[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

The consensus seems to have been that the vets would gain the upper hand in the mid to late game due to their ability to create thugs or SC's and their familiarity with the magic system, maps, etc. I'm thinking of 3:1 to balance this, it will be a larger map and a longer playing game (as you know I don't care for this cramped stuff).

I'll likely give them first choice of nations.

Perhaps an indie strength of 3, though I'll need to balance this to ensure timing.

Edit: But we'll have to see how the current game plays out.

Imo it's not the thugs and SCs that are the big advantage the vets have over noobs, it's their overall knowledge of how to use spells and summons effectively, and knowing how to use their resources most efficiently. Actually thugs are probably harder for a noob to make than an SC, since they are supposed to be both cheap and effective as opposed to just effective. The vets are also probably better at dealing with early SCs, which is something I was worried about for this game with the choice to make many SC pretenders being an obvious one for them, but so far it hasn't been going too badly.

I think a map that allowed a proper 2 to 1 advantage for the noobs would be just fine, 3 to 1 and you start running out of room to maneuver and you may not be able to come at them all at once. Then again maybe that would work, but I still think it might be a little too much.

So in the battle for his capital, my 150hp pretender received TWO afflictions from glancing (5-8dam) arrow hits in the first two turns. Which is ridiculously lucky on its own. But then more than that he got Crippled and Chest Wound so he could neither reach the front lines to turn the battle in my favor, nor flee the battle once my men routed. Off the scale luck!

Wow, that is pretty rough. Ulm must have the luck of the dominions gods on his side to be pulling off a crazy stunt like that.