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Sindai said:
Dominions 2 was hugely unbalanced, Dominions 3 will be also, just in different ways. You can't balance a game with over a thousand units and hundreds of spells and items. That's what makes Dominions great.
On the other hand, it's just common sense to make clearly "best" tactics that hinge on a couple of overpowered spells or items less powerful in the next iteration of the series. Who wants to play exactly the same game forever?
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I agree with the second part of your statement. though I would have liked it if sometimes instead of nerfing there would have been an additional counter to a "best" tactic. For example, quickness may have been balanced by a slow spell or a spell that deals damage only to quickened critters etc. Nerfing as the sole key to balance makes things more boring (imho).
As to the first statement (dom-II is unbalanced), I think it requires a closer look. What do you mean by unbalanced?- Most of the nations and themes were balanced, and each successful strategy had it's counters. I have played countless hours both SP and MP and it never failed to amaze me how for each great strat. that I've found there was also a counter.
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Tyrant said:
Whenever i get a new game and go looking for the path to Ulitimate Power i start my search with four things- flight, invisability, life drain, and speed. The nature of these powers makes them hard to balance, and smart game designers are right to examine them closely. Wraith's post is very articulate, and I understand his worry, yet I do think he jumped the gun. Life drain did need a nerf, and quickness was at least worth a hard look since it makes the quickened unit twice as good, more or less.
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Thank you for both the compliment and the critique
Sure, I may have been to early to state my worry, but my opinion is that its better to bring things into the open rather than harbor them. I agree about life drain, yet about quickness I still have some doubts, after all its use was offset by fatigue and, to top it,it was one of the key spells to the otherwise relatively weak water spell school.
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Tyrant said:
In a game as wide as this one, true balance is not a realistic goal. Better goals are to try to make sure that there are many viable strategies and few useless features. DomII did a fine job on the first, and the second is less important.
Now here is my worry about balance in 3. Sounds like differentiating the nations was a big design goal, and that ups the ante on balance issues. In DomII there was an evolution during a given game away from your store bought troops and mages such that if you made it to the late game you likely had a little of nearly everything. If that's less true in 3 it raises the chances of bad match ups (ie there's a counter to your enemies plan, but you can't do it), and means that new nation stuff itself needs to be thoroughly thought out and tested.
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Ahmmm... I find your concern quite plausible, hopefully the community will help report such possible bad match ups, so that they get fixed in patches.
All in all, I'm very encouraged by the replies here. They represent a very good attitude and keen insight, so I'm positive that the game is in good hands.