Exploit question

[Kuritza]

Originally Posted by Mardagg

Talking about clam hording nations with astral magic,what can you do against them if you dont have lots of clams and/or decent astral magic yourself?

You can get clams and/or decent astral magic yourself. I did it with Bogarus, Vanheim, LA Man etc, you just have to plan ahead. And it doesnt exclude all other possibilities, as far as I am concerned, except killing everyone with just your superiour troops around turn 50.

[Mardagg]

[quote=Kuritza;723249
You can get clams and/or decent astral magic yourself. I did it with Bogarus, Vanheim, LA Man etc, you just have to plan ahead. And it doesnt exclude all other possibilities, as far as I am concerned, except killing everyone with just your superiour troops around turn 50.[/QUOTE]


That means every single game is built around forging clams,right?
Every single time you build a pretender regardless of the nation u have to think about how to get clams and to cast astral spells.
And even if you plan ahead that way every time,you end up without any chance vs the real astral or clam powerhouses that dont have to rely on path boosters/lucky indie mages for forging or the pretender/indie mages for casting astral rituals.

This is exactly why many nations are nearly unplayable on big maps under vanilla if you are up vs competent opponents.

No gem gens means much more room for nation specific strategies.
Its time to plan ahead DIFFERENTLY,relying on clam hoarding isnt the game winner anymore.

[MaxWilson]

Originally Posted by Psycho

The CMB doesn't balance nations. Especially with the removal of gem gems (which I am all for BTW) the nations are unbalanced in a completely different way than in the vanilla game - bandar, machaka and the like weakened, blood nations made stronger due to fewer gems (which can probably be offset by higher magic settings), etc.

As an aside, if you want to weaken blood magic you would probably increase both magic site % and income/resources/supply %. By linearly scaling up everything EXCEPT population, you are effectively just decreasing population, which means weaker blood nations. Conversely, on minimal-income map settings, blood nations would dominate since they're the only ones who can efficiently convert population into units.

-Max

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

As an aside, if you want to weaken blood magic you would probably increase both magic site % and income/resources/supply %. By linearly scaling up everything EXCEPT population, you are effectively just decreasing population, which means weaker blood nations. Conversely, on minimal-income map settings, blood nations would dominate since they're the only ones who can efficiently convert population into units.

-Max

Actually, magic site % has an effect on blood hunt if tests run on ForgeOfGodhood, so changing it wouldn't strengthen nor weaken blood economy.

[Kuritza]

Could you explain, by the way, which nations are so unbalanced in Vanilla compared to CBM? Mictlan? Now that it retains blood magic while gemgens are void its possibly stronger than ever.
Buffs to 'clam nations'... you mean the naiad warriors? ))))))))))))))))) Its the best joke ever, really.
Oh, and the hero blades. Because national troops should remain important, and woe to thee if yours suck.

I wholeheartedly agree that pretender options are better in CBM, and thats why I preferred CBM to Vanilla myself until now.

[Torin]

I am under the impression that CBM favors early SC pretenders wich is defenitely the least fun idea of a game.

*Titan like pretenders have reduced new path costs and sometimes reduced cost overall
*const 0 under CBM has most equipement (swords, shields, etc) to free early research towards Alt

So its such a no-brainer that you will rarely see anything else in MP with CBM.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Torin

So its such a no-brainer that you will rarely see anything else in MP with CBM.

This is completely untrue. The titan class pretenders were boosted because they were really bad deals in cbm. They are still not a good choice if you want an early SC. Midgame with decent magic and scales, sure.

[llamabeast]

So its such a no-brainer that you will rarely see anything else in MP with CBM.

Er, I think that's just entirely untrue.

[Squirrelloid]

Torin:
That is definitely not my experience with CBM at all.

Nations that want a big bless still take a big bless.

Some starting SC chasses have had their costs increased to make them balanced. Gorgon and PoD come to mind.

Rainbow chasses are generally buffed, making them much stronger choices.

Titan chasses are generally horrible awake SCs. They often need equipment to SC, and you may or may not have the gem income to forge any early. What titans are good at is (1) mid game SCing and (2) bless chasses because they combine a couple paths with high base dominion.

The good starting SC chasses are either made worse in CBM or left unchanged for the most part. Wyrm is unchanged afaik, PoD, Gorgon, and probably Moloch are more expensive, and so on. Cyclops has also been nerfed, and he can potentially SC out of the box (although he really wants a weapon if nothing else).

[fantasma]

but what about late game with limited gems? You'd probably see dragged out stalemates until somebody lucks in keeping a game-winning global up? Everybody is forced to invest in blood? Castling every province to keep the defense bonus and get spawning summons everywhere?

I don't see any chance to end the game unless there is something completely unbalancing in which you have to invest initially but that develops into an unbeatable juggernaught.

To my - limited - experience clams are competing for much needed N gems, so you give up performance mid-game to achieve the effect. If it were that they cost 15N5W or (15N15W for more difficult path requirements) the initial investment is steep enough so that you have to chose to thug out another guy or forge a clam; ditch the earlier parts of a game just to get to the requirements for eventually snowballing returns.

Some players will do at the risk of getting eliminated early, some will not and might get rolled over in the end. But that is a strategic choice.

To sum it up, what do you think should the end game look like and by what means do you think one should decide the winner?