Ermor

[trebuchet]

You are using a somewhat different definition of "unbalanced". Consider the simple game of rock-paper-scissors. Would you say that the game is unbalanced? "Paper has no defense against scissors!"

Returning to the discussion at hand, each nation has strengths and weaknesses - there's nothing wrong with that, in fact that's what makes this game so interesting.

That said, there *are* balance issues in the game, but they are complex enough that most of them will take a while to be certain of. The two that seem obvious to me are that a) combat pretenders in general are probably underpriced for their relative benefits, and b) the blood economy is more boost-able than the magic/gold economies, which makes a bigger difference now that both of the latter have been scaled down.

Compared to those, other balance issues seem quite minor to me, but your mileage may vary.

[Sammual]

Originally posted by DominionsFAN:
I think that there should be spells like summon population. Why not? This is a fantasy wargame afterall! All things should have some counter, that is the key.

Now we dont have counter when Ermor kills the pop, we cannot remove curse, and the curse spell is so cheap, Ermor cannot defend against turn undead..etc.
Frankly, some things are totally unbalanced.

Ermor is my great as long as you are Ermor.
I agree that population killing domains and curse are the two things that bother me the most about this game but hey we can always beg counters to them in Dominions 3.

Sammual

[Saber Cherry]

Yeah, a growth domain would not help you. Unfortunately, in Dominions there is no minimum growth in a growth domain, and the maximal growth rate is .7% (or a doubling time of roughly 100 turns) so you can never regrow population in low-population provinces. By turn 40, if you started with a pop-300 province on turn 1, and had a growth-3 scale, you'd have 390 people. And that's assuming you can increase population in increments of less than 10 people, which I'm not really sure about... if the minimal increment is 10, then you can never increase population in a province with less than 1430 people, unless there's some randomness thrown in.

A lot of people seem to want more growth possibilities, but the developers are gloomy pessimists who like to dwell in dark, apocalyptic worlds Which is nice because it brings interesting Blood and Death spells, but unfortunate in terms of curing battle afflictions and regrowing population. But maybe a base pop. growth slider will be added, or the scale effects will be adjustable with mods, or a minimum population growth per turn will be added (to abstract immigration) - with a minimum of 10 pop/turn/growth scale, your +3 growth, 300 pop province would hit 1470 by turn 40!

-Cherry

P.S. I also think that population should flow from province to province based on population happiness, which would be a combination of unrest, taxes, and scales... where growth, order, neutral heat, low unrest, high defense, fortresses, temples, and low taxes all increase happiness, and patrols prevent emigration. Death domains, taxes, blood-hunting, and patrols would still decrease population, but half the reduction would be to death, and half would be due to emigration.

[ November 15, 2003, 23:36: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by trebuchet:
You are using a somewhat different definition of "unbalanced". Consider the simple game of rock-paper-scissors. Would you say that the game is unbalanced? "Paper has no defense against scissors!"

Hahahaha....

[Sammual]

Originally posted by PvK:
Actually, it seems to me that having everything have a way to undo it, is more like generic rock-paper-scissors than "key". I think it's actually more interesting when some situations can't be undone, or not easily.

I would like everything to be able to be undone, even if it takes the use of a wish.

Originally posted by PvK:
I would enjoy having, say, an item and/or spell that protects against getting cursed, and a costly way to remove a curse, but I don't think curses are unbalanced, because they just make afflictions more likely. That is actually an interesting counter-balance to super-combattants. The reason I'd like protection or (especially) removal options is just for roleplaying and my preferred play style of trying to keep experienced fighters alive.

I also enjoy the lack of easy ways to repopulate provinces for similar reasons - it's an interesting effect that adds flavor, and part of the interest is that it is hard to undo. I suppose it would be interesting if there were some difficult/rare ways to do this, perhaps by relocating population rather than making people appear out of thin air, or slowly through high-level nature magic or something (there is already Wish, Growth Scale, and I thought some nature spells). If it becomes relatively easy or common, though, it would reduce the uniqueness of that element of play.

As for defending undead, I assume by "Turn Undead" you mean Banishment, which is resisted by magic resistance, which can be strengthened by Antimagic, or (I think) the dark blessings, no? Again, this too seems like one of the more interesting and colorful aspects of the game (that summoning and banishing are both relatively easy for certain units, rather than unbalanced.

I am fine with the undead vs banishment balance as it is.

I would like to see ways to reduce the chance of getting cursed (item) and/or ways of removing it (Wish or other high powered spell) but I like curse as a SC defense.

Sammual

[LordArioch]

If a minimum population growth is set, it should be 1 pop/turn/scale at max. Keep in mind at .2% a growth scale a +1 growth only gives +1 pop/turn with 500 people, so if the min was set above +1 pop/turn/scale there'd be no growth advantage for large provinces.
Person summoning spells and curse curing spells are fine with me as long as they are made really really REALLY expensive. I shudder at the consequences of mass castings of pop raising spells combined with 200% patrol. If it was made too cheap pop raising spells would just bring back patrol. And in mp at least ermor's population killing is unbalanced against it more than for it, what with how every human player doesn't want to see valuable lands destroyed and will work together against ermor.
Curse curing is nice for doing rp stuff but in practice a cheap curse cure would make supercombatants even more important. Curse is effectively an anti-supercombantant spell: against anything weaker you're better off using magic that just kills it rather than trying to make it acquire battle injuries. An item that protects would just become standard for sc's so that might not be a great idea. Note that the curing of battle wounds + the variety of magic for forging makes arcoscephale perfect for setting up supercombatants in my opinion.

Wish doing either would work fine. And paper is clearly the unbalanced one. Rock never even has a chance.

[Taqwus]

I haven't tried it (in Dom I, let alone II), but a reading of the strings in the Dom I binary suggests to me that you could wish for "population", "people", "populace", "peasants", or "commoners". It would certainly make more sense than wishing for "death" or "to die".
It may generate a message of the form "Suddenly a whole bunch of people appeared in {province name}."