Official Vanilla vs CBM debate thread

[GrudgeBringer]

I have played both and enjoy both, but you BETTER know the differences (other than Pretender design etc) before you get to the mid-game portion or you will be in for a shock.

I would really like to see a comparison between them lined up next to each other (and I suspect a lot of other players noob and vets alike would also).

I know there are a ton of different threads but I really don't have the time to chase them down, and then sift thru opinions. I would love to see someone with the knowledge just put up the differences side by side.

Might be a pretty big task and too much to ask.

[RadicalTurnip]

I haven't played CBM, so take this with a grain of salt, but...

I feel like Vanilla is more thematic and "realistic" if there were such a world as this (based on mythological descriptions and things) where CBM tries to balance the gameplay by making more options viable.

Still not sure why GoR in CBM is so cheap, though (as everyone seems to use it, a lot).

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by RadicalTurnip

I haven't played CBM, so take this with a grain of salt, but...

I feel like Vanilla is more thematic and "realistic" if there were such a world as this (based on mythological descriptions and things) where CBM tries to balance the gameplay by making more options viable.

Still not sure why GoR in CBM is so cheap, though (as everyone seems to use it, a lot).

I'm not even sure what 'realistic' means in this context. As long as things follow rules, they're equally good fantasy.

GoR is cheap to encourage people to use it on things other than tarts. Its still too expensive (and tarts are still too cheap).

[Gandalf Parker]

CBm has 8,680 modding commands in it covering (every nation in the game?)

It takes down the highs and raises up the lows.

Answers, guides, hints, need to be qualified as referring to vanilla or CBm.

Many of the mods for solo play or variant dom3 game settings, are counter to CBm's purpose. Rather like having diet soda with a banana split.

Many people love CBm. Most of the challenge king-of-the-hill style games here use CBm

CBm makes Dom3 miles different than Vanilla. So it tends to be that you learn how to play Dom3 or you learn how to play Dom3-CBm

What is there to debate?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Gandalf calls it upon himself by making claims that are totally out of line with reality. Seriously: [paraphrase] '[Vanilla] frost fathers are one of the few chasses that can take a triple 9 bless, and have points to spare.' Just blatantly false by inspection.

Wow. Well trained.
You might mention this was in response to your challenge to find a purpose for the Frost Father in vanilla dom3. It wasnt the rarity I was pointing out, but the use.

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

C
Many people love CBm. Most of the challenge king-of-the-hill style games here use CBm

What is there to debate?

Obviously, quite a bit or people wouldn't be doing do.

More seriously, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "challenge king-of-the-hill style games"? King-of-the-hill, I assume, means non-team MP games? The basic style that the game's victory conditions support? And all of the variants of that, random nations, no diplomacy etc.
Are team games more often played with vanilla?

I have no idea what "challenge" means in this context.

Newbie games are more often vanilla. Is that what you mean by challenge?

Is there another style of MP game more often played with vanilla?
Aren't "challenge king-of-the-hill style games" the vast majority of games here? And probably of MP games in general, though I'd assume games not organized here or on the new forums would be less likely to use CBM, due to lack of exposure if nothing else.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Wow. Well trained.
You might mention this was in response to your challenge to find a purpose for the Frost Father in vanilla dom3. It wasnt the rarity I was pointing out, but the use.

Gandalf's Original Quote: "But I meant Frost Father. He is one of the few that can get 3x9 plus some left over (if you want to pay for it). And of the ones that could get there, he had some other features that could be worked to his advantage over the other choices."

From here. Emphasis added by me.

My specific response which addresses the veracity of the claim can be found here.

Note the following:
1) Gandalf claims he is one of the _few_ that can do it. Literally half the pretenders in the game (minimum!) can do it as well or *better*. (See my response for a brief listing)
2) Gandalf claims there is "some left over", i presume points. There are no points left over in any meaningful sense, you need to take 12 net negative scales and be imprisoned to do this, and you only have dom 5 at that point. Note that there's only 6 more scales left to sack, and most people aren't going to ever play worse than T3S3H3D3L3M1, which is only 8 negative scales.
3)Gandalf claims 'other features' that could be 'worked to his advantage'. See my response for disproof of this claim as well - you can do at least as well with titan chasses or better 3x9 bless suites.

Basically, Frost Father may be the worst possible chassis for a 3x9 bless who can do it with *only* imprisoned and -12 net scales or better. I mean, I won't deny some chasses can't do it even at that level of awful. But if you set that as your baseline for acceptable, nothing I've found is *worse* than the frost father. That makes it hard to claim a 3x9 bless as either a purpose or a use for the frost father, since no one is actually going to use him in such a way because he's so bad at it, disproving Gandalf's new claim on face.

[Gandalf Parker]

Maybe Im doing it wrong. My math sucks. Your tests seem more extensive.

All I do is select any random nation, set the scales all to -3, then start picking pretenders. How many 9's can I get and what is left over. Most dont let me get 3 9's, or dont have anything left. The Frost Father can get 9f/9a/9w and 3 in something else. Plus has cold power if played by a chill nation.

Obviously it would be unlikely to play with THOSE settings. This was just an easy way for me to see which pretenders could be bless pretenders. I was rather surprised at the results. I would never have considered Frost Father or Freak Lord over Titan.

[Squirrelloid]

You're definitely doing it wrong

Lets look at it this way:
a 9 bless costs:
168 starting at 3 path length
224 starting at 2 path length
288 starting at 1 path length
360 starting at 0 path length

3x9 in the *worst case* scenario (all 0 length) = 1080 points

You also need to pay for:
Chassis Cost
Some Dominion (A Dom 1 bless chassis is useless)

Points:
350 starting
+250 imprisoned
+120 per 3 scales sacked (ie, totally sacking a category, 6 categories available)

Max possible points: 720 + 250 + 350 = 1320

1320 (max points) - 1080 (most possibly spent on bless) = 240 for chassis and dominion.

So if you ignore dominion, *every single chassis in the game* can afford a 3x9 blessing by your metric.

Ok, you didn't actually say you made them imprisoned, so you're working with 250 fewer points. But you also aren't factoring in the cost of dominion. So, by your metric:

-Any chassis which costs 0+ points and has no paths can't do it. (off by 10 points). So no Manticore, Wyrm, etc...
-Any chassis with only 1 path at length 1 can be worth up to 62 points and still do it. I'm not sure there is a chassis with only a single length 1 path that's worth more than 50 points...
-Any chassis with only 1 path at length 2 can be worth up to 126 points and still do it (covers every single chassis in the game with only a single length 2 path)
-Any chassis with 2 paths at length 1 can be worth up to 134 points (covers every single chassis in the game with 2 paths at length 1 iirc)
-Any chassis with 2 paths at 2/1 can be worth up to 198 points and still do it, so even the VQ can do it!

Any chassis with more than 2 paths or better than 2/1 path depth can do it.

That's all just mathematical certainty.

Of course, the main reason you're doing it wrong is you're not buying *survivable* dominion, much less reasonable dominion for running a bless strategy off of. Dominion is important because it limits how many of those sacred troops you can actually buy, after all. Once you factor in dominion, the frost father looks much worse because he starts at dominion 1. All those titans start at Dominion 3 and sometimes 4.

You're also taking negative scales over imprisonment, which is really weird, since everyone imprisons pretenders carrying a big bless.

[lch]

A couple of years ago when I started playing, I preferred to play vanilla Dom3 instead of CBM because the mod itself was changing a lot in a short time intervals, giving highlight to different new strategies without much use of anybody who knew about them, other than people who spent the time to find out about those or talked to qm. Which I sarcastically remarked upon at the time by saying "CBM is qm's tool to win that many games", as he was or is one of the top Dom3 Multiplayer veterans against whom other people regularly gang upon (and still get beaten up). The biggest problem was that there were no references for important things like lists with the magical items and other documentation, so it was difficult to plan ahead.

It is my understanding that nowadays most of the drastic changes of the past have been removed and CBM is "mostly like vanilla", and there is a great amount of CBM-specific documentation and even a few guides written especially for nations in CBM games, so outside the realm of personal preference I see no reason for not using CBM in Dom3 multiplayer games.