Paralysis is overpowered.

[K]

Originally Posted by NTJedi

Your last statement of "This is fantasy, so even bad reasons can be logical" is clear you don't care to hold or create a stronger realistic fantasy. Also your posts show you have a tunnel vision view on paralysis.

Realistic fantasy? Seriously?

This is an abstract fantasy game. Arguments like "and then the defending god completes the long ritual and summons the souls of the people and smites the invaders" to "and then the local barbarian tribes rally and kill the invaders before the battle spills into the village" are perfectly viable reasons for the turn limit.

I personally don't care too much because only the pro-SC crowd makes a fuss over the turn limit, and their arguments are never more complex than "I'd like stronger SCs because I use SCs a lot and it hurts my feelings when they aren't unbeatable."

And yes, I have tunnel vision on Paralysis. I have yet to see one logical reason based on strategy or even "good and fun play", so my evaluation remains unchanged.

Just one real argument would make me take it under consideration.

If you want to discuss changes to the spell for your games, I suggest you make a thread in the Modding section because as long as people are logically discussing the pros and cons of Paralyze and attempting to sway the devs, I will continue to point out flaws in other people's arguments as I wish to preserve the integrity of one of the best games I've ever played.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by K

Blah-blah-blah, sweeping statement that makes me sound like an ignorant jerk, blah-blah-blah.

Jazzepi

[K]

Originally Posted by Jazzepi

Jazzepi

...and then the opposition resorts to personal attacks because they can't attack the merits of the arguments or mount credible counter-arguments.

Thanks. I can now stop reading this thread. Feel free to continue in that vein because I won't be defending.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by K

Realistic fantasy? Seriously?

Obviously you've never heard the explanation... let me provide a quick summary. A realistic fantasy game means harmful fire spells would cause fire damage, a damage which typically burns the target. When the target takes damage the burns drop hitpoints indicating the target has been wounded since burning would also wound someone realistically.
Now an UnRealistic fantasy... one where you would be happy based on the "bad reasons can be logical". The UnRealistic fantasy would be a game where the developers program the game allowing stones to be a source of food for humans, trees die after dropping buckets of gold, and the most powerful weapon is a cardboard box. It's feasible to create such a game yet it's obviously unrealistic, but hey you're happy where bad reasons can be logical.

Originally Posted by K

[
This is an abstract fantasy game. Arguments like "and then the defending god completes the long ritual and summons the souls of the people and smites the invaders" to "and then the local barbarian tribes rally and kill the invaders before the battle spills into the village" are perfectly viable reasons for the turn limit.

If a SC on a battlefield cannot be stopped by the defending pretender, his best ProvinceDefense, best mages and most powerful army... what makes you think its killing after a battlefield turn limit justifies his death? It's illogical and unjust.

Originally Posted by K

I personally don't care too much because only the pro-SC crowd makes a fuss over the turn limit, and their arguments are never more complex than "I'd like stronger SCs because I use SCs a lot and it hurts my feelings when they aren't unbeatable."

I have no problems watching my best super SCs die from armies or spells or a magic weapon... but it's illogical for SCs, mages and units to be killed because of a battlefield turn limitation.

Originally Posted by K

And yes, I have tunnel vision on Paralysis. I have yet to see one logical reason based on strategy or even "good and fun play", so my evaluation remains unchanged.

Just one real argument would make me take it under consideration.

If you want to discuss changes to the spell for your games, I suggest you make a thread in the Modding section because as long as people are logically discussing the pros and cons of Paralyze and attempting to sway the devs, I will continue to point out flaws in other people's arguments as I wish to preserve the integrity of one of the best games I've ever played.

As I wrote long ago... I seriously doubt paralysis will change. I could understand your aggressive posts if the developers have actually shown an interest in perhaps adjusting some spells, but they are very busy with their new project and the bug thread has a much stronger importance. It's like you're holding a campaign to stop the human race from overpopulating the seas with underwater cities. Well it's never been endangered.

[Jazzepi]

K : I don't even care about the paralysis argument. I actually agree with you on principle, but the way you present yourself makes me want to wretch. For someone who constantly reminds us of how much they know about the art of arguing a point, you do so in a way that is so totally offensive I don't want to listen to the rest of what you have to say.

By the way, it's not a personal attack, it's a critique on the manner in which you address others. Specifically putting everyone who is not agreeing with you in a single "camp" and then calling them all "whiners". If you want to take personal offense at that, then it's your prerogative. Though, it's probably a lot easier to just put your fingers in your ears and ignore it, instead of learning how to present your points without coming off as a total douche.

Jazzepi

[Herode]

Originally Posted by AreaOfEffect

Getting back on topic, I have read the entire thread to this point and have come to several conclusions. I know that the intention of the spell is to simulate the effect of a unit removed from combat. However, the spell only approximates this effect and doesn't actually do it.

I don't see this limitation as a drawback : Paralyze paralyzes. It's not a Repell.

Now, why couldn't we have also a Repell spell ? Something like a Ritual of Returning, but that you could cast on the ennemy troops ? The spell could come in 2-3 flavours : targeting a single unit, targeting a small area (1), targeting a large area (2+), and could be more easily negated by MR when the area grows wide. The repelled units could be thrown back to the capitol, or a random friendly fort, or their home garrison.
Could be fun. Just ideas on the fly...

[Edi]

Keep this thread civil or sooner or later people will start accumulating infractions. That's definitely not something you want to do, as several of them don't expire ever. Take a look at the forum FAQ if you are not familiar with what they are. And once you get enough of them, not even paralyze will help you against a SC Administrator wielding the Ban Hammer.

As of now, nobody's gotten them yet, but we're keeping tabs on the thread.

[Agema]

If you're using a SC to single-handedly take down a large and well magic-supported army, arguably you deserve everything you get. You don't casually toss around hundreds-strong armies, you shouldn't casually toss around SCs either.

I sort of get the feeling that if you don't want to suffer defeats by your SC getting massively paralysed all the time, take him in with an army containing a few high-HP chaff, or just make sure your army is big enough to cope with the enemy's army even with your SC paralysed. I'd like to think if your opponent has a load of astral mages spamming paralyse to take down one SC, you should have an equal number of similar level mages spamming spells of their own to cripple your opponent's army. Never mind paralyse, I found getting an SC horror marked to oblivion pretty depressing, but on the other hand, at least I now know to take a lot more care when marching them into battle against astral nations. Swallow the pain and change your tactics for next time.

[sum1lost]

I'd like to bring up an example in which the turn limit was my only effective measure against one early game supercombatant.

In aquarium, I had my first war against MA Arco, who was running an equipped SC titan. Said SC titan is still in the hall of fame some 40+ turns after its death, alongside some late-game SCs. It walked through at least two or three armies of double blessed eagle warriors, not to mention several secondary groups of mundane troops. I was having a tough battle as it was against the elephant/hypasist/mystic communions that were already going on, though I was winning, and the thing was unstoppable- even solo.

It finally ran into a province where I had some nature mages, and their sleep-spam was fruitless.

What did work was when, two turns later, it ran into an army with a moon mage carrying penetration equipment. The moon mage got two paralzyes through in the course of the battle, but even paralyzed, I couldn't scratch its armour, and its fear aura routed my army.

I think I finally ended its reign of terror a bit later with a number of phantasmal wolves combined with paralyze spam, which managed to kill it via the turn limit.

If it helps any, I thought of it as being locked into stasis by the illusions and mental magics of my mages, never again to terrorize my warriors.

[sector24]

K is by no means the only one with a "unique" style of persuasion. It's basically a staple of the internet to make grandiose claims, stereotype arguments and people into classes. Everyone should be held accountable for their poor style, but at the same time no one should be singled out. So just for fun, here are some internet logical fallacies:

1) If A is B then A is not C
I call this the female transitive property (jokingly of course) because it's the essence of the "does this dress make me look fat?" joke.

Basically when a girl asks you if this dress makes you look fat, she has trapped you into losing an argument before you even answer. If you say yes, then you are an idiot and deserve what you get, but if you say no, the female transitive property states that while "this" dress does not make her look fat she incorrectly infers that a dress exists that does make her look fat, hence she is fat and you're a jerk.

Logically speaking, the relationship between A and B has nothing to do with the relationship between A and C, but oh so frequently this is a common tactic used to win arguments or at least provide a situation where there are only losers.

2) If A is not B, A is C
Sort of the inverse of #1, and uses the same logical fallacy. This is the "if paralyze is nerfed in any way it becomes useless." Not that I'm poking fun at K, because he has a valid point; he just uses an exceedingly poor argument to demonstrate it. It would be like if you were at a job interview and you wanted $124,000 a year, and your future employer countered with $68,000. "$68,000?!? That's the same as $0! You're a jerk!" Well no, you start high, they counter, you negotiate. Maybe paralyze would become suboptimal, but I think a formula could be derived that was less than a current number but still viable. So we start with paralyze lasting the whole battle, counter with open ended d6, and negotiate. But if you don't want to negotiate, this is a quick way to end the argument. If the argument lasted any longer I'm sure someone would have said, "anything more than oe d6 is overpowered" and used the same fallacious argument in the opposite direction. (Again, I don't mean to offend and honestly I think some people get way too much crap for their style of persuasion, especially from people who use their own fallacious tactics in return.)

3) If A is not B, recalculate until A is B
When logic is not on your side, why use logic? Instead, of reading the other person's post and addressing their argument, just reword your argument and post it again. This is a great tactic for forcing your adversary to lay all their cards out on the table. They counter the same argument with basically every unique counter argument they have, and you haven't tipped your hand in the slightest. Your original argument doesn't even have to be good, you just need some discipline and tenacity.

If A is not C and B is not C, A is B
This usually stems from a 3-way argument in which A makes a reasonable argument, but then B (who agrees with A) makes a less reasonable argument. A clever person will not address A specifically, but will say that A and B are both arguments against C and since B is wrong, everything that has been said so far is wrong. I have to be honest, this is the best fallacious reasoning ever and it works all the time. Try it!

So the delicious irony is now you get to read this post and show how fallacious my examples are, thereby making me look oh so foolish. Have fun!