Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Well, inevitably it's an abstraction. It has to be, considering the confines of the game. The mage you use to cast the spell, you can assume is the engineer overseeing the work, and the earth gems, special resources and terrain features utilized in the project. Making it cost earth gems, rather than just resources, is again a way to balance this out.

And you're absolutely right, there *are* other ways to stop Elephant Rushes. Good ways, infact, but not always ways that are effective or useable early in the game, for certain Nations.

As far as it cutting into turn limits (which I agree are kind of short, atleast for me), I'm aware of the problem, and there are things that can be done to mitigate the problem (like making them 1 hit=1 kill). Elephants themselves, though, with all their HP, and the possibility of regeneration, are just as much of a potential battle-lengthener as a bunch of barriers would be.

And there are some *really* interesting things that could be done with these kinds of units-Ice, Poison, and Fire have already been mentioned by vfb, but how about phantasmal wall (etherial), wall of clouds (flying), wall of shadows (stronger in darkness-as a deterrant to undead, for Nations which lack other undead/darkness deterrants), etc. (how about a spell that spammed a bunch of blinking walls?) and all the different immobile monster "walls" that could still attack, but couldn't otherwise move?

There's a lot of creative stuff that can be done with this.

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

You are correct Gandalf. Slingers are cheap, and hordes of them generally defeat elephants. Even if they make it through the missiles, there are usually enough to force a morale check.

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Funnily enough, independent provinces containing elephants often contain slingers, as well.

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

I think the only problem with sizing up creatures is that in every story or myth the creatures are all different sizes. I have books where dragons are huge and can crush an elephant by landing on it and there are others where dragons are smaller than horses. Golems can range in size as well from huge to tiny. I do agree there should be more than 6 sizes. Huh i kinda forgot where i was goin with this. nvm

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Yeah, I think this one is the real point of the discussion. :)

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

How do you suppose those ancient soldiers dealt with palisades that were in their way, other than to tear them down?

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Went around them.

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Well, if they were actual fortification stretching across the field, you'd tear them down. If there was just a block of palisades in the middle you'd go around them to get at the other soldiers.

I'm just envisioning the front rank breaking and the attacking army milling around trying to destroy the abandoned barricade while still having arrows and spells rained down on them.

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Yeah, that's definitely what would happen.

It's a nice idea HB, but can't be done in the Dom3 engine, because soldiers would always stop to attack every bit of palisade before moving on to fight the real threats.

Re: Trample balance discussion
 

Well, don't forget, there will be arrows and spells raining down from the attackers' side as well-not to mention, this is designed to stop elephants, so likely, the other side is going to *have* elephants-remember, this is niche, and meant to be too expensive to be used for anything *other* than as a niche effect. If soldiers stop to destroy them, they might be slowed for a little while, but they're still destroying a very expensive, pretty fragile, hard to replace unit.
More valuable by far than the average PD unit. They're not destroying every spare bit of scrapwood on the field, like a bunch of mindless maniacs, they're destroying earth gems, and a mage's time.