Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Arryn i believe you meant any commander who's not undead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

I finally beat everybody to the cheezy Ermor pun, and boy do i feel clever. =)

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

I've said that myself. However, be that as it may, none of us are perfect, and thus we can (and do) make mistakes such as misjudging an enemy's strength. And, if one does get themselves into a situation that is hopeless, the smart thing to do is retreat, as quickly as possible, so as to conserve as much of your force as you can so that you can try again later. Some call it a learning experience, and one needn't suffer a slaughter in order to realize one has made a mistake. As for deserving punishment for mistakes, only masochists enjoy and desire them. Which is why certain games (like Doom 3) exist, to fulfill the needs of such folk. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Actually, it's more like, "I want immortality nerfed because I don't like the morale system we have now, and to break the morale system, we have to break immortality, and we have to add a _lot_ more rules and commands, and waa waa waa..." http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

That said - Jotunheim, Pangaea, the underwater nations can all support immortal pretenders and not infrequently do. Likewise Vanheim, except Vanheim has an uber-pretender that gives another awesome choice. (Actually, so does Pangaea.) I've seen a number of other nations with immortals, even post VQ nerf - Tien Chi VampQ'ueen, and others.

Agreed.

The Nagas are also splendid ways to get versatility, and are also considerably better bang for the buck than humans. Problem is that almost all of the humans have abilities that ... rot. Or no ability at all, such as the Hag. Most of the abilities are ones that _might_ be useful in the early game, but are really a waste of a serious rainbow pretender's time. Turn 40 - my druid pretender will ... summon vine men! Right.

Ulm's Alchemist is one that doesn't totally rot - at least he can alchemize gems for gold without losing a turn. The Sorceress gets a free astral gem, the Frost Father won't get killed by murdering winter or the other cold spells.

The sage bonus is handy early in the game, but gets less and less worthwhile as the game goes on. Like - past turn 5. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif The Archmage - he _really_ ought to be a more impressive chassis. As is? Likewise the Freaklord, the Hag, etc.

But that's really a different thread. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And I just want to reiterate the insanity of the proposal that commanders rout if they don't have any troops. A grand red dragon, a bane lord, a GoR'ed Tarrasque - any and all of them turning and running, not from a Knight - but from a single stinking point of crappy PD.

What a hoot.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Most people don't go into a battle planning on losing. But even if they "don't go into battle unless they can win", it doesn't mean they're 100% sure they'll win. Historically, commanders can and do gamble - balancing the loss of 100 men (or 1000) against the benefit gained if they do win.

They also go into battle because, while they're not sure they'll win, they know that the other possible battlefields and situations will be worse.

And they go into battle figuring that while they may lose, they'll inflict greater casualties on the enemy - this is especially true both of military defenses and ambushes.

An example of this in Dom2 is sending 4 or 5 spellcasters with a screening troop of 10 or 20 militia or archers in front of them. Going against, say, knights, they can expect to lose - the knights are going to tear up those screening troops, but are going to sustain heavy casualties from the mages.

This is _planned_ for by the force with the mages and militia.

And you think that they _deserve_ to lose half the mages, who are sitting all the way in the rear of the battlefield???

Nice to know the kind of superior military intellects who are in favor of demolishing, I mean, improving, the current morale system. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

OK, a few Last points.

• I never wanted to nerf immortality. I just mentioned a few easy ways to do so, if it proved to be a problem. From the above, it seems to be vampires that are the problem, if any. That can be solved in a mod, and is therefore irrelevant to the current discussion.
• The arguments that "it would be a matter of just killing the chaff" etc. is just lame, for obvious reasons. Just use quality soldiers.
• Most importantly, the entire reason I proposed this was to illustrate that the proposal wasn't about fixing a flaw, but was about making SC even more powerful. I think sheap, Arryn and others have illustrated this point nicely by now. I find it extremely funny that after proposing a SC-boost, these people turn around and deride "my change" as a whine-de-jour. Just like Norfleet did, really http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
• To bend this point in neon: I proposed this change without any hope that this would happen, but solely to prevent SC to become even stronger by proposing another fix that would stop the "The Moloch is treated so unfairly". That was all.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

since battlemages are far stronger and more useful than troops, losing half of them when you lose a battle would be a good thing; it would help balance that out. i mean, would you rather buy 20 militia or a mage? about the same cost, but the mage is far more useful.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

You really just don't get it, do you? The militia, when you buy them, are bought because they're disposable. It's the same reason the peasants were rounded up and levied historically : so they do do the dying, instead of the expensive, hard-to-equip-and-train archers, knights, halberdiers, etc.

And then battle plans are made, historically and in Dominions, to ensure that the peasants are the ones dying and not the commanders, knights, mages, etc.

If you think losing half your mages when you lose is a good thing, put them in front of your infantry and militia. Then you can lose your mages, which you think is a good thing, and the rest of us, who don't think losing our mages is a good thing, can continue to try and avoid having that happen.

Also note: Battle mages can and _do_ get wiped out in Dominions, if the opposing commander out-battles and out-thinks them. Try 11 out of 12, and 5 out of 6, mages and commanders killed in a battle between roughly equal forces.

But then, all you're concerned with is the fact that you think SCs and battle mages are over-powered and that the game is more fun for you without them.

To quote the US Army: Suck it up and drive on.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

To also quote the Army: F***ing-A!

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

no tauren is true .
and you don't get his point here i think .

tauren says just that almost no national troop is worth being produced .

if you are honest you will admit that with most nations you replace the national troops as quick as you can by better summoned troops .
if leaders alone woudn't rout once the first 1 dies would you build troops at all anymore ?


marignon , ulm , pangenea , vanheim and perhaps jotunheim are somehow exeptions here since they have special national troops which are worth being built over a longer timespan with the right bless effect .
or with flaming arrows + wind guide for marignon x-bows .


but i think you will admit that in general you only use as many troops as you think you need to avoid routing. the rest of your gold goes in commanders instead .
you basically said that in your post . at least i understanded it this way .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Boron, do you mean that if given the choice of having 50 Winter Wolves or 40 Winter Wolves and 40 Coral Guards you choose the 50 w-wolves? What if the choices are 100 Lamias / 70 Lamias, 20 Knights and 30 Longbowmen set to Fire Archers?

If you can only choose between all-summoned and all-mundane armies you should choose the summons to be competitive in lategame. But DomII isn't HoMM4*, and you don't have to. You can use both mundane and magical units in a nice, joyful and often colourful mix that is stronger and more varied than either of the one-sided armies. You might have a mage or two less, but you don't have the gems to use all of them for summoning if you only recruit mages and build fortresses/labs to make more of them, not recruiting any national units. And besides Mictlan every nation has something useful. If nothing else, archers that can be Wind Guided and/or given Flaming Arrows.


Endoperez
* I never played it, but I have heard that it forced you to choose between good in beginning/bad in the end, bad in the beginning/good in the end and mediocre at all stages. And AI had access to the best units from beginning to the end. If this is not the case, http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Duh. You do ... research in order to get better weapons, troops, spells.

Once the semi-automatic rifle was ... researched the nations that didn't have them tended to get chewed up and spit out. No intelligent leader said, "Hey! We can't replace our breech loaders! It wouldn't be right!"

As better units, weapons, spells, are researched, the earlier, less effective ones tend not to be produced or used as much any more. If the newly researched ones _weren't_ significantly improved and better, there wouldn't be much point in doing research.

"Hmm - I think I'll research conjured units - they may suck compare to my regular troops, but they're _so_ neat!"

*smile* Considering that in general, leaders alone get killed, yes, I think I'd tend to still build and use troops. This remains true at least into the mid-game, and even after that, some troops tend to be used. They may not be the recruitable national troops - but again, there's a reason people did research into conjuration, construction, and enchantment - to get better things to use.

Let's see - you leave out Man, R'lyeh, Caelum, Pythium, and I expect there are other nations that I'm not thinking of. All these nations have national troops that remain useful into the late game, at least as part of a mixed army that includes conjured and constructed troops as well.

No, I use as many troops as I think I need in order to _win_. Leaders by themselves can rarely do it on their own, although there are some exceptions (Vanheim, Man, Caelum, etc) and even those function better with some troops - some disposable, some not.

And you need to reread my previous post - Tauren used 20 militia vice battlemages as the example in his post. I made a rebuttal using that same example. _Militia_ are disposable - they're used to keep your mages from getting killed, and also to keep your more valuable national troops from getting killed. Good cavalry, archers, even heavy infantry are all valuable and useful, and the screen of militia is used to try and keep the casualties of good troops low.

Frankly, it seems that you and Tauren (and let's not forget Cohen) want a game that has more emphasis on troops, and less on powerful combatants, summonings, spells, and magic items.

I'd suggest you find another game, because Dominions is designed around those things. We're talking beings that are trying to become God here - not beings that are trying to become King or Pope. If the powerful SCs and magic were removed or nerfed, as y'all want, the majority of the players would be upset.

Now, I have posted before that it would be nice if Illwinter would include a command line or game creation switch that would allow some things like magic research to be limitted. After all - it's already limitted to research level 4 in the demo, it shouldn't be hard to implement that as an option in the full game.

That way, people like you could have a game that played more like the game you want to play, without screwing everyone else's game over. For that matter, even some of us who _like_ the powerful magics and SCs and such might enjoy the odd low-research game as a refreshing change of pace.

But again - if you don't want a game that's geared and designed around powerful magics, supremely powerful beings and combatants, I'd suggest finding another game. There are _plenty_ of games that don't put such emphasis on mages, SCs, etc. It's hard to think of any that put the emphasis on them the way Dominions2 does though - not HoMM (which is a game for simpletons who like rote solutions in comparison), not the original MoM, not Disciples, Age of Wizards.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

HoMM also tends to have maps and situations that favor, and sometimes require, one exact sequence of actions in order to win a scenario. "Build these units first; attack this stack of monsters in order to get this resource; use that resource to build / upgrade a building to recruit stronger units; build these units; attack that stack to get this resource / castle, etc."

This isn't an exaggeration - the maps often channel you towards only a few specific routes, and the AI competes by having huge amounts of creatures and resources in comparison to the human player. If the human doesn't follow the optimum sequence of actions, the AI rolls over him.

That's why you can find step by step instructions for winning various HoMM maps/scenarios - a totally different scenario from Dom2 (or the old MoM).

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

caine i say this because i extremely enjoy the lategame when i have ultrascs , vampirehordes etc. en masse and 500+ gem income from sites + clams etc. etc. etc.

i just think that a few things are too overprized ( national troops ) and a few special units are severely underprized . so it needs only a bit finetuning i think .
basically like it was with the vq pre 2.12 .

tartarians were nerfed because of this too a bit .
they are still extremely useful .


but dominions is a game not real life . and dominions is extremely well balanced and there are uses for lots of units .

but as it is it is the following :
most national troops are only good until you get summons .

but since national troops and national mages both need gold and mages result in a much higher RoI as soon as you have your first summons like e.g. vine ogres you start replacing your troops with them .
later you chose stronger summons .

but even on turn 10 it is already a hard decision if 1 mage is already worth more than 10 troops which have the same cost / upkeep .
and after earlygame this decision is so clear as nothing else .

so as it is almost EVERY leader / summonable leader is really useful .
lots of summoned units are really useful too .

but from the national troops 9/10th are already almost useless and only needed to prevent routing after turn 20-40 .

this is what cohen and tauren dislike . i just replace most of my national troops by summons but i feel too that this is just not right that there are about 500 national units which all have flair but only about 50 have still some value midgame and about 0! have value lategame .


if upkeep/resourcecosts of national units would be 1/2 after turn 30 and 1/4 after turn 60 until end of the game then the choice recruit 1 battlemage / priest or 5-10 national units would not be the nobrainer as it is atm anymore while it would not make SCs etc. useless .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

you just neglect that it is not 100 devils or 70 devils and e.g. 50 lava warriors because they use different resources , gold vs mana .

it is rather 100 devils and 50 lava warriors or 100 devils and 10 demonbred e.g. .

so i always chose the mage option once i can replace national troops with summons .


so i make a workaround as everybody but i , tauren and cohen think that this is a bit bad .

i really love dominion and i love the huge variation of strategies .
but it is only true for mages + summons that there are really few no-brainers .


after early game the choice mage vs 5-10 units is normally a nobrainer .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Actually, what I think Boron was saying was that the best troops are the summons in general. That does not mean Vans are inferior to Vine Men. Just in the aggregate. And you are still better off using your gold to build mages and gems to get summoned troops. And this is not even counting the fact that your troops cost a heck of a lot more in upkeep than the summons do. If anything, summons ought to cost more since they are superior.

National troops are much too weak in general late game. They are mostly used only as fodder from mid-game on.


Also, Cainehill missed the point above. He said that if the rule was that commanders could not stay on the battlefield without troops, the battles would be all about killing the chaff. But nobody except a weak player would play that way. No, it would be all about getting STRONG troops to accompany STRONG leaders, which is much more logical than the current system. If you send in a leader with chaff only and lose, too bad for you.

Arryn, on the other hand, made an excellent point above about berserk. That would be a good strategy if you didn't want your commander to retreat. However, berserk is a double-edged sword. Your defense drops and you get hit easier. And maybe some aflictions to. Also, you would want to be DARN sure you will win since the berserked guy will fight to the death. If you miscalculate, then poof, your SC is gone for good. But it sure is a nice tool to have in the toolkit.


I want to make another point on this subject. In Karan game, where I am subbing for Cohen, Vyelina is playing Ulm. She attacked a Cohen castle with a superb army, which included her VQ, 2 ice devils, an arch devil, a bunch of nice summons, and some national troops. She had it backed up with lots of mages casting all kinds of nasyy things. It was almost a pleasure losing to that army, for it was well constructed and excellently scripted.

On the other hand, Cohen had a super-powerful SC arch devil as his prophet. The devil simply cast fire shield and then attack. Pangaea hit it with over 100 troops and lost everything to a single SC. It was almost ridiculous watching that battle. It did leave a sour taste in my mouth for sure, totally unlike losing to the Ulm army.

Needless to say, I definitely admired the Vyelina approach far better. She certainly avoided the chaff problem with her SCs, like Cainehill was suggesting above would become the norm.

Now why do I feel like Yvelina was playing the game the way it was intended to be played and Cohen was taking advantage of a rule glitch?

Of course, I know that the developers are not going to put out a patch to fix the routing inconsistency. It would be a huge change to everything we are all doing now. It will have to wait for Dom 3.

On the other hand, fixing the routing inconsistency in a patch would make everybody come up with a new strategy and just might increase the longevity of the game. Who knows? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Actually the true point I was trying to make wasn't so much about folks overlooking berserking, but that in Dominions, every problem has a solution, and all solutions are "double-edged". The true beauty of Dominions is that, unlike in all other strategy computer games, there is NO one single strategy that will always win. No perfect strategies, no perfect counterstrategies. As in real life, matters are reduced to luck and who's the more flexible strategist/commander (player).

Folks who refuse to accept this are ... pissing into the wind.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

i just dont understand why nations can recruit so many troops if all but 1 or 2 are useless. there just isnt any good argument for including something useless in a game

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Hmmm that would seem to clearly say that you missed Arryns point. The game is designed so that you can develop your own tactics. If all of the units except 1 or 2 are useless then Im guessing that they are useless to you in playing the way you play. One person plays a nation and only uses the highest armored units. Another uses the cheapest in bulk. Another makes huge use of the sneak units. And yet another buys all mages except for the minimum needed army.

Personally, I love to explore the "useless" pieces of the game. The pretenders that people wonder why they are there. The nations people think have no winning strategy. The units no one uses. The spells that seem worthless. Very few end up having NO tactic although there are a good number of them that tend to be only useful to some people in some situations.

PLEASE dont make an effort to "tidy up" the game of worthless pieces. One of the things I love about this game is that its full of things that even the developers didnt realize how we would use them when they were put in.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

ok i worded things poorly

i dont think useless troops should be *removed* from the game, i think they should be made, well, usefull. have you ever seen anyone recruit e.g. a salamander?

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

When I started out playing Dom2, one of the mechanics that shocked me the most was that summonables had no upkeep while national troops do. As a MoM fan, I was used to the idea that summonables were cool, powerful but rare due to the need to pay magical upkeep for them.

Whether or not you like armies Dom2 style or MoM style is I suppose a matter of personal preference, but I have to say that I tend towards the MoM thing.

I think that the description of an army of bowmen, spearmen etc. and two or three golems towering above them and some gargoyles whirling overhead is cool. When it becomes all golems and gargoyles, it becomes not so cool.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Let's see - I've had them used against me, so yes.

And when I play Abysia, I've recruited them, so yes.

Perhaps you have another totally "useless" troop in mind?

Well, actually, I can think of one, maybe. Man's Slinger unit, useless because of the Longbowmen, albeit I'd have to check and see if the slinger is substantially cheaper, in which case I can think of a use for it also.

And then I believe C'tis has a commander that's worse than the stock independent commander, which begs the question of why anyone would recruit one of those instead of the readily obtained independent.

But these are basically anomalies, imo.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Well, I think Tauren has a point.

When I was in IRC, everyone I talked to about playing Vanheim said sloth-3 was good to take. Now, Vanheim troops are not that cheap resource-wise. I was blown away at the thought of sloth 3, but everyone in the chat seemed to think it was no big deal. Now, I think any negative-3 should hurt, badly, but with mostly commander-armies, it's no big deal.

I don't think national troops are useless, but at this point, they seem highly cost inefficient.

I'm determined to find a decent strategy that fields me armies as well as mages and fighting commmanders, but it doesn't look promising.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

I'd call that an understatement.

Just because you consider something to be lacking in usefulness does not mean that others share your opinion. I do not intend for the following to be an insult, but have you stopped to consider that others might be more creative than you are in thinking up of uses for what you deem "useless"? Gandalf was making such a point in his Last post. I'm sure that the guys at IW do not agree that the game has useless units, just as I'm sure that they had something in mind when they created said units.

Please do not confuse the concepts of efficient and/or cost-effective with "useful". All too frequently folks dismiss what they perceive to be non-optimal. For example, when playing Jotuns, I build spearmen, almost exclusively. But I would not assert that axemen or slingers are useless. It is simply my preference to not build them. I could, if I chose to, make effective use of them.

Rather than dismiss certain units as "useless", likely because they are less than optimal for your chosen play style, consider Gandalf's words and see if you can devise a clever way to put them to good use. You might just do two things: surprise yourself, and stumble upon what was going through the developer's mind when they created the unit.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Van and Valkyries do not cost lots of resources. If you plan on paying for a decent bless effect, then they can be quite effective. Einheres on the other hand, do require a large number of resources, and they are very useful in most situations.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

This is just what Tauren was talking about. Going sloth-3, which most of the people I've talked to seem to think is no big deal, makes everything besides vans and valkries cost inefficient before the game even begins.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

On SCs: SC's add an element to the game. To make them less powerful, as a whole, is to reduce the impact of what I consider an essential, and intentional, element of the game. I wouldn't even play a limited magic game as a change of pace, I would play another game that was balanced specifically for low magic.

On useless national troops:
Technically there are few that are utterly, in all situations, useless...but let's be honest, there are *many* that serve the same function and, if they had never been introduced to the game, noone would care. Yes, there are situations where I might recruit a halberdier instead of a pikeneer but if I didn't have one or the other, it would not make any significant difference in the long run. So yes, a lot of units are kind of 'filler' units (which are still nice for flavor and all).

However, that said, there is only so much you can do with them and still maintain the nation's strengths and weaknesses. If you take a nation that has 3 kinds of medium infantry and make one a little lighter and one a little heavier, to make them 'useful', you just expanded that nations' power by giving it flexible infantry. Now you have to balance that...and somehow maintain the nation next door who was known for his heavy infantry and is now competing with your HI, MI and LI. So what now, give him some MI maybe to keep up ? Now everyone starts to look the same...

Summary: Yes, there are some units that are redundant in the roles they play...but expanding their roles would bite into the balance or individuality of nations. So, to me, you either have some extra units that are somewhat redundant or you don't have them at all. Having the choice doesn't hurt.

- Kel

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

The sloth 3 thing is normal for many pretenders. That is because you can overcome it with high admin castle or use low resource troops like mages and some of the sacreds.

Turmoil 3, on the other hand, is a killer. Even with luck 3, you still get those horrible bad luck events far too often. Finding 5 air gems in a mirror 3 times, erecting an extra 10 PD in a random province, and getting a bunch of free militia somewhere does not even come close to making up for losing 1/4 population in your home province early on. Plus turmoil 3 kills your income and you can barely afford mages at the crucial begining of the game.

The scales are not all that well balanced, but this has been discussed in the forum before. Order and magic are, in general, worth more than the other scales.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Even prod 0 and a castle allows you to recruit enough einheres to significantly increase your offensive punch over what you would have with only Vans and Valkyries. They are, after all, extremely expensive and vulnerable to elemental magic.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Unfortunately real life is not as balanced as Dominions. I suspect I was a useless unit, at least early in life. Hopefully I will be a late life winner, spending my days on Bahamas or whatever. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Sloth is unique in that it becomes less important over time. It's the only scale that works this way. Order and Luck remain constant, Growth/Death becomes more important later on (especially Death), and Magic remains important as long as there is research to do. But the effect of sloth is not very significant in the late game. It matters at the start - only if you need to build high resource units to do initial expansion.

The thing is, by taking negative scales (sloth+misfortune) you can make your pretender strong enough to overcome the economic disadvantage. By the time your pretender is ready to retire from indy-busting, you're ready to convert your nation over to summoned units.

This doesn't have anything to do with how strong/weak national units are or how they are priced. It's fundamental to the game design: All national troops are available from the start of the game. For summons to be relevant at all, eventually the summons have to become more powerful than the national troops.

Part of the "problem," if such exists, is that resources are fairly abundant, relative to gold. Gold is needed for castles, temples, mages, troops, and upkeep. Resources are only needed for troops, and there are few troops that require more resources than gold (both in absolute terms, or in terms of relative abundance).

My suggestions for improvements would be address this Last issue. Instead of castles and temples taking fixed time to build, they require resources, and live in the build queue just like units. Sloth doesn't seem quite so appealing with this change - and this would also make the long build time castles more tolerable.

I should also point out that many people play in games with more spacious maps than the developers intended, and higher site frequency than the default. This amplifies the conditions that make sloth-3 so tolerable.

I don't really have a problem with Turmoil-3 being viable only for Ermor, or maybe Carrion Woods. Drain-3 is viable only for Ulm, Heat-3 is viable only for Abysia and Machaka. But Sloth-3 is viable for almost everyone.

Turmoil+Luck has bad events significantly less often than Order+Misfortune. The problem isn't the random events, it's the income loss. Turmoil-1 has about 75% as much money as Order-3. Turmoil-3 would have about 65% as much money as order-3. That's a big, big, big difference. Part of the difference is upkeep. Upkeep accumulates over time, resulting in a constrained growth situation; if you've studied differential equations (or ecology), you know that a 35% loss of income translates into much more than a 35% loss of population. Where the population, in this case, is mages. And mages are critically important. It's fair to say that order scale is almost important to research as magic scale is.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

I would agree with idea there are too many troop types particuarly for eg ulm with 4 types of identikit infantry. They are however subltly differentiated in the way you describe due to differing weapons. However the subtleties are too subtle for it to make an interesting choices between them. I dispute the fact that the variety of troops adds character in fact I think it reduces it. Ulm for example could be famous for its armies of Knights backed up by pikeneers & crossbows rather than its hodge-podge of miscellaneous heavy infantry. Warhammer the miniatures game did this in its latest edition - by reducing the choices you increase the character of the armies. Same with abysia - every abysian could have a weapon with a spikey ball on a chain for example.

This is of course a different issue from troops being too weak and is a massive none-priority (more the Dom3 wish list - rather than making up 1000 units we could have 500 and a better messaging system)

There are lots of understrength units too of course but picking them out is harder. (Salamanders go on my list BTW as they die just too much for 70 gp & I cannot find a way to pad them should be maybe 50 gp or tougher - double HP.)

Pickles

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Edit: Realised I was replying to a post at the bottom of the first page when everyone else was halfway through the second. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

one problem that makes national troops which you could use in large numbers so bad :

SUPPLY .

as vanheim e.g. i could use hordes of skinshifters or everyone hordes of barbarians .
they are not bad units in theory .
but given the fact that they require low resources why shouldn't you take a watchtower / mausoleum ?!?

vanheim e.g. can't forge supplyitems early on .
so even if you build only e.g. 60-80 skinshifters you run soon into supply issues .
if you take a castle it is a shortly later time but when you are 3 provinces away from your capitol it is the same and you can build castles not as easy as a watchtower .


for ryleh this is very severe too : if you have enough gold you can produce hordes of illithids which are quite useful .
but they are size 4 so they eat a lot .

caelum could produce hordes of their cheap archers .
they would be really useful for their prize but supply is again the limiting factor .



so the supply system is just too harsh at the moment .
without supplyitems in any province 2-3 provinces away from the nearest castle with 2-4k pop and those are quite common in mountain/swampland you just have about 20-50 supply .
rarely you have over 100 supply when only 2 provinces away from your next castle .





overall earlygame at least 30 slingers / archers = cost 210/300 would beat 1 mage probably .

but supply prohibits you to use more than about 50-100 troops anyways for most nations .
midgame the archers aren't useful anymore because they have little chances damaging most mages at all .
e.g. 1 ulm mastersmith casting invulnerability + magma eruption would defeat about 50 archers very likely .


there are several severe problems :
- most national troops have 8-14 hp which kills them with 1 single hit by almost any spell most likely .
- scs get easy lightning + fire resistence . with 20-30 protection + lifedrain even 50 knights ( e.g. ulm ) lose probably . if the sc has fire shield this is just absurd .
with f9 blessing you have some chances but if the sc has fire shield + high protection etc. you defeat him perhaps but at least lose lots of your troops .

i think you all admit that any national unit without f9 bless or n9 berserk bless ( only true for jotunheim + pangenea ) can't even defeat a standard banelord cheap sc .


it is just national troops suck against most mages after the first 10-20 turns .
most have no chance against scs .
summoned creatures are upkeepfree + have often a really good morale so you don't need that many to prevent routing .


so you always buy only as much as you think is enough to avoid routing and replace them soon by summons .
not that most summons are directly that stronger than national units but most summons have high morale , need not eat and cost no upkeep .

as panther said that approach was good in age of wonders .
there the summoned units costed mana as upkeep .
so though they were the strongest units you couldn't field too many of them .
and for national units there was a techtree .
so your armies were about 2/3 national troops 1/3 summons .
the lvl 4 national units were almost as good as the lvl 4 summons and the lvl 5 summons were the most powerful units but 2 lvl 4 summons / 3 lvl 4 national units were normally enough to kill a lvl 5 summon .
since you had about doubled gold income compared to manaincome normally this was really fun + well balanced .

with the combat system that each definding unit has only 4/5 retals cheap lvl 1 units to steal defending strikes to let the lvl 4 units kill the enemy lvl 4 units without having the risk of being killed too made the lvl 1 units quite useful too .

with heroes of might and magic series this was true too .
there lvl 1 / 2 units could kill lvl 7 units too .
so they all served a purpose .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

So, Boron, since you like the way things are in HoMM and AoW, why aren't you _playing_ those instead of arguing that Dom2 should be changed?

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

I think it's because he sees the way things are in HoMM and AoW as better, and would like to see Dom2 improved in his eyes.

There's no crime in advocating change.

I think he's got a point.

You and others may not think there's anything wrong with how the game currently plays out, but some people do, and they're going to advocate it because they enjoy Dom2 enough to do so, instead of ditching it and playing something else.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

I just think that the no-upkeep of any troops are problematic. But does it matter? It is not as if it's going to change http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Actually, it would make great sense to have the summoned troops cost 1/15 of the initial gem cost per turn. That way, it matches the troops. And when you run out of the proper gems, they desert just like troops!


You would see more troops being built for sure.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

What would be the point of such a change? Summoned troops are already very expensive when you consider all the other uses for gems. It would hardly improve the game to make it so that you don't bother to use summons and magic at all because they weren't cost-effective. That would make it far too much like most other fantasy strategy games.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Actually this would only promote more SC use. *bleech*

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

yeah i say that too panther and esben http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

actually dominions is the only game i know where you pay upkeep for some things while you pay no upkeep for other things .

have you ever played age of wonders 2 shadow magic cainehill ?

i played it seriously for about 1/2 year and enjoyed it .
the only problem is that you have only about 200 units and 200 spells and know all too quick .
but it was really well balanced .
and with each patch the developers made much fine tuning.
as with starcraft.

if you say small developers can't do that i point at paradox entertainment .
they make awesome patches !


i just wonder why you are so reluctant against small changes cainehill where the majority agrees that they would strengthen the dominion experience even more .
esben agreed to me , panther agreed , cohen will agree .

something like 1/10 gem upkeep of summon cost on scs and 1/50 on summons would make national troops more useful and balance it at least a bit .

to be at least somehow competetive against mages national troops would need to have less upkeep then mages too .

until turn 30 normal upkeep . turn 30-60 halfed upkeep .
turn 60 - end 1/4 upkeep for normal national troops .

this way it would then be e.g. about 12 knights vs 1 mage which would the choice not make the absolute nobrainer between mage + knight as it was before .
and with limiting the use of summons a bit too it would be all more balanced .

the aow / MoM approach here is just more righteous .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

And man, do they need 'em!!! Well, couldn't help that one - but I've said elsewhere how much I like Paradox games. Their first releases do leave something to be desired, however.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

i think all these suggestions take only 30-60 minutes for illwinter to implement into dominions .

so they could bring out a big evaluation patch with the new rules and make a survey after 2-4 weeks .
then everybody votes and the majority gets right .



from a balance aspect though can you name me ANY REASON why a summon should not need upkeep costs ?

especially with the blood summons this is very THEMATIC too :
do you think such a powerful being as a arch devil / arch demon doesn't demand permanent tribute in form of e.g. 10 blood slaves / day ( = turn in dominions ) ?


in any pen&paper rpg / fantasy novel normally the necromancers / demoniacs who summon demons need to satisfy them every day otherwise they will kill them and go away again to their plane .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Can you name me any reason from a balance point why they should?

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

The balance isn't that great. Summoned creatures are pretty much a waste of resources, and are far too expensive for the small amount of power they give you. Battlefield magic is weak and unimpressive in general. The only spells that are worthwhile are those that boost your individual units and even then you can't cast very many of them. The experience granting system has the standard problem where only killing the unit grants experience, so you have to do silly things like save weakened attackers for your heroes. Spellcasting heroes don't gain experience anywhere near as fast as melee ones, since the spells that they can cast are extremely unlikely to actually kill more than one unit in a battle. It might be a game with magic, but the magic doesn't have nearly enough effect.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Let me say again: this would only PROMOTE SC usage.

BLEEEEECH.

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

are you serious with this ?
gold dragons , dark angels , angels , the dark dragons etc. were a waste of resources ?

most battlespells were great like fireball , the armageddon like spell , cosmic spray etc. etc.

heros which are SCS in dominions 2-3 lvl 4 units were normally enough to kill any hero no matter how highlevel he was .
2-3 kharags , dragons , etc. killed normally every hero .
even 10 black spiders with web or 3-4 druids with entangle had good chances.


you seem to have not played aow 2 sm much right ?


magic was great but not that overpowered .
it was basically 50/50 over the whole game with magic + gold .

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

Hmm.. this does not make sense at all. If your ice devil costs you blood slaves every turn it is alive, how does that promote SC use? And your air queen would cost like 5 air gems PER TURN at 1/10 and just over 3 gems per turn at 1/15! If you buy too many devils, they would desert or you have to blood hunt even more to pay for them, thus hurting your economy.

A single player would not be able to easily buy all the ice devils or air queens anymore. I think the ice and arch devils would be more spread out this way to the races that can't get blood as fast as Abysia can.

Artifacts would be more important for your gems since they would not incur a recurring cost.

So this would dissuade SC use, not help it. Heaven forbid that an SC just MIGHT cost something close to their true value in the game!

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

panthers Last post is again great .
i would like something like this too .

if magic troops / scs would need gem upkeep too it would just be fair .
this way the choice : summons or national troops would not be the nobrainer anymore .

it would force you to use all 4 elments :
scs , national leaders , national troops and summons .

and not as it is completely neglecting national troops , building mostly mages / priests with all your gold and with your gems mainly build scs and only summon as many summons as you need to prevent autorout .


the only thing that can kill scs half reliable are battle mages or other scs .
even summoned troops normally can't kill scs at all ( expect maybe vampires / ghosts with lucky drain life attacks ) .
a regen + reinvigoration sc is almost impossible to kill by lifeless hordes like living statues too .


as it is investing gems in scs and gold in mages is just too good .


a well balanced system should always be like rock , paper & scissisor .


battlemages just defeat too easy national troops .
summon troops are defeated almost as easy by battlemages .

scs beat national troops + summoned troops quite well too but not as easy as battlemages .

battlemages can kill scs too but only a few , either with death or earth or astral magic .
99% reliable are only death + earth magic .


so as it is you try to just summon as many troops you need to prevent routing .



if the routing system that commanders rout without troops wouldn't exist most players wouldn't buy troops + summoned troops at all probably and only build battlemages + scs .



magic imbalance is another chapter too .
as it is expect for clams + quickness water magic is almost useless .

if you want good scs you should either take blood or air .
blood gives you lots of super scs : ice devils , arch devils , heliophagi , arch demons .

if you want infinite quite good scs/thugs you should take death for bane lords + wraith lords + later tartarians ( they need much effort though thnx to the patch removing healing by fairy queens http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) or nature for firbolgs .


if you encounter a bane lord standard sc if you don't have blessed troops which many nations lack with national troops only you already almost can't beat him .
if you have only firemages since he will be fire resistent they don#t work too .
air mages may only work with false horrors but against scs with fireshield this is not reliable too .



really lategame with wish you can get the best scs unlimited but it is rather expensive and pretty lategame .


since normal mages can be killed by assasins / flames from the sky etc. relative easy too and you can't move them around via magic move since they would lose their army scs are overall even better then battlemages probably .


there is teleport to move around but this is always difficult because of mind duel .
so bringing astral mages to battle is always risky .
fairy trod + stygian path work but compared to cloud trapeze they are rather expensive .



as it is proper used scs and battlemages are too strong .
given that some scs have good magic paths and are a synergie of both these are the strongest overall units at all .
they are your pretender of course and e.g. airqueens , arch devils etc.

especially the airqueens are outstanding too :
they have in storm the highest base att / def rating .
they are lighting resistent already .
they have all slots expect feet .
they can move cheaply by cloud trapezing .
(lategame they are massproduceable by wish .)


so you normally play this way :
build a few national units at the beginning for expansion against indies .
replace them as quick as you can with a few summons .
invest almost all your gold in mages ( rest in temples + castles and a few preists , scouts as item mules ).

start producing scs as quick as possible .
just exchange them with better ones like first : banelord , then airqueen .

try to catch almost all unique ( until wish ! ) scs .
abysia e.g. if everything goes right can catch most of the ice devils and normally all arch devils .

invest your rather useless gems ( mainly water ) in clams .



there are some nations that brilliance lategame but are not weak early-midgame too , mainly :
abysia
arco
mictlan
caelum
pytium

as it is if some players of equal skill play against each other if one takes caelum , one abysia , one atlantis and one pan cw normally the pan cw and the atlantis player have no chance to win at all and only caelum + abysia fight for who is winning .



making summons cost magic upkeep ( gems , slaves ) , reducing upkeep for national troops after early game and improving the water school a bit would be not too difficult.
expect improving water school the other 2 mentioned things should take 30-60 minutes to implement i think.

if it is done with a constant balance within the summons / national units themselves is not much affected at all since all cost the same factor less / more .


but balance between national troops , national leaders , summoned troops and summoned SCS would be greatly improved .



just look at starcraft . it is the almost perfect example for a really well balanced game where each unit has a use .
it is like chess but with 3 completely different nations .

for a more dominonlike game i recommened a closer look at the age of wonders series , especially age of wonders 2 sm .
with the newest patches balance there is really good .

age of wonders 2 has about 300 units and 200 spells or something like this , so about 1/5 of dominions units / spells .

in age of wonders 2 though at least 250 units and 150 spells are useful during the whole game .


in dominions unfortunately though from the 1000 units about 200 are useful only ( most mages , most scs , some summons , a few national troops ( mainly those with bless / archers with flaming arrows ) ) .
with spells it is similiar .


example : with ulm : at the beginning your master smith cast probably flying shards / fire flies .
then it is replaced by magma bolts .
then by blade wind.
then by magma eruoption .

once you have magma eruption there is no better mass damage spell available for ulm mastersmith against units .

against scs you have petrify .


with the ulmish master smiths this is most obvious .

damagewise magma eruption is so much more effective then the before mentioned spells against all troops .

so why would you ever cast anything else with them against other troops ?



once you have the choice between banes and bane lords :
you always take bane lords .

once you have the choice then between bane lords and tartarians you always take tartaians .




i just begin to realize how much potential is left in dominions 2 .
it is a really great game but i think as it is it is balancewise still far away from near perfect .


but the improvement from dominions 1 to dominoins 2 is just great .

i have full trust in you illwinter that with a few relative quick to do patches though dominoins 2 could be further balanced .

and dominions 3 i will buy blind anyways for sure .


i just complain so much because dominions 2 is already so great but with fixing these issues i mentioned and where esben e.g. often agrees , cohen would agree etc. i am not the only one .
even zen always said the water school needs improvement .

balancing takes time .

for starcraft + age of wonders 2 it took for both an expansion and about 10-12 patches .

fortunately you hear at resonable complains ( like the vq nerf ) so i hope i may be successful too if the changes i suggest are not too big http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Poll: morale and routing
 

By making all troops require upkeep, the pressure would be to focus on the troops that are most efficient relative to their cost. Since most of the value in SCs is in their equipment, not their summoning cost, they are comparatively more efficient than non-SC summons. If summoned troops cost upkeep probably no one would cast Vine Critters, undead, etc any more.

I should also point out that the summon-requires-upkeep is totally incompatible with Ermor, which would rapidly find itself with a hundreds of gems upkeep http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif