Dominions Nations Evaluations ;)

[Tifone]

A really nice and important post JimMorrison. Even if my opinion surely doesn't count, I'd like to express my agreement with every single word you said

[Hoplosternum]

I agree a good post JimMorrison.

I don't think many people are calling for nations to be made all alike. Or even that they are all balanced.

But tweaking a few things. Be they minor cost or stats changes or a minor but useful national summons or spell hardly does this.

[Zeldor]

JimMorrison :

I will repeat myself - many nations are unbalanced because of unbalaned magic paths. Take look at some:
Astral:
- Mind Hunt to kill non-S nations unless they are lucky and diversify
- Magic Duel to kill low level S nations or non-S that get lucky and diversify into some S magic
- precision 100 spells that are not affeced by many things like Darkness
- Enslave, Master Enslave
- Communions
- Wishing
- Teleportation
- Golems

Death:
- all undead spam
- life after death
- tartarians and other good SCs/thugs
- Darkness

And what other paths get?
Nature:
- Charm: ha, ha, with that range? If you mass huge amount of probably cap only mages you can stop 1-2 SCs if he isn't expecting that
- Mass Regen: to die slower? in end-game battles end fast anway

Earth, Fire, Air get some nice spells. But how many nations can really cast them? Well, astral nations mostly. You just get communion and cast them. Other nations need expensive boosters, putting additional gems, wasting turn to cast a buff like phoenix power... I don't think anyone would complain if Man had N6 mages, well, probably even N20 mages wouldn't make it powerful enough. Nut at least crones wouldn't massively die of old age every winter with growth3.

[JimMorrison]

I don't know what you're repeating Zel, but I didn't state that I felt that "all nations are differently created equally". What I did say, was that I feel that arguments that lean towards suggesting something like giving all nations access to Astral, are not a productive line of reasoning.

As I was saying, since the consensus is that MA Man starts out strong, but has no strong options in the late game, that we understand the basic problem. You can enumerate all you want on the relative benefits of other paths, but you're not suggesting a solution, unless it is to give them access to Astral or Death, which is the sort of request I was specifically trying to avoid.

Now, if high end Nature magic had a couple of choice spells/summons added, or perhaps there were a couple of options added just as nationals for Man, it could go a long way to bridging the gap. Also, pursuing the line of reasoning I had about adding FS to all Man troops, they could be given a top end BE, some sort of Grasping Weeds or something that causes a small amount of damage each turn, and impedes the movement of any unit which lacks FS.

Obviously it can be stated that for various reasons, Nature is one of the weaker paths in late game. Fine, we get that. Just try to come up with some creative solutions to the problem - creative, thematic, easily implemented solutions. The Grasping Weeds spell I just described could help, but obviously it's not enough to compete meaningfully with the other options, so more is needed. Our Devs thrive on inspiration, not on argument. We're simply past the stage of "proving" a disparity, the point is made, now find something that will spark interest in getting the problem actually solved.

Personally, I'd prefer to put some more effort into getting help for the nations who are soft in the early game. There will always be more creative solutions to a late game weakness, than an early game weakness. But this forum has been stuck on MA Man for over a month now, let's get something solid and put that puppy to bed.

[Tifone]

Excuse me if I say that, Zeldor. You are clearly a much more expert player than me, for your grade and your deep knowledge of the paths mechanics.

But I don't like the tone of your participation. You are not saying - that is cool and I think I have ideas of how to improve it. You are just pointing out things it seems you think have been done wrong with a rude sarcasm that put me somehow in discomfort.

I'm not attacking you, I don't know you and possibly you are a very kind and moderate person. And I'm not some kind of "politically correctness" tyrant. I just want to say I hope people use more moderate tones towards the work of the devs to create this huge game world with dozens of nations and thousands of spells... mostly because I respect and really like their work, and secondly and in minor part, because it would be easy to make them feel underappreciated and lose their support for the game... and I don't think you will find another game so wide and unique around

Peace ^_^

[Zeldor]

Oh, I was not attacking anyone. Sorry if someone understood it that way. I totally agree with JimMorrison that nations should be different and play differently. But it is strategy game and we'd all like to start with our favourite nations with as equal chances as possible. It is unfair to suggest someone to play other nation because the one he likes just sucks in late game.

The thing I said was that instead of trying to balance many nations we should balance magic system. Because magic is what matters later. And you simply need astral and death [at least a lot of astral] to have any chances. Nature can get everyone with common indies. Giving some nation N10 recruitable mages wouldn't really change much, people wouldn't fear them. And imagine someone getting S10 or D10 mages.

And Tifone, I am in favour of removing Mind Hunt and Magic Duel totally from the game, or at least really nerfing them. That probably goes for horror spam too. There are many overpowered [well, simply too easy and cheap] tactics in that game. Luckily CBM makes it a bit better and gets better with every version.

[Gandalf Parker]

Tifone said:
I'm not attacking you, I don't know you and possibly you are a very kind and moderate person. And I'm not some kind of "politically correctness" tyrant. I just want to say I hope people use more moderate tones towards the work of the devs to create this huge game world with dozens of nations and thousands of spells... mostly because I respect and really like their work, and secondly and in minor part, because it would be easy to make them feel underappreciated and lose their support for the game... and I don't think you will find another game so wide and unique around

Peace ^_^

BINGO, and excellently put.

[Xietor]

It is actually true that the vast scope of this game cannot be realized by the players at all. You get a sense of it when you try to mod. And even with a simple mod like Epic Heroes, which is tiny in scope, it is hard to balance, and a few months after I stop working on it, I cannot recall all of the abilities each Hero has etc.

Unless KO has a photographic memory, then there is no way he can remember all of the spells, units, items effects.

It is amazing that the races are as balanced as they are, even with the limitless diversity.

It is also true that no matter how much work KO devotes to tweaking the races, even if he did it for 12 hours a day until the day he last drew breath, would a game of this scope be "perfect."

Something could always be found that could be tweaked. Which is why 99 percent of games that have no monthly fee to play just fix a glaring bug or 2, and that is that.

The online games that continue to tweak the game, develop new content etc, as you may have noticed, all charge a monthly fee.

Lastly, I do disagree that all magic paths should be equal
in power. And besides s and d, which Zeldor mentioned, Earth and Blood are also very powerful. Ask all of the astral nations that fell to Pangaea in Alpaca!

[Tifone]

Xietor said:
It is also true that no matter how much work KO devotes to tweaking the races, even if he did it for 12 hours a day until the day he last drew breath...

Ahah, "last breath"? Don't you know man? KO can cast Phoenyx Pyre whenever he wants, and always has Life After Death on him so he can return as an Undead Priest to Reanimate Longdeads who will work on the game

And about JK, i don't really need to remind you about Rejuvenate and Youth Boots... Sacrificing virgins pays