I just thought of it. Is that game breaking?

BTW, I'm real embarrassed none of us caught the Ermor pop bug. Not that I played Ermor much in Dom2, but as much as I like to point out inconsistencies in game behavior, I'm bothered that I never complained about Dom3 Ashen Empire (which I thought had way too much gold).

=$=

[OmikronWarrior]

Agrajag said:
Growth in dominions is exponential.
It's just that even with growth-3 it's just 1.006^n

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...b=5&o=&fpart=1

The above link is where I ran the numbers on growth and death domains and calculated the aggregate money changes over so many turns. First off, the extra 2% per tick of growth of money you make per turn is not insignificant. Secondly, Growth in the long run will equal order for as a money maker, with the break even point being around turn 42 for growth-3. Third, the real strength of growth as a money maker is to combine it with order-3. Then all the multipliers (21% for order, 6% for growth, and exponential population growth) combine for the biggest pay out in Dom3.

Don't get me wrong, early expansion is important than late game bounties, but its not something to be dismissed either.

[Zeldor]

OmikronWarrior:

But you need to control that province for so many turns. AND have your dominion [prbaobly at least str 3-5] all the time. So that 42 turns is for capitol only.

I wish growth effect was 2-5 times bigger but with no income boost. Just boost by population growth. It could maybe also make population destroying spells weaker.

[OmikronWarrior]

Zeldor said:
But you need to control that province for so many turns. AND have your dominion [prbaobly at least str 3-5] all the time. So that 42 turns is for capitol only.

42 turns is the length of time in which you need to hold a province (any province) for the money difference between order-3 and growth-3 to be a wash (not the actual turn number in which everything everywhere equals out), and after turn 42 growth looks a lot better (due to the nature of exponential growth). Your criticism is a bit misguided in that in order to benefit from Order-3 you need the same criteria, control of the province and a minimum dominion to move scales. Once this is achieved, 42 turns is a theoretical number in which money breaks even, with plenty of room for 'experimental deviation'. Obviously, not all provinces will be under you control for a full 40+ turns, and there is no easy way to calculate the exponential benefit of growth in the provinces you control for more than 40 turns (or 70 for that matter) averaged against those you'll hold much less. The bigger the game, the more advantageous growth becomes.

Of course, I pretty much went out and said if you need money for your early game than you want order-3, which may allow you to take more provinces and thus have more money over the course of the game (to say nothing of more magic gems). Yet, how often does pretender design end up as a 120 points to spend on either Order or Growth? Realistically certain nations require growth to keep their old age mages alive. My suggestion has always been to combine Order-3, Growth-3, and even temperature scales for maximum effect accross the board.

I wish growth effect was 2-5 times bigger but with no income boost. Just boost by population growth. It could maybe also make population destroying spells weaker.

A dangerous line of thought. Check out this graph on wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...xponential.png .

The green line represents exponential growth. It starts our relatively slow compared to other forms of growth, but towards the end skyrockets into the atmosphere. The danger with increasing the pop growth to much is it becomes simply overpowering. I set up another spread sheet on my PC to compare your suggestions: 2xs and 5xs the current population growth figures. Assumming Growth-3 (1.2% and 3%).

For 1.2%, the break even point (with out any income benefits) was turn 31. A population doubled after 58 turns, and tripled after 92. For 3%, the break even point was turn 13. Population doubled at turn 24, tripled at 38 turns, and after 100 turns, the population would be 20 times the original.

I do feel like growth should be strengthened, but playing with exponents can be dangerous. I'd like to see the income modifier changed to 3%/tick. That make positive scales strategies much more viable.

[Zeldor]

OmikronWarrior:

How many turns you need now to double population with growth 1,2 or 3?

You have admitted that it gets good later. So you need to control that provinces for at least 25-30 turns to see a real difference in income from growth. That's really a lot. It will affect provinces you got in early game but you won't benefit from new ones. And you will have Order bonus from newly acquired provinces when you spread your dominion there. Does order also increase income from gold mines etc?

[johan osterman]

Omikron warrior, by 22-23 turns a province held in growth 3 should have an income equal to that of a order 3 province with growth 0.

It should take about 100 turns to double population with growth 3.

[Xavier]

I did some fiddling with this earlier - direct tests on early expansion with and without growth 3. The difference I was paying for was an asleep versus imprisoned pretender (who was mostly just a 9/6 bless vehicle). The difference in early expansion was actually substantial - do not underestimate the value of that +6% income. I would say that on any nation that doesn't need the resources, take sloth 3 and growth 3, as growth will substantially improve your income (this assumes you don't have anything more pertinent to spent those 120 points from sloth on, and that you're already at order 3).