1981

I dunno, I kinda view it as a paper-scissors-rock game. The staff/wrathful combo is powerful, sure, but only against certain types of targets (which both you and Atlantis have been kind enough to serve up on a platter). Against other forces, like Caelum’s storm guards or massed powerful undead or constructs, it gets your casters dead. I’ve been using the wrathful combo against Caelum merely as a support, because every time I’ve tried pulling the two-Vanir-annihilate-an-army trick I’ve gotten smacked. There are forces you can put together that counter it strongly - even forces that Abysia is capable of fielding; you’re a blood nation, start with a warlock with air-1, upgrade him once, and start summoning storm demons. A bit late now to start that in this particular game of course.

It definitely isn’t a game where you can just pile up great big piles of force and throw them at the other guy and expect to be successful. Tank rushes don’t work, you gotta target your attacks properly. See my initial storming of your capital for that - I would NOT have thrown away 7000 gold worth of Van in that fashion if I had actually put some thought into what high-level fire casters actually mean in game terms. I had extensive plans for that army; the fact that we’re stalemated across a broad front is pretty much due entirely to Furcas.

1982

Yeah, I had the same problem. If you don’t have the ability to make large numbers of shock-resistant troops (either by summoning guys who are naturally resistant, or having the ability to cast resistance), you’re in trouble.

It’s not just Air magic, though. The super-SCs that are currently possible (lifestealers, etc.), can beat pretty much any large army, just like a properly scripted Air caster can. Like Nick and I have been saying for a while now, when playing in a truly competitive game large armies are mostly useless from the midgame on–their only purpose is to reduce forts. The fighting is done by small numbers of casters and super-combatants. A large army is just a wasted investment unless you keep it in a fort until it’s time to go break down someone’s walls.

I do agree that Air has some nasty, abuseable combos, though–putting Wrathful and Cloud Trapeze in the same school was probably a mistake. It’d be better to keep the cheap-caster-teleports out of lines like Air and Fire that have a battlefield-destroying spell in them. If you can’t resist it, your only real option is to find some army-killing tactic of your own to even the playing field. But the Air combo is really a lot more efficient than stuff like using artillery spells, which is why people go for it so much.

1983

But, you’re basically saying that the only way to counter Air Magic is with your own Air Magic. If you don’t have any (which I don’t have, except for perhaps 1 solitary caster), then you’re just fuck-all dead. As far as the stalemate goes, it’s served its purpose, as Man has made it’s move and I’m pretty much toast in this game. It’s really just a matter of turns, now. Fucking Air Magic.

1984

I’m not in the game, so I have no idea, but my assumption is that a decently-kitted Doom Horror would kill a tricked-out Djinn or a flying all-devil army. A DH, as nearly as I can tell, will kill anything except for a very specifically crafted countermeasure, or a large number of good lifeless mindless troops. Since it’s so hard to pin down a DH, it gives the owner a huge strategic advantage–enemies essentially have to sit bottled up in their forts for the most part, allowing the DH player to dictate the battles for the rest of the game. A player with multiple DHs is just that much more unstoppable. I’ll be interested to see if your game goes differently.

1985

Qt3 JM Hardcore (Abysia) - I REALLY FUCKING HATE AIR MAGIC. I’m the only nation left that doesn’t absolutely abuse Air Magic and the Staff of Storms/Wrathful Skies combo, and because I don’t have Air Magic to forge huge quantities of anti-lightning equipment, I’m getting pretty much ass-raped by both Man and Vanheim simultaneously here. Seriously, this game might convince me to quit Dom2 cold turkey because it seems if you don’t go Air Magic and Astral (Wish), you really don’t stand a chance by the endgame. Fucking Air nations can just teleport in any schmoe leader with a Staff of Storms and half a brain and just go all Wrathful Skies and wipe out entire armies and their leaders. And then making absurd unstoppable SCs and giving THEM a Staff of Storms?? That’s just overkill. Seriously. A lone Van* with one of those can wipe out armies of a hundred imps and devils - there’s no need to put it on UberKill the Smasher as well.

edit: Well, AFAIK, Atlantis doesn’t abuse Air Magic as well, and that’s probably why they’re stuck under the Frozen Seas instead of out conquering the world. Until the Wishes start getting tossed around willy-nilly, it seems this game is going to come down to Air Magic Vanheim versus Air Magic Caelum versus Air Magic Man. And that makes a sad statement about multiplayer Dom2.

I totally agree. Although when you say you hate air magic let’s be clear what the real problem is: wrathful skies. Sure Air magic has trapeze which is nice, and they have orb lighting which is nice, and they have thunderstrike, and rain, and storms ( which is really nice ), and mistform but the real problem is how fricking easy it is to cast wrathful skies. It’s trivial and it does Armor Negating damage to the battlefield and continues to strike until everything is dead.

Honestly I find it’s a stupid spell. All of the spells that affect the whole battlefield are stupidly effective. They crush armies and there is, basically, no counter. The thing about air magic is that it has just about the easiest to cast battlefield spell hence the most abused. And they happen to have a number of decent protection spells, and they have trapeze which makes targeting big armies a no-brainer.

Oh and it has some decent SC’s as well.

But honestly if Wrathful skies was no longer atainable to recruitable mages ( even with boosters ) then I think that the game would be much better. Oh and if the same thing happened to all other battlefield spells the game would be better too.

1986

The problem, though, is that WS is not powerful “only against certain types of targets,” unless you mean to include 95% of the possible targets in that “certain type” category. It’s more accurate to say that WS is a sure-fire winner against all but a very select few targets–storm flyers (which are pretty rare, and mostly available to people who already have Air anyway) and powerful shock-resistant troops (which means primarily powerful Earth summons, I think, although I don’t have enough experience to say) are the only things that are good against it. Maybe high-morale, strong cavalry would work–I’ve never had a chance to find out.

1987

Not necessarily. Air is the most effective, but earth magic also is good (constructs just ignore lightning entirely), massed ghosts are pretty good, a squad of death mages zapping disintegrate all over the place will break through MR sooner or later and they only need one resist ring each; nature casters have Elemental Fortitude which gives 50% resistance to all elements, and for storm demons you only need the air caster, you don’t actually need air gems. There are options, if you go looking for them.

If you don’t have any (which I don’t have, except for perhaps 1 solitary caster),

Pazuzu, that’s right, I forgot about him. You don’t need your warlock if you’ve got him. There’s a level 9 blood spell that gives you like 7 storm demons per casting (more with higher blood levels?). So why not use that? Why not put together a force of good, elite demons, which you know will be effective against a tactic that you know I am using, rather than spending all your blood on those imps in hordes from hell?

I dunno, it seems like you and Rywill have this way of looking at it that I don’t understand. If you know your opponent has wrathful skies, and you know it’s good at destroying large groups of massed heavy infantry, the one thing you do not do is try to use massed non-shock-resistant heavy infantry to attack him with. I mean … I don’t know what to call that.

1988

Clockwork horrors are damn fast, they will reach that back row of casters pretty quick. And cheap - about 1 gem apiece. Mechanical Men are a bit more expensive but don’t run out of steam.

Edit: also, as far as fast cavalry goes, I don’t know if you remember the one battle we had where you had lots of magic beings - you were seiging my fortress to the NW of your capital with a large force that included some winter wolves. I brought in a mixed force of infantry and Vanadrotts and wrathful skies’d the lot, but the only reason it worked is because I had meatshields to keep the wolves off my casters for a few turns - if I hadn’t had that, or if you’d had more wolves, I have no doubt you would’ve killed off all my casters. So there’s another example of something that would’ve worked. (I didn’t discuss this earlier because I didn’t want you trying to replicate it more successfully, but I think the game has moved on far enough that that’s not a major concern anymore.)

1989

I’ve been sitting here thinking what I’d try to do against Wrathful Skies if I was a blood focused Abysia, and I’m coming up blank. Normally I’d suggest devils as a great anti-caster measure but the staff of storms puts the kibosh on that one.

Fast indie cavalry is about the best possible option, set to front lines with attack rear. Swarming to the caster and getting the kill fast is aboutt the best option for defending wrathful skies.

Another good idea might be to make the tactic too expensive. Keep a line of astral casters in a safe backfield location and wait for the wrathful skies guy to pop up somewhere. Just spam Mind Hunt all over the wrather and try to drop him. That will cost you some casters, but losing a few naked casters is a good deal for killing a guy with expensive equipment and taking those staffs of storms out of circulation.

1990

Qt3-FeedingFrenzy (Pan) - Ulm and I have been fighting since nearly the beginning of the game. Apparently, I was in his expansion route. Just hanging on with a few provinces. My God is dead and research is pitiful. But, you never know. When I unstealth my centaur force on his capital, things may change. Also, the turns are going quicker, which is good.

Qt3- NoobEuropa (Pan) - Things are going better here. It looks like I got to Pythium right before he hit false horrors, which is a good thing. Dfs - thanks for the kudos.

Abysia looks big in central Europe and Ulm has France/Germany. Man is in North Africa, which is mostly wastes , although the Mid East has a lot of nice farm lands. Machaka is in the Balkans.

1991

This is a fairly easy one. You take a devil commander, any kind will do, even the one from horde from hell. You then put a ring of tamed lightning on him. Add a hell sword and luck pendant or blood thorn and lucky coin. These aren’t necessary unless he’s got large numbers of troops, and in that case, he won’t use wrathful skies anyways. Maybe add some boots of quickness if you have water magic. You’ve just created a unit that air mages can’t touch. Not only that, but it’s stats will be high enough that small groups will be able to kill doom horrors at less cost than the doom horror.

1992

Simpler yes. Better, definetly not.

They aren’t necessarily the most effective spells for army smashing either. Rain of stones only gets cast once per gem. Shimmering fields and flame storm both are just as effective if not more so than wrathful skies and fire storm.

1993

Shimmering Fields and Flame Storm aren’t really good comparisons to Wrathful Skies. They are both at higher research levels and higher caster requirement. Only in the late game will those spells make an appearance and then only from heavily (expensively) boosted national mages or pretenders.

Wrathful Skies on the other hand is available at level-6, and at least 2 nations can just keep on recruiting mages who can cast it. Staff of storms are fairly cheap, especially with dwarven hammers.

I myself would like to see Wrathful Skies pushed up to either air-4 or perhaps Evoc-7. Both would probably be overkill.

1994

I’d make it the same level and requirements as fire storm. Air 5, evocation 7, 5 air gems. It doesn’t do as much damage, but the armor negating makes it much harder to defend against.

1995

Yeah, if you have access to Mind Hunt, that can work. I am guessing the insta-assassin spells (Earth Attack, Manifestation) might work too, although a Vanadrott could probably fight off at least an Ashen Angel. The problem, though, is that vengeance kills on the WS casters probably isn’t enough. It’s an even trade (or close to it) if the WS caster got a good-sized army and a leader or two and then you blast him in return. But it still lets the Air player dominate the strategic game–he can move large armies around, but you can’t.

Yeah, I had lots of units air mages couldn’t touch. Every commander I had was toting a Ring of Tamed Lightning once I cranked enough of them out. But it really didn’t do me any good. Nobody is going to Trapeze a WS caster onto a solo commander, and if you have troops with you, chances are the troops rout (taking your commander with them) before the commander can do any damage to the WS caster. Your only hope is to move your lightning-immune commander onto a WS who is already in the field. Good luck with that, especially against Vanheim’s stealthy leaders. And while you’re fruitlessly trying to maneuver your leaders onto his, he’s controlling the strategic game because you can’t move large armies around. Even if you snag some of his leaders, they’re pretty easily replaceable. Same problem you have with trying to nail the WS casters with firing squads.

I’d make it the same level and requirements as fire storm. Air 5, evocation 7, 5 air gems. It doesn’t do as much damage, but the armor negating makes it much harder to defend against.

I could definitely see that.

1996

JM-Harcore(Man):

I hear you, and I’m really sorry. I realize Wrathful Skies use is not very much better than Doom Horror abuse. Both are things that should better have been left out of the game. Doom Horrors I boycot, but I employed Wrathful Skies to stay competitive. (Especially since I read Vanheim is using it.) I believe I will pull back my overkill Storm Queen, but it’s probably too late now. I didn’t see the turn yet; was it really that big a massacre? :?
I feel your pain. I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of a Dom2 exploit.

I think any future games I will join will have to employ some very restrictive rules on some strategies. Let’s see what’ll come up.

I’m thinking the exactly same thing. Doom Horrors are really that little fun. I’ll talk with the other players in Qt3NoobAran about conceding, and I’ll probably also have to concede in Cradle 2 when I’ll see how it turns out when T’ien Ch’i’s Doom Horror machine begins turning.

To come back to Wrathful Skies: I believe it needs a proper nerfing. Wrathful Skies could be a sensible battle spell if it was reduced to a mere third of its current lightning bolts per combat turn effectiveness. You couldn’t rout a large force in a hurry, but it still would inflict some damage.

I’m beginning to ask myself why Illwinter doesn’t want to nerf game breakers. They should at least have removed the Doom Horror wish and made clams more expensive.

1997

You might want to look at Zen’s conceptual balance mod. It’s being used in that new Faerum game with some additional changes. I like the look of what he’s done so far, and the item part will probably deal with clams and lifedrain weapons.

[size=2]Four, three, two…[/size]

1998

Yeah, I like what Zen’s done with his mod so far. I’m looking forward to the Faerun Test game.

I think if it pans out, then the Zen Mod will be a requirement for me in future PBEM games.

1999

Neither are exploits.

I’m beginning to ask myself why Illwinter doesn’t want to nerf game breakers. They should at least have removed the Doom Horror wish and made clams more expensive.

There has to be some way to end large games before they start to take hundreds of turns, and long drawn out wars of attrition are boring. It seems to me that an awful lot of people are fighting defensive wars and complaining that they are losing to overpowered tactics when its actually the fact that they are fighting defensive wars that’s making them lose.

2000

“Exploit” is a bit of a tricky term, as only the devs can really settle whether item X was truly intended to be used in fashion Y, so I steer clear of the term.

I will say that I don’t like the effect clam hoarding has on the game. There are plenty of big nasty cool magics in the late game phase without some joker (and this includes me) wishing for a Doom Horror every other turn. Which is what I’m doing right now in the NoobAran game.

I don’t actually mind Doom Horrors, they seem appropriate for the extreme cost. It’s just that the extreme cost is all too easily reached when people start clamming.