abysia strategies

[Cainehill]

Caseus said:
What about the part where I said:

The actual fun parts of the game -- the huge variety of spells, magic items, and units -- are lost in the intense competitiveness of multiplayer. "You can't do X, that doesn't work in multiplayer!"

Am I wrong about that? Is Dominions 2 multiplayer free of rabidly aggressive, hypercompetitive players who destroy any semblance of fun in the game?

You might try a couple MP games and see if that's your experience. Or, try reading through this game's thread. (Yes, it's a tremendously long thread, but skip around the pages a bit; page 15 and 16 for example. A lot of the first and Last pages were about setting up the game, and then talking about setting up another one.) Does that sound like a bunch of rabid hypercompetitive players?

Also, unlike games like Quake or Warcraft and the like, Dominions games go long enough, are slow paced enough, that even a couple of hypercompetitive types don't ruin the fun of the game. (Unlike some of the realtime ones, where you're shot/dead/crushed inside of a few minutes of frantic clicking.) I've had a lot of fun in games where I was doing quite poorly, in part because I was trying out wacky ideas and strategies that were based on my limitted options (troops, forgings, spells researched, mages, etc).

I've played a _lot_ of MP games. My only win thus far was an allied win, and with 3 players and a mutant setup (0 magic site settings, VD research, tiny map, and you couldn't add any magic to the pretender chassis) that didn't count for much. Now I think I have ... 3 games out of about 10 in which I may have a decent chance at a win. Even if I don't win, I get a huge kick out of some of the battles, even ones I lose (or "lose", defeated but with a net gain).

SP got tedious - the AI isn't much of a challenge, I didn't have to work very hard (ie, didn't have to learn and expand my tactics / strategies), and it doesn't mean anything - I could quit a game or restart as soon as it lost my attention. Going against human players, you see a much wider range of strategies and forces that you have to contend with, since the AI tends to do pretty much the same sorts of things.

Do you have to use only certain key strategies or you might as well not play? Your own Posts seem to indicate this is the case.

Nope, there aren't certain key strategies you have to use. There are certain strategies you have to learn to counter though - what to do about SCs, what to do about wrathers, how to try and deal with armies of almost invulnerable troops (such as those produced by Enliven Statues). And there are certain things you have to keep in mind - if you don't work on your research, or don't use the results of your research, you will lose. Even that can be modified, by playing on smaller maps, with research more difficult and, more importantly, fewer magic sites.

*shrug* If you're having enough fun with SP, great. But to many of us, the MP games are a lot more interesting and unpredictable, and therefor more entertaining and fun for us.

[Cohen]

Well explain me so how to do well with Abysya.

[Graeme Dice]

Cohen said:
Well explain me so how to do well with Abysya.

Fire-9 moloch. Order 3, Prod 3, heat 3, misfortune 3, magic 2, dominion 7, castle. Alchemize your fire gems, recruit an Anathemant Dragon and as many lava warriors as you can afford. Send them out to a weak province on the next turn. Set the dragon and the Moloch to cast flare. Research evocation 1 for fire darts. Continue to purchase lava warriors and use them to conquer territory and hopefully kill a neighbour off in the very early game.

Then either research construction to 6 or blood to 6. Summon the archedvils. Buy warlocks until you get one with water 1. Have him build a water bracelet and trade for a robe of the sea. Put them on the water warlock and summon icedevils if they are still around. Buy warlocks until you get one with air 1 to make flying boots for the icedevils if you have them. Use your gems to equip your summoned commanders. Trade for a dwarven hammer, then build soul contracts. Put decent equipment on your devil commanders from horde from hell.

Try and kill Pangaea's pretender early so that you can force him to be your ally and supply you with fever fetishes in exchange for fire gems and lightless lanterns. Use your fire gem income to both power your economy and kill opposing armies with artillery spells.

Research evocations and use your Moloch as a combination battlefield caster/supercombatant.

There's all kinds of things to do with Abysia, and they are great for brute force power strategies. Plus, they are nearly immune to overland artillery magic. Flames from the sky does them no damage, and murdering winter kills virtually nobody.

[deccan]

Cainehill said:
Or, try reading through this game's thread. (Yes, it's a tremendously long thread, but skip around the pages a bit; page 15 and 16 for example. A lot of the first and Last pages were about setting up the game, and then talking about setting up another one.) Does that sound like a bunch of rabid hypercompetitive players?

Hey, you pointed to our game!

I am too a rabid hypercompetitive player. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I even froth at the mouth like Pasha.

[alexti]

Caseus said:
What about the part where I said:

The actual fun parts of the game -- the huge variety of spells, magic items, and units -- are lost in the intense competitiveness of multiplayer. "You can't do X, that doesn't work in multiplayer!"

You need to specify what you mean by X. I've written earlier that for particular units/spells/item there's a use in MP, but most of them are useful only in specific circumstances.

If you understand X as: "summon all Ice/Arch Devils, Air and Water Queens etc" it won't work. If you can use some strategy, others can use it too, so only strategies that can be executed concurrently are possible. Or let's say reliable.

Caseus said:
Am I wrong about that? Is Dominions 2 multiplayer free of rabidly aggressive, hypercompetitive players who destroy any semblance of fun in the game?

That depends how you define fun. If you have fun only if you're winning, then MP is not for you. Most people here lose much more often than win. And in the beginning you'll probably be losing every time. To me it's more fun to play with aggressive and competitive players, the game progresses faster, and they force me to invent new strategies by attacking before I'm ready for my favourite plan. Also, passive games tend to involve much more micromanagement.

Caseus said:
Do you have to use only certain key strategies or you might as well not play? Your own Posts seem to indicate this is the case.

So tell me about me being wrong, please?

There're some key parts of the strategy that repeat itself in most games: conquer indies fast, minimize your losses, try to conquer your neighbour with minimal losses, use the diplomacy to buy magic items you don't have access to otherwise etc.

But the details of implementation widely vary. From nation to nation and from player to player. To some extent, from map to map too.

And diplomacy can change game quite a lot too.

[Cohen]

I tried that strategy, I had luck too, I started in a good position with many neighbours, I managed to pump out til 8 Lava Warriors at turn ^^ but they got slaughtered too.
An army of 200 devils caught by trapeze/wrathing ... all dead.

An F9 Moloch has problems as SC, he can't cast many buffs.
However I'd like to see u in action, probably I'm not so good even if I adapt that strategy.

[Edi]

Cohen, I'm starting to get sick and tired of your whining about Abysia being weak. In my VERY FIRST mulstislayer game (and with relatively little SP experience) I'm playing Abysia and I'm one of the top nations so far. Not the most powerful, but maybe in 3rd or 4th place.

I'm using a Scorpion King with E6F4, Order 2, Prod 3, Heat 3, Magic 2, castle, and while I've not managed to max out everything the way Graeme described (and I've used a slightly different priority on research early on), I'm not in a difficult position by a long shot. Ulm is giving me trouble, but that's because Soapy had a Forge of the Ancients up for a good long while before the astral nations came up with the capital to dispel it. I've lost a couple of armies to Wrathful Skies, but it's not deterring me one bit.

I'm not playing to the fullest extent of Abysia's capabilities by any measure because of my inexperience, yet I'm doing well. If I were to give a setup like this to someone who has extensive MP experience (like Graeme), I'd bet even money on him winning the game. I won't, because I just don't have enough experience of MP to manage against some of the people in that game.

If I can do this, in my vbery first MP, Cohen, it just means that you are completely plain incompetent with Abysia.

Edi