1681

I agree with this 100%. The game is great just out of the box. I think I’m coming up on my 1 year anniversary of playing online games of Dom2. Actually, I’m just about sick of it, but I mean that in a good way. I wish I could find the enthusiasm I had a 10 months ago when I was plotting daily on how to crush Steve Clark’s Jotun giants, but its just not there. Anyway, I think the ‘art of the super combatant’ is just the natural evolution of people who have been playing the game for months and months and months. I would stay away from any house rules, as that would limit the player’s ability to come up with imaginitive combinations.

1682

Backov does raise a good point. The game is not seriously unbalanced as it stands, though some people feel Wrathful Skies needs a tiny amount of nerfing :)

Some of us feel that SCs and exponential-growth (clam+wish) strategies detract from the fun of the endgame for a variety of reasons but it’s not an imbalance situation. It’s quite possible to play very satisfying dom2 games with no house rules at all.

I don’t take quite the same final position as Backov though. All the games I start on my server use Ryan’s Rule of Labs, and games I host on my server for other people can have whatever house rules the players want.

1683

Chiming in to second Nick. I am pretty sure the game is balanced (I agree with Nick that WS is too powerful for its casting level, but that’s just one nitpick). The problem is not lack of balance, it’s the game forcing everyone into the same optimal endgame strategy (summoning certain SCs and kitting them out certain ways). The massive variety of the different nations all gets kind of swept away by turn 40-50, because everyone ends up fielding very similar SCs (at least, in a game with experieneced players).

I guess it’s mostly a question of expectations. Dom2 seems like it should be a game where massive fantasy armies, each with a unique flavor based on the nation they’re from, meet in a big clash on the battlefield. Yeah there will be some large units stomping around the field or slinging spells, but the armies are the main thing–like Orcs backed by Oliphaunts and Ringwraiths, or Gondorians backed by Gandalf and Aragorn. But you won’t get that sort of experience with knowledgeable players–armies will be obsolete and the game will be mostly about a handful of SC types, Wishes, etc.

1684

I’m almost wishing that I’ll get eliminated midway through all of my games. I love the first half of this game but once I run into an enemy SC I tend to give up. I don’t like the idea of playing a game where cookie-cutter units/equipment/spell combos are the only option to win.
Maybe Johan was right when he suggested not playing all the way through to the bitter end.

1685

I disagree with much (but not all) of that.

Possibly because I haven’t been in a really hardcore endgame yet. But based on what I know of the game so far I think that given two players of equal skill, the one who uses armies of his national troops backed up with SCs and summons will do better than the one who relies just on ultra SCs. In particular I do not agree that endgames will be forced into situations where everyone ends up with the same kinds of forces, or that armies are ever obsolete.

This may take us back to the studied player/casual player thing, because a lot of this (to my mind) is a matter of just taking another look at the game and realizing you have more options than you thought you did. In Qt3Kraaze I remember the first time I ran into Nick’s VQ after he got invulnerability. I got an army trashed by that one lone unit and was prepared to throw in the towel right there. Now I know better; I know how I would tweak an army so as to be able to take down such an opponent without too many casualties.

I would like to see a game where the various flavors of troops - barbarians with their mountain movement, amazons with their various cool abilities, woodsmen with their stealth, and all the national variants - played a bigger role for a longer time. The only real suggestion I have towards getting that is, slow down research, and make magic sites rare - both of which are options you can fiddle with in the game setup.

1686

Just to clarify again… ;>

Wrathful Skies I agree needs some nerfage. And I like Ryans Rule of Labs. Neither of those are a SC nerf.

One change (in the game, not a house rule) I would support wholly is removal of fatigue regeneration from life drain, and perhaps even a gain cap. That would fix the SC problem without silly house rules.

Not that I really think SCs are a problem, they really only are when you aren’t prepared for them, like any very powerful strategy. But let’s not get on this debate again.

1687

That’s clearly not an issue. You can load up a “normal leader” (e.g. an Ulmish Lord Guardian) with just about anything you want, and I highly doubt he’ll take out armies by himself. It’s the underlying SC chassis combined with the items that is the problem.[/quote]
It is clearly the case. Loading up normal leaders with expensive items is a waste of resources that you simply can’t afford in a competetive MP game.

That said, I can live with whatever the leading caste (i.e. the runners of servers) will come up with. But I agree that Wrathful Skies and Soul Vortex (and, thus, the wraith lord) are real issues that need to be nerfed.

And I share the sentiments that it’s a shame that national flavors vanish in the high powered endgame.

1688

Thanks for the replies. Here’s hopin that the Qt3-AranWars game, with its greatly slowed research, will lead to an endgame that features more national troops. Perhaps we could forbid giving special items to summoned creatures… or perhaps cap it at one or two items. Pretenders could be barby-dolled as much as we like.

1689

House rules aren’t a “punishment”. They’re simply a set of rules agreed upon by a group to make the game experience more fun for everyone involved.

1690

hmm I would guess if you ban all the common lifedrain effects(hell sword/blood thorn/wraith sword and soul vortex) as well as the staff of storms(forcing wrathful skies casters to cast the 100 fatigue/1 air gem storm spell first) and the mistform spell and it should be pretty hard to create foolproof SCs. maybe you want to add blood vengeance to the list, but it´s a lvl 9 spell and available only very late.

1691

hmm I would guess if you ban all the common lifedrain effects(hell sword/blood thorn/wraith sword and soul vortex) as well as the staff of storms(forcing wrathful skies casters to cast the 100 fatigue/1 air gem storm spell first) and the mistform spell and it should be pretty hard to create foolproof SCs. maybe you want to add blood vengeance to the list, but it´s a lvl 9 spell and available only very late.[/quote]

That sounds like a good start. Even though I have no clue what I’m talking about since I’ve yet to ever run into one of these SC’s! But I have a feeling I will soon in Worldwar… :roll:

1692

I would definitely advocate playing the game normally until you run into someone fielding an SC, or field one yourself. Then you’ll have a better appreciation of how they operate and how radically they alter the strategy of the endgame.

1693

Hi,

I’ve really enjoyed catching up with and following this thread over the last 3-4 weeks, but I haven’t joined in much yet as I’m new to QT3. However, I’m a bit disturbed by the semi-consensus that’s building up here, as it does’t match my experience of Dom2, and people are starting to advocate “solutions” that to me sound like they would really damage the game.

It’s being repeatedly stated as a given that any Dom2 end-game is a contest between summoned SCs. But that hasn’t been my esperience. The only MP game I’ve won was as Arco, where right to the end I fought with armies consisting of Hoplites, Heart Companions, Hypaspists, Elephants, and Vine Ogres. All my SCs were of a fourth category that Nick Walter didn’t cover; the THUG who is powerful enough to add real punch to a conventional army, but not survivable enough to fight on his own (Firbolgs, Banelords, lightly-equipped Golems mostly). The force-multipliers in that game were the national mages who couldn’t win battles on their own, but who enabled armies to win battles.

In another game that’s reached endgame, I’m playing Ermor and finding it quite possible to kill top-of-the-line SCs (Demonlords, Arch-Devils, Heliophagi, Air Queens, Water Queens) with national troops and national mages plus some judicious summons. Or there’s my third game that’s reached that stage, where as Jotunheim I’ve gone much more down the SC route; but the SCs are nearly all national units; well-equipped Niefel Jarls, including a couple who have been brought back from retirement as Mummys.

It’s not possible to make an SC who’s safe from every attack. If they rely on lifedrain they can always been mobbied and fatigued out by the lifeless. They will always be vulnerable to at least one element. Many of them are magical creatures or undead, both of which come with built-in vulnerabilities. High MR only helps against spells that check against MR, and even then the “open die-roll” system used in the game ensures that any spell cast repeatedly will eventually get through - so cheap low-level spells like Paralyse can effectively kill monstrously expensive SCs. Yes, you can build RYWILLs to beat BALUTs, but it’s nowhere near your only option.

Want some more? Blind the SC, and knock his attack and defense to zero; a life-draining weapon doesn’t help him if he never hits. Curse him, and it’s suddenly much easier to hurt him. He’s got Protection over 30, so destroy his armour. If he’s undead, several Wither Bones should really hurt. If he’s magical, Opposition can destroy him outright.

Anyone who relies on SCs alone - especially cookie-cutter SCs all of the same design - should be ripe for defeat. Even before you build a counter to his SCs, you can build small armies optimised to beat any reasonable PD but not much more. With equal resources, he doesn’t have enough SCs to destroy them all, so how does he avoid being overrun? Once you’ve counterred and killed a couple of the SCs, what does he do then? Every move he makes involves risking an incredibly high-value unit, which is really going to cramp his operational decision-making.

Some of this discussion is ultimately about taste and style, and therefore can’t necessarily be resolved by debate. Several here have expressed a preference for a different Dom2 that is mostly about national armies fighting epic fantasy battles. I can see the aesthetic attraction of that, but I can’t help thinking that it would become just another wargame. For me, the attraction and enjoyment of DomII is the incredible depth and strategic complexity, and I think a large part of that arises from the wide range of tools the player has available to them. You can use large armies, powerful magics, huge summoned creatures or a combination of them all to conquer your enemy. It’s the range of these combinations, and the number of counters, that make this game special. Of course, they’re also what make the game hard to learn, and frustrating to play when things go wrong.

Mark

1694

Qt3-JM-Hardcore (Vanheim) - my first attempted storming of the Abysian capital: repulsed. Barely.

Two main points:

  • a far bigger problem than whether SCs should or should not be in the game is that commanders have only one order queue. So they do the same thing regardless of whether they are commanding an army of five thousand, or if they’re being assassinated with five bodyguards nearby. I suspect this made the difference: I lost my Couatl to an assassination, who was scripted to cast mass protection/will of the fates. That is downright stupid to cast in an assassination situation, but in the battle it might have been enough.
  • Furcas the Arch Devil now has 207 kills to his name.

[edited to remove defeat-related peevishness]

1695

I’m 99.9% sure that’s an intentional part of the game balance. If you want to script commanders, you have to accept the possibility that the script might end up being wrong for the situation you end up encountering. It’s like complaining that you set your cavalry on the left flank but then it turned out your opponent put a bunch of cav-stopping infantry there.

1696

Fair enough, but most of those posting about it HAVE had that experience. It doesn’t happen until you start playing with pretty advanced players–folks like Nick, Backov, etc. who really understand the system (particularly the magic system) and how effects combine.

I agree with you that Ermor has an advantage against SCs. Pretty much every super-SC I’ve seen uses Lifedrain as a key ability, so Ermor’s ability to easily field a ton of lifeless troops is a bonus. But most nations can’t do that–their lifeless troops are all fairly expensive summons. Using those to kill a SC is usually not particularly cost-effective, because it costs you as much to kill the SC as it took your opponent to build it (or more), and it takes a long time to bring it to bear.

Overall, I agree with your response in the sense that every SC is going to have a weakness. But the problem is twofold: (1) the weakness is often something difficult to exploit. For example, the SC may be vulnerable to fire and shock, but if you don’t have fire or air casters, that doesn’t do you any good. There aren’t really any high-path caster mercs available, so you’re stuck with hiring a merc (or cross-summonging someone who can cross-summon someone) to summon a caster that you can empower and/or item up to get what you need. By the time you have a counter ready, the SC has probably demolished a lot of your armies. (2) Even once you get a counter ready, it’s very difficult to bring it against the SC. I had counters made for Nick’s Wraith Lords, but never once managed to get them into combat with him. I had counters for Backov’s Doom Horrors, but again never made it into combat (and it at least one case, he Wished away the counter-weapon I was carrying).

What that adds up to is a very cost-effective SC, which makes large armies useless. The last two Dom2 MP games I played were JM Hardcore and Pampelmousse. In JM Hardcore, a large army was useless because Vanheim could teleport Wrathful Skies casters onto your army, or teleport his SC Allfather pretender onto your army, and you’d lose. You could design a counter (and I whacked some of his WS casters, at least), but it was very hard (and not cost-effective) to fight that way. In Pampelmousse, a large army was useless because R’lyeh could hit them with a Doom Horror (strategic move: Fly 10) and you would lose. Again, you might be able to take down the Doom Horror with a specifically-designed counter, but it’s hard to pull that off. I watched several battles where Nick tried the stuff you were discussing–spamming paralyze, cursing, using anti-SC weapons like Ethereal Crossbows, etc. None of it worked, although he came close once.

The net result is that SCs are extremely effective, much more so than other strategies, and the smart move is not so much “Kill the other guys SCs” but rather to field your own SCs so that you and your opponent are on a level playing field. The game is balanced in that way. What we’re complaining about is just that we don’t particularly enjoy playing an SC vs SC game. (Just like it’s balanced in that anyone can build up a clam or fetish hoard; but it’s just not FUN to have to hoard.) Because I agree with you that the best game supports multiple paths to victory–large armies, smaller elite armies, tiny super-elite SCs. If those were all equally viable, I’d be happy. I’m not saying I think SCs should be removed from the game, I’m saying they should be reasonably defeatable via the other two methods. Currently (at least in my experience), they aren’t. An SC will blow through anything except another equally powerful SC, or a specifically-designed counter, with no risk. That is not true of a large army (which can be defeated with another army, a smaller group of powerful summons, or easily by an SC), for example.

1697

We are disturbing people, so it’s only natural ;-)

Your concept of THUG = my concept of RYWILL if I’m understanding your definition right. A RYWILL is any commander (summoned, national, pretender, whatever) who is tooled up to be nasty but not a solo army killer.

By an interesting coincidence I’m Ashen Empire Ermor in two MP games right now, one in midgame and one clearly in endgame. I like playing the undead because it automatically stops foes from going for the cheesy lifedraining BALUTs. It is possible to build BALUTs for wading through undead armies however. The buildout is different than a typical BALUT (no lifesteal, needs regen and area effect attacks) but I’ve had fights where I had 400 longdead + 2 (naked) Wraith Lords lose against a solo BALUT.

I’m guessing your national mages + judicious summons had a lot more to do with beating BALUTS than your national troops. Or were you Soul Gate Ermor? That might make a difference.

No disagreement here. Everyone has their vulnerability. Of couse, most of the remedies you listed are only available to specific nations that have the right magics handy. Paralyze might be great for bashing BALUTs and BACKOVs but that does me no good as Caelum because of really limited access to astral from national magic, just to pick a random example. BALUTs can’t be immune to all elements but it isn’t too hard to be immune to the 1-2 your enemy is most likely to be using. Fire immunity items to attack Abysia, cold/electricty immunity to attack Caelum, etc.

Anyone who becomes predictable is setting themselves up for defeat in a strategy game. BALUTs are much more dangerous in the hands of the unpredictable. People who have played me can attest to how I mix it up. I love to beat on someone with a nicely equipped Wraith Lord for awhile, then when they send the anti-undead commanders to the frontlines scripted to cast wither bones they run into vine ogres and lamia queens. Or maybe an all-devil army.

The Danubian Fox took me down in JM-Hardcore with the one-two punch of Wraith Lords and Air Queens. I was afraid to field an expensive force optimized to kill one because it would be a very expensive loss if I ran into the other . . .

I re-iterate, such tactics do not unbalance the game because they are available to everyone. They do however change the dynamic of the endgame in a way I’m not a 100%fan of.

I too enjoy the depth and complexity of dom2, please don’t think otherwise. I just happen to think that extremely powerful army-eating solo commanders could be de-emphasized without losing, and perhaps even enhancing, that depth and complexity.

1698

That’s clearly not an issue. You can load up a “normal leader” (e.g. an Ulmish Lord Guardian) with just about anything you want, and I highly doubt he’ll take out armies by himself. It’s the underlying SC chassis combined with the items that is the problem.[/quote]
It is clearly the case. Loading up normal leaders with expensive items is a waste of resources that you simply can’t afford in a competetive MP game. . . .[/quote]

I think we’re agreeing here, but I’m not 100% sure. I thought I said the same thing as you said later, but then you said, “It is clearly the case,” and now I’m confused. :?:

1699

That’s a terrible comparison. Positioning troops is a big complicated affair and can’t be changed around on the spur of the moment. But casting one spell instead of another is simply a matter of deciding to do it right then. Commanders should be smart enough to make that choice.

1700

I guess now we’re discussing what’s realistic in Dom2, in which case I’d say that in real life army commanders often have an idea of the composition and arrangement of enemy forces because their scouts see the army before the front lines do. In addition, a smart commander would order his cavalry to move laterally (faster than the infantry could follow) or flank around the outside (not possible in Dom2 due to the battlefield border).

In short, this conversation is ridiculous. Dom2 is a strategy game, not a tactical wargame. They deliberately design strategic tradeoffs into the game, and one of them is that scripting a commander includes the possibility of having your script not work out because an opponent guessed what you were going to do. Just like troop arrangements. Just like the way my army can’t have one formation for repelling your siege relievers / sally force, and another one for storming your fort. There are lots of examples from the game. It’s not an oversight or bug. It’s a designed part of the game balance.