Possible way out of the V.Q. Problem

[rabelais]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
It also has far cheaper paths: If you're not willing to screw over your scales to get the high and diverse magics needed to create a really heavyweight SC, you can go the GK route instead, and either get the same scales with higher paths, or more paths with the same scales. If the VQ were significantly altered, such as losing a Misc slot, I'd be dumping it in favor of the GK. The lifedrain is a minor matter, as the VQ loses its lifedrain when given a weapon, which you will do shortly anyway, just to prevent empty slots from picking up cursed items. The blood magic is mostly meaningless on the VQ, as blood is by far the cheapest path to empower in, and provides absolutely no benefit in combat, the main reason why you'd take a VQ: To have the best possible base chassis for building a monster SC out of it. In exchange, you basically get squat all as far as dominion strength(an unexceptional 2), and blessing bases(death/blood, neither of which are strong blessing material). You're going to have to pay for any extras yourself. While a potent defensive weapon, as an attacker, the VQ is somewhat less impressive, as immortality is gone in enemy dominion, and the chassis itself is physically frail, having a mere 23 base HP.

Um... norfleet, with all due respect, this is a bunch of hooey.

You do not need to give the VQ items to avoid boobytraps, because she drops everything when she dies. (at no penalty to paths) Even cursed, horror marked and afflicted she can be a uber-SC with no risk. Bully for recuperation!

Scales are nigh irrelevant, except for magic and luck.

Dominion dependent HP's are bugged, and in my experience, very rarely do you avoid a bonus, unless you are jumping from negative dominion to negative dominion (something you explicitly would not do with this strat) so regen is more useful than the chassis would indicate.

The life drain sometimes works even with through items(again bugged?), and since she needn't fear curses, you would in any case be foolish to divest yourself of the ability.

The path cost difference between 20 and 40 is immaterial, since the GK cannot rival the VQ as a naked SC. It may be that any immortal chassis is abusable, which is why I recommended changes in immortality, not the VQ per se.

Ermor has the points to be munchkinish here is all that matters.

Hell they might still be able to build a munchkin SC if the path cost were 80 for the VQ ...though someone would have to run the numbers. (I'm sure you have)

It is BROKEN for ermor. I know you are fond of it, but come on.

If you can build a (near or absolutely) naked immortal SC (esp with native high dominion), and get enough income from luck/overtaxing to protect your temples... there is no reasonable strategy that will do much more than slow you down.

Meanwhile ermor can afford to be patient as magic-3 gives them excellent research.

It has been demonstrated (by you) that this is quite a plausible scenario, and something therefore needs to be changed.

Basically AFAIKT if a person can attack ALL your castles with enough strength to get the walls down in simul, then they could threaten you.

This is unlikely to be the case, as you know.

Even if you subject to a huge pile-on (as you should be) it would have to be far more coordinated than most I've seen to have an effect.

Meanwhile whoever is *trying* fruitlessly to stop you is losing developmental ground to other nations and will eventually get cannibalized.

Rinse and Repeat and. Victory is nigh inevitable, if you are patient.

If there is a legitimate counter to the ermor-naked-VQ SC... with castles to protect omnipresent temples, I'd love to hear it.

I'm a fairly clever fellow, and I can't find one that is plausible with an even remotely level playing field.

Ironically, one might stop you temporarily with a non-drainable horde, but as you are ermor, the difficultly in acquiring such is ...formidable.

edit: The GK also has a much higher defense value. Please do not try to argue that this equates to immortality or any such nonsense.

This is indeed not "equivalent" to immortality, but it's definitely a feather in the cap of somebody taking the GK route instead. Sure, it's not a substitute for immortality, but the lower chassis cost, combined with the lower path cost, will let you afford better defensive paths on top of that.

All you need is immortal naked SC viability, the path boost above the minimum munchkin design is unnecessary and beside the point. The synergy between immortality and dominion for ermor (who recuits troops independent of scales) is simply too great.

As I said, you should be proud you found a way to minimax break the game, but that doesn't mean it should be permitted indefinitely.


Rabe the Rebutter

[ May 03, 2004, 23:39: Message edited by: rabelais ]

[Blitz]

The whining will surely start anew if the current crop of whiners has their way and gets a significant nerf to the VQ, when souped-up GKs start getting crammed down people's throats.

Let me explain this to you in a different way Norfleet. In every MP game these issues come up. You, like myself have probably played a lot of these games, and we've seen this movie before. I hesitate to use a RTS example, because of the usual TBS snobbery against the "strategy for the masses clickfest" flames, but it's the best comparison I can think of.

Back when Warcraft 3 first came out there was a unit called the Demon Hunter. Given the right equipment, this unit could kill entire armies and bases all by itself. Huge heated debates raged on message Boards and a lot of the same kinds of arguments were used that we are seeing here. Good players could overcome the Demon hunter because they were skilled players, but in the end the Demon Hunter was given a HUGE nerf and you know what?

The good players were still good players, the bad players were still bad players... and the Demon Hunter, even after his huge nerf was still a great unit. You just didn't see him in every single game, and we didn't have the boredom of seeing the same unit over and over again.

That's probably what's going to happen here Norfleet. The VQ is going to get nerfed, because even with all your good arguments (sometimes I wonder why the hell you use her if she sucks so bad), it's plainly obvious to everyone that the VQ is quite a bit better than the rest of the pretenders. And you know what? You'll either keep using the weaker Version or find another strategy to keep winning.

The greatest thing about it Norfleet? Now when you kick someone's *** with a Ghost King or Carrion Dragon, they can't say squat. Know why? Because you are a good player and you'll adapt. That is... unless you can't win without your precious vampire

From what I've heard, you seem to have a pretty good idea how this game is played. And I'm pretty sure that once the inevitable happens, you'll do just fine. So stop fighting it and just accept your nerf like a man.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
... Why does immortality heal all wounds? I thought that was what recuperation was for. I mean - you come back from the dead instantly, AND you heal wounds?

Mythology, folk tales, all those have lots of instances of beings obtaining immortality. And finding out that immortality is a curse - living forever after a hand is crushed, an eye is lost, reduced to a suffering heap of flesh that only wishes it could die.

If the VQ and other immortals had to obtain the Chalice, the high level Nature spell, or whatnot, they might not be so unbalanced. A blind crippled armless VQ isn't so scary, now is it?

There's a good point. The full-rebuild makes more sense (to me) for a Phoenix (back from the ashes), but immortality mechanics are sort of thin ground for logical considerations.

(And this highlights another thing that is basically ... dubious, that way that most pretenders wind up cripples. C'mon! They're on the verge of godhood!)

Hmm, game was developed by Norse people. Odin is more or less the head of the (pre-Christian) Norse pantheon has the "lost an eye" affliction. And I don't recall anyone bellyaching about it!

If a pretender is so great, how come he let himself get gimped? Guess his player isn't as clever as all that. I'm losing faith already!

Either immortality shouldn't heal wounds, or all pretenders should have a slow form of recuperation.
...

If you want everyone to heal afflictions for whatever reason, there's a mod for that.

PvK

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Originally posted by LintMan:
How about this for a switcheroo-style game:
Everyone designs a pretender for a race, submits it, and Posts the details of their design. If there are any stinker pretender designs, people can vote that that designer has to play his own cruddy pretender. All the other (resaonable) pretenders get randomly assigned to the other players.

I LIKE this one. It's better (and shorter, and more directly self-policing) than the "Double-Header Switcheroo" idea I was working on this morning... Game One with your own design, then as soon as someone gets knocked out, Game Two starts with Current Leader getting the next-to-Last-place player's nation, working inward. (with one less player-- the player knocked out of Game 1 not participating in Game 2.) Best combined finish (your nation G1, the nation you ended up with G2, your nation as it was played in G2, weighting to be determined) wins the match. The point is that players should be building pretenders they wouldn't too much fear as opponents while still being playable on their own. {Looking again at your proposal... how would it be known that the design posted was the real one actually submitted? Likely safer to have the Game Director post them...}

Also, there should be a chance that you could randomly get your own design, so if you go for a very mediocre pretender (not quite bad enough for people to stick it to you), you still have to worry about getting stuck with it.

As far as creatively bad pretender designs, my pick would be for something like an immobile "rainbow" oracle or blood fountain.

Yes, and OUCH. Uses all the points uselessly. At least it can forge things though...
Anyone have any comments on the "No Duplicate Avatars Please" concept? It's been kinda neglected... {nuts that's still a junky name for it...}

[PvK]

Originally posted by Etaoin Shrdlu:
... Anyone have any comments on the "No Duplicate Avatars Please" concept? It's been kinda neglected... {nuts that's still a junky name for it...}

Sounds fine to me. I don't remember if you mentioned, but ideally a non-player would check the pretenders, so fog-of-war about your opponents isn't lost.

PvK

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Something is wrong if people can get a Dracolich for 50 points, or a Dracolich for 100 points.

The dracolich isn't immortal, so it's priced at the same rate as the other dragons.

---

But if _both_ picks are the identical Dracolich, one selection is buying it for 50 points more than the other selection.

Not to mention that the player will have thought she was getting a Bog Mummy.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
But if _both_ picks are the identical Dracolich, one selection is buying it for 50 points more than the other selection.

Only one of those bog mummies is a dracolich. That's the 50 point form, which has a bog mummy as its alternate form. The other one is the immortal bog mummy.