Lack of middle ground pretenders

[B0rsuk]

Hey

I noticed that there are basically two kinds of pretenders in Dominions(2-3).

Big, costly 'giant' type pretenders, with 60+ hp, very poor ability to learn magic (cost 50+); generally designed for being SCs, I think.

Then there are little 'rainbow' pretenders like Archmage, Druid, Great Sage. These cost very little, but are also very fragile and it's probably very risky to use them in combat as support casters or something. It's probably just site searching, research and rituals with them. New paths are very cheap (10) for these pretenders.

I see no (or very, very little) middle ground pretenders. I'd like to pay like 50 design points and get something that's perhaps too weak to go into melee, but can serve as support caster and survive a battle if I'm cautious. And I'd like path costs to be fairly reasonable, like 20-30. I'd use Ritual of Returning etc.
There are immortal pretenders, but these are VERY expensive.
20-30 hp would be enough for me. National mages with so much hp aren't too rare.

The only pretender that fits description for me is Phoenix. Decent body for a support caster, immortal, already starts with 2 paths. I'd like more pretenders like this. With Phoenix, the problem is it doesn't have very many slots for spell boosters.
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Why there's such a gap in pretender choices ? Am I missing something ? I suppose I could design a Manticore (cost 0) and give it two paths ( cost 100) to get a decent support caster, but I still feel quite limited.

[Boron]

The gk is also such a pretender.
Ok he costs 120 points but only 20 points per path. With enough buffs the GK can even be used as SC, though it is risky.

[Endoperez]

An interesting question. Especially for me as I made a mod which basically adds just this kind of national pretender. Would you care to test Anansi mod for Machaka?

[PDF]

Yup, I too noted an increased number of expensive giant-types pretenders, and not more (if not less), middle-ground ones than in Dom2... VQ and GK are too expensive, and the only other "middle guy" than Phoenix is the Virtue.

[Nerfix]

And Moloch and PoD. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[B0rsuk]

It's no wonder Dominions2 was dominated by SuperCombatants. I see SC pretenders, Rainbow pretenders, and scale/bless immobile pretenders.

I have a feeling KO loves SC's. I almost expect him to post here, his message containing at least one smiley.

[Nerfix]

KO loves big godly gods, not necessarily SC's.

[Endoperez]

What kind of a god is a god who isn't godly? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Nerfix]

Crone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:Crone. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



She has a good reason to try and become one, though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Nerfix]

Haha, most definedly yes.

[Cainehill]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I foresee another Conceptual Balance mod being required, at least for pretenders. Once again too many are either too wimpy to anyone to take in a serious MP game, and a handful are too powerful for the costs. (Ghost King for example.)

Pretty much back to where the unmodded Dominions2 was.

[Nerfix]

I'm not sure if the Ghost King/VQ style supercombatants work so well with the reduced research speed. Quickness is less powerful and the Earth protection spells give penalties to resistances. Fireshield is higher up in the research tree and so on.

That said, it is quite likely that we'll get a CB mod for Dominions 3.

[Arralen]

A CB mod won't help you much - how many "medium sized" pretender chassis are there anyway? We would need some graphics first ...

[Twan]

With copysprite it's easy to mod any monster to be a pretender. Personnally I plan to make a mod adding a troll king, a sea king and an ivy king as middle ground (but non rainbow) pretenders for most nations (except fire oriented).

[Boron]

Cainehill said:

As I mentioned elsewhere, I foresee another Conceptual Balance mod being required, at least for pretenders. Once again too many are either too wimpy to anyone to take in a serious MP game, and a handful are too powerful for the costs. (Ghost King for example.)

Pretty much back to where the unmodded Dominions2 was.


Yeah, Dom3 is balancewise better than Dom2, but worse than Dom2 CB imho.

National troops need to be rebalanced too imho and scales probably too.

But once a good CB mod is out there Dom3 CB will be much better than Dom2 CB http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Twan]

Twan said:
With copysprite it's easy to mod any monster to be a pretender. Personnally I plan to make a mod adding a troll king, a sea king ...



Done in five minutes. (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=453741&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)

Just use #newmonster, #copyspr and #copystats, add #pathcost (a value) and any monster may become a pretender in an hearthbat.

This game needs a scrollable list for pretender choice, then a mod making available all the existing creatures as pretender choices, can easily be made (ok it would be a balance nightmare, but fun for SP at least, and giving hundreds of middle ground chassis).

[FrankTrollman]

I never much liked the CB series. It went the right direction on some things and the wrong direction on others. Ultimately it was just another thing to learn in an already incredibly complicated game.

That being said, it is an absolute certainty that someone will take it upon themselves to write wide-ranging mods that nerf things that they feel are too powerful and boost things they feel are too weak. Heck, lots of people will do so. For Dominions 2, I made one myself.

And while I'm sure that various servers will establish one or another of these mods as the standard, I am equally certain that the wider Dominions community will never do so. That's what happened with Dominons 2, and with Mods even easier to make and apply in Dominions 3 this is going to happen even more so.

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But as for the original question, I don't think a "middle ground" pretender means what you think it means. The costs for getting great power in any path are dependent upon the degree to which you exceed your pretender'sstarting paths. That cost is geometric, increasing your starting path by 2 costs 24 points, increasing it by 4 costs 80 point. If you want a path at 9 it costs 362 points if you're buying it cold turkey (with a pathcost of 10) and only 168 points if you're buying it from a running start of 3.

The difference in cost for getting Earth 9 on a Cyclops and a Frostfather is more than the difference in cost between the cheapest and most expensive starting god chasis!

So the "extremes" of pretenderness are not the ones that start Size 6 and the ones that start Size 2, that scarecely matters in the scheme of things. The extremes are the ones that pay you points if your plan is to have a pile of several low-end magics (the low pathcost pretenders which coincidentally are weak physically by and large), and the ones that pay you points for being an extremely focused god. There are also high dominion gods like the Nataraja that pay you points for having a high dominion (since that's likewise a geometric scale).

The middle ground pretenders are the ones like the Earth Mother and the Great Olhm. Ones which have a couple of starting paths and maybe some combat toughness or starting Dominion. These gods are a good deal if your plan is to take enough picks to cast late-game spells and build booster items in a couple of paths and maybe have a decent secondary thug and/or have a presentable dominion score.

The middle ground already exists. Pretenders like the Draikana don't make massive paths cheaply, but they make decent enough pretenders if you don't expect to have 9s anywhere. A Cyclops pays less points to raise his magic up to Earth 9/ Water 9 than a Great lhm does. But the Great Olhm is far and away cheaper if your plan is to have Earth 4/Water 4.

-Frank

[B0rsuk]

On the third thought, perhaps it's not a good idea to go into combat with something smaller-than-a-giant. I mean, with all these spells designed to compensate for giant SC's, anything smaller probably doesn't have a chance. Biggest horrors sound like they're made to take out supercombatants, but I think they don't discriminate.



But as for the original question, I don't think a "middle ground" pretender means what you think it means.




You can't argue with my definition.A definition is neither right nor wrong. I can define 'middle ground' however I like. End of story.

[mivayan]

I'd like to pay like 50 design points and get something that's perhaps too weak to go into melee, but can serve as support caster and survive a battle if I'm cautious. And I'd like path costs to be fairly reasonable, like 20-30. I'd use Ritual of Returning etc.
There are immortal pretenders, but these are VERY expensive.


Something like 3 points in 4 different schools?
(dominions 2, patch 2.11. Old. maybe some things are unchanged?)

Mother of lions: 344
Lich: 350
Golden naga: 288. (100 points, 100 hp, 20 path cost, 5 slots)
***** queen: 240. (16 hp as human, 25 as werewolf... oddly doesn't lose magic paths. bug?)
Great enchantress: 229. (55 points, 9 hp, 10 path cost, 7 slots)

A cheap rainbow with 25 hp doesn't seem out of the question. Is easy site searching the reason it doesn't exist?

[Frostmourne27]

mivayan said:
Mother of lions: 344
Lich: 350
Golden naga: 288. (100 points, 100 hp, 20 path cost, 5 slots)
***** queen: 240. (16 hp as human, 25 as werewolf... oddly doesn't lose magic paths. bug?)
Great enchantress: 229. (55 points, 9 hp, 10 path cost, 7 slots)



Lich is now 100 (90?, 110?) points, so it is too exzpensive (to be a middle road pretender) and nagas no longer exsist (they are now patala national summons.) Not sure about ***** Queen, but Hag now has death magic so it might be changed a bit. Great Enchantress as two points of migc now (Earth and Astral) but is still semi-cheap, so it is probabbly a middle road pretender. IIRC mother of lions is magically weak, but a demigod platform, and would make an excellent SC.

[Valandil]

Enchantress isn't ethereal. Mother of monsters might qualify though, and its pretty similar to a naga.