Can I get some cheese with that...

[Reverend Zombie]

Well, the current whine du jour seems to have moved off somewhat from VQs and clam hoarding to "castle spamming."

Whether or not any of these activities may be broken, why does it seem that the first reaction of people unhappy with these is to propose nerfs, rather than strategies to deal with the tactics in question?

Or has everyone proposing nerfs done extensive testing of the various strategies and proven that they can't be beaten?

Or are some players just wishing that the game was designed differently--to suit the fact that they don't like playing against a given strategy?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
Or has everyone proposing nerfs done extensive testing of the various strategies and proven that they can't be beaten?

I agree (tho I would not have said it using words like cheese and whine).

It seems like some people dont yet understand Dom2 balance. When they say "it works everytime" what they mean is that it works everytime against Ulm (or whatever their favorite nation is). They dont understand that this game doesnt balance every nation against every nation. Yes some things are going to have a 90% effectiveness against Ulm, and crumble horribly against someone who knows how to play Pangara (or the other way around)

[ May 26, 2004, 18:59: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Being one of the non-VQ-whiners, but clam, blood and castle-whiner, I beg to differ.

I'm not whining because a strategy is unfair, unbeatable or similar. I'm whining because I HATE micromanagement, and all those strategies requires a lot of it.

To paraphrase. I wouldn't mind clams if the damn pearls showed up in the lab, or the blood slaves did, or if castle spamming did not remove or reduce my ability to create a few production centers to manage instead of every single province.

Is this quite clear? Please don't impose motives to other people

Thank you.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
To paraphrase. I wouldn't mind clams if the damn pearls showed up in the lab, or the blood slaves did

I am always amazed at how many people don't know about the gem pooling buttons that are available in the gem income summary screen. These allow you to pool all of your pearls and blood slaves(in labbed provinces) with a single mouse click.

[Yossar]

I've never really seen anyone successfully execute those strategies besides Norfleet so I don't know if they really are broken or if he's just good. I do know, though, that in the late game, anyone who doesn't have any clams or a castle in every province will be at a significant disadvantage to someone who does.

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
To paraphrase. I wouldn't mind clams if the damn pearls showed up in the lab, or the blood slaves did, or if castle spamming did not remove or reduce my ability to create a few production centers to manage instead of every single province.

All you have to do is press F7, pool slaves, and pool astral pearls. Not much micromanagment unless you are doing a lot of blood sacrificing and then have to put the slaves back on the priests.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
Being one of the non-VQ-whiners, but clam, To paraphrase. I wouldn't mind clams if the damn pearls showed up in the lab, or the blood slaves did

There's a "pool" button for clams....blood slaves remains somewhat of a sore spot, if you're simultaneously hunting and sacrificing, as the sacrificers then have to have their slaves manually replaced. This is somewhat annoying. Pooling for clams, fetishes, and earth bloods is simple and one-click, though.

castle spamming did not remove or reduce my ability to create a few production centers to manage instead of every single province.

Castle spammers don't have production centers because they tend to favor mages over troops: Troops lack the mobility needed to effectively respond to a sudden threat before your cheap paper castle collapses, so you need teleportation, gatewaying, or trapezing. Thus, you WON'T have production centers: Instead, you'll be pumping out mages from your cheap towers and not building very many of your national troops except the really cheap ones at all. The sacrifice you make for castle-spam is that you give up access to national troops as a meaningful fighting force, and become dependent on summons, SCs, and mages.

[NTJedi]

I was reading where it's 300_Gold per castle... and it can be as much as 450_Gold per castle. In any case just 10 provinces each with castles is over 3000 gold ! A very deadly army can be made with 3000 gold. That's 20 Hunter Knights from Machaka with 500 gold to spare.

Also a good strategy for stopping the castle strategy is removing the control of the province during construction. It takes 3 turns to build... a stealth army or ghost riders or call of the wild... etc.
Another idea is if you are currently the strongest... send a message thru the game to your opponents saying,"If you build a castle on our borders then I will consider this an act of war." Even someone of equal strength could be intimidated as a result.

The biggest part of multiplayer is diplomacy not some VQ or castling strategy. Players should be focusing on stopping the strongest player. If players A and B combined are the same strength of player C... then player A & player B should make an alliance against player C and make an agreement based on honor not to fight each other for 10 days or so. Peace Treaties... part of history.

[ May 26, 2004, 19:34: Message edited by: NTJedi ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by NTJedi:
I was reading where it's 300_Gold per Another idea is if you are currently the strongest... send a message thru the game to your opponents saying,"If you build a castle on our borders and I will consider this an act of war." Even someone of equal strength could be intimidated as a result.

If somebody were to say that, I would immediately deploy for war, since that is obviously his intention anyway: The only reason you'd be concerned about your opponent building castles is if you plan to imminently attack him, and thus want him to be weak and exposed: Otherwise, an opponent who castles is actually working in YOUR favor, since he will not be able to effectively conduct an offensive operation against YOU without rendering his castles irrelevant. Given that such a message obviously indicates an imminent desire to invade you, appeasement is out of the question. I think we learned enough about that in WW2.

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
Being one of the non-VQ-whiners, but clam, blood and castle-whiner, I beg to differ.

I'm not whining because a strategy is unfair, unbeatable or similar. I'm whining because I HATE micromanagement, and all those strategies requires a lot of it.

Is this quite clear? Please don't impose motives to other people

Thank you.

Rather than make an exhaustive list of all potential "motives", I chose to start this thread by proposing a few. I don't deserve a frown for that!

You've added another motive, which is great--and I find it quite curious:

You don't want ME to "castle spam" because YOU hate micromanagement.

Without more, this appears to be a non sequitur.

[NTJedi]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
If somebody were to say that, I would immediately deploy for war, since that is obviously his intention anyway: The only reason you'd be concerned about your opponent building castles is if you plan to imminently attack him, and thus want him to be weak and exposed: Otherwise, an opponent who castles is actually working in YOUR favor, since he will not be able to effectively conduct an offensive operation against YOU without rendering his castles irrelevant. Given that such a message obviously indicates an imminent desire to invade you, appeasement is out of the question. I think we learned enough about that in WW2.

Well if player A, player B or player C were all the same size... and myself was twice the size of any of them then sending such a message to all players is usually effective. There will be the one player(player_C) who says hey I will utilize my gold for other resources/investments delay on building castles. And then there will be the player such as yourself that says "F.. You.". As a result you would be the first in the path of my expansion while player C has a longer time of peace and building.
And if our strategies were equal then you would most likely lose... unless one of the others came to your rescue.

As a result I would also make a peace treaty with player_C for 15 days or so.

[ May 26, 2004, 20:10: Message edited by: NTJedi ]