Dom I Strategies which WON'T work in Dom II - Page 7

Nerfix · #61 October 17th, 2003, 07:04 AM

IMHO leprosy is the worst army bLaster there is:
It is dirt cheap, and even if "just" diseases and wounds the troops, the effects are crushing:
Instead of dead units you will end up having dying troops, who still eat, figth(propably not for long though) and have upkeep cost.

You can also get it ealier than other army bLasters, and it think requires less skill to cast than others.

[ October 17, 2003, 06:07: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

ywl · #62 October 17th, 2003, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:
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.

I don't think that you can kill 600 troops with a single MW. As Alex said, it can only kill 20%-40% of an army. If your enemy has a 2000 units army, Mw won't help you.

In my experience, 30 water gems is a significant amount even at turn 30. 15 water gems per turn is a very good income already.

I can think of many other good ways to use 30 water gems. 30 water gems give 30 winter wolves, or 3 Boots of Quickness - neither is too shabby.

Nerfix · #63 October 17th, 2003, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:
"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.

I kinda like them, but they are commander bLasting spells, and "Assasination" was one of the ten whammies... Curse of Death and Mark of Kurgi are good, but Smite of Justice and Scythe of Conscience are commander bLasting spells for sure.

Edit: I wonder why there isn't an "Earthquake" province bLasting spell for earth... I don't mean it would be the temple killing earthquake, but an earthquake in general.

Edit Redux: I also predict that Star Child will become the new king of assasins in Dom II because of the singletarget, range 50, precision 100 no AoE paralyzing Mind BLast. Just put SC in the other edge of the batlefield and bLast away with Mind BLast. Extra paralyzation does 2 damage/round, it may not be the fastest way to kill someone, but powerfull nevertheless. I however think that MR can be used to resist Mind BLast. But he still has Star Fires, Luck, Twist Fate and Body Ethereal with him if the enemy resists. And if you give him Astral Skullcap, he can Horror Mark commanders, Mind Burn commanders, and in fact, he can Mind Hunt commanders from some cozy laboratory.

But this is just what i predict.

[ October 17, 2003, 06:39: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

Pocus · #64 October 17th, 2003, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:
I don't think that you can kill 600 troops with a single MW. As Alex said, it can only kill 20%-40% of an army. If your enemy has a 2000 units army, Mw won't help you.

In my experience, 30 water gems is a significant amount even at turn 30. 15 water gems per turn is a very good income already.

I can think of many other good ways to use 30 water gems. 30 water gems give 30 winter wolves, or 3 Boots of Quickness - neither is too shabby.

The murdering winter spell, aside from taking out group of mages along with mundane units (thus weakening them even further compared to magical summons) act as a very strong deterrent to gather any sizable force in a given location. A nation which is capable of MW'ing his opponent has already strategical and tactical superiority, even before casting the second one, as your opponent will have big difficulties (to say the least) resisting any sizable land attacks of your. When the MW'ing nation has national units immune to cold, as Caelum, it is even worse, as you cant force him to break down his force into defeatable stacks.

In the house rules some of us plays, we interdicted the casting of the 3 army bLasting spells in no dominions was in the province. Perhaps too extreme, and a solution could be to tie the cost of the spell to the dominions level : if you dont have a presence in a province, harnessing magical energies in it should be more difficult somehow.

To understand the problem, you have to play games which Last reasonnably long, on medium to large maps. It seems to me that dominions is failing in his game balance when you reach this point, but this is seldomly seen as most tests and games are stopped before reaching this extremity.

If Daynarr or Psitticine can give their opinion on how these spells play in doms II, then perhaps further conclusions could be drawn.

Pocus · #65 October 17th, 2003, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
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?

lifelong protection is one of the item which must be nerfed, IMHO.

Quote:

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?

this is not a bug, this is a 'work as designed feature'

Nagot Gick Fel · #66 October 17th, 2003, 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pocus:
lifelong protection is one of the item which must be nerfed, IMHO.

Simple nerf: just increase the probability for Horror attack.

Pocus · #67 October 17th, 2003, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:
Originally posted by Pocus:
lifelong protection is one of the item which must be nerfed, IMHO.

Simple nerf: just increase the probability for Horror attack.

instead of an endless stream of imps, which enable an assassin to take out all but the nastiest commanders, I would have prefered something like 5 rounds of imps and then no more. Sufficient IMHO compared to the power of the item.

Nagot Gick Fel · #68 October 17th, 2003, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pocus:

quote:
Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:
Originally posted by Pocus:
lifelong protection is one of the item which must be nerfed, IMHO.

Simple nerf: just increase the probability for Horror attack.
instead of an endless stream of imps, which enable an assassin to take out all but the nastiest commanders, I would have prefered something like 5 rounds of imps and then no more. Sufficient IMHO compared to the power of the item.

Or 1 imp/round instead of 2 (my preference). Or a swarm of 10-20 imps when the battle starts (similar to the Wraith Crown).

Pocus · #69 October 17th, 2003, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aristoteles:
Lifelong protection must be nerfed, OR

as we all know, the disabling spell ability in the mod tools is a must have. If we will be able to disable spells, these discussions will be pointless. We can disable the unbalanced/disliked spells by our own, and we wont have to whine, that 'plz fix this, fix that'. IW is already flooded with work.

i feel that we are reashing again and again the same things :

1. it is always better to have a game balanced by the devs, they know all the intricacies and implications incurred by a changes, it is their game after all.
2. it solves the problem of players which dont have time to browse all the mods to asserts which ones balances things the way they want. Also, not all players are aware enough of the game subttle mechanisms to make the best appraisal about a given issue.
3. it solves the problem of MP games where you have to decide democratically which one to use.

ywl · #70 October 17th, 2003, 04:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nerfix:

quote:
Originally posted by ywl:
"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.

I kinda like them, but they are commander bLasting spells, and "Assasination" was one of the ten whammies... Curse of Death and Mark of Kurgi are good, but Smite of Justice and Scythe of Conscience are commander bLasting spells for sure.

They're for targeting mass murderers.

Magic save can always be allowed. I was just being light in detail.