Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

Consider PD in terms of maintainence free chaff, but _not_ as a replacement for troops. If you had something like 30 PD plus 10-20 troops, maybe a mage or priest (for sermon of courage), you'd probably find that much more effective - the PD soaks up the losses but is renewed so long as you win the battles, while the mage and real troops help ensure that you win, both because of troops quality and because of tactics.

Yes, you have to pay upkeep on those troops there - but upkeep is probably cheaper than the equivalent of 183 troops getting lost because PD sucks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Even better, you can move those troops and mages as your border shifts, while your investment in 50 PD turns out to be a very poor investment once you've expanded enough beyond that province and it never gets attacked.

(Kind of disheartening to read that PD has actually been nerfed even more, vis a vis Jotuns and whatnot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif )

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

It hasn't been nerfed per se. Jotunheim provincial defense is weaker now, but not because it was made weaker, but because larger armies are more common and they are one of the nations whose province defence wasn't boosted. They might not be one of the nations with very good PD any more.

Man, as an example, seems to have very good PD now. They get spearmen and 2 militia for every point of PD, which is lots of chaff. Further, their better troops at 20+ PD are Longbowmen AND Tower Guards! In MA, they have Bards as second leader! 10 Longbowmen, 10 Tower Guards, 30 Spearmen and 60 Militia sound good? What if the militia came back if they died? What if you increased that, or recruited some indy archers in addition to the longbows?

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

I think there's a point where buying PD is no longer efective and just putting some troops and mages is much more effective.

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

PD is just right. It's should not be able to stop large and decisive armies on their own, but they should stop small incursions and help your own troops to defend provinces which they do perfectly well.

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

The only problem I have with PD, is the initial capital defense Vs bad events. In dom 2 I don't remember having my capital taken by indies so often, even with a lot of misfortune. In dom 3 in about 15 games it happened 5 or 6 times during the 15 or so first turns, and each time my capital was attacked the PD was easily defeated, be it by knights, raiders or even barbarians.

Later in the game you can of course have a priest with troops perma patroling your capital, but so early it's really annoying. I think if the initial PD is not raised/made more efficient, the invasion event chances or number of units should be reduced before turn 20 or so (especially when you have not taken misfortune 3, in most cases I had just 1). Anyway perhaps I have just very bad luck myself.

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

Well PD is not much more effective than in Dom2, *but* you usually have more money to invest in, so whereas in Dom2 we put either 2 or 11 PD, it's now rather 11 or 21+.
So small raiding armies can be stopped, but as armies are larger also it's more or less the same, unless vs spells that didn't "rescale" such as Calls ..
But, and that's my point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif, now stealthy scouts and armies are much more easily detected and defeated.
IMHO that's the real change : I wasn't very fond of stealthy strategies in D2 but now they're even weaker...

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

Yep, Jotun milita is like 1/2 compared to the other nation PDs.

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

I think PD is very effective against the AI as it tends to send every turn lots of troops to attack but never enough to win. My PD killed about 400 enemy troops each turn (in ca. 5 provinces). I had a PD strength of about 60+ and supported it with mages (i used trollkings and each of them got in the hall of fame after 10 turns with 500 kills each http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

They were WAY to strong in Dom2 so they got hit hard with the nerf stick (A bit too hard I think). I have a feeling that they will get a bit better in a patch sometime in the future.

In Don2 a PD of 31 with the Mechanical PD global enchantment was able to stop large armies on it's own. If you added a priest with 5 archer bodyguards you could even stop most Undead hordes that came your way.

Sammual

Re: High PD kinda useless.
 

This is exactly what I would expect and this is what it's doing for me (playing Abysia, expensive troops!). However I haven't run into cavalry yet, if they flank and kill my commander I probably won't be happy either. Still, learn and adapt http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif