Arcane Nexus

[Ygorl]

What PvK said. And, only a ludicrously huge, ludicrously late game would enable a caster to recoup the cost of the Nexus in one turn. Actually, such a game often would not offer the opportunity to cast the Nexus for a mere 150 gems anyway; the global spots would probably be full of well-buffed spells already. If everyone's farting around, and somebody saves up enough pearls to pull off a surprise well-buffed nexus, and other powerful players who have lots of gems chose to use them as normal rather than contributing them to a dispel (or at the very least holding off until some more altruistic soul dispels it), well...
And what can Abysia do? Assassinate or fry the caster, perhaps?

[Velusion]

PvK said:
Hmm, but the pacts I've participated in stressed not using magic that contributes to the nexus. So if there was a one-turn delay, and people mostly obeyed that pact, then the caster would just be gaining a delay in enemy mage/gem use. No?

I would contend that most people in the game that don't really have a shot at winning won't participate in this pact seriously and will, at most, somewhat limit their spending. Why should they care? Also - if you are in a life-death struggle you are going to cast things to stay alive.

I've also seen players with lots of horded pearls not really contribute many, wait until the dispel is done and simply recast AN for themselves.

It's also very easy to skim pearls off the top if you are doing the casting (there is no way to prove a player spent x amount of pearls). The dispeller can also use everyone's pearls to cast AN for himself, simply changing the target.

Finally if the dispel fails, and the casting nation is in a good position, it's pretty much game over...

All these are reasons why I won't bother contributing to AN dispels unless I know and trust the caster and somehow can insure that everyone with any power contributes equally. It's a pain in the ***.

[Velusion]

Ygorl said:
And, only a ludicrously huge, ludicrously late game would enable a caster to recoup the cost of the Nexus in one turn.

I only play in large games usually with every nation in play for the era (18-21) on medium maps (15 prov a player). I wouldn't call it "ludicrous"...

AN is only cast in the late game and when it does it usually pulls in about 150-250 pearls a turn at least.

[Archonsod]

Velusion said:
You're confusing self-interest with common interest. Often players who are already getting beat up or who don't stand a chance at winning won't bother to help out. Why should they care? So in reality only a very select few nations who have a shot at winning care. Their combined pearl income is often less than the pearl income of the AN caster.

Sounds like you have a problem with the players rather than the spell.

Id rather the game be decided by a climatic battle(s) then just see everyone's hands go up in the air and leave once the first dispel for AN fails. Feels cheesy.

Why bother with the dispel then? Presumably, if those nations interested really do have a chance at winning then it would represent a serious military bloc. A combined war pact would be a better idea, until either the casting player was defeated or the spell was removed. Unless the power balance is way out of whack, then even the power of AN won't be sufficient against such an alliance.
Should be easier to sell to the other players too. Presumably those in with a chance of winning will be fairly close in power (at least in their own heads). You can appeal to their sense of competition - point out that the lands thus captured may be the edge they need to become dominant. Just make sure the only one who's going to be in that position when the dust settles is yourself

[Ygorl]

OK, "ludicrous" maybe implies more of a judgment than I meant to make. How about "pretty much the biggest possible games"? Anyway, are those late-large-game ANs cast for 150 pearls, or are they buffed? The few times I've actually seen AN cast (all back in Dom2) it was either cast at really high strength, or else cast at low strength and allowed to survive for several turns and then recast at really high strength. One game turned into a big AN war, with me and one other player allied against the third (dominant) player - we eventually managed to dispel his 999-gem AN and put up one of our own in the same turn (at a cost of about 1900 pearls). I think the three of us maybe decided at that point that the game was silly, though, as the other guy had basically won anyway. The other game, AN was put up by Pythium; he kept it for a while, then it was taken by Ermor. Pythium tried to take it back with 700-some gems (all he had saved) but failed - Ermor had used more to cast it, thanks to massive clamhoarding. Pythium was in a fairly strong position, but it would have been shocking to see them win; Ermor was one of the strongest players, especially after many turns with the Nexus up, but was probably not the strongest player and in fact was suffering some pretty serious losses when we called the game on account of Dom3.
I vaguely remember seeing it in one other game, but if so, I don't think it changed the course of the game in a significant way.

For the Nexus to be pulling in 250 gems per turn, wouldn't that mean that people were spending 1000 non-astral gems per turn? Isn't that an awful lot? Like, the entire gem income from a fully-site-searched 300-province map? People don't restrict their spending when the Nexus goes up? I don't know. My experience obviously is limited, but it's always seemed to me to be a spell that either confirms something that everyone knew anyway or else a spell that is viciously fought over, draining lots of resources from everyone involved in the fighting, with benefits (considering that resource drain) not out of line for its cost and research and path requirements.
Also, keep in mind that anyone can dispel a global, simply by casting another one with more buff-gems and getting lucky on a 1/5 chance. I don't generally think this is a good idea, as spending hundreds of gems on a 1/5 chance when your enemy has the Nexus up seems kind of counterproductive, but if you get truly desperate it could work. It would still probably make more sense to spend those hundreds of gems blasting the holy hell out of the caster of the Nexus...

Anyway, that's one small man's opinion. Cheers!

[Velusion]

Archonsod said:
Sounds like you have a problem with the players rather than the spell.

I'm not sure I understand this comment. Are you refuting my observations that players do generally act like that... or telling me I need to play with more egalitarian players?

Archonsod said:
A combined war pact would be a better idea, until either the casting player was defeated or the spell was removed. Unless the power balance is way out of whack, then even the power of AN won't be sufficient against such an alliance.

That seems to be the default for when AN is cast. But I have to disagree with your assumption - the power of the AN is usually enough to fight off everyone combined. Remember it's usually only cast by players fully aware that everyone will attack them... so only someone in the top three will usually even try it and they will be ready. And by this time he might only have one or two fronts to worry about - a player across the map can't reach him easily.

[Ironhawk]

I fully agree with Velusion. "Game Ender" spells ruin the fun of a game. You can argue till the end of time about whether it should be able to be dispelled or what the proper cost is. Really none of it matters though because being in the "Dispel this or lose the game" position is always massively un-fun and disappointing. Why would anyone want to play a game when faced with a situation like that?

[Velusion]

Ironhawk said:
I fully agree with Velusion. "Game Ender" spells ruin the fun of a game. You can argue till the end of time about whether it should be able to be dispelled or what the proper cost is. Really none of it matters though because being in the "Dispel this or lose the game" position is always massively un-fun and disappointing. Why would anyone want to play a game when faced with a situation like that?

Thanks Ironhawk.

I guess I'll say my final piece about AN:

1. It is much, much more powerful than most other 9th level spells (hence unbalanced).
2. It scales badly depending on game size.
3. Because it is so powerful it can overshadow everything else often resulting in unfun conclusions to games.

[Archonsod]

Velusion said:
I'm not sure I understand this comment. Are you refuting my observations that players do generally act like that... or telling me I need to play with more egalitarian players?

Bit of both :

The problem is what you're offering to the player. Dispelling AN at that point means little to those who are basically trying to hang on. Offering them provinces on the other hand might allow them back into the game.
It also plays into your own hands, since ideally the provinces of the caster will end up in multiple player's hands. The last thing you want is to replace one superpower with another...

so only someone in the top three will usually even try it and they will be ready.

If there's such a large gap between the top three players then the caster has pretty much already won, AN is simply speeding up the endgame.

And by this time he might only have one or two fronts to worry about - a player across the map can't reach him easily.

There's ways around it should it come to that. They don't necessarily need to attack over the border either - summoning spells which attack provinces and the like are equally useful, despite feeding AN. The idea is to pressure the caster on all fronts to prevent them forming a concentrated defence rather than to seriously damage him. Ideally, you just want them to distract him enough to make your own conquest easier (thus placing you in the game winning position )

[Meglobob]

Velusion:-

There is a really easy solution, do what you did in perpetuality, if you don't like Arcane Nexus ban it from the games you host. If players know when they start a game, no problem. Same should have been done with Helheim when it was overpowered, hosts should have simply banned it from MP.

This is much better then nerfing the spell or nation or whatever for everyone. The majority of Dominions players only play SP anyway, so its very unfair to nerf, remove parts of the game for them.