Clams overpowered?

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
So a strength 9 unit with a spear is supposed to kill a unit with more than 20 protection that has soul vortex, breath of winter, and a charcoal shield before they end up dead?

The theory goes that if you were to hit hard enough BEFORE it could raise shields and put up soul vortex + breath of winter, you would be able to kill it: Zeikko already demonstrated that this works with Devils.

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Petrify always paralyzes, and after 4 or 5 turns, you'll just cast it again and freeze your opponent again. There's no save against petrify.

So what? Your troops are dead anyways. The triple damage shield makes sure of that.

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Once again, the idea is to hit hard and fast, not wait around to trot over on foot. The devils did this nicely. Elemental Armor, the fact that a VQ has some 35+ def....none of that held up in the face of a giant dogpile of devils. They're not unstoppable, and having to tow around fodder sort of ended the reign of VQ supremacy there.

Her hitpoints are unimpressive in neutral dominion. Everything else is top of the line.

Special attributes are definitely top of the line. Base physical attributes, not so impressive. Att 12, Def 12, Str 13....not that impressive. You can definitely get better on other chassis.

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The enemy pretender, especially if a goodly 400-500 points have been invested into making it godly, SHOULD require a great deal of effort to kill!

It should be no more difficult than the army that those points could have supported.

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Troops can be produced and summoned, as income permits. Pretenders cannot. Troops can be in many places at once. Pretenders cannot. Troops can siege. Pretenders cannot. Once again, troops have their roles to play, but you can't expect them to just brute-force their way through everything. There were situations in other games where the VQ simply was an inappropriate option for the fight, and so I used other troops. And they worked. Different strokes, different folks.

Yes, that is unreasonable, since every single nation must be able to deal with it. Where's your solution for Pangaea?

Pangaea, eh? I'm in a Pangaea game right now, pitted against an Ermorian VQ. I'll let you know how it goes.

You are continually trying to dodge the point. You've admitted that they are the best use of water gems, and that's enough to make them unbalanced.

I see the problem as being a deficiency in water magic. What would you *DO* with water magic? Summon Sea Trolls? Those are only useful if you're a land nation trying to get a toehold on the sea. Otherwise they're subpar.

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This is grossly exaggering the case: It is impossible to completely and totally ignore something in its entireity and expect to do well. Gem-producing items are obviously an important component of the game, as is anything that enhances one's income.

More dodging the point. There are no income enhancing items other than the gem producing ones.

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Gems *ARE* income.

Thanks for illustrating the imbalance once again. No nation should _ever_ have to build a specific item in order to compete.

Fine. Try not building any mages, see how well you compete. There are simply things you have to do if you expect to stay afloat and competitive: There's multiple ways you can attack the problem, but ultimately, you DO have to do SOMETHING.

On the other hand, fighting, say, 50 against 100, is a perfectly doable thing. If you have nothing, and he has everything, though, it's going to be nearly impossible....but even then, I will fight to win, or die trying.

Let me make this perfectly clear. If you are required to build a certain item in massive quantities just to prevent someone else from winning automatically when they have done so then there is a serious balance problem.

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Wrong. A lone VQ cannot be everywhere at once.

More of your bull**** I see. She doesn't need to be everywhere at once. She only needs cloud trapeze to wipe out an army per turn.

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Trapeze/teleport can only land you in a few places: Inside of your own castles, or in front of an enemy castle. If you CT to your own castles, you simply sit in the castle uselessly, unless the enemy storms your castle. If you try to break the siege, he can be gone before you can kill him. If you CT into an ENEMY castle, you're now staring at a wall. VQs can't siege. If you CT to an enemy empty province, you kill some PD. Anyone can do that.

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A lone VQ cannot siege worth a damn. You're going to still have to do better than a single VQ alone.

Not for defense against normal troops you don't. And most nations mages won't be able to hurt her either, so they are out of the picture as well. Looks like that matches up quite nicely with the build no troops vs building a lot of troops argument.

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Bullcrap. I've used plenty of troops on both defense and offensive. I tend to favor summoned troops over produced troops, but nonetheless, they're troops, not SCs.

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In one of our more recent game, in fact, I sank your army with absolutely no VQ involvement whatsoever, at which point you apparently gave up and went AI.

The Machaka game? I gave up because it's obvious that there was no point in playing against an Ermor that had no opposition in its expansion from the players that were nearby to its start position.

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Bullcrap. I'm pitted against a giant Ermor that rules half the world in another game(See above). I think I can lick this.

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The fact of the matter is that troops fill an important function at all points in the game, but that role changes, and so too must your army composition.

Troops should _never_ become just cannon fodder for SCs.

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Wishful thinking. SCs can be equipped, troops can never be upgraded. At some point they'll fall due to obsolesence. Still, there ARE options, and you can use them: Mass Flight would put your ordinary troops in the same competitive situation as the aforementioned flying devils.

I'm getting really tired of your hypocrisy. WHy don't you actually play a game where you build no clams, and don't use a VQ, instead of just claiming that they aren't necessary to win against someone who does. A person who expands at several times the rate of a clam hoarder, should reasonably expect to win.

What a coincidence. I was just beginning to get so tired of your constant snivelling that I was just looking for you on the channel earlier to do something which was entirely not a VQ. Maybe play scales or bless for a change. I was so hoping to squash you and end your constant whining for good.

Alas, you weren't there, and I'm not sure we have enough people for a game now.

However, just as you cannot expect to win with NO territory, you cannot expect to win with no side income, for if everything you own is tied to territory, then once you start taking losses in territory, you are doomed as your efforts to resist grow steadily more feeble.

That's kind of the point.

Alternatively, you can diversify your assets so that you can extract income from multiple sources, so you can actually survive a setback, rather than simply die.

Ultimately, I hold a dim view of people screaming "nerf, nerf, nerf".

[ April 16, 2004, 06:38: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[HotNifeThruButr]

Isn't it the Ermorian dominion that's allowing for supercombatanthood the broken thing and not the Vampire Queen herself?

About clams making up for the rest of the water path, compare it to this scenario plucked from Warcraft 3.

"Undead has crappy melee units. The Abomination and Ghoul simply cannot stand up against heavier hitters like Tauren or Huntresses, heck, they get slaughtered by Riflemen, which they're supposed to counter! Because of this, the only viable strategy is mass Crypt Fiends with Obsidian Statue support and it makes up for Ghoul and Abomination crappiness by being uncounterable, whereas the other strategy is countered by EVERYTHING. So Undead, as a race, is balanced"

Of course, this just means that everyone will pick Undead to use Statues and Crypt Fiends and completely neglect all the other units, so they have a force that can beat every enemy without any element of crappiness.

Now, for you who aren't experienced with Warcraft, replace "Undead" with "Water", "Crypt Fiends and Statues" with "Clams" and "Ghouls and Abominations" with "the rest of the water path"

On a side note, only you can prevent forest fires.

Edit: And on another side note, Gargoyles are apparently the new cheese now.

Edit 2: I must look like a rambling moron to anyone who can't figure out what I mean... which is probably around 87% of you. *shrug*

[ April 16, 2004, 07:15: Message edited by: HotNifeThruButr ]

[Huzurdaddi]

Ultimately, I hold a dim view of people screaming "nerf, nerf, nerf".

That's a pretty silly opinion. It seems you have played too many MMORPGs.

If in a strategy game something is overbalanced ( as evidencied by most people doing it ) then it should be nerfed.

That being said I think that the VQ is overbalanced. Actually it's lifedrain that is overbalanced. It really allows for wacky stuf when it is on the SC chassis. By wacky I mean early expansion.

I don't know how much I would nerf her though. She costs a lot right now. She has a moderate cost for new magic paths. But something should be done, really. Few pretenders are as good as her our of the gate. Certianly she slows down some as the game progresses, but at the start she is fearsome.

Oh and Clams are pretty messed up. Something should be done, really. Don't know what. Perhaps just take the damn things out. Astral pearls are just very powerful.

[quote]
About clams making up for the rest of the water path, compare it to this scenario plucked from Warcraft 3.
[quote]

Ahh sweet warcraft. The best RTS ever made. TA was the best engine ( and with extensive moding the best RTS ever ) but WC3 has the whole package right out of the box. And killer match making.

Of course, this just means that everyone will pick Undead to use Statues and Crypt Fiends and completely neglect all the other units, so they have a force that can beat every enemy without any element of crappiness.

I salute you sir. You comprehend how balance works within games that are played on the internet! Well done!

BTW, you got to love CF + Statues. Decent firepower, great durability. If they had slow they would rule ( cripple is no substitute ). The low micromanagement allows you to take full advantage of the powers of your heros.

Edit: And on another side note, Gargoyles are apparently the new cheese now.

I think the problem is the armor type. What counters unarmored ( every night elf player responds in unison )? Siege. What can siege not hit? Air. Hmmm.

[HotNifeThruButr]

Piercing beats unarmored much harder than siege does *150% I think, whereas siege does 125% for certain, or as many would put it, "fo' sho'"*

The real problem was that while Riflemen, Archers, and Head Hunters make rock-strewn meat out of gargoes, Death Coil makes meat out of them, so does stone-form-when-they-focus-fire.

They should rename Spell Breakers to Crack Addicts... well, Magic Addicts.

But we're going off topic now.

[Catquiet]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

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Originally posted by Catquiet:
If you want lots of clams all you need are water gems and time.

If you want water gems, you're likely going to have to find them, if your nation doesn't start with any base income in that area. If you want time, you're going to have to fight off your neighbors who want to take what you have. It's never as easy as it sounds.

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For a clam hoarder to win against a non-hoarder, he only needs to fight his opponent to a stalemate while making clams in the background.

For a non-hoarder to win against a clam hoarder, he needs to conquer his opponent's provinces and he needs to do it quickly before the hoarder's gem income becomes overwhelming. Fighting your opponent to a standstill actually means you are losing ground.

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"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else -- if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

[ April 16, 2004, 07:57: Message edited by: Catquiet ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
That's a pretty silly opinion. It seems you have played too many MMORPGs.

Good lord. Given the choice between contracting the bubonic plague and playing MMORPGs, I'll take the plague. Thanks anyway, though.

If in a strategy game something is overbalanced ( as evidencied by most people doing it ) then it should be nerfed.

I think it's a bit of a stretch to say "most people" are doing with regards to the entire VQ matter. Most people, on the other hand, build or summon units. Clearly, units are overpowered, right? Let's nerf units.

If VQs and Clams were the most powerful things ever, I'd be seeing EVERYONE with a VQ pouring out clams. Clearly, this isn't the case. Plenty of games are won by non-VQs without a sizeable clam hoard. For every game won by a clam hoarder with VQ , many other would-be clam hoarders and VQ drivers are gruesomely beaten to death by rushers before their clamming can give them anything useful.

To prove this point, I aim to find a game to pit myself against a would-be VQ clam hoarder and kill him without having the starting VQ or the clam hoard. Grah!

That being said I think that the VQ is overbalanced. Actually it's lifedrain that is overbalanced. It really allows for wacky stuf when it is on the SC chassis. By wacky I mean early expansion.

I don't really buy that story. While it's certainly true that there are pretender chassis that are very much subpar and generally considered to be dullards and never taken, and the VQ is certainly one of the best combat chassis options, it's not QUITE that powerful out of the gate, and doesn't really take off until some research, or items, can be slapped on. Oddly, none of these spells cast are native paths of the VQ, which further inflates the VQ's actual cost because you have to pay the moderate price for all these extra paths. To really go overboard with it, with the way *I* run one, costs 500 nation points: I've effectively expended the entire national allocation on chassis + magic...just to get a combat monster. I more or less forgo a useful bless effect or scales worth crap for this privilege.

Oh and Clams are pretty messed up. Something should be done, really. Don't know what. Perhaps just take the damn things out. Astral pearls are just very powerful.

I don't believe that clams are "pretty messed up", although I wouldn't mind seeing them bumped up in construction level, or raised in cost, as I've mentioned. However, I don't really care for whines or somebody else's funny little mods on the matter: If the developers feel it's real issue, they can do something about it in a patch. Then it'll be OFFICIAL. The role of clams ultimately doesn't change: The sacrifice of short-term use of income for a long-term investment, as opposed to a great deal of other stuff, which is "live for the minute" thinking. I tend to frown on this sort of thinking as a personal matter: Given a short-term solution, and a long-term solution with a better payoff, I'll go with the long-term solution any day. Patience is easy: a penny saved is a penny earned, but resources squandered today are squandered forever.

About clams making up for the rest of the water path

I never claimed clams "make up" for the rest of the water path. I merely said that water gems, except in special cases, are rarely useful: Once you have them, you have to do SOMETHING with them. Why not invest them so that someday, you'll actually get mileage out of them?

[ April 16, 2004, 08:03: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Catquiet:
For a clam hoarder to win against a non-hoarder, he only needs to fight his opponent to a stalemate while making clams in the background.

For a non-hoarder to win against a hoarder, he merely needs to halt the hoarding: If mages who make clams keep getting eaten by horrors, the hoarding will stop shortly.

[HotNifeThruButr]

Raising cost sounds really nice, that way, you don't have hordes of clams spawning more and more clams like demon-rabbit-aphrodisiac-cracked up-clams

Demon clams, come unto me!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
Raising cost sounds really nice, that way, you don't have hordes of clams spawning more and more clams like demon-rabbit-aphrodisiac-cracked up-clams

It'd be nice. It would seperate out the mere wannabes from the true investors. But it's still easier to counter clams by making sure anyone who makes one gets eaten by a horror. The more clams you make, the more hammers you lose when your clammers are eaten by horrors. There are few normal mages, with any kind of bodyguards, that can withstand horror attacks.

[tinkthank]

Seems that in order to get lots of clams and have them be useful (that is, not get them first at turn 90), you need to
- produces water mages
- use those water mages to go and find water gems
- use those water mages to forge clams/turn
- use those water gems to forge clams

That is what you spend. This has a nice payback, of course.
People who do not horde clams can, surely, do other worthwhile things with those resources instead of produce mages, have them find water gems, have them forge clams?
This is not to say that Clams might be harder to research, or require 10-water 5-astral pearls to make (my personal choice), but they certainly do not break the game in my opinion.
I find the comparison to Warcraft III extremely poor, no offense intended. WIII is an excellent game for what it is, but lacks the diversity found in Dom2. I really dont think there is any "cheese" in Dom2, which is not to say that everything is perfectly balanced (I feel some nations are stronger than others on the whole, but that is just me), just that there is no real comparison to WIII ("when you get to 2 minutes 40 seconds you will have your Beastmaster do XXX while your opponent still needs 20 seconds to get that Grunt out...").
Any nation with good magic gem income capabilities just needs to fight those other nations to a standstill. Yes. But I just think that is easier said than done.
Just my opinion, however, and I am a certified newbie.