SCs other than the vq

[Zapmeister]

This is my Last post on the VQ thread, I am simply too frustrated with it.

Ditto, and for the same reason.

[archaeolept]

what rabe said

[archaeolept]

dp

[ May 05, 2004, 08:34: Message edited by: archaeolept ]

[Tris]

I'm still new enough not to assume I can tell one way or another whether any particular issue is unbalanced by myself.

But having heard the arguements I have found the ones from the "VQs need to be nerfed" camp more convincing, so far.

A lot of the arguements supporting the VQ are logically flawed, and while I accept that the people making the arguements no doubt understand this game WAY more deeply that I do I would still like to see a concrete counter-strategy proposed.

For example the recent arguement that it is killable, and having it killed costs the owner resources (gems etc) only holds water if the expense of killing the VQ is much less than the expense the owner incurs from it's death, and I haven't seen this demonstrated.

Comparisons with the "Metagame" of many CCGs have been made:

In a CCG, if one flavour of deck is very popular, very quickly people produce decks which counter it. The popular deck has very little or no chance against a deck that knows it is coming.

I think any veteran Magic player could, if shown a deck, come up with several decks that would beat it easily, and still be competative against other tournament decks (except those designed to counter this deck...but that's what makes the Metagame). If a deck can do its own thing regardless of how you try to counter it then it is unbalanced.

So. Can the veteran Dominions players come up with a strategy, for all nations, that would beat a VQ SC strategy everytime?

The most popular example of the VQs supposed unbalance seems to be the Ermor-VQ-temple-fortress combination that Norfleet seems to have such success with. I've read that this success is largely due to the map settings which favour Ermor, and that it's down to Norfleets expertise, but pro-nerf people seem to quote this example a lot. So could we also have a concrete strategy that utterly destroys this strategy please?

Two strategies - one for the player who spots the VQ SC early in the game and wants to counter it, one for the player who spots the Temple/Fortress/VQ-SC early.

Remember - if a strategy is anticipated early enough it should be countered easily. If you can continue using a strategy despite it being anticipated perfectly by your opponent, and still hope to win against even a mediocre foe, then the strategy is unbalanced.

Two convincing strategies. If the strategy is balanced there should be a lot more than that. Worked examples, no unfair assumptions. The prize - my humble support for the VQ to remain as it is. The bigger prize - the Metagame will adjust to make VQs undesirable, until the Metagame evolves to the point where VQs are the best counter to...whatever strategy happens to be kicking *** this time next year :-)

The price of failiure? You wouldn't want to know. It's FAR too terrible

[Kel]

[quote]Originally posted by Zen:

So what your saying in essence is: If there is a way to beat it, or any number of ways and it has been shown then it can still be overpowered because not every nation/player/skill-level can do it?

I am not saying that at all. I am saying that there is an obvious flaw in the logic that because something is not invincible, it is balanced and that that common argument is fallacious. Let's say you think the VQ is balanced as it is. What if you dropped her price to 0 design points ? She would still have the same vulnerabilities, would she still be balanced ? Clearly not. Yet the assumption gets made that people are only complaining about the VQ because they have no clue how to stop her. It's a poor argument but one that I keep seeing people keep fall back on.

All of those points could be presented to each and every one who presents a point pro or con

Absolutely. It's also why I don't buy the attitude of "Come back and make your arguments when you are as good a player as I am".

Which you should do. I don't believe anyone was shushing anyone or saying "Your opinion is worthless" but more along the lines of "maybe things are not so black and white, this is why".

We will have to agree to disagree on that point because I see more of the former, lately.

- Kel

[PhilD]

Originally posted by archaeolept:

What counter strat have you layed out for dealing w/ the Norfleet combo? that's all I care about, since that's pretty well all I've been playing against for the past few weeks.

If you don't like Norfleet's playing strategy, why do you keep playing in games he's in?

I'm in several MP games at the moment (slow kind, mostly 1 turn per day), and I've noticed exactly ONE Vampire Queen in there, played by C'tis; AFAIK, she's lost her castle, and since she's now attacking low-defense provinces of mine in my own dominion, my guess is she isn't in the best of shapes. There are plenty of people out there who are not playing Vampire Queens, believe me - surely some of them are of at least moderate skill.

[Gandalf Parker]

well if people are dropping the idea that a killer god must be beaten....

Back to the topic of the post, what happened to the wyrm. Was it nerfed? At one time the wyrm was the "automatic choice" for SC and now I hardly see it mentioned.

[archaeolept]

Originally posted by PhilD:

quote:

---

Originally posted by archaeolept:

What counter strat have you layed out for dealing w/ the Norfleet combo? that's all I care about, since that's pretty well all I've been playing against for the past few weeks.

If you don't like Norfleet's playing strategy, why do you keep playing in games he's in?

I'm in several MP games at the moment (slow kind, mostly 1 turn per day), and I've noticed exactly ONE Vampire Queen in there, played by C'tis; AFAIK, she's lost her castle, and since she's now attacking low-defense provinces of mine in my own dominion, my guess is she isn't in the best of shapes. There are plenty of people out there who are not playing Vampire Queens, believe me - surely some of them are of at least moderate skill.

---

my god phil, how the heck is "so don't play w/ someone who uses that strat" at all a legitimate response to the question as to whether the strat shows something as broken in the game? your answer is that the game isn't broken because it is possible to bury one's head in the sand. Bravo.

have you played against it? do you know how it works?

Pperhaps it isn't broken - but then, pls, we would like a general strategy to deal w/ the VQ/uber-SC + infinite castling + clam/wishes combo.

and, that VQ's can suck is so clearly obvious, and such a low grade strawman, that I'm continually flabbergasted that people feel the need to bring this up. Yes, VQ's can be weak. The argument is not that all VQ's all the time are unbalanced, but that they can be, especially in combination w/ an all-out defensive castling strat.

[Vynd]

I am also among the people who have not been conmvinced by the arguments by Zen and others that the VQ is more or less OK. As others have commented, these arguments that "it's not impossible to defeat a VQ" are kind of off base. I mean sure, if it was impossible to beat them, that would be unbalanced. But something can be unbalanced but still be defeatable.

To me, the way to determine if the VQ is unbalanced is to look at her peers. If there are lots of other Pretenders that give you similar value for a similar price, then it seems to me that the VQ is balanced. If the other Pretenders that are priced similarly to the VQ are not as good as her, then she is unbalanced.

For now, my opinion is that she is unbalanced, because she seems to offer much more bang for the buck than the other Pretenders. I'm willing to accept the idea that I am missing something here. But so far I've barely even heard this issue addressed. The closest anyone has come are those who have argued that if you remove the VQ, the Ghost King is almost as good. Maybe so. But that's still only "almost." And that's only one other Pretender. Are there any other Pretenders that give you as much value (not necessarily as a SC) as the VQ does?

[PvK]

Originally posted by Zapmeister:
... That proof is the persistent and disproportional popularity of the Vampire Queen. Although there may be reasons (other than the VQ being overpowered) for that popularity, the fact remains that the popularity reduces diversity in the game, and that's a problem that could be solved by nerfing the VQ.

That's not proof. It's an observation by some people about player use of it in some games. It's more evidence of a rumor or of threads on the forum suggesting it as an easy and powerful strategy. The reason lots of people are trying it may be that they have read about it here. Herd behaviour is frequently not caused by keen intelligence.

Nor will it solve herd behaviour to nerf the current trend. Nerfing whatever is most popular would be doing things for the wrong reason.

Herd behaviour is worth noting, but it's not proof, nor is it a reason in itself to make decisions.

Reasons for change are things like too many free synergistic and rare intrinsic abilities with too few disadvantages for too few points compared to other choices. I think there's probably a good case there.

PvK