Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[HoneyBadger]

Again, it's a simple matter of context. I wasn't saying that "nobody cares about MP ever in the history of the world", that would be ridiculous. To put it very simply and directly, I was saying that MP is a much more volatile environment than SP. SP is the control. If something is unbalanced in SP then it's a much bigger deal than MP because it's objective. I don't think that's too difficult to understand.

No, I wasn't directing anything towards you, Sombre, I realize that it was a misunderstanding, and I could have been clearer. SP is what's important to me (obviously) but it's also a good measuring stick for balance, since the human brain is capable of a relatively infinite amount of permutations, whereas a computer is a finite thing-especially where AI is involved. I didn't intend that to be misunderstood, but if it was, I take the responsibility.

And Velusion was being rude. I wasn't speaking to him directly, and he wasn't making any real point that I could see, other than that he seems to have got his back up about MP. I accept responsibility for being unclear, and I realize that people care about MP, but I'm not a Pagan and he's not a Christian (well, ok, so I am a Pagan and he might be a Christian, but that's the metaphor I'm going with here), and we can go our separate ways without trying to convert one another.

There's no reason for him to chime in, unless he was looking to pick a fight. If I want to say "who cares about MP?" I can. I had a reason to say it, and it wasn't to be rude. If I had wanted to be rude, I would have said something along the lines of "screw people who play MP". I happen to like that this game is multi-player, and I happen to like people who multi-play. It's also useful for improving the game and the experience, since it's a great way to figure out everything that can be done with a particular nation.

The context was, "who cares about MP (in terms of the objective balancing of nations, because SP gives us much clearer and more useful data"). I admit I got a little irritated when people started telling me that I was wrong about things I'd never said, but that's ok, I can let that go with a smile, it happens. What I don't like is someone deciding they can pick on me without having anything like a well-formed motive, and when that happens, I feel I have the right and the duty to defend myself, which I did.

[MaxWilson]

HoneyBadger said:
The context was, "who cares about MP (in terms of the objective balancing of nations, because SP gives us much clearer and more useful data").

Hmmm, I think I need a little bit more clarification on what you're trying to say. You say the human brain is relatively more infinite than a computer AI, and tie that to SP being a more objective environment. I'm a little confused because I would expect that balancing by playing against a limited intelligence (the AI) gives you inferior balance to playing against a good intelligence (presumably human). It may be that there's a devastating counter Y to tactic X, which the AI will never find. (For instance, the AI can't handle SCs, and in fact doesn't seem to do much research at all.) That doesn't mean that X is too strong, it means it's risky with a payoff, except that against the AI there's no risk. Evaluating nations by playing them against the AI carries a high risk of identifying false positive imbalances. Conversely, evaluating nations by making the AI play them against you proves nothing--perhaps an imbalance exists but the AI isn't set up to exploit it. Therefore, I'm having trouble seeing how MP can be dismissed when you're trying to analyze balance, since it's the only opportunity you have to play against an opponent as intelligent as you.

Speaking as an SP player, I highly appreciate the MP players' finely-honed insights into the strategy of Dominions.

-Max

[Sombre]

I think the AI does quite a lot of research - it's just that it does research on seemingly random paths and never really uses battlemages as part of a true army.

[Sir_Dr_D]

So many things bug me about the heims. On the top of the list is their stealth. To me Pangaea should be the great stealth nation. Vanheim just steals their thunder.

Personally I think that the heims should have glamour only within their dominion. After all they are gods. Wander too far away, and you start to lose your power.

Other wise I would like to see weaknesses that could be exploited in the Heims, without taking away their strengths. One of these could be to increase their encumbrance (after all this glmaour could take a lot of mental effort to maintain.) That way, they would be strong at the beginning of the battle, but if they can't take out their opponant quickly, they start to lose their effectivness.

[HoneyBadger]

It's not that I'm dismissing it, MaxWilson. Not at all. It's the weight of the MP players that is the deciding factor. The nation is unbalanced in SP and carries through to MP. That's where their opinions become relevant, because you can analyze the nation in the laboratory of SP and then the imbalance plays itself out in the environment of MP.
It's definitely important. I'm just saying it's too great a variable in this kind of situation to be trusted by itself as to the degree the balance is off and should be corrected.

The game itself is so huge that it's hard to identify what's balanced and what isn't. Adding in the human factor makes it a degree more difficult. But if you can look at the SP game and say "yes, this nation is definitely, obviously better than every other one, whether I'm playing it or I'm playing against it" you're making things a lot easier on yourself.

You can come up with ways to fix the balance in SP, and test it, and then you can introduce it back into the environment of MP and see how it plays, but all the specifications should be decided in SP and then you can start talking ramifications in MP.

Do you see what I mean?

[Foodstamp]

When this thread originally started some time back, I was one of the first people to respond by saying yes the heims are overpowered.

I was told that if you were new to multiplayer, you just think the heims are overpowered because you are inexperienced.

Well its been several months, I have played in several larger MP games now and several blitzes. I am far from being a multiplayer expert, or even good for that matter, but in every game that has included a heim, I have watched them gobble up their neighbors, gobble up their neighbors neighbors and so on. The only counter I have seen against the heims is massed alliances made to wipe them out.

I may not be the best player out there, but I feel like I have been playing in games with some really great players. And I have watched those good players become eradicated by heims.

In one of my current games, I was placed next to a very experienced player that was behind the wheel of Marverni. I was pretty nervous being in such a position, then Helheim came along. Helheim utterly slaughtered Marverni and became my new neighbor.

Several months later, I still stand behind my original comments. The heims are overpowered to a point that in multiplayer games, the only solutions include hoping the player is brand new to the game and does not notice the powerful units in his recruit screen. The other alternative is to form dogpile alliances to knock out the heim player early.

That being said, I also hang on to my original proposal for a solution. Rather than nerf the heims, create a couple of new game mechanics that counter glamour, and give those new counters to nations that underperform.

[HoneyBadger]

I agree about counters to glamour, but I'd hate to see the "anti-Helheim" spell. I hope people will come up with enough partial solutions that they'll add up to one whole solution, rather than shoe-horning a deus ex machina.

[MaxWilson]

HoneyBadger said:
You can come up with ways to fix the balance in SP, and test it, and then you can introduce it back into the environment of MP and see how it plays, but all the specifications should be decided in SP and then you can start talking ramifications in MP.

I see that having to factor diplomacy into the game makes analysis harder. I see that test games and games played against yourself let you analyze tactics more easily, and if by SP you include these types of games I agree they're quite useful. And yes, if a nation is both easy to play and hard to play against in SP that's evidence of potential imbalance and I see your point. Still, a nation which is "clearly better" may simply have weaknesses that neither the AI nor the player know how to exploit. Increasing the number of players increases my confidence that no weakness exists, provided that the greater number of players don't find a weakness either.

It looks like you're pointing out that diplomacy in MP complicates analyses.

-Max

[Reverend Zombie]

Darrel said:
<snip>

Other wise I would like to see weaknesses that could be exploited in the Heims, without taking away their strengths. One of these could be to increase their encumbrance (after all this glmaour could take a lot of mental effort to maintain.) That way, they would be strong at the beginning of the battle, but if they can't take out their opponant quickly, they start to lose their effectivness.

How about making them magical beings? They seem quite "magical", after all.

[calmon]

Let us wait for the first version of the glamour and helheim changes before continue the discussion here.

Kristoffer wrote in the Tir na n'Og Thread:

Kristoffer O said:
Changes to helheim are on the agenda. Some have been implemented. We're experimenting with glamour right now. Quite important as there is about to be another glamour nation.