MP: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. Game Over. Supplicants Triumph!

[Squirrelloid]

Honestly, I think the fact that this was vanilla really tilted this game for one reason and one reason only: domes are too hard to research to.

At Ench 4-5 (CBM), i'd probably have made them an early priority in a team game. But at Ench 7-8? I'm not sure I'd have had the research to cast a dome and the boosters to do so early enough.

The game basically ended when like 10 fires from afar dropped on BL's capital on turn ~20. There was nothing I could do about this, and it killed a large number of valuable and irreplaceable (can only hire 1/trn) Rishi, plus whatever gear that went down with them. Even if I had dedicated all my research to enchant, I would have *just* gotten to domes, and I needed boosters to cast any of them (and thus constr 4+ research). As BL was the research arm of the team, this was absolutely devastating.

And this ability to nuke a key capital is more pronounced in team games, because there are fewer targets (both because some targets are actually your teammates, and because each team is going to have one target which it hurts more than the others to have it nuked). Add to that one team was actually AI, and there are only two priority targets for a team to go after, which makes remote spells really powerful.

Vanilla's late (and hard to cast!) domes horribly biases the game. Should i play in another vanilla team game (not likely), i know exactly what I'm doing. Choosing a nation with great remote spells, beelining them, and dropping 15-20+ on select capitals in year 2. Instant game over.

This is really lame gameplay. Just another reason CBM > vanilla.

[ano]

But at Ench 7-8? I'm not sure I'd have had the research to cast a dome and the boosters to do so early enough.

Astral dome is Ench 6, as well as Air one and they're perfectly enough. There's no dome at Ench 8.

The game basically ended when like 10 fires from afar dropped on BL's capital on turn ~20.

What? You must be joking. There were 3 fires from afar on about turn 23. And defense is pretty simple - just recruit 40 markata by spending 200 gold and you'll be nearly safe (and nobody will be wasting gems on markata). You do not need domes for this at all. You didn't think of it and this is your mistake and has nothing to do with vanilla or CBM. I'm surprised to hear such things from you, really. I thought you knew the game better.

As BL was the research arm of the team, this was absolutely devastating.

That's exactly what it aimed for.

Choosing a nation with great remote spells, beelining them, and dropping 15-20+ on select capitals in year 2. Instant game over.

LOL. I'd like to see that. There're only two early battle spells - seeking arrow and Fires. Fires are very easy to defend from without ever needing domes (described above). Seeking arrow is rather expensive and you may also defend by moving your mages elsewhere and\or hiring decoy commanders. There're crippling unrest spells and so on but they all are costly and will not win you the game. Probably, Blight and Raging Hearts are the most unpleasant of them, but they're also not game-winning.

Just another reason CBM > vanilla.

Not a single reason here. Just moaning

[Squirrelloid]

There were more than 3 fires from afar. I saw *at least* 5 messages, and probably more. And turn 23 is sort of like turn 20.

Markata do not help that much, and you're still likely to hit some mages. (I've lost 2 commanders in an army of 300 units before to one Fires from Afar, 40 markata aren't going to help much against spammed FfA. Losing *any* Rishi is unacceptable and potentially game losing, and you probably get 2-3 *per FfA* even with 40 markata.)

Now lets compare
CBM
Frost W4 Ench4 8w +1/trn
Fire F4 Ench4 5f +1/trn
Nature N4 Ench 4 8n
Astral S4 Ench 4 5s +1/trn
Air A4 Ench 5 10a

Vanilla
Frost W5 Ench6 15w +1/trn
Fire F4 Ench7 8f +1/trn
Nature N5 Ench7 10n
Astral S4 Ench6 10s +1/trn
Air A5 Ench6 20a

The only one of those BL could possibly cast sans booster is astral, and it requires pearls and dropping extra pearls into it for longer duration. Its a bad deal. Also level 6 research is literally half my research at that point. And the good domes are either absolutely impossible to cast for BL that early (air), or in enchantment 7 (nature - and it requires boosters). Water would have been plausibly decent, but impossible to cast with a national mage, and requires W5 which would even need boosters on most pretenders. (The astral dome rarely if ever gets cast for good reason - its only 50% block for a huge pearl investment. If it blocked 80% like air it *might* be worth it).

Vanilla in general places domes far too high up the research tree, makes them too hard to cast (about half of them are 5 required path length), and makes them far too expensive. Add to that a team game where there are few targets and remote nukes become far too good.

Oh yeah, and FfA is level what, 3? Against my team you could have just chosen *random* capitals since you knew where they were, and it would have been pretty devastating. Heck, you probably had a 1/2 chance of guessing where BLs capital was unless you thought we stuck them on the front line. Or you could have just paid Atlantis for the intel.

If you are scouting (which I can only assume you were), moving Rishi out doesn't help because they show up in scouting reports, and it costs a turn of research, which is somewhere on the order of 200 total RP at that point. That's a substantial and unacceptable hit in research, and they get nailed anyway when you just nuke the province they moved to.

Hell, in a team game with this few teams, domes should be Ench 0. There isn't enough target saturation to prevent focus fire for teams in a non-conflict situation. You could have been dropping FfA on turn 12, trivially.

(I have never seen someone try to drop FfA on a capital, and rarely seen anyone try to drop a remote on a capital. Its generally assumed they're domed (because in CBM that can happen really early) by the time any serious fighting breaks out, and then generally against an opponent you're actively at war against. Casting an offensive remote like FfA against someone on the other side of the map? It only works because there were only 3 teams, and one of the teams was sucking so badly they didn't matter. We might as well have been playing a team blitz, which wasn't exactly expected going in.)

[Gandalf Parker]

I find this interesting.
I hadnt heard of domes being hard to reach as a vanilla problem. Altho considering now I can see why it would It would place emphasis onto armies. Very desirable in some games.

[ano]

There were more than 3 fires from afar. I saw *at least* 5 messages, and probably more. And turn 23 is sort of like turn 20.

We cast it three times that turn and 10 times when you were not there (turn 32, IIRC). There's an archive of our turns attached somewhere above. I could suppose that the Cromites also suddenly decided to cast the Fires From Afar the same turn but I doubt it, especially considering the fact that your forums also mention that there have been exactly three casts.

Markata do not help that much, and you're still likely to hit some mages.

Yes, some mages, but not what you lost in this game. I know the losses were huge. Also, no dome grants you 100% protection or even nears it. And I tell you, noone will cast FfA into a province with 200+ markata. If you're particularly desperate, hire 200 more, they're dirty cheap, and\or move some of your mages elsewhere.

Once again, I don't argue with the suggestion that CBM is a good mod. It is. And domes there are way more balanced than in vanilla. But I assure you that if you thought of the possibility of remote attacks beforehand and did what you should have done, we would not cast them. And no one would. This particular case it is absolutely not a matter of CBM vs Vanilla. It is just lack of thought which everybody can run into.

[Septimius Severus]

In general, I echo Numahr and Gandalf's assesments pretty much. Even though we had a team drop, we decided to forge ahead to keep from the game from stalling out. And I think most had an enjoyable (albiet rather brief) experience.

The Direct Connect and PBEM server systems set up by Gandalf and Llamabeast each have their pros and cons for game admins to consider and I am sure we are all grateful to both of these guys for their work and dedication. Being able to quickly and instantly download and view all of my teams turns was a plus IMO, though it does take getting used to.

You know, some admins seek to avoid or minimize the difficulties and disagreements that can arise in team games by just going with 2 members on a team (really pairs or partnerships). It may be easier (especially when both players are of the same experience level or know each other), but I have always thought that larger teams give you more of the flavor of real team dynamics, interaction, and group identity. Again, its a question of pros and cons.

I would like to add though, as a generally non-competitive player playing a seemingly highly competitive game, I personally think a team should prioritize their overarching team "philosophy" as follows (this is just me of course, I can't dictate how teams choose to play):

Goal #1. Have Fun. This is the core reason we play any game.

Goal #2. Learn. The main goal of this series is to allow players to learn how to play the game against both AI opponents and other humans, how to work, communicate, get along with others (even with those they've never played with before), and to benefit from the experience and input of others.

Goal #3. Win. This should be stressed last in my opinion. Winning is nice, but it means absolutely nothing outside of our tiny little fantasy community. But learning how to work together as a group, how to lead or manage a team, how to respect and recognize everyone's unique personalities, now this is something that is a REAL benefit of the team game experience.

Regarding the BI mod, it seems like it did what is was supposed to do, which is limit the AI non-national hordes to mostly archers and other units the creator of the mod deemed most beneficial to the AI. It also has its pros and cons and I am debating various tweaks.

The debate between vanilla, CBM, or any of the other balance mods, well that is a topic that can fill hundreds of threads on its own due to various tastes and opinions.

The game is over, and as far as I'm concerned, everyone did a good job and played well. And I am proud of all of you. As long as you learned and had fun, my goal for the game and the series has been met.

[Juffos]

You shouldn't use domes, they encourage turtling. Every mage who isn't blasting enemies on the front deserves to die a horrible death.

[chrispedersen]

I don't actually have a problem with FFA, it just magnifies the issues in the game.

Early on in the game, the usurpers put pd in place - due in large part to being attacked by caelum.

Machacka and shinuyama have good search mages which only arco has on the usurpers team. But due to the pythium, arco, mictlan caelum war (pd) arco searchers were unavailable to search other teammastes.

As for being perfectly safe, I had removed all the equipment from the targets (except one hammer) expecting retribution - and I had recruited like 20 or markata on there.
Markata have a diminished ability to make you safe - as they die in one hit as opposed to 2.

But more to the point, it was a calculated gamble at that point. The usurpers (and the other teams) had a number of weaknesses - it was only a matter of which one were you going to exploit.

1:1 there is a limit to the number of fire gems; ergo flames from afar is not that effective. In a team game fire gems can be pooled, which makes domes more important.

As flames are level 3, and domes are 7ish - there is a huge window where they can't be countered.

Like I said I don't mind ffa - but it just fed into the other issues in the game. You were the death nation - and you were buildling 3x as many clames as we were as the astral nation.

Consider every aspect of the game:

Military force
Remote Attack spells
National mages
SC availability
Thug Availability
Research
Pretenders
Dominion push
Gem generators
Forts
Gem Generators

I'm not taking away from a great strategy, well executed. But if you rate each team on a 1-2-3 scale who *wouldn't* find an advantage for the supplicants. As ano suggested with an 8 vs 4 arrangement.

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by zegc-ben

Later Septimus asked for two military operation and 2/3 items and this is it.

The problem was that when we asked, you either was unable to do what was asked in time or just plain unavailable... Maybe it was partly because we centralised dealing with you so I, for example, offered to purchase something at team forum, then Septimius said our diplomacy guy to reach you... But general impression was just that you are just unreachable. Real-life problems?

Originally Posted by zegc-ben

For the AI, I dont think the 125PD was the most important thing, the really crasy thing was the 50 to 100 indies per province around turn 5-6 with real armies of mamouth, knights, ... on top of that. The army who killed my elephants was stronger than the PD with certainly around 50 knights of the chalice.

125 PD made their capitals unreachable to scouts and even spies. Not balance-breaking by itself, but just not handy...

[Wrana]

Originally Posted by ano

We made only one huge mistake - it was the loss of fully quipped Wight mage (Sickle+ Boots of the Planes) to Abysia because he refused to cast two "Resist Fire" spells (one from Fire school and another one from water+earth). Now I understand they give the same effect and thus don't stack but we didn't realize.

As far as I know, that's not it. AI just doesn't like to cast resistance-gaining spells on units which already have some (50+?) resistance of a given type.