Re: Fixing PD?
 

I wish it were so, but it's not. In an Amazon province, PD is ... not Amazon, but your national troops.

And/or put a fort in every province. Which means that almost everyone gets fast-and-cheap watch towers. Add in a flying SC or other flying army to retake provinces before the watch towers are breached. It's all connected. These recurring patterns are not by chance.

Re: Fixing PD?
 

Exactly. Madcastling is a result of the uselessness of PD. If you could hold your provinces better with PD, you wouldnt see such blanket castling.

Re: Fixing PD?
 

Yeah . Then strategically placed Castles/Fortified cities would actually be good . With the extra Resources you could build much more national troops then also .

As it is atm you can do this only in sp though .
In MP the Order 3 , Sloth 3 , Death 3 , Misfortune 2 and Magic 0-3 Scale is much much to common .

Re: Fixing PD?
 

I'm with tinkthank on this one. I originally thought PD was too weak but after reading this thread and seeing everyone's opinions I think they are ok for the price. All that needs to be done is some compromising. Bring up strength of PD 10+ a little bit. Strengthen the extremely weak PDs (man, machaka, etc) so they are somewhat servicable. And tone down the really powerful province attacks just a bit (maybe just tag a few gems on?).

Re: Fixing PD?
 

Actually, I'm even OK with some nations just having weak PD. It's still big enough to stop scouts from taking over your lands. What it should really have is a tag right on the create nations set-up:
If it actually told you up-front that your PD wasn't any good when you started up a Machaka faction, it would go a long way towards not screwing over newbies. The big problem I see here is not that Machaka gets weak province defense, but that it doesn't actually tell you that they get weak province defense anywhere.

That's a nasty surprise that new players do not need to have sprung on them. Also, it should give you the read-outs of your nation by actual theme and not by base theme. If you are playing Return of the Raptors, it shouldn't tell you that you specialize in Air and Water - because you don't.

-Frank

Re: Fixing PD?
 

The manual was missing lots of important details for spells and artifacts as well. I recall reading the description for many items thinking... nice history, but what the heck does this thing do! I have faith Dominions_3 will place facts first and history last.

Some nations have province defense which is way too weak. Also for better gameplay value I highly recommend much stronger units for province defense within territories next to the capital you own. This gives the underdog a better chance for recovery.

Re: Fixing PD?
 

I dunno, I like some mystery. If I really want to know what an artifact or whatever does, it isn't that difficult to find out...

Re: Fixing PD?
 

If you want to weaken Ghost Riders, perhaps it might be thematic and sufficient to require the presence of ghosts -- or, more precisely, corpses. Zen's Conceptual Balance mod also offers another route, bumping up the skill requirement.