The next patch

[Argitoth]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
Also as me and many other players have noticed, currently by the end of every medium and long MP games 99% of gem income comes from not from your provinces , but from stacked hundreds and hundreds of clams and fever fetishes. Many players myslef included think it is not how this game was intended to be played, with all these nice magic gem-producing sites , eetc. IMHO magic shold mostly come from the magical lands you control, not from 500 clams that give you astral to alchemy into everything else

500 clams is 5000 water gems!!! I've never seen, in all my gaming experience, someone abuse those types of items.

[quote]Originally posted by Stormbinder:

Originally posted by Alexander Seil:
[qb] ...this game is the FIRST game that beat Master of Magic.

I never played MoM, but I never thought it was that great. (hence i never played it)

[ March 25, 2004, 06:10: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

I'd give the game more of a chance in "MP" me and people I play "MP" with think "this".

Truth be told, this game is massive. The level of depth requires alot to be known about it to even place a judgement of balance or what any ramifications mean.

Just as the "Clam" debate. Some feel it is overpowered, others do not, you have to take the full impact of what it does. What nations rely on the Clams before a 'hoarding' phase and if they are taken or switched, will they be 'in balance' as they were. Atlantis is a good example of this.

Just because you think something is 'out of balance' doesn't mean it is. And if you are still even learning the game what is your perspective of balance going to be? Someone uses something against you and you can't for some reason defeat it, suddenly it's imbalanced? If that is the criteria of balance then I'd much rather have the developers deciding balance. Just because I feel the developers have a pretty savvy grasp on the balance because they got it to this point doesn't make me any more of a fanboi, it does however stand to reason that if they see it pointed out enough they might have reason to look at it more. Try searching for Clams or SoS for an example.

This is especially true of what I consider a minor 'balance' issue as these.

Also messaging UI is covered by the general feeling of the current Developers willingness to do UI. That is not to say it is/will/willnot happen, but the priority of it and desire for it is probably low.

[ March 25, 2004, 06:32: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Zen:
Also messaging UI is covered by the general feeling of the current Developers willingness to do UI. That is not to say it is/will/willnot happen, but the priority of it and desire for it is probably low.

It's not my top priority but being able to send Messages to multiple people (not all) is something I also would really like to see.

Originally posted by Yossar:
It's not my top priority but being able to send Messages to multiple people (not all) is something I also would really like to see.

I wasn't saying it wasn't a part of the player's desire or priority. I was speaking of Illwinter's desire. I tried to hunt down the thread where JO put it very simply but I haven't been able to find it. Needless to say for those who do not already know, UI is not a favorite thing to program and thus has less importance to IW because it's not enjoyable for them to program. And being as IW doesn't have the resources to make programming their only endeavor, they are much likely to program what they enjoy programming as opposed to what they don't enjoy.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zen:


Just because you think something is 'out of balance' doesn't mean it is. And if you are still even learning the game what is your perspective of balance going to be? Someone uses something against you and you can't for some reason defeat it, suddenly it's imbalanced? If that is the criteria of balance then I'd much rather have the developers deciding balance.

No, it is not my criteria. In fact I am hoarding clams myslef in my current games. I am doing it because I have to do it to stay competitive in the long run in economic/gem race, but I don't like it. My main criteria as I said before is that I feel that the situation when 99% gem income by the end of the game comes from clams is not exactly what develepers had in mind when they designed this game. I may be wrong here of course, since I can't read developers mind, but based upon the fact that they put so much efforts into designing all these nice gem-prodicing sites and mechanism for searching for them, I don't believe that it was intended mostly for the begining and middle of the game, to jump-start mass clam-production.

Just as the "Clam" debate. Some feel it is overpowered, others do not, you have to take the full impact of what it does. What nations rely on the Clams before a 'hoarding' phase and if they are taken or switched, will they be 'in balance' as they were. Atlantis is a good example of this.

Sure, some nations are relying on clams more than others, but I've noticed that almost any nation once they get semi-decent water or astral income as soon as they able to start making as much clams as they can, using alchemy if they have too. At least this was the case in all MP games that I've played so far. I am sure you have seen it more than me, so I don't really have to tell you this.

Just because I feel the developers have a pretty savvy grasp on the balance because they got it to this point doesn't make me any more of a fanboi, it does however stand to reason that if they see it pointed out enough they might have reason to look at it more.

I agree. That's what I am trying to do here - to politely point out to the issue of massive clam hoarding, which I think is a bit unbalanced as of now, and expalining why I think so. To do something about it or not is of course for the developers to decide, based upon thier own judgement.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by magnate:
One thing I'd like to see in the next patch is a 2nd visit to the races screen, after the map is chosen. It shouldn't be too hard to do, and you don't even have to allow any changes on this 2nd visit (open to debate but whatever), but just show us what changes the map selection has made to the race selections. This would vastly simplify the use of user-made maps and scenarios, especially for SP. Good for MP too - maybe you could choose a different race if you really didn't like the map they chose ....

Another good alternative to this, and easier to program, would be to have map selection come -before- race selection. That way you know how many provinces, how much water, whether there are a recommended number of races, restrictions on which races/nations that are played, etc.

An option on the race selection screen to randomize which non-human-controlled races are in the game would be rather nice also, especially with graphs turned off. Let it be a surprise as you come across the nations in the game.

(I guess this would also require the "send message" screen to only show those nations you've made contact with. That actually makes more sense anyway, imo. Unless of course all Pretenders have a divine ability to sense the other beings of power. Still - you can't teleport gems or magic items to commanders who aren't at one of your labs, why would you be able to teleport them to a nation you haven't made contact with?)

[PhilD]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:

quote:

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Originally posted by Zen:


Just because you think something is 'out of balance' doesn't mean it is. And if you are still even learning the game what is your perspective of balance going to be? Someone uses something against you and you can't for some reason defeat it, suddenly it's imbalanced? If that is the criteria of balance then I'd much rather have the developers deciding balance.

No, it is not my criteria. In fact I am hoarding clams myslef in my current games. I am doing it because I have to do it to stay competitive in the long run in economic/gem race, but I don't like it. My main criteria as I said before is that I feel that the situation when 99% gem income by the end of the game comes from clams is not exactly what develepers had in mind when they designed this game. I may be wrong here of course, since I can't read developers mind, but based upon the fact that they put so much efforts into designing all these nice gem-prodicing sites and mechanism for searching for them, I don't believe that it was intended mostly for the begining and middle of the game, to jump-start mass clam-production.

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How long are your games? Are you playing 4-player games on the World map, or what?

I mean, your initial gem production is 5/turn. Even if it's 5 Water, this means you get to make one Clam every 2 turns, initially. For even, say, 80% of your gem income to be item-produced, assuming your sites produce, say, 10 per turn (rather small), requires 50 gem-producing items. That's 50 turns of using your natural production (assuming it's all of the right types) to turn into items (500 gems), meaning those items will have produced roughly 1200 gems by that time. That's investing your whole production into them, plus 50 turns of a mage, plus (currently) 25 commanders holding the items, which you're not likely to send on the field as random kill-me commanders - which means "lost" upkeep.

Anything faster, means your current return is smaller - because the already-produced items will have produced fewer gems.

If, during those 50 turns, none of your opponents has taken advantage of your sinking gems into slow-return investments, your map is too big. Or maybe your playgroup is too focused on this being the only viable strategy, and isn't otherwise expanding/attacking fast enough.