MP: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. Game Over. Supplicants Triumph!

[ano]

Empirically disproven. Machaka beat the crap out of Vanheim in Land RAND, which is CBM 1.6.

Lol. Player always means much more than nation. And a seasoned vet like Wraithlord will in the most cases beat a newbie playing the uber-nation, be it Ashdod, Niefelheim, Mictlan or anything. But in a duel with a player of equal skill this means nothing. Also, one game can no way count as an empirical proof. As Wrana mentioned above, you arguments are a bit strange, not to say the least

Empirically disproven, MA C'tis was 4th (admittedly a distant 4th) in Land RAND, and beat Pythium (a power nation in MA by any metric).

I think you're the only person I've ever seen claim MA C'tis is bad.

Same here . C'tis was played by Meglobob who has tons of experience and is a really good player
I know I should think the results of Land Rand are the ultimate truth but I'll probably won't do it. Also, there has been much discussion about MA C'tis (a couple of years ago) at the forums and there have very different opinions. Probably you missed that thread.

(A great nation benefits disproportionately more from unbalanced options than a poor nation does).

Very well. So, let's nerf all nations to the points where they become really poor and thus equal?

Once again, I don't say CBM is bad, it is very good. But in many, many aspects nation balance is even worse that in vanilla. That's what I think. If (or when) nation balance is improved, I'll hail QM but until it is I don't think that the word "balanced" is appropriate. And also, the 50-point gorgon that you started this discussion with is only a part of nation balance because it is available to 4 nations total.

[Squirrelloid]

Ano:
LandRAND and games like it seem to be the best testing ground for 'balance' because there's no diplomacy - diplomacy dominates any game balance issues when its conducted well. CBM 1.6 is also relatively new, or it would be easier to refer to more games.

Besides, if a 'hopeless' nation can do well at the hands of a 'veteran', then its not so hopeless, now is it?

Regarding the Gorgon - since all I can do is point to poorly priced examples, I pointed to one. There's *tons* of poorly priced pretenders. Indeed, if you chose a pretender in vanilla at random, chances are its poorly priced. The gorgon just happens to be one of the most obvious offenders. Pretenders like the PoD and Cyclops were also too cheap for what they did. Most of the rainbows were too expensive for what they did. And so on.

The correct response is not to say 'lol, he only provided one example', especially as I intimated a large number of other examples. Indeed, it should be blatantly obvious vanilla pretenders aren't balanced. (Look at the distribution of pretender chasses that are actually played, its pretty skewed towards a few choices in Vanilla games.) Why must I do the work of tracking down all the imbalanced pretender chasses to make the claim - presumption should be for the claim that the game is imbalanced because its a negative claim. Its the counter-claim that vanilla is balanced that requires proof. (And given the designers have explicitly said they weren't concerned with balance, well, its pretty obvious any such claim is doomed to failure.)

So by all means, prove Vanilla is balanced, or just accept that its not.

PS: Balance is a global claim over the entirety of the game. A single counter-example disproves the game is balanced. At which point it just remains to determine *how much* imbalance there is.

[Gandalf Parker]

It seemed balanced that the continual predictions of 'every game ends up' didnt seem to come about. But I dont really care if vanilla is balanced or not. I can see a need for a balance mod to be available for competitive play, and some going the other direction also. Altho, I think the chess mods (the ones which make nations match) are an extreme example.

CBM is someplace in the middle. But continually taking out the "worst" tactic only creates a new worst, along with finding out that the previous worst was actually the counter to the present one. I think that cbm just creates a different balance which is comfortable to some players. If anything, the efforts seem to go further toward creating the 'every game ends up' situation.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

CBM is someplace in the middle. But continually taking out the "worst" tactic only creates a new worst, along with finding out that the previous worst was actually the counter to the present one.

Do you have the qualifications to make such a statement? Have you ever played in a single MP game ever under your current name, or are you going to once again insinuate that you have a (outlawed by the rules) sockpuppet account that you've used to join games? Frankly, your mindless middle approach to defending the game gets tiring after seeing you preach it without any significant change in content for a half decade.

[ano]

IIRC, Gandalf has been playing MP since Dom 1. I recall some forums with the discussions of games with Gandlaf, Alex Podger and mass lesser air elementals. I only played SP at those times.

[ano]

I wonder who paid Atlantis for this stupid attack. Actually, I'm nearly sure it was Septimius because nobody else knows what is there (and I didn't know as well. If I knew, I would even bother with it). What was the aim of that, I'd like to know. Preventing me from hiring another amazon or showing me that you are able to capture VP's with ease? Or do you dislike the gold I'm sending you?
This province is nothing uber at all until very late game and even then I doubt I will need it. But if you have enough resources to pay Atlantis for such things, you're welcome. I'll take this into account

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Graeme Dice

Do you have the qualifications to make such a statement? Have you ever played in a single MP game ever under your current name

Mostly I was burned out on MP play by Dom2. Most of my MP play of Dom3 is in beta group with the devs. You can ask people like Quantum Mechani and IronHawk since they were there (with heavy discussions of CBM by the way). Most of my CBM games were with Zens original "fix things" version. But I do play one now and then.
Most of my present MP games I dont play here. Im presently in two on the Matryx server. And one on a 3rd forum. The last MP game I played on this forum I believe was YARG. And before that the AAR game. Generally it takes a game with more interesting settings than King-of-the-Hill to get my attention anymore. Sorry about that.

Edited: the first YARG, not YARG2

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Its the counter-claim that vanilla is balanced that requires proof.

LOL.
Thanks again for proving my point for me. I think that you should just read your your juryspudence textbook again. It's you who make accusations/assumptions and it's on you that burden of proof lies. And if you are going to quote Popper here...
Returning to CBM. I spoke with QM on this very question and he said that between-nations balance is just not the purpose of this mod. I think he knows slightly more on this question than you do. I agree that its initial purpose was worthy. It just never lived up to it. And now I think it never would due to becoming just too large to be wieldy. As an example, I pointed out several mistypings (including some code duplications) during 3.14. I was thanked... and they still were there when I checked last time (at 3.16 appearance).
So you may preach at whatever length you want. CBM will itself prove you wrong time and again. And when it does not what is important (a balance between nations, as Ano pointed out), it doesn't matter whether it does better some issues for some nations. And some of their choices just do the game worse. Of course, if you consider the game's purpose to be that new players just couldn't make bad choice... but I'd say for this the Tetris is much better choice anyway!

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by ano

I wonder who paid Atlantis for this stupid attack. Actually, I'm nearly sure it was Septimius because nobody else knows what is there (and I didn't know as well. If I knew, I would even bother with it). What was the aim of that, I'd like to know. Preventing me from hiring another amazon or showing me that you are able to capture VP's with ease? Or do you dislike the gold I'm sending you?

Mr. Rabinovich is wanted to ask you just how much gold is there that came from and whether he could get his part? Or more?

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Wrana

I spoke with QM on this very question and he said that between-nations balance is just not the purpose of this mod. I think he knows slightly more on this question than you do.

How nice. An appeal to authority and an is-ought fallacy all rolled into one. Can't you at least _try_ to make your arguments worth bothering to read?