Enough whining!

[Tuidjy]

Recently, there has been a deluge of 'Balance' whining. It seems that some
people feel that they should be able to win the game by playing the way they
feel is right. Instead of trying to figure out counters to whatever their last
opponent used to humiliate them, they whine and moan in order to 'balance' the
game, which, in their opinion, should be done by taking features out.

They left a huge army in the open, and they did not insure that it can rout or
kill a mage squad before the battlefield spells do their magic? Let us castrate
Wrathful Skies, Flame Storm, Astral Tempest, Fetid Vapors, etc!

Their favorite elite army, or worse yet, their pet supercombatant got bogged down
in lifeless battlefield summons? Let us cripple the Raise Skeletons/Drain Life
combo, or make False Horror prohibitively expensive to cast!

A specifically equiped supercombatant wiped out the pride and hope of their
empire? Let us nerf the protection items, lifedraining weapons, or buffs that
made it possible!

They used their pretender in a way that left him unprotected in the magic phase,
and he got taken out by a teleporting task force tailored to kill him? Let us
introduce teleport sickness which makes magic ambush unviable!

They never invested in any gem generating items, allowed their hoarding opponents
to reach turn 120 unmolested, and were obliterated by remote spells and highest
level summons? Let us give idiotically high path requirements to clams,
fetishes, and blood stones!

Their besieging army got hit by artillery spells, decimated by Ghost riders, and
ultimately wiped out by defenders who teleported inside the castle? Let us make
sure that castles cannot, Gods forbid, be used to hinder an opponent's advance!

They need the great scales, they need expensive high administration castles, they
need rainbow pretenders, they need powerful national troops, but they sure as
Hell don't want to allow their opponents to gain advantages from depriving
themselves of the above.

They had no scouts to warn them that their opponent was massing devils or
vampires, and were completely unprepared to deal with them. They left their
rear unprotected, and a stealthy army wiped their temples. They tailored their
nation for early strength but where hopelessly outclassed in the end game. They
aimed for late game power, but were wiped out by a supercombatant pretender
before they got their second castle up. They did not bother with answering
diplomatic overtures, and got mobbed by all they neighbors. They, they, they...

And they sure as Hell will never learn. Instead, they will do their best to
cripple Dominions II by removing options or making them irrelevant, until the
game consists of building as many heavy infantries as one can, making a big
block of them and setting them on 'Attack closest'.

Oh, and if any of them whiners think that they are anything but poor, lazy
players, I dare them to come forward with their set of moronic house rules and I
will still smear their *** all over the map, one on one. Of course, they won't
mind me picking my race first, not with their perfectly balanced rules, will they?

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By the way, I do not claim Dominions II is perfectly balanced. Personally I
think that Zen's Pretender mod is awesome, that the scales mod is shaping up
very well, and that the magic mod will eventually be well tuned. But note that
instead of making sure that nothing works well, he just tries to give everything
a chance to shine or at least be useful.