Nagas and other "lost" pretenders

[Pocus]

Originally posted by PvK:
Perhaps a human player would have a trick I don't know to take out a dragon?

PvK

pretenders which are physically strong but have few slots (misc) wont stand against super-combattants, like an equipped golem, arch devil, ice devil, gifted gargoyle, etc. When you encounters beasts which have defence 35 amongst other stats, I can assure you'd better be prepared with specifics counter measures.

[Psitticine]

In a game I finished recently, the final battle was (suitingly) a clash between my pretender and the enemy. I was playing as a Bog Mummy and the enemy was a Blue Dragon.

My Bog Mummy ended up alone on the field. Everybody else on my side had either fled or fallen. He marched up to the Dragon and cast Leeching Touch on him. The Dragon lost something like 96 HP, I believe, and my Bog Mummy was suddenly at full health and 0 fatigue. The Dragon whomped on him pretty good in return, but another casting of Leeching Touch patched up ol' Dry & Crunchy, plus it brought the Dragon down to single digit HP. This was repeated once more, and then there was only one pretender on the field. My Bog Mummy did some little something that took out the remaining enemy troops (can't remember what he cast, but it worked well!) and that was that.

(On a side note, it should be kept in mind that my mummy had a power of 10+ in Blood Magic at that point; Leeching Touch isn't always that powerful, but I'm sure y'all knew that. )

Soooooo . . . I think the moral here is that Dragons will eat combat types for breakfast but powerful mages armed with the right spells can still go toe-to-toe with them. If the Dragons haven't transformed yet, then they are often powerful spell-casters in their own way (along one path only, usually) and that can certainly change things, but that Blue Dragon was not a challenge for my Bog Mummy.

Also, before they clashed directly, he ate down my best troops like they were popcorn and those he couldn't reach routed in droves. This post should not be seen as contradictory to my earlier pro-Dragon one!!

[Pocus]

How often do you script your mages by the way? Occasionally to get a combo going, or more often than that?

[Psitticine]

Me? I usually don't script them to any great degree. They do an excellent job of selecting their own spells in most cases. I will often give them orders to start off with a communion and/or use power-boosting spells if I know they are going into something nasty, but then I more often than not just leave it up to the AI's judgement.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Psitticine:
Me? I usually don't script them to any great degree. They do an excellent job of selecting their own spells in most cases. I will often give them orders to start off with a communion and/or use power-boosting spells if I know they are going into something nasty, but then I more often than not just leave it up to the AI's judgement.

Thank you Psitticine, this is what I wanted you to say
The following 'critics' are not directed toward you, and, I hope, will be felt constructives. I'm sorry if I'm offending anybody with them :

I dont want to feel accusative, but I think this is part of the 'problem' we have, us pbem'er of dominions, and you, the Illwinter team and associated beta testers.

Perhaps the dominions players on the NG are perceived as a small grognard community, but the fact is that most if not all of these players, when playing in pbem, script very often their mages.
Why :
1) tac-AI in doms I is not that good in his spell choice.
2) Competitive play *ASK* you to extract the best of your units. Often we are not playing to win at all cost, we play to have fun, but we dont play either to loose. So we script, even simple tactic like casting Aim them 4 astral fires.
On the contrary, I believe that it is extremely rare that you (the IW team and beta testers) script to the extent we do (that is 50 mages in a row).

This appeal some comments :

1) the problem : Most of dominions I players expected a major, or at least big, focus of IW toward easying scripting tediousness. On the contrary, IW didnt saw a problem there, and didnt focus on how to improve the work of scripting spells. We asked for scripting templates, saving and reloading scripts, scripting several mages at once with the same list, etc.

2) The arguments of IW against the 'problem' are that :
a) there is no problem.
b) few players engage themselves in scripting too much, we dont make modifications for an handful of customers.
c) the game is our, we head it in the direction we want.

Personally I'm pretty sure that many doms I players see there is problem. I posted a poll on what players wanted to see in doms II. True, 50 or so people is a bit too few to get an idea, but still, most of players wanted less micromanagements, including in scripting.
Lastly, IW is selling a product. This mean they want people to buy it. This mean they will increase there selling figures if they try to alleviate the problems many customers have.

Speaking of the (small) french community as an example, 8/10 friends of mine bought the licence of doms I. 2 and perhaps 3 wont buy doms II, before playing the demo, to see if scripting micromanagement is more easy. I know this is a small population, but I think it shows well the trend.

To end on a positive note, perhaps the domsII AI is so good that we wont have to script anything, bare special combos. I pray and hope for that, this would solve everything

ok flames away, and votes for one star now

[MStavros]

Originally posted by Pocus:
[QB2) The arguments of IW against the 'problem' are that :
a) there is no problem.
b) few players engage themselves in scripting too much, we dont make modifications for an handful of customers.
c) the game is our, we head it in the direction we want.

[/QB]

Actually IW tends to say things like that, and it is very annoying. IW should take a lesson from Timegate [Kohan developers], they are an awesome company.
They are always communicating via their message board with the fans, and they are always listening to them. That is the key to make a successful game. If you say things like: 'We like it this way, this won't be changed.', you will loose more fans for sure.
Think about it, before posting that sentence in any form.

[ October 06, 2003, 07:08: Message edited by: MStavros ]

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Pocus:

2) The arguments of IW against the 'problem' are that :
a) there is no problem.
b) few players engage themselves in scripting too much, we dont make modifications for an handful of customers.
c) the game is our, we head it in the direction we want.

a)There is obviously a problem for some players, other wise you wouldn't complain. In our experience it seems to be less of a problem than it appears to you.
b) There has been a modification to this recently, this was discussed in another thread, The one with Daynarrs suggestion etc.
c) Wether I say it or not or your complaints are listened to or not the game will head in a direction JK and Kristoffer wants. It is not like your views are inherently incompatible with theirs.

There have been some discussions on some of this before. First of all we do script our mages, or at least I do, I just very seldomly have 50 mages in a battle. In fact I have never seen it in multi* player, perhaps we play on poorer maps or play shorter games etc. Secondly just because I argue with you does not mean I do not listen, and more to the point that JK or Kristoffer does not listen. Just because you suggest a change does not mean they should immediately roll over and implement it, they have to weigh it against their own experience and knowledge of the game. Thirdly the major constraint is not lack of wanting to add features that will ease up on micromanagement but it is a lack of resources. IW is still more or less a hobby company, changes are often made because they are fun to make, this might make changes you might find useful to have low priority. Any changes in spell scripting, tac AI etc is changes JK has to make that he doesnt particularily enjoy that he so far hasn't been paid for and might very well not bee that heavily reimbursed for. At the moment you are more or less making demands on JKs or Kristoffers spare time when you suggest a change, so if there isnt an immediate outpouring of wholehearted support for any suggested changes this should not suprise you.

As for the complaint that IW do not listen to your your opinions MsStavros. I thought it would be preferable if I we argued point or made our reasons clear why a change was not made rather then just saying uh huh or there might be a change, or just not answering at all. I think my opinion as a player are as valid as yours even if I have had some small part in the making of dominions, I play the game I have opinions on it. Just because I do not agree to you do not mean that I do not listen.

A few parting point thoughts.
There is work on modding tools going on, the possiblilty of copying scripts have been added. Other changes suggested here or by shrapnels beta testers have been implemented.
If all the features suggested here was to be implemented, dom 2 would never see the light of day.
JK and Kristoffer are nicer than I am.

*Edit changed single player games to mult player games

[ October 06, 2003, 10:09: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
There is work on modding tools going on...

YAY!

[ October 06, 2003, 10:04: Message edited by: Mortifer ]

[st.patrik]

So it seems that Dom II (at least as played by beta-testers) doesn't have such a reliance on scripting mages as Dom I - presumably because in Dom II mages aren't as foolish with their spell-casting options as Dom I mages.

My question is this: a prominent way to destroy armies in Dom I was to cast a ward spell, followed by the appropriate battlefield damage spell, e.g. Thunder Ward, followed by Wrathful Skies etc. Is this as important a part of winning battles in Dom II as it was in Dom I? I can see one reason why it wouldn't be - wards do not give total protection against their element anymore.

I guess a related question would be whether the AI would ever do the above combination - ward then battlefield damage spell. If not, and if such combos are still a viable way to do lots of damage to your opponent, then it would seem that scripting is still a really important part of the game.

The way Dom I is, if you want your mages to do anything really useful you've got to script. It seems like with Dom II IW are moving away from script-intensive battles and more toward getting the mages with the right abilities and research level out into the battlefield and letting them do their thing. In fact it seems like scripting might be a liability at times, and it's maybe better to let the mage decide what's best.

Since I'm kinda lazy I don't mind the trend , but on the other hand I think scripting is a key part of tactical combat in Dom I [perhaps the most key part]. I wonder if a well-scripted mage would beat one on autopilot, or vice versa - I guess that's what all this rambling is about

p.s. We all have ideas about what we'd like Dom II to look like - I myself have suggested several, and had several shot down by IW. But you can't really fault IW for taking their game in the direction they want. I think it's great that they have a presence in this forum, and actually interact with our suggestions & comments - but I don't think at all that they have a responsibility to do so - more like they're doing us a favour. That said, I do hope they implement some of the suggestions that have been made.

[johan osterman]

I am not sure this have been obvious enough, or perhaps you do not think it is enough of an improvement on scripting etc. There is in the latest Version of the beta the ability save a script or a set of orders and copy it to another commander. You can have up to ten scripts in memory simultaneously by pressing [ctrl]+[number] to copy and [number] to paste.