Poll: morale and routing

[Gandalf Parker]

Boron said:
i have made so many arguments now why there should be upkeep cost for summons .

can anyone of you give me 1 conclusive argument why summons + national troops should be treated different upkeep wise or why the current upkeep system of dominions is fair ?

Summons and national troops are different.
Much of your discussion is based on personal opinion.
As in many threads Ive seen, Illwinter made a response early on. No matter how much discussion has followed, I would consider that to be the response until you hear otherwise.
How many responses do you need?

[Arryn]

Gandalf Parker said:
As in many threads Ive seen, Illwinter made a response early on. No matter how much discussion has followed, I would consider that to be the response until you hear otherwise.
How many responses do you need?

Thank you.

[Boron]

and you are to busy to see the obvious i could say too arryn .

zen as an example for he had no problems with atlantis is a brilliant idea too .

first zen is gone from dominions probably forever .
second zen and norfleet were always handled as the most experienced dominions 2 players .
since norfleet cheated probably zen was .


and why can't i compare starcraft with dominions ?
starcraft is the best example that comes to my mind to show how really good balance should work expect chess .



a big factor maybe since i am still quite new to the community as panther e.g. is too you just say i am still to inexperienced .

if zen would have said what i said probably not as many ppl would have argued against me i guess .

and zen always said water is too weak .



but how can't you find it unfair that a summon costs no upkeep while a national unit does ?
furthermore the rule no upkeep for summons is not strict :
trolls cost upkeep .


so if you were an arch demon wouldn't you complain to have to work for no MONTHLY WAGE at all while a lousy knight gets a quite high wage of several gold ?!?
in most fantasy worlds like dsa or ad&d especially the evil mighty creatures ( monsters like dragons , demons ) demand continious new tributes to keep them working for you .
in dominions a poor arch demon doesn't get even a lousy blood slave / turn as payment .

this is nothing but unfair !

[Gandalf Parker]

Well I think there are some experts there. They are experts in one style of play. I dont mind that discussion as long as they arent trying to change the entire game based on one style.

I think StarCraft is a very bad comparison for balance. Its a unit-to-unit balance which is fair and supports tournament ladders nicely. Id much rather that Dom2 maintain a paper-rock-scissors balance at national level. Yes it makes tournament ladders difficult but there are plenty of those games out there already.

[Boron]

Gandalf Parker said:

Summons and national troops are different.
Much of your discussion is based on personal opinion.
As in many threads Ive seen, Illwinter made a response early on. No matter how much discussion has followed, I would consider that to be the response until you hear otherwise.
How many responses do you need?

when johan posted i haven't posted my best / most convincing arguments myself .

and so far illwinter has fixed balance issues like the vq .

so i do my continious posting with the hope to convince johan or kristoffer that my idea is good and at least considerable for dominions 3 .

[Arryn]

Boron said:
this is nothing but unfair !

Continued whining isn't going to change anything

BTW, Zen and Norfleet may both be gone, but I'm confident that they *both* would have disagreed with you, however much they tended to disagree with each other. Regardless, since they're not here, and you need someone to listen to, why not Johan, the ultimate arbiter of the game? And he has already spoken. You just aren't listening. As Gandalf has politely pointed out in his carefully-phrased post.

[Arryn]

Boron said:
when johan posted i haven't posted my best / most convincing arguments myself .

And you still haven't, since you've yet to effectively counter any of the Posts that various people have made explaining to you why you're mistaken in your opinions.

Boron said:
so i do my continious posting with the hope to convince johan or kristoffer that my idea is good and at least considerable for dominions 3 .

Johan has already stated that they disagree with you. All that continued posting will do is annoy them (and waste their time). The game has other, important issues to be addressed. Let them do so, and cease badgering them about something that isn't broken.

[Huzurdaddi]

i have made so many arguments now why there should be upkeep cost for summons .

As I have said before: your "fix" would simply reduce the number of summoned troops and those gems would go into heavily equpped SC's.

Summoned troops are not a problem in dominions2. Heck you don't see that many of them going around ( other than a notable few ).

As far as I can see the mad dash for SC's is done by the same people thinking the same way. Or some more experienced people who know they are playing with people who will try to fight fire with fire). The fix for SC's is often in the units that those people consider "worthless"

I really doubt that the direct solution to SC's is with units that are considered "worthless". I would love to hear of an example.

I have seen lower end SC's killed by normal units ( Banelords in particular can often be killed by elite units 'en mass). However higher end SC's ( ice devils for example ) simply can not be killed by normal units. One equipped ice devil using no artifacts can kill an unlimited number of devils. I can't think of any more combat capable unit than devils.

Heck one specifically equipped Wraith Lord ( again with tech 6 and below items ) can also take on any number of devils number of devils.

I have no problem with an SC with a couple of artifacts taking a nigh-infinite number of units, that is very thematic. But one powerful summon equipped with "run of the mill" ( ie: not the types of items that books are about ) taking on any number of troops is not thematic.

[Boron]

so far only you continue arguing against me though .

2 possible explanations :
-either all others got bored or just think i tell nonsense and gave up because they think it is impossible to convince me .

-or most start to see that my argument about upkeep is good and they see that there are no things that speak against .


probably it is explantion 1 but hope dies always Last

the closest game to dominions which is of the same genre and about the same age is age of wonders 2 shadow magic .

1 months ago i would have rated dominions clearly better than aow 2 sm . but that is perhaps because i overplayed aow 2 sm .
now i would say they are about equal . dominions is overall better but aow 2 is a bit more balanced .


this is still a big praise on johan and kristoffer . aow 2 had most likely a far bigger budget and at least 20 ppl working at it .

no matter which system is included in dominions 3 i buy it anyways 100% sure .
i just hoped to at least show that upkeep for all would have advantages too compared to the current system .


i hear almost everybody complaining that lategame is boring . perhaps this is because of the upkeep issue .


but since i like playing a game with 8-10 players most this forces you to go to a map with at least 200 provinces to have a nice game imo
with 200 provinces if i survive until lategame though it is reduced to who has a bigger gem income and who uses them better .

but since variety is always good and i know no other game with a upkeep approach as dominions i stop this now and thank illwinter once again for making one of the best games i know
that i put so much effort in my postings shows only how i concern about this game and how much i like it already.
my suggestion was still just a minor detail change imo

[Thufir]

Boron said:
probably it is explantion 1 but hope dies always Last

And you, Boron, are a very hopeful man!