Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

Sorry guys, but I'm pretty new to the Boards and have to ask about this...

What exactly is Norfleeting?

From what I have read you create a tower and a lab in every province? This keeps you from being raided and gives you a bit of protection.

And makes sense if you taking only a small percentage to have a tower on each province.

It appears on the Boards that this is a questinoable play style?

Basically what are the benefits, weaknesses and why is it thought to be a dishonest style or is it only because Norfleet uses it a lot and there is a grudge or something?

Christopher

[ July 02, 2004, 15:34: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

I thought it was called Mad Castling

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

I think it is something like building temple, fort and a lab to every province, and when enemy comes to siege it, you harass him with spells that send one-use armies and maybe supercombatants. Vampire Queen, before she was made more expensive, was very useful on this as she was flying, ethereal and had life drain as ana innate ability, as well as being able to have enough magics to cover most buffs and Cloud Trapeze. Norfleet didn't use her immortality as she was died almost never when properly decked with items, but it still healed her afflictions and I think helped in early province grabbing.

I have never played with or versus this strategy, so I might have understood some facts wrong. I only read about it in this forum. Do a search for 'castling'.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

It's a not-really-that-new strategy that apparently existed also in Dominions I, that I seem to be the flagship bearer of in Dominions II.

Basically, it involves building a castle in every province, then clubbing people over the head with some sort of fast-moving response force, generally SCs, as they try to siege your castles.

Certain individuals complain about it very vocally because they find it to be "boring", as if I was somehow obligated to make attacking me an enjoyable and pleasurable experience in blatant disregard of basic psychology, which states that this would simply reinforce this sort of (undesirable) behavior.

The Good:
Your magic site income, and the temples you build in the provinces to maintain your dominion, are protected from sudden burnination: Since anyone attacking the province must storm the castle before he can burn down the temple, you will never suddenly lose temples without warning. As nearly everything is castled, no obvious point of vulnerability presents itself. Your researchers and other squishes are protected from being suddenly annihilated by a surprise attack from teleporters, fliers, or Ghost Riders.

In addition, the damage caused by any invading army is thus contained for the low cost of only $300. No matter how large the opposing force, he will be stalled for at least one turn unless he choses to bypass the castle entirely and march onwards, which will leave the castle unstormed and the province will revert back to your rule upon the departure of the invading force, unless he cares to leave behind crap as he moves. Either way, the damage is no worse than if you had no castle. No amount of PD can provide this for you.

The Bad:
It's expensive: This tends to necessitate the use of a cheap, and therefore, crappy, castle to cut costs. It also makes it difficult to collect resources by means of the castle's admin rating....not that the crappy watchtower you'd take to facilitate this really HAS an admin rating.

The Ugly:
Certain individuals will whine loudly and complain about how boring this is. These are, incidentally, the same people likely to complain that the game is taking too long, or complain that their turns in a large-map game are now too much work because it takes them 2 hours to complete. This is because they have the attention spans of 6-year old hyperactive children and can't be bothered to concentrate on any task that takes longer than 30 seconds to complete. I place the blame firmly on the fact that they were not beaten frequently enough as small children and did not suffer sufficient hardship and deprivation while growing up. They are thus spoiled and weak, and complain that it is boring if an opponent does not simply roll over and die without resistance.

It should also be noted that the complainers tend to also be the same handful of people. I chalk this up to sour grapes because I always squash them in my preferred slow, deliberate, ponderous, and inexhorable style, which tends to be devoid of any dramatic attacks that tend to rampage unchecked for a bit, then finally fail as the entire mass is caught and annihilated by the defending force, preferring instead to advance gradually, consolidate holdings, and attack only with overwhelming force, or expendable probing attacks.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Too long, didn't read http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's nice to know that you approve of child abuse along with all your other psychological problems.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

but i think norfleet is correct .
i can't see any point why castling should be forbidden .
it gives you 1 turn time to react normally . a watchtower has no other advantages than this .
as norfleet said it gives you instead an early disadvantage . unless playing ermor ( there you have other castles which are worse ) you have
-reduced income in your capitol compared to the 40 admin castle
-much worse troop production capacity
if you have good capitol only troops you have a serious disadvantage in building them with a watchtower .

since a watchtower has no walls storming it is easy . it has very little defense so normally after 1 ! turn it can be stormed .

so in general the only thing a watchtower gives you is delaying the enemy attack 1!! turn and choosing if you want to react .
compared to the disadvantages i really don't see why most people here on the forums are whining about mad castling .

ihmo you have only 2 choices :
- cheap watchtower for castling every province .
- the 80 point 40 admin castle .
all other castles are suboptimal choices ihmo .

and another small argument for the watchtower :
some races like mictlan , machaka ... have quite resourcecheap national troops but crappy militia .
you need normally a 2-3 times bigger force to defeat an ulmish pd than to defeat an mackaka pd of equal size .

so any rules limiting use of castles are in favour of e.g. ulm which normally is better building only a few castles for troop production than castling everything . but they have better pd to compensate .

so forbidding mad castling as a mpgamerule is unfair and not the other way round .
norfleet is totally right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

Originally posted by Boron:

"so forbidding mad castling as a mpgamerule is unfair and not the other way round .
norfleet is totally right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif "

It is only unfair if you are FORCED to play one of the penalised races.

OTOH I agree with your analysis but then I am totally nooblacious.


Pickles

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I do not call being smacked with a ruler for failure to pay attention in class child abuse. I do not call being spanked for failure to follow the rules child abuse. But I doubt you're old enough to understand. You weren't around then. You don't remember what it was like.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">thnx for agreeing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

just in a hopefully more understandable way some more explanation of my point of view :

if you take watchtowers with this nations they aren't penalised that much because this is their way to cope for their weak defense http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
if you play mictlan and protect your provinces with watchtowers ( the ones with your bloodhunters first ) it is okay .
but if you are forced by the rule to build only 1 castle per e.g. 3 provinces it is a big disadvantage for e.g. mictlan while it is a big advantage for e.g. ulm .

so a no castling rule forces you to not take some nations because it is unwise .
while with castling these races are much more competetive .
mictlans blood hunters e.g. are protected for 1 turn this way and you can send in a rescue force of demons e.g.
as norfleet said otherwise e.g. a ulmish pd will much easier defeat a ghost riders force than a machaka/mictlan one .
if you didn't have a castle you couldn't afford to protect the province without a standing army which is too expensive mostly . while with the castle you don't loose your temple / lab immediately and the ghost riders spell in particular is totally useless against you while it would be almost "unbalanced" if you may only recruit pd .

[ June 30, 2004, 17:10: Message edited by: Boron ]

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">How old I am is irrelevant, as are both of your examples above, since neither qualifies for the "beating" descriptor. When you say that children aren't beaten enough, you are stating that children aren't physically injured enough through repetitive blows, since that's basically what the term means.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I do not call being smacked with a ruler for failure to pay attention in class child abuse. I do not call being spanked for failure to follow the rules child abuse. But I doubt you're old enough to understand. You weren't around then. You don't remember what it was like. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Neither were I, and I am happy about it! It is an effective way, I believe that, but I would not like to be in the receiving end... And whatever you think, it is possible that the 'education' leaves the child with a trauma or some other psychological imbalance. I believe that it would cause problems more often than not, and that the consequencing problems would often be severe, but understand that others can have very different views.

I understand that punishment is needed, but I don't think pain is good. Besides, allowing some physical punishments (smacking by ruler) would most propably leave a hole-in-the-law big enough for some people to crawl through after intentionally hurting children.
Unfortunately, some kids seem to have grown up knowing no-one can hurt them and thinking they cannot be punished. I don't know what I would do for one, mind you, and hope I never have to worry for someone like that.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">How old I am is irrelevant, as are both of your examples above, since neither qualifies for the "beating" descriptor. When you say that children aren't beaten enough, you are stating that children aren't physically injured enough through repetitive blows, since that's basically what the term means. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or just possibly he was exaggerating for humourous effect.

Hard to believe you seriously think Norfleet was advocating child-abuse during a discussion about Dominions 2 strategy. Looks like an attack of deliberate obtuseness to me.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Once again, Grahame to the aid of hypothetical children who may be wounded by Norfleet's throw-away remark. These Boards are truly fortunate to have a champion of the people unafraid to take the thread as far off topic as needed. How I look forward to Grahame's next attempt to discredit his percieved enemies with commentary completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">How old I am is irrelevant, as are both of your examples above, since neither qualifies for the "beating" descriptor. When you say that children aren't beaten enough, you are stating that children aren't physically injured enough through repetitive blows, since that's basically what the term means. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Neither qualifies for "beating" descriptor? Y'know, I might agree - being one of those kids who was beaten, with a barber strop, with a walking stick, once with a rifle cleaning rod.

But frankly - the law in the USA calls a spanking or smacking someone with a ruler child abuse, and sometimes even assault. And lots and lots of bleeding heart liberals do call those "beatings", and report parents to the police for child abuse because they "beat" their children (aka, spanked them). And the children are taken away, and sometimes criminal charges are filed, and all too often the parents need to spend boat loads of money on a lawyer to get the children back, not to mention to try to avoid a criminal conviction.

In the meantime, other children are beaten to death, in areas where the neighbors don't ever call the authorities, or where the case workers are too overworked and simply don't follow through.

Color me mildly disgusted, that personal animosity from a game is enough to get people accusing one another of advocating child abuse.

Feh.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

I think we've already discussed this in a previous thread where Norfleet advocated "beatings" in which the Developers were involved. Whatever your personal feelings on the topic of child rearing, the use of physical punishment or not. Or the situation of Child Abuse and society's impact on it should not be taken to a personal level.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I doubt that he's capable of such exaggerations.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, I do believe that he was advocating just that. After all, it fits right in with his persona that came out in the spyware thread.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You might want to learn how to spell before you make an attempt at pithy remarks.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You might want to learn how to spell before you make an attempt at pithy remarks. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you can't debate or rebut the content of what they said, attack their spelling? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hey, don't diss the spelling attack. It's a time-honored distractionary technique that's proven its worth on Internet forums and chatrooms world-wide.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hey, don't diss the spelling attack. It's a time-honored distractionary technique that's proven its worth on Internet forums and chatrooms world-wide. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Proper spelling and grammar is absolutely essential, in all aspects of life! I'm an editor, so I should know!

Say... what's this thread about anyway?

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You want a rebuttal? It won't be particularly different from what I've already written in many other threads and Messages here.

Anyways, here it is:

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">First, you might want to learn how to spell my name, and various other words if you want a serious reply. Secondly, I'm objecting to the patronizing tone that Norfleet uses for just about every post where he discusses anything other than the most basic game mechanics. Thirdly, I happen to dislike it when he pretends that his long off-topic ramblings are somehow on-topic.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i too think that children should never be beaten .
But the child beating proposal from norfleet ihmo was only a joke .
it may be distasteful and i don't know norfleet so perhaps i am wrong and he means it really serious. but he has the right of freedom of expression like everybody else here .
the whole discussion about this is really OT .

but in norfleets words lies wisdom :
the guys who always complain when the game Lasts longer and the turns Last longer really have a problem which norfleet called a bit exagerating hyperactive.
they find it useful to blame something else and just never waste a thought that they only lost because they made faults.
but no it is because the enemy uses a unbalanced thing like castling .
i have dom 2 only since 2 weeks and played only patch 2.12 but i can't see why :
-a sphinx may not teleport anymore
-ermor may not use again a vq

the nerfing down of the vq in general was neccessary to make the lichs a bit more attractive i think but it was nerfed down to much a bit ihmo . at least why ermor may not use the more expensive vq at all i don't understand .

so when people continue whining about castling perhaps in the next patch in the same turn in which an army wins a battle in a province with a castle the sieging and defending values are compared immediately and if successful the castle is stormed even in the same turn or each castle costs points even the watchtower or any bad thing like this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Norfleet had absolutely nothing to do with this. Even those who started playing Dom2 at when it was released did not appropriately know the pain of the Teleporting Sphinx and it's instant destruction and it, much more than the Vampire Queen ever would be, was more of an issue.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Norfleet had absolutely nothing to do with this. Even those who started playing Dom2 at when it was released did not appropriately know the pain of the Teleporting Sphinx and it's instant destruction and it, much more than the Vampire Queen ever would be, was more of an issue. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">my posting was not accusing norfleet but mainly sharing his points http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
i just thought that teleporting at least costs gems and you have to build a lab in the province to which you teleported in order to teleport again right ?
so i perhaps noobishly thought at least you have to pay for your movement and can only move every 2 turns with a sphinx + have to research 3 levels in traumaturgy for teleport .

may a sphinx move by one of the other spells then ? like astral travel ? or the unique artifact which lets you teleport once / turn as special ability ?

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Sure you have to pay for the gems, but that also gives you a thousand hitpoint piece of stone with a protection of 30 that virtually no early game army can defeat before they are forced to autorout.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I see the entire "autorout" problem as the fundamental issue at hand: Battles should be fought to the death! Or at least until nobody is actually fighting anymore, for, say, 3 rounds.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just imagine, for example. Someone on turn 7 being able to drop their 500hp (usually down to 300 or so in enemy dominion) Sphinx on your capital. With 30 Prot, and a good amount of Astral (needed to even protect from Magic Duel) casting Mind Burn then Soul Slay.

Now while it was possible to defeat, and had it's weaknesses (not many) it was a huge limitation to the choices of pretender designs that could deal with the Telesphinx. Thus, it was changed to being very hard to play. Though not permanantly, remember paitence is a Virtue.

[ June 30, 2004, 22:19: Message edited by: Zen ]

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I recall that you yourself admitted that the Sphinx is now useless, as he is completely immobile by any means, even the higher-level teleportations like Astral Travel, which wouldn't be quite the same threat for a turn-7 teledrop. As he still remains a hefty 60 points, while offering nothing that an Oracle or Sacred Statue cannot, magically or dominionly, and being unable to actually GO anywhere, rendering bringing his physical power to bear impossible, he is useless at 60 points. If he were zero points, he'd be a viable alternative to an Oracle: While totally immobile, he'd be tough and cost no more than the oracle does.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Patience is a VQ. Virtues aren't immune to BoT so can't afford to wait forever.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just imagine, for example. Someone on turn 7 being able to drop their 500hp (usually down to 300 or so in enemy dominion) Sphinx on your capital. With 30 Prot, and a good amount of Astral (needed to even protect from Magic Duel) casting Mind Burn then Soul Slay.

Now while it was possible to defeat, and had it's weaknesses (not many) it was a huge limitation to the choices of pretender designs that could deal with the Telesphinx. Thus, it was changed to being very hard to play. Though not permanantly, remember paitence is a Virtue. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">ok this is really brutal i agree
almost no nation has a chance to defeat a telesphinx at turn 7 .
but on the other hand now it is completely useless because it can use no other travel spell too as norfleet said http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif . so less variety in pretender selection .
would it perhaps have been possible to either :
-increase the teleportation gem costs ONLY for the sphinx casting it ?
-forbid teleportation in the enemy capital with the sphinx ?

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There are some ideas around. And yes, I will admit the Sphinx as it is right now, is probably my Last choice of pretenders. However, as I said paitence is a virtue. I would rather have it in it's current state than where it was in the interim where something is done to it to be 'fixed'.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

Meh. The simple solution would have been to disallow the Sphinx to teleport, but let it retain the ability to Gateway or Astral Travel, which are much higher level spells. Thus, a Sphinx could still be utilized in battle, but not merely dropped on people on turn 7.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

Going back to the OP topic, my take:

The benefits/pros from castling:
-Protection of magic sites, temples, labs & recruitment of indep exhotic mages/troops.
-Increased income (depending on the fort's admin).
-Allows recruitment of national troops & commanders.
-Increased supply & resources (depending on admin).
-Protects troops & commanders from surprise attacks.
-The province cannot be lost in one turn to raiders.

The cons:
-Cost in gold!! while castling your valuable provinces can be beneficial, these benefits are less & less clear the less valuable the province is, as the opportunity costs of investing that gold elsewhere are higher.

-Extreme castling requires a low cost fort to be viable (300 gold ones), and these either have low admin ( Mausoleum & Watch tower, which have the drawback of a serious penalty in early income & resources) or high selection costs (Wizard tower at 120 design points).

-A castled province prevents the owner from immediate retaliation vs raiders via movement/distant summon spells: the defender teleporting mages & armies will show up inside the walls, leaving the raiders a full turn to do whatever they wish. This makes the fully fortified empire very vulnerable to burnt land tactics & multiple strikes:

Strike at 5 or so forts at the same time, does your enemy have powerful enough armies/fliers in range to retaliate (or inside the sieged fort)? if yes tax to 200% & consider moving on, if not consider storming in or pillaging. Do not forget that if you storm the fort you might run into the relief force that just teleported in, so be ready to take some losses.

Only distant attack spells with no allegiance can hit the invaders doing this before they act, but these spells are pretty weak in the early & mid game.

-The defender must be ready to fight & retaliate on multiple fronts, otherwise every single fort lost to a multiple strike will become a stronghold for the enemy in the middle of his lands. The defender must also be able to handle the attacker's main force with his own, otherwise he will lose a fort every 2 turns.

-Domes are counter-productive with this strategy as they prevent the defender from reinforcing magically, so research those army bLasting & province bLasting spells & cast away.


Chew on the above & make your turtling opponent suffer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

good summary wendigo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

you can't pillage before you stormed the fort or ?

i agree that getting attacked at 5 forts at the same time is bad . BUT it would be even worse if you had no castles around there because the 5 provinces would have been lost immediately + in mid / late game you probably have in most of them a temple anyway + pd which is lost immediately so - 300 gold or so .

with a fort you only need 1 point = 1 gold in defense in order to see the attacking force http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
and perhaps of the 5 besieged forts you can retaliate on 1 or 2 immediately and at the others the enemy marches further so no damage at all.
even if he besieges perhaps you are lucky and in one of them he doesn't break the walls at the first turn .

finally for blood nations it is especially important to castle . especially abysia can fly in a devil army quite early which has thnx to the demonbreed a range of 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
otherwise the valuable blood hunters would either be slain or if it is a weak attack like call of the wild , ghost riders .....
at least the blood slaves captured this turn are most likely wasted for battle spells like summon imps http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

so ihmo for blood hunting nations especially castling is a must while e.g. ulm may benefit more from not castling everything for better troop production ( at least early - midgame )

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There's no point in pillaging if you are going to storm the fort. You only pillage what you cannot hold.


<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not necessarily worse. If you have no fort in those provinces you can teleport/cloud trapeze your pretender or a small mage force on one of those 5 armies & waste it. Full castling is not always the optimum choice, definitely not if you cannot defend vs a multipronged attack.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">If you can only retaliate in 2 out of 5 forts you will lose the other 3 (remember, paper walls) vs a competent opponent if his force is big enough to breach. If it's not the provinces will be unusable for income & blood hunts for a while after being pillaged.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'd rather say that castling works better for nations with magically mobile mages that need also multiple recruitment spots (say, Caelum or Pythium), and worst for those nations depending on capitol only troops.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

[quote]Originally posted by Wendigo:

Quote:

Originally posted by Boron: [qb] you can't pillage before you stormed the fort or ?

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">i don't have the option to pillage ?
i now checked if i have it when the gate is breached and you can storm the fort.

but still the pillage option is not available .
on the one hand realistic since most valuable goods are brought to the castle but on the other hand you can't bring everything in the castle + there was a surprise effect e.g. when the mongols / huns plundered in middle ages .


so you can set taxes on 200% but at least not pillage .

or my Version is buggy which i don't believe http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

You can't pillage a fortified province unless the castle is taken. This is certainly another reason to castle: It contains the level of damage marauders can inflict.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

I've been mulling this over and I'm not sure that there is an overwhelming advantage at all to castling.

I would build a castle for a number of reasons usually.

I need more forts to purchase larger numbers of national non capitol troops, not relevant to all nations.

I want to protect an important province for bloodhunting (the hunters etc), magic site or special recruitable.

Its in strategically good place to start producing new armies from or block the entry of another nation (peninsula provs etc)

So, on one level depending on how costly your castles etc are, you are going to build a number of them anyway.

A castle gives you essentially one turn (generally) of grace on the 'total' loss of a province. This has the effect of protecting a temple or unprotected magetype for one turn also.

Now without going into minute. The various outcomes would seem to be, wait and knack his temple, remaining defenders, fast response army

Move to avoid his fast reponse army, which regardless of their being a castle there will effectively revert back to defender ownership.

The defender can fast response army directly to seiged prov or second guess your next move as hes obviously prepared to face your invading force otherwise this wouldn't be even in his mind.

So, castle or not, your either cat and mousing or planning to nail his force. All thats saved is the temple and any squishies.

Even if you bring in the idea of relief forces or multiple strikes, you will still be facing an army thats built to defend a nation and your either ready for it, or not.

There is of course the immortal defender problem, but even if you take a uncastled province with a temple in it, you still dont reverse the dominion in it instantly so you would have to prepare in advance to cope with immortals regardless of castle or not.

And of course everytime you let a province slip, your opponent is then 'castled' against you. So it would seem that the main advantage is to protect non focal mage types like bloodhunters or site activators.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's nice to know that you approve of child abuse along with all your other psychological problems. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

I think there's a right way to beat kids (the way I was beaten) and many wrong ways.

When we would beg for candy at the store we were told to stop, then told to stop with a warning that we would be spanked right there in the store (add the pain to the shame), then, of course, it would actually happen if we continued.

The second way was the worst. I'd do something wrong, like steal or lie or start a forest fire or shoot at people with a bb gun, something fairly bad. Then I was scolded and told to go to my room and come down for 'punishment.' The nature of which was never revealed until the moment of impact. What this does is takes the anger out of it and gives the parent a chance to cool down before laying on hands or the switch.

The whole "go out to the woodshed and find a switch to be beaten with and if it's too small, I'll pick it" gives the parent time to relax and strike the kid without any rage or feelings, simply execution of the logical conclusion to the child's poor actions.

As the kid gets older, you will really have to do damage to have them do anything but laugh at your spankings, so I'd say past 11 or so, no beatings. So what you do is 1) take **** away from them such as telling them when their 13 that when they get their driver's license you will take it away from them for 4 months...the span of time they'll never remember, but you will! ha ha! 2)Make them stand in front of a clock for hours 3)Wake them up VERY early to spread gravel on the driveway or dig a ditch on a saturday morning and keep them working the whole day, not even mentioning that it's punishment, but they'll know.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You're going about it the wrong way. You want to squish the attacking army using ritual magic: teleport, gateway, the C9 4Death spell with the riders etc. There is no escape from these spells; the only way to dodge these attacks requires a lab... which you can't have as long as the castle remains in the province. The C9 Death spell is especially cool, since it is cheap&effective, and leaves you without an unwanted magic army and a liberated province. You can even use it to defend an ally, which makes the spell bloody unique http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Stack the spells as neccessary.

To defend aginst this you need a large army --- enough to stand against anything the defender will throw against you. And since you will be attacked before you can move, you might as well siege the castle and destroy the temples & mages + gain a free castle.

This is an excellent strategy, which is attributed to Norfleet.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

Verra late for me and much wine has oiled this evening..

Query. Should you choose to attack a province, then leave the next turn will a summoned spell army such as horde from hell or ghost riders etc attack you prior to your army moving ?

and is there any difference between being able to ghost riders/hordeetc on someone who is castled and someone who is not ? It would seem like that situation might well be a matter of intent, which again leads me to think, make an army big enough to stab up, 25 imps and one devil or 33 undead horse.

But this evenings reply is speculative. Im too wasted to cogitate what I want to say.

Spiro.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yup: A magically created attack will strike before you can leave the province on foot.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hordes wouldn't work because they'd sit in the castle and drink beer, but if the enemy army is slaughtered by Ghost Riders and you are castled, you do not need to send anyone to mop-up: Instead of becoming an independent province that you must send a guy to reclaim, who might then get killed, and then rebuild your temple, the enemy army simply dies and the province instantly reverts back to you.

There's also the benefit that you can build a lab in the province, which the enemy cannot make use of immediately upon seizing the province, and thus he cannot gateway large numbers of reinforcing troops in, nor teleport out.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You learn to spell it... WTF kinda screwed up spelling is that anyway?

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

So in essence, having a castle would mean you sent ghost riders and not having one a horde (meaning the diffrence). Were you to be only sending a summoned army that is.

And the lab, well if there wasn't a lab there anyway he would have to take a turn to build one so thats the same as seiging and taking the castled one. All under the same threat of retributive strike from the original defender.

It would seem to be a tactic of assest protection. If im going to build a lab that usually means I have a reason to, gem focal centre, summoned army producer, bloodhunters....Which if an enemy attacked I would be trying to retake in as hostile a manner as possible.

If its an empty province as it were, low pop, low gold, no sites or low production one etc. I probably wouldnt build a lab.

The reason Im going through these thought lines is because Im trying to understand why people would get 'overly' angry at it as a tactic....You attack an enemy and you know that the enemy is going to come for you with what hes got. Summoned, teleported, flying or on foot.

Its a chance you take to use a castle storming army behind your main strike/wall destruction army as to if you face a summoned force of riders or a main attack response.

Spiro

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

There aren't many of us that get angry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif We just think it is a somewhat tedious strategy. I think it is all about the micromangement level you prefer.

Personally I would like to be able to mod castle income to the negative, so that maintaining a castle will cost you. That would mean fewer castles=>less micromangement=>happier Esben http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But Norfleet's tactic is fair and square, and I respect him for not only coming up with it but freely sharing it with the rest of us.

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

Yes, to be honest, Im not sure how vitriolic the debates have been about it only that it always seems to spawn large threads.

I'm not so sure a charge of micro management can be laid against it either to be honest, there is no adjustment or constant retweaking each turn for each castle, other than sending any commander at all there and selecting construct, thats about it.

Now a charge of overt micromanagement in my mind is seperating units on the tactical screen to try script mages casting single target buffs on Groups of normal foot troops. I just cant seem to force myself into that one yet.

The upkeep cost of a castle might work I suppose or allowing fliers to storm castle without breaking walls. I've not really thought about ways of restricting or overcoming it as I see it as a viable use of the cruddy castles and I dont see a massive advantage to it.

Now clam hoarding, thats a different one, I aint got my head round that yet either.

Spiro

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">the best clam horder is atlantis i would say .
but since atlantis has very few pretenders and the only mage with other skills than water magic is the king of deep with 2 completely random other magic skills i think the idea behind the clams was to enable especially the 2 underwaterraces and especially atlantis in the long run to get other magic pathes too .
this general idea is good and works well .

the only problem is ihmo if a game Lasts too long . it depends on the settings and so on .

but i think only if the orania map is played and Lasts long enough it is really a problem or in general when the gem income through clam hording
exceeds the income through all other gemsources greatly.
there are some nations who are potentially great clam horders too like caelum / pyhtium .
but the 2 most dangerous are ryhleh + atlantis i think because the water provides quite good protection in the beginning and still some in midgame .

so at some time if excessevely done it comes to a point where it skyrockets :
to keep it simple i assume there is no water/astralgemincome :
if you have reached e.g. 100 astral gem income through clams and convert all to water gems you get +5 clams ( more with forge items but again simplicity )

then you get :
turn :
(0)100 gems = 50 water gems -> forged to 5 clams
(1) 105 gems , again 5 clams , 5 pearls saved
(2) 110 gems , again 5 clams , 15 pearls saved
(3) 115 gems , 6 clams , 10 pearls saved
(4) 121 gems , 6 clams , 11 pearls saved
..........

normally you have items with forge boni by then and the costs even drop so the increase goes even faster

really dangerous it becomes once the clam horder gets e.g. 2/3/4 times more astral pearl income through clam hording than gem income in total .
and then sometime it comes to a point where you either cast one / two wishes per turn or something similiar .

but i think this can only happen seldom on an orania map where there is the following :
1. only 1 underwater nation ( ryhleh or atlantis ) or if there are 2 one of them is an early quitter
2. if ermor is included it can't pay attention because it has to deal with short term more important "above-the-sea" problems
3. no other player with either a good aquatic pretender or easy access to water breathing items or something similiar realises the danger that is coming from the underwater nation and / or has more important problems with the "above-the-sea" enemies

hmmm that is much longer than what i intended to write http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Last question : can you cast flames from afar on underseaprovinces ?

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I kind of like that, although I might make the 4 turn castles have a decent, positive income. Might make them a bit more useful.

- Kel

Re: Yet another Clamhoarding, Castling Discussion
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">He didn't 'come up with it', he only uses it in every single game even if it would not be to his benefit. It has always been there and there have always been ways around it that anyone can use and don't use more resources than the castling to do. While tedious and annoying, boring and effictive against those who have a hard time mustering a defense against it, there is no reason that a defensive stance shouldn't be able to be taken in Dominions. Turtlers are a part of every game Dominions 2 just happens to have a very loud one that plays games consistantly against a caliber of player he can beat easily regardless of tactics.

I'm sure if there is room for improvement, but not because you can castle spam, but because some Castles are just 'bleh'.

[ July 02, 2004, 16:43: Message edited by: Zen ]