MP Game - Omfg another mp game!

[Tuna-Fish]

VQ, Vampire Queen, is a pretender chassis that is severely overpowered in the game as it is. It will be nerfed in the next patch.

Clams, or a water-2 miscellaneus item Clam of Pearls (construction 2 or 4, cant remember) that produces one astral gem every turn if it is in the possession of a commander. Nations with enough water mages can use these to quickly create huge gem incomes. As the more gems they get, the faster they can increase production having 200 astral gems by turn from clams in the endgame is nothing spectacular.

[JJ_Colorado]

Wow, tuna's explanation of clamming is shocking. 200 per turn is keeerazy income.

Prinz Megaherz - I think you should set an exact rule on VQ's and on clams. Just saying "don't overpower the game" leaves it really too open. If I take a VQ and beat someone in a couple of battles am I overpowering the game? If I build 30 clams am I overpowering the game? It should probably be something like:
1) no more than 10 clams owned by each country
2) no VQ's

Or something like that, or else anything goes in which case I'm taking a VQ and clamming. LOL.

John

[mnoracle]

Originally posted by JJ_Colorado:

1) no more than 10 clams owned by each country
2) no VQ's

Or something like that, or else anything goes in which case I'm taking a VQ and clamming. LOL.
John

From my point of view it's skill that decides outcome, not VQ or Clams. I have to admit I taked VQ but for Ulm this is thematic. But if you like, JJ_Colorado, i can change race to something different, for example Mictlan, do not castle, do not clam hoard, and i'll try to beat you even if you will use all this tricky techinques.
My point is that there is no definitly winning tactis unless you play versus seasoned vets, in this case almost all your tactics will be bad

[PrinzMegaherz]

I dont mind a vampire queen with strong blood and death magic, as you could expect from a vampire. I dont want VQ with other paths. That should solve the problem and make balanced enough to be played with.

Regarding Clam hoarding, I have no way of controlling how many clams are owned by each player. I have not experienced clam hoarding myself, so I am not sure whether it is as abusive as some people here mention or not. I am sure however, that using this strategy successfully needs a somewhat experienced player, and this is a low experience game, so those two things should exclude each other.

[JJ_Colorado]

Ok, so it sounds like we have only one house rule:

1) If you take a VQ she must have only blood and death to start.

I'm assuming that we can "empower" other paths once we get going.

Oh, btw, mnoracle - I'm not claiming that any strategy that I (I'm not very good) use is unbeatable, just that it gives a big advantage. It sounds to me like clamming and a VQ is a big advantage. Limiting a VQ's starting paths to blood and death should help. Hopefully only newbies in this game and as a newbie I think those are good strong strategies.

John

[Inigo Montoya]

Originally posted by Tuna-Fish:
...I was very tired both times i posted Anyway, that means I'm out.

No worries, mate!

[CUnknown]

So, how many clams are we allowed to have? I agree that you shouldn't just say "don't abuse them", let's at least have a vague boundary of how many is too many. Maybe somewhere around 20 is too many? Definately not 50 or more, right?

[Norfleet]

I'd say a good rule for defining the line between "hoarding" clams and "disposing of useless water gems" is when you are producing more than one clam through alchemized gems per turn. For instance, with a water gem income of 12, a production run of 1-2 clams per turn is "non-hoarding".

[mnoracle]

Originally posted by PrinzMegaherz:
I dont mind a vampire queen with strong blood and death magic, as you could expect from a vampire. I dont want VQ with other paths. That should solve the problem and make balanced enough to be played with.

Regarding Clam hoarding, I have no way of controlling how many clams are owned by each player. I have not experienced clam hoarding myself, so I am not sure whether it is as abusive as some people here mention or not. I am sure however, that using this strategy successfully needs a somewhat experienced player, and this is a low experience game, so those two things should exclude each other.

This is not clever limitation. It'll be my 3rd MP game. So i'm newb in this sense. But i'm sure that on crowded map, no one will start clam hoard. It's only possible when you have time, and if you don't all this is pointless.
Now back to VQ, it's not that much fun in taking only blood and death, since you don't need a lot of this knoowledge. Let's suppose i would like to create Super Combatant. Then i'll take Ghost King and we'll see exactly the same issue. I honestly do not understand why GK should be different?
I think it's highly counter-productive to limit something, how else you could learn how to beat some strategy other that try to do it in real MP game?

to JJ: there are a lot of strategies that will give advantages to the player. And that's the whole point of choosing correct one.
As for clam hoarding, in normal magical richness, it's hard to create enough clams. At least at the start. And if map is crowded, i.e. no sleeping periods. You just won't have a chanse to hoard, because you'll have to spend your gems on more urgent needs!
As for VQ there is a some abuse potential, but this is related to any other SC! And as undead VQ is relatively easy to counter.

[ June 04, 2004, 07:26: Message edited by: mnoracle ]

[PrinzMegaherz]

Send me your pretender then