Ritual bonus from magic sites

[Kalin]

I'm pretty sure it's just an oversight. Instead of doing something like this:

Gems Spent - (Cost x (1 - bonus))= extra gems (assuming bonus is a percentage multiplier like .20)

they went with the simpler version of:

Gems Spent - Cost = extra gems

Of course this oversight has been around since... pretty much forever, so they just kinda kept it around as one of those hidden rules to make new players crazy. A throw back to the old days perhaps? Who knows... It's just that everyone who's been around for a while knows about it, and frankly it's not really that bad IMO, so there's really no outcry for it to change anytime soon.


FYI: your extra gems is compared with their extra gems, and the one that used more wins the global slot (or kills it in the case of Dispel). Or in the case of domes, the extra gems = the duration of the spells. The ritual bonus doesn't do anything in these cases unless you're just casting them at the base with no extra gems (for various situations).

Oh, and I'm pretty sure Fates of Oedipus always destroys the Eye... (I don't think it even has an extra gem box). Of course that could just be me not getting enough sleep.

[Hellboy]

Kalin said:
Of course this oversight has been around since... pretty much forever, so they just kinda kept it around as one of those hidden rules to make new players crazy. A throw back to the old days perhaps? Who knows... It's just that everyone who's been around for a while knows about it, and frankly it's not really that bad IMO, so there's really no outcry for it to change anytime soon.

But if I understand this correctly, it really is quite bad.

I played a few Dom 2 games a while back (apparently before this fact was discovered), and as I recall in the end game, it was the extra gems that far and away dominated the question of whose global spells stayed up. One of the more practical ways the weaker nations could gang up on the front runner was to pool gems in order to dispel that front runner's globals. I know that in my games, in our diplomacy, we always assumed the formula applied was even more generous than your Kalin, in that bonus percentage applied even to the extra gems, something more like:

extra gems = [Gems spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))] x 1.2

The upshot of what you are all saying is that these sites are next to useless in MP games, at least for global spells.

Has anyone tested this empirically in Dom3?

[Manuk]

it´s not useless. you get the discount at the base cost. and in the enchantment tree you will find death "summons" and discounts come handy.

Info if I don't remeber wrong is in the manual with the exact dispel formula.

I like the most the construction bonus. if you get the bonus=20 site, an ulmish smith and a dwarven hammer it's 75% discount. I had that.

[Amhazair]

Manuk said:
I like the most the construction bonus. if you get the bonus=20 site, an ulmish smith and a dwarven hammer it's 75% discount. I had that.

And then cast Forge of the ancients for maximum goodness.

[Hellboy]

Manuk said:
it´s not useless. you get the discount at the base cost. and in the enchantment tree you will find death "summons" and discounts come handy.

Info if I don't remeber wrong is in the manual with the exact dispel formula.

I like the most the construction bonus. if you get the bonus=20 site, an ulmish smith and a dwarven hammer it's 75% discount. I had that.

Did you read my post? I said, "useless ... for global spells". Baalz has the right idea and provides 2 specific examples of uses for global spells, but those are rather specific scenarios I would say.

My point is that this is a bug, and it is serious enough to fix.

[Kalin]

Terrel, it's only bad because you think of it like this:

extra gems = [Gems spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))] x 1.2

In this case, every gem you spend you are suppose to get 20% as bonus. However, if you think of it as this:

extra gems = [Gems Spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))]

Then all you are losing is 20% of the original cost of the spell, which is pretty much nothing in the final stages of the game, as you have pointed out, since extra gems is what really determine if you get the slot (or dispel).

Now, you might argue that a site is SUPPOSE to give that advantage, but then I would have to disagree. I mean, is a site really suppose to give you 200+ free gems (if you are into the thousands for that slot)? Wouldn't that make the site plain overpowered?


So if you're saying we should fix it and add that 20% to the free gems, then I have to respectfully disagree (due to insane imbalances). But if you're saying we should fix it so that it discounts properly, then I agree, but as I pointed out earlier, it's really not THAT bad of a problem.

[Hellboy]

Kalin said:
Terrel, it's only bad because you think of it like this:

extra gems = [Gems spent - (Cost x (1 - 0.2))] x 1.2
...

Exactly right.

Now, you might argue that a site is SUPPOSE to give that advantage, but then I would have to disagree. I mean, is a site really suppose to give you 200+ free gems (if you are into the thousands for that slot)? Wouldn't that make the site plain overpowered?

So if you're saying we should fix it and add that 20% to the free gems, then I have to respectfully disagree (due to insane imbalances). But if you're saying we should fix it so that it discounts properly, then I agree, but as I pointed out earlier, it's really not THAT bad of a problem.

This is in fact what I am arguing. It is also true that I really don't have enough experience in this game to make any strong argument one way or the other on game balance.

However, I have played many strategy games over the years and on thing I can say with confidence is that the very fact that it is "not THAT bad of a problem" also means that these sites are not very significant strategically (at least not in the end game).

My argument is mainly motivated by the sense that the game would be more interesting and more fun if the were strategically significant (or better yet important). In fact, I do believe that the construction, conjuration and most of all that famously unbalanced blood site are strategically quite important from the time they are discovered through the end game. (Come to think of it, I have a hard time seeing why my suggested formula for extra gems is unbalancing, when my formula is quite consistent with the way non-global spell bonus sites already work.)

Anyhow, just my thoughts on the question. Like I said, I really don't know enough to opine on balance questions, though (obviously) I do have my opinion on what makes a game fun.

[Micah]

Well, the most common site I've had experience with of this type is the steel ovens, which are great, and certainly have a lot of value...however, they require a LOT of mage turns to really shine, and while items are very very good I don't think any of them will singlehandedly win you the game.

Globals, on the other hand, take a single turn to cast (channeling hundreds of gems in a single turn), and are an order of magnitude greater in effect than item forging. Utterdark is basically an "I win" button for some nations, and anyone in a vaguely competitive position that gets off Gift of Nature's Bounty or Fata Morgana is gaining a HUGE advantage...all from a single mage in a single turn.

Globals are just too damn good to get a blanket discount on extra gems. I think Ballz has a great idea with the decoy casting before throwing up the real spell, and I DO think that not having to exceed the original cost to get credit for extra gems would be a good thing, but tweaking it to count extra gems as 120%+ is NOT a good idea IMO.

[Baalz]

I don't know, it could still be useful in two scenarios. One, if you're casting a global that (for whatever reason) you don't expect to be dispelled (you're fighting someone with no astral mages). Secondly, if you're casting a global you expect to cast, have it dispelled, then cast it again...perhaps several times. For example, lets say I'm gonna cast Astral Corruption (that's the name for that blood global that hoses most other rituals, right?). Since that's gonna piss off every non-blood nation its gonna be a high target for dispelling, but fortunately I've got the blood magic site that reduces the cost by 60%. So, now when I cast it I can use the minimum number of blood slaves and get the 60% discount. When it's dispelled, my adversary has no idea how many blood slaves I put into it so he'll presumably pump a decent amount of extra pearls into the dispell, but guess what? The turn after its dispelled it's right back up (60% off! ). Repeat this a couple times, then put up a pumped up global enchantment at the point you've depleted your enemies pearls by leveraging your 60% discount. His next dispell will probably be a weak one, since you've been draining his gems faster than yours so even if he pumps up the dispell you should have the edge (unless he's just got a whole lot more gems than you do)