Mod: Enhanced Gameplay Mod [project]

[hEad]

Some nations could really use national summons(Marverni and Man for instance) to give the player something to do besides sweating through most of the game. Seeing as this would be a large undertaking, would it be possible to give these deficient nations a cheap national Gift of Reason spell, available early on, so at least they can bulk up with summoned thugs.

Marverni gets the right gems and mages to be a cracking forge nation, yet they really have nothing to forge for - armies of reasoned Trolls and the like would at least give them a competitive leg up and would be damn fun to boot!

[Zeldor]

Yeah, most of that items would be const6 or const8. I also agree on hammer of the cyclops, we don't need 2, as they'd be probably grabbed by same player. Other stuff can be tweaked. Sun items look especially nice, good way to spend F gems on cool gear.

I was also thinking about getting summons in a way you suggested for some nations. They will take spell slots too though. Man indeed could use TNN mages/thugs as summons. That nation totally sucks and is now worse even than Ulm. There are more nations that could use summons from previous eras.

Also Ashdod balance mod could be added here. That is made first. Right now that cool nation is usually banned. They'd need some serious nerf, but they'd be playable. I was thinking about nerfind PD [is it possible?], changing heat to neutral or 1 [same question], making their forge bonus guys summons [mid-game, 40-50 gems], removing 3rd misc slot, making Zamzummites cap only.

And yeah, that was Xietor's MA Man mod. I don't think it was big enough, but it could surely be added, before we do some other serious modifications. It's way better than vanilla or CBM Man.

[Gregstrom]

I think adjusting PD for a nation is possible. Heat 1 would be more thematic than neutral temperature preference.

As for Zamzummites, I'd say punt the cost up a lot rather than have them cap-only. If they cost 300+, that'd be enough of a barrier to stop there being too many of them (until the late end of the game, when it's less of an issue I think). Rephaite sages are adequate battle mages for many purposes. Making the Talmai expensive summons would mean Adon became the thugs of choice most of the time, I guess. Until the sci-fi era of the late game, I guess you'd be forced to keep the few summoned Talmai you could afford back home forging. I sort of like the third misc. slot on the Talmai, as it feels thematic.

[Zeldor]

They are just giants. It's not like they have one more magic pocket for additional bracers. And yeah, that 3rd slot is just for stacking E9 bless bug.

Zamzummites are almost SCs, they are at least very good thugs. If they were cap only you'd have to choose between Adon and Zamzummite. And it would be a fair choice to make. And you'd be still left with non-cap mages other nations can dream of.

Zamzummites would be still probably the strongest recruitable fighters in MA. Way better than Jotun cap-only giants or other weak thugs.

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Well, in my opinion dom3 is not a game about economy. That's why there are only 3 buildings. It is about pretenders samshing each others into the face. Clam spam + turtling does not make for an intresting game, since it removes interaction between players.

It also bugs me how far gem generators have gone from their orginal purpose (lessen the need to restock gems to marching army mages). They were meant for that, not to power your late-game into ridicilious levels. Whenever I clam, I feel like I'm abusing a bug or just exploiting in general. But perhaps that is just me.

Taking provinces is merely a function of economy also. Clamming is not very interesting, but if you're stuck between a rock and a hard place it's better than just waiting or going kamikaze against neighbours you can't beat now.

It's unproblematic in midgame, everything else just keeps happening. I think the real reason for late game unfun is that attacking becomes very unrewarding.
Luck is a much larger factor than in midgame (maybe the largest), first spell and 50 round advantage, and 90% of your holdings can be replace by the first province you conquer with a 20 gem thug.
If I ended up with the largest income in late game I would just sit back without clams, my position doesn't get weaker.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

Taking provinces is merely a function of economy also. Clamming is not very interesting, but if you're stuck between a rock and a hard place it's better than just waiting or going kamikaze against neighbours you can't beat now.

It's unproblematic in midgame, everything else just keeps happening. I think the real reason for late game unfun is that attacking becomes very unrewarding.
Luck is a much larger factor than in midgame (maybe the largest), first spell and 50 round advantage, and 90% of your holdings can be replace by the first province you conquer with a 20 gem thug.
If I ended up with the largest income in late game I would just sit back without clams, my position doesn't get weaker.

Err.. that quote in your post is from me, not from Zeldor.

If you're stuck between the rock and the hard place, how about building forts+labs for more mages and research? Clamming isn't the only option to improve your position when you can't assault someone. Besides, clamming does not neccessarily mean that you have to turtle. You just have 1-3 mages doing clams and that is the extent of your resources. Strong nation is able to wage war and clam fine. Clamming isn't somehow more beneficial to nations in poor position.

You have a point about the late-game wars. Gold doesn't really mean anything, so provinces only really serve as buffers.

I get my late-game kicks from seeing all that epic stuff happening. Attacking is exciting for me, since I can't really be *that* sure about what I'll exactly be facing. But I really haven't played too much late games in MP. I could imagine that vets no longer experience that thrill, having seen everything all ready.

Originally Posted by Illuminated One

If I ended up with the largest income in late game I would just sit back without clams, my position doesn't get weaker.

If you have largest income (you probably mean gem income, right?), you can also clam more than any other nation, giving you a theoretical timevantage (since the gems from the clams would allow you to clam even more). So your statement holds true even with clams in the picture.

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Err.. that quote in your post is from me, not from Zeldor.

Sorry, messed up the names.

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

If you have largest income (you probably mean gem income, right?), you can also clam more than any other nation, giving you a theoretical timevantage (since the gems from the clams would allow you to clam even more). So your statement holds true even with clams in the picture.

I get my late-game kicks from seeing all that epic stuff happening. Attacking is exciting for me,since I can't really be *that* sure about what I'll exactly be facing. But I really haven't played too much late games in MP. I could imagine that vets no longer experience that thrill, having seen everything all ready.

Sure that's right and clamming makes it probably worse late game.
I can't call myself a vet only got to something I'd call late game in two games, but all in all I had better battles midgame (killing a water queen in a pitched battle over a cap is more exciting than having the only teleporting thugs you can get killed by two water queens in a province your enemy doesn't care about).

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

If you're stuck between the rock and the hard place, how about building forts+labs for more mages and research? Clamming isn't the only option to improve your position when you can't assault someone. Besides, clamming does not neccessarily mean that you have to turtle. You just have 1-3 mages doing clams and that is the extent of your resources. Strong nation is able to wage war and clam fine. Clamming isn't somehow more beneficial to nations in poor position.

Well, usually stronger position means more gold and more research in the long run, so no difference to clamming.
What I mean is that nation balancing doesn't necessarily mean that all nations fight equally well. In fact I'd find that boring.
Instead the weaker nations have or should have several options to outdo the warrior nations on the home front (access to clams, better research, cheaper and better castles, a good synergy with a global).
Hence the suggestion of removing indie mages. If you want a path adjust your strategy around it.


edit: @Zeldor

Yeah, I know what you mean.
Still, I don't think you're getting at the root of the problem by removing clams.

[Zeldor]

Illuminated One:

If you can clam, he can clam too. And if he is stronger, he can clam more.

As Micah stated in Preponderance thread - late-game is longer and more challenging because general level of MP community is higher. Earlier vet could win even quite big games before real end game would happen. Now you can research all stuff on turns 30-40 and be far far away from seeing a victorious nation. So new tactics are appearing. And mass sick clamming is among them. I had 100 tartarians once. I had more than 500 mages more than once. I had over 50 forts. I was crazy clamming. All is ok, until it happens at once. And it does happen, if you want to win. And well, everyone plays to win.

Some people are surprised that Micah has 170 clams in one game and that he can make about 15 clams a turn. The sad thing is that it's quite common to see people making 10+ clams/turn from turn 60.