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

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by ano

Could resist when saw this... Yeah, nerfing is the point of "balancing" - things which are good and powerful are called imba, then nerfed then become worthless and then another "imba" is found. This process is endless - cutting off the functionality instead of adding new one. This is a well known way of "balancing", already seen in many games which generally leads nowhere. In the end you will have 2 equal troops and 2 equal commanders - an ideally balanced game.

Have you even looked at CBM's pretenders?

Options which were too powerful got reigned in. They had to be. You couldn't boost every other option up to their level.

But options which were too weak got boosted, sometimes substantially. They were made cheaper, given more magic, and sometimes new abilities.

The point is to make every pretender an equally good buy. Now, a given nation is going to prefer a certain set of pretenders, but that's based purely on the exigencies of the nation, not the cost of the pretender. (ie, situation creates preferences, not poor pricing).

You (and Gandalf) seem to not know what you're talking about when you refer to chess style balancing with regards to CBM. CBM has done more boosting than nerfing overall, including to pretenders. But sometimes a pretender is so far out of line that it needs to be nerfed back to reasonableness. Gorgon was one such. But to say that all CBM does is nerf is to ignore improvements to chasses like the rainbows and dozens of others. The very briefest inspection would quickly disprove that CBM has made all pretenders the same.

It wasn't that Gorgon was "good and powerful", it was *too good* for the points. Its still just as powerful, its now also costed appropriately. It was the only pretender which let you take a major bless on an awake Dom 9 SC and not tank your scales. Basically, you should get what you pay for, nothing more and nothing less. I for one vastly prefer a situation where there are multiple good options to choose from, not one option that is so obviously the best one as to make the others meaningless.

Alternately, maybe you'd care to explain what you'd do to improve other pretender options to be as good a deal as Gorgon. Say, frost father.

[Gandalf Parker]

I have no argument that CBM evens out things like pretenders. That type of one-to-one balancing is what makes cbm very useful for challenge games.

As far as Frost Father that surprises me. Its one of the few pretenders that work for insane bless levels.

[Squirrelloid]

Frost Father is the rainbow chassis. You're thinking of Father of Winters.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Frost Father is the rainbow chassis. You're thinking of Father of Winters.

Thanks for the benefit of the doubt.
But I meant Frost Father. He is one of the few that can get 3x9 plus some left over (if you want to pay for it). And of the ones that could get there, he had some other features that could be worked to his advantage over the other choices.

[Squirrelloid]

The following assumes vanilla for all pretenders:
An imprisoned dom 5 3x9 Frost Father requires -12 net scales in vanilla... Hardly an optimal bless chassis, and I wouldn't say there's much left over there. Even assuming a rainbow, you can do the same with a Great Enchantress, except you get a better bless and a pearl every turn. (E9S9X9 >> W9A9X9)

For one extra negative scale, we can have a great mother with E9N9X9 (great bless!). Of course, E9X9N8 is probably better for a lot of nations, so we squeeze out some extra dominion or only -11 scales instead.

You could take a Phoenix with identical build style (dom5, 3x9, imprisoned, -12 scales), have at least an equivalent bless (F9A9X9), and a better pretender chassis (flying, immortal). Also in this category: Titan (A9E9X9, and its a titan chassis so it can be an SC when it wakes up), Keeper of the Bridge (A9E9X9, Titan Chassis), Moloch (F9B9X9, Dom 6!, great chassis), Mother of Tuathas (A9N9X9, titan), Destroyer of Worlds (A9D9X9, titan, 4 arms!), and so on...

With similar build but better blesses (and chasses), there's the Lady of Love (W9N9X9, titan chassis, Awe+4), Mother of Serpents (D9N9X9, titan chassis), PoD (D9X9Y9 - more versatile, excellent chassis), Mother of Spring (W9N9X9, titan chassis, produces water gems), Lord of the Forest (E9N9X9, titan chassis, dom summons animals), Father of Serpents (D9N9X9, Titan, good stats), Lord of Plenty (E9S9X9! titan), Scorpion King (F9E9X9!, great chassis), and so on...

Getting more efficient at 3x9 blesses, we have the master lich (Dom5, only -11 scales), and its also immortal. There's also the Lord of Rebirth (E9N9D9, titan chassis, -11 scales, Dom 6!), Colossal Head (N9B9X9, -11 scales, Dom 6), Smoking Mirror (F9D9B9, -10 scales, Dom 6!! Of course, you probably take B8 instead of B9 and grab more dominion), Jade Emperor (W9A9S9, Titan, -10 scales), Lady of Fortune (W9S9X9, -11 scales, titan), and so on.

Of course, you could just take a monolith, get Dom 6, and only need to take -11 net scales. Oh yeah, and still have a better bless. (S9N9X9 >> W9A9X9).

Or there's the perennial favorite, Oracle, which with -12 scales and a very versatile triple bless (S9X9Y9) can also swing Dom 9. Not only is it one of the best triple bless chasses in the game, its also available to most nations. Its best competition is Divine Glyph, which is slightly cheaper (Dom 10 with -12 scales), but its bless is more constrained (F9S9X9). Fountain of Blood is just as efficient as the Oracle, but you get B9 instead of S9 (worse bless). Sacred Statue is also S9X9Y9, but slightly more expensive because of chassis cost.

Getting a 3x9 bless is easy, and frost father is one of the *worst* chasses for it.

[ano]

Have you even looked at CBM's pretenders?

I have. And even played with them in MP. And I think they're pretty good and balanced. Maybe the forge lord is a bit too powerful but still ok. If you ever recall my words, I always said that CBM is a very good mod. The only problem with it is that it is not balanced. And it is really so no matter what the reasons and perspectives of CBM development are.
And I don't want to argue anymore. You're hard to talk with because you're too maximalistic and I don't like emotional discussions at all . But that was interesting, thanks.

[rdonj]

I agree that CBM is not balanced. I don't even think it should strive for perfect balance, as to me that would make the game much less interesting. It is the great variety of things you can do in this game that has kept me interested in it. That said, vanilla is much less balanced to the point where a lot of things are very boring and overdone, and unless you want to RPG in a competetive MP setting, just not avoidable as options. Of course you can do anything you want in SP, but in SP balance doesn't matter at all.

So to me, the benefits are that CBM improves the number of effective and flavorful strategies that can be employed in competitive games, removes clams, and allows you to use pretenders that are just not effective at anything in vanilla. Making some of the most powerful nations less overpowered is a nice bonus too. Obviously this part could still use some work, as there are certain nations that are still regularly banned in MP for just being plain unfun to fight against. And there are certain nations that could use some boosts, which hopefully some of will occur in the next version of CBM. We can only hope, in any case. QM has resisted some of them probably due to a theme element, but with the removal of gem gens some spells are just plain overpriced and could use some price cuts.

Anyway, CBM has a very significant place, and that place IMO is to keep dominions interesting in the MP arena. Even if you are not a competitive player (I am definitely not) CBM helps keep things fresh and fun, and has done a lot to enhance my gameplay experience.



Edit: But seriously, why are we having this discussion here? An MP thread is a really dumb place for such conversations.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Thats nice to know.
I take it that instructions of "Newbies and Vets III with level 10 AI no-holds-barred" is going to be slightly modified?

Well I would never do a "no holds barred AI" in any game, we must obviously have some holds if we want human players to have a chance. For this series, Noobs make up a significant number of the players, so we must continue to keep that in mind.

It's still early in the game and with a tougher AI and fewer human players I expect it will take longer to get a grip on the AI in this one (last game was into the 30's before the AI was completely vanquished), but I'll just likely recommend a slight toning down of the AI in terms of PD if used and perhaps unit production capacity. Overall I want the AI to get progressively and proportionately tougher (though it won't actually get any smarter) but we will need to try to ensure we balance the AI component with the human MP component. Success vs. the AI should play an important strategic role giving the successful human team an advantage going into the human vs human phase.

The AI can be boosted in other ways though: Retain the mixed units (I like that) maybe mix it up even more if possible, introduction of one or two powerful units as AI commanders perhaps (i.e. fewer mammoth type creatures, more commanders), if we go with 3 nation human teams, the AI can have a fourth nation (3x3x3x3x4), the planned game settings will also help.

Lets see how things go though so that we can judge things a bit more accurately and make adjustments as needed.

That being said, a seperate vs. AI only game might also be fun. An RPG'er where a few desperate human played nations band together in a last stand of sorts and square off against incredible odds with endless mighty hordes of AI warriors. The human players are outnumbered, outgunned, but have a few bonuses (like a special commander or something) that they must use wisely. I actually would enjoy that type of under seige type game as well. Defeating the AI, or lasting for x number of turns being the only goal.

[ano]

Septimius Severus
Actually you shouldn't have attacked Man without means to defeat him. Obviously, Gandalf's AIs are defensive and do not attack first.
That is the main reason of your current situation. And the second one is a bit unwise expansion. That's my opinion.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by ano

Septimius Severus
Actually you shouldn't have attacked Man without means to defeat him. Obviously, Gandalf's AIs are defensive and do not attack first.
That is the main reason of your current situation. And the second one is a bit unwise expansion. That's my opinion.

Correct! Hehe, even though these AIs are beefed up (thus not typical of SP games), one of the great things noobs are learning in this game is how, when, and where to attack the AI and even how to use the AI to their advantage, clearing out indies, driving em into other teams, etc. I personally have very little SP (vs. AI) experience, so this is great for me.

What I'm thinking about in the above post is a concern you expressed earlier, the balancing of the vs. AI component with the human vs. human component. Both of which are important. Don't think it will be an issue though. As I say lets see how things go.