Tien Chi Conscription
 

Has anybody figured out what this does? From the description, I expected to see province defences increasing in provinces with order, but that isn't happening.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

I also wondered about that. Maybe it's only visible in actual battles, and you get more militia?

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

It adds "Slave" troops to your army. They have a spear and wear white robes. They are junk troops, but you get what you pay for. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Slaves? Only Mictlan is supposed to get slaves.

Conscription causes random increases in defence of provinces. Order affects the chances of an increase. High defence reduces the chance.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Wow, that's an incredibly nice ability, especially for obsessive people like me that blow their cash on defense=) I know I shouldn't, but it's always so tempting... just 1 more! =)

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Sorry. My bad. The effect is exactly what I expected, and as Kristoffer hinted, it isn't very powerful. I just didn't wait long enough for it to appear. Provinces which I have owned for a dozen turns or so but left with no defence now have a defence of two, and the province which I have owned the longest, but bought a dozen defence for, has seen no further increase.

[ November 19, 2003, 18:05: Message edited by: Truper ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

>Slaves? Only Mictlan is supposed to get slaves.

My mistake, it is Mict that gets the slaves.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

How much do these commanders that can conscript cost?

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Tien Chi's conscription is automatic in their dominion and dependent on order scale and defense allready present in province. The capture slaves order for Mictlan is available to Tribal Kings and Priest Kings for 45 and 250 respectively. Using the Priest Kings to capture slaves is not very cost effective even if they do get more than the tribal kings.

[ November 19, 2003, 21:59: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Has anyone EVER seen that work, EVER?
I just tried out a T'ien game (standard theme of course) and set for Order 3 and a dominion of 7 (using Oracle).

I kept a good eye on my PD, and I never once saw it improve, ever, even with Order 3.

Is this a bug?
Or is the improvment you have been hinting at somehow... intangible? But nevertheless there?

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

I'm not sure what the algorithm is, but I think it maxes out very quickly.

i.e. if you have more than VERY LITTLE pd the probability of an increase goes to zero

I doubt you will EVER see an increase in your home province pd, for example...

I think the ablity should be improved a little, if only to cut down on the "it's broken!!" threads.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Rabe the Draft Bored

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

PD appears to rise slower and slower as the total PD in the province increases. The first few are pretty quick and it gets ever-slower thereafter. That said, I have seen 10 PD provinces climb to 13 over a period of 1-2 dozen turns. As I said, it's slow when you have a bunch already.

PD increase is 'flavoring', not something I'd rely upon.

EDIT: I commented on this very thing in the Ashikaga mod thread, as that mod replaces TC, and thus (inadvertently) gets the TC base nation bonuses (the mod also gets TC heroes).

[ February 15, 2004, 14:18: Message edited by: Arryn ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I did search before posting and posted upon this thread I found (hence did not make new "its broken" thread)

I didnt get a PD improvement in provinces with PDs of 6 or more, ever.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I have, with provinces at 10+, and I have the savegames to prove it, so I am positive it works.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">LOL, in my first few SP games when I am learning the rope with the Desert Eye scenario, I regularly increase PD to at least 30 for all my provinces, 50+ for provinces with castles, and up to 100 in strategic provinces & coastal provinces in late games (to keep the annoying Rlyeh in water until I can build a underwater army to wipe them out). And yes, I deliberately keep at least one AI alive so I can test all the spells, forged items, and other things. So I do have to deal with their incessant attempt to gain lands, rather than just wipe them out which could be done easily enough. So I invest in PD with all those $ sitting in my treasury for fun at the very least.

It is funny to get the message of Rlyeh attacking my coastal provinces, only to be driven back by PD. In the rare occasions where they do gain a foothold, they usually lose too many troops that they can't advance any more in the immediate future and can easily be mopped out by my army provided I can reach them before reinforcement (which is almost always the case. Or I can use "Call of Wind" if they are that depleted)

Anyway, now when I play I don't go for ridiculous PDs (is there even a limit? I know you can go 100+, never bothered to find the limit), rather than quickly mop out the AIs, but it was fun nonetheless. Seeing an Arco army of ~20 Elephants & ~100 other troops driven back my Ulmish or Pythium 100PD gives me a good laugh. ^_^ (and just before anyone say it, yes, the Pythium PD is not so great...)

-Gateway103

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

The Tien Chi conscription ability is pretty much meaningless, since it works so rarely that you can't really build around it as a strategy. If the increase were far more noticeable, like a 30% chance of a +1 increase per order scale, this would actually become rather neat, and probably make them a good deal more attractive: At the moment, they feel like one of the weaker nations.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

i dont undertstand what it is supposed to do either.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

damn annoying forum O_o should read top to bottom and not go backwards.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not just a good deal, but incredibly more attractive. You could expect your province defense to increase every single turn in every province with order 3. That's a huge income boost.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Gateway: Limit on province defense is 125. Found that out in a game with Caelum where I was just messing around with late game spells and had ~8k gold income per turn post upkeep.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's sort of what I was getting at. As it stands, the current conscription, even with order-3, increases PD so rarely and weakly that it may as well be considered a random event rather than a national feature! Tien Chi's core national units are pretty weak as it stands, making the provincial defense conscription feature a more prominent part of the nation couldn't hurt at all.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Are you aware of what kind of income boost having your PD increase by 1 in every province, every turn, would be? In your capital alone, that's a starting income of 25 gold, 35 by the time turn 10 rolls around. If you spend 50 gold to get your PD up to around 10, then it will pay for itself in about 4 turns, once your defense gets to 15-20 and starts to be very expensive. When you have 10 PD in 20-30 provinces, that's a 200-300 gold piece income per turn, that increases rather quickly into the 400-600 gold per turn range.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Conscription was never intended to be something that 'gave them a boost' but as a thematic flavor enhancer. Conscription should not be changed if the base units of TC are weak (Which they are), but rather the units of TC should be changed.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The easiest, and IMO best, way to do this is to replace TC with the Ashikaga mod. The samurai are most assuredly not weak. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

Considering the amount of work and research that went into making the TC, I think that would be a poor choice. Not to take anything away from Potatoman's mod, which I think is very good.

Though maybe this kind of decision should be made by those who play TC extensively, rather than Jotun.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">But if it is something that happens so rarely once you have built even minimum PD for patrolling that you do seldom notice it unless you are looking very carefully in an attempt to observe it, it does not really add much flavour either.

It certainly seems much more like a minimally beneficient random event than actual conscription. After all, conscription is not people voluntarily joining up ever now in a rare while, it is the organised impressment of the populace in the military.

I would really like a change based on the level of PD already in a province:

Each turn, if
</font>

• <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">PD<5, 5%+ORDER*30% chance of PD being set to 5</font>
• <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">5<=PD<10, 5%+ORDER*30% chance of +1 PD</font>
• <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">10<=PD<20, 5%+ORDER*20% chance of +1PD</font>
• <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">20<=PD, 5%+ORDER*5% chance of +1PD</font>

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thus each province with high order would gravitate quickly to 10 (where automatic patrolling occurs) and a bit more slowly to 20 (for the second commander of the local defense), and only rarely improve thereafter.

It would represent a military system of conscription in all provinces for purposes of a low-level defense.

That would certainly seem much more in line with the name of the ability, and while it WOULD allow the player to save quite a bit of money on low level PD in provinces at a low risk of invasion, the player would still have to pay real money for high-level PD, which is what is most important anyhow.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Throwing the baby out with the bathwater is never a satisfactory solution for *any* problem. If you like Ashikaga, by all means play it (it seems like a really great mod) but TC is core and should be improved, not replaced.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I must be missing something here, but why is the PD value of T'ien Ch'i so eagerly desired? Their PD is among the weakest out there (Right up with Pythium and Pangaea). Even if the ratio was upped to whatever frequency you'd like it would have little impact on MP games, and a minor impact on SP (Only reason to really use PD in SP is to stop CoTW, CoTWild and to funnel the Computer to attack where you want them to).

If you are going to adjust something as far as conscription and the actual definition of the word, it would be to have more soldiers placed in PD per point. You still have to pay for their armor and armaments, you just have a readier supply of warm bodies.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">To Zen and fahdiz, I was not suggesting it as a solution, but as an option. I think people in this forum are becoming far too quick to jump on others for the slightest perceived "flawed thinking", no matter if they use smileys or not. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's a rather snide remark, don't you think? Especially since you don't personally know whether I've played TC or not (and I have, several times). By your thinking, only experts such as yourself are qualified to make suggestions. That's a pretty holier-than-thou attitude, and is unbecoming.

TC is so weak that it's usually the first nation to disappear in my SP games, often killed by AIs before I can get to them myself. My liking for Ashikaga aside, TC's weakness is why I've replaced them by Ashikaga. Heck, the indies I fight are tougher.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You stated your opinion of replacing it, I don't see how it could be considered not a 'solution' but an 'option' and the replies were just as viable as your 'option'.

And for the second, you are by far the most guilty of jumping for any sort of thinking or 'smiley faces'.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You can offer suggestions, but you hardly came with an adequate reasoning for it, other than the samurai not being weak. As I said, for the amount of work that was put into creating the nation and their corrisponding themes, it would be a mistake to throw it all away.

I could care less what you feel is holier than thou. Because of your decisions to not play certain aspects of the game (blood), your opinion may be biased to things you know nothing about. The more time you play TC, you would find it's troops are but a small part of the nation that makes it weak and more specifically it is it's mages and the mounted units.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In my SP games, the first one to die is the one I choose, so I have had varied experiences. In all actuallity, my feeling on the 'weakest' nation in SP is Mictlan, because the AI does not steer clear of most normal troops and concentrate on what they are good at, which is blood. So they are at a significant disadvantage.

[ February 15, 2004, 23:18: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ah, but you are missing my point. Obviously, I cannot speak for the point of view of the other debators in this thread, but from my point of view it is not about modifying it to be something that is of immense use and very valuable in SP or MP - that would be screwing around with the balance in a major way - it is about changing conscription to be something that is both a) visible, b) of some (though minimal) usefullness, and c) in line with what a feature like "conscription" actually suggests.

The problem with the current implementation is that if fails all three. You don't notice it is going on, you gain nothing from it really, and the effects do not seem to fit with conscription in the first place. As such, it is a feature better done entirely without - or changed to something that fulfills at least one or two of the points.

[Off topic, apart from the reasons you list, there is another reason to use a moderate 20-30 level of PD in SP in strategic provinces. PD can be extremely useful in SP as meatshields when backed up by archers/mages/priests defending armies in hotspots, as you lose nothing whatsoever if all the meatshields die in the defense so long as you hold the province. It cuts down on infantry replacement cost. Obviously of most importance if the AI is intent on overrunning you and has a substantial manpower advantage. This is the opposite of using PD to funnel the AI, really, as it is used where you expect the AI to attack rather than use it to turn it away.]

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Another excellent suggestion that I wholeheartedly support. You could even throw in a bonus low-level commander at 10 and 20, for something that would *feel* substantially different.

[ February 15, 2004, 23:23: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, that is exactly what it's used for. But it's hardly cost effective to buy more than say 10ish PD in order to do so (As a spot defense). It's more often easier to let the province fall and use your gold on other more effective things than to push alot of gold into the province.

There are numerous circumstances where PD can be of use, but these are mainly 'surprise' instances where they are not counting on an additional 10-20 fodder there to eat up lances/mindbLasts, etc.

The current way of conscription or suggested method of conscription does not allow that, since it's a slow and steady increase. Though this may just be my playstyle. I consider PD a waste on nations that must get 25+ in order for it to have a real impact.

As I said, the ability is a minor one, and if it was adjusted to whatever people feel appropriate, it would not affect the other 2 themes of TC, which are just as lacking as the base, because of the inherent weaknesses that TC has.

[ February 15, 2004, 23:30: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would tend to disagree - SP only - as it is quite often possible to set up a situation, by exploting AI weakness, where the AI will repeatedly hammer away at one province turn after turn, which can be very useful when you are fighting multi-front wars and you need to hold one front with relatively few real troops while prosecuting wars elsewhere. Rather than buying a large number of good real troops, which will need replacements on a regular basis and possibly cost a significant maintenance, the one-time expense of heavy PD backed up by mages and priests is, to my mind, preferable.

But then again, I am not sure we actually disagree on this one. It is possible that I just have an atavistic dislike to giving the AI even a remote chance of rampaging around in my backyard, if I can prevent it fairly easily.

MP - of course - must be another world entirely, which even I can see with my negligible MP experience. In MP investing in 10 PD is most likely a good way of wasting 55d for most any nation unless you are in overwhelming danger of being swarmed by lowlevel summoning spells.

[ February 15, 2004, 23:40: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I utilize Fortresses the same was as I imagine you use your PD. Mostly since they have multiple uses and will blunt a AI invasion even if they have forces that would defeat any amount of PD (SC's, etc). So I would regulate it to playstyle, which is a perfectly good excuse http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Though as I stated before, fixing or making Conscription viable/an asset, would still not fix the corrisponding themes that go with it. I tend to think of them as a whole, at least with TC, since I prefer the two themes both for their flavor/RP enjoyment and the variety they provide. So that is just a me thing.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

I think Peter's well-written argument still holds true though. It's not a suggestion to "fix" Tien Chi, but to fix conscription. That is, it should be fairly minor but noticable and worth something, and make sense. Currently, a low chance over a long time of going from zero to 1-3 PD, up to an eventual max of about PD 6, is extremely weak, hard to even notice, and worth very little. If it built up at a noticible rate up to about 10, and then slowly eventually might get up to 15-20, I'd say that would be about right.

Balancing the various themes of Tien Chi is a different matter altogether.

PvK

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well perhaps I just look at it a different way. If the Base and Themes of a race is determined to be sufficiently out of alignment enough to need a balance change, then it moves logically for me to look at the improvements that are common to all themes and improve them while retaining the original intention.

Since Conscription is only Order based and is only usable by the base nation, it's priority is low, though it's intention was to provide more thematic flavor. If Conscription is changed not to balance the nation (which it will be regardless, every nuance impacts it, even in the slightest degree) then it has to be looked at and possibly adjusted later if the commonality between the base and themes is changed to put it in better 'balance'.

I agree that something should be done to Conscription at some point and time, as it is just something that you don't consider when choosing your nation. And if Peter's suggestion is implemented, fantastic. But I would rather have the entire nation viewed for balance before Conscription and if the Developers feel it's needed, adjust it, then adjust Conscription to fit that vision of balance.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">My apologies if you felt I was "jumping on you". In reading your post, I thought you were suggesting the Ashikaga mod as a *replacement* for TC - and not just in your own games, either.

Glad we got that cleared up, and I'm glad you didn't mean what I thought you meant.

Looking forward to more discussion of conscription, balancing, and TC.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What would be some of your suggestions for TC balance, Zen?

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks. I can readily see how it could be viewed as other than I intended. I would never propose, nor view kindly anyone else's proposal, that an integral part of a game, no matter who's game, just be scrapped. Not even some of the stuff in MOO3 ... <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think we can have all the discussions we'd like, but that IW probably doesn't view TC as 'broken' and in need of fixing. I suspect that if they did, they'd've done something about it by now. So anyone who feels that a change is needed will just be told "that's what the mod tools are for".

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

A few suggestions at current I believe for Base TC are:

Give all their Commanders 2 Movement or modify the statistics to reflect being the slowest leaders in the game (no other commanders have mv 1)

Give the Celestial Master +1 Astral, either adjust the cost or change the paths to fit it in.

Adjust the gold and/or resource cost of the standard heavy troops of TC.

As of right now they have terrible long weapon units (Glavies and Lightly Armored Pikes).

I'd have to wait and see exactly what the effects of the new and improved HorseArcher orders of Fire and Attack, which will hopefully fix that particular aspect. It might have more of an impact on balance than I could say.

Change the Celestial Servant and Celstial Soldier's paths to cast to be able to be summoned without having to rely on Random picks.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, I am not experienced with Dom II yet (darn demo is all I have right now) but I do know that game balance - especially in a wargame this deep - is an ongoing process. There isn't any way the developers can test every scenario themselves, and thus the community of players (and this forum in particular) has a great deal to do with presenting things to the developers they might not have seen/thought of before.

Patch 2.08 is soon to arrive, and there's no sign that patches will be grinding to a halt after its release. Furthermore, it seems to me (from reading a lot of the threads in this forum) that Illwinter is a very "populist" developer - that is to say, they appear to take all suggestions quite seriously.

In my opinion, something doesn't need to be completely broken in order to be in need of a little bit of tweaking. TC is probably viable, but could be more so. Again, I'm speaking from gaming experience as a whole, not from specific experience with Dom II.

[ February 16, 2004, 02:26: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

IW has a good tract record for trying to fix things; whether or not they think all suggestions are warranted is another matter entirely. I couldn’t say that any or all of the suggestions people give would even get the attention the original poster desires, but if you provide a good argument it would be hard to imagine they wouldn’t.

Some things are just outside of the realm of possibility at current and other things they are just stubborn about.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">They do, but as you just alluded to, the crux of the matter is whether they agree that TC needs some serious tweaking. I know this has been discussed quite a bit in this forum over the past few weeks, but I don't recall seeing IW weigh in on the matter. If they don't agree, my point about modding any desired changes may end up being the way to go.

Perhaps you'd care to do a Zen mod for TC?

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

I'm waiting for the full Mod tools before I try to do a Mod. I'd rather be able to do everything than halfway because of the limitations of the Mod Tools.

This is, more than likely, the best way to try to show implemented changes and their effect. Akin to Cherry's Scale Mod.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

What you say makes perfect sense, on that topic. This thread was about the detail of Conscription, though, rather than overall TC balance. If that's lacking, it would be more important. I can't comment all that much on Tien Chi balance since I haven't tried them myself yet. A few random things I have seen:

Tien Chi commanders aren't technically the only ones who suffer speed 1 strategic. (Ulmish Guardian commanders, maybe Arco hoplite commanders (?) ... ) But ya it would be good to know IW's reason for this, or else perhaps to change it.

Tien Chi AI came and steamrollered my Arco when I was trying to build up a Natajara SC. They had over a dozen celestial giants of some sort which were quite hard to deal with. Just one example, and it sounds like it may be atypical.

I had a Tien Chi mercenary group of about 20 armored horse archers, and they were very effective with simple Fire orders. They'd kill the enemy with arrows until they arrived, and then kill those that made it through the arrows, in melee. I agree though that like most non-lance/knight cavalry, they would be better with better AI/orders options, especially if there were a way to get them and other light skirmishers to actually skirmish - i.e. harrass with missiles, and avoid (back away from) any melee where they are at a disadvantage.

PvK

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well perhaps I just look at it a different way. If the Base and Themes of a race is determined to be sufficiently out of alignment enough to need a balance change, then it moves logically for me to look at the improvements that are common to all themes and improve them while retaining the original intention.

Since Conscription is only Order based and is only usable by the base nation, it's priority is low, though it's intention was to provide more thematic flavor. If Conscription is changed not to balance the nation (which it will be regardless, every nuance impacts it, even in the slightest degree) then it has to be looked at and possibly adjusted later if the commonality between the base and themes is changed to put it in better 'balance'.

I agree that something should be done to Conscription at some point and time, as it is just something that you don't consider when choosing your nation. And if Peter's suggestion is implemented, fantastic. But I would rather have the entire nation viewed for balance before Conscription and if the Developers feel it's needed, adjust it, then adjust Conscription to fit that vision of balance. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. What I *meant* to say, of course, is that they give *good* suggestions (i.e. well-defended, non-earthshattering, balanced ones) consideration. At least that is the way it appears to me.

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I understand what the thread is about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif , but if suggested changes are given for one aspect then those changes, at least in part, affect the balance of the nation. Imagine Conscription given to Pythium or Arco, in it's current form it wouldn't do much at all. But if it was improved to the point where it was either 'good enough to be noticed' or 'by the definition of the word' then that would place Pythium or Arco even more above most other nations. Just imagine Jotun with Conscription.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I had forgotten about the Guardian Commander (more than likely because I never use him). The Lord Warden is another, though he has stealth and it doesn't really work against him. Though I think the reason he is Movement 1 is because of his armor. Hoplite Commanders move at 2, same as Machaka Commander.

For Tien Ch'i: the Eunuch, the Ceremonial Master, Minister of Rituals, and Celestial Master all have Movement 1.

I believe the reason/why for it is because common knowledge of the era had most dignitaries and ceremonial leaders traveled with a retinue of servants, slaves, etc. And so that is represented by them losing movement.

In game however, it makes a huge difference having the greater portion of your commanders regulated to 1 movement.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, Celestial Soldiers are very nice. They are fairly pricy (4 Air Gems per Soldier - 20 Air Gems to cast the spell).

If they had 15 that would be summons worth 60 Air Gems, quite a healthy chunk. I'd hope they would be decent enough to make you think twice for that cost http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ February 16, 2004, 04:37: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, quite so.

Quote:

Imagine Conscription given to Pythium or Arco, in it's current form it wouldn't do much at all. But if it was improved to the point where it was either 'good enough to be noticed' or 'by the definition of the word' then that would place Pythium or Arco even more above most other nations. Just imagine Jotun with Conscription.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Jotun with conscription would still only have meaningful effect if it were on an accelerated scale, such as Peter suggested. As it is, a couple of points after 10-20 turns, with a max level of about 6, isn't even particularly noticable for Jotunheim, because the gold cost of them buying the same thing manually is very very low, and it only happens if you don't buy it above 5 anyway, and with Jotunheim, buying 5-20 defense is often worth the price. Tempting the J player to not buy any defense in the hope of saving a very few pennies is more likely to just get players to neglect defense hoping for insignifigant savings.

Quote:

... I had forgotten about the Guardian Commander (more than likely because I never use him).

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Before the Last patch, some/all of the other Ulmish commanders had move 1 too, but they changed that in the patch. Now even Ulm's Full Plate commanders with tower shields march 2, while the Guardian marches 1.

Quote:

The Lord Warden is another, though he has stealth and it doesn't really work against him. Though I think the reason he is Movement 1 is because of his armor.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It'd be interesting to know IW's reasons for choosing certain movement rates. My assumption has been that it has something to do with the use of beasts, physical condition, and/or travel habits.

Quote:

... For Tien Ch'i: the Eunuch, the Ceremonial Master, Minister of Rituals, and Celestial Master all have Movement 1. I believe the reason/why for it is because common knowledge of the era had most dignitaries and ceremonial leaders traveled with a retinue of servants, slaves, etc. And so that is represented by them losing movement. In game however, it makes a huge difference having the greater portion of your commanders regulated to 1 movement.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yeah, hmm. If there is a meaningful thematic reason, it might be better to balance them in other ways than un-doing something that has a reason.

PvK

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Boys, how many times do I need to repeat that this is simply not true? I have savegame files with conscriptions at 13+ (I bought PD to 10, and the freebies built on top of that).

Re: Tien Chi Conscription
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, so that is why if you change it so that it has a meaninful impact on your nation (as Peter suggests, which if it's not apparent, I believe is a good idea) then it would affect the balance of the nation. The most meaningful impact I could think of was Jotun who has great PD. So as you can see if it is adjusted, it would affect the balance of the nation.
<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I agree. That is why I said either give them movement 2, or adjust their statistics or the commander in some way to make up for it. Such as, if each of those is slow because of their retinue, when they are in combat give them some sort of inherent bodyguards or something similiar to fit the theme while not unbalancing it.