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Poil posted:
I think I remember Castlevania: Circle of the Moon having 'Gorgons' that were also big weird bulls with breath that turned you to stone. Then later there was a palette swap called a Catoblepas. Now a catoblepas WAS supposed to be a bull critter that turned people to stone, but I haven't the faintest idea why they decided gorgons were the same thing.
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Jan 4, 2017 00:19
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That goes back to D&D, actually. Gorgons and medusae were both in the original Monster Compendium and gorgons were poison-smoke-breathing bull monsters even back then. I think it's safe to say anybody working on games like this and HoM&M probably has some D&D under their belts.  There's a neat article from a Pathfinder dev here (Tumblr warning) that theorizes where Gygax could've gotten his misinformation from. Going back a bit, Melth, did you ever get any advice on a mic? It mostly depends on your price range, but Blue Yeti's Snowball is kind of the gold standard in cheap USB mics; I use an Audio-Technica 2500 (which has better quality but worse self-noise, so...), and those are $50 and $75 respectively. You might seriously just Google for "best condenser mic" and "$price range" and see what the Internet suggests, heh. Good to have you back. 
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Jan 4, 2017 00:33
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Melth posted:
There is an excellent moment near the end of the Odyssey where Odysseus in disguise as a beggar encounters one of the suitors, Amphinomus. Amphinomus is actually a pretty decent guy, and Odysseus decides to warn him that it would be a good idea to skip town. Athena, however, is having none of this, and forces Amphinomus to stay and be killed. Despite being nominally on Odysseus' side, Athena really doesn't care about what he thinks or wants. He is a trophy or a particularly favored pet, nothing more. Actually, I guess this a good tangent for the overall image of the gods in Homer. Or more particularly, the Iliad. The Iliad's gods are as a rule comic relief that enforces the work's themes about mortality. The text in effect states that while the gods might be immortal and beautiful, nothing they do truly matters, precisely because they cannot die (in contrast, Achilles, who is great because he chose to die young). Most Olympian interludes are jokes: Hera seducing Zeus, causing Zeus to list off all the mortal women he's banged; Athena and Hera cattily insulting Aphrodite; Ares being a loser hated by all. Throughout the poem, the prospect of the gods entering the Trojan War in person is viewed as almost apocalyptic. Zeus sends a lot of time trying to keep his extended family on Olympus. But finally, near the climax of the poem, the gods finally do join the fray. And it's a farce. Hera breaks Artemis' bow over her knee. Athena throws a rock at Ares and punches Aphrodite in the boob. Apollo and Poseidon decide to leave and get some beers instead of fighting. It's this huge anticlimax. I think a particularly telling episode is the funeral games following the death of Hector. The Greeks hold all these competitions to celebrate. And all of our lovely gang of anti-Trojan deities decide to play favorites, intervening so that their particularly heroes win glory just as they had in the bloody battles of the previous days. My interpretation is that the gods saw no fundamental difference in the Trojan War and the funeral games; they were just arenas to settle scores and prove that they were the best. However, there are some moments where the gods do act in a more appropriate manner. During those funeral games, while the pro-Greek gods pettily pick and choose winners, Apollo and Aphrodite personally care for Hector's body (Achilles kept defiling it over and over). At the end of the day, even these particularly venal gods realized that Hector was a great hero who had earned their care and respect. And then there is Hephaestus, who comes across better than all the other Olympians. He is the only god who actually creates; first, the thrones of Olympus, and then the armor of Achilles. He is a conciliator, trying to avert conflict, even if it means earning the scorn of the other gods. And he is the only god who receives a truly Homeric battle scene. While the other divine fights are brief jokes, Hephaestus' fight with the god of the river to save Achilles receives many lines full of poetic language. Even in almost the earliest Greek text, the gods are mostly dicks. But not even in the Old Testament, vengeful father kind of dicks; they're just petty assholes. Smiling Knight fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 00:33
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And this game also features the Norse gods, who are just as bad as the Greeks! IIRC it's Thor who's the main supporter of the heroes during the Norse part of the campaign. Actually, that's a tough call who's a bigger bag of dicks: the Olympians or the Aesir.
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Jan 4, 2017 00:51
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Cythereal posted:And this game also features the Norse gods, who are just as bad as the Greeks! IIRC it's Thor who's the main supporter of the heroes during the Norse part of the campaign. I'd put my money on the Olympians mainly because while the amount of dickishness is equivalent, it's concentrated into fewer gods on the Norse side. EponymousMrYar fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jan 4, 2017 |
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Jan 4, 2017 01:11
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Wayne posted:That goes back to D&D, actually. Gorgons and medusae were both in the original Monster Compendium and gorgons were poison-smoke-breathing bull monsters even back then. I think it's safe to say anybody working on games like this and HoM&M probably has some D&D under their belts. Ah ha! Yeah, I do remember seeing 'gorgons' as clear catoblepas renames complete with metal hides in the 3.5 Monster Manual too (I never used that book much though, I always preferred making up my own monsters or better yet just having human enemies). And from that article it sounds like he basically just got it from this lousy source Topsell who himself inexplicably stated that a gorgon was a rename of a catoblepas. That guy sounds worse than Herodotus. Smiling Knight posted:There is an excellent moment near the end of the Odyssey where Odysseus in disguise as a beggar encounters one of the suitors, Amphinomus. Amphinomus is actually a pretty decent guy, and Odysseus decides to warn him that it would be a good idea to skip town. Athena, however, is having none of this, and forces Amphinomus to stay and be killed. Despite being nominally on Odysseus' side, Athena really doesn't care about what he thinks or wants. He is a trophy or a particularly favored pet, nothing more. I think that's a good but somewhat incomplete analysis of the appearances of the gods in the Iliad, though I think you're being unfair to Athena in the Odyssey. There's a lot wrong with what she does, but she's pretty consistently helpful and sometimes even kind to not just Odysseus but his whole family and prevents further fighting once all the real enemies are dead. Returning to the Iliad, I think there are a lot of other moments where the hijinks of the gods are treated with utter seriousness and I'm pretty sure I remember other moments where these absurd, petty, and pointlessly cruel gods are described as just and righteous. Certainly it is explicitly stated in the Odyssey that it's improper to blame or question the gods. Wayne posted:Going back a bit, Melth, did you ever get any advice on a mic? It mostly depends on your price range, but Blue Yeti's Snowball is kind of the gold standard in cheap USB mics; I use an Audio-Technica 2500 (which has better quality but worse self-noise, so...), and those are $50 and $75 respectively. You might seriously just Google for "best condenser mic" and "$price range" and see what the Internet suggests, heh. Good to have you back. Thanks for the advice, I hadn't gotten much about mics. And thanks, it's good to be back.
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Jan 4, 2017 03:02
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While we're on the subject of Hephaestus, I remember when I was a kid looking up mythological gods on Wikipedia and one of the common threads I noticed was that while most myths had their gods acting like dicks, almost consistently the blacksmith god of various mythologies tended to be the more chill of all the gods. In Sumerian mythology you have Gibil who apparently was so wise the other gods came to him for advice. In Irish myths Goibniu makes badass weapons and is known for throwing the best parties for everyone. Ilmarinen, the Finnish god of forging is said to have made an item called the Sampo which could bring great luck to people. He had to make it to win a fair maiden's hand in marriage, but she didn't want to leave home so he went and made a gold wife, but found she was cold and distant. He made cool stuff but had poo poo luck at love. In Vodoo you have Ogou, who is also the god of pioneering, intelligence, justice, medicine, and political power; these are associated with the symbol of the tool that can advance humans' mastery over the environment. In the Yoruba religion he is said to have been a mortal king who after killing some of his subjects, killed himself in remorse and now helps out anyone who needs a hand. In Egyptian mythology, Ptah depending on which time and kingdom was either a really powerful craftsman god, or the actual being which created the physical world people reside in. In Shinto, the Inari Ōkami is the kami of foxes, fertility, rice, tea and sake, of agriculture and industry, of general prosperity and worldly success. With Buddhism in Japan, Inari is also associated with protecting temples. The one black sheep for smiths seems to be in Norse mythology. Wayland the Smith (Völundr), was crippled and chained in a kings basement to make stuff. He killed the kings sons, made goblets from their skulls and may or may not have also raped the kings daughter. After he left he then went on to make most of the cool swords in Norse mythology.
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Jan 4, 2017 03:35
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Jimmy4400nav posted:The one black sheep for smiths seems to be in Norse mythology. Wayland the Smith (Völundr), was crippled and chained in a kings basement to make stuff. He killed the kings sons, made goblets from their skulls and may or may not have also raped the kings daughter. After he left he then went on to make most of the cool swords in Norse mythology. To be fair, that's not out of character for any Norse deity.
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Jan 4, 2017 03:51
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Hades was the first proto-goon -Hangs out in the basement all day -Stands in the corner at parties -nobody likes him that much -can't talk to women
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Jan 4, 2017 04:25
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Hades was the first proto-goon Has anyone on SA kidnapped a woman to live with them in the basement, eventually reaching an agreement with the woman's mother for each of them to have her for six months at a time?
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Jan 4, 2017 04:45
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There's a goon marriage joke to be made in there, but this is as far as I'm willing to go.
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Jan 4, 2017 05:08
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Which culture has/had the chillest gods?
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Jan 4, 2017 05:18
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Assyria. Really though, pretty much all the old polytheistic religions have myths of their gods doing incredibly hosed up poo poo. Hinduism maybe, by virtue of relativity, rather than generally being chill? I admit I'm not as up on my eastern mythology as I am my western.
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Jan 4, 2017 05:24
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unwantedplatypus posted:Which culture has/had the chillest gods? Of the in-game cultures or like worldwide? I'll assume in-game. I mean actually a lot of the Egyptian ones were nice and helpful. Set and Sekmet (who was sent by Ra who was otherwise a good fellow) being exceptions. I know a bit less about Chinese mythology and the thing about it is that it was heavily influenced by a bunch of other religions like Buddhism over time, which the AoM version doesn't really separate out. But I think most of the gods were benevolent. But really, I'm not sure why the Aesir have been getting so much flak. Sometimes they're foolish and Thor in particular gets pranked by giants a lot because he's kind of dumb and hangs out too much with the actually even dumber in most myths Loki, but they're not bad to humans in any of the myths I can think of. A lot of them are quite heroic and Odin goes around righting mortal wrongs. And despite being mortal and knowing they'll all really die and be gone forever if they try, they still fight giants and monsters and sacrifice hands and eyes and eventually their lives so that there can be a better world for new humans and a few of the gentler gods after Ragnarok. Only two of them screw things up. There's Loki who's terrible and who they eventually imprison because they're finally more tired of his terribleness than they are determined to honor Odin's oath with him. But he's not even an Aesir; both his parents were giants. And there's Freyr who stupidly decides to give up his super sword in the process of trying to marry a giantess. Which will screw everyone over at Ragnarok because now he'll lose his fight against Surtr, the super monster they were counting on him to kill but be killed by in this whole chess piece for chess piece trade of gods for monsters they were planning on. So Surtr will destroy everything and there'll only be a few survivors and it's all Freyr's fault and the other gods irritably remind him of how badly he ruined everything from time to time. But he's not even an Aesir either, he's one of their lame Vanir cousins. So if you ask me, it's actually hard to top the Aesir.
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Jan 4, 2017 05:45
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Are we going to ignore the various family members cooked into stews, the backfiring beastiality plans, the various illegitimate children of Loki, and so on and so forth? I grant that the Aesir, as a whole, are not huge dicks. But if you dig into the smaller stories they do some hosed up poo poo on the regular. Of course then you have to have a discussion about just how deep you want to dig because most of it is fifteenth hand Christian after the fact retellings and... mythology is dumb yo.
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Jan 4, 2017 05:54
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Orv posted:Are we going to ignore the various family members cooked into stews, the backfiring beastiality plans, the various illegitimate children of Loki, and so on and so forth? I grant that the Aesir, as a whole, are not huge dicks. But if you dig into the smaller stories they do some hosed up poo poo on the regular. But like their victims are giants or other gods rather than humans. And again, yeah, Loki is behind everything bad that happens in the universe, but he's not even one of them. And they cast him out and tie him to a rock with a snake dripping poison on his face until the end of the world for his crimes. And more immediately for ruining an awesome party, but mostly for his crimes!
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Jan 4, 2017 06:03
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Oh it's just our lovely cousin, we barely know him! Is actually a pretty common mythological refrain, I guess. So yeah, Aesir win. E: Though I don't appreciate your tacit giant racism. 
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Jan 4, 2017 06:07
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Wasn't Hades's kidnapping of Persephone some kind of marriage ceremony at the time? Also, I distinctly remember Persephone actually being in love with her gloomy husband, though considering the variance in retellings this isn't really saying much. But yeah, on the whole Hades was a lot nicer than most of the Greek pantheon.
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Jan 4, 2017 06:28
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Jimmy4400nav posted:The one black sheep for smiths seems to be in Norse mythology. Wayland the Smith (Völundr), was crippled and chained in a kings basement to make stuff. He killed the kings sons, made goblets from their skulls and may or may not have also raped the kings daughter. After he left he then went on to make most of the cool swords in Norse mythology. Oh wait, he's not a God. So yeah, I guess that counts. Melth posted:Only two of them screw things up. Two and a half. Odin might have gone around righting mortal wrongs but a significant amount of them he caused in the first place thanks to his crazy promiscuousness
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Jan 4, 2017 07:13
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Orv posted:E: Though I don't appreciate your tacit giant racism. You can't be racist against giants, they're white.
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Jan 4, 2017 07:31
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Orv posted:
Don't worry, I'm only racist against the lame giants that aren't on fire. So as a follow up to my previous investigation of true Fire Giant damage, I wondered how strong their secret 3x multiplier made them in practical terms. So I did a TON of myth unit vs myth unit testing to see directly how strong an upgraded (Granite Blood) Fire Giant is compared to the others. Vs. Greeks: An upgraded Fire Giant easily wins 1v1 against any lesser age myth unit. It even beats fully upgraded Colossi, which are supposedly the biggest and strongest unit in the game. This is not even getting into how Fire Giants are faster than Colossi and could therefore kite them to death without a scratch. A Medusa, of course, can instant kill a Fire Giant same as it can kill everything else. But it’s notable that a Fire Giant can kill a Medusa in less time than the Medusa’s cooldown. Upgraded Chimeras beat Fire Giants (though they’re badly injured). The upgraded Chimera is, despite being relatively unknown, the true most powerful myth unit in the game for fighting myth units. And it's just amazing for other purposes too. It deals massive damage, has huge HP, great armor, great speed, one of the best area attacks in the game, and has enormous bonus damage against its fellow myth units. Accept no substitutes. Vs. Egyptians: An upgraded Fire Giant easily wins 1v1 against any lesser age myth unit. It tears Phoenixes apart. Now granted Phoenixes are terrible anyway, but a Fire Giant beats them especially hard. Fire Giants actually beat Avengers, which are another extremely powerful unit with major bonuses vs other myth units and which also have high hack attack and hack armor. That was a really close fight though. Like with a Medusa, the Mummy’s ability can instant kill a Fire Giant but a Fire Giant can kill a Mummy in less time than the cooldown, so don’t stick around to fight another of the giants if you're using Mummies. Vs. Norse: the Fire Giant beats MOST lesser age myth units. I was actually startled by how easily they trashed Battle Boars and Giant-Killer (Guess not) Einherjar since those guys have really serious hack armor and Battle Boars are just nice all around. However, Frost Giants win effortlessly against Fire Giants due to their freeze ability which might as well be an instant kill for this purpose. And unlike Mummies and Medusae, these guys can take the heat. Fire Giants crush Fenris Wolves, beat Mountain Giants, and are of course tied against themselves. Now here’s the crazy bit: a single Fire Giant will do 90% damage to Nidhogg before dying. Nidhogg is REALLY bad but that's one of the clearest demonstrations of it I've ever seen. Vs. Atlanteans:The Atlanteans actually have by far the most options for beating Fire Giants. For starters, the Traitor and Chaos god powers which normally are weak were just made to deal with heavy myth units like these. The Atlanteans have some god powers that spawn units, so I tested Fire Giants against those as well just to be complete. Carnivora get wrecked. 5 Dryads from a Hesperides tree all get wrecked. A whole pack of Tartarian Spawn get wrecked. But in terms of standard units, the Fire Giant as usual does beat all lesser age myth units. This includes Stymphalian Birds, which are normally great against myth units, because Fire Giants laugh at pierce damage. But then in the mythic age, an Argus can of course instant kill a Fire Giant with its ability. Lampades are maybe even better since they can make the Fire Giant turn on its former allies (though of course in this 1v1 test the result is just that the Fire Giant goes neutral and then rips the Lampades apart). More interestingly, a Heka Gigantes actually just beats a Fire Giant in a fight. Heka Gigantes started off powerful when the game came out and then were buffed again and again until only an upgraded Chimera is stronger. And heck, even the upgraded Chimera isn’t strictly better since the Heka Gigantes is, bar none, THE most powerful siege unit in the game. Vs. Chinese: The Fire Giant beats most lesser age myth units, but actually will juuuuuust barely lose to an upgraded Jiangshi. This is less because Jiangshi are actually good and more because their upgraded HP stealing ability lends itself to 1v1 matches. A pack of Jiangshi vs Fire Giants with each focus firing results in a slaughter of the Jiangshi. Fire Giants beat Vermillion birds, though they take substantial damage. They beat unupgraded White Tigers and unupgraded Azure Dragons, but just barely. Upgraded White Tigers and Azure dragons tend to win with about 2 HP left, though the fight can go the other way too. Now all of these were 1v1 matches rather than cost-effectiveness matches. In most cases, that would make no difference because most other myth units cost only slightly less than a Fire Giant- or they’re worthless little fragile guys that a Fire Giant would easily beat a pack of due to its area of effect special attack. There were a few interesting cost-effectiveness matchups though. Automata lost but juuuust barely, and a single extra Automata (which wouldn’t be far above price parity) would swing the fight easily. Which matters because the surviving Automata can then fix up the ‘dead’ ones for a zero casualty win. I also tested Fenris Wolves just to prove that they’re as worthless as ever. And indeed, a cost-matched pack of them gets crushed same as a lone one. Since I’d proved before that the Fire Giant is secretly one of very few myth units to do full damage to heroes, I was also interested in seeing how Fire Giant vs hero matchups went. Amusingly, it turns out that Fire Giants actually stomp on any heroes that do pierce damage due to their spectacular 80% pierce armor rating. Mythic age fully upgraded Odysseus and Hyppolyta and Chiron all die 1v1 (but inflict some decent damage). And these are Greek heroes which are supposed to be the strongest! Atlantean hero Turmas and Arcuses are even more helpless since they also do pierce damage but are much weaker. With the Egyptians I found that a single Fire Giant was able to slaughter 1 Mythic Age non-Nephthys Pharaoh and then 5 Priests in succession before the sixth Priest took him down. Note that this isn't 7v1, just a series of 1v1 fights to see how many it would take. The Fire Giant is actually cost effective vs non-Nephthys Priests if you ignore favor. Nephthys’s massive bonuses to Priests and Pharaohs and particularly her upgrade that makes both better at fighting myth units swings things the other way though. A few priests still lose badly, but her Pharaohs are like 4x better than normal overall, so one of them can beat a Fire Giant. But Fire Giants don’t have that kind of edge against heroes with hack type attack. A lone, upgraded Hersir (or Hero of Ragnarok) will flatten a Fire Giant, as will a Chinese Immortal or any of the normal Greek melee heroes. Oh or the Son of Osiris, but that almost goes without saying. Jarls get wrecked, even when maximally upgraded as Thor and everything. I have never understood the hype of Jarls. For the Atlanteans, Citizen heroes lose but that’s ok because they’re a darned villager and they deal heavy damage anyway. Katapeltes and Oracles can be officially inducted to the hall of shame because they lose to fire giants even when maximally upgraded. Katapeltes are one of the most worthless units in the game in general because Murmillo do their one rare job better in some cases and are a thousand times more versatile. Murmillo heroes actually do NOT do well in this fight though. In fact, they're likely to juuuust barely lose and leave the Fire Giant with 2-3 HP. The reason is that Murmillo heroes actually have a really sub-par damage multiplier vs myth units compared to other heroes, and their base damage just isn’t amazing. Contarius heroes win with about 30% HP left despite having bad hack armor because their damage is preposterously high when fully upgraded. Destroyers also win with about 30% despite being bad in a fight just because their secret damage multiplier is the highest for absolutely no reason. And Fanatics win the easiest with about 40% HP left due to spectacular damage with a real multiplier and good HP and hack armor to begin with. It’s worth noting though that even the Fanatic is barely keeping up with Hersir, Immortals, and Greek melee heroes. Those guys all have better multipliers and armor. So what does all of this mean? Well it’s no great surprise for a mythic age unit to beat heroic or classical age ones, so nevermind that for now. There are a total of 10 mythic age land myth units which do not have instant kills. When upgraded, Fire Giants beat 4 of them, ties or virtually ties 4, and loses to 2. A Fire Giant is one of the more expensive myth units, but it’s not the priciest. So it’s high in power, high in price and thus pretty well balanced vs its fellow myth units in 1v1 matchups. But the game isn’t 1v1 matchups. In a real battle, the Fire Giant has some very critical advantages and disadvantages. Its chief disadvantage is being slow. Not catastrophically so if you can get Bragi for the Thurisaz Rune upgrade, but somewhat slow. One initial advantage to note is that it’s incredibly versatile. It deals massive damage to human soldiers, siege units, myth units, flying units, AND buildings and isn’t even weak vs heroes. There is no target in the whole game the Fire Giant is bad against. Even Chimeras and Heka Gigantes can’t say that. Its chief advantage though is being ranged. This is tremendously useful for a slow, bulky unit since it means all your Fire Giants can immediately start contributing instead of milling about uselessly like many myth units will. It also means Fire Giants can effectively focus fire, whereas most myth units can’t- so in groups they will actually be able to mow down many of these myth units which beat or tie them individually. Being ranged also means they can wield their area of effect special more easily than many other myth units that have one (like Avengers, Chimeras, Heka Gigantes, or Azure Dragons) can, though their special is not by any means the most powerful. And it helps them in their role as building destroyers since many other siege myth units struggle to actually get into melee with buildings they need to take down. Perhaps even more importantly, being ranged is defensively great. A Fire Giant is a major, expensive investment and the Norse in particular do not like to lose myth units. Since the Fire Giant is ranged, it can be kept safely behind the front line. It is critical to note that nearly all ranged units in the game have pierce attacks- which do barely any damage against a Fire Giant’s massive pierce armor. Even ranged heroes struggle to hurt a Fire Giant and they must walk dangerously close to the front line to have a chance to try. So it’s really easy to keep Fire Giants alive just by keeping a screen of other units between them and the enemy. Thus a lot of the supposed hard-counters to Fire Giants -melee heroes and myth units with instant kill abilities- actually will have trouble engaging at all. Arguses and Lampades and Frost Giants in particular must be nearly next to their target to use their specials and are not fast, so one can easily protect Fire Giants from them long enough to kill them. Mummies and Medusae and Perseus remain dangerous. So does the Son of Osiris, who is nearly unique in dealing hack damage at range. To a lesser extent, so does Bellerophon who can jump right over the front line and is quite powerful. Count them up though: 5 practical unit counters to the Fire Giant. And guess what? Only Zeus can ever get Medusae or Bellerophon. Only Osiris grants the Son of Osiris or Mummies (and Osiris is unavailable to Set and a painful choice for Isis). Only Hades grants Perseus, and there can only be one of him. In other words, most civilizations HAVE no clear counter to Fire Giants available as long as the giants' owner keeps them in the rear. So the Fire Giant is not be the most powerful combat machine myth unit in the game, but it’s the most versatile. Many of its supposed counters are ineffective or impractical against it, meanwhile it is strong against literally everything in the game other than heroes- and isn’t even weak against those.
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Jan 4, 2017 08:01
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Melth posted:But like their victims are giants or other gods rather than humans. And again, yeah, Loki is behind everything bad that happens in the universe, but he's not even one of them. And they cast him out and tie him to a rock with a snake dripping poison on his face until the end of the world for his crimes. And more immediately for ruining an awesome party, but mostly for his crimes! If you want to doubt Loki's membership among the aesir, which you shouldnt, it is not because his parents were among the jotun. The aesirs werent a race or a family and plenty had giantess mothers. It is because he ruined that party by bringing up all the others embarrassing stories and the other gods decided they didn't like him after all.
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Jan 4, 2017 08:21
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HannibalBarca posted:Has anyone on SA kidnapped a woman to live with them in the basement, eventually reaching an agreement with the woman's mother for each of them to have her for six months at a time? I'm partial to the Dresden Files interpretation of events: it was a completely legitimate love affair and marriage, Demeter was just an overbearing mother who couldn't bear to see her little girl leave home and subsequently was an incredibly irritating mother-in-law.
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Jan 4, 2017 13:10
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Cythereal posted:I'm partial to the Dresden Files interpretation of events: it was a completely legitimate love affair and marriage, Demeter was just an overbearing mother who couldn't bear to see her little girl leave home and subsequently was an incredibly irritating mother-in-law. And he named his dog Spot. 
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Jan 4, 2017 13:38
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Melth posted:Unit balance effort post Melth posted:Fire giant sales pitch effort post Melth posted:Fire Giant balance effort post I'm kind of on the fence about this game. I mean, it's a wonderfully made product of its time. It is going to be a bonkers ride with regards to its story. And this LP will feature more information behind the veil of the stats and the performance, and some lovely info on mythology from other fans of the material. But poo poo like this would make me pull my hair out in frustration. Game balance being this muddy, complicated and evasive just is not fun, and I both am enjoying and am boggled at the effort people like yourself and others have made just to more effectively play this game.
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Jan 4, 2017 14:49
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Cythereal posted:I'm partial to the Dresden Files interpretation of events: it was a completely legitimate love affair and marriage, Demeter was just an overbearing mother who couldn't bear to see her little girl leave home and subsequently was an incredibly irritating mother-in-law. that's fair
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Jan 4, 2017 15:29
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HannibalBarca posted:that's fair Then again, this is a book series where Odin is literally Santa Claus.
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Jan 4, 2017 15:50
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Dinictus posted:I'm kind of on the fence about this game. I mean, it's a wonderfully made product of its time. It is going to be a bonkers ride with regards to its story. And this LP will feature more information behind the veil of the stats and the performance, and some lovely info on mythology from other fans of the material. But poo poo like this would make me pull my hair out in frustration. Game balance being this muddy, complicated and evasive just is not fun, and I both am enjoying and am boggled at the effort people like yourself and others have made just to more effectively play this game. It's not really that much more effective. Because AoM is really just AoE2.5 with a bunch of gory, golden serial plates welded onto the door mirrors, the insanely (impressively) detailed breakdown of things like the Fire Giant don't really super impact things that much in regular play. Battles are still decided pretty much 100% off the surfaced counter system, even with the bizarre quirks involved that people did know about back then. It's still an Ensemble game, you're still smashing huge groups of dude together, countering when you can and just having old school RTS fun. If it bothers you because you know it's there, then go with god, but if you can just ignore and it play with the mechanics the game tells you about, you'll still do totally fine.
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Jan 4, 2017 17:46
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Dinictus posted:I'm kind of on the fence about this game. I mean, it's a wonderfully made product of its time. It is going to be a bonkers ride with regards to its story. And this LP will feature more information behind the veil of the stats and the performance, and some lovely info on mythology from other fans of the material. But poo poo like this would make me pull my hair out in frustration. Game balance being this muddy, complicated and evasive just is not fun, and I both am enjoying and am boggled at the effort people like yourself and others have made just to more effectively play this game. I think it's worth noting that, as Orv said, a lot of this doesn't really matter that much. If you follow the basic counters the game tells you about and make sensible decisions, you'll generally do just fine. There are exceptions like the silliness of spearmen only having a 10% bonus against cavalry. That's ridiculous when we're told they're only good against cavalry and when the other units with similar descriptions trained by the same building have 300% bonuses. And having a unit like a Fire Giant secretly do triple damage (or better) all the time is kind of an issue too. My impression of the AoM community is that they've never been all that fact-based and they tend to make decisions based on gut feelings or anecdotal evidence of what beats what rather than numbers- which is actually a good approach when so much about the in-game numbers is wrong. For me as a guy who's into game design though, yeah this is ridiculous. When I make a game, I try to provide players all the information they need in a convenient and organized manner so they can make intelligent decisions instead of guesses and gut reactions. I hate opaque or falsely described mechanics in other games I play that have them- talking about them was part of my Civ 2 Let's Play and a smaller part (because most mechanics are on the table or at least easy to figure out) in Fire Emblem. One mitigating factor here though is that at least there are some semi-convenient ways to test things and learn the truth.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:44
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What's a good counter to massed laser crocodiles? Asking (honest) for a friend. I know that, like all myth units, they get wrecked by heroes, but it can be hard to break through the chaff to get to them. Is it simply a matter of not letting the laser crocs get massed, given the fact that they're fairly expensive?
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Jan 5, 2017 02:17
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You should just be happy that such a thing as a laser crocodile exists!
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Jan 5, 2017 02:24
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HannibalBarca posted:Has anyone on SA kidnapped a woman to live with them in the basement, eventually reaching an agreement with the woman's mother for each of them to have her for six months at a time? Honestly wouldn't surprise me if a goon pulled this off Cythereal posted:I'm partial to the Dresden Files interpretation of events: it was a completely legitimate love affair and marriage, Demeter was just an overbearing mother who couldn't bear to see her little girl leave home and subsequently was an incredibly irritating mother-in-law. Hades should have dumped Demeter in Tartarus for half an hour No more irritating MIL
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Jan 5, 2017 03:55
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Melth posted:I think it's worth noting that, as Orv said, a lot of this doesn't really matter that much. If you follow the basic counters the game tells you about and make sensible decisions, you'll generally do just fine. There are exceptions like the silliness of spearmen only having a 10% bonus against cavalry. That's ridiculous when we're told they're only good against cavalry and when the other units with similar descriptions trained by the same building have 300% bonuses. And having a unit like a Fire Giant secretly do triple damage (or better) all the time is kind of an issue too. AoM is somewhat unusual for being an RTS structured around a strong single-player campaign, which makes balance and knowledge of optimal play less essential.
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Jan 5, 2017 04:42
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HannibalBarca posted:What's a good counter to massed laser crocodiles? Asking (honest) for a friend. I know that, like all myth units, they get wrecked by heroes, but it can be hard to break through the chaff to get to them. Is it simply a matter of not letting the laser crocs get massed, given the fact that they're fairly expensive? Well as in many things, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure, but telling you not to let them get massed is about as helpful as telling you to use heroes. Particularly because Petsuchos aren't *that* expensive. Do note though that the Egyptians can really struggle before the heroic age, so it's good to hammer them early (particularly on gold) and try to prevent them from easily building their Migdol stronghold and such. That's what lets them build real units afterall. Let's talk about the Petsuchos's actual stats. Well their nominal damage is a HUGE 55 pierce plus a bit of crush damage. But actually they attack only once per 3 seconds or so on my watch so their true DPS seems to be about 18 pierce. Very nice, but not amazing on its own. They have enormous range and they NEVER miss, which is a serious bonus. Further, they do secret double damage to myth units. They do not have ANY bonus against buildings, so they're not actually great siege units. And they do QUARTER damage to heroes, not the usual 50%. All in all a very nice single target attack with some good perks, but not incredible. Their speed is pretty bad, but not terrible. Their durability is pretty bad for their age but not the worst. It's important to note that their hack and pierce armor are about the same, so they have no clear strength or weakness there. So they're not fast and not durable and they've got no special attacks or anything, but they're not awful in those areas either. And that's a very nice attack. What to do? Well, the Petsuchos suffers against opponents with high pierce armor. Despite it being heroic age and having a bonus against myth units, even some classical myth units can beat it if they have high pierce armor. Upgraded Valkyries or Sphinxes easily can for starters since they have even bigger anti-myth unit bonuses. Quite a few heroic age myth units with good pierce armor can often beat it in fights- Battle Boars, Frost Giants, etc. It also is REALLY bad against heroes. Much worse than most myth units are. And unlike many ranged myth units, it has mediocre pierce armor, so ranged heroes can tear it up pretty fast. So when I say 'use heroes' I'm not just saying that as generic anti-myth unit advice; heroes really do beat up on Petsuchos more than most other myth units. But because it never misses, cavalry is not a good counter to it- unlike to many ranged units. One upshot is that the Norse are definitely better off using Hersir than Jarls because the Hersir will barely be scratched by their quarter damage, but the Jarls can be terribly injured before they even get close. Now you talked about the trouble of breaking through the chaff to get to them- definitely a big problem. But what IS the chaff? That makes a lot of difference. Are these chariot archers? Elephants? Camelry? Spearmen and slingers or something? You also didn't tell me what civilization this friend plays as, so I'll try to give a bit of advice for all possible matchups- but first some general strategy ideas. One interesting way of looking at this situation is to think about what the opponent is missing instead of what he has. Petsuchos means the opponent picked Hathor. But Hathor kind of sucks other than in granting Petsuchos. This guy does not have Nephthys's awesome Ancestors god power to turn the tide of battle. Or Nephthys's massive upgrades for pharaohs and priests- and if his pharaoh dies, he's dead a LONG time. Less importantly, his human soldiers can't get Sekhmet's attack bonus upgrades. And all gold spent on crocs is gold not spent on priests or on migdol units. Investing heavily in crocs means he's probably going to have less variety and less numbers for human soldiers. And fewer priests. So this guy doesn't have strong priests, strong pharaohs, or particularly numerous priests. Petsuchos are still dangerously good against myth units themselves, but only to a point. It's also forth thinking about the relative speed of his units. Petsuchos are slow, whereas the main advantage of some important Egyptian units like Chariot Archers or Camelry is that they're fast. If you fight on the ground of his choosing then you can't exploit that and you're out of options. Do NOT fight on the ground of his choosing. You don't want to be fighting his army in his base, but you REALLY don't want to be fighting his army just outside YOUR base where you have no room to maneuver and his guys are already in formation. Instead, make him defend a frontier outpost or a gold mine outside his base. Or if he's there already, force him to run to defend his main base instead. Put him on the defensive and force him to walk a long way to do so. If he has to go a long way, then either his quick guys will arrive without their precious crocs and you can defeat his army piece by piece (maybe having some heroes come up behind and massacre the isolated crocs) or he'll have to be slow to respond to keep the army all together with the slow crocs. In that case, you can do some damage and leave. But maybe his human soldiers are instead mainly elephants? In that case, his army is REALLY slow and not maneuverable. And he'll have a very hard time taking down heroes that sneak around to flank his crocs instead of just rushing in. He'll also have a hard time moving around if you send a decoy raid to one location and then slam somewhere else with your main force. If they're axemen or spearmen then they're not as slow, but they're weak to archers and he'll definitely have trouble focus firing heroes. If they're mainly slingers, then his whole army relies on pierce damage and is bad against heroes. As Atlanteans: This is easy. Hero Arcuses have the same range as Petsuchos and will destroy them. If he's got lots of Chariot Archers, then go Hero Turmas instead and you're super-effective against his whole army. Go Prometheus for cheap heroes and then I can see arguments for all the heroic age choices but none of them are that amazing regardless. Just focus on making sure your human soldiers can beat his human soldiers while your Arcuses or Turmas easily clean up his Petsuchos. As Egyptians: Still fairly easy because Priests also can have the same range as Petsuchos and rip them apart. Go Nephthys if you can and make sure to get armory upgrades (especially the pierce armor ones). Your main concern will be protecting your priests from his chariot archers, so you'll probably want a lot of slingers and maybe elephants. Use Ancestors to win the decisive battle. Sucks to be using Hathor! As Greeks: Here you'll actually have some trouble. Your ranged hero is your best friend, but you only have one of them. Get the other heroes too and try to find ways to sneak them around to flank. I'd probably recommend Aphrodite since Nemean Lions destroy Petsuchos and will help chew up the human soldiers that threaten your ranged hero. And Curse can help you win a decisive battle. Apollo for Manticores is not such a good choice since Petsuchos beat them, but it's still not a terrible idea since Underworld Passage can give you the kind of mobility edge that helps render the slow crocs ineffective. Or ambush them. Dionysus just for Bronze could also work if you've definitely got a really big, strong army of human soldiers and you want to force a giant battle. But if you use it at a time when he can run away you're really in trouble. As Norse: The Norse have just got nothing in terms of ranged heroes and that's bad. Here I really recommend that you go on the offensive early with a rush and keep the pressure on. Get Heimdall to nix one of his early towers. If you're not doing that, then Forseti for the major speed boost. Now the Norse actually have a TON of myth units that can beat up on Petsuchos, but the trouble is that you have to get the favor for them by fighting. So again, you benefit a lot from raiding early and continuing to fight throughout the classical. And for goodness' sake don't go Njord! Frost or Flaming Weapons could both let you win a major battle, and you really need that ace up your sleeve. As Chinese: The Chinese also have no ranged heroes, but they can enjoy a substantial mobility edge since they have mounted units that beat infantry, cavalry, AND archers. Use that to your advantage. Compared to the Norse, one key edge is that you can get favor without fighting all the time, so you don't HAVE to rush. Several of your heroic age myth units are quite good against Petsuchos due to their high pierce armor, so get plenty of those and exploit the enemy's relative shortage of priests. Your weakness is that you don't really have any super god powers available.
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Jan 5, 2017 05:09
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Thanks for the info! He plays Greeks a lot, so that may be where the extra difficulty is coming from.
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Jan 5, 2017 14:22
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I have to admit, I really want a game like this but set with Glorantha gods.
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Jan 6, 2017 23:24
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The next video is finished: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rth5yGf3ezk It took me a while this time since I spent a lot of hours trying to make sure the sound was better than last time. Do people have any thoughts about ways the commentary could be further improved, or things that are already good about it to keep doing?
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Jan 7, 2017 15:42
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Melth posted:The next video is finished: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rth5yGf3ezk First the good: You are very informative. You know exactly what you want to say and don't waste time beating around the bush. Your good at filling the (mostly) empty space that was just waiting. The Meh: You sound overly formal (is English your first language?). Loosen up a bit and try to add some energy to your voice. You talk a little to fast. This goes with being too formal. Just loosen up, and slow down. You don't have to match your voice exactly with everything happening on the screen. Things can come a little before/after and we will get it. Timing - try to talk about more in-depth topics while nothing is happening (although your doing a good job) The Bad: Topic Transitions- You don't really flow between topics in a smooth and organic way. You often say what you are going to talk about next. For example, the phrase "let's talk about damage types" can get you out of a bind or transition from an off-topic to damage types. However, when you use it while you are already talking about unit stats, it just feels jarring/not-smooth. You need to work on flowing from one topic to another without having to stop and say what your going to talk about next. This will help immensely with transforming your presentation from that of a school project, to more of a fun-exciting conversation about AoE. Personal Advice: Don't blow all of your topics talking about them in the thread. Specifically save stuff for your videos to create thread discussion when the time comes. You'll notice many LP'ers do this to keep the thread a constant buzz. So if someone asks a question and your thinking of writing a big effort-post response. How about saving that response for when that question can be talked about in a video. For example, you can fill a lot of time talking about Egyptian laser crocs when you first see them, but most of your viewers will be bored by it now because they already read your post about them. Try to consciously think about how you are going to space out your content. twig1919 fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jan 7, 2017 |
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Jan 7, 2017 16:14
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If you're doing live commentary, try doing post-commentary. That way you can figure out ahead of time what you want to say and you don't have to feel rushed.
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Jan 7, 2017 19:07
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Your commentary seems perfectly fine to me
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Jan 7, 2017 19:14
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