Can I get some cheese with that...

[HotNifeThruButr]

I think I've just had a revelation.

If labs were more expensive, requiring you to plan out which of your provinces will become magical centers, you can effectively stop Norfleet's mage-dependant strategy, right?

Or, there could be different types of labs. Smaller and cheaper ones reduce your ability to research, or multiplies mage cost, either handicapping your ability to field the best summons before everyone else with your mage army or making it more expensive to pump mages. It does, however, have an advantage of expensive labs which divides mage cost and improves research because in the better labs, you're keeping all of your eggs in a couple baskets and you can't pump mages as well. Cheap labs also allow you to blood hunt in virtually every province but one.

What do you think?

[Cheezeninja]

I personally still believe the problem lies in the supercombatant instead of castling. If your opponent could not teleport in a force capable of defeating your besiegers in 1 turn then castling would no longer work. His castles that he made in all his provinces would subsiquently become YOUR castles because he would not be able to afford a large army since all his money has been going into hi..YOUR castles. I think the ability to intercept raiding armies better would be a definite plus, but if you think about it, if you actually had to move an army around to defend your castles, suddenly castling everywhere is alot less effective. I think commanders should be capable of inflicting massive losses on the enemy, but should not be so good at becoming completely invulnerable to endless hordes of anything that isnt elite.

Yes, castling is a problem, but its only made possible because of Supercombatants that can defeat your besieging army by their lonesome.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
Well, the current whine du jour seems to have moved off somewhat from VQs and clam hoarding to "castle spamming."

I thought the whine du jour was whining, and the fact that the forums don't support killfiles?

Whether or not any of these activities may be broken, why does it seem that the first reaction of people unhappy with these is to propose nerfs, rather than strategies to deal with the tactics in question?

Norfleeting, er, mad castling, has always struck me as a beatable strategy. As someone (NTJedi?) also posted here, Machaka could have a -bunch- of its best troops for the cost of 10 cheap castles.

From what Norfleet in particular has said, mad castling relies on not building troops. (In order to afford the castles.)

So, my theory is that if you haven't been castling, you should be able to build, say, three armies each capable of taking a castle. (Or at least a watchtower ) Striking multiple provinces, preferably each too far apart for a VQ or other flyer to get from one to another inside of a single turn means that a lone SC can only respond to a single attack; in the meantime, you've acquired two provinces and two castles without having to build the castles yourself.

And the troops aren't there to respond to the other two attacks, in theory.

Where I think this breaks down is with summoned troops and commanders, which the mad castler can often manage if sie's concentrating on mages, research, and finding magic sites.

The other thing is that the castles typically used are pretty worthless for the other player - watchtowers, or worse, Ermor's 0 admin keeps.

So, my theoretical counterstrategy requires work. Probably it'd be best to attempt to strike the Mad Castler early in the game, before a preponderance of summonings are brought to bear. Obviously, this can be unfeasible with huge maps.

The other tweak would be to rely heavily on flying troops yourself, for mobility and the ability to quickly reduce enemy forts. Again - difficult to do save for a very few nations / themes.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

Now, people are proposing solutions to alleviate
the need of castling. I'm all for that! Make
temples take a turn to demolish. Make it
impossible to bump taxes unless you have held the
province for a whole turn.

In addition to a good description of Europe, where castles, forts, and towers large and small can be found almost every square mile in some parts, for good reason, Tuidjy has a really good point about the temples.

Why does it take a nation a full month of a commander's time to destroy their _OWN_ temple, but an invader, even an attack and immediately go poof spell invader, destroy it immediately?

Really seems to make more sense that it would require one month of a commander's time to destroy it. Otherwise - the original temple is still there.

Maybe it still benefits the original deity. Maybe it doesn't, since the priests and temple-tenders are presumably at least in hiding. But having to devote a commander to destroying the temple only makes sense. And it means that a commander is there, visible, for that turn, and thus vulnerable to Magic Arrows, Ghost Riders, Call of the Wild, teleporting / air trapezing mages, etc.

Destroying the temple would thus be risky, but important - you can't build your own temple while that temple is there, and you also don't want to leave the enemy's temple there for them to recover by retaking the province.

[Kel]

I think the initial post is a bit inflammatory and unneccessarily one sided. Normally, I wouldn't post in response to one person's point of view but your post was a good example of one extreme 'side' of every balance argument that goes on so I wanted to post my thoughts. This isn't aimed at you so much as the statements that are represented here (which you happened to make in this case).

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
Well, the current whine du jour seems to have moved off somewhat from VQs and clam hoarding to "castle spamming."

People said what they had to say. Is it a whine du jour because they didn't keep beating it into the ground for a month ? Those people still feel that way so calling it a whine du jour lacks foundation and is inflammatory (as opposed to if it was inflammatory but had a valid point behind it). Would it be better if they said something about it EVERY day of every week of every month so it would no longer be a whine of the day ?

Whether or not any of these activities may be broken, why does it seem that the first reaction of people unhappy with these is to propose nerfs, rather than strategies to deal with the tactics in question?

Why does it seem that the first reaction of people that use the strategies is to call everyone else a whiner or a newbie rather than make a point about the actual subject ?

Or has everyone proposing nerfs done extensive testing of the various strategies and proven that they can't be beaten?

Representing extremes is fine lawyering and good drama but it isn't really fair. Don't you think it is likely that the truth is in the middle ? That *most* people probably have tried several different things but it was neither their 'first reaction' nor have they done 'extensive testing and proven they can't be beaten' ? Honestly, don't you think the truth is in the middle here ? Do you really think that every complaint comes from a single game experience ?

And if it can be beaten, why would people equate that with it being balanced, other than that they have run out of logic ? I mean, if you want to use that argument, every single unit in the game is exactly as good as every other unit because there are open ended dice rolls and anyone could win any combat at any specific time.

Or are some players just wishing that the game was designed differently--to suit the fact that they don't like playing against a given strategy?

I think it is inappropriately disrespectful to assume that everyone who brings up a balance discussion is wrong, not because of specific points but rather to dismiss them and assume negative character traits about their personalities. Why do they all have to have ulterior motives, based on being weak willed, rash and whiny ? I mean, that is basically the answer that some people use for every balance discussion.

Tthis is probably true in some cases, don't get me wrong, just as there are people on the OTHER side who don't want changes in their game for the *exact* same reasons. For either side to dismiss arguments based on anything other than actual, valid points, on the subject itself, demonstrates both a lack of respect and a losing argument, imo.

- Kel

Thank you for enduring my brief rant.

[JJ_Colorado]

Kel - nice post.

I agree. The constant superior attitude, arrogance, and cynicism of some posters gets old. Sure there is some whining but I think some of the points raised about DOM2 play balance are valid and they get grouped immediately into the "whining" Category. Whatever.

--John


P.S. What is this "we don't suffer fools" cr*p? Get off your high horses. Sheesh.


[ May 27, 2004, 06:00: Message edited by: JJ_Colorado ]

[Yossar]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
I think I've just had a revelation.

If labs were more expensive, requiring you to plan out which of your provinces will become magical centers, you can effectively stop Norfleet's mage-dependant strategy, right?

Not especially. You only need one lab to summon and forge and you don't need that many to hire mages. Although, maybe Norfleet is hiring more mages than I expect. It would hinder teleporting SCs but most of them can fly which is almost as good. Expensive labs would also break any nation that depended on lots of cheap mages - R'lyeh, Abysia Blood of Humans, etc.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Kel:
Is it a whine du jour because they didn't keep beating it into the ground for a month ?

The reason it's a "whine du jour" is because it only recently appeared. If it was an actual, serious issue, it would have been apparent for a long time, but because it only appears shortly after somebody dishes out a merciless beating to the aforementioned whining party, it's a "whine du jour": There aren't even people who can reproduce the results.

For instance, consider the current whine-du-jour: castle-spamming: how many people do it and are actually SUCCESSFUL? Of the people who complain about it, how many of them were introduced to it by being my victim....and if it's so great and wonderful, why are more people not doing it with better success?

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
and if it's so great and wonderful, why are more people not doing it with better success? [/QB]

The answer to this is actually quite simple, but it may be difficult for you to uderstand Norfleet. (no insult intended here, but I think you just don't think in the same way as most of the other people who play Dom2. )


You see, lot of people (fortunately) don't want to use your strategy. You are obviously under impression that all people play this game just like you Norfleet - to win at all cost, using every exploit allowed by game mechanics. No tactic is too cheesy, abusive or boring for you as long as it allows you to win the game.


The truth however, is that a lot of people don't want to use your lame strategy, no matter how efficient it is. They are playing this game to have fun first, and the wining is secondary.


I don't think you can understand this idea though, since for you using same exploits in every game seem _to be_ fun. But for other people it is not. That's why they are creating houserules to prevent known abuses and preserve interesting and differnt gameplay, instead of having 16 VQs playing mad castling and clam hoarding just like you do.


I think you can be considered to be beneficial to the community, from certain point of view, since you seem to be pretty good in finding exploits and pushing them to the limit. Maybe developers will notice it and do something about it in next patches. If not, there are always houserules, which are being used more and more every week. The harder and more often you and your copycats will use your strategy, the stronger the rejection reaction will become, and the more often games will be created to prevent the abusive strategy that you are using.

Obvioulsy you may flatter yourself thinking that this houserules are created to prevent _you_ in game, since you are so good. But you are clearly wrong, and you can easely see it for yourslef, if you want proof for it - I'll tell you how.


Asking "why I can beat people who are using the same exploits as I do " is meaningless. Instead try for once beat competent opponents _not_ using your only strategy, but trying anything else. If you win, that it'll be the best and only proof that you are wining not because of you standard exploitive strategy but because you are actually strong player on your own, and I'll publicly admit it myslef. But frankly I don't think you will, based upon what what I saw in our Last game.


I do not deny that you have knowledge of the game, but so are many other people on this forum. 95% of your success though comes from your only exploitive strategy, that you perfected. Of course you don't want to admit it, since it would deflate your huge ego. Frankly if I would be in your shoes I would find it extremely boring and mindboggling, but you seem to be geting thrill from just wining the games no matter how, and that overweigh everything else.

*shrug*

[ May 27, 2004, 09:16: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
You see, lot of people (fortunately) don't want to use your strategy.

Perhaps you believe that, but the truth is, I've seen people attempting to adopt it...and getting nowhere with it. I am not the only VQ player. I am not the only castle-builder....but I'm the only one who does well with it. Why is that?

Instead try for once beat competent opponents _not_ using your only strategy, but trying anything else.

You mean, like, say, a water-9 Vanheim bless strategy? Just won a game with that. No VQ involved.