Are devils worth 7 blood each?

[PvK]

Not putting your income into staying alive during a war is of course a disadvantage and a risk. Winning a war is better than camping and investing, unless the camper attacks soon after you win, when you are still weak.

In general, that seems to all work fine to me.

On huge maps and long-term, peaceful games, hoarding strategies will naturally be more effective than on small ones.

Clearly, it is possible to get huge results from some of these, eventually. In some cases, perhaps some tweaks could help.

Clams - would be good to limit to mages, and/or have a world clam income per turn that caps the total clam astral income (1/water province in the world was my old suggestion).

Soul Contracts - are supposed to be risky, but it seems like the risk is quite low. Might be good to tweak this risk up a bit, and to disallow use on units that don't have souls, or that already have a soul contract (for logical, thematic reasons, mostly).

Fever Fetishes - are supposed to have some additional cost via disease. It'd be good if they didn't work on undead (was that patched yet?), and perhaps if they occasionally diseased a random unit in the same province through contagion (this would have a natural and logical negative effect of hoarding), and perhaps of occasional health crisis for the wearer (take some open-ended damage - possibly fatal, possibly causing affliction).

PvK

[Soapyfrog]

Heh yeah there should be SOME kind of cost for spreading rampant vampirism through your lands... heheh I was just thinking pop death and unrest!

As for soul contract horrors in 2.12 its not working. When I get a "lesser horror attacks" message, I get the "bad vcr" crashbug when I try to watch the battle and the scout with the contract is still alive when I check. Maybe this is only hapening with hidden units?

[Kel]

Soapyfrog said:If wealth is created out of thin air you have inflation.

I don't know about it being created out of thin air but yes, there is inflation. That's a *good* thing, though. Every game has a natural life cycle and evolves through stages, otherwise research would not be a meaningful element.

There seems to have been a recent push of people who want the game to *not* evolve by discouraging the use of SC's and other mid/late game tactics, instead favoring the national troops that are more effective in the early game.

I like the way it is now. Each instance of a game evolves into different stages and you have to employ different tactics at different stages. You can talk about how powerful soul contracts are but what if someone attacks you on turn 10 by summoning troops while you are still making brazen skulls to work towards contracts ? Soul contracts are effective during certain phases of the game, in certain situations, just as pure summoning and national troops are at other parts of the game.

If you want the option to have research caps or turn limits in your game or in the program, that's fine by me, but I don't want my games turning into limited Versions of what they are now.

Summary:
Minor balance tweaking (ala the VQ changes) = yes
Major strategic element rebalancing = no

- Kel

[PvK]

Yes, I like that idea (Vampire's Summon Allies order could require and consume population, just like the Unholy-1 raising of Ghouls. Seems appropritate, thematic and limiting).

PvK

[Cohen]

I'd agree with Boron ... he's a good analyzer.

Abysya is very rushable. And is totally defenceless except a good pretender. Aby infantry costs a lot of gold and resources and you can't pour out many of them.
You probably start recruiting Warlock type mages that are good at research but are useless in combat at early stage (and mostly in late unless you use blood magic ... please make sure in the next patch slaves don't take fire by heat aura).
I add the consideration that Aby infantry, for how much it could be strong, has a very bad morale for his cost, and thus is too weak at capturing indeps or defending. Unless you want to afford a 360 gold mage that is a pretty useless battery (due to poor aim) and that could cast fanaticism, depriving you of many gold AND a mage that can research (this is very bad for Abysya due to bloodhunters and researchers capitol only).

I've already made my proposals in previous Posts.

EDIT: About Vampires the cost isn't for Summoning Allies, but for the presence itself of vampires, so you're losing X pop for every single vampire you've, and every turn.

[Thufir]

johan osterman said:
Sopyfrog:

I would say that players have to make difficult decisions. And more importantly adopt and modify their strategies to the circumstances they find themselves in. I am not sure what you mean by devalued here, are you saying high end summons are not effective thus lack value or that they cost to little in the long run? I guess the second reading is the only one that makes sense taken with your other opinions, but then I do not quite see what you mean by that the game does not scale as your economy grows. Would you care to elaborate.

Although I'm sure that soapyfrog will respond to this differently than I am about to, I'd like to respond to this question.

First off I'd like to say that one of the best things about Dom2 is how well balanced it is. Dom2 is not the best balanced game of all time, but complexity and game balance are in direct opposition. After all, Go is nearly perfectly balanced, and if balance is all that you want, you should look for a game with very simple rules. However, if you were to devise two measures one of game complexity and the other of game balance, and call game quality the product of the two, I would say that Dom2 has the highest game quality of any game I have ever played

Secondly, soapyfrog is clearly correct in saying the value of magic sites is devalued in the endgame, if players use clams (and the like) a lot in the game. For example, if the total gem income at turn 100 is 75% due to clams, then clearly losing a few magic sites is not much of a problem any longer.

Thirdly (and what this post is mostly about), I believe soapyfrog is misguided in objecting to exponential growth. I mean every kind of bootstrapping game since the beginning of time (with recent, relevant examples being Civ, MoM, MOO2, et al) has featured exponential growth prominently.

Perhaps the real objection is to unconstrained exponential growth (maybe soapyfrog is already saying this, and I've misread). There are various ways to impose constraints, but one common method is to include maintenance costs (which Dom2 does, but only for recruited units).
Most turn based strategy games, especially those that try to give a sense of reaching epic proportions, include maintenance much more broadly than Dom2 does. In games where maintenance is not included, I think it is commonly (but not always the case, Dom2 being a notable exception), that optimal strategies devolve into races to produce the best monster/weapon of all time before anyone else does.

Now I know that maintenance for magic has been brought up before (where Boron did an excellent job of discrediting the argument for all time - apologies in advance, Boron ), but either way, it's clear that introducing maintenance is a gigantic change and IMO would require a ground up rewrite, and is not in the cards for a patch, and probably not even in the cards for Dom3. Also it is abundantly clear to me (and quite obviously to the large number of people actively playing the game, and actively debating in this forum), that maintenance is not required for Dom2 to be fun, and well balanced.

But I do believe that the lack of maintenance is what gives me the sense of the Dom2 magic economy not scaling. I know that Dom2 is a fantasy game, but there are certain basic elements of the real world, that when carried into a fantasy game help give the game depth, and a sense of realism that aids in the suspension of disbelief. One of those elements is a sort of "Conservation of Energy", or "There's no free lunch", kind of principle. And, clams, soul contracts, fever fetishes, and the like violate this princple and at least for me, break the suspension of disbelief.

I think for many of us newbies, coming into the Dom2 world after having played the more commercial games, the lack of maintenance cost in Dom2 does contribute to a sense of unrealism. And I think soapyfrog is right in some sense that the economy does not scale. However, I just don't see that it is all that critical for the economy to scale. After all, who really wants to play to turn 300? As things stand, based on empirical evidence, it is 100% clear that many people play Dom2, many people get to end games that are interesting and exciting, nobody has solved this game. Therefore, the game is balanced. Therefore the game is fun.

All that said, if it should ever happen that the Dominions devs are ever in a position to undertake a rewrite, I would love to see maintenance costs incorporated, from the ground up, for all continuing magic and physical effects. If done in the context of a rewrite, I think this could be very clean, and would ultimately support a system that is more easily balanced, not less. Such a system would feel more natural, and more real, and would as soapyfrog says, scale better. Also, for those that fear the game becoming mundane, there's no reason whatsoever that this would have to be done at the expense of lategame magic being dominant, and omnipresent - you just have to know that that's your target at design time.

Short of a rewrite, I am in agreement with those conservatives that don't want to see the system dramatically changed. The game is clearly working, and has an extraordinarily large following, given it's non-commercial nature. To argue that the game is broken, or dramatically unbalanced is ludicrous. It flies in the face of the fact that so many smart people are playing this game, and so few can agree on what constitutes an optimal strategy.

- Thufir

PS

Apologies for the long post - it's a result of a character flaw and can't be helped.

[Boron]

Thufir said:
I think for many of us newbies, coming into the Dom2 world after having played the more commercial games, the lack of maintenance cost in Dom2 does contribute to a sense of unrealism. And I think soapyfrog is right in some sense that the economy does not scale. However, I just don't see that it is all that critical for the economy to scale. After all, who really wants to play to turn 300? As things stand, based on empirical evidence, it is 100% clear that many people play Dom2, many people get to end games that are interesting and exciting, nobody has solved this game. Therefore, the game is balanced. Therefore the game is fun.

Yeah that's the good thing that each school has something what is nice . Against everything there is at least 1 countermeasure .
Perhaps i am too critical with clams/soul contracts etc. because i am a typical lategamer . But until you get lategame you can of course be wiped out already .

The only nation where i tend to say it maybe a bit imbalanced is Caelum because of the false horror spell .

[Huzurdaddi]

What if I want to play a game on a huge map that doesnt become a clamming competition after turn 30-40?

Unless someone is playing Atlantis or is astonishingly competent clams don't really come into the picture until turn 60 or so.

And arent nations like Marignon and TienChi also solutions to devils? (any nations with high priests)

No. Preists are essentially useless against devils devils have very high MR. The solution to devils is usually either ( 1 ) wrathful or ( 2 ) a SC that can tank them. Best to combine ( 1 ) and ( 2 ).

While you might object to the speed at which this happens I do not see how anyone can argue with that delayed investment payoffs should payoff.

I have to say I totally agree with this point. My only objection is ROI on some investments ( IMO soul contracts ROI is a little too high).

In general it is all about ROI vs. the speed at which the game progresses. If you are in a game in which you can be over run in 5 turns then even a 10% ROI may not be sufficient to entice you to invest. However in a game where you would not be badly hurt after 20 turns of war even a 5% ROI would seem godly.

Eliminating long-term strategies would do nothing but take away from why this game is fun.

Totally correct.

I disagree completely with this, in small agressive games resources are better spent in more direct ways then clam hoarding, especially if you are in a war.

I agree. However water gems are not amazingly useful they have some uses boots of quickness, perhaps swords of quick, but in general they are not going to swing the war. Any extras might as well go to clams. I have to say I would love clams going to 2W1N.

About Vamps, I'd agree to remove them the Summon Allies skill. They can easily cast the vampire summoning spell.

That actually makes sense.

I don't know about it being created out of thin air but yes, there is inflation. That's a *good* thing, though. Every game has a natural life cycle and evolves through stages, otherwise research would not be a meaningful element.

That's just an EXCELLENT post KEI. I could quote the whole thing and I pretty much agree with it.

I still think that the ROI on all investment type strategies should be carefully monitored though.

There seems to have been a recent push of people who want the game to *not* evolve by discouraging the use of SC's and other mid/late game tactics, instead favoring the national troops that are more effective in the early game.

Again, excellent. I love the natural progression of the game. I do think that SC's are a *little* too powerful pretty early in the game. And I think that almost all of this "power" comes from life draining weapons. Without them SC's would have a hard time soloing huge armies but yet would still be awesome forces. But I don't think I totally want to get rid of life draining weapons since that is removing a choice from players. Probably a small tweak to the damage of all life draining weapons would be sufficient ( at least in my eyes ).

Abysya is very rushable. And is totally defenceless except a good pretender.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH! They have 1st rate troops. Please. This is not Miclain we are talking about here.

and that could cast fanaticism

Sermon of courage works dandy.

Short of a rewrite, I am in agreement with those conservatives that don't want to see the system dramatically changed. The game is clearly working, and has an extraordinarily large following, given it's non-commercial nature. To argue that the game is broken, or dramatically unbalanced is ludicrous. It flies in the face of the fact that so many smart people are playing this game, and so few can agree on what constitutes an optimal strategy.

Pretty much dead on. You can still argue though, that tweaks can be made on prices of certian units. Nothing major, just small changes.

[Soapyfrog]

Thufir said:
Thirdly (and what this post is mostly about), I believe soapyfrog is misguided in objecting to exponential growth. I mean every kind of bootstrapping game since the beginning of time (with recent, relevant examples being Civ, MoM, MOO2, et al) has featured exponential growth prominently.

Well I do not object to exponential economic growth, of course, if you take Moo2 or Civ as examples these games integrate such growth very well into the game itself: You MUST grow to survive and economic growth is ubiquitous. Further, the games scale very well... you dont start producing the best unit in the game on turn 60, thats for sure.

Secondly growth in these games is tied to and constrained to various factors such as population, resources, geographical areas, whichs caps your maximum growth, and as the game continues you will constantly find youself resource constrained, so if you want to REALLY grow exponentially, you must physically expand and thus conflict with your neighbours.

In Dominions2 you have this exponential growth strategy in clamming etc. as well. However it is not tied to expansion, it is self-sustaining (i.e. you will never really be resource constrained once your clamming etc oeprations get going)... so you do NOT need to attack your neighbours, in fact you shouldn't since its counter-productive. That's not a very good game mechanic IMHO.

The clam/fetish/stone hoarding strategy needs to have a continual external cost to constrain that growth. My "conVersion instead of creation" suggestion would accomplish this, i.e. a fever fetish would let you produce 2 fire gems a turn, but you need 1 nature gem to feed it. At some point you will need more nature gems, and have to look beyond your borders to get them.

In the end it is not the exponential growth specifically whcih is bad, it is the self-sustaining nature of that growth which is highly unnatural for most games.

I hope the suggestions this thread have generated have been constructive. I would love to see some of them implemented. Hopefully with item/unit modding some of it can even be done without the need for an official patch...

[Cainehill]

Soapyfrog said:

Oh hey I said it would be harder to clamhoard for the reasons you mention, but if you can make it out of the dogfight intact it will win you the game, so it seems like a good plan to me!

And if I save _all_ my gold by not buying troops, thus not having to pay upkeep on them, it will win me the game if I can make it out of the dogfight alive.

And when boxing, if a fighter can Last through the first 8 rounds without ever swinging at his opponent, he'll be able to win the fight in the 9th round because his opponent will be tired while he's fresh.

You go ahead and invest as much as you can in clams while in wars on small maps; as you say, if you survive you'll be in good position, but I expect your opponents will be eating your lunch.