Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

What I SEE happening in game-start threads is that this comes up over and over.
But within each thread it often comes down to "Well some seem to think its a problem but I dont think its a problem and its my game so we wont ban it". I think if we had multiple lists from light to extreme that people would continue to think along those lines, just faster and clearer. Maybe.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Well it's hard to find fault with your argument there.


Regarding assassins being the counter, I'm afraid this simply isn't reasonable. The small force attack>retreat requires virtually no resources whatsoever and is available to everyone. Assassins on the other hand are far from commonly available and require more resources. They're also riskier, since they need to go do their thing in enemy territory and will quite often get ganked in the process.

Simple exercise - what are you likely to have more of - assassins or scouts/indy commanders?

You might also say fliers are the counter, but again they aren't commonly available, cost more resources and are riskier. They also don't prevent the tactic, they just make it very slightly more costly.

It's certainly true that in history small harassing forces have been able to slow and even halt powerful enemy forces. But I don't see what that has to do with dominions. We all know that you can justify anything if you try hard enough, taking examples from history, making up fluff to explain unintuitive game mechanics (like the explanations for poison arrows bypassing shields and prot),.. the fact remains that in dom3 it feels buggy when 10 militia with attack/retreat manage to stop an army of hundreds of elite troops turn after turn apparently at random (since eventually your army of hundreds will manage to attack, but no-one can work out why this happens). I'm sure that can be explained away with some anecdote from the battle of Stalingrad of whatever. That's cool, I'm glad people can explain stuff like that away and feel happy about it, I just don't like it in the games I play in, that's all.

Edit: Btw I strongly suspect, though I can't know for sure, that KO and JK did not intend this to be a usable 'tactic' in much the same sense that I suspect they didn't intend stuff like slave collar spam.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Did anyone think about the possibility of having to attack Hinnom with Marverni? You have enough armor for 2 of your druids, the rest and all your communion slaves go unarmored.
Now you know or suppose that Hinnom has Earthquake scripted twice.
Do you
a) Cast Ghostrider (or do whatever) to make sure your mages are not hit by the earthquakes
b) Send in your mages to find swift dead

Now this is a perfectly viable game situation that should crop up in such or another form in many games.

I have never seen the other thing crop up, but I can believe it happens in lategame madness. But as I said before if you blame the brokenness of late game on things that work perfectly fine during the normal game (which is what interests normal and especially noob players - the real bordercase is the lategame) you will only reduce the normal game without making anyone content with late game. Next ban thread ETA ...

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Sombre, re: assassins:
(1) The lack of access to assassins is easily remedied. Introduce a spell which summons an assassin. Now everyone has access to them.
(2) If you don't have sufficient assassins and you have access to them, and your opponent pulls this tactic, that's sort of your own fault now isn't it? Especially if you let them get away with it turn after turn. The point of counters is you have them if you plan on having them, not that knowing about them instantly negates some particular tactic.

Alternate counters to blocking chaff armies set to retreat:
(1) cast CotW, GR, or similar on their province. Assuming PD, your summoned army will actually get to fight, and you can kill as many as you can. If you win, your army advances as planned.
(2) use stealthy armies or fliers to attack their originating province (and other potential retreat provinces) and cut off their retreat, limiting your inconvenience to one turn.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I don't believe I said the tactic wasn't counterable. All the counters you list are considerably more expensive than the tactic itself and involve equal if not more micro. So if you are forced into making these counters, the tactic has already been wildly successful.

But this is besides the point. Everyone can do it, so it simply isn't a balance concern. It's more that it's something that feels buggy and counter intuitive which causes large amounts of micro, but using it will definitely net an advantage if your opponent doesn't. Hence if people are trying their very best to win, they'll both end up using it. That's cool if you don't feel it detracts from the game and if everyone in the game is happy to accept that every turn you have to fiddle with your swarms of commanders and chaff troops and micro based counters all along your hostile borders. In fact it's an advantage to use it pretty much everywhere, even peaceful borders.

But to me when a single indy commander with 3 militia troops stops a large attack force in their tracks by appearing briefly then running away, that messes up my immersion and feels flat out buggy. I also feel, like I said, that it wasn't intended to work that way. It's not a tactic I'm willing to use and hopefully I won't have it used against me in games, because I generally don't play with people who would do so. If I do, guess I'm SoL and have to accept a disadvantage and the imposition of a crappy game mechanic. I certainly wouldn't cry cheat.

Re: the idea of modding in a global assassin spell, I think that's a crazy solution with big micro implications. A way simpler one would be to tell people not to do it. Sure a rules lawyer could try and weasel past the rule or try to use it against its spirit, but let's face it, when someone's doing it it's pretty obvious.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

:fire: :troll:

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I think there should be a spell that summons an assassin just on general principle. Its a tactical option which i've found myself wanting more than a few times when my nation didn't have it available.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Tell that to your five assassins that died to one anathemet salamander.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Hmm, I thought this thread was about trading commanders.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

But I got him in the end, didn't I? =) When you have 20 assassins, losing a few is not a big deal...

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Trading Commanders is only cheating if you're playing a no diplomacy game, as would ANY sort of trading be a sign of cheating in such a game so meh.

Sickle farming. The Sickle is a unique artifact and should offer exeptional possibilities. I would only consider it a problem if it wasn't unique, after all the amount of gems you can get isn't game breaking. And you have to make quite an effort to get there, so the reward is within reasonable limits.

Ank/LOD. In most cases where I've seen it or used it I just found it a cool and useful spell. I could understand the frustration if it is turned into some kind of unstoppable strategy, but I've never seen that happen.

Bogus. I actually think this is a lot of work for minimal reward. No problem if someone does it, myself I wouldn't bother unless the opportunity was served within the range of immediate response (what I could do the same turn without changing my overall plans much)

I've certainly had commanders pick up two eyes of aiming, but that has been from my own dead. Very frustrating. I would consider it broken if someone met my big EA agartha army with scouts wearing EoA and turned all my oracles blind, so I hope the word is right that it won't work. The ultimate mechanic would be if commanders would pick up eyes as long as it doesn't turn them blind.

Throwing chaff units to slow armies doesn't spontanously sound broken, but I understand sombres point. The ultimate mechanic IMO would be it there was a strength treshold to it. So to slow down a big army you would need a decent bunch of kamikaze chaff relative to that size.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

If not at release, I thought the two eyes thing was fixed pretty early on. Maybe it just doesn't work when picking up friendly items.

I absolutely agree with you on the second point. Slowing down the army with chaff should not be considered an exploit but if there is ever a Dominions 4 the devs should consider changing the mechanics to work more like you two are suggesting.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Yeah except it isn't really 'throwing chaff units'. I could understand it if armies were bogged down by hordes of chaffy units. The point is it doesn't seem to matter how many units there are on either side and the chaff units down have to be 'thrown' or sent 'kamikaze' style, they just have to appear then retreat. I've also seen it work with just scouts, so it could more accurately be described as constantly attacking with cheap commanders, rather than chaffy troops.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I've never seen Earthquake or any other BF damaging spell cast against a single target, even when scripted to do so. The AI does override the script if the opposition is not big enough.

Unless you meant a single unit is able to "lock down" an army from moving?

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Fantomen:

Sickle - hidden income of 30D/turn is not game breaking? It's more than you can get from Well of Misery, and that globals is "I want to win" sign already. There should be no hidden gem profit. Also there shouldn't be a way to kill your own troops for some gains. With Sickle you can just happily turtle and use huge D income for nasty stuff.

Ankh/LoD - sure, I have nothing against that thing, if used as supposed - to get back some fragile afflicted mages as they had bad luck in one battle. But not to create tens of reanimators for nation that is not supposed to have them. Or for having upkeep-free researchers.

Bogus - have you ever seen it in action? Scouts or air mages with bows scripted to 'fire mages'? Flying anti-thugs scripted to attack commanders? I have. And it's not cool and there is no way to use it against your enemy, unless you find another Bogus around. I've heard about people contemplating plans on what scales to pick with N nation to get the most chance for Bogus to appear, so he can be charmed.

Jarkko:

I have, many times. Just put 1-2 really cheap items on a diseased mage, it should be enough to trigger the script.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

A few skirmishers causing an army to move more cautiously I can understand.
But just a scout? That should be fixed.
But then it would be hard to recognize SCs who should be able to cause an army to stop (at least it does in the movies)

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

ok. The sky is blue btw.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Yep. Not reliably, just randomly.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I wasn't responding to you. Apparently you already knew that, but others don't and are easily misled when people describe it as 'bogging down armies with chaff' or 'delaying the enemy with kamikaze troops'. These aren't accurate descriptions of what's happening at all.

I don't think it needs to be fixed. I'm just identifying what feels like an exploit to me - far easier to ask people not to do it.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I think you exaggerate quite a bit Zeldor. The sickle is not 30 free D gems every turn after you forge it. You need to have a thug - with probably some other equipment which adds cost on top of the sickle. You also need an ally you trust, to manage the micro of shuffling everything around, pay the gold for PD (or whatever) to feed the sickle, lose the income from the provinces turning over. Also, at the point in the game you're forging artifacts it's virtually assured that your use of the sickle won't go unnoticed for very long so if you're using just a thug fighting chaff it's not too hard for somebody to drop in, soul slay you and take off with your sickle. Is it a useful artifact? Sure, but hardly a game breaking 'I win' button. It's about as good as having 2 provinces full of decent bloodhunters.

Ankh abuse is more of a 'I win' play, but it's also easy to spot and takes a good deal of ramp up time to really be a problem. You wouldn't leave a strong player alone with the Forge of the Ancients, I don't really see this as being any different. Again, a worthwhile strategy but hardly something that breaks the game.

Bogus' orders - yet again, useful but far from game breaking. This is a game where you can drop wrathful skies, get mount chaining or put up Gift of Health, so having something that gives you an edge along one angle is part of the game. It's silly to say their is nothing you can do about the orders.

1) Have a bunch of chaff commanders, guarded by thug killing bodyguards
2) Have a bunch of cheap, nasty commanders like banes to smush the guys trying to take out commanders very economically. Or just use indie commanders with things like hammer forged doom glaives (or whatever makes sense)
3) Put cheap shields on your mages and/or rings of tamed lightning - this will make them virtually immune to arrow fire
4) You don't need to find another Bogus - you just complained about being attacked by units who have the orders you want! Charm/HB them if its worth your trouble...
5) Assassinate/mind hunt/earth attack/manifestation/seeking arrow..etc. etc. etc. can go a long way towards reducing snipers.

Again, certainly it can be useful but you're just not trying if you think there's not much you can do about it.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I just ran twenty times (on twenty consequtive turns, so not a save game) a test with an Ulmish Cyclops (E9) scripted Earthquake&cast spells with 20 earth gems in his inventory. Ulm also had in the province 250 warriors and 20 PD. I attacked that with a single Pan (plus a random number of maenads, between 0 and 20) who had equipped a Snake Ring, Bear Claw Talisman, Stinger and Thorn Spear, scripted with Summon Earthpower Retreat.

The Cyclop didn't once cast Earthquake in those twenty tests.

Now if you see WMD spells cast often in similar situations and I haven't, and didn't see even once in this test (with CBM 1.6 btw), then either of us has encountered a weird fluke. I wonder if others have time to run similar tests to check which one of us two has encountered the fluke.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Jarkko, if you're doing tests do you think you can also do it with the movement impairment issue? As in script the clops the same but have him and the warriors set to attack a prov, with the pan attacking their originating province.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Sure, I can do that, although I expect a series of ten tests is not enough for that sort of a test. The number of maenads would have to be standard too, and it would actually require several tests with different set-ups (maybe three test series would be enough; a lone Pan, a Pan with 10 maenads, a Pan with 50 maenads) to get any stastical validity.

However, that will have to wait for tomorrow or Monday, as I'm about to hit bed now :)

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

I'm willing to bet that if you look at the log you will see a malus for gem cost.

Basicly, the ai rates the success of various spells, and then downgrades the effectivess of the spell for the gem cost. Oh, and excessive fatigue too.

Re: Trading commanders, exploit or not?
 

Heck, I would probably use the Bogus Commanders orders at this point, if I could. I have never managed to do it, nor seen anyone else do it. I think it would be a bit like a home run, if someone managed to use it effectivly