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  #1  
Old November 3rd, 2003, 08:37 PM
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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

>>Alex, sorry, to me, your post is borderline troll and I didn't even want to respond to it. But since it's cause such a stir, I'd put in my two cents.

>So I'm a troll just becuase I have some negative opinions? Get real.

Your comment is trollish, or as the other had said, jumping the gun before seeing the whole game. I don't mean that you're a troll (a faithless backstabber who keep winning the game, maybe . Trollish because of there were a lot of complaints without much constructive criticism. You also expected the game to follow a certain way and therefore complained a lot of aspects wouldn't be as fun. You're totally entitled to your opinion, but I guess some of us are quite thrilled to see the high power magic-fest.

But let's not call each other's name.

>>Give the developers a break

>I'll give them a break when they give me a price break on my purchase. Fair enough?

A fair complaint .

>1) Resource. Dom 2 stops the patrol-and-tax trick. Other than that, I don't see much is changed?

> You haven't looked closely then.

As close as my ability limit me to .

>>Order now actually gives you more bonus for income (+10%). Productivitiy and Growth now give less bonus but it's just a shift of balance.

>Order is 7%... for those that are paying attention.

I saw two numbers on the board. One said 7%, the other said 10%.

>In Dom I order was an effective 10% due to the ability to rasie taxes without penalty. With prod and growth the combined bonus was 60%. With a fortified city it was 110% (more really due to bonuses stacking).

>In Dom II the combined bonus is 33%. With fortified city 57%.

>That's a pretty big difference, and that's before any patrol tricks.

>See a difference yet?


I don't think Castle admin add to tax income, only resource? Am I right?

If I'm right, it's 21% + 18% (39%?) - (growth and productivity add 3% each level?) versus 30 + 30% (60%). Assuming your base income is 3000 gold by turn 30, it would be 4800 vs 4170. Big enough but I don't see it very significant - could be my play style.

>>2) Pretender SC. It has always been like that. I can't even count how many Wyrms or Molochs I saw in Dom 1 games. What have changed?

>The cost of everything besides the pretenders. This effectively makes the pretenders vastly more potent.

>That's what has changed.

For a MP game, you can raise the richness of the world. Increase the site frequency. Or give everybody a few starting provinces. You need to tweak the game settings to your flavor and find like-minded people but I don't see that a fundamental fault of the game.

But if you like the patrolling routine, then we'll need to persuade the developers to allow adjustment of population loss. Harder but not imposssible.

>Rainbow mages are now less expensive and more viable.

>A bit, yes.

>The only problematic combo I saw is a Prince of Death in Ulm's hand, equipped with full armor and the Boots of Behemoth. It could be more or less unstoppable by turn 10. But I'll have to wait to see how things turn out in the full-game.

>That's the only problem you have seen?
There are dozens (if not hundreds) of combinations that are just as bad if not worse.

Show me .

I was limiting to the amount of gems you could get from your capital site. So, no boot to most except for Ulm and Vanheim. Great Mother is usable but her fatique will be quite high after a few turns. PoD is undead and can abuse his melee advantages easily. It's before turn 10. So I'm limiting to only one magic path, below level 4.

The cost of the pretender I used was less than 100 points. If you invested enough in your pretender, of course he will be powerful. But that's a conscious and risky choice of stratgy, not an abuse. People can of course use a Titan with water and air, but they're doing it at their own risk. We all know how risky it is to put all the eggs into one basket.

Yes, I understand that you don't like too much emphasis being put on the pretenders, any suggestions that can allow the game to accomodate both sides of the spectrum? An option to double the cost of all points related to pretender power?

>>The only pretenders SC which I found disruptive to the game in Dom 1 are Sphinx,
>They're less attractive and powerful in Dom 2 because of less item slots. Or should we just take them off the list?

>No, the Sphinx is back in all it's cheesy glory.

I don't see that.

Sphinx is expensive and limited (one misc item only now). You can't even use it to break a seige!!

You can totally decapitate a player in the early game. A good and intimidating move but you're asking for diplomatic trouble that way. Moreover, unless you put more magic on it, a Sphinx doesn't kill fast enough with Astral and (incredible it may sound) it doesn't really qualify as a super-combatant to me. If he has more magic, any death will be the loss of a lot of points, which is especially probable as a Sphinx can't retreat.

But of course, all of these are related to my preferrence of game strategy. Your mileage could be very different.

>>3) Blood Magic. All the major blood spells are more expensive now and most are at higher levels.

>No they are not more expensive!!!!

>Blood summons were only raised 50% in cost while other economies were increased MORE. In effect blood summons have been made cheaper.

I don't see that.

Gem economy in general is not more expensive. It's less affordable to hire mages. But it will be the same as Blood hunters.

Gold economy is worse (though it's around 20 to 30% worse in my calculation). That's everybody agrees on. It's just some people hate it, some love it, some find it tweakable and tolerable.

>I am about to post a long essay on blood magic, I hope you give it a read.

Not in a sarchastic way - I can't wait .

>>Wrathful Sky is less powerful than Dom 1.

>In what way?
>I see thunder ward gone. No easy defense (and it wasn't easy for most to begin with).

>If anything it's much more deadly.

It's there. Now you need only Air 2. You mean it only starts at 50%? And thus detrimental to game balance? May be. But I'll have to wait and see.

BTW, does anybody know whether higher level mages get higher resistance while casting the ward spells?

>>Seithkona nether darts is not a problem - it's a trick for Jotun.

>It's more than a trick. It's too potent.

>You have similar killer spells in other paths: "Flame Eruption", "Astral Fire".

>Not even in the same universe as nether darts.

"Flame Eruption" is more powerful and at a lower level than "Nether Dart". Some nations have very dispensible mages to use them. They have short range - their only limitation.

"Astra Fire" is not as potent but cheap and of a lower level.

And the "Wrathful sky" you've mentioned.

There are other killer spells. I don't see them anywhere worse them the "Darts". Even "Rain of Stone" is quite useful as long as you have somebody with high enough hp to use it.

"Nether Darters" are also very vulnerable to "Mind Duel". You can also counter it by increasing the MR of your troops. It's powerful but it's a level 7 spell.

If you don't like high-power army-devastating spells in general, that is another discussion. That'll involved putting in some options to tone down magic in the game. Not a bad idea at all. How do you want to implement it?
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  #2  
Old November 3rd, 2003, 08:49 PM

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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

thats my part of the comments, which go either in the direction of Alex arguments, or in the opposite:

- combat pretenders are more powerful in doms II that they were in doms I, because they didnt change, but as gold income is reduced by a factor of 2 (a bit more actually, see below), they gain advantage relatively. A doms II nations with a combat pretender will develop way faster than a nation without (Alex got 36 provinces by turn 20 with a dragon, I got 18, just the half, with a rainbow mage, same settings. Ok it can just mean I'm really bad in this game ).

- The highest gold income in doms II is 250 gp in your capital. You cant really count on doubling that by patrolling, as several mechanisms concur into making the idea a really bad one (more unrest, and big decrease in pop). Compared to doms I, where you could patrol easily your capital, and reach nearly 600 gp a turn.

- non blood nations gained some big summons, but as only blood nations can really hope to get and hold demons princes, the situation has not so clearly changed in favor of one of the two clans. Blood harvest is more difficult, but from my experience, when you succeed, you get more slaves, so the situation is not that clear.

- nether darts are not * that * overpowered. To be correct, nether darts are not overpowered when you have an anti magic ward, as the damage need a MR check. Lamias with AM ward dont need to fear the darts, eg.
Also the larger battlefield is rather detrimental to accuracy (fireball and flare have lost much of their interest by the way).
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Old November 3rd, 2003, 09:03 PM
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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

Quote:
Originally posted by johan osterman:
quote:
Originally posted by apoger:
>The sphinx in all it's cheesy glory is confined to its home castle. Immobile units cannot teleport.

Really? Tell that to my Last few dozen Sphinx's.
Might want to look into that...
Heh, ok.

Edit: I checked, you are right. I had the strongest recollection of it being changed.

Uh, so they can still teleports?
Is this getting changed in some patch or not?
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Old November 3rd, 2003, 09:04 PM

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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

Quote:
Originally posted by ywl:
I don't think Castle admin add to tax income, only resource? Am I right?
admin add to tax. full admin in doms I, half admin in doms II.

Quote:
If I'm right, it's 21% + 18% (39%?) - (growth and productivity add 3% each level?) versus 30 + 30% (60%). Assuming your base income is 3000 gold by turn 30, it would be 4800 vs 4170. Big enough but I don't see it very significant - could be my play style.
the formula has not changed, and is :

admin * scale bonus * tax rate

in doms I without patrolling it gives :
1.5 * 1.3 * 1.3 = 2.535
380 gold for 30000 pop capital
with patrolling (order dont increase max gold output):
1.5 * 1.3 * 2.0 = 3.9
585 gold for 30000 pop capital

in doms II, without patrolling (hey sure!) :
1.25 * 1.33 = 1.6625
249 gold for 30000 pop capital

and thats it : 249 gold versus 580. In these 580, you need to recoup the draft cost of patrollers, and pay there upkeep though. Significant, but 50 archers cost only 25 gold in upkeep, and 400 gold to buy.

So the ratio is that you have half the gold of doms I in doms II (for the capital).
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Old November 3rd, 2003, 09:14 PM
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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

>I don't think Castle admin add to tax income, only resource? Am I right?

No.

Admin in Dom I added in as a direct bonus. In Dom II it adds 50% of the bonus.


> a Sphinx doesn't kill fast enough with Astral

Almost all my Sphinx's use fire and/or water in order to get fire shield and/or breath of winter. You can have both up at the same time BTW. It kills troops plenty fast, and the ability to teleport into and deal with the biggest enemy threat before it can move, is huge.


>I see thunder ward gone.
>It's there. Now you need only Air 2. You mean it only starts at 50%? And thus detrimental to game balance? May be. But I'll have to wait and see.

Not only partial defense, but it only affects a handful of troops. It's not good enough to defend an army from wrathful skies.


>>Seithkona nether darts
>It's more than a trick. It's too potent.
>You have similar killer spells in other paths: "Flame Eruption", "Astral Fire".

It's more than "nether darts".
It's seithkona-nether darts.

The siethkona are incredibly cheap and are very available. The combo is simple and cost effective. That's what makes it better than other spells.

Astral fire isn't something that any mass produced mages can cast.

Flame eruption requires very close range. In Dom II this is much harder to get since armies start farther away from each other.
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Old November 3rd, 2003, 09:17 PM
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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

Quote:
Originally posted by Nerfix:
Uh, so they can still teleports?
Is this getting changed in some patch or not?
It most likely will. We were all surprised to find that it hadn't been implemented.
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  #7  
Old November 3rd, 2003, 09:22 PM
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Default Re: Did you noticed.......

Quote:
Originally posted by apoger:
So I'm a troll just becuase I have some negative opinions? Get real.
Welcome to our club, partner.

Quote:
In Dom I order was an effective 10% due to the ability to rasie taxes without penalty. With prod and growth the combined bonus was 60%. With a fortified city it was 110% (more really due to bonuses stacking).

In Dom II the combined bonus is 33%. With fortified city 57%.

That's a pretty big difference, and that's before any patrol tricks.
The 7% for order in D2 is more important than the 10% in D1. In D1 any province that could pay for its patrols in 3-4 turns got them asap and taxes were upped to 200%, even if that meant decreasing the pop there. As a result you didn't get these 10% extra gold from order from these provinces, and combined they often contributed for 75+% to your total income. True, with high order you needed less patrollers, say an extra initial 160 gold investment for order 0 (compared to order +3) and 11 gold more upkeep in every subsequent turn - but these extra costs didn't come close to these "lost" 30% from order +3.

I must say I like the D2 economics better. In D1 everyone - maybe even you - thought this patrol trick was bothersome and silly. Everyone felt compelled to pick growth +3 and order +3 for the extra gold, almost disregarding the increased productivity and growth - dumb. Everyone felt compelled to pick a 35+ admin castle for the same reason - dumb. Now that there are less no-brainers, we have more choices, and that's good. The only problem is the costs of units and leaders should have been scaled down to fit the new economics.

BTW, am I the only one to patrol my capital and raise taxes to 200% when I have idle troops there? I've never been so rich in D2 than when I tried turmoil +3/luck +3 and started to slaughter my commoners with all the free militia I got.

Quote:
I am about to post a long essay on blood magic, I hope you give it a read.
I'm eagerly waiting for it.
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