MP: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Game Over. Noobs Triumph!

[atul]

You forget hard work.

Usually the reason I fail at late game is that I don't have the stomach for microing everything. Best late game guys are the ones with early game just strong enough, who are nice enough not to get ganged mid-game and who have invested enough time to be a late-game power.

Mind you, there have been quite creative builds even in this game, but some things fail and succeed depending on their environment.

And while you are spot on about experience and situational advantage, people usually don't consistently " just get lucky".

[melnorjr]

Originally Posted by atul

You forget hard work.

Usually the reason I fail at late game is that I don't have the stomach for microing everything. Best late game guys are the ones with early game just strong enough, who are nice enough not to get ganged mid-game and who have invested enough time to be a late-game power.

Mind you, there have been quite creative builds even in this game, but some things fail and succeed depending on their environment.

And while you are spot on about experience and situational advantage, people usually don't consistently " just get lucky".

oh, of course you don't get lucky consistantly, but I've run into enough hiccups of luck that it seems a big enough factor in these games at times - Like that marignon mage that won three magic duels with higher skilled mages and wasted three of my cap only mages - just to get killed by a random slinger stone the turn after the marignon army routed. Luck usually won't win a game, and it isn't a common occurrence, but I've lost to it before.

And yes, I'd considered hard work, but I wasn't sure how to phrase it to be clear, so I left it out. Its easy enough to see how a person could get lazy toward the end of long games - it's always a challenge to avoid doing this in big SP games. I'm playing one testing my current eight mod nations against each other on a 600 province map.
The only reason I chose to be that masochistic is because I hadn't done it before. It hasn't managed to annoy me quite sufficiently yet though. I'm enjoying an SC I'm using with a nice chassis and ember, the aegis, aseftiks armor, Amon Hotep, the boots of calius, the chalice, the ark, and kurgi's gift. I designed my pretender specifically to be able to forge ridiculous things like that for that game just to amuse myself. I imagine I'll find out quickly just how good that SC is when a doom horror comes to take back kurgi's gift.

[Lingchih]

Heh, Invite the Doom Horrors at your own request. They are terrible.

[melnorjr]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

Heh, Invite the Doom Horrors at your own request. They are terrible.

Terrible-weak? or Terrible-own-your-face?

[namad]

terrible like i don't think it's possible to design a unit which can survive through being attacked by a doom horror every turn


although if you have astral magic just script returning on turn1 and you'll be fine

[Ironhawk]

Originally Posted by melnorjr

And again, no insult intended, but I haven't run into somebody beating me with what appears to be a superior cleverness or ingenuity, but generally with experience, luck, or situational advantage.

I'm not insulted, however you should reassess the way you think about "experience". You say it here like any player who plays dominions long enough will just become an exceptional player given enough games and enough time. This is absolutely not true. I've played dominions 2/3 for like... 4 years now and I've watched many players start as noobs only to plateau at about average or decent skills levels. Only occassionally does someone rise above the pack.

Again, I think you are looking in the wrong place for your perception of ability. So much of what goes into a well played nation happens behind the scenes. Nation design, research plans, strategic positioning, defensive planning, effective unit assessments, etc. None of this displays itself in some flashy battle or crazy SC kit. The other player just seems to have more gems, have just the right spell at the right moment, have just the right troop makeup and numbers exactly when and where he needs them.

And lastly - the proof is really in the pudding. If you are convinced that its just a matter of knowing strategies and playing a couple of games then you should step up play yourself against 2:1 odds. See how long you actually can hold up or win under the same conditions. Perhaps then you'll have a better sense of what it takes.

[melnorjr]

Originally Posted by Ironhawk

I'm not insulted, however you should reassess the way you think about "experience". You say it here like any player who plays dominions long enough will just become an exceptional player given enough games and enough time. This is absolutely not true. I've played dominions 2/3 for like... 4 years now and I've watched many players start as noobs only to plateau at about average or decent skills levels. Only occassionally does someone rise above the pack.

oh, I understand this. I didn't mean to say that becoming very good is ONLY a matter of experience. Many players won't reach the level of planning and forethought. My point was that experience is the biggest visible difference, and that it is a very large part of what makes a vet good - the experience allows you to know what you need, the forethought and planning let you do it.

Again, I think you are looking in the wrong place for your perception of ability. So much of what goes into a well played nation happens behind the scenes. Nation design, research plans, strategic positioning, defensive planning, effective unit assessments, etc. None of this displays itself in some flashy battle or crazy SC kit. The other player just seems to have more gems, have just the right spell at the right moment, have just the right troop makeup and numbers exactly when and where he needs them.

And lastly - the proof is really in the pudding. If you are convinced that its just a matter of knowing strategies and playing a couple of games then you should step up play yourself against 2:1 odds. See how long you actually can hold up or win under the same conditions. Perhaps then you'll have a better sense of what it takes.

hey now, that's a bit unfair. I never said I was a vet, in fact, I said quite clearly that I'm a noob and very green. It obviously takes more than a few games to become that experienced/good. I'm not going to get into a "I'm as good as a vet" line of baloney because I'm well aware that's baloney.

That being said, I'm not intimidated by vets, and if I picked my opponents, I'm reasonably sure I could beat two players. There's obviously skill differences among noobs. Facing the team that beat Lingchih in this game for example(twobits and Raiel), I'm quite certain I would be soundly trounced.

[Septimius Severus]

Here's a newbie question for the vets, why do some games ban Arcane Nexus, Utterdark, fever fetishes, bloodstones, etc?

Well rdonj, my goal for this game was to reach at least the same popularity (# of views, posts) as Artifacts (21,000) views, and I dare say I think we are in the running (along with Legends of Faerun).

Looks like combined, the series may have reached/exceeded the stats of either the first Mega Age game Perpetuality (apparently some 37,000 views) or possibly Kingmaker. Wow. Brings a tear to my eye.

[atul]

Arcane Nexus just is too good with high number of players as it scales, Utterdark just makes game not fun for any mortal race, gem generating items just make game not fun for anyone not hoarding them. Simple as that, why not ban them.

[rdonj]

This is certainly an absurdly long thread.

To elaborate on what atul said, Arcane Nexus is so powerful that, if you have enough players in the game, even if it is dispelled the turn it goes up you can easily make a profit off of it and cast it again. Basically it scales in power with number and strength of opposing players. It's one of the closest things the game has to an "I win" button.

Utterdark makes it almost impossible for most nations to effectively fight. While it's not only are most units not able to hit the broad side of a barn, you also probably can't recruit anything due to the massive income loss.

Gem generators, even aside from being unfun, are micromanagement hell. You have to have hundreds of commanders running around with gem gen items on them, and in the case of fever fetishes they'll eventually die. So you need to pass the fetishes off before that happens. Which means you need more than a constant rate of commander growth, eventually it will balloon preposterously. Gem generators are also too much of a strategy in and of themselves. If you just make enough more of them than anyone else, eventually your gem income will be so high that no one can affect you and your territories are more or less meaningless. Ask micah