Can I get some cheese with that...

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Zen:
Maybe you have a different understanding of what this board is for. In my mind it's not a place to "blow off steam", or "demand IW change something".

Counter to public opinion this is not a Rant forum about Dom2. This is a forum that serves as both feedback (in an appropriate manner) and aid for new players as well as old.

There's the general Shrapnel forum faq, but I have not found a "rules of THIS forum" faq like I have seen on other sites.

Does it exist?

Not as far as I know. It has never needed them to my understanding. In the past most posters at Shrapnel's Boards have understood that general politeness and rules that are standard on other Boards are applicable here.

Also I feel the caliber of people who play Dom2, in general, do not fall prey to the very base of things that most if not all forums prohibit.

Perhaps when Gandalf upgrades the Forum Software it will have an easy to read FAQ about what is and is not appropriate here as well as allowing you to choose your sort method.

Edit: Just for clarification. This is not a Rant forum in the fact that it's for people to come and ***** and moan about things in an inappropriate manner. Obviously everyone has the right to be angry at any number of things, but within reason. Such as if you are angry that Utgard was broken in a new patch and there was no support or answer for that particular instance, you are totally justified. However, if you got beat by someone using a Archmage with Staff of Elemental Mastery and posted that it was "total bull**** and the Archmage is unbalanced" and then flaming the player of the Archmage, would be innappropriate.

[ May 28, 2004, 19:07: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zen:
However, if you got beat by someone using a Archmage with Staff of Elemental Mastery and posted that it was "total bull**** and the Archmage is unbalanced" and then flaming the player of the Archmage, would be innappropriate.

Inappropriate, yes.....but I'd pay to see that. That's just too funny to be true.

[Vynd]

I'd like to see the Archmage kick some butt too.

I am in total agreement with Zen that no one should be coming on here and demanding that Illwinter do anything. I don't think I said that in my Posts.

I also am opposed to ranting and the use of personal attacks. That sort of thing isn't what I had in mind when I said blowing off steam, but I can see how it could be interepreted as such. Sorry about that.

I'm basically just in favor of as free a flow of ideas as possible, so as to make it easier to identify where the problems are and aren't. I didn't think that Reverened Zombie's categorizing some people's opinons as whining (not a particularly civil word, in my opinion) encouraged this sort of exchange, so I spoke up about it. But I absolutely agree that this exchange of ideas needs to be friendly and respectful. If I gave any other impression be assured it was not my intent.

[Scott Hebert]

Well, for me, things CAN be tested. It all depends on how much work you're willing to do for it.

Take, for example, the Vampire Queen. You think she should cost more? Go right ahead. You don't have to spend all the points you get to make your Pretender. The formulae used to figure out costs for things like Paths are well-established, and so you can tweak the numbers to what you think she SHOULD be. Then you play her.

Come to think of it, aren't Pretenders able to be modded/created now? You could simply create what you think an appropriate VQ would be, and test to see if she is, IYO, more balanced.

Another thing. Clams. What's the appropriate cost for them? This is, actually, something you can verify in-game. If you think that they should cost 10W and 10S, for example, simply remember that you need 10 Astral gems in your lab for each Clam you own. Alternatively, you could take the 10 Astral cost, convert it into ANYTHING else (giving 5 gems), convert those BACK to Pearls (giving 2 Pearls and 1 Gem), and convert those Pearls back into a gem (giving 2 Gems), and converting back to a single Pearl. Poof, you just had 9 Pearls disappear. Also, make sure you only Forge with capable mages.

Is it work? Yes. Before you reflexively ask, "You expect me to do THIS MUCH just to prove something that already exists?", I'll answer you. Yes. I do. Supposition and 'because everyone does it' is not evidence. It won't get anything changed. The more you can do to identify the problem AND work on a viable solution AND show that that solution is better for the game, the better your chances are for getting the change made.

Mostly, I see people working on only the first problem. Gandalf constantly says it; give us solutions, not problems. And don't just give solutions, give us evidence that show the solutions do what they're supposed to. Only then is IW likely to implement the change.

Scott

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Zen:


A good example of this is: Stormbinder's Mirror Image issue. He brought a bit of information that he felt was wrong, enough to spark interest for others to see if it was or was not working as he said it. It doesn't have to be huge mathmatical analysis but it has to be reasoned and tested against more than one or even a few circumstance/stimulus.

Thank you Zen. I am just doing what I can since I love this game a lot and would like to do whatever little I can do to help it become even better. I generally agree with what you have said in your post about purpose of the board, rants, etc.

But I would like to point out one thing though - you have to keep in mind that the Mirror Image issue that I've posted about was a bug, pure and simple. Anybody can do (and did) a quick testing to confirm or deny it.


With "mad castling" it's much more complicated since the issue here is not a bug. Proponents of this "strategy" can (correctly) agrue that they are not using any bugs and therefore have every right to do it. The thing is, however, that the large majority of people (even some of those who defend the right of "mad castling" ) agree that cheap castles/temples in every province makes game extremely boring and mindbogling for everybody involved(except mad castler of course). It also give mad castler (if he knows what he is doing and designed and play to the strength of his tactic) large advantage over not-madcastler.


Therefore it forces everybody, if he doesn't want to be in strong disadvantage in competitive MP with madcastler(s) present, to adopt the same tactic, which is in addition to being cheezy and mindbogling for most people, significantly deminish the diversity of this game (and this is one of the worst thing here in my opinion, since this game is all about different tactics and choices. Where to build castles (as well as which castle type to choose) is supposed to be very importent choice in this game, where you are choosing location based upon the local resourses, magic sites, indep troops available in the province, the resourses of neigborhood provinces, current political situation, your nation overall strategy, other neigboring castles that can provide assistance to new one in case of war, et cetera....

With "mad castling" all these choices are completely irrelevent since you are building castles everywhere, and choose only one of 2(sometimes 3) cheap 300gp castles in the begining.


Now returning to the question of proof. I agree that it is always good to have strong and mathematical evidence to back any claims such as this one. But what kind of evidence you could reasonable expect to have to prove that "mad castling" is cheesy, boring and unbalancing?

We have one notorious madcastler who is infamous for his use of this tactic - Norfleet. He uses the same cheesy and abusive tactic (where "mad castling is the main part of his strategy) it in each and every game of his and because of this win most of them.

You may argue that he wins not because of "madcastling" and other exploits but because he is very good player. Fine. But the only way to prove or reject it is for him to play a game against competent opponents and win without using any of his standard exploits. He, however, strongly refuses to do it, claiming that he don't know how to play without mad castling. (such game was offered to him only yesterday by his friend Haterider). Depsite my personal feeling toward Norfleet for his lying and cheating in my Last game, I agreed to play the game against him just to settle this question and clear the issue of "madcastling". Norfleet, however, chickened out. He understand very well that once (if) he would be beaten in his first and only game, where he would _not_ be using his standarts exploits, the truth about his "strategies" would become crystal clear fo everybody. He just can't risk it.


There is another, although less strict way to get mathematical evidence that you are asking for. If I understand it correctly, yours, as well as Gendalf's positions is that any tactic, including Norfleet's "mad castling + VQ + clam hoarding" can be beaten with good counter tactic. Ideally, I would agree with you, that's exactly what I love about this game. In reality however ad in case with "mad castling", I strongly doubt it, and this was never proven. AhhhFresh sugested excactly the same game to Norfleet and yourslef some time ago. Norfleet indicated that he is not really interested in it. But even if he would play it and win, he could still claim that he won because of his skills, not because of his cheesy strategy. And you could always say (i am not saying that *you* will, I am speaking strictly not-personally here) that he had strong element of luck on his side, or weak neigbors who he could gobble quickly before meeting his stronger oppoentns, or dozens of other possible reasons.


Finally you may argue that this is not about 1 player, but about the strategy. Again, normally I would agree, but Norfleet, as we all know, is special case. He hangs on dom2 Boards and channels 24hours per day (literally), and my guess is that he participate in at least 50% of all MP games going around here. He even went as low as to sneak into other people game under an alias. Therefore unfortunately he can not be ingored, and more and more games are created with house rules to prohibit partly or wholy his standard exploits.


So here you have it - you have a situation which deals with arguably valid (meaning it doesn't exploit bugs) strategy. At the same time it is very hard to gather strict mathematical evidence that you are looking for, in line with "Mirror Image" issue that you mentioned, since the infamous godfather of this lame strategy is certanly not cooperating, and in fact doing everything he can that would obscure the public opinion on this matter. For example he claims that his "mad castling" strategy is "beatable", since according to him he won a game or two(using his standard mad castling of course )against people who tried to copycat his strategy from him! What kind of evidence is that?!?


**********************************
People asked here for the solution, not a problem. All right, here is the solution part for you:


Personally I think that an excellent solution to this whole mad castling issue is to make temples burnable just like labs - meaning special "build/destroy" order would need to be issued by enemy commanders, next turn after the province conquered.

Norfleet and his copycats constantly claim that they have no choice but to build castles everywhere, since this is the only thing that can defend their temples against raiders. (and for some reason they assume that you have to build temples in EVERY province in orde to play this game). Than they moan that PD is inadecuate, temples are so expensive, etc...

Fine. With temples requiring an order for the commander to be destroid, it ives you excellent protection against enemy raiders looking to destroy your temples. It's exactly the same the same as with paper castles in this regard - it gives you 1 additinal turn to counterattack.

The best of all is that such solution does not nerf anything, and is in line with already existing mechanism for labs. You want to have crappy castles and build them in every province? Fine, you can do it! You don't want to mad castle but want to use some other strategy? Fine, now you have the opportunity to do it and still protect your teritory against raiders, at least as far as temples concern. IMHO this change would not eliminate mad castling completely, but it would go very long way to resolve this issue.


P.S. BTW historically speaking a lot of medieval monasteries were VERY impressive fortresses, sometimes much better than the surrounding barons castles. So the reqiurement to spend 1 more turn to burn it to the ground for enemy commander makes a good sense from this perspective. Also as a totally separate and optional idea - instead on destroying enemy temple your prist can spend 1 turn "converting" rival's god temple into your own, puryfying it, etc. The price could be the same as building new temple - 200 gp, or a little bit more than that. That little tweak would give priests another little usefull role in the game.

[ May 28, 2004, 23:12: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

There is a simple way to mathmatically define Castling if you so desire.

Take the Total cost of X amount of castles of whatever type.

Take the total time to create X amount of castles.

Take the total time saved by creating a castle.

Take the total gold protected by creating a castle.

Take the total gold gained by creating a castle.

Take those #'s and plug them into an offensive force (alternate ones) and take into account that any castle defeated adds the variables you have just defined to your side.

Now show a clear imbalance between the cost and effect of such. Taking into consideration you can't move a Castle and Castles cannot take provinces.

All your arguments are based on only 1 person playing them. So test them not only against each other but opponents of equal skill and even gem income, capabilities. Also take into consideration the time frame involved.

I personally think 'mad castling' is a load of steaming bull. The effectiveness of a castle is only if you allow it to remain and if the castle can be defended. Unfortunately for the castler, even the cheapest castle with the shortest survival time costs 300 gold. And 300 gold for each castle defensively gives 300 gold to offensive forces.

300 gold goes a long way if you know how to protect the troops made with it and you are on the offensive instead of remaining on the defensive and playing into a take and hold strategy.

Stormbinder, unfortunately none of your arguements are really very applicable. And as I've said, Clams are the same way. If you let them be a problem they can be, but that can be said for any aspect of this game.

The reason I know personally that one, two, or even all three of your favorite topics for discussion are not overpowered is that I used to do them at one stage of my playtime. I even wrote a guide on how to abuse 2 of the 3 (castles and clams). While it was very effective for a while; and has many virtues. It is far from overpowered. If you were to try to use such tactics against a competent player who knows they are coming, understands the weakenesses for the entire game, and can act against that strategy (which can be a problem in large games, which is likely why it is so effective as your "New Player" to "Veteran Player" ratio is obviously high). It is no more viable than the "ID's on turn 14" strategy or any other number of seemingly overpowered playstyles.

Edit: Just because I personally think it's this way does not mean anyone else does (though I know a few that do, and that have tried and failed with it). And you can express your point if you'd like, but I have just rebutted it and an entire portion of those that play this game are represented by that statement. So in order for you to present a fully rational and conclusive illustration of your point you will have to revert to specifics which means mathmatical analysis or even saved games if you prefer.

[ May 28, 2004, 23:12: Message edited by: Zen ]