Exploit question

[Sombre]

So ask qm if you can make your own parallel version of cbm without gemgens removed. It's about 2 minutes work to change the dm to leave them in. Then make the games yourselves and advertise them. It's what people did when they wanted to play cbm and vanilla was far more popular, not too long ago.

Clams were removed in CBM because a lot of people wanted that change. Even more people seem very happy with the change in games they're currently playing. Just because they like to play this way and you don't doesn't make them wrong. Geez.

[Graeme Dice]

There's not much that's "interesting" about the gem generating items. You build as many of them as possible, send their income back into making more of them, and eventually end up with a gem income that cannot be taken away from you except by unimaginable amounts of luck. They've all been nerfed many times even by the devs since the days of Dominions 2. Basically, if you expect the game to last long enough that you will get a positive return on investment on a gem generating item, then they are almost always the proper way to spend your gems, and that kind of choice really limits viable strategic options. If it were possible to keep the generated gems from being removed from the commander that had them, so that they were only used for battlefield purposes, then they'd be perfectly fine items, but you can't do that, so they are broken.

[Kuritza]

It doesnt reduce your options, it increases them dramatically - at the cost of, yes, being forced to make gemgens. It just silly to say that having more gems narrows your available options, so I wont even explain why its wrong. The only thing gemgens were reducing was the impact of national troops on the lategame. Which was a GREAT thing because national troops are simply not balanced against each other, with gemgens in mind.

And I dont want to make my own balance mods and advertise them - this is exactly the kind of thing that killed Dominions for me, and I dont feel like being a reanimator. I just say that its wrong when several players remove an important part of the game they dont like - for everyone.
As for the rest of community supporting this change... well, I live in Russia and I can tell you much about such things. Our whole history is about weird things being supported by the crowd.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

I just say that its wrong when several players remove an important part of the game they dont like - for everyone.

They didn't. They removed it for themselves and posted the mod up. Others then chose to use it, or not. That's the essence of all mods. So again, how is that wrong?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

It just silly to say that having more gems narrows your available options, so I wont even explain why its wrong.

No it's not. If clams are available for mass production, and if the game will last more than the time for their cost to be paid off, then any other use of gems is suboptimal. If one option is clearly the best choice, then the other options might as well not exist. Who would make two water elemental bottles when you could instead make one clam of pearls?

The water elemental bottle also functions as a gem generator, producing the equivalent of one water gem in every battle where it shows up. It's just one that needs to be risked on the battlefield for ten turns to recoup its investment.

I just say that its wrong when several players remove an important part of the game they dont like - for everyone.

Nobody did that. You are free to play whatever version of the game that you want. But the thing is that it's always been the newer, less experienced players who wanted gem generators to remain in the game in nearly every argument over them for the past five or six years. In my experience, almost anybody who's played enough games to see the effect that they can have ends up arguing against them. And eventually, enough people have played in enough games that have been ended in ridiculous situations because of limitless gem income that people don't want to play those games anymore.

[Gandalf Parker]

Everything is a sliding scale, and can be taken to an extreme. Balance is only one of those sliding scales. I dont think there ever will be a complete agreement on balance. People have their own preferences for how much balance is good. Extreme balance would just be, well, chess.

Hmm....
I wonder if anyone has played a game with one of the mods that gives everyone the same nation? And using CBM of course. That might be an interesting test of skill. Not really Dominions but interesting.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Graeme Dice

No it's not. If clams are available for mass production, and if the game will last more than the time for their cost to be paid off, then any other use of gems is suboptimal. If one option is clearly the best choice, then the other options might as well not exist. Who would make two water elemental bottles when you could instead make one clam of pearls?

I'd have to quibble with that, though I agree overall. If you win battles/survive/take more territory because of those bottles water/Frost Brands/whatever, then they may not be suboptimal. Clams are optimal in the long run, but other investments may have a much shorter payoff, or a shorter window of opportunity (Water Queens?)
There's an opportunity cost to investing in the long term.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Kuritza

It doesnt reduce your options, it increases them dramatically - at the cost of, yes, being forced to make gemgens. It just silly to say that having more gems narrows your available options, so I wont even explain why its wrong.

On the one hand, from a decision theory perspective, removing an option which dominates all other options can increase the *interesting* set of options and thus the strategic complexity of the game.

One the other hand, producing gem gens does not dominate all other options because there are times (i.e. you're under attack) when making more gem gens is a bad investment, just as there are times in Bloons Tower Defense 4 when buying more banana farms is a bad investment because you need the firepower NOW.

On the gripping hand, I personally hate clams even in SP. I feel oddly compelled to forge them because they're so clearly optimal most of the time--I can only imagine how much worse the temptation/pressure is in MP. I've got mixed feelings about bloodstones--I wish there were a way to remove only the gemgen aspect.

-Max

[Micah]

You didn't play in Prepo or Artifacts as far as I know, and thus haven't been involved in some of the more famous train wrecks that gens have caused. I thought they were a pretty spiffy idea for a while myself (generally because I was the only one using them and they seemed like a great tool to let me win), but extensive experience has taught me otherwise. Can you point me to an MP game in which both you and an opponent have had well over 300 gens each? In artifacts I know that I got to the point where I was mass spamming juggernauts to go for a dom win because I considered winning through military means to be nearly impossible due to the combined might of first turn defensive advantage and gens making raiding pointless.

Saying that they provide more options, while technically true, is also a great justification for playing with the debug mod on. You have SO MANY options then, and national troops don't matter at all, so it's almost perfectly balanced! Doesn't make for a good game though.

[Baalz]

Kuritza - if you can't get a game with certain settings/mods/rules (including plain vanilla) to start then it's pretty self evident that there aren't many people who want to play that way. Unfortunately this community is fairly small so you either have to roll with what most people are playing or beat the bushes to drum up some interest for what you want to play. Complaining that nobody wants to play the way you do is a bit silly. Maybe some other settings might be more to your liking while also appealing to more players: have you considered more common magic sites, easy research or money/resource multiples to "increase your options"? A game like this (Utopia) is just starting now...