Should improving Arcoscephale Golden Era be a priority?

Norfleet · #1 June 21st, 2004, 01:42 AM

GE is fine. You want to see some seriously underwhelming themes, take a look at BK Tien Chi, NE Pan, or Raptor Caelum. GE Arco is far from bottom of the heap. Hell, Tien Chi, period, seems kinda underwhelming. When was the Last time you saw them in a game, and how well did they do?

Scott Hebert · #2 June 21st, 2004, 01:59 AM

I have to concur with Norfleet in his assessment that there are far more critical areas than GE Arco to work on. Raptor Caelum in _particular_ suffers horribly in respect to the main theme. (I
've never tried to play BK Tien Chi.)

In regard to Tien Chi, I have made the observation that it does seem to be a nation that the AI is able to play well. If this is the case (and not simply my own poor play skill vis-a-vis TC), it might do well to study Tien Chi to try to figure out why the computer does relatively well playing it.

For the sake of completeness for the survey, though, I noted that question #2 seems to have no real positive answer. You ask, 'Should GE be a priority?", and the _most_ positive answer is 'if the designers have time'. I think that a simple 'yes' answer should be added to the poll.

#3 June 21st, 2004, 02:38 AM

All it takes is one spell to make TC totally ineffective in their area of speciality. Magic Duel. Take that and you can take out high gold mages by the dozen with a 50% of success with sages/vaetti and any other number of 1 astral mages. Witch Hunters, Pythium, Rlyeh and any other number of nations can neutralize them fairly easily.

Scott Hebert · #4 June 21st, 2004, 02:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zen:
All it takes is one spell to make TC totally ineffective in their area of speciality. Magic Duel. Take that and you can take out high gold mages by the dozen with a 50% of success with sages/vaetti and any other number of 1 astral mages. Witch Hunters, Pythium, Rlyeh and any other number of nations can neutralize them fairly easily.

Since this is not a problem endemic to TC, but rather to Magic Duel, that suggests an imbalance issue with the Duel, not TC. That is to say, TC may be unbalanced, but it is Magic Duel that unbalances it. Therefore, any change should be made to Magic Duel, since this is not the only place where Magic Duel is warping the game (Pretender selection comes to mind).

Blitz · #5 June 21st, 2004, 03:18 AM

My problem with TC is that the Celestial master, while versitile, lacks focus. I don't play TC much, but as I recall they only get level 2 water, is that right? I guess they scream for power of the spheres, but for my money I'll take a more focused mage any day. That's just personal taste though, and not really a weakness of the theme... just a big reason why I don't play it.

Master of the way on the other hand, is awesome. Too bad celestial masters weren't more like Theurgs or other more focused power mages.

#6 June 21st, 2004, 05:09 AM

Celestial Masters are one of the best mages in the game bar none.

Right near High Seraphs in my book for effectiveness. It's not uncommon in games with me to have 9 out of 10 of the slots filled with CM's laying down the unbridled punishment.

Unfortunately, their weakness can't be averted (I.E. 1 Astral). And when playing against people of any sort of skill, sending out throw away troops to Duel your masters is a common practice. And so either you are forced to take an Astral King/Queen which is dangerous in and of itself, or know that you can't use your mages.

Norfleet · #7 June 21st, 2004, 05:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
Since this is not a problem endemic to TC, but rather to Magic Duel, that suggests an imbalance issue with the Duel, not TC. That is to say, TC may be unbalanced, but it is Magic Duel that unbalances it. Therefore, any change should be made to Magic Duel, since this is not the only place where Magic Duel is warping the game (Pretender selection comes to mind).

Well, Magic Duel is the maker or breaker of Astral magic on a unit, and it DOES have a profoundly strong warping influence on the amount of Astral that is good....but whether this is an unbalanced thing or not, I dunno. Magic Duel is, however, a fairly potent attack against any astral mage that isn't ludicrously strong: It's totally accurate, and guaranteed to find the most powerful Astral mage on the battlefield and kill him if he isn't greater than +6 over the opposing duellists. Is Astral so powerful it needs such a hamhanded counterbalance? Hard to say.

[ June 21, 2004, 04:20: Message edited by: Norfleet ]