Dom I Strategies which WON'T work in Dom II

[ywl]

I won't really called myself a vet in MP - just 2 to 3 games. I might even occassionally sound like a know-it-all of the system but I'm not really a very skillful player.

But since Pocus asked...

I think most of Alex's whammies are fine in terms of game balance. It might catch people off-guard. But to me, they're the fun parts of the game - expect the unexpected and prepare for different situations. Otherwise, I worry that the end game will become nothing more than a race to enmasse the largest army of HIs.

1) Super-Combatants. Except for Ice Devils, I think that most super-combatants are fine. To have a good super-combatants, you usually need to invest at least 50 gems and have at least level 3 in two magic paths (earth, etc). Morever, most of these supercombatants can be killed by "Soul Slay", "Opposition", "Disintegration" et al. Or a moderate number of ethereatl beings (e.g., 10 ghosts). The ability of such an expensive commander to kill 100+ cheap heavy infantries is a reasonable thing (50 gems ~= 500 golds ~= cost of 40 HIs).

Blood summons are painful in most game but the problem is more because of the easy availability of Blood Slaves.

Ice-Devils at the 4th level is too much of a bargain. Something has been done already and I'll need to see how it turns out. I think the other Blood Summons are priced reasonably.

2) Teleport and Gateway. Not sure.

3) Magic Duel. It's fine in its current form. Or Astral would be too powerful . The only nations severly hurt by MD is Marignon. But to me, Marignon's mages are powerful enough in its current form: Astral Fire, Flame Eruption (both are only level 6!), Body Ethereal, Luck. Astral lets you boast up your magic level easily ("Light of the Northern Sky" and "Power of the Sphere"). And you can also use the Communions circle to increase the magic power of your mages. With so many variable, I don't really that MD is such a safe tactics even for Pythium.

4) Ritual Summon... what does it mean? Summoning magical creatures are what make the game fun - right?

5) Battlefield Summon. Not sure - I haven't seen enough. To me, it is just some tricks that make the mages worth their gold... If Storm is tuned down and the archers can get to the mages, it shouldn't be that dominant any more. Moreover, even in the current system, there are other spells to kill the mages hid in the back, e.g. "Howl", "Earthquake", "Rain of Stone", "Acid Rain".

6) Battlefield spells. Does it means "Wrathful Sky" and others? I find most of them fine. "Wrathful Sky" is better raised to Air 4 or 5. "Astral Tempest" should give more damage to make it worthwile. But otherwise, to me, these spells are just something to be factored in during a battle. Without them, Dominions will lose a lot of the richness of tactics and strategies.

7) Storms. I agree . The current modifications are in the right direction. I'll need to play Dom II to see whether they've gone far enough (or too far).

8) Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual. FftS is at Level 9. Leprosy is cheap and probably should be a higher cost (15 gems?) but it's very slow acting. For common fodder units - you shouldn't care. For important mages, it's easy enough to give them ice-rings, fire-rings or the poison-rings.

9) Province BLasting spells. An useful and fun part of the game. I don't see any problem other than the sinking feeling while I'm the one receiving them .

10) Assassination. I haven't seen anybody using them with effect more than mere annoyance. In theory, you can equip some commanders to be super-assasain but it'll be expensive to lose them. And you can never sure whether you'll hit a good target - easily countered with a bunch of cheap scouts or monks.

[ywl]

Some more thoughts on army bLasting spell.

In terms of game-play, "Vengeance of the Dead" seems to be a good way to counter army bLasting - if we can make them good even for undeads.

If we still found army bLasting still too annoying, we can introduce a few new spells in other magic paths to make mass murderers more vulnerable. Some examples:

"Curse of the Deads", a spell to curse a commander with a large body-count remotely.

"Mark of Kurgi", a spell to horror-mark a mass murderer from a distance - for later Horror attack.

"Smite of Justice", a thunderbolt to strike whoever kill too many.

"Scythe of Conscience", renders whoever kill too many feeblemind ?

Just some random thoughts.

[apoger]

>1) Super-Combatants. Except for Ice Devils, I think that most super-combatants are fine.

Said like a person that never had a Sphinx dropped on their capital on turn 7. The abuse can get a lot worse than the loss of a 100 HI.

I'm glad to hear that Dom II may have worked towards limiting this. I hope to see the new game balance in action during the upcomming months.

>Blood summons are painful in most game but the problem is more because of the easy availability of Blood Slaves.

I'm always concerned when players have control of a resource that ramps up, such as blood slaves. I hope Dom II really has addressed this.

>3) Magic Duel. It's fine in its current form. Or Astral would be too powerful . The only nations severly hurt by MD is Marignon.

C'tis and Jotunheim also often field mages that have astral-1. Even the astral-2 mages are dangerously behind the astral-3 nations. The tricks that can be done to pump astral are available to everyone. The astral-3 nations are always ahead of the curve on this, and as such it makes life hard on the lesser astral nations.

It's something you must always consider when playing with astral magic.

>4) Ritual Summon... what does it mean?

This is a reference to players showing up with large numbers of summons such as Summer Lions. It can ruin someones day for sure.

>5) Battlefield Summon. Not sure - I haven't seen enough.

This shouldn't be a big issue in Dom II (I hope).
In Dom I, Groups of mages could often take down conventional armies at no loss.

Massive summons of lesser air elementals was single handedly corrupting the game, IMHO.

>6) Battlefield spells. Does it means "Wrathful Sky" and others?

Combo's like thunder ward/wrathful skies, or poison ward/foul vapors. This sort of spell combo could often dissolve entire armies. The way IW has altered wards in Dom II will probably help lessen the frequency we see this stuff.

>8) Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual.

Not too expensive by the time it's in play. Much less "expensive" than allowing the 600 troop army to stroll into your area. If your enemy has a stack of mages in there, knocking out 20-40% isn't shabby. You can't protect them all...

Once MW and FFTS start getting thrown about, conventional armies with mages become much less important. You must start to rely on super combatants and larger summoned creatures. I'm not a big fan of this kind of endgame. I much prefer it when things resolve before this much magic becomes available.

>9) Province BLasting spells. An useful and fun part of the game. I don't see any problem other than the sinking feeling while I'm the one receiving them .

I never said it was a "problem" as in bad for Dominions. It's a "problem" in-game for the player who is getting slammed by repeated spells.

>10) Assassination. I haven't seen anybody using them with effect more than mere annoyance.

I was talking more about assassination spells than assassin characters.

If you have never been the victim of a serious Arco 'mind hunt' festival then count yourself lucky! (arco can use their priestesses to undo afflictions from bad results)

I can't wait to see what goodness Dom II will bring to the table.

[apoger]

>In terms of game-play, "Vengeance of the Dead" seems to be a good way to counter army bLasting - if we can make them good even for undeads.

Not as easy as you are thinking...
A> How does the enemy know where I am keeping my bLaster mage?
B> Domes. The bLaster mage is always hidden under domes.

It's often difficult to counter.

[Patrik]

Oops! That went away a little bit to fast...

Originally posted by Wendigo:

1.- Diplomacy
Yes, diplomacy!. Nothing more fustrating than being ganged by 6 opponents. While diplomacy can sometimes work in favour of a better game by giving the big guy a challenge it most often than not is used as a way to get an easy, unchallenged win. Diplomacy is the most powerful weapon in the game.

I cringe when I see demands of an increase of this in MP games with stuff like 'right of passage', the Last thing we need is to make these gangfest easier. No problem with an increase of diplomacy options regarding the AI in SP, but diplomacy is strong enough as it is in MP.

2.- The full economy+combat pretender with no magic+full taxing/patrolling triada: Either you play this way or you are handicapped, because all the MP games I have played have either been with Normal or Rich settings, and this is the way to go in such games.

Hopefully this is going to change in Dom II, and we will see funnier designs with more magic & less economy.

3.- Supercombatants: Wyrms & Nataraja types early on, IDs, Pazuzus, FIs and other breeds later on.
This is the way to go for victories with no cost, they are an all or nothing bet, but when they win they win big.

This is also being tonned down a bit for Dom II, which is good. I like playing with these guys, it's funny to equip them & tailor them to the opposition, but they are too strong as the game stands.

4.- The army of summoners backed up with relief. I am surprised this doesn't get complained about more...field 20 mages, have them cast spells as if they were 60 instead, what's balanced about this?

The above 4 are my 'whamies', and IMO you need to use at least 2-3 of them in a vet game or you will see them used vs you & lose. I consider army bLasters secondary when compared to the above four.

--editted grammar[/QB]

Excellent post! Some comments on the Wendigo's whammies:

Economy: Only the order scale affects income with 5% per step (just forget the old system!) Growth and production scales no longer affect income. High taxes kill population (fast!!). Negative order/prod/growth scales are now quite viable and allow many more points for pretender design. Most betatesters have used expensive/very expensive pretenders compared to DomI.

Summoners: Battlefield summons (for example lesser elementals and Howl) now cost gems. This will address the relief/summoning combo.

I fully agree with you concerning diplomacy. No doubt the strongest weapon - very frustrating if you don't have the time to indulge in it. I guess specific setups/rules like HEXBlitz can be the solution.

Supercombatants have been altered with increased costs, limited availability and changes in the damage shields etc. Early pretender supercombatants might still be an issue, on the other hand the bless effects can give you really potent counter troops (Regenerating berserking giants, Spider knights with flaming weapons, prot 29 black knigths etc).

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Patrik:
Excellent post! Some comments on the Wendigo's whammies:

Economy: Only the order scale affects income with 5% per step (just forget the old system!) Growth and production scales no longer affect income. High taxes kill population (fast!!). Negative order/prod/growth scales are now quite viable and allow many more points for pretender design. Most betatesters have used expensive/very expensive pretenders compared to DomI.

Patrik
The order scale has been rescaled to since you Last participated in a beta MP, it is 7% per step now. The growth and production give a 2% income bonus per step.

[Particle]

Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Zerger:
Well I will play singleplayer, and you bet that I will make a mod without those uber, unbalanced spells, if disabling spells will be possible. [It must be

it is anyway better to reach a consensus about these spells. Something like 40 to 50% of the people here (according to two polls) play MP. It would be far better to have a common set of rules accepted in this case.

In solo you will encounter the problem too with most of the scenarios, if modding tools are allowed. The scenario author will have surely modded some particular aspects of doms, to better fit the setting of the map. Thus you will have to play with his mod, not your.

---

Not really. Check out my reply in the diplomacy thread. Your own poll will show you Pocus, that the majority of the fans here will buy the game, because of the singleplayer.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Particle:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pocus:
it is anyway better to reach a consensus about these spells. Something like 40 to 50% of the people here (according to two polls) play MP. It would be far better to have a common set of rules accepted in this case.

Not really. Check out my reply in the diplomacy thread. Your own poll will show you Pocus, that the majority of the fans here will buy the game, because of the singleplayer.

---

anyway, game balance issues should be discussed. Even if more than 75% of players would only play solo, I suppose they prefer a balanced game.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by apoger:
Army BLasting Spells... I don't have enough experience but are they really such a big deal? It takes 30 gems to cast MW... It's quite an expensive ritual.

Not too expensive by the time it's in play. Much less "expensive" than allowing the 600 troop army to stroll into your area. If your enemy has a stack of mages in there, knocking out 20-40% isn't shabby. You can't protect them all...

The problem is their efficiency. If you can kill 600 troops with a 30-gem spell, why would you consider summoning 3 cool-sounding 10-gem units (that can kill 20 humanoids each), or arrowing 3 commanders (who would die in the MW anyway), or calling several swarms of black hawks to attack (who would accomplish nothing at all ), or whatever... once you get that kind of spell, most other usages of gems become wasteful. I think that army and province bLasters should be WAY more expensive, and scaled with dominion strength.

As for assassins. I never found them to be useful no matter how I kitted them out, as they always died after a couple attempts. Until I read the newsGroups and gave them lifelong protection, which makes your assassin virtually unstoppable, except to things with trample. Actually, my fully-loaded, lifelong protected Slayers were conquering provinces all by themselves. In other words, I thought normal assassins were too weak, and assassins with unlimited free summons were way too strong. How does the strength of assassins seem in Dominions II?

-Cherry

P.S. Is Vengence of the Dead still bugged to count undead as kills, so that it doubles effectiveness each time it is cast on a commander?

[ October 17, 2003, 00:25: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Patrik:
Summoners: Battlefield summons (for example lesser elementals and Howl) now cost gems. This will address the relief/summoning combo.

this will adress the power of Howl, but wont change anything about relief, as Wendigo pointed it. With 3 druids, you basically suppress the fatigues incurred by your mages during the 5 first rounds. Dont appears very balanced too me, for a 0 gem spell.