The next patch

[Darryl]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
However, there's another issue that I think is being overlooked. Graeme has said several times that "there is nothing else to do with your water gems besides forge clams"

This seems to me to be a major problem. As far as I can see (and I'm FAAAAR from an expert) there are 4 major uses for water:

1) Water breathing
2) Quickness ("Boots of" or the spell)
3) Clam of Pearls
4) Kill your own mages (Breath of Winter, and yes I'm still bitter)

Do people use water for anything else?

The kill your own mages one influences me to keep water mages out of battles unless I feel like micromanaging their position on the battlefield and who guards them and where the rest of the army...screw it, just have him forge something! Nothing I need right now? Just make some clams and don't kill anybody!

I guess I do summon Sea Trolls, and I have one in the Hall of Fame mostly due to falling frost. Of course when there is no enemy in range he proceeds to cast Breath of Winter thereby ensuring he can kill some of my people to stay in the HoF (I've taken care of the troops finally, but I'm still bitter...)

In the opinion of the DomII playing community, is this statement correct? And if so, isn't THAT the real problem?

It seems to be pretty weak if you ask me.

On the battlefield: maybe water needs a new battlefield spell that would be as scary as Nether Darts or Orb Lightning? Are Falling Frost, Frozen Heart and Ice Strike not up to par?

Falling frost seems to be enough to get a commander into the HoF. And he's in a squad with titans, so that's not too shabby.

Some have already suggested a ritual that makes all troops in a given province amphibious (either for a limited time, or permanently). Or how about a one-province Version of Thetis Blessing (spending extra gems to set the duration like Astral Window)? These could help water nations bring their aquatic troops onto land, or help a land nation invade the ocean.

Kinda like that idea. I like Yetis too.

Passive ability: Every path of magic gives its mages some ability. Nature gives supply, fire gives leadership and attack, earth gives protection, death gives fear and undead leadership, etc. Water gives water breathing to the mage and ONE unit per level of water magic. This is, frankly, pathetic, especially on a path that is already among the weakest in most other areas. Instead, why not let a water mage bring ALL his troops underwater? Most mages have low leadership anyway, but the few who have good leadership (or +leadership items) can lead whole armies underwater. Or at least raise it to 5-10 troops (or 10 total size of troops) per level of water magic. One unit per level is horrible, even if the unit is a Crusher or similar expensive summon (of a non-water path, I don't see any water unit that would be worth bringing).

I have to agree here. When I first found out that "bring some friends along" meant 1 per unit of magic my first thought was "useless" and I proceeded to plan on making items and completely ignoring any water magic on a mage for purposes of taking troops into water. Why not have it like nature: 5 people per level? Then that could actually be used, but a level 6 water mage (twice the level of "master" in the game) can take a whopping SIX people into the water? Wow. If you use any type of army this is negligible.

[Zapmeister]

Do people use water for anything else?

Ice Devils are often a good reason to put water on your pretender.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
However, there's another issue that I think is being overlooked. Graeme has said several times that "there is nothing else to do with your water gems besides forge clams" (or words to that effect) and therefore you are not hurting your military power by using water gems for clam forging.

Cleary an exaggeration IMHO. There are definitely usefull things to do with water gems, and not using them does have a cost. Sea Trolls, Water Queens, Frost Blades, Quickness boots, Quickening, Frozen Heart, and Murdering Winter are all effective. The contention that Murdering Winter isn't usefull borders on ludicrious IMHO.

In the opinion of the DomII playing community, is this statement correct? And if so, isn't THAT the real problem? Water was too weak in Dom I - everyone agreed on that. Is it still too weak? And if so, shouldn't it be strengthened?

I definitely agree that water is the weakest path, although not by so much as I used to think.

I like the ideas you have for improving it, especially the new summons and passive abilities. Another way would be to lower the casting level of some existing spells, as one of the things really hampering water is the lack of usefull lower levels spells.

[Graeme Dice]

[quote]Originally posted by Jasper:
Sea Trolls, Water Queens, Frost Blades, Quickness boots, Quickening, Frozen Heart, and Murdering Winter are all effective.

Sea trolls have a gold upkeep that will ruin your economy if you try and make a good sized army of them. Frozen heart is nice, but not useful at all against a sixth of the enemies you will face. Water elementals are also probably the weakest of the lot in a normal temperature dominion.

[QB]The contention that Murdering Winter isn't usefull borders on ludicrious IMHO.

Murdering winter is not particularly useful. It requires you to cast several wolven winters in the same turn to do enough damage to kill even normal troops, and in a heat dominion this gets even worse. In heat 2 it will routinely only kill 10 troops out of over a hundred. It is also completely useless against Caelum, Jotunheim and Ermor.

[Zapmeister]

Why do the magic paths need to be balanced? If water is seen to be weaker than the others, that doesn't mean it won't get used. If your national mages have water, and you get water gems, you'll obviously use them for one of the uses that have been listed in this thread.

The problem arises if one of those uses (clams) is clearly better than the others, and leads to an arguably straightforward, difficult-to-stop winning strategy (clams -> astrals -> wishes).

I believe that this is the case (let's not argue it again) and while I would prefer the nature-1,water-1 solution because I think it would supply the necessary balance, and keep the item on a par with fever fetishes cost-wise, I would also be happy with the water-3 solution.

The main hurdle at this point, though, is that there's no consensus that clams are broken. Jasper, Wendigo and the devs constitute a powerful lobby, by anyone's reckoning.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
No, growth from conquest is _not_ exponential, and neither is growth from clams. Growth from conquest is linear. Growth from clams is geometric. You capture a province, search it for magic sites, and once you've done that you've received all the benefits you are ever going to receive from that province. Your gem income from there does not double every few turns, and your gold income does not either. The clams on the other hand, double in the amount of gems they produce without requiring any expansion whatsoever.

You're right, geometric is definitely the right word, not exponential. However, conquest growth is every bit as geometric as clam investment: just as you can reinvest a clam's astrals into clams, so can you reinvest conquered gold income into conquest. True, there is a ceiling for returns from conquest, but as this comes when you've conquered the _entire_ map IMHO it can be safely ignored.

Why don't you explain just how, exactly, making clams from astral and water gems hurts your ability to defend yourself? Please don't mention spells such as murdering winter, since it is useless even when combined with wolven winter in a heat dominion, and even more useless once the clam hoarder has put multiple domes over their capital.

Simple: spending your gems on water summons is effective, and not doing so will give you a weaker army. Researching Construction right off is a very real cost as well, as typically other paths are more usefull for expansion. Similarily, Astral gems have uses better than losing half of them to alchemy in order to make more Astrals in the distant future.

Also, in my experience Murdering Winter is quite effective; one can always find or make a cold dominion in which to use it. Domes are a very limited defense against it, and aren't limited to clam hoarders anyway.

Honestly, I've tried the Clam strategy, and found it just too slow -- even on a fairly small scale, when I defintely had use for Astrals and had no immediate use for Water gems. I would have done better if I had saved them and either forged Frost Blades or summoned Sea Trolls/Water Queens.

Yes, Clams kick *** if you can count on everyone leaving you peacefully alone for 40 turns, and nobody else conquering much. I haven't yet seen this happen in Dominions, but I have seen games that were effectively decided by 40 turns.

The biggest advantage I see from Clams is that they let you have some secret growth (assuming statistics turned off) without the diplomatic problems that can come with conquest. They're also a good deal if you're planning to transmute water gems to astrals anyway.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
Murdering winter is not particularly useful. It requires you to cast several wolven winters in the same turn to do enough damage to kill even normal troops, and in a heat dominion this gets even worse. In heat 2 it will routinely only kill 10 troops out of over a hundred. It is also completely useless against Caelum, Jotunheim and Ermor.

You're the first person I've heard say this, although I've heard quite a few chime in (although not I) thinking Murdering Winter is broken... IMHO the burden clearly rests on your shoulders to show that Murdering Winter is weak. Your argument above rests on exactly the wrong context to use Murdering Winter, and so isn't very convincing.

Whether it works in heat 2 or not is moot, as even if it were only usefull in one's own cold dominion it would still be powerfull. Domes offer limited protection because they're not mobile, and in practice heat dominion similarily isn't a practical defense. And this is without taking into account that one can indeed enforce cold dominion with Wolven Winter (which is usefull in it's own right), or the tactic of blowing through domes with cheap rituals.

[ April 06, 2004, 07:03: Message edited by: Jasper ]