Dom I Strategies which WON'T work in Dom II - Page 8

ywl · #71 October 17th, 2003, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pocus:
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.

>- snipped -<

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.[/QB]

If cold resistance is now only partial, it might give Caelum a smaller advantage. I agree that cold-resistant or underwater nations have a major advantage here.

On the game of game balance in the late game. It could be the key of the issue. Or it's just because magical endgames in MP have different rules or foci from what everybody is used to. Such endgames so uncommonly played, and the player base of Dom 1 is so small that I don't think we've explored them well-enough.

apoger · #72 October 17th, 2003, 04:31 PM

>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.

A single MW or FFTS will kill very close to 20-25% of an army that is made of conventional troops. With multiple castings you can get the damage close to 50%, and yes I have seen/done multiples many times.

As Pocus points out, one of the big effects is strategic. Once an enemy gets hit by MW/FFTS he tends to split his forces up to mitigate the potential damage. Now the attacker can focus while the enemy is split up.

I usually don't cast these spells to nail troops. I am almost always more interested in depleting the mage strength in the army. Many opponents use communion, relief, or wards. If I can knock out any part of a combo pre-battle it's worth almost any gem cost!

On the other hand... we are discussing Dom I, who can say what will happen in Dom II after players have worked the new system for months?

Mortifer · #73 October 17th, 2003, 04:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Pocus:

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.

I agree Pocus. The vanilla game must be balanced.
However I agree with Aristoteles as well. If you feel that something is unbalanced you can remove it. That is always good.
Just check out the various balance packs for SE IV. It is a good things, if the players are able to balance/tweak what they want.

apoger · #74 October 17th, 2003, 04:35 PM

>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.

The Star Child was already king of assassins.

It's all about Star Fire.

Nerfix · #75 October 17th, 2003, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by apoger:
>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.

The Star Child was already king of assassins.

It's all about Star Fire.

IMO undead summoning assasins were/are better, but Starchilds were/are very good also.

Actualy, Lord of the Nigth with Black Heart is the king of assasins. Heliopagus with Black Heart gets close. Dusk Elders with Black Hearts are quite nasty too.

apoger · #76 October 17th, 2003, 04:40 PM

>Lifelong protection must be nerfed

Let's see it's effect in the new game before passing judgement.

Pocus · #77 October 17th, 2003, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Mortifer:
I agree Pocus. The vanilla game must be balanced.
However I agree with Aristoteles as well. If you feel that something is unbalanced you can remove it. That is always good.
Just check out the various balance packs for SE IV. It is a good things, if the players are able to balance/tweak what they want.[/QB]

darn, I forgot my main point : I dont want to end with a dominions game stripped of many spells and items, just because they are overpowered. Because this is what you will be able to do with a mod. To imagine that the game mechanics of a particular item (number of imps generated and for how many turn eg) will be tweakable is very optimistic to say the least (naive would fit better). So it is better to balance, and not just suppress them (less strategies).

apoger · #78 October 17th, 2003, 04:43 PM

>IMO undead summoning assasins were/are better, but Starchilds were/are very good also.

>Actualy, Lord of the Nigth with Black Heart is the king of assasins. Heliopagus with Black Heart gets close. Dusk Elders with Black Hearts are quite nasty too.

Ok, when we say "assassins" I took that to mean regular assassins without items. Otherwise why would we even mention the starchild in the same post? Of course it pales next to funky supercharged stuff.

The starchild has always been the most dangerous unaugmented assassin coming from a national list.

Gandalf Parker · #79 October 17th, 2003, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by apoger:
The starchild has always been the most dangerous unaugmented assassin coming from a national list.

Really? I will believe you. I guess I need to play with Ryleh abit. I always thought the Abyssia one with fire aura was pretty cranked. Or the Ctis one with two magics and the ability to lead in invisible troops.

Saber Cherry · #80 October 17th, 2003, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I guess I need to play with Ryleh abit. I always thought the Abyssia one with fire aura was pretty cranked. Or the Ctis one with two magics and the ability to lead in invisible troops.

There's no comparison between Slayer and Starchild - Slayers get taken out by normal commanders often, in my experience. Starchilds annihilate any normal commander with no damage, and outrange most magical commanders. I don't know about Empoisoners - only used one once, and I remember that fatigue limited him to a few skeletons before passing out.