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Graeme Dice said:
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Boron said:
from a balance aspect though can you name me ANY REASON why a summon should not need upkeep costs ?
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Can you name me any reason from a balance point why they should?
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panthers Last post is again great .
i would like something like this too .
if magic troops / scs would need gem upkeep too it would just be fair .
this way the choice : summons or national troops would not be the nobrainer anymore .
it would force you to use all 4 elments :
scs , national leaders , national troops and summons .
and not as it is completely neglecting national troops , building mostly mages / priests with all your gold and with your gems mainly build scs and only summon as many summons as you need to prevent autorout .
the only thing that can kill scs half reliable are battle mages or other scs .
even summoned troops normally can't kill scs at all ( expect maybe vampires / ghosts with lucky drain life attacks ) .
a regen + reinvigoration sc is almost impossible to kill by lifeless hordes like living statues too .
as it is investing gems in scs and gold in mages is just too good .
a well balanced system should always be like rock , paper & scissisor .
battlemages just defeat too easy national troops .
summon troops are defeated almost as easy by battlemages .
scs beat national troops + summoned troops quite well too but not as easy as battlemages .
battlemages can kill scs too but only a few , either with death or earth or astral magic .
99% reliable are only death + earth magic .
so as it is you try to just summon as many troops you need to prevent routing .
if the routing system that commanders rout without troops wouldn't exist most players wouldn't buy troops + summoned troops at all probably and only build battlemages + scs .
magic imbalance is another chapter too .
as it is expect for clams + quickness water magic is almost useless .
if you want good scs you should either take blood or air .
blood gives you lots of super scs : ice devils , arch devils , heliophagi , arch demons .
if you want infinite quite good scs/thugs you should take death for bane lords + wraith lords + later tartarians ( they need much effort though thnx to the patch removing healing by fairy queens
) or nature for firbolgs .
if you encounter a bane lord standard sc if you don't have blessed troops which many nations lack with national troops only you already almost can't beat him .
if you have only firemages since he will be fire resistent they don#t work too .
air mages may only work with false horrors but against scs with fireshield this is not reliable too .
really lategame with wish you can get the best scs unlimited but it is rather expensive and pretty lategame .
since normal mages can be killed by assasins / flames from the sky etc. relative easy too and you can't move them around via magic move since they would lose their army scs are overall even better then battlemages probably .
there is teleport to move around but this is always difficult because of mind duel .
so bringing astral mages to battle is always risky .
fairy trod + stygian path work but compared to cloud trapeze they are rather expensive .
as it is proper used scs and battlemages are too strong .
given that some scs have good magic paths and are a synergie of both these are the strongest overall units at all .
they are your pretender of course and e.g. airqueens , arch devils etc.
especially the airqueens are outstanding too :
they have in storm the highest base att / def rating .
they are lighting resistent already .
they have all slots expect feet .
they can move cheaply by cloud trapezing .
(lategame they are massproduceable by wish .)
so you normally play this way :
build a few national units at the beginning for expansion against indies .
replace them as quick as you can with a few summons .
invest almost all your gold in mages ( rest in temples + castles and a few preists , scouts as item mules ).
start producing scs as quick as possible .
just exchange them with better ones like first : banelord , then airqueen .
try to catch almost all unique ( until wish ! ) scs .
abysia e.g. if everything goes right can catch most of the ice devils and normally all arch devils .
invest your rather useless gems ( mainly water ) in clams .
there are some nations that brilliance lategame but are not weak early-midgame too , mainly :
abysia
arco
mictlan
caelum
pytium
as it is if some players of equal skill play against each other if one takes caelum , one abysia , one atlantis and one pan cw normally the pan cw and the atlantis player have no chance to win at all and only caelum + abysia fight for who is winning .
making summons cost magic upkeep ( gems , slaves ) , reducing upkeep for national troops after early game and improving the water school a bit would be not too difficult.
expect improving water school the other 2 mentioned things should take 30-60 minutes to implement i think.
if it is done with a constant balance within the summons / national units themselves is not much affected at all since all cost the same factor less / more .
but balance between national troops , national leaders , summoned troops and summoned SCS would be greatly improved .
just look at starcraft . it is the almost perfect example for a really well balanced game where each unit has a use .
it is like chess but with 3 completely different nations .
for a more dominonlike game i recommened a closer look at the age of wonders series , especially age of wonders 2 sm .
with the newest patches balance there is really good .
age of wonders 2 has about 300 units and 200 spells or something like this , so about 1/5 of dominions units / spells .
in age of wonders 2 though at least 250 units and 150 spells are useful during the whole game .
in dominions unfortunately though from the 1000 units about 200 are useful only ( most mages , most scs , some summons , a few national troops ( mainly those with bless / archers with flaming arrows ) ) .
with spells it is similiar .
example : with ulm : at the beginning your master smith cast probably flying shards / fire flies .
then it is replaced by magma bolts .
then by blade wind.
then by magma eruoption .
once you have magma eruption there is no better mass damage spell available for ulm mastersmith against units .
against scs you have petrify .
with the ulmish master smiths this is most obvious .
damagewise magma eruption is so much more effective then the before mentioned spells against all troops .
so why would you ever cast anything else with them against other troops ?
once you have the choice between banes and bane lords :
you always take bane lords .
once you have the choice then between bane lords and tartarians you always take tartaians .
i just begin to realize how much potential is left in dominions 2 .
it is a really great game but i think as it is it is balancewise still far away from near perfect .
but the improvement from dominions 1 to dominoins 2 is just great .
i have full trust in you illwinter that with a few relative quick to do patches though dominoins 2 could be further balanced .
and dominions 3 i will buy blind anyways for sure .
i just complain so much because dominions 2 is already so great but with fixing these issues i mentioned and where esben e.g. often agrees , cohen would agree etc. i am not the only one .
even zen always said the water school needs improvement .
balancing takes time .
for starcraft + age of wonders 2 it took for both an expansion and about 10-12 patches .
fortunately you hear at resonable complains ( like the vq nerf ) so i hope i may be successful too if the changes i suggest are not too big
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