Multi planes design flaws

[Pocus]

Hey,

As most of us agree with, the concept of multiple planes don't work that well in Warlock. Perhaps the developers should have taken inspiration of what was in the grand mother and grand father of fantasy TBS games

In Master of Magic, there was 2 planes. Going to Myrror (sp?) was of great interest because of truly unique artefacts and spells to discover. Resources too were amazing (you could not have adamatium otherwise). Probably the fact that some wizards started on Myrror forced you also to pay them a visit. But it worked also so well because there was several access points to the second plane, from the first.

In Age of Wonders I or II, basically that's the same series of features. I'll again emphasize of the importance of having several access points to the same plane.

That's the crux here. The basic flaw of the system in Warlock is that a plane has only ONE access point. If you have access to it, chances are that no AI will be able to put a foot there. So no competition basically, aggravated by the fact that no AI will ever start on another plane, plus that there is no that big incentive in resources (even if some are cool) in others planes. But the biggest gripe is anyway this one: MULTIPLE access please!

 

[unmerged(494828)]

I don't like the idea of Wizards starting in other planes. The other planes are more tough and with greater reward - that's not that good for the balance.

I'm not sure about multiple access idea. Having multiple maps to fight on sounds like unnecessary complexity for me.

I think the most important thing to be added to the other planes is increased value of rare resources - additional buildings on Nevril, Adamantium and Gold Dragon Eggs, providing resource bonus, or anything.

 

[LTK]

The lack of multiple access points effectively nullifies the added strategic value of alternate planes. When you have the military strength needed to conquer an alternate plane, you've basically won the game already. When you already control an alternate plane, the portal chokepoint ensures that no enemy will ever have a chance to mount an offense. And when the world portal is in enemy territory, you'd be crazy to send an army in there when there's an added chance that they'll be attacked by a hostile mage. Ergo, there isn't even any point to having alternate planes, aside from gaining an advantage over an already big advantage.

This problem could be partially solved by adding more portals. Instead of linking each and every portal to Ardania and Ardania alone, you could create portals between alternate planes too, so that you have an additional entry point that you can use if one portal is under enemy control. You could make a ring: Ardania <> Ashbirth <> Hellplains <> Lune <> Iceheim <> Ardania. For an extra challenge, you could even make alternate planes that are only accessible via other alternate planes.

A group-meta-teleportation spell could also be of use, so that invading other planes can be done more effectively.

 

[unmerged(494828)]

The lack of multiple access points effectively nullifies the added strategic value of alternate planes. When you have the military strength needed to conquer an alternate plane, you've basically won the game already.

That's for weak AI only. In multiplayer or with improved AI (or harder difficulty levels), this will not be the case.

When you already control an alternate plane, the portal chokepoint ensures that no enemy will ever have a chance to mount an offense. And when the world portal is in enemy territory, you'd be crazy to send an army in there when there's an added chance that they'll be attacked by a hostile mage. Ergo, there isn't even any point to having alternate planes, aside from gaining an advantage over an already big advantage.

The portals aren't for this. They are for expanding through higher level monsters when you don't have any space to develop otherwise.

This problem could be partially solved by adding more portals. Instead of linking each and every portal to Ardania and Ardania alone, you could create portals between alternate planes too, so that you have an additional entry point that you can use if one portal is under enemy control. You could make a ring: Ardania <> Ashbirth <> Hellplains <> Lune <> Iceheim <> Ardania. For an extra challenge, you could even make alternate planes that are only accessible via other alternate planes.

If you could reach other mages through portals, this makes other worlds a must have feature instead of something optional, since they become an additional border. This may look like an advantage, but it doesn't. Players have limited attention to distribute between various game features and having multiple maps to watch is a waste of it.

 

[Skyhunteren]

As I see it then there is alot of uses for the other planes as it stands now. I have often tried having a single city with acces to dual dragon eggs that produce the same amount of gold/mana as the rest of my empire! Getting acces to such insane amounts of resources may not be importent against the weak AI, but it will be extremly importent in MP. You might not be able to get the large force you need to take and hold the world(from another player) through the choke hold to start with, but what about meta teleporting down a strike team to take and raze the most important cities? Think startcraft where you constantly try to haraze and destroy the opponents workers while also building your own force. Also think of the example where the great empires of P1 and P2 is fighting. P1 is slowly winning and pressing back P2 until he comes to a world portal. Now what does he do? Split his forces? Ignore it? With his army split his opponent may be able to crush each half, but if he ignores it the P2 can send out his armies from the portal and in that way get them past the front fighting and retake the already damagde cities P1 have just taken.

Also I don't get where people are coming from when they say that you need almost unlimited forces to take a portal world. I find myself going down there extremly early. A few koatl spearmen with some defensive perks, wolfs, upgraded tier1 units with elemental resistance is all I need before I go down. The sooner you get starting the fewer units your up against.

Now when that is said I am all for making the portal worlds more complicated. It could be fun to have multiple primeplans like Ardania(maybe smaller) where wizards could starts and to get to there you need to go through the elemental plans. Having portals from elemental plan to elemental plan and having even more powerful plans you can only get to from the elemental plans. This is not because I think the design is flawed as so much in this game I just think it can be improved.

 

[LTK]

That's for weak AI only. In multiplayer or with improved AI (or harder difficulty levels), this will not be the case.

Is not, or will not? You're speculating. I'm certain of two things: That the AI on Challenging and below never succeeds, or even attempts, at colonizing an alternate plane, and that when I have a force large enough to conquer an alternate plane without excessive casualties, it is definitely also large enough to defeat all but the most powerful of great mages. Whether or not this improves with patches, only time will tell.

The portals aren't for this. They are for expanding through higher level monsters when you don't have any space to develop otherwise.

I think you misunderstood me. I'm saying that if you want to explore an alternate plane, be it for monsters, loot or resources, and its portal lies in enemy territory, any attempt at expanding through it is inviable.

If you could reach other mages through portals, this makes other worlds a must have feature instead of something optional, since they become an additional border. This may look like an advantage, but it doesn't. Players have limited attention to distribute between various game features and having multiple maps to watch is a waste of it.

Says you. One time I was fighting a war on three fronts - two established empires being besieged by me from the mainland and by another mage from the coast - and with about three or four units stationed in the warzone I still wasn't in any danger of losing my cities. Give me additional borders to look out for. Give me more threats to my empire. This is a turn-based game; you have all the time in the world to analyze your options and make a decision. A short attention span is no excuse.

 

[unmerged(494828)]

Is not, or will not? You're speculating. I'm certain of two things: That the AI on Challenging and below never succeeds, or even attempts, at colonizing an alternate plane, and that when I have a force large enough to conquer an alternate plane without excessive casualties, it is definitely also large enough to defeat all but the most powerful of great mages. Whether or not this improves with patches, only time will tell.

Speaking of multiplayer we could only speculate for now, surely. In any case it would be good to wait for the MP patch and see how the game is played in MP before making major changes.


[/QUOTE]I think you misunderstood me. I'm saying that if you want to explore an alternate plane, be it for monsters, loot or resources, and its portal lies in enemy territory, any attempt at expanding through it is inviable.[/QUOTE]

Hmm, in this case I don't think that's the problem. Portals as they are now are some kind of resource. Someone may have holy site nearby, someone - portal. It takes more effort to use, but gives much bigger reward than other resource. That's bad mechanic by itself.

Says you. One time I was fighting a war on three fronts - two established empires being besieged by me from the mainland and by another mage from the coast - and with about three or four units stationed in the warzone I still wasn't in any danger of losing my cities. Give me additional borders to look out for. Give me more threats to my empire. This is a turn-based game; you have all the time in the world to analyze your options and make a decision. A short attention span is no excuse.

Well, surely this game is far from being overdesigned. But it could be. Developers are going to add Lords and Artifacts soon and if there will be full-featured expansion, it will add a lot of stuff as well. Having to spread attention between multiple worlds in full is huge step to overdesign and I'd prefer to see other features added in this direction.

I understand what this sounds as a pure theory, but look at the thread where developers suggested Lords and Artifacts. A lot of people said they don't need it. So the game is surely in not in state where just adding staff makes it better.

 

[unmerged(510496)]

That's for weak AI only. In multiplayer or with improved AI (or harder difficulty levels), this will not be the case.

Against a strong enemy if you send half your best troops off for twenty or thirty turns on an extraplanar adventure (after preparing them with spells and perks for another ten or twenty turns) by the time they get back your empire will have been destroyed. With meta teleport and levitation it's very easy for one or two strong units to rush through an empire or over the seas and kill a capitol in two-three turns. Critically weakening your forces will almost never be a good idea.

The cost to colonize another plane is massive, and the reward isn't that great.

Of course, with the AI, you can spend twenty turns tapping enter to give them an advantage, and they're still easy to beat on impossible.

 

[unmerged(493819)]

I have to agree with the original poster: the other planes could be a lot more interesting. I wouldn't call it a design flaw though, its just that the whole idea of other worlds has a lot of potential that Warlock doesn't explore. Having multiple entry points would be just one way to increase the strategic possibilities. Imagine that you are racing to clear another world, slowly building cities and killing of the monsters with a pair of invisible mages. However, now you run across another player doing the same thing. This would be a very interesting strategic scenario. Or consider playing on an island map in an entrenched war where neither player is able to get their embarked land units to the other player's island. Taking a pathway through another world could provide another attack route.

In addition to the original poster's excellent idea of multiple entrances, I would really like to see more variety in monsters and tilesets to keep the other universes interesting. Right now they are very similar to each other and provide little surprise. Another possibility would be to have a powerful AI player akin to the Antarans of MOO2 (say, controlling demon cities or some such) sometimes start in another universe, slowly take it over and start launching attacks on Ardania.

None of these ideas would take anything away from the current way the other universes as used as a resource, it would just add to the strategic possibilities. Would you guys not think that these sort of changes to other universes would add something good to the game?

Part of the problem indeed is that the AI does not expand into these worlds or challenge the player's control of them. As stealthnsk has written, this could maybe be helped by improving the AI. But I would suggest that the game could also be designed to be a bit easier on the AI. Multiple entry points could make challenging a player's control of multiple worlds more viable for the new improved AI. And changing up the other universes would also make them much more interesting for human players. The original poster is correct that MOM and AOW had more interesting other worlds.

 

[unmerged(494828)]

Against a strong enemy if you send half your best troops off for twenty or thirty turns on an extraplanar adventure (after preparing them with spells and perks for another ten or twenty turns) by the time they get back your empire will have been destroyed.

You overestimate the strength of other planes with more or less early entrance. You could conquer it with troops you wouldn't want on front-line.

 

[unmerged(510496)]

You overestimate the strength of other planes with more or less early entrance. You could conquer it with troops you wouldn't want on front-line.

If you're producing troops you wouldn't want on your front line then you're not producing troops you would want on your front line. That means you can't defend your outlying cities, it means they can punch into your empire very fast.

We shall see if it's worthwhile when multiplayer comes out. I have doubts it will be. It is essentially random if you can easily take them out early on. Most people won't want to gamble when the payback is so low.

 

[unmerged(493757)]

"When you have an army that can conquer other plane= you can win the game" is pure myth.

I can conquer an entire other world with just few units at early turn, with proper buff of course, but that unit will surely won't be able to conquer other empire single handedly, i can use few tier 2 archer with proper back up spells, goblin archer or elven archer or other archer, with invisibility+some damage spells, that archer will conquer entire plane, do able in turn 40 as the start, when it is conquered depending on the strategy and the definition of entirely conquered, the quickest way is to rush gold dragon asap and let all those monster come to the city, this basically means entire other world conquered because no other world monster can defeat it (guarded by your gold dragon), you can then buy another gold dragon to attack enemy empire, however in turn 40-55, no unit can defeat an empire single handedly, especially if that empire is played by Human. Though, it can happen with capital ninja sniping.

However this means that the major flaw is losing capital=lose the game, not portal worlds. Try to impose this rule, no capturing enemy capital unless it is one of the last few cities remaining, or enemy already lose 80% of its units, you'll know that army that can conquer other world is able to win the game is just a pure myth.

However i do agree that other world is not that interesting, imo the reward is fine, maybe the reward can be improved. I read someone post that suggest having another nevril or adamantium can reduce its price, i don't want this to be implemented, because all unit will reach such a high resistance that the war will be extremely boring since it take 10 turn for just 1 unit to destroy another 1 unit, that is just 1 unit against 1 unit, an empire will have lots of unit like that if this suggestion is implemented.

I think what should be done is, remove losing capitol=lose the game condition, then buff resources in portal world.

 

[unmerged(497726)]

You overestimate the strength of other planes with more or less early entrance. You could conquer it with troops you wouldn't want on front-line.

I've been told that they are much easier to control if you can get to them early. But in my experience, it's so rare to have a portal close enough to my spawn point to chase down, that even considering it a strategy is foolish. They are nearly always so far away that by the time I can even get a sizable force to them, conquest is a forgone conclusion anyways. Any units that I send into a portal at that point are just there for sightseeing because I no longer need the benefits of exploiting that other world. All it will do is draw out the game needlessly.

I've seen this happen over and over and over again. Portals are mostly window dressing and have no real impact on the game. Unless you start with one somewhere close to you spawn, pursuing them actually interferes with your victory. It's always better to build an army designed to conquer your enemies rather than one to explore other realms, unless you can find a portal within early reach. I just never do. Evidently, I'm exceedingly unlucky.

 

[unmerged(510496)]

I've been told that they are much easier to control if you can get to them early. But in my experience, it's so rare to have a portal close enough to my spawn point to chase down, that even considering it a strategy is foolish. They are nearly always so far away that by the time I can even get a sizable force to them, conquest is a forgone conclusion anyways. Any units that I send into a portal at that point are just there for sightseeing because I no longer need the benefits of exploiting that other world. All it will do is draw out the game needlessly.

I've seen this happen over and over and over again. Portals are mostly window dressing and have no real impact on the game. Unless you start with one somewhere close to you spawn, pursuing them actually interferes with your victory. It's always better to build an army designed to conquer your enemies rather than one to explore other realms, unless you can find a portal within early reach. I just never do. Evidently, I'm exceedingly unlucky.

I've had the same experience. Often I'll have conquered a rival or have them on the ropes before I find one.

Although if I have max portal worlds I do sometimes see them nearby.

 

[unmerged(493757)]

You should use max portal world setting. Usually at turn 30-40 you can see one (btw this is in huge world setting).

 

[metatoaster]

Hey,

As most of us agree with, the concept of multiple planes don't work that well in Warlock. Perhaps the developers should have taken inspiration of what was in the grand mother and grand father of fantasy TBS games

In Master of Magic, there was 2 planes. Going to Myrror (sp?) was of great interest because of truly unique artefacts and spells to discover. Resources too were amazing (you could not have adamatium otherwise). Probably the fact that some wizards started on Myrror forced you also to pay them a visit. But it worked also so well because there was several access points to the second plane, from the first.

In Age of Wonders I or II, basically that's the same series of features. I'll again emphasize of the importance of having several access points to the same plane.

That's the crux here. The basic flaw of the system in Warlock is that a plane has only ONE access point. If you have access to it, chances are that no AI will be able to put a foot there. So no competition basically, aggravated by the fact that no AI will ever start on another plane, plus that there is no that big incentive in resources (even if some are cool) in others planes. But the biggest gripe is anyway this one: MULTIPLE access please!

100% agreed (this was discussed before though, it seems we're starting to have a Monthly Topic Rotation... search too hard to use huh?), outer planes really lack interest in this game compared to those you mentioned. I think that having several worlds with each multiple access points and an interesting and configurable topography of worlds (such as some of them not being directly accessible from Ardania) would be interesting.

 

[unmerged(15561)]

Hey Pocus... good to see you here!

Personally I dont have a problem with the current setup but, adding connecting doorways would allow the A.I the chance to contest these areas. + I would like to suggest that having multiple access points across Ardania should also have connecting points between plane. This 2nd things should in my view also be random so players do not know where one plane my lead them to.

I also agree that having multiple points to/from one destination would be good thing to.