PD wars! (no monkeys allowed)

[thejeff]

There's an interesting feedback loop with PD.

You can build thug raiders that will take out pretty much any amount of PD. Therefore, PD is a bad investment past a minimal level. Therefore, since you only have to raid low levels of PD, you can get away with using cheaper thugs or mages to raid with. And since any thug or SC can be killed by the appropriate counter you need to make them as cheap as possible.


I've noticed playing SP that I can't make a lot of the cheaper thug builds work. The AI tends to buy more PD and have random armies wandering around its backfield. Low-end thugs get overwhelmed. You can counter that by buffing the thugs up to almost SC level so they can deal with the larger numbers of troops. Since the AI doesn't know how to design a counter, it's worth investing more heavily.

[Gandalf Parker]

Im afraid that PD will not get balanced.

Every once in awhile people ask that PD be balanced, or magic be more balanced, or priest levels, or elites. But the balance of the game is setup around one nation having good PD, one having strong magic, one having good priests, one having kickass elites.

It would be handy I suppose if every nation was balanced against each other in each category. It would allow people to know better how to play each nation. But it would cut down the games rarity of having such unique nations that involve actually learning how each one plays.

On the other hand, that was cool for about the first year. Now it feels limiting. Only being able to play one or two nations really well because I can use them the way I think. But I am still impressed that they took the hard road far far away from chess-piece nations.

And before the response teams arrive... Im not saying there are not balance problems that need fixed. I am very aware that this was all much better done in Dom2. With Dom3 it got more and more.. "careless"? And the later a nation was added, the less it seems to properly fit in to the old balance concept. Nations added in patches after Dom3 was released particularly seem more-for-fun without the same level of careful balancing.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Nations added in patches after Dom3 was released particularly seem more-for-fun without the same level of careful balancing.

Noooo. Ashdod is the most balanced nation out there