Maelstrom Test Game

[Dominion]

Maelstrom is here. I am writing this from the new guys perspective. This new iteration changes things for the new player. Older players have played this game for so long that they know the best kingdoms and they know the strategy to most likely be employee. The player customization was choose, influence, provincial governor and then one less meaningful item. The map system made it so you were placed based on which kingdom you chose so their was no real randomness to the game.

Maelstrom makes everything more important. You will need 3 emissaries to take a city, provincial governors cannot take a neutral town anymore. Each region provides it's own strength and weakness. One constant weakness for everybody is resources. I had the Tyrant in the Untamed Lands. I chose this pick because of half off recruiting companion brigades for a kingdom with a ton of companion brigades, fun right. I had control of the region but produced 80,000 gold and under 40,000 food with one Ranger town. My P4 wizard did not have fertile fields so I had to upgrade population centers food production each turn. I also had to use all my lower level wizards to constantly create food. I also had no sea access to produce additional food. The DU could have fun in this region I think.

The Untamed Lands is a larger region. I had 2 fine encounters (rod of fire and key of slayer), a quest encounter (Elan) and a superior encounter (p3 wizard). My population centers were clustered making large areas of the map useless to me since I had no pop centers and no encounters that would require anybody to go over to that area of the map.

Military. So on turn 12 had I had a Army group and a Army (the TY needs military tradition it is a military kingdom). If i had combined the groups I could have had a 100,000+ group with a power 4,p3 and p2 wizard. The negative to this large group was I had to create food to make it through the winter months and the RA in Nyvaria had enough production to make the city have a defense value above 190,000 points on turn 12 (wow).

New customization is great. If they decide to stay with 10 points you can take your kingdom however you want, make your strengths better or mitigate your weaknesses by adding a prince, higher wizard or agent.

Building have no become important. Bazaars, temples, forges, forums, castles, fortresses wizard towers all add to the building to the game but if you have a large military or no fertile fields you will need to expand fast to capture those resources so you can build this items if you are not a wizard kingdom capable of fertile fields or hidden ore.

Political actions are important as well. I had a high influence but I had not started increasing my emissaries to princes since the TY does not have any bonuses to political activities.

My opinion on this game is it will be a blast. Kingdoms that get fertile fields and hidden ore early will have a huge advantage as they can offset the loss of production made in each region. Kingdoms that have bounty will excel later as they can mitigate poor food resources in their region. I agree all kingdoms will be fun buit require serious thought about region and customization choice. I would like the population centers to be dispersed in the map so that the whole new map is important. I would hidden ore/ fertile fields available to all kingdoms. Please play the game. Need more people

[gkmetty]

Awesome GK any specific thoughts on the kingdom you played during the test?

I played the Lizard-men in Mythgar.  Mythgar is one of the smallest regions and its production is the lowest, a minor city compared to a major and the second smallest region.  In a normal game this would not be a bad combination but in a test game where other Kingdoms had much greater production I was not able to keep up.  My kingdom development lagged behind others, for the test, and by the time I was able to test new aspects of the game, others had already tested the feature and posted feedback.

In a regular game I believe the kingdom/region combination is good.  The question that remains for me is, will economic production out weigh all other aspects of the game?  Will a good economic kingdom in a good economic region offset the kingdom weaknesses and prove to be the wining strategy.

I'm excited to try new strategies and test all the features of Maelstrom.

[PTRILEY]

Very nice write ups guys... like reading a Dragon Magazine article. Lol

[Acererak]

(CI) A few thoughts on Maelstrom playing the CI in Krynn.

I think I like the ability to choose kingdom/region but need to be careful that the traits for production are relevant to your home region.

Found a lot of surprises along the way in necessary buildings in order to do things I took for granted. Training agents past 9 for example. And food/supplies seem much more important than before because there is a lot required for these buildings/enhancements.

Military force seems much more plentiful earlier in the game. The CI had a 50K group by turn 2 or 3 with all of the bonuses and combining.

I didn't have a lot of time to figure things out because all of a sudden the game was on 24 hr turnaround and with two other games I was usually rushing my orders.

My over all impression is that there are more strategic considerations, and tactical knowledge necessary (at least to learn) on which buildings are needed etc etc.

I need another few games to really digest and see how the balance changes come out but I think I'm supportive in trying to balance out things that showed unbalanced in 3rd cycle.

Haven't learned the nuances of the map either.

[RELLGAR]

Looks like a fun game with many more options and more complexity. It appears to be bug free. Dont know about balance issues, I did not play it anywhere near enough turns. I have nothing else to add that has not already been said.

[unclemike]

I've been asked this question so I'll post it on the forum for everyone to know. Stormgate is region 13 on the map and is a particularly unique region.

You cannot select it as an initial region when starting a game but it is available to conquer at any time. The region consists of only two areas: NP and MQ. Both the city (NP) and village (MQ) will have unusually high pc stats/production and the village will always have abnormally high food production (e.g., 20,000 food).

All kingdoms start as Hostile in the region so you may want to consider using your military instead. Since region 13 is considered a summer region, a northern kingdom may want to conquer the village during the winter for some extra food. If you are playing a wizard kingdom, definitely consider teleporting a group over there to take the village though don't expect to retain ownership for very long.

The city of Stormgate is also the only location that a kingdom may recruit the powerful Stormgate Guard troop type. These guys are fairly strong, nearly as good as Hill Giants, so consider recruiting them if you own the city. Also, they start off with 125 morale and veteran experience.

Stormate is also a special location where you can build fleets in two separate seas: The Tempest and Waves of Azure. So if you own either pc, consider developing some fleets and send them on merchant trading missions to generate a ton of gold every turn that is not affected by the seasons!

So I expect the region of Stormgate to be a hotly contested region that exchanges hands repeatedly throughout the game but we'll see how it goes...

[Draugr]

Curious seeing reinforcements last until turn 40 when does the game go to lions share for winner? Also is the primeval game longer as well?

[unclemike]

Curious seeing reinforcements last until turn 40 when does the game go to lions share for winner?   Also is the primeval game longer as well?

I think that was done primarily for Pagan games which last until turn 50...

[RELLGAR]

I'm having problems since playing my second maelstrom game at same time. Order cross over. I'm down 2 orders from other game that I can't get rid of.

[RELLGAR]

Has anyone playing a kingdom with healing gotten a leader or wizard saved by healing after dieing in battle? I had wizard die, but no message.