Time for a poll. (The subject is abuse)

[Tuidjy]

Lately there have been quite a few threads about what's abuse and what isn't.
Here are some that I think are the worst. Note that I do not consider all of
them abuse, but I have never used them against a player in multiplayer, mostly
to avoid bad feelings or gaining a bad reputation.

I am really curious what people think.

.

[Jazzepi]

Out of all of the billions of polls recently this is the only one I've been interested in. Danke for posting it.

Jazzepi

[Tuidjy]

Damn. I forgot so many things that people consider abuse. Bogus's orders,
moving slow troops quickly, sallying into a neighboring province...

[Rathar]

Man this subject both stuffed sand in and twisted your panties. I've noticed you raving in at least 5 threads now.

While a topic worthy of discussion it's not worth frothing about. Heck people are quitting the game in Capuchin over this backlash. Relax dude, really.

You got my votes though!

[Cerlin]

I think it is an issue. I mean if things like this make people not want to play anymore, and shrink the community, that is bad.
At the same time this poll shows how split people are on some of these things. So I mean, lets talk! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif I did not vote yes for all these being exploits, some like VoTD I really dont mind and think its fine. Others like mists of decept. + enchant + run would really be annoying. And hacking yourself orders you wouldnt normally have is obviously taking huge advantage.

[Twan]

I only answered no for the sickle thing, as fighting somewhere "without risk" doesn't exist in dominions (especially if you have to rely on a ally to provide you things to kill, he knows where is your SC and an artefact which means even more risk).

[Xietor]

I thought we had settled these issues in another thread. But to recap:

1. After much debate, in games hosted by velusion, myself, and maybe Llamabeast(cannot recall), if you cast a battlefield spell that causes damage, you cannot retreat the caster until the very last scripted turn(5 turns).

2. In games hosted by Velusion, Llamaserver, and me, you cannot copy orders to attack mage from bogus' friends to other units.

3. I see no issue with the sickle. If an ally lets you kill his troops, he recognizes he is aiding you and he will eventually have to kill you. Also, if a spy witnesses this,
someone could get a nasty surprise.

4. Vengeance of the dead-not abuse. if your sc has killed a lot of people, your best defense is high mr to resist the spell. Mind hunt kills you instantly if you fail the mr check, at least vod gives you a fighting chance.

5. Twice Born on Demons-not abuse. It costs 10d gems and if that is how you wish to spend 10d gems, that is your business. K did this to me in the Big game, and I had no problem dealing with it.

6. Filling lab with slave collars-abuse. And this is common sense.

[kasnavada]

Things on the bug list : the answer is obvious : abuse.

Filling lab with collar ? Abuse, obviously too.

Vengeance of the dead does not work as intended by the game mechanics (the attackers don't die when they lost) -> abuse.

[Xietor]

It does not matter if vod is working as intended or not, casting it is not abuse. It is a valid spell.

And it is only effective against sc's that have killed many units. So if you have such an sc, provide him with mr gear and the problem is solved. If your sc does not have mr gear, he will likely die to a mind hunt anyway-or some other spell.

Actually anyone who lets their sc's run amok with low mr has got it coming anyway.

Kid: "I guess they had it coming"
Clint Eastwood: "We all have it coming kid"

[thejeff]

The problem with "Things on the bug list : abuse"
is that makes the game almost unplayable.
If you have to avoid anything on the bug list, then some strategies are tricky to avoid.

Do you have to carefully arrange your communion slaves so the masters come first and the slaves can't cast? That's on the bug list.

Most things on the list are bad for the user? Should they be considered abuse too?

Units with the wrong weapons or armor? Some better, some worse. Recruiting any is abuse?

Etc, etc.

Much better just to ban the few egregious problems that can be easily avoided. And if people want to play a game to exploit the Mists bug and send each other tons of slave collars? Have fun. I won't be in it.

[Tyrant]

Except for the BFE and retreat, those are pretty decisive results on the poll.


Do you have to carefully arrange your communion slaves so the masters come first and the slaves can't cast? That's on the bug list



I've read a couple of mentions of this and i do not understand at all. What's the issue here?

[K]

The demons come back with afflictions, you know. Its not as good as immortality by far.

[Kristoffer O]

> I've read a couple of mentions of this and i do not understand at all. What's the issue here?

Communion slaves are not supposed to cast spells, but currently slaves can cast their spells if they do it before the master does. Thus it might be considered unfair play to organize slaves and masters in such a way that the slaves benefit from the communion to spam empowered spells.

EDIT: OTOH it is a mechanic that is achievable by anyone with a communion so it is more a matter for us on how to make the communion balanced. It would be much to demand that every user of a communion is forbidden to use slaves with lower ID numbers than the masters. So until the communion is fixed I would not hold it against anyone to use this quirk.

[quantum_mechani]

I've put my two cents in on this before, but in my opinion anything that can be accomplished through the basic game interface and is not specifically outlawed by the host is fair game. That said, a few things are simply so critically buggy hosts should almost always outlaw them, primarily just mist of deception + damage enchantment.

[thejeff]

Tyrant:
The devs have said in several discussions that communion slaves shouldn't be able to cast spells while in a communion.
Any slave whose action comes before the first master casts can cast.
Thus it is listed as a bug.
It's not generally considered abusive though. People build strategies around it.

Edit: And he says it himself while I was typing.

[Tuidjy]

The reason I made the poll is that I wanted to see whether any issues are
clear cut enough so that one can assume that they are banned before
starting the game. It seems that short of editing the .2h file, every
trick has its proponents.

I guess one should never start a game before the host has listed the house rules.
Gods, I hate house rules. It may be helpful if hosts for ongoing games listed
what they consider abuse.

[vfb]

Hexedit: That's obviously cheating, and IMO is the only one on the list that should result in a ban. But a ban is probably unnecessary because the offending player will very likely disappear in a puff of humiliation.

MoD+BE: Abusive exploit. Probably good to mention that it's banned prior to any game that does not allow exploits.

BE+retreat: IMO this is an exploit, but obviously there are a bunch of people that don't agree with me. Probably good to mention rules for this one too at the game start, if you don't want to allow it in the game.

Demon twiceborn, stealing Bogus scripts, broken movement orders, etc: Same deal.

Communions, slaves casting: Did not know this was a bug! I always assumed reverse communions were intentional. KO says it's OK though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Filling a lab with slave collars: Get a life!

VoD: I consider the doubling-up of slain undead buggy. And it makes me start thinking about game mechanics instead of the game itself, so ruins my suspension of disbelief. I'll cast it, but if I succeed against a target, I won't cast it again on the same target if he doesn't die the 1st time.

Sickle: kind of unbalanced, but not illogical that it works the way it does. Make it cursed (cannot drop) and horror mark the bearer, please.

[Sombre]

I personally think all the things in the poll are cheesy and see them all as abuse. I wouldn't much enjoy playing with someone who loved to pull stuff like that.

[Foodstamp]

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj307/dlshuman/wambulance.jpg

As was stated above. Anything you do within the confines of the game is not an exploit. I am even starting to soften my view on the slave collar thing.

The only thing I voted yes for was hacking the files.

As your crusade continues, be careful not to ruin our game by shouting at the developers until everything is fixed to be very uniform and straight forward. One of the appeals of this game is the wacky stuff you can do. The quirks and weirdness is what gives this game character. And if you do succeed here, stay away from the Dwarf Fortress forums please.

[Gregstrom]

That bit about communions has got me. Up until learning that I had the general opinion that using features not intended to be there to your advantage was in some indefinable sense wrong. But I love being able to use a reverse communion. They make sense to me as an option with the communion spells.

Perhaps there's a difference in that they don't provide a risk-reducing advantage over the way they were intended to work.

VoD gets better every time it gets through a SC's defences without costing the caster any more gems, and it doesn't risk the caster to use it. Repeat casting isn't abusive per se, but the pair of bugs that this spell invokes generate a benefit way beyond the cost.

Cast and flee on BF enchantments gets you a top-notch effect, and the caster (who may well be empowered, loaded with boosters or holding artefacts) gets a minimal risk exposure. The risk/benefit ratio feels wrong.

Sending 40 slave collars costs perhaps a turn's worth of slaves in the late game, and a bit of investment in (frequently cheap) B1 forgers who can hunt when they're not forging. And you can keep on sending 10 collars a turn forever, just to keep the opponent topped up. Benefits are pretty big, if you ask me. The cost isn't huge as a late game trick. And there's no added risk to the producers of the items.

Twiceborn provides a greater than intended benefit, but in limited circumstances and the benefit is of limited utility. It's quite possibly a bigger benefit to use Twiceborn to avoid old age on an exceptional recruited mage or a Crone. I guess I'd probably call it abusive, though.

Communion working the way it currently does, though... Slaves casting at the same time as Masters clearly adds to the risk of fatigue death. Reverse Communion alters the benefit, and I'm not sure how much it increases it.

[Edi]

Right. This has gone far enough. I'm off to bed right now, but if the tone of this discussion does not turn more civil, I'm going to start oppressing offensive posts and locking threads.

The thing is, despite the occasional flareups here, I happen to like this community because most of the time there is no need to break out the Modstick. The staff don't like to use them, but if we have to, we will.

I will refrain from giving out warnings for now, but if this crap persists in the morning when I get to work and log back in, these thing will look like somebody hit it with multiple castings of flames from the sky, gifts from heaven and rain of stones before I'm done. And that's before the admins step in. What they will do is an altogether different kettle of fish.

[thejeff]

So we shouldn't ruining the game by "shouting at the developers" about things that the developers say shouldn't work like that?

None of the things in the poll are there just because they're unbalanced. They're there because they've been acknowledged as bug or at least unintended features.

So please, lose the strawman of " until everything is fixed to be very uniform and straight forward." That's not what people are talking about here. This is about exploiting known bugs.

[Foodstamp]

You have misquoted me. I said "be careful not to ruin the game". I did not say "You are going to ruin the game" as you imply.

[Hadrian_II]

Every exploit listed except .2h file hacking can easily be fixed by altering the program code.

So the devs should either say that these actions are wanted, or fix them. (Or say they are not wanted, but they are not interested in fixing them [witch would suck]).

As for Battlefield enchantments --> why dont they just end if the casting mage is no longer around (death or routed). Or make just the damaging enchantments end, and let things like lights of the northern star and relief word even without mage.

As for sending slave collars --> why is the labspace limited, or just pool forged items to the lab before items from message, and add a way to dump items from labs without to have to equip them first (as slave collars are cursed)

VotD, twiceborn are minor glitches which are annoying, but not game breaking.

Communions, in my opinion the most difficult thing about communions is that they work until the slaves die from exhaustion, so if the slaves also cast spells, they will die earlyer. (but in exchange your army will have more artillery until the slaves faint)

So i just hope that KO says what is bug and what is WAD, and that the bugs will get fixed afterwards. *ommmmm*

[lch]

Cerlin said:
I mean if things like this make people not want to play anymore, and shrink the community, that is bad.


I think I can name at least three people that I removed from the playing community myself, and the actual number is probably even higher. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif


quantum_mechani said:
I've put my two cents in on this before, but in my opinion anything that can be accomplished through the basic game interface and is not specifically outlawed by the host is fair game.


+1

Don't hate the players, hate the game! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:As was stated above. Anything you do within the confines of the game is not an exploit. I am even starting to soften my view on the slave collar thing.



Several bugs have been fixed from 3.01 to 3.15. "shouting at the developers" is the way the community has to make them realize where the bugs lie, since illwinter is not a blizzard-like monster with millions of dollars in revenue and thousands of employees to make playtest (and even blizzard-like companies make bugs in their games, as programing bug free is basically impossible)

We point what *might* be buggy, they decide if it is a bug or WAD, and they squash the bug whenever it is possible. I dont see where the problem lies. Only crusade i see is your crusade for "give the game as it is, with all it's weird stuff that allow me to move 3 provinces my movement 1 troops and all that cool things i find funny". If KO decides that the way communion, VotD, MoD, twiceborn or the battle enchants work is the way it is intended to work, that's fine. _IF_ they realize it is not the way it is intended to work, then it is a bug, and should be squashed.

I have a suggestion, let KO to debug the game, and those who preffer a "cool" and "funny" game with "wicked things" to do with your movement order and whatnot, can keep playing the un-upgraded and bug-filled 3.01 version of the game.

[Xietor]

In my EH II Game, the rules on the 1st page state:

"Two notable exploits that will also be banned;

1. If you capture bogus and his Dark Knight, you can script those captured units to attack mages, but you cannot copy their "attack mage" orders to other commanders.

2. You cannot cast battlefield enchantments that cause damage to enemy units, then retreat the casting mage before 5 rounds of combat passes. In other words, if you cast Wrathful Skies, you cannot order that mage to retreat before 5 turns has passed(your last available scripting order can be retreat)."

So it is always a good thing to set out what is banned before players sign up. If someone wants an everything goes game, they can look elsewhere.

While flooding a player's lab with slave collars etc is not listed, this is obviously abuse and if it occurred in a game I hosted the offending player would be removed for a sub, or his race set to AI.

Edit: Velusion's Rules:

• Using the copy/paste orders + Bogus to target commanders with non-Bogus leaders.
• Spamming items to another player with the intent of filling up their lab so that their forgings will fail.
• Casting a battlefield wide spell continuous spell with a mage and then immediately running away - causing the spell to last forever. This is on Edi's list but is difficult to avoid. The comprise: All mages that cast a battlefield wide enchantment need to stay on the battlefield for 5 complete turns. The very last order can be to retreat.

[lch]

Xietor said:
While flooding a player's lab with slave collars etc is not listed, this is obviously abuse and if it occurred in a game I hosted the offending player would be removed for a sub, or his race set to AI.


I'd thank him for the supply of slave collars, put it on indy commanders and send them against his mage-backed armies...

[LoloMo]

lch said:

Xietor said:
While flooding a player's lab with slave collars etc is not listed, this is obviously abuse and if it occurred in a game I hosted the offending player would be removed for a sub, or his race set to AI.


I'd thank him for the supply of slave collars, put it on indy commanders and send them against his mage-backed armies...



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif This is the best answer so far! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[vfb]

LoloMo said:

lch said:

Xietor said:
While flooding a player's lab with slave collars etc is not listed, this is obviously abuse and if it occurred in a game I hosted the offending player would be removed for a sub, or his race set to AI.


I'd thank him for the supply of slave collars, put it on indy commanders and send them against his mage-backed armies...



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif This is the best answer so far! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif



Yeah, funny answer, except slave collars are never picked up in a battle. It's been tested.

[lch]

vfb said:
slave collars are never picked up in a battle. It's been tested.


Awww. And they're always so eager to ram a second Eye of Aiming in their head when they find one.

[VedalkenBear]

I find it interesting that people are against BF + Retreat. Perhaps it is the overall efficacy of the BF enchantments, but it is the only option for those who wish to fight 'elastically'; i.e., by giving ground and exhausting the enemy army.

I have never run into this myself, so I am not exactly sure what happens. From what people say in this thread, it sounds like the battle continues indefinitely. This is an issue with the game code, if so. If, however, the fight continues only until one side or the other is routed... I see no difficulty with this strategy.

Also, those who are against this strategy (especially the people who run the game and set house rules)... what happens if the caster breaks? Say I have a Caelian High Seraph who casts Wrathful Skies, and he is intended to stay in the battle the requisite amount of time. But the opponent causes him to break and run (flying) before that time. What happens in that situation from a game administration PoV? To throw it even more into a concern, what happens if someone deliberately puts this combo on a commander who has the Battle Fright affliction, thus making it more likely for said commander to flee?

As far as the rest are concerned... hacking files: bad! Abusing Bogus commands... bogus! Burying your opponent underneath a pile of useless items... pretty damn bad.

[Tuidjy]

> I'd thank him for the supply of slave collars, put it on indy commanders and send them against his mage-backed armies...

I know that you're a good player, so you shoudl be aware that:

1. On the turn it happens you will forge at best one item, possibly none.
2. The gems you paid will be lost.
3. Most players do not have 50 indy commanders standing around (75+gold per turn)
4. Slave collars can't be picked up post-battle, so all you'll do is give xpt.

If you want to thank people for that, you probably thank people for driving
over your foot.

[chrispedersen]

I'd like to hear more about what is meant by quickmoving slow troops. I consider that abusive..

why not have a standard.. like velusions or llama's. Some games will be open.. some will not - if everyone knows in advance no harm no foul.

But I'd be more interested in games without exploits. Newbies have enough problems learning the game as intended without having to learn the bugs as well.

[Tuidjy]

Quickmoving slow troops, sallying into a neighborhood province, reinforcing
through a besieging army, etc.. are ways of abusing unsufficient error checking
on the client, when the composition of a moving commander's army changes.

You send a commander somewhere where he can legally go. Then some sequences of
adding troops and changing his orders will result in impossible commands being
executed without a snag.

It gets much, much worse if instead of juggling troops you just edit the orders
in the .2h file. As far as I am concerned, morally, there is absolutely no
difference in the two approaches... After all, if the developers did not want
us to hack the .2h file, they would have kept the order validation on the server,
efficiency be damned. Right? Right?

[Velusion]

This really shouldn't be a big deal.

If you are concerned about these exploits/features only play in games that have rules against them (like I do). I would say more than half of the hosted games implement a ban on the most notorious of these exploits.

The twiceborn, Sickle and VotD exploits/features are probably here to stay as most of the hosts don't consider them exploits. They might be slightly unbalanced but they should hardly have a huge impact on the game.

[lch]

Tuidjy said:
> I'd thank him for the supply of slave collars, put it on indy commanders and send them against his mage-backed armies...

I know that you're a good player, so you shoudl be aware that:


No, I was joking. The slave collar thing is a purely theoretical construct. I doubt it has ever been encountered in any game, or ever will be for that matter.

[vfb]

Could someone please explain what is meant by "sallying in to a neighborhood province"?

Is that when you are under siege, and you give a sneaking commander non-sneaky troops so he attacks a neighboring province in one move from a besieged castle?

[Tuidjy]

You are under siege. The enemy army thinks it has you surrounded. Your army
exits the castle, bypasses the besiegers and attacks a neighboring province.
This trick worked when I first started playing Dominions III, let me check
whether it still does.

-----

Yup. still works.

[Tuidjy]

Ich, the slave collar was used back in Dominions II. Actually, it was done with
some other item... It was just remembered as the "slave collar trick" because
some people think that a slave collar is the best item to use.

I disagree. Depending on your objective, it may be better to use a worthless
item that you can remove, i.e. store on your commanders until you need to flood
the enemy's lab. Otherwise, you compromise your own forging one turn before.

[Edi]

Hadrian_II said:
As for sending slave collars --> why is the labspace limited, or just pool forged items to the lab before items from message, and add a way to dump items from labs without to have to equip them first (as slave collars are cursed)


There already is one. Go to item lab directly (not through commander's item slots). Click on item and it will bring up a list of the commanders in the province to give it to. Last commander in the list is "Throw it away". This Commander Throw-it-away is the same one that appears when you transfer items between commanders and is usually the subject of much hurled abuse when he is given a Ring of Wizardry, Staff of the Elements or similar powerful and useful item...

[Hadrian_II]

Edi said:

Hadrian_II said:
As for sending slave collars --> why is the labspace limited, or just pool forged items to the lab before items from message, and add a way to dump items from labs without to have to equip them first (as slave collars are cursed)


There already is one. Go to item lab directly (not through commander's item slots). Click on item and it will bring up a list of the commanders in the province to give it to. Last commander in the list is "Throw it away". This Commander Throw-it-away is the same one that appears when you transfer items between commanders and is usually the subject of much hurled abuse when he is given a Ring of Wizardry, Staff of the Elements or similar powerful and useful item...



Nice to know http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[Edratman]

Can someone explain "Filling lab with slave collars"? I'm a SP player and I can't even fathom the mechanics or how it would hurt an opponent.

[Hoplosternum]

lch said:

Xietor said:
While flooding a player's lab with slave collars etc is not listed, this is obviously abuse and if it occurred in a game I hosted the offending player would be removed for a sub, or his race set to AI.


I'd thank him for the supply of slave collars, put it on indy commanders and send them against his mage-backed armies...



Why not just send them all back to him next turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Does sound like abuse to me, but I am not sure how practical it would be?

[lch]

Edratman said:
Can someone explain "Filling lab with slave collars"? I'm a SP player and I can't even fathom the mechanics or how it would hurt an opponent.


Messages are sent before item forging occurs, which includes transfer of gems and magic items between nations. If somebody fills another's magic lab with slave collars (or any other item), then any items that he might have forged that turn get lost. And maybe it wasn't possible to throw away items directly from the magic lab in the past, so you had to put it on some commander to get rid of them - which would be a pain if it were slave collars (gives feeblemind and is cursed, i.e. you need a new commander every time).

[Kuritza]

For the communion thing, making slaves passive will render many nice mages like Astrapelagists or LA Marignon's seafaring mages (whatever) semi-useless, and others like Celestial masters quite average. Also, the nice synergy betweeen communion and sabbath is gonna suffer.
So if this communion thingie is gonna be fixed, make it so that 'slaves dont cast if at least one master has cast anything the same turn', not 'slaves dont cast spells at all'. Thus communions will become more balanced, but still usable. Otherwise they will exist perhaps for casting heavy BF enchantments only.

Regarding VotD - this spell goes against the logic and normal game mechanics. This exception should be fixed if only because there's no protection against it (as against the Mind hunt) and its selective. MR *will* fail you sooner or later, most likely sooner.

Immortal demons - gosh, its not OK and it wont ever be. These who advocate it are either clueless or abusers themselves. Dakini, for example, are damn dangerous even naked; make them immortal and Lanka becomes undefeatable period.

[Twan]

I'm a fan of reverse communions as well.

I think this possibility add to the game and isn't bad for balance of astral nations betwenn each others (nations with only S mages having other paths or good levels vs nations with ultra cheap S only professionnal communiants).

Alas it also adds a level of microgestion, which is never good, and strengthen an already (too?) powerful path even more.

I'd like if Illwinter can find a way to balance the reverse communion and reduce microgestion instead of simply making it impossible (ie : once the bug can be fixed, add a third communion spell to allow a mage to be an "active slave", with slightly increased requirements say S2 or 40 fatigue, allowing some form of reverse communion without the actual micro-gestion resulting from mages ID to consider).

[thejeff]

The other option for communions, even if they worked as designed, would be to retreat the masters after they'd cast their buffs and boosters. Or to attack with them:)

A "Remove from communion" spell that took a mage out of communion, but left any buff effects in place could work.

[Edi]

lch said:

Edratman said:
Can someone explain "Filling lab with slave collars"? I'm a SP player and I can't even fathom the mechanics or how it would hurt an opponent.


Messages are sent before item forging occurs, which includes transfer of gems and magic items between nations. If somebody fills another's magic lab with slave collars (or any other item), then any items that he might have forged that turn get lost. And maybe it wasn't possible to throw away items directly from the magic lab in the past, so you had to put it on some commander to get rid of them - which would be a pain if it were slave collars (gives feeblemind and is cursed, i.e. you need a new commander every time).


Has anyone checked what the message limit is? It used to be 20 messages per turn total (so you could not get more than that even if more were sent to you). So far as throwing items away, it has always been there. As long as you go to the lab through F8, you can do it. Most of the time people go through a commander's item slots, in which case it equips the item and does not allow the option to throw away.

[Baalz]

Yes, the point about communions really illustrates my point that I think a lot of people don't really understand what I was getting at. We're playing the game as it is, not the game that was "intended" by the devs, whatever that means. Unintended does not mean broken, lots of times some of the most interesting interactions in games were probably unintended, the devs are not a perfect source of divine wisdom, they're just some cool guys who put together a bunch of stuff they thought would be cool and tweaked it until they felt like they had a fun game. Lots of people have commented they like the communion mechanic as it adds to the strategic depth and generally makes the game more fun. This is exactly how I feel about things like copying Bogus' commands and many other tricks that are arguably clever ways to take advantage of quirks in the game, do not unballance things and generally just add to the wonderful texture of this game. Game hosts should absolutely "ban" whatever they think will make a fun game from specific tactics to diplomacy to forging clams to casting Arcane Nexus. It's a pet peeve of mine that in most games people find the idea of using "exploits" abhorrent....yet basically this often boils down to after the fact trying to make up house rules of what is "intended" for the prefect version of the game.

[Edratman]

Ich, thank you.

WOW, someone has to be a real turd to do this. They obviously promised to trade forgings of value and then actually sent slave collars. (I forged one, once. Couldn't figure out why such an apparently valueless item was on the list, tried it, and am still wondering.)

I cannot rate this nefarious trick as an exploit. I define an exploit as utilizing some deficiency in the programming that permits something that was totally unintended by the game designers. This slave collar trade is a seperate category.

[thejeff]

No, the slave collar trick has nothing to do with a trade.

You just send them unannounced. Tons of them. Enough to fill his lab and make him throw away anything he forged that turn. Wasting mage time and gems.

The deficiency in programming is twofold, restricted lab space and trades coming before your own forging.

[Kuritza]

Actually, I dont see how copying Bogus' commands may pass for a game quirk. There are some program bugs that become a feature, but then there are bugs. You cannot say that hex-editing a 2h file is a feature, can you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I could've agreed that having a casting mage retreat after wrathful skies is a clever move too, but there's one notable exception to that rule. Wrathful skies + sacrificial fodder is something I'd call a feature; Wrathful skies + AQ or Seraph is unbalanced and thus its bug, imho.

[triqui]

Tuidjy said:
sallying into a neighborhood province,


I dont understand this i think. What is the problem with sallying into a neighborhood province?. Isnt that exactly what is supposed to do?

[Edi]

It's the "sneaking out from a besieged castle and with non-stealthy troops to boot" bug, found in the shortlist under movement related issues.

[lch]

Edratman said:
WOW, someone has to be a real turd to do this. They obviously promised to trade forgings of value and then actually sent slave collars. (I forged one, once. Couldn't figure out why such an apparently valueless item was on the list, tried it, and am still wondering.)


Dominions has no concept of trading items. You can only send stuff to another party. Given that somebody would have to waste gems and mage time on forging items to send them away, the only possibility I see where this "exploit" would be feasible would be when an extremely important item, for example the Chalice, would get lost in the game and people would be racing to forge it. Somebody might get the idea to fill his opponent's lab with items so that he can't forge it. But then he would either need to have a full lab of junk himself so far, or he would need to draw similarly low quality magic items from his commanders, like const 0 magic weapons, sanguine dowsing rods etc.


Kuritza said:
Wrathful skies + AQ or Seraph is unbalanced and thus its bug, imho.


See, this is exactly why I don't like overzealous hot topics like this. How is Wrathful skies combined with shock immunity unbalanced or a bug? It's quite an obvious combo, and can be achieved with any caster and a ring of tamed lightning.

[Edratman]

thejeff said:
No, the slave collar trick has nothing to do with a trade.

You just send them unannounced. Tons of them. Enough to fill his lab and make him throw away anything he forged that turn. Wasting mage time and gems.

The deficiency in programming is twofold, restricted lab space and trades coming before your own forging.



Now I really get it. I was totally unaware that you could send things to someone else without both parties agreeing to a trade. Now that I think about it, you can send gems and gold as a gift, so items must also be on the list.

[triqui]

Edi said:
It's the "sneaking out from a besieged castle and with non-stealthy troops to boot" bug, found in the shortlist under movement related issues.


Ok. That one i knew. I thought he was talking about something different.

[triqui]

lch said:
See, this is exactly why I don't like overzealous hot topics like this. How is Wrathful skies combined with shock immunity unbalanced or a bug? It's quite an obvious combo, and can be achieved with any caster and a ring of tamed lightning.


I agree with you. Wrath of sky + shock inmunity is not unbalanced, actually it is *the* way to play wrath of sky in my opinion. It's like casting foul vapors when you have an army of poison inmune vine units, or casting heat from hell with Abysia, or casting darkness/rigor mortis with an army of undeads.

Casting the enchant, and retiring, sounds different though. The devs have said, afaik, that the enchant *should* finish when the mage retires or die. So it is exploiting a thing that does not work as intended.

[Velusion]

Baalz said:
Yes, the point about communions really illustrates my point that I think a lot of people don't really understand what I was getting at. We're playing the game as it is, not the game that was "intended" by the devs, whatever that means. Unintended does not mean broken, lots of times some of the most interesting interactions in games were probably unintended, the devs are not a perfect source of divine wisdom, they're just some cool guys who put together a bunch of stuff they thought would be cool and tweaked it until they felt like they had a fun game. Lots of people have commented they like the communion mechanic as it adds to the strategic depth and generally makes the game more fun. This is exactly how I feel about things like copying Bogus' commands and many other tricks that are arguably clever ways to take advantage of quirks in the game, do not unballance things and generally just add to the wonderful texture of this game. Game hosts should absolutely "ban" whatever they think will make a fun game from specific tactics to diplomacy to forging clams to casting Arcane Nexus. It's a pet peeve of mine that in most games people find the idea of using "exploits" abhorrent....yet basically this often boils down to after the fact trying to make up house rules of what is "intended" for the prefect version of the game.



I pretty much agree with everything your saying.

However, on the flip side, one of my pet peeves are players that say that "anything could go" but then don't really mean it.

Like QM:
"If it is in the game it is fair play!" but then goes on to say: "Well... except for that MoD thingy... that is totally an exploit!"

It's totally hypocritical to say that you think the game should be played as is and then give exceptions.

And yes... those aren't exact quotes - but the impression they give is the same.

[Kuritza]

See, this is exactly why I don't like overzealous hot topics like this. How is Wrathful skies combined with shock immunity unbalanced or a bug? It's quite an obvious combo, and can be achieved with any caster and a ring of tamed lightning.


You dont get it. Its not shock immunity combined with wrathful skies. Its AQ combined with a mage scripted to cast WS and retreat. See? Now there's just a very hard to kill SC on the battlefield, and no way to end Wrathful Skies.
Now if it was AQ herself who has cast the spell, she'd get lots of fatique and probably die. Had the mage stayed, well, there's a fat chance you'd get him too. But with AQ and a retreating mage its a win-win, unless your enemy gets a lucky soulslay or something. Too cheap.

[Foodstamp]

Maybe I am inherently evil. All of this stuff sounds like strategy to me.

[Kuritza]

Maybe you just use all this stuff yourself against more maneered players, and thus enjoy it.

[triqui]

Kuritza said:
But with AQ and a retreating mage its a win-win, unless your enemy gets a lucky soulslay or something. Too cheap.



Then the problem is retreating mages and staying battlefields. The AQ has nothign to do with it, the problem is that the WS *should* end when the mage leaves, as it is mentioned in the bug shortlist.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
Maybe I am inherently evil. All of this stuff sounds like strategy to me.



Moving 3 provinces your movement 1 troops through "move+patrol" bug is "strategy" for you?

[thejeff]

Yeah, I've got nothing against AQ and Wrathful Skies.
The retreating mage is a bit tacky, because the spell is supposed to end when he leaves.

Bottom line, you can either kill the AQ or not. If you can, you lose more troops from Wrath, if not you'd lose anyway.
Sure it's harder, but not impossible. You're not going to kill a kitted out AQ with chaff troops anyway and if you're up against an AQ and other high end Air mages your thugs, mages and SC killers better have shock resistance.

MoD is practically impossible to stop once the mage retreats. That's the difference.

[Foodstamp]

Maybe you just use all this stuff yourself against more maneered players, and thus enjoy it.



Your assumption might be correct except the fact I have never used any of these tactics against the AI or other players.


Moving 3 provinces your movement 1 troops through "move+patrol" bug is "strategy" for you?



My apologies, my poll options must be filtered because I did not see that one listed. Looks like a bug to me, and I would think it would be decided by the host/players if there would be repercussions for using it.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
My apologies, my poll options must be filtered because I did not see that one listed. Looks like a bug to me, and I would think it would be decided by the host/players if there would be repercussions for using it.



It's not in the poll, but it is mentioned in the thread later (as Bogus, or sneaking out of a siege with non-sneaking troops for example) I thought you were talking about the whole thread, not about the poll.


However, if you are only talking about the poll, i have to ask then if editing the 2h file is strategy for you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Kuritza]

thejeff said:
Bottom line, you can either kill the AQ or not. If you can, you lose more troops from Wrath, if not you'd lose anyway.


Imagine that you had mages who'd eventually get AQ. With skies, they just died before they managed to penetrate her MR. And you're not guaranteed to have air indies to forge rings of tamed lightning for everyone, nor to have a trade partned who'll equip your mages.

[Foodstamp]

I can't be bothered to read this entire thread because I wouldn't get a refund for the time lost being your shoulder to cry on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

As far as your "edit to argue" goes, if you have read the whole thread, you know my position on that.

[Baalz]

Velusion said:

I pretty much agree with everything your saying.

However, on the flip side, one of my pet peeves are players that say that "anything could go" but then don't really mean it.

Like QM:
"If it is in the game it is fair play!" but then goes on to say: "Well... except for that MoD thingy... that is totally an exploit!"

It's totally hypocritical to say that you think the game should be played as is and then give exceptions.

And yes... those aren't exact quotes - but the impression they give is the same.



I don't think most people who take that position are hypocritical, any more than I think it's hypocritical to host a game and allow some tactics but not others. I think the basis of this is "does this break the game?". We can disagree as to what satisfies that condition, but its a very different discussion than what's an "exploit" in an "unintended" game mechanic. The position to ban the MoD exploit has nothing to do with it being unintended, it has to do with the opinion that it really breaks the game. Heck, most of the MP games I've joined lately have banned Arcane Nexus for the same reason. The difference is MoD is pretty much the only universally frowned on tactic so should probably be assumed to be banned unless something is said.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
I can't be bothered to read this entire thread because I wouldn't get a refund for the time lost being your shoulder to cry on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

As far as your "edit to argue" goes, if you have read the whole thread, you know my position on that.


You didnt need to read the entire thread. The OP mention it in the third post.

I guess that 2 post is enough to have a good point of view of the problem http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Foodstamp]

Yup.

[silhouette]

lch said:
Given that somebody would have to waste gems and mage time on forging items to send them away, the only possibility I see where this "exploit" would be feasible would be when an extremely important item, for example the Chalice, would get lost in the game and people would be racing to forge it. Somebody might get the idea to fill his opponent's lab with items so that he can't forge it. But then he would either need to have a full lab of junk himself so far, or he would need to draw similarly low quality magic items from his commanders, like const 0 magic weapons, sanguine dowsing rods etc.


Well, don't forget it may happen via collusion of more than one opponent as well. For example, if the leader of an MP game puts up the Forge global, and nobody is in a position to Dispel it, I would completely try to make an alliance of the other players who would each send a dozen items. It's a way to deny the one player use of forging, and it seems like a useful and valid tactic to me. And it is sort of self-balancing: if it's a one on one situation, you would have to commit X% of your lab/forging to deny the opponent the same percent of his capability.

Sill

[triqui]

silhouette said:
Well, don't forget it may happen via collusion of more than one opponent as well. For example, if the leader of an MP game puts up the Forge global, and nobody is in a position to Dispel it, I would completely try to make an alliance of the other players who would each send a dozen items. It's a way to deny the one player use of forging, and it seems like a useful and valid tactic to me. And it is sort of self-balancing: if it's a one on one situation, you would have to commit X% of your lab/forging to deny the opponent the same percent of his capability.

Sill


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[quantum_mechani]

Velusion said:
Like QM:
"If it is in the game it is fair play!" but then goes on to say: "Well... except for that MoD thingy... that is totally an exploit!"

It's totally hypocritical to say that you think the game should be played as is and then give exceptions.

And yes... those aren't exact quotes - but the impression they give is the same.


My original quote:

quantum_mechani said:
I've put my two cents in on this before, but in my opinion anything that can be accomplished through the basic game interface and is not specifically outlawed by the host is fair game. That said, a few things are simply so critically buggy hosts should almost always outlaw them, primarily just mist of deception + damage enchantment.

There is a huge difference between saying anytime a player uses a tactic they are being somehow dishonest or cheating, versus recommending that hosts use specific house rules if they want their games to be more fun.

[Hadrian_II]

I think this discussion cant reach a conclusion, as there are innate difference between minmaxers and players that have a more roleplaying perspective.

As on one side sailing out of besieged castles, so the sieger does not notice it, or sending your enemy useless trinkets, so that he stops forging makes perfect sense to minmaxers because they get a benefit from this action, even if it defies common sense and is at best a very cheesy solution. While the rp fraction considers this cheating.

So the only solution is the devs either fixing the bugs, or declare them as features.

[Foodstamp]

Who would you place in the "sailing out of besieged castles" is ok camp? I don't believe anyone has said that it should be a feature.

I don't consider myself part of either "faction" but one thing that annoys me about the RP faction is the way they create new rules rather than finding counters to the issue they are facing.

Roleplayers surround themselves with self made rules such as:

"if it would not work in real life, you should not be allowed to do it in a video game"

"Its lame because there are only few counters to it, and even if I could counter it, the other player can do this, this and this"

When instead, players should be figuring out ways to counter the moves. Once they figure out how, then they can stick it to the perpetrator all day. If the players who want to nerf everything were to take all the time they have spent complaining about cheesy moves on this forum and use it towards testing counters, there would be a lot less crying and a lot more laughing at the player using the things that are being complained about.

Another thing to. Just because these guys list these things as exploits does not make them roleplayers. Just because you create artificial rules for the game does not make you a roleplayer. A roleplayer assumes the role of his pretender, it does not mean he plays inefficiently. I would argue that a min/maxer can be a roleplayer and vise versa.

Roleplayer is being used here as an excuse as to why a person should not have to look for counters. It is used as a justification for behavior that should not be rewarded in which the player webs himself in self made rules on how the game should or should not be played. The only rules that should matter are the rules built into the game. And if the developers see fit to change those rules due to bugs, or potential exploits, that should be what changes the game environment, not the opinion of a self proclaimed roleplayer.

[Chris_Byler]

Actually, if you're *literally* sailing out of the besieged castle, I think that *should* be allowed. Any castle in a coastal province is probably going to be built on the coast and the besieging army will probably not be able to blockade the harbor too. (Unless they also have a besieging navy, but that's probably too complex to implement.) Flying and sneaking ditto. (Again, rules for midair interception and patrolling to uncover the departing sneakers are probably too complex to make it into Dom3. But if the devs ever change their mind about making a Dom4...)

But if you can use order-changing exploits to assign those same kinds of moves to troops that don't belong with them, then that's a bug.

[kasnavada]

What is a exploit ? It's using something that doesn't work as intended. Therefore, if something you use doesn't work as intended (it could be important or not, game breaking or not, counterable or not, usable by all or none... it doesn't matter), you are exploiting the game mechanics. That is the definition of cheating.

The problem would then be : "how do you know that this or this is intended ?". Basically, asking the devs what they think of that or that mechanism when you have a problem with it. Then until they fix the problem, it is put on a bug list. Once again, the definition of a bug is "something that is not working as intended". Whether the change is important or not, usable by all or none, game breaking or not, counterable or therefore does not matter.

In the current case, the problem comes from the community that has accepted some exploits as "normal occurences" and do everything in their power so their vision of the game to remain the same, instead of respecting the dev's wishes and playing their game. When a possible large issue comes, those people that have come to rely on those exploits generalize their situations and conveniently forget that the reason why exploits exists isn't because this or that combo is game-breaking, but because after seeing all aspects that players found about a spell, the devs decided that some of them were not what the game should be.

The last problem is the bug list : for some, it's to show that it's not to be exploited, and others, it's a tool that is used to show what combos should be abused before the next patch comes. Again, the same communities clash : it's not about min-maxer, not roleplaying. It's about what you believe is the limit of what should be used in a game. Some believe that everything that currently is in the game is 'fair game', and the other one believes that everything on the bug list should be treated as if it were already out of the game. You can still be a min-maxer or a roleplayer in either case. The problem, and the clash comes when the first community uses one thing on the bug list on a player from the second community, because it gives him an advantage that he cannot countered.

That is another question that I think would have given pretty interesting results too, but before this thread was made (now everyone is worked up, no one's fault !) :
"The bug list is :
A) stuff that will be removed from the game, it's fine to use it,
B) stuff that will be removed from the game, it's fine to use it the one with low importance (everything not of a major or medium status),
C) stuff that will be removed from the game, it's should be considered as if they were our of the game already.
D) Obi-wan kenobi."

[lch]

Kuritza said:
You dont get it. Its not shock immunity combined with wrathful skies. Its AQ combined with a mage scripted to cast WS and retreat. See? Now there's just a very hard to kill SC on the battlefield, and no way to end Wrathful Skies.
Now if it was AQ herself who has cast the spell, she'd get lots of fatique and probably die. Had the mage stayed, well, there's a fat chance you'd get him too. But with AQ and a retreating mage its a win-win, unless your enemy gets a lucky soulslay or something. Too cheap.


Okay, now that's more or less complete bull.

First, Wrathful Skies isn't really powerful. It hits random squares on the battlefield. For it to have a "good" effect, the enemy army has to be quite large and consist of not too powerful units. Best when you can easily hold them at bay, e.g. in a castle storming when you can hold the entrance with blockers. In short, an enemy army that is subject to suffer non-trivial losses from WS is one that any SC would eat for breakfast, anyway.

Second, the air queen hardly needs a supporting mage that retreats from the battlefield. Give her an air booster and a couple of gems and she can cast it without breaking a sweat. A5, 2 gems, that means 3 extra gems for reducing fatigue off a 200 fatigue spell. But even without extra gems: If you build SCs like I do, then you'll make sure that their reinvigoration is higher than their encumberance so that they can fight until the end of time instead of getting overwhelmed due to fatigue at some point. Since the AQs have zero base encumberance that's quite easy to do. So, if the AQ can cast Wrathful Skies itself without the need for a retreating support mage, where is the problem? That a good, fully decked out SC is hard to beat in time? That's nothing new.

[quantum_mechani]

kasnavada said:
you are exploiting the game mechanics. That is the definition of cheating.

Exploiting just means taking advantage of... and taking advantage of the game mechanics is what you are doing every time you attempt any strategy. Defining cheating as *not using* the game mechanics might be better (i.e., hacking to add gems from nowhere).

[kasnavada]

Exploiting :
1. The act of utilizing something for any purpose. In this case, exploit is a synonym for use.
2. The act of utilizing something in an unjust, cruel or selfish manner for one's own advantage.

I used exploit with its second meaning, and in that case it means cheating. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough. I would have used "used" if I meant just using the game mechanics.

EDIT :
Defining cheating as "not using the game mechanics" is wrong in my opinion. Because a bug often is a game mechanic that can currently be used. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif

[lch]

silhouette said:
Well, don't forget it may happen via collusion of more than one opponent as well. For example, if the leader of an MP game puts up the Forge global, and nobody is in a position to Dispel it, I would completely try to make an alliance of the other players who would each send a dozen items. It's a way to deny the one player use of forging, and it seems like a useful and valid tactic to me. And it is sort of self-balancing: if it's a one on one situation, you would have to commit X% of your lab/forging to deny the opponent the same percent of his capability.


Biggest waste of gems and mage time I ever heard of. I'm not saying that this isn't possible, just that it's impractical. You waste gems and mage time to donate magic items to your enemy, however useless those items might be. And you'd have to keep this up for the subsequent turns, too. So, let's see... Lowest gem count for forging an item is 5 gems. Magic lab can hold what, 50 items? So you'd need to send up to 250 gems worth of magic items, per turn, to your enemy. If I'd be that enemy, I'd die from laughter. Gem generating globals, dwarven hammers, clams, Forge of the ancient all have just one goal: To save/generate more gems than your enemies can. If you want to sacrifice as many gems as that for such a dubious plan, then your enemy doesn't have to do anything because you're playing into his hands by digging your own grave instead of, uh, the crazy idea of saving those gems that go into his free items, to override his enchantment or alchemize them to astral gems and dispel it?

[DonCorazon]

Hadrian_II said:
I think this discussion cant reach a conclusion, as there are innate difference between minmaxers and players that have a more roleplaying perspective.

As on one side sailing out of besieged castles, so the sieger does not notice it, or sending your enemy useless trinkets, so that he stops forging makes perfect sense to minmaxers because they get a benefit from this action, even if it defies common sense and is at best a very cheesy solution. While the rp fraction considers this cheating.




Well said Hadrian. I completely agree. I am on the role paying side. Game (for me) is about having fun, trying new strategies, discovering items/spells/sites. Ideally if all players in a game have this mentality, the game also can have a nice competitive feel where everyone is in the race. However, it can be shock if you are playing this way but then you face a minmaxer with some nigh unstoppable maneuver. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, in the sense as one person said, everyone has access to the same game. I can see how over time, once a player has done all the exploring, they can evolve to min max. I am still in the innocent, rosy-eyed RP phase.

[Foodstamp]

So let me get this straight. You guys are roleplayers because you don't play to win, and people who play to win are not roleplayers?

[DonCorazon]

No, that is not what I said.

Maybe this will make it easier for you to understand -
I am still learning the game and I like to try new things to see what they do even though they may not be the best way to win. I'd rather play with people doing the same so we all have a decent chance of winning.

Once I have tried more things I probably will be more focused on strategies proven to win.

[Foodstamp]

Where does roleplaying play into all of this?

[quantum_mechani]

kasnavada said:
EDIT :
Defining cheating as "not using the game mechanics" is wrong in my opinion. Because a bug often is a game mechanic that can currently be used. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif


I think we have pretty much reached the very root of the issue. I (and I think many of the other people in this thread), would not call making use of a bug 'cheating', per se. I would draw a firm line between someone using some external method to alter the game files (i.e., hacking), and someone simply using the interface in possibly unintended ways. The latter can certainly be undesirable behavior in some cases, but it really is a whole different issue from cheating.

[HoneyBadger]

Hacking is a wrong that goes beyond the responsibility of the Devs to make right. Exploiting a known bug only occurs because the bug is there to be exploited in the first place. That's not to say that the Devs should be blamed, they aren't gods-they just create them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif and Dominions already has an amazingly (expecially considering that it's apparently such a near-infinite hydra of a beast) tight code. It's definitely the lesser of two evils though. I'd compare hacking to a mortal sin, whereas exploitation is simply invoking a social gaffe.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
So let me get this straight. You guys are roleplayers because you don't play to win, and people who play to win are not roleplayers?



Roleplaying has nothing to do with playing to win or not. You can play to win and roleplay/play thematic, and you can play thematic/roleplay and be a complete moron strategically.

The two camps are not roleplayers vs non-roleplayers. The 2 factions are min-maxers vs non-minmaxers. A mix-maxer is happy to play with Mists of Deceipt, for example, even if he knows it is bugged and broken, just becouse it is a good adventage. A non-mixmaxer is not willing to do so, and preffer that spell to be fixed, or removing it from game. A min-maxer ussually acept that everything that is in the game, is allowed (like MoD, or copying Bogus orders, or moving 3 provinces with move+patrol), and that the game is balanced becouse everybody can (or should) know what those bugs (or features) are, so everybody can use them. Those who dont know that twiceborn on a demon will grant them inmortality are not of their business.

The guys who carry that a step further are cheaters. Which mean they hack the 2h file and whatever (things that are not inside the game, intended or not). I havent read no one here saying that part is right. Although i beleieve that some people would consider it "fun", just that they wont admit they'll do. Heck, there are THOUSANDS of people who use aim-bots in counterstrike and what not... cheating is part of the nature of the gaming community.

[kasnavada]

What I meant with a little more text :


The last problem is the bug list : for some, it's to show that it's not to be exploited, and others, it's a tool that is used to show what combos should be abused before the next patch comes. Again, the same communities clash : it's not about min-maxer, not roleplaying. It's about what you believe is the limit of what should be used in a game. Some believe that everything that currently is in the game is 'fair game', and the other one believes that everything on the bug list should be treated as if it were already out of the game. You can still be a min-maxer or a roleplayer in either case. The problem, and the clash comes when the first community uses one thing on the bug list on a player from the second community, because it gives him an advantage that he cannot countered.



EDIT :
The reason I'm from the second community is :
A game is not my game. It's something that comes out of the imagination of someone or a group of people, and that they decide to put at our disposal to let us have fun (and for them to make money). I therefore think it is a show of respect for them to play the game as they intend it to be. Some of what min-maxing finds out may not have been predicted, that's the reason people should ask devs whether a "feature" that seems unintended is a bug or not.

Once the decision is made (there goes definition of a bug again), if it is decided to be a bug, I will therefore not use it I know of it, to respect the game creator's wish about the game until it's corrected.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Kristoffer O]

Hadrian_II said:
So the only solution is the devs either fixing the bugs, or declare them as features.



I think the easiest solution is the hosts declaring what is ok, perhaps based on what we have said, but still a matter of host policy. If a host would like MoD to be usable in its current form in one of his games (perhaps with Caelum set up as central player and defender of a large empire) it would be silly if players joined and later complained because of something I have said. Each setup game should be the property of the host and the players involved.

[Foodstamp]

triqui said:

Foodstamp said:
So let me get this straight. You guys are roleplayers because you don't play to win, and people who play to win are not roleplayers?



Roleplaying has nothing to do with playing to win or not. You can play to win and roleplay/play thematic, and you can play thematic/roleplay and be a complete moron strategically.

The two camps are not roleplayers vs non-roleplayers. The 2 factions are min-maxers vs non-minmaxers. A mix-maxer is happy to play with Mists of Deceipt, for example, even if he knows it is bugged and broken, just becouse it is a good adventage. A non-mixmaxer is not willing to do so, and preffer that spell to be fixed, or removing it from game. A min-maxer ussually acept that everything that is in the game, is allowed (like MoD, or copying Bogus orders, or moving 3 provinces with move+patrol), and that the game is balanced becouse everybody can (or should) know what those bugs (or features) are, so everybody can use them. Those who dont know that twiceborn on a demon will grant them inmortality are not of their business.

The guys who carry that a step further are cheaters. Which mean they hack the 2h file and whatever (things that are not inside the game, intended or not). I havent read no one here saying that part is right. Although i beleieve that some people would consider it "fun", just that they wont admit they'll do. Heck, there are THOUSANDS of people who use aim-bots in counterstrike and what not... cheating is part of the nature of the gaming community.



So you are not roleplayers?

I don't know what to say. It sounds like you guys have created your own rules for the game, and you expect other people to have the manners to play by those rules, even if it means losing. I am guessing you guys would eat a loss or quit a game if it came down to doing that or finding a counter to something that is not a part of your personal ruleset.

[Sombre]

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don't.

You can find a counter to just about anything. For example the counter to Norfleet was having score graphs turned on.

[Edi]

Foodstamp, it's time for you to quit baiting the newer people, because that's mainly what your last few posts have been. Or it at least looks that way at a casual glance.

This whole RP/non-RP division is completely ridiculous and a red herring for the purposes of this discussion and making unsupported claims and statements about people being such, therefore having to conform to some sort of arbitrary ruleset or whatever is pure bull droppings.

From where I stand, both the "anything but hacking 2h files goes" crowd and the "house rules" side have points in their favor with regard to specific arguments, but neither side can claim being 100% correct.

Most of the stuff in the buglist is not something that can be turned around and used to wring an unintended advantage. Some things can be and those can be divided into categories according to just how they act.
One example being the reverse communion issue, which acts like a feature and gives more options for all players who can access it (meaning anyone with astral magic).
Another one is the army movement bug set, where stratmove 1 units can be made to march 10 provinces in one turn with the right commander (e.g. a horror) or more commonly 2 or 3. This is not intended and never has been or else the units would have greater stratmove. The sneaking out of siege bug is another one where Johan has gone on record saying it is a bug that should not be there.
Then there's the Mists of Deception + BF Enchantment combo, which again has been confirmed to not work as it should.
Demons with Twiceborn is another unintended consequence of something in the code, something that should work differently than it currently does
Out of that above list of examples, the first one is an equal opportunity exploit that does not give any kind of overwhelming instakill advantage and is widely available to various nations. The last one is basically specific to Lanka and can be used on a few unique blood summons and some Mictlan specific summons, so while it's still playing a crooked game to avoid losing units that would otherwise die (at least the second time around), but has its drawbacks and is limited.

MoD+DBFE is an instakill advantage when used by defender and should not work as it does, which at least in my mind places it in the category of being a dishonest tactic and playing a crooked game, therefore cheating. The same can be said of the movement bugs and I suppose on some level that I should have just sent those reports to Johan by PM and just put them in the list as "Movement 1 and Movement 2, reported by PM". Doesn't matter that the movement bugs are available to everyone equally, using them is playing a dishonest, crooked game in my book at least. I'd qualify that as cheating straight out, despite some of the rather torturous and hairsplitting definitions of cheating I've seen in this thread.

With that said, if somebody wants to play a game with house rules, fine, put as much restrictions as you like and use an honor system. Fine. If you enter a general game with few (if any) house rules, it's generally pointless to whine about some tactic being used (like he Wrathful Skies/AQ combo mentioned earlier) and in such games the only such complaints I'd take seriously are the MoD+DBFE and movement bug issues for the reasons given above.

It also seems that most MP games can eliminate at least one of these points of contention by just using a mod that removes Mists of Deception from the game entirely. That'll leave only its abusers as the complainers.

[Edratman]

silhouette said:

Well, don't forget it may happen via collusion of more than one opponent as well. For example, if the leader of an MP game puts up the Forge global, and nobody is in a position to Dispel it, I would completely try to make an alliance of the other players who would each send a dozen items. It's a way to deny the one player use of forging, and it seems like a useful and valid tactic to me. And it is sort of self-balancing: if it's a one on one situation, you would have to commit X% of your lab/forging to deny the opponent the same percent of his capability.

Sill




The collusion angle of lab filling does present a whole new aspect to the ploy. I followed the thread (and many others) under the basic assumption that (occasionally) there are players who utilize tactics that the vast majority of players do not consider valid or in the spirit the developers intended because of various reasons. There is general, but not universal, consensus on almost all of these actions.


But when I read that two or more players may unite to fill an opponents lab presents a whole new perspective.

To be honest, I cannot even decide if it makes the ploy more valid or less valid. Previously I thought it would require a significent effort from a single player to forge adequate number of slave collars to effectively fill an opponents lab and block new forgings. But to learn that 2, 3 or 4 players would think that this is a good move and thus each would contribute an easily manageable quantity of items to fill one players lab is entirely different.

[vfb]

I wouldn't want to play in a game where lab-filling is considered a valid tactic.

I mean, what the heck is that? How does it possibly make sense in the reality of the game? Your lab is a fixed size which can only handle so many items, and you've got morons working on your docks, who clutter up your lab with so much junk that when your mage steps in to craft an item, he trips over them and drops all his gems and they spill down the drain some other moron installed in the floor?

It's just abuse of the mechanics of the game's interface, in this case the fact that there's no interface implemented so nations can refuse 'gifts' of items from other nations. It's got nothing to do with mages and spells and forging and research or any kind of fun stuff like that.

Please don't go and assume I'm in the 'Wrathful Skies + SR100% is an exploit' crowd though (though I think that crowd is pretty small). I just want stuff to make sense in the context of the game. I don't think I'm in a minority in that respect either.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
you expect other people to have the manners



Yep, bassically is that. I expect other people to have manners.

And yes, i would rather quit the game than needing to resort to move 3 province my heavy infantry through a bug or whatever any other thing that it is not working as intended.

In case you didnt notice, i already said that my grief with VotD has completelly dissappeared since Jonathan O has said that it is working as intended. I no longer see it as exploiting something that is buggy (becouse it is not, it works as the devs want it to work), therefore i dont care if you min-max it and use 20x per turn. I would not play with you if you keep using strat move 3 through move+patrol or Mist of Deception or any other of the tactics that do not work as intended.

[Foodstamp]

I no longer see it as exploiting



See, I can pull things out of context too.

I apologize if it seemed like baiting. But I wanted to make a point that "roleplayer" is not a synonym for someone who does not min/max.

With their replies they have agreed that playing by house rules does not make someone a roleplayer.

That's all I am going to add to this, and with a little bit of reading, you will see the baiting went both ways.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Edi, I agree what you wrote in your last post. Do you have a handy list of major bugs, that cause the game to behave in ways unintended by the devs. Then in the games that I admin i can simply provide a link to it, and say not to take advantange of any of the bugs in the list. Every game admin should do the same, but of course it is up to them.

I want to play games of Dominions, which involves troops. summons, magic, and forging, to out strat your opponent. I do not want to play games of, "take advantage of the current implementation of the dominion program".

- If that move and patrol bug was allowed to be used, people could simple make certain that all their castles are three spaces apart.Then by using the right commander they can move all their troops that distance regardless of the units stats. This would make map move stats, and the various survival skills almost obsolete.
-If the item spamming was allowed, it would have the potential of destroying the item forging part of the game, which for me is the funnest part.
-If the Mists Of Deception was allowed to be used it would make most of the other spells obsolete, and make only a small set of tactics viable in the game.

Strategies like Arcane Nexus, and clamming are game unbalancing (to a lesser extent), but they are also clearly in the dominion rules. Those three items that I mentioned earlier are clearly against the dominion rules. I would like a handy list of these game breaking bugs, so that i can reference them in the games that I admin. Its up to other admins if they want to do the same thing or not, but it is my opinion that most admins should.

[DonCorazon]

Foodstamp, for my part in this discussion, I see your point re: role-playing.

If you have played Neverwinter Nights or similar games, people sometimes use the term as the opposite of min/maxing when they make characters. So you have the people who come up with awesome min/maxed characters that might not make sense from a "role-playing point of view" like the Paladin / Sorceress. Less powerful characters like the traditional Halfling Thief or quirky ones like the Gnome Barbarian are considered "role-playing" characters. In that case, it doesn't even refer to how well you act out the part of your character but more about trying to make characters that you think are fun without regard to having a maxed out character.


Anyway, that was how I used the term in this thread (e.g. role playing as the opposite of min/max), but I agree its not accurate as the term should just refer to people who get into acting out the role of the faction they are playing. Role-playing is a separate issue and people can certainly role-play while they min/max with a MoD combo.

I am not sure what the best term is for non-min/maxing but I guess its like pornography - you just know it when you see it.

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

[Foodstamp]

DonCorazon,

No biggy. I see the term thrown around quite a bit to explain why people won't use certain features, bugs etc. That is why I pushed the conversation a bit. I think it is interesting that people identify the game style as roleplaying.

Personally I would term it "casual play". By casual play I mean the player plays the game his way. If things do not jive with his way of playing, he is not engaged enough with the game to play outside his playstyle, which means he will quit, or choose to play with people who are willing to play by his rules.

Basically a mindset where the player says "I know this can be countered, but through a lot of tedious work on my part, and I am not in this game for tedious work."

Oftentimes roleplayers fit into the "casual player" mode as well, and I think that is why sometimes people consider them synonymous.

For instance, in an MMORPG I play, when our group ran with 3 priests, we were near invincible. The average group consisted of 2 priests normally. We would get /tells telling us that we were lame because we had three priests in our group, and that it was boring fighting us because they could not do enough damage to get through all the heals. There was nothing in the game to stop us from having 3 priests in our group, but rather than countering an unorthodox group make up, they chose to quit, because the time/thinking investment was beyond what they were willing to commit to.

Fixing bugs is one thing. But in the past I have seen this go beyond fixing bugs. As people get more vocal, some of the more unique aspects of some of the games I have played have been brought in line with what is the norm for the rest of the game, to make the vocal players happy.

There was a pet class in DAOC called an "Animist". Originally the class could summon as many pets as it's mana bar allowed. I used to play one of these characters and I would die more often than I would kill. This class had stationary pets that could only damage an enemy if they were within a certain close range. Animists would hide their pets behind walls so when enemies came through openings, the pets would damage them. The damage was weak, and if the player ran back out the hole in the wall, they would live. But more often than not, the player would freak out and run around in circles and die. Seemed like good strategy to me. But to people who felt beguiled by such tactics, it was cheap and lame. Over the years they were able to persuade the developers to cap the number of pets the player could have, until finally that character went from having as many as he could muster, to 15, and now finally 5. The thing that made the class unique was taken away because people complained enough. Not people in the know, but people who had just started playing, or refused to change their charge forward playstyle.

[triqui]

Foodstamp said:
I apologize if it seemed like baiting. But I wanted to make a point that "roleplayer" is not a synonym for someone who does not min/max.



I apologize if i didnt make it clear, since english is not my first language (as you would had supposed from my grammar and spelling :p). But i agree that roleplaying, and playing to win (or playing with house rules), have nothing in common.

You can roleplay, and play to win. And it is also perfectly possible refusing any kind of roleplaying, and play horribly bad.

Maybe "min-maxers" is not a correct expression for what i was trying to explain. A min-maxer might be, for example, someone that makes a triple bless with mictlan and use the controlled dominion expansion to minimize the bad scales. That is min-maxing (minimizing the disventages, and maximizing the adventage), and i have exactly ZERO problems with that.

However, in my book, there is a big step between that, and sneaking out of a besieged castle with non-sneaking troops thanks to "the current implementation of the game". Let's call this second thing different, like "munchkin". It's using something that is not *suppossed* to be there, to gain an adventage. I think Mist of Deception is in the same book: It is not supposed to do what it does (like Battle enchantments do), so I wont use it becouse i consider it an abuse, and i would join games that forbid it.

With Vengeance of the Dead, my initial gripe was exactly the same: I thought it was not working as it was supposed to work, so i thought it was an abuse. However, the Devs have just said it DOES work exactly what it is supposed to do. So there is no bug, and therefore, there is no exploit. It might be an over the average spell. But so is Thunderstrike (in a different level). Using "good" spells, or spells that have a strong effect for it cost /research is not abusing. Its being clever. Everybody use the better spells in their arsenal, and i do not find that abusive at all. Also, i dont "cry noob" becouse my SC died. Several of them die, that's not the issue.

To put it in perspective from another game, there was, time ago, a stage in Counterstrike, Manor. In that stage, there was a special position, where there was a glitch in the program. There, you did not see any wall, just players. Using a very strong rifle (what would pierce the wall) you could kill anyone in the house. THAT is what i mean with "munchkin". Using camping, or other tactics, might be more or less "fun", but are legal. But there is a qualitative jump between placing yourself in a place with a good point of view to the house's windows, while in cover (that's tactic, and maybe min-maxing tactic depending where you place yourself), and using a *glitch* in the map to shoot through invisible walls.

[Cerlin]

The second part of foodstamps post has special meaning for me...What i am seeing here is making me afraid of too much "nerfing" (an mmo term especially.)

I also played Dark Age of Camelot back in the day, and the reason I stopped playing the game is because people who did not want to think to counter good tactics would go on the forums, and whine until the developers changed the game to their liking. I really hope that does not happen here. After watching that happen in DAOC i totally understand Foodstamps reaction and I would say I have a similar one. People, please do not just whine about a tactic you dont like. Of course hacking the game files, or using glichy mapmovie isnt intended. But things like spells you personally dont like, that is just preference, it doesnt mean the game should change.

I would also like to say that I do not consider myself a great player at this game, I am mediocre at best. But i am one of the masochistic players who enjoys playing for the experience and losing and discovering new things. Hell I was playing on Sloth as LA C'tis and managed to lose to Tien Chi in less that 7 turns! That was a hell of an experience.

In conclusion, I want to say I love this game because of all the options, units, and counters. and I especially enjoy the forums because you all are for the most part interesting, mature, and intelligent people from all over the world. So let us please keep it civil on both sides (it seems to be getting back there.) And for the dev's please consider the whining just that, and fix the problems you feel are best.

[Sombre]

Rebalancing and nerfing does NOT automatically equate to less variety or in any way ruin the gameplaying experience. Often the people saying they're worried about this happening are just trying to protect the way they play, doing exactly what they accuse others of by whining to try and get things their way.

Let's say random indy light infantry were an amazing unit. Basically better than any national recruitable, better than any other indy, widely available. So everyone's using them because they're great. All is fair. But effectively people who want to try and use varied strategies, make the most of different units and so on are being punished since it's always better to build these light infantry. So it is suggested they are overpowered and should be nerfed into line with the other units. I guarantee there would be a few people up in arms about how the game was in danger of being nerfed into oblivion and how X random online game was ruined by nerfs and people complaining and how nothing needed to be done because hey, everyone can build them, so they're fair.

I just don't get it. Is it that hard to understand that good balancing /increases/ variety? Ever heard of Rock Paper Scissors Mentok? It's like Rock Paper Scissors, but with the added variety of Mentok, which beats the other three and ties with itself. See where I'm going with this?

Honestly the only reason I can see for their behaviour is that they really like using the overpowered unit/tactic/spell/whatever being discussed, particularly if their opponent isn't using it and is trying to make use of the outclassed other options.

[Cerlin]

Oh trust me, as for me I am very conventional in this game. I have problems using traditional strategy and winning with it. But I find it part of the fun. Dont get me wrong, I really think several things here need to be fixed or not used, like MoD. I am just saying that I can understand why people are afraid of it getting out of control. But at the same time im sure some people defend MoD because they love to use it (or others.)

[Foodstamp]

Sombre,

Balance rarely leads to more variety when the items in question are unconventional to begin with. More often, it is easier to bring those elements inline with the rest of the game. In the end you end up with scissors, rocks and paper as you suggest, leaving out fire, dynamite, water balloon, the attacking jesus and a toothless grin. Ultimately, it becomes a choice of left handed or right handed scissors, blue construction paper or college rule, sandstone or granite. They are different, but they are still rocks, scissors and paper, so there is no depth beyond learning the initial strategy, and there is limited replay value.

[triqui]

Cerlin said:Of course hacking the game files, or using glichy mapmovie isnt intended. But things like spells you personally dont like, that is just preference, it doesnt mean the game should change.


what about using glitchy spells? I mean, spells that the developers have said they do not work as intended?

[Sir_Dr_D]

Foodstamp. Have you looked at the CB mod? What in that mod does that. In my opinion in brings in the fire, dynamate, water baloon, attacking Jesus, and the toothless grin, by doing things like boosting the unused summons, giving the unused pretenders cool powers,and making unused magical items more interesting.

What you are talking about is balanace being done badly. But if it is done well, it adds depth to the game, and not take it away.

[Sombre]

I'm sorry I don't buy that in the slightest. There's nothing particularly unconventional about dominions at its core and it isn't so varied or complex that you can't work towards balance. Balancing increases replay value not by making all elements the same, but by ensuring different elements can effectively be used and different paths explored. Certain elements need to be improved, certain others need to be weakened.

You talk about what is 'easier' as if that is what will be done. Yes, the easiest way to balance the game is to make all sides the same, all maps the same, all spells the same. But no-one is suggesting that and it isn't going to happen. The kind of balancing that we're realistically talking about is the fixing of the overpowered and, judging from what happened with LA Abysia, MA Mictlan, LA and MA Ulm etc, addition and boosting of national units and spells.

Beyond that the main balancing movement is CBM, which again aims to increase variety through balancing, toning down the overpowered and boosting the weak. Is that in your opinion heading towards a less varied game with restricted replay value?


I personally haven't been part of a game that's been 'ruined' by balancing. Even when people describe these 'horror story' examples of balancing from other games I rarely have much sympathy. I remember a friend telling me about some online WW2 shooter where far and away the best weapon was the shotgun, which everyone used. So people banned 'shotgun whoring' on certain servers and there was a backlash of people complaining that if everyone could pick the shotgun it was fair. Then the makers of the game toned down the shotgun so it wasn't obviously better than all the other guns. My friend quit in disgust. Why? I guess because he liked killing people with the shotgun who hadn't worked out it was the only weapon worth picking. I'm not saying MoD/SoW is the 'shotgun' here, just talking about balancing and fixing in general. To me a game where the elements are different but equally effective (if you use them correctly, in the correct context) is far more interesting than one where a handful of elements are simply more effective. Especially when those elements are flat out cheesy like MoD/SoW, or in some other game, spamming stuff on a spawn point or doorway. Clearly fun for some people, but not at all for me. Looks bad, plays bad, is bad.

[Cerlin]

In response to triqui, I do think that spells do not work as intended should be fixed by the dev's. I did not say that i consider exploits of bugs as legit gaming. Fixing bugs isnt "nerfing."

And Sombre I do not disagree with you, I just do not think I was being clear myself, though you did a good job of it. I do think they should fix things, not so everything is 'the same' but so all countries have a chance. I mean if there is only one late game strat and only say Air countries can counter it, that basically destroys the game for everyone else who wants to play like a fire nation. What Im trying to say is the fact this game has many strategies and just as many counters to those strategies. I enjoy it. I wouldnt like to be beaten by an exploit, but if someone can beat me with a better strategy then mine then they are welcome too. And I am far from a "min/maxer" or "powergamer." I tend to pick nations in this game that are thematically fun to me, then try to make them work.

I have just seen whining do negative things too so I am careful. Since you are using metaphors then so shall I...
When I was playing DAOC, the instance that made me quit was that my favorite character was an Armsman, which is just basically a fighter with a Sword and shield. He was fun for me to play and I did it well (considering the class was considered weak.) But because other warrior types of other nations complained enough they made it so we could kill nothing, and became useless as a class. I am all for balance, I am just afraid of i when it goes too far. That is all.

Please fix the bugs or ban them, I never plan to use power gaming strats like this, I will just continue doing medium in my games and enjoying myself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[triqui]

Cerlin said:
In response to triqui, I do think that spells do not work as intended should be fixed by the dev's. I did not say that i consider exploits of bugs as legit gaming. Fixing bugs isnt "nerfing."



Fine, my question was "what to do with the glitchy spells until the devs fix them"?. Explicitly... what to do with the broken, bugged, and overpowered mist of deception, that the developers have said it does not work as it should work?

[Cerlin]

I guess I would say that those who do not think it should be used, join games where it is banned from use. And if you like them, make a game where it is ok to use them. Until its fixed.

I am joining a game currently where this combo cannot be used and I am ok with that. The game is more for thematic fun than "I wanna win!!"

[Edi]

I would not be worried about overnerfing. The only example of that in Dominions so far has been the Vampire Queen and the circumstances that led to that are very specific and unusual. Currently that particular overnerf has been sitting on the bug shortlist as a statfix issue for a while. The only thing that I immediately remember as being substantially nerfed over the course of Dom3 has been the Van cavalry and Helhirdings and most of that was done with modest price increases and by changing the Glamour/Mirror Image mechanics so that it became more vulnerable to arrows. Blade Wind is another thing that got toned down some but it's still plenty good enough to use and won't see anymore downsizing.

Johan and Kristoffer will fix the things they consider the most important and the rest will get fixed when it gets fixed. If it gets fixed at all, that is, because some of the more esoteric and minor stuff may well be more trouble to fix than it's worth considering they have a new project underway.

If anyone wants an idea about what the biggest stuff left is, the red items on the shortlist and some of the purple are the ones to look at.

[moderation]

"Hexediting the .2h file to insert unreachable orders
Users may choose only one (132 total votes)
Yes, it's abuse. 116 87%

Mists of Deception + Battlefield Enchantments + Retreat
Users may choose only one (132 total votes)
Yes, it's abuse. 109 82%"

Why are the polls going over one hundred percent? Maybe there's more than one kind of cheating going on here...

[Tuidjy]

Your browser must be displaying the results in a weird manner. What I see makes
it rather clear that, out of 132 people who voted, 116 thought it was abuse.

(116 / 132 = 0.87, i.e 87 percents.)

[Rathar]

It's how many people voted followed by the % that represents.

Err, what he said, nod.

[Agema]

I think there is a 'spirit' to a game.

Take diving in football. I think it was only recently made illegal, but for a long time before that it was considered bad to do. Many bug exploits described here generally fall into this sort of category. Not strictly illegal or impossible via the game mechanics, but 'unsportsmanlike': disrespectful not just to the game but to fellow players.

To change my analogy slightly, we've got a system whereby the referees of the game are the fellow players. A system could work thus: If there's potential bug-exploiting, the player on the receiving end should say in the file, the players can vote democratically, and decide what happens. Clear the accused; give them a yellow card; or red card the offender and set them to AI or get a sub. If the offence is deemed sufficiently unbalancing, a turn rollback could occur.

If you want to use one of these strategies even when it is not stated beforehand they are unfair, you take your continued presence in the game into your own hands.

[Wauthan]

Agema makes a good point. There might be need of a spirit of sportmanship, well more then usual atleast, when playing Dominions 3. The point of most games is to have fun more then once after all.

Just take situation when a newbie goes up against a veteran. There are so many subtle mechanics in this game that the veteran could steamroll the newbie, regardless of any previous strategy game experience. While it would hardly be considered abusive to exploit someones lack of experience I still reckon that many would "pull their punches", and help out by pointing out mistakes common amongst new players.

Mists of Deception + Battlefield Enchantments + Retreat is a different breed of beast but still... It's not exactly abusive, just mindnumbingly annoying, since it's a tactic available for both sides. For me it has been fairly easy to control. I just asked my fellow players not to use that particular strategy, and promised to do the same.

Granted, it's way easier to create "houserules" with ones friends then with complete strangers but the community for dominions is small enough for it to hurt if your playstyle gets you shunned.

[kasnavada]

It's not exactly abusive, just mindnumbingly annoying, since it's a tactic available for both sides.



That's an opinion. For me, anything that has for only "counter" to use more of the same strategy (basically this combo falls into this) is to be removed. The very fact that everyone can use it is irrelevant. I'm not striking for balance but for fun. Having 10 strategy is good, but one is just better than others (for whatever reasons) it's to be balanced, and even more so if anyone can use it, especially on a game like dominions that prides itself on having diversity for magic spells and units.

[Wauthan]

I'm not striking for balance but for fun.



Well you make a valid point, of course, and I agree that it's really wierd that combat doesn't end when one side retreats (or perhaps one turn afterwards). After all why would my army hang around a deserted battlefield chokefull of lethal magics? Have the devs responded on this topic yet? I've been on extended hiatus and am still cathing up on the last few years of posts.

[kasnavada]

why would my army hang around a deserted battlefield chokefull of lethal magics?

Hum, well, I always wondered the opposite on other games. Some units that would have died the next "battle turn" just live if you manage to kill the last ennemy (the most infamous case is about poison).

Somehow medics with perfect skill and infinite speed manage to save them all in time. I wonder why they don't use those medics with infinite speed and skill in battle, so the battle would be over before it started !

So, the battle not finishing until all magic stopped and units died make sense to me. But why they are still standing in poisonous clouds ? That also makes me wonder, they could at least move out of the way...

About dev answers : as far as I know : "you players should decide for each game whether it's right or not to use such a combo".

[Endoperez]

kasnavada said:
Hum, well, I always wondered the opposite on other games. Some units that would have died the next "battle turn" just live if you manage to kill the last ennemy (the most infamous case is about poison).



Didn't notice the boldened part, so Dominions mechanics obviously don't apply. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[MaxWilson]

*Post deleted by Max*

Sorry for the inadvertent bump. I posted before finishing the thread, and someone addressed my question already ("what's the problem with slave collars? why not just send them back to him?"--apparently the problem is that messages are received before forging occurs).

-Max

[K]

Sombre said:

I just don't get it. Is it that hard to understand that good balancing /increases/ variety? Ever heard of Rock Paper Scissors Mentok? It's like Rock Paper Scissors, but with the added variety of Mentok, which beats the other three and ties with itself. See where I'm going with this?




The thing I don't understand why everyone thinks that any of the above stated tactics are "Mentok." They aren't. Every one has a counter (usually several).

Sure, maybe you don't have that counter or aren't good enough at the game to keep it prepared, but isn't that the very essence of this game?

At it's essence, this game is about using tactics your opponent cannot or won't counter. Mere superiority in army size, income, or provinces can't win you this game unless you opponent is a noob.

[MaxWilson]

It's partly an Outside Context Problem. MoD, for example, has no counter that an attacker can employ within the context of a particular battle. That makes people tetchy if they want a game of tactical maneuvering instead of strategic second-guessing--the counter requires shifting contexts. It's Mentok for the specific battle in question.

-Max

[Omnirizon]

what is this mentok of which you speak?

[MaxWilson]

Earlier in the thread, a mention was made of Rock-Scissors-Paper-Mentok, which is just like Rock-Scissors-Paper except that Mentok beats anything and ties itself. The implication was that superdominant strategies reduce the complexity (and the fun) of a game. Tic-tac-toe is fun until you figure out how to always win-or-tie.

-Max

[K]

MaxWilson said:
It's partly an Outside Context Problem. MoD, for example, has no counter that an attacker can employ within the context of a particular battle. That makes people tetchy if they want a game of tactical maneuvering instead of strategic second-guessing--the counter requires shifting contexts. It's Mentok for the specific battle in question.

-Max



Sure there is. If they have magic rating required to cast MoD on round one, then you need to kill them on round one before they can retreat on round two. There are any number of spells that can do the job. It's not even a strategic "mentok" since overwhelming magical offense on round one is one of the best battlefield strategies.

You can also just send in a weak force that won't set off the AI's "cast my scripted gem spell" detector and then just let them retreat on round 2; if you've taken the adjacent provinces, then they lose a powerful mage.

Heck, even the worse case scenario of "dozens of mages in a castle" can be defeated by sending in one powerful SC and one mage who casts a damaging battlefield spell and then Retreats. By round 75 all those mages are dead or Retreated.

Strategic second guessing of other people's battlefield and other magics IS this game. Moving army men on the map is a small part of this game, and if that's what you want then I suggest playing a less complicated game like Risk.

[MaxWilson]

K,

Several good points there. Acknowledged, MoD isn't a Mentok.

-Max

[HoneyBadger]

Fresh goes better, Mentok freshness, fresh goes better with Mentok fresh and full of life!...sorry, I had a moment.

[Omnirizon]

HoneyBadger said:
Fresh goes better, Mentok freshness, fresh goes better with Mentok fresh and full of life!...sorry, I had a moment.



just don't put mentok in diet coke.

[HoneyBadger]

All around the mulberry bush, the badger ate some Mentok, he washed it down with diet coke...*POP* goes the badger!

Don't encourage me!