Balance on small maps

[alexti]

It seems to me that on small maps Dom3 has lost a lot of its depth. Now it seems that the only and obvious plan is a bless plan. I was trying to think about alternatives, but to begin with, not many nations have much to offer. Caelum looked like one of candidates. To test it I setup duel vs trivial Helheim rush. I pick good scales, awake high-research pretender and go for evocation. Conflict with Helheim happens at turn 8. I'm obviously coming short of Evocation 4, so it's 2 eagle kings and 5 seraphs with bunch of mammoths and regular troops vs 22 F9W9-blessed helheim cavalry, Caelum regular troops can't do much, the only saving grace is that mammoths require few hits to get killed. seraphs kill about 3rd of enemies with lightning bolts before the battle is lost. Practically any regular troops are nearly useless vs power-blessed armies, some fire nation might have better chance with fire spells, but generally prospects look very bleak.

I think that the main problem is the cost of research. Basically early game doesn't play like Dominions now - it's more like a regular mainstream "rush" game. As an experiment, I've decided to wait few turns (neither hellheim nor caelum were moving or recruiting) just to get Evo-4 before the battle. With Thunderbolts Caelum won (though losing most of its army). But with current rules, it's unlikely to get to 4-th level before 8-9 turn rush. Maybe it would be good to lower the cost of research. Or permit buying research levels for design points (for example, spending 200 points to start with Evo-4). Then different nations could find various strategies instead of relying on trivial rush. Another idea is to disable bless effects until the pretender awakens... Buying research for points or delayed blessings are not likely to change the late game balance. Changing research cost can also be done only for lower level (while keeping higher cost for higher levels) - then it wouldn't affect the late game balance either.

[dirtywick]

When you guys are playing these small maps, are you using standard research or easy research?

[Truper]

If on game creation you set the money multiple to 50% and research to easy, the balance will move close to what it was in Dom2. If you use the default settings, you're right, bless rushes are much more powerful than they used to be.

[WraithLord]

@alexti, I want to point out that the example you give isn't neccessarily a rule. You picked up for your example one of the best bless nations in dom. This alone is not enough to conclude that dominions now plays like a main stream "rush" game. If tests and/or players experience would indicate that *all* nations with ubber bless are unstoppable rush machines then that would have been something else.

As for example you gave, maybe an awake SC with access to fire resistance (or inherent fire resistance) and high prot. would have fared better?

I'm not saying that bless isn't a better strat. in dom-III then it was in dom-II, may very well be that it is, I'm saying that there may be specific counters available for different nations to deal with them.
If someone would do the research and find no such counters, well then, I hope to devs will introduce some, to keep dominions interesting.

[DominionsFan]

Problem is that some nation's sacred troops are just extremely good. Best example is Helheim's Helhirdings. Not the blessings are causing the problem, but some imbalanced national sacred troops. They are just much better than the other national sacreds.

[alexti]

WraithLord said:
@alexti, I want to point out that the example you give isn't neccessarily a rule. You picked up for your example one of the best bless nations in dom.

Not true, Helheim is somewhat easier to counter because they are not that numerous. Against Mictlan things would go much worse - you have only so many lightning bolts. And you can't really call a strategy viable if it will only work against one particular blessed nation. What are you going to do if you don't know whether you're going to meet Helheim or Mictlan?

WraithLord said:
This alone is not enough to conclude that dominions now plays like a main stream "rush" game. If tests and/or players experience would indicate that *all* nations with ubber bless are unstoppable rush machines then that would have been something else.

So far that appears to be the case and those from beta team had quite a bit of time to come up with something.

WraithLord said:
As for example you gave, maybe an awake SC with access to fire resistance (or inherent fire resistance) and high prot. would have fared better?

Pretender SC will just allow you to defend one province while the enemy takes everything else. And have you tried it? All those plans require research either for casting or for forging and that's again hit the same problem with research speed.

WraithLord said:
If someone would do the research and find no such counters

I think that most experienced Dom players have tried and I'm sure if somebody has found a good approach we would read about it (or about encountering it in a blitz )

This thread is just in hope that somebody would post the working plan.

[alexti]

Truper said:
If on game creation you set the money multiple to 50% and research to easy, the balance will move close to what it was in Dom2. If you use the default settings, you're right, bless rushes are much more powerful than they used to be.

I agree. Maybe playing small maps with 50% gold and easy research and large maps with default settings is the answer.

[alexti]

DominionsFan is making a good point. Some nations have very good sacred troops, but not all of them. I wonder if it is a part of overall balance. How would Helheim do if blessed troops were banned? I think it would still be a decent nations - good access to magic, good battlefield mages and decent national troops. The only thing against them would be lack of cheap researchers.

[Arralen]

No-one will post such a plan, because there isn't any.

Those player you speak of are themselves rushing their enemies with SC-pretenders and/or overly-good blesses (which is F9, W9 and any N after the change) using overly-strong sacreds with multiple weapons/attacks (some even have light lances..), some of them even not capitol-only and most of them quite cheap ressource-wise.

They pay for this point-wise with Sloth:3, Death:3, Misfortune:1+ .
And it works, because Order:3 gives so much more gold that you 'grow' faster by your accelerated expansion than anyone with growth scale can. And order gets you rid of most events, therefore misfortune isn't a big problem. And even if disaster strikes in a provine - you have so much gold, so many provinces that it hardly matters.

As long as growth is negligible, order overly strong, some blesses double the combat value of sacred units, while other do next to nothing, this will not change.

[Ygorl]

On first thought, I *really* like the idea of a sleeping or imprisoned pretender not granting bless effects... It makes sense thematically, and seems like it would be good for game balance - you might even be able to boost the points granted for sleeping or imprisonment a bit, if you did this. I also agree with others that for a small map (i.e. a short game) easy research makes a lot of sense. You're still unlikely to see a lot of level 9 spells, but it opens up a lot more of the research map.