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Neruz posted:The drawbacks are exactly the same as going from neutral to heat 1: -5% income, -10% supplies, +2 encumberance for units. The seasonal temperature variations will mess about with it and it's not huge, but it's by no means 'free' anymore. In Dom3 heat\cold preference was literally free points. Which was kind of stupid, if you think about it. Not that I complained, mind you. I loved making my pretender even more powerful with the extra points, even though I secretly fealt like cheating. 
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Jan 13, 2014 22:42
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Libluini posted:Which was kind of stupid, if you think about it. Not that I complained, mind you. I loved making my pretender even more powerful with the extra points, even though I secretly fealt like cheating. The stupid part was that the free points weren't accounted for at all, so Niefelheim got an entire scale dump worth of free points which they definitely needed because they're clearly one of the weaker factions. Used carefully it could have been an interesting mechanic, but I think it was probably an unintended side-effect rather than a mechanic.
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Jan 13, 2014 22:45
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Neruz posted:The drawbacks are exactly the same as going from neutral to heat 1: -5% income, -10% supplies, +2 encumberance for units. The seasonal temperature variations will mess about with it and it's not huge, but it's by no means 'free' anymore. In Dom3 heat\cold preference was literally free points. I thought you tended to go up in Heat in summer and down a point of Cold in winter? So with Heat 2, you have a couple months at one remove from your ideal. At Heat 3, you can't go up and you go down to your ideal in winter, so it's only like an extra third of your months that the penalty applies to. Someone lemme know if it doesn't work like that, it might make me rethink my scales choices!
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Jan 13, 2014 22:45
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Penguingo posted:I thought you tended to go up in Heat in summer and down a point of Cold in winter? So with Heat 2, you have a couple months at one remove from your ideal. At Heat 3, you can't go up and you go down to your ideal in winter, so it's only like an extra third of your months that the penalty applies to. It works exactly like that, which is why you should always go Temp 3 if your preferred is Temp 2. The extra point is worth a lot more and the impact on your income in negligible.
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Jan 13, 2014 22:51
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Penguingo posted:I thought you tended to go up in Heat in summer and down a point of Cold in winter? So with Heat 2, you have a couple months at one remove from your ideal. At Heat 3, you can't go up and you go down to your ideal in winter, so it's only like an extra third of your months that the penalty applies to. I'm not sure exactly how the seasons affect heat. Summer appears to apply +1 heat and Winter -1 heat, but I've noticed provinces outside of dominion sometimes pick up 2 points of heat in summer or not go down any points at all in winter so there's probably some kind of random element in there as well, or sites are loving with me. Assuming it works like that, at heat 2 you spend Spring and Autumn with no penalty, Summer and Winter with 1 penalty. At heat 3 you spend Spring, Summer and Autumn with 1 penalty and Winter with no penalty, halving the number of turns you spend with no penalty. Again; I'm not trying to say going from heat 2 to 3 on heat 2 preferred nations is super expensive or bad or anything. What I'm saying is that it's not free. There is a penalty for doing it and while the penalty isn't massive it's not negligable either. The extra encumberance in particular can actually hurt a surprising amount if you don't take it into consideration.
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Jan 13, 2014 22:54
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Neruz posted:The drawbacks are exactly the same as going from neutral to heat 1: -5% income, -10% supplies, +2 encumberance for units. The seasonal temperature variations will mess about with it and it's not huge, but it's by no means 'free' anymore. In Dom3 heat\cold preference was literally free points. Temp scale only goes up to 3, the drawbacks are negligible if you're already comfortable at 2. Neutral scale nation with Heat 1 is at Heat 1 for Early Spring, Spring, Late Spring Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 is at Heat 3 for Early Spring, Spring, Late Spring Advantage: Push Neutral Scale Nation with Heat 1 is at Heat 2 for Early Summer, Summer, Late Summer Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 is at Heat 3 for Early Summer, Summer, Late Summer Advantage: Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 Neutral scale nation with Heat 1 is at Heat 1 for Early Fall, Fall, Late Fall Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 is at Heat 3 for Early Fall, Fall, Late Fall Advantage: Push Neutral scale nation with Heat 1 is at Neutral Scale for Early Winter Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 is at Heat 2 for Early Winter Advantage: Push Neutral scale nation with Heat 1 is at Cold 1 Scale for Winter Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 is at Heat 1 Winter Advantage: Push Neutral scale nation with Heat 1 is at Neutral Scale for Late Winter Heat 2 Nation with Heat 3 is at Heat 2 for Late Winter Advantage: Push The Heat 2 nation that takes Heat 3 will not find itself 2 scales away from it's preference, unlike the neutral scale nation that takes 1 temp scale away from neutral.
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Jan 13, 2014 22:55
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As an added benefit, lots of nations with preferred scales at <temperature 2> tend to have other synergies that makes going to 3 worthwhile, eg matching elemental resistances on their troops so that they're immune to the fatigue penalties other nations might suffer in their dominion.
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Jan 13, 2014 22:58
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Lanka doesn't, though. It's got a shitload of demons that are weak to fire and take additional fatigue in hot weather. Not that it should stop you taking heat3, but it's something to bear in mind for sacred mages!
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Jan 13, 2014 23:03
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Neruz posted:The stupid part was that the free points weren't accounted for at all, so Niefelheim got an entire scale dump worth of free points which they definitely needed because they're clearly one of the weaker factions. I just want to reiterate how out of sync the designers were with actual game balance: they listed Niefelheim's militia as one of their greatest strengths as a nation.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:22
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Tulip posted:I just want to reiterate how out of sync the designers were with actual game balance: they listed Niefelheim's militia as one of their greatest strengths as a nation. I think the designers intended bigness to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:23
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Neruz posted:I think the designers intended bigness to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. This would only be the case if sizes 4 through 6 inherently gave +1 to weapon length.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:28
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Jon Joe posted:This would only be the case if sizes 4 through 6 inherently gave +1 to weapon length. Like I said; intended. They failed to make their intentions reality.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:29
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The designers have never been good at balancing the dominions games. I didn't even consider vanilla dom3 to really have playable multiplayer, I just couldn't stand a lot of it's stupider bits. I was seriously going to wait for the balancing mods to come out for dom4 before I bought it, but dom4 actually fixed a lot of my big ticket issues with dom3 so I think it's at least in an ok state right now. Edit: Oh, the other reason Heat/Cold 2 -> 3 is nice is because it makes neutral temp nations suffer a lot more in your dominion than you do, and it helps if you get into a temperature pushing war with a nation with the opposite Heat/Cold scale. So yeah, its not entirely free, but it's silly not to take it. Pavlov fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Jan 13, 2014 |
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Jan 13, 2014 23:46
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The feeling I've gotten from the games I've played thus far is that while some factions are easier to play than others what decisions you make have a significantly greater impact on the game than what faction you pick, especially in MP games where dipbromacy is a thing.
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Jan 13, 2014 23:59
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Pavlov posted:Wouldn't taking death scales on Lanka be a terrible idea? What with them being so dependent on blood economy, especially with new Lanka. Nifel I can kind of believe, but they want to do some blood hunting too, and death really doesn't help with that, plus it makes their pricy giants harder and harder to pay for as the game goes on, which together kind of shoots you in the foot I think. Wait why is death bad with blood? Just convert to totally blood economy. Blood hunt everything. Win quickly. Taking death3 means you have to go murder fools but it only accelerates pop loss, it doesn't change chance to get slaves. I would guess that order is more important than growth for blood hunting nations.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:04
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Jon Joe posted:This would only be the case if sizes 4 through 6 inherently gave +1 to weapon length. Why stop there? poo poo, now I want a race with size 6 giants styled after those ancient Greek soldiers who lugged 11 foot long lances around. With their size they could easily carry something absurd like a 33 foot long lance. What weapon length would that translate to in Dominions-terms? Infinity plus one?
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Jan 14, 2014 00:08
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e: Nope! 7 Neruz fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 00:20
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Neruz posted:I'm not sure exactly how the seasons affect heat. Summer appears to apply +1 heat and Winter -1 heat, but I've noticed provinces outside of dominion sometimes pick up 2 points of heat in summer or not go down any points at all in winter so there's probably some kind of random element in there as well, or sites are loving with me. There's also quite a big strategic impact of taking heat/cold scales in terms of early expansion into first war threat. Since river crossing requires Sailing, Amphibious or Cold on both sides of a river province, a nation with high Heat is a lot less susceptible to being attacked at the arse end of Year 1 into Year 2. The reverse is true of Mountain provinces, but on random maps, that tends to be a much less common terrain feature, or at the very least happens in more naturally chokey places, since mountains will slow almost everything down to effective MM1 without the Mobility mod installed. So in short, nations with a stronger early game should maybe go for Cold, and nations with a weaker early game are possibly worth taking a point of Heat on, especially since this can get you a point of Production to help your national production going ASAP (and nations with the strongest national troops tend to be the ones with the highest early game potential, after all).
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Jan 14, 2014 00:26
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Neruz posted:I think the designers intended bigness to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Yet they clearly understand that if you make anything size one any good, it will absolutely annhilate everything in its path. If each unit of size above 2 added (say) an inherent +2 to its protection, then lots of larger line troops would be viable in certain cases instead of always lovely, but it would also make lots of big thugs/SCs/Pretenders overpowered. At this point what they would need to do to actually balance the larger sized units would be to give giants more and more relevant inherent combat advantages vs smaller units or to rework the way defense is calculated, because right now it's pretty stupid. For nations that don't have to suck (Caleum) it makes playing them in non-newbie games frustrating, and for nations that do have to suck (EA Agartha) it makes playing them pretty much impossible. Smerdyakov fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 00:28
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builds character posted:Wait why is death bad with blood? Just convert to totally blood economy. Blood hunt everything. Win quickly. Taking death3 means you have to go murder fools but it only accelerates pop loss, it doesn't change chance to get slaves. I would guess that order is more important than growth for blood hunting nations. Blood hunting is very difficult under 5,000 population. It also reduces population and its growth. You can only milk a province for so much blood before it runs out. Death + blood forces you into "expand or die" mode, which is risky.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:31
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builds character posted:Wait why is death bad with blood? Just convert to totally blood economy. Blood hunt everything. Win quickly. Taking death3 means you have to go murder fools but it only accelerates pop loss, it doesn't change chance to get slaves. I would guess that order is more important than growth for blood hunting nations. I'll be honest, I never ran blood nations much myself. I've always been told to run growth with them though. It's only worth the mage turns to hunt in provinces with a certain amount of population (I forget how much). The point of growth is to keep as many of your provinces as possible above that point into the late game. If you scale high death instead, you find that your need for blood slaves eventually starts to outpace your capacity to hunt for them. That's supposed to be the idea at least. And let's be honest, dominions games can last a long time, ending early often just isn't an option. Edit: ^^^^ Yeah, more or less what he said.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:47
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Blood hunting is very difficult under 5,000 population. It also reduces population and its growth. You can only milk a province for so much blood before it runs out. Death + blood forces you into "expand or die" mode, which is risky. Correct. But you're getting 120 build points for it (240 vs growth3) which ought to make your expansion and ability to do murders a touch better. Plus, it's not that bad. Just blood hunt 7-10k instead of 5 only.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:47
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I mean, it could work, don't get me wrong, but you do still need some gold to function, and if you eat up all your high pop provinces even blood heavy Lanka is going to feel it I think. You still have to pay for all those palankasha and mages somehow.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:58
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Blood Hunting is a lot harder on population now that you also need to patrol so death\growth scales might have a more significant impact than they used to.Pavlov posted:I mean, it could work, don't get me wrong, but you do still need some gold to function, and if you eat up all your high pop provinces even blood heavy Lanka is going to feel it I think. You still have to pay for all those palankasha and mages somehow. Death\Growth does also give an income penalty\bonus, not huge but it's there. Supplies too. Death 3 also opens up a bunch of 'undead rise up and murder all your dudes' events.
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Jan 14, 2014 00:59
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jBrereton posted:There's also quite a big strategic impact of taking heat/cold scales in terms of early expansion into first war threat. Since river crossing requires Sailing, Amphibious or Cold on both sides of a river province, a nation with high Heat is a lot less susceptible to being attacked at the arse end of Year 1 into Year 2. I can't find it on the dom3 wiki, but does this mean a positive heat scale dominion basically means you're hosed w/r/t rivers until you find a bridge or such? EA Abyssia is really awesome so this question is important to me  edit: I totally somehow missed that I can cross mountains instead, that's good. 
Kitfox88 fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Jan 14, 2014 |
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Jan 14, 2014 01:01
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You can cross mountains instead!
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Jan 14, 2014 01:02
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Misfortune 3 is a terrible choice to make. In just one game so far I've gotten random attacks from : Knights, Barbarians, Villains, Brigands, Trolls, Spiders, Giant Spiders, and Horrors.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:06
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amuayse posted:Misfortune 3 is a terrible choice to make. In just one game so far I've gotten random attacks from : Knights, Barbarians, Villains, Brigands, Trolls, Spiders, Giant Spiders, and Horrors. Some people have uncanny luck and get good events even when they take M3 don't they Jon Joe?
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Jan 14, 2014 01:19
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Death + blood forces you into "expand or die" mode, which is risky. It's also the only way you'll ever win consistently. I maintain that taking death 3 is a good way for new players to force themselves out of their comfort zone, and for experienced players to win more. Just, you know, don't pair it with misfortune which you shouldn't take anyway.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:25
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Misfortune 2+Death 3 isn't that bad if you have order scales to back it up.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:38
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Irony.or.Death posted:It's also the only way you'll ever win consistently. I maintain that taking death 3 is a good way for new players to force themselves out of their comfort zone, and for experienced players to win more. Just, you know, don't pair it with misfortune which you shouldn't take anyway. I could buy that in dom3, but while I haven't played dom4 much yet, it looks to me like it puts a significantly heavier focus on non-gem economy. I don't think taking death and rushing is as viable anymore.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:48
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Jon Joe posted:It works exactly like that, which is why you should always go Temp 3 if your preferred is Temp 2. The extra point is worth a lot more and the impact on your income in negligible. This is stupid. Firstly, the income penalty is still pretty big and income is the most important number. Secondly, the severe heat or cold penalties absolutely kill spellcasting in your nation unless you have resistance. Lanka for example, severe heat butchers any attempt at thunder strike spam. Don't do it, it isn't worth it unless you resist your temp scale. Nations like Kailasa, Helheim, Lanka do not.
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Jan 14, 2014 01:51
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Pavlov posted:I could buy that in dom3, but while I haven't played dom4 much yet, it looks to me like it puts a significantly heavier focus on non-gem economy. I don't think taking death and rushing is as viable anymore. Death and growth change your income slowly. Taking your neighbor's stuff changes your income right now. Whatever you're doing, someone in the game is expanding. If you're not expanding, you're dying no matter what your scales are - it just might not be as immediately obvious without death scales.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:28
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TheDemon posted:This is stupid. Firstly, the income penalty is still pretty big and income is the most important number. Secondly, the severe heat or cold penalties absolutely kill spellcasting in your nation unless you have resistance. Lanka for example, severe heat butchers any attempt at thunder strike spam. Don't do it, it isn't worth it unless you resist your temp scale. Nations like Kailasa, Helheim, Lanka do not. Oh? Interesting! Definitely not something I've considered before, hmmm.
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Jan 14, 2014 02:39
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I actually wasn't aware Lanka demons couldn't take the heat either, I think I'll have to reconsider my position on Heat 3 for them. Actually, I think I'd even consider going down to Heat 1 just to avoid the fatigue the rest of the year. And you know what, what the hell, next game I'll run death 3, rush like a madman, and tell you how it goes.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:13
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amuayse posted:Misfortune 2+Death 3 isn't that bad if you have order scales to back it up. it's really painful in the long term, I regret taking order/misfortune/death in games ive taken it in so far
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Jan 14, 2014 03:38
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Pavlov posted:I actually wasn't aware Lanka demons couldn't take the heat either, I think I'll have to reconsider my position on Heat 3 for them. Actually, I think I'd even consider going down to Heat 1 just to avoid the fatigue the rest of the year. So bear that in mind, I guess.
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Jan 14, 2014 03:54
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Could an experienced player write some words on general things to shoot for when building thugs and SCs? After a handful of games I think I'm getting a general grasp of it, but I feel like I'm probably wasting tons of gems over equipping guys. What are the general bullet points you want a thug/SC to hit: AOE attack, MR, high strategic movement, some sort of on hit shield, and high hitpoints? What about regeneration, quickness or filling in misc slots? What bonuses are absolutely necessary and which ones are just nice? Roughly what size army/PD can you expect one of these guys to take on without having some peasant jab a spear into their heart and blow your investment? And since every nation and game has vastly different paths available, what are some non-optimal but still serviceable item choices?
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Jan 14, 2014 04:03
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Flavahbeast posted:it's really painful in the long term, I regret taking order/misfortune/death in games ive taken it in so far That said, misfortune 3 is suicide in dom4, and misfortune 2 is almost as bad if you have harsh scales like death 3. Death 3 by itself is pretty good and most of the time you've already won or lost by the time the decline in income is really noticeable, but you absolutely should not take it if your guys need lots of supplies, even if you have easy N access for the supply items. I've never regretted taking luck 3 (and only 3, 2 and 1 are not nearly as useful) though that may just be confirmation bias. Basically, luck 3 can give you up to 2000 (!) gold in one event starting from like turn 5 plus it diversifies your gem income. I would take it over order because even if order is better in the long run, the gold and gems from luck events can give you the ability to be dominant early and keep pushing and/or recover from early game mishaps.
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Jan 14, 2014 04:29
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ClothHat posted:Could an experienced player write some words on general things to shoot for when building thugs and SCs? After a handful of games I think I'm getting a general grasp of it, but I feel like I'm probably wasting tons of gems over equipping guys. What are the general bullet points you want a thug/SC to hit: AOE attack, MR, high strategic movement, some sort of on hit shield, and high hitpoints? What about regeneration, quickness or filling in misc slots? What bonuses are absolutely necessary and which ones are just nice? Roughly what size army/PD can you expect one of these guys to take on without having some peasant jab a spear into their heart and blow your investment? It's Dom 3, but as far as I know not much has changed (from a quick glance Dwarf Hammers are still great but no longer game-deciding, luck isn't useful on SCs/thugs anymore, and it's a lot harder to get elemental resistances so you generally need to figure out what your enemy likes to use and stack against it). http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Gearing_Thugs_and_SC%27s
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