Current Impossible Strategy

[Arnuz]

I don't like that because for me, usually that means a defeat at the beginning for any possible reason: usually some AI stumbles upon you with an unbeatable doom stack and declares war for no obvious (to me) reason, and you're powerless. I have a lot less control over what AIs do than some of you appear to, I don't know very well the wardec rules with army strength and total strength or the traits, nor the decision-making for attack vs don't so I can't judge what to keep in a city to bait the AI to attack it... End of the day, I prefer to be the attacker.
I also don't like to spend most of my time on the city maintenance, I get bored: once it's obvious that I win, I'll drop the game. Once you know where the most powerful AI is you just attack their fortress, with 2-3-4 stacks if needed - swordsmen and war bears are perfectly fine for that most of the times, to mow down some nasty stuff with spells, finishing with your good stack. Why keep up a decided game?

[Nelphine]

And that makes sense. I rarely finish games right to the last. But, by not being the attacker, I don't know what the situation will be when war actually starts, which makes it a lot less predictable that the game will be decided.

I like playing the game for the magic. Specifically, very rare spells. AI on low difficulty practically can't get to very rare spells. So it has to be extreme+. But if I'm the attacker, I can fortress spike too early. So, finding a strategy that allows me to effectively play 'lawful' is my ideal.

[Nelphine]

In other words: its not about winning. Its about winning when your opponents are strong and have very rare spells

Edit: for my ideal game

[Catwalk]

I like playing optimally, and I like testing game balance. I'd prefer that the game balance be less skewed in favour of rush strategies, I still think that's a result of Seravy's preference for builder strategies and subsequent lack of experience with rush strategies. To me, letting the AI develop for sake of getting a bigger challenge is just bad play. I fully understand why you feel differently Nelphine, it's basically variant play like it's done on the Master of Orion subforum.

That said, I must confess that I haven't been finishing games for quite some time. I've been fine tuning my early game, and I haven't had much time to commit to the micro management of later turns. So I don't have enough mid-game experience. I'm getting to where I'm satisfied with my early game now, so I'll see if I can start completing some games again.

[Nelphine]

Its a technicality but I'm not doing it for a bugger challenge. I'm doing it to play against the most interesting spells. I realize the result in gameplay is the same, but, i thought I'd mention it.

[Seravy]

The game favors rush strategies because...that's what the system inherently does. In any sort of game where there is exponential growth, getting something earlier is worth more.
I've been considering to start a topic today about what to do to balance rush vs slower strategies...but honestly, I have no good ideas. If you conquer something earlier, that's better. Both because it gives you more through your exponential growth, and because it massively reduces the enemy as they are losing out on their exponential growth. Due to the AI bonus, conquering is generally more profitable than to build your own, for the same reason, the "lose out" effect on the AI if you attack them early is also bigger - meaning as difficulty increases, this problem escalates.
It's especially bad for races - as you conquer non-rush races, you'll have access to all the advantages of slow races, without having to pay the price of playing them from the beginning. And while racial unrest could be a way to do against that, it isn't designed that way - numbers are set based on lore/flavor mostly, and you can ignore the entire system through Move Fortress or getting enough unrest reduction.

Problem is, exponential (and unrestricted) growth is the core gameplay. I don't want to change that by some arbitrary rule like "you suffer X penalty for each city over 7" like some newer games do. Those are more balanced, but not fun.

[Nelphine]

I'd rather try a rule like master of Orion's conquered workers. The big key to rushing is to conquer, and use the AI bonuses against themselves. There's no reason to build anything yourself.

But if you make buildings more likely to be destroyed (double the chance at least, bit probably closer to quadruple) and you make all workers need to be assimilated when you conquer them, then your own cities become hugely more important - this would also work on neutrals, and reduce how important thru are for the early game.

I know we've discussed this type of thing before, but specifically in the context of rush strategies, what's your thought?

If you can't do assimilating workers for coding/space reasons, then hugely increase how much population gets killed in a successful attack.

[Seravy]

Meanwhile, one more thing I realized.
Most "early" races have some sort of a "bad economy" drawback. Often magic power, or money.
Nodes provide power (or money if you convert it). Early races can conquer nodes easier. So even if conquered cities would be less accessible, the early race can still get around the slower economy by getting enough nodes (especially on high settings or with Astrologer).

...and this is an answer to why slowing down city conquest would not necessarily be enough.
You do not get the benefit as fast from conquered cities - but the damage caused to the enemy, and your gains from nodes will be unaffected.

PS : the other problem, even if I get a 1 pop hamlet, it's still more profitable than having to build it myself. Units move faster, and don't get used up in "building" the hamlet, nor do I have to wait 12 turns for it to be ready.

[Nelphine]

Absolutely I agree about the hamlet and the nodes. I also agree that you can't completely get rid of the problem and balance it. But making conquering less appealing will slow down a lot of the rush strategies immensely, because settling will become much more important. Its not perfect but I think its a step in the right direction.

[Seravy]

Reply here, made a thread for this discussion : http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?tid=8885