Are heavy bless strategies the best ones ?

[Gandalf Parker]

On larger maps most of that becomes untrue also. Drain? magic plays no role? Death has no affect? Im not sure if Victory Point games might also make a difference on some of it and since the devs love VP games I sure wouldnt write those off. And thats not to mention games that might crank up the magic, or crank down the resources, or boost magic sites.

Some people tend to play Dom3 with the same settings all the time. Same map size, same number of players, same victory conditions. That cant help but paint a "do this and always win every game" feeling.

Interestingly many of the same people tell Solo players that staying inside that limitation will get old and ruin the game for them.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
Drain? magic plays no role?

Magic plays a very large role if the game lasts to turn 40 or so. The drain scale, on the other hand, has almost no effect on the power of magic.

Death has no affect?

The death scale has precisely the effects I just listed. It reduces your population in your home province by 24% over 50 turns, and by a lesser amount in other provinces. Otherwise it has little effect on any nation other than those with mages that were made old arbitrarily (ie. the fire nations).

Im not sure if Victory Point games might also make a difference on some of it and since the devs love VP games I sure wouldnt write those off.

Victory points make games finish sooner, not later.

[Velusion]

Gandalf Parker said:
Some people tend to play Dom3 with the same settings all the time. Same map size, same number of players, same victory conditions. That cant help but paint a "do this and always win every game" feeling.

And some people don't even play multi-player games but still paint a "MP in dominions 3 is perfect" picture...

And I don't play blitz. I'm not sure why you assume that everyone who critques the balance of Dom3 only plays on small maps with a few people.

[Tyrant]

For all the forum chatter about dual 9 bless i've so far only seen it twice in 6 net games. In both cases it was 9W9S. Once it worked great (MA Ermor), the other guy (Lanka) got clobbered straight away.

[Aleph]

It may be that the game simply does not take its main purpose for nation design tight balance for hyper competitive MP? Certainly, the manual itself suggests in the last paragraphs before the beginning of the Grimoire that there are units (and possibly even whole nations) that are in there to be neat, to provide fun and interest, rather than be min-maxxed into unstoppableness.

In this regard it is somewhat similar to many fighting games. There's usually about 20% of a fighting games roster that makes its way into serious tourney competition. The others are there for beginners, or for people who think that a character that looks cool or has an enjoyable theme is more important than frame advantage. Unless there is a much smaller ratio of actually usable characters, though, or one or two are massively overpowered, most in-the-know fans don't criticize game balance.

Edit: And I don't know crap about MP, but Lanka IMO is really better off with E9N9, not F9W9.

[Gandalf Parker]

Velusion said:

And some people don't even play multi-player games but still paint a "MP in dominions 3 is perfect" picture...

And I don't play blitz. I'm not sure why you assume that everyone who critques the balance of Dom3 only plays on small maps with a few people.

Heehee. Some probably do.
But I run most of the server MP games and have played in many MP games. Many of those with the beta-tester team (inluding the devs) which include many of the best players from the IRC channel. For a good year more than most others have had Dom3. I dont do all that badly in such games.
Dont think you can talk to me like Graeme or Quantum

[Valandil]

!
Gandalf, regardless of MP ability, at least responds to ad hominum attacks with a measure of equanimity.

Of course, it's not exactly necessary to play the game with the intent of winning. As some of you might remember, I played Yomi so that I could send cryptic messages in Japanese to all the pretenders. I died by turn 30. And it was fun. Oh, and being backstabbed by the treacherous Lankan dogs was probably my favourite moment of Dom3 thus far. Call me a masochist.

[Meglobob]

Valandil said:
Of course, it's not exactly necessary to play the game with the intent of winning.

Yes I agree, its perfectly ok for a person to join a MP game with no intention or expectation of winning. The aim should be to have fun, enjoyment and winning is just a bonus if it comes along.

[Ygorl]

Right. Only one person gets to win any given game, hopefully everyone gets to have fun. To achieve maximum fun, each person has his or her own balance between striving for optimal play and the best chance at victory on the one hand, and tinkering, fooling around, exploring, diplomacy, role-playing, doing whatever else there is to do that's *not* a min-maxed drive to victory on the other hand. This balance may well change from game to game, day to day, nation to nation, whatever, for a given person. Most people recognize this and accept it; sometimes it dictates what games a person joins, sometimes somebody gets frustrated at having joined a game in which a lot of people are playing with vastly different goals. Mostly, people are civil and have fun.

[KissBlade]

Actually in a multiplayer game, it is VERY frustrating when someone's not playing to win. You can end up having completely pushing over neighbors who have no intent to win and triple the size of your empire because of that and completely mess up a game.