Machaka-What are they?

[Nerfix]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
Of course we nerfed them too much No point in nerfing too little. We like nerfing.

Actually the nerfing is not on Caelum, but on the storm-flight-archer complex.

Okay, i might be paranoid, but few things you have said imply that Caelum has been severely nerfed.

[Pocus]

Nerfix : We know that your love of Caelum render you partial. See they are so powerful that you wouldnt dare play against them I'm sure... anyway it is not our decision to nerf or not nerf, so we'd better take the adjustments philosophically...

Daynarr : The problem with Ulm is that they lack long standing power. Initially they are powerful, but will fold rapidly against any marginally competent magic using player.

We are all happy to have soon Doms II, but ... I have to raise 2 issues :

I dont want to be accusative, but to test play balance, you ought to test it up and including the end game, and with human opponents. It is easy to says that race are equilibrated, if test beds are made either against a computer, or with games which are stopped at turn 40. But I'm speaking of end game equilibrium here, the ones where you see armies of 150 summer lions, and scripting of your 100 mages into battles (any big map with 40% site frequency lead to that, nothing extraordinary in these settings).

Dunno if the beta team of illwinter tested much this, because this is the kind of thing which is not done over a week end. When you comes to these extremities of a game, then some flaws appears which are not perceived before. For example the hassle of having to script dozen of mages is perhaps not perceived so intensively by IW, because you need to play a game during 100+ hour playing time, against players which play competively to the point that not indulging yourself into micromanagment is certain death.

My point is ... does Dominions II performs better in the end game, speaking of game balance and mage scripting than Doms I (2 issues here) ? I never read on the dom 2 progress page anything about new interface dealing with the scripting of mages in battles for example.

[ September 19, 2003, 17:15: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Pocus:
Nerfix : We know that your love of Caelum render you partial. See they are so powerful that you wouldnt dare play against them I'm sure... anyway it is not our decision to nerf or not nerf, so we'd better take the adjustments philosophically...

Daynarr : The problem with Ulm is that they lack long standing power. Initially they are powerful, but will fold rapidly against any marginally competent magic using player.

We are all happy to have soon Doms II, but ... I have to raise 2 issues :

I dont want to be accusative, but to test play balance, you ought to test it up and including the end game, and with human opponents. It is easy to says that race are equilibrated, if test beds are made either against a computer, or with games which are stopped at turn 40. But I'm speaking of end game equilibrium here, the ones where you see armies of 150 summer lions, and scripting of your 100 mages into battles (any big map with 40% site frequency lead to that, nothing extraordinary in these settings).

Dunno if the beta team of illwinter tested much this, because this is the kind of thing which is not done over a week end. When you comes to these extremities of a game, then some flaws appears which are not perceived before. For example the hassle of having to script dozen of mages is perhaps not perceived so intensively by IW, because you need to play a game during 100+ hour playing time, against players which play competively to the point that not indulging yourself into micromanagment is certain death.

My point is ... does Dominions II performs better in the end game, speaking of game balance and mage scripting than Doms I (2 issues here) ? I never read on the dom 2 progress page anything about new interface dealing with the scripting of mages in battles for example.

You seem to be under the impression that we do not play dominions, or that we do not play competively. The scripting is more or less identical. We usually finish our PBEMs before turn 60, one way or the other. So the scripting problem is perhaps not as obvious to us as it is to someone playing the way you and your friends do. But the thing is illwinter is short on resources and manpower, most of the changes and additions are made from the perspective of our playing style, not because illwinter is evil and do not care about your opinions, but because lack of manpower forces us (in this particular and many similar cases JK) to prioritise between new additions, the additions and changes that win out are most often the ones that affect dominions 2 the way we play it, rather perhaps than changes that would improve the game for people playing single player games or games on huge resource rich maps. Now once again this is not done out of disrespect for your opinions but simply because the game wouldnt have been made if it wasnt fun to make and the changes felt relevant to the developers. Dom 2 is a game that is made to be enjoyable to us and our friends, with the hope that other people will share our tastes, and thus play and buy the game.

In short empire management is easier than it was in dom 1, battle scripting is much the same. Micromanagemtn is reduced in some areas, not significantly in all.

I'll hope you will enjoy it anyway.

[ September 19, 2003, 18:05: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Nerfix]

Ummm...
I considere the fact that i will have to produce less A4(papere) pollution a significant thing...
And yes, i'm talking about national overview.

[licker]

While the topic of Mirco has been brought up...

Empire management has been made easier you say, is there a place to see what the changes are? Or can they be quickly elaborated here?

Are there improvements to the army screen, in as far as assigning troops to commanders and setting up the orders/positions for the units and comanders?

Is there an overview of all comanders, sortable by magic/command/piety/...? This one would be of great use I'd imagine as once you get a decent sized empire you have so many commanders running around its hard to keep track of them all. It'd be even nicer if you could issue orders to the commanders directly from an overview screen, rather than having to go to the province they are in and select them there.

Is there any way to give sequntial orders to commanders? For example you have a new sage with different magic schools that you want to search 5 or 6 provinces. Can you set him to do so automatically? Can you give sequential orders so he will search/move/search/move/... without having to be ordered each turn?

Don't take these as complaints or criticisms, they are just questions or suggestions (though its a bit late for any new implementations to the code I'd imagine, short of future patches).

I really gave MoO3 and its Macro approach a long shake, and while in the end I turned away from MoO3, it wasn't due to the Macro approach (it had more to do with broken or missing features), I'd be really really happy if Dom2 added more macro abilities. The tediousness of keeping track of a large empire with potentially 100s of commanders is right now my only concern with Dom2, not to say I won't get it and enjoy the hell out of it, just that I think more Marco control is a good thing

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by licker:
While the topic of Mirco has been brought up...

Empire management has been made easier you say, is there a place to see what the changes are? Or can they be quickly elaborated here?

Changes dating from november 2002 and later can be found at http://illwinter.com/dom2progress-html but it might be difficult to find useful info there.

Are there improvements to the army screen, in as far as assigning troops to commanders and setting up the orders/positions for the units and comanders?

Squad orders and positions are not reset when you transfer troops between commanders (I cannot remember how it worked in DOM I). You can use 'w' to select all wounded units in a squad, 'e' to select experienced units, 'a' to select all units etc.

Is there an overview of all comanders, sortable by magic/command/piety/...? This one would be of great use I'd imagine as once you get a decent sized empire you have so many commanders running around its hard to keep track of them all. It'd be even nicer if you could issue orders to the commanders directly from an overview screen, rather than having to go to the province they are in and select them there.

The nation overview allows you to issue orders, set taxes, raise defense, goto commanders, informs you on mage skills and site searches.

Is there any way to give sequntial orders to commanders? For example you have a new sage with different magic schools that you want to search 5 or 6 provinces. Can you set him to do so automatically? Can you give sequential orders so he will search/move/search/move/... without having to be ordered each turn?

No sequential orders at this time.

Don't take these as complaints or criticisms, they are just questions or suggestions (though its a bit late for any new implementations to the code I'd imagine, short of future patches).

I really gave MoO3 and its Macro approach a long shake, and while in the end I turned away from MoO3, it wasn't due to the Macro approach (it had more to do with broken or missing features), I'd be really really happy if Dom2 added more macro abilities. The tediousness of keeping track of a large empire with potentially 100s of commanders is right now my only concern with Dom2, not to say I won't get it and enjoy the hell out of it, just that I think more Marco control is a good thing

All in all there are many changes to improve micro management. Changing orders of all or some commanders collectively is one. Research pool another. The long awaited search log. Many user friendly popups to make newbies comfortable. The nation overview is probably the feature you will like the most.

The problem with your question is that I havn't played Dominions I for about a year or so. I cant't remember exactly how the game was back then. Perhaps I should indulge myself in an old game of Dominions I

[licker]

Wow thanks for the prompt answers. I like alot of what I heard. The nation overview does sound very functional to me

How easy will it be to add more features to it though? I'm guessing (well in my case I know) that once I get my hands on it I'll have suggestions for additions to it (unless its just soooooo damn perfect the first time )

I'm really looking forward to this now

Probably worth a game or two Dom1 to refresh the memory, but I'd guess you'd rapidly begin to hate the micro since it sounds like you made alot of improvements to it in Dom2

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by licker:
- snip -

How easy will it be to add more features to it though? I'm guessing (well in my case I know) that once I get my hands on it I'll have suggestions for additions to it (unless its just soooooo damn perfect the first time )

- snip -

There will probably be a lot of suggestions. You always had (all of you) . Some of these will probably be added in upcoming patches, but for now we are working on the most urgent and easily corrected issues. Our beta testers help us decide what these issues are, but they have almost gone silent on the beta forum. This is probably a good sign.

[Pocus]

Well understood Johan. I can understand the logic of doing the tweaks which satisfy either the dev teams, or most of the players. Anyway, you spoke of the ability to change the scripting of commanders by Groups. This is a new thing in Doms II, and will already alleviate a bit the problem. My view is perhaps biased by the people which dwells in the csipg newsgroup, but many of these dominions players are kinda hardcore in their micromanaging approach.

So on the other hand I dont think that features which simplifies how to handle 80 mages on the battefields (saving and reloading orders templates) would only be enjoyed by an handful of players. Perhaps we can make a poll on the most wanted features, when the forum will be at full speed.

[Nerfix]

Hum...
Dominions II is getting more and more disturbing...
First, R'lyeh gets Tentacle Boogeymen and Tentacle Boogeymen/Human Crossbreeds ...
Now, pseudo-Zulus riding spiders!!!???


[ September 19, 2003, 12:55: Message edited by: Nerfix ]