Cthulhu R'lyeh Wgah'nagl Fhtagn, L�! L�!

johan osterman · #1 October 5th, 2003, 04:55 PM

I have a little trouble taking the whole usenet magic duel debate seriously, since Ying Wan Lam discovered that the magic duel had been seriously bugged for the better part of the time that all the complaints were made.

The illithids do not cost 75. Rlyeh can take cold 3 and can afford low production scales, I think Rlyeh can be more liberal with spending point on their pretenders than most other nations.

LordArioch · #2 October 5th, 2003, 04:57 PM

That raises the question of whether magic duel has been changed in Dominions 2 since it seems to inspire strategy-changing fear when mentioned in Dom1. It is after all the only mage specific targeting spell I can think of...and that is quite an advantage. It should either not be based only on astral or have a fairly large uncertainty factor for the better mage's chance of living.

PS: Oops...theres another thread for that. And I guess the fear probably stems from the bugged Version. I've never seen it much myself so I wouldnt know.

[ October 05, 2003, 15:59: Message edited by: LordArioch ]

Nerfix · #3 October 5th, 2003, 04:59 PM

Magic Duel still kills you if the enemy mage has a single pick more Astral than you have.

Illithids not costing 75 gp is a good thing. How does Cold 3 differ from Heat 3 for R'lyeh? And at least in Dom I, Cold/Heat 3 cuts down your income of land provinces, and even if you don't need much resources, you will still need money.

I am sorry for any half-asses information, but i am just a very active lurker of Dom II progress...

Kristoffer O · #4 October 5th, 2003, 05:02 PM

It never did, not even while bugged. Both mages add 1D6 to their astral skill. The bug made the initiator win always.

Nerfix · #5 October 5th, 2003, 05:08 PM

Too...much...divine...energy...

And how does 3 Cold differ from 3 Heat for R'lyeh?

Nagot Gick Fel · #6 October 5th, 2003, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nerfix:

And how does 3 Cold differ from 3 Heat for R'lyeh?

Because they're better water mages than fire mages?

Nagot Gick Fel · #7 October 5th, 2003, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by johan osterman:
I have a little trouble taking the whole usenet magic duel debate seriously, since Ying Wan Lam discovered that the magic duel had been seriously bugged for the better part of the time that all the complaints were made.

That's not very surprising. Because of its irrevocable effect you better had to ensure your own astral supremacy before starting to think about magic duel. Then, if you duelled an astral 3 mage with your astral 4 one you always won because of the bug. And therefore - the duel mechanics still being a mystery at the time - everyone assumed that more astral meant automatic victory. Because of that low astral mages avoided confrontations and in the rare occasions a duel actually happened, the initiator was always the higher skilled mage. One had to test specifically for this to discover the bug.

So (1) I think you're a bit rude, and (2) that should be an incentive for the devs to be more versatile on the inner mechanics of the game - in this case if we players had known about the 1D6, we players wouldn't have been long before suspecting something didn't work as expected in magic duel.