Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Boron:

the best clam horder is atlantis i would say .
but since atlantis has very few pretenders and the only [national] mage with other skills than water magic is the king of deep with 2 completely random other magic skills i think the idea behind the clams was to enable especially the 2 underwaterraces and especially atlantis in the long run to get other magic pathes too .
this general idea is good and works well .
[/QB]

I think the idea behind clams was to ease micromanagement for Astral mages. Atlantis' Kings of the Deep have two _linked_ randoms, they are always of the same path! And Nature, Fire, Earth and Air are components in some multipath Water spells that are hard to get access to. Acid spells, Fire Ward and Claymen, Bone Melter and Freezing mist. The Last is not exceptional, but can cause heavies to rout.

Nature has nice items that won't win you a game, but maybe a battle or two here and there. And you get a booster to three, and an access to Foul Vapors with it.
Death lets you get up to 4 without artifacts or empowerment, and you can get Revenants to forge Skull Mentors easily if you have gems for it.
Earth lets you forge Boots (to EEE), then Dwarven Hammer.
Fire has the basic set plus Runesmasher and in the artifacts Ember. No booster, though.
Water 5 is not useful at forging, nor in summons. But can I say Murdering Winter?

And Blood could be useful too, if you got it early and had land province or two to hunt from... You would still have to catch slaves for both the Ice Devil (Frost Fiends are nice, but not worth it for a nation without national blood mages) and empowerement to Blood-3.


Even leaving the blood out as useless, 5/8 is nice. This was without considering items/spells that Atlantis has access to without randoms (W3/S3) and for which one random would be enough.
With the cheapest items all paths except Blood would look even better. Kings are expensive, and that's about their only weakness. In the long run, Atlantis is frighteningly versatile.

Now that I have written this, clams seem truly frightening in the hands of Atlantis as they would allow Atlantis to empower Kings. E/F for Fever Fetishes, D/F for fire booster and evil Banefire spells, S/F for Astral Fires... I will have to give it a try!

Last question : can you cast flames from afar on underseaprovinces ?

Probably not.


corrected "propably"

[ July 02, 2004, 16:50: Message edited by: Endoperez ]

Originally posted by Boron:
Last question : can you cast flames from afar on underseaprovinces ?

No Fire spells work underwater except for the ones that specifically mention it. No Flames from Afar, no Fires from the Sky. There is less need for a Dome on underwater hoarding.

[Blitz]

Turtlers are a part of every game Dominions 2 just happens to have a very loud one that plays games consistantly against a caliber of player he can beat easily regardless of tactics.

Oh man that was good beats right there...

Originally posted by Blitz:
Oh man that was good beats right there...

I don't think it was particularly beats. It's just a statement of fact. If a methodical, analytical "Win or Die trying" player plays with those who do not play to "Win by any means" players who do not have a highly developed strategy or set of tactics, guess who will win consistantly? If anything Norfleet should feel complimented that he can deal out an adequate enough amount of punishment with enough variety of nations to have that status. Unfortunately he has the playground bully mentality where the 4th Grader beats on the Kindergardener.

I believe his response would be "In Soviet Russia, Kindergardener beats you!"

[ July 02, 2004, 17:04: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Boron]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
I think the idea behind clams was to ease micromanagement for Astral mages. Atlantis' Kings of the Deep have two _linked_ randoms, they are always of the same path!

quote:

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Last question : can you cast flames from afar on underseaprovinces ?

Probably not.


corrected "propably" [/QB]

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hm didn't know that cause i used an archmage atlantian who summoned then the fitting mages instead + used the cheaper W3 mages
i'll try them out immediately
if left alone long enough it seems to me that atlantis is the most powerful nation then
are there any other "massdesctruction" rituals like flames from afar which can target underwater provinces ?

if not you could "hoard" your mages all in one province and use some patrolling with a huge almost unbeatable guard against teleported/gatewayed in raiders ?

you could mass produce fever fetishes then too and wipe out huge amounts of item carriers with flames from afar while the enemy cannot


are abominations easy to defeat ?
because they are astral 4 / water 2 + amphibians so no need for wather breathing items and so on
since you will have some seers which got 2 astral you can easily empower them and then with your heavenly astral income summon some of them / turn
or what are other good high end amphip summons ?

finally another question :
somewhere in the manual stands : if the army only consists of commanders the army will rout as soon as the first commander dies .

got this corrected in one of the patches ?
or do you have to give one of your commanders troops in oder to prevent them routing when you want to fight with an army of 10,20 ... empowered commanders ?

what are good troops where you only need a few in order to prevent the commanders from routing ?

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Boron:
i can't see any point why castling should be forbidden .

I would agree that castling should not be forbidden.
However I would say it's more realistic for the developers to create provinces which can't have castles built. In my opinion it should be impossible to build castles in swamp territories and even some shore-line territorities just because realistically they wouldn't Last.

Originally posted by NTJedi:
I would agree that castling should not be forbidden.
However I would say it's more realistic for the developers to create provinces which can't have castles built. In my opinion it should be impossible to build castles in swamp territories and even some shore-line territorities just because realistically they wouldn't Last.

Reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot's Quest.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zen:
Reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot's Quest.

There's an amusing one. Have a random event in which castles burn down, fall over, and then sink into the swamp!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Zen:
Unfortunately he has the playground bully mentality where the 4th Grader beats on the Kindergardener.

Hey, these people are volunteers! It's more like a 4th grader who offers to fight multiple kindergardners that volunteer for the attempt. I don't go stomping into newbie games to beat up on newbies: I only join the "regular" games. You can't blame me for this one. I'm perfectly open to playing somebody who's good and not an Illwinter stool pigeon.

I believe his response would be "In Soviet Russia, Kindergardener beats you!"

Hey, no fair stealing my schtick.

[Kel]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Zen:
Reminds me of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Lancelot's Quest.

There's an amusing one. Have a random event in which castles burn down, fall over, and then sink into the swamp!

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Even better, wasn't everyone saying, the other day, that water needed more good rituals to throw gems at ? Sounds like a good one to me

- Kel