Black Forest - Ulm

I think you are right in saying it's limited, but not totally limited. The Fortune Teller is your friend I think her random is only Sorcery (astral, death, nature, blood) so she in and of herself doesnt have alot of leeway. The Counts are decent (2 Death, 2 Blood) but overall they don't have very much mage variety. And I'll be the first to admit that Blood doesn't have very many combat spells.

If they did ... eh?

Also most of their mages are recruitable outside of their capital (Illuminated Ones, Member of the Second Tier) so it works well with they hyperexpansion and later the uberraiding of the theme.

I just can't seem to get past how quickly you can get a factory of the counts rolling while almost totally ignoring researching Blood. Combine it with a strong foundation of armies (again, xbows and free patroller/fodder) it seems that Black Forest was given all the cards while some nations/themes are sitting in the trailerpark watching it on TV.

I don't know how abusive the Ice Devil strategy was in Dom 1, but if the sacrifices (Getting a Pretender with Blood/Death, forced Misfortune (no big deal)) allow you to win the game then it should be addressed if not *For* Black Forest, *for* all the nation/themes that don't have an easy way to deal with Supercombatants (I.E. Paralyze, Blindness).

[ January 13, 2004, 20:51: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Dekent]

Just a rather odd note, shouldn't the ghoul guardians still be wearing their full plate of ulm suits? From what I understand, they died before those went out of fashion and it seems odd that undead would change their armor over time =)

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Dekent:
Just a rather odd note, shouldn't the ghoul guardians still be wearing their full plate of ulm suits? From what I understand, they died before those went out of fashion and it seems odd that undead would change their armor over time =)

Good point!

[Saber Cherry]

For the purpose of upkeep:

Thralls cost 1 gold (1/15 per turn). Wolves are free. And taking a 9-Blood 3-Death FoB makes you incredibly powerful... wolves and thralls make good patrollers to control the unrest. However... I'm thinking gypsies and witches... and bats. Bats are essential. Did gypsies and witches live in Transylvania? Or is the fortune teller a gypsy? I guess so...

Maybe this theme should have a forced misfortune scale, and a propensity for peasant revolts.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Maybe this theme should have a forced misfortune scale, and a propensity for peasant revolts.

Better yet, it should be forced to have at least Misfortune 1, Death 1, and Magic 1.

Jasper is mean to the furry ears

If you didn't notice, it does Saber

Originally posted by Pocus:
huhu, from another company it would irritate me to be treated like a paying beta-tester. Now for IW, it makes me smile and a special treatment can be made
Seriously, some of the forumers (no I'm not speaking of me) are rather good as betatesters, perhaps you should give to them the patch a week before general release (Psitticine is still around, sometime Daynarr too, but I think they have their hand rather full). On top of my head, in no particular order : Cherry, Gandalf, Keir, Apoger.

I think this would be hard from a MP aspect (though I want to be a beta tester!) as the games take hours/days/weeks in order to complete. Logical deductions can be made and SP tests can be done, but if IW decides to do a beta testing team, they need to make sure they can find people who play (often) and who are abusive to the mechanics

More than a week would be needed for anything more than initial impressions. (Especially for new spells and such).

I don't mind being used as a paying beta-tester, if the game works and it doesn't crash every hour. Most companies do regardless, at least here they try hard

[ January 13, 2004, 22:20: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Dekent]

If you want to pay to be a beta tester, try out Knights of the Old Republic by bioware, that has to be the buggiest pile of goo I have ever played...there is NO WAY that thing had more then an hour of QA...if even!


And I made a good point for once wohoo...it seemed weird the guardian ghouls were wearing normal plate. I don't really see any balance reason as high level priests are still going to make altar boys outta em

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Zen:
Jasper is mean to the furry ears

If you didn't notice, it does Saber

Hey, what are you two implying? I knew that!

But still, I think national bad events would be very thematic... involving peasant uprisings, garlic farmer uprisings, silversmith uprisings, bloodslave mercy-killings by the kindly old butler who found the key to cellar door, national antiheros like Buffy appearing... the birth of daywalkers / compassionate vampire rebels, lynchings, vampires accidentally sucking the wrong blood type and dying from massive hemmoraging... those things! Floods, barbarians, earthquakes, and such tend to be much more rare in vampire-rich areas.

Any chance we'll get national events in the next patch?

[Jasper]

National Events would be very cool. I'd settle for exported and modifiable events however.