Dammit
 

Hey, I thought commanders without armies didn't rout when everybody else did?

I had two commanders: a storm general and an ice devil. Ok, so the storm general flees the battlefield when his troops rout - I can understand that. Why did the ice devil go at the same time? He didn't command any troops, had a morale of 30 and was nowhere near the enemy (ie. not surrounded or damaged).

Can someone explain this??

CC

Re: Dammit
 

w/ an army of all commanders (not counting bodyguards), if one commander flees or dies, they all rout.

yup.

Re: Dammit
 

So if he takes troops with him, he routs when they rout. If someone else takes the troops in, he routs when they rout anyway. What's the point? Isn't there a way to accompany an SC without causing them to rout?

CC

Re: Dammit
 

The "without armies" restriction means without any army at all, totally alone. The organization of who is leading what doesn't make any difference.

Re: Dammit
 

Make the SC berserk. A hell sword will suffice, and gives lifedraining and some fire resistance as well.

Re: Dammit
 

Yeah but they only go berserk if wounded.

I've just discovered that this idiocy applies to PD as well: if the PD rout, the SCs go with them. This is really really really annoying, because it means I can't build any PD in newly-taken provinces, which means no automatic searching for spies/assassins. If I build any PD, the slightest incursion by a crippled harpy causes them to flee (I'm Caelum so they have this stupid habit of flying up and getting themselves slaughtered), which means that my SCs retreat. DAMN that's annoying.

CC

Re: Dammit
 

C'mon man, suck it up. This effects your opponents just as much as it does you.

Re: Dammit
 

Yeah but they're using lots of tough troops - I'm the one with wimpy archers and SCs! Maximum suckage!

Re: Dammit
 

Yeah, but that's no excuse not to review and potentially change the routing system, which I also believe is very goofy and non-intuitive.

Re: Dammit
 

I could not agree more. This whole idea of a lone commander who will not rout just because he has no troops is completely bogus. The absence or presence of troops ought to make no difference. When a commander becomes fatigued and gets hit, he should rout. Period. In fact, it really ought to be HARDER to prevent routing with no troops rather than EASIER. After all, he is all alone and therefore should rout at the slightest provacation.

Re: Dammit
 

What's "goofy" and "non-intuitive" about it? If you expect the devs to listen to you it might help if you'd explain precisely what it is that you think is amiss in your opinion.

Re: Dammit
 

I don't know where you got this silly notion. A lone commander will rout, unless that commander is an immortal in friendly dominion, or the commander is berserk. What doesn't make sense about it?

Re: Dammit
 

I think you may have missed my point. I probably was not very clear. What I was saying is that a commander with 1 troop routs very easy. A commander with zero troops does not, he has to rout on his own. And it seems to me to be far harder for him to rout when alone than with any army of any size. Maybe this is not true, but it sure seems like it is to me. This is completely backwards. Troops ought to decrease the chance of routing, not increase it.

This is what is not intuitive at all. It is just an unrealistic artifact of the current routing algorithm.

Re: Dammit
 

This would seriously conflict with the current spell casting system.

As for the morale and routing system. While it is not the best, its also not as bad as you are making it out to be. Once you get the knack of it I think it performs rather adequately.

Re: Dammit
 

No, he said fatigued *and* gets hit - most combat spellcasters go to some lengths to avoid being hit, so it would be consistent.

His other point was very good too - a high morale, non-berserk SC should not be any more likely to rout if his/her/its troops do, than if it has no troops.

IMHO this needs patching quite urgently - a shrewd Bane Lord or Ice Devil absolutely depends on taking a load of chaff into combat with him, knowing full well that they will all die. It's an essential part of his victory plan and should be allowed ..... ;-)

CC

Re: Dammit
 

Commanders used on their own are obviously not intended to be used just as support or to get the troops into battle, so they do not behave like commanders with armies does. Since the sort of commanders people use as supercombatants usually have a very high morale they are unlikely to rout on their own, but suffer from army rout as easy as the next commander. Obviously army rout is more prone to happen when the army is smaller, since the army, discounting commanders, is more prone to routing. Exactly what is it that you find unintuitive with this?

I would also like to point out that it appears that you and magnate are arguing from what amounts to opposing positions. Magnate does not want commanders to rout because army rout occurs while you appear to be arguing for morale penalties for single commanders, presumedly not wishing for commandes to stick around when abandoned by their armies.

Re: Dammit
 

SC's can hardly avoid being hit. If this were not true, life draining would not be as paramount as it is now. Good or bad, you are going to have a hard time keeping your SC from getting fatigue and being hit.

On the topic of a lone SC being more brave than an SC who brought along some friends, it also makes *some* sense in that morale would be affected, to some degree, by seeing your fellow commanders fall in battle.

Otoh, I also find it somewhat frustrating that sending in a minor support squad with an SC is often more dangerous than sending him alone. Plus, it makes mage hit squads more tenuous as 30 mages can be routed by one incinerate/arrow/frozen heart/whatever.

Still, I wonder if it was intentional since it would have a good bit of affect on game balance. It would make mage hit squads much more powerful and reliable, thus helping certain nations a good bit (especially caelum but any mages who make use of cloud trap/teleport type spells).

- Kel

Re: Dammit
 

the main point here is that it does not make RP sense for a commander to rout in the second round of battle because the one troop with him died, when, if he had gone in alone, he would still be fighting

Re: Dammit
 

Doh! I can't believe I've been so stupid - there's an easy solution to the chaff problem: take the SCs in *pairs*! Take a 3rd commander with the chaff - all the chaff dies, 3rd commander routs or dies also, and the two SCs continue merrily on until one of them routs.

I think that works, doesn't it? It's not one rout, all rout, it's that the Last commander alone will rout if everyone else has. Must try it .... admittedly using SCs in pairs is a lot less strategically efficient than using them singly, but what the heck ....

Kel - I wasn't talking about melee SCs (who do indeed get hit a lot, you're right), I was talking about the guys who stand at the back and lob spells - not SCs in my book. They're the ones which you try to avoid getting hit - surrounding them with bodyguards etc. Hence them routing when fatigued + hit but not when only fatigued is ok.

CC

Re: Dammit
 

A lone commander MAY route, but that by no means equates to 'will' route. While the system does work and i really dont know if any complaints with it are serious to justify a change, it is kind of silly that a commander is willing to charge the enemy on his own and stay the duration of the battle, but is there iz zero chance of him staying if as few as a single possible unit are lost, even when the units in question are worthless or free. The flag carrying mascot that this is illogical would be the Moloch, for reason i am sure most of us are very aware.

Don't get me wrong, the system works, and it works well. It just sometimes seems counterintuitive when its often better to send someone into a pitched battle alone if you have any doubt that his army could survive the whole battle with him. Name for me a single historical battle where a General said "no, you guys couldnt survive the whole fight, better i go in alone".

I really dont want to seem like i'm jumping on the "Change it!" bandwagon, because its extremely well balanced the way it is, it just sometimes doesnt feel quite right. At a certain point you absolutly have to choose game balance over how realistic it is.

[edit] oh, and for magnate, if the chaff routes or is killed ALL commanders route, not just their commander.

Re: Dammit
 

Correction: all non-berserk commanders.

Folks having these problems are failing to make use of the magic items (such as the Berserker Pelt) the devs created to deal with this issue. As is the case for many things in this game, for each "problem" there is almost always one or more solutions. You just have to get a bit more creative with your strategy. This isn't Warcraft, where the solution to problems is either a.) throw more stuff at it, or b.) use a bigger hammer.

Re: Dammit
 

i for one dont think it should be changed, i just think its a bit unrealistic.

and you, arryn, have obviously never played warcraft III

Re: Dammit
 

No I'm sorry, you shouldn't have to send your commanders berserk just to avoid them fleeing when the chaff is killed. I'm very upset that even two SCs will flee when a chaff regiment is routed.

Berserk is fine when you are not in any danger of losing, but flying SCs need to be able to flee if they are severely damaged and/or fatigued, which is not possible if they are berserk.

This is wrong wrong wrong. Someone give me a good argument why it can't be changed so that only the commander of the chaff regiment routs with his troops. So commanders without troops will only rout when they themselves are wounded/fatigued.

CC

Re: Dammit
 

I agree with cheezeninja. Is the system "realistic"? No. Does it work well? Yes. But why get caught up in realism if this is just a game? A fantasy game at that. Balance is all that really matters in the end and the system, as it stands, has that.

I mean, sure, request or even propose a change to the system. By all means! But IMO, its not a crippling issue that requires immediate dev response. As you gain more experience with the morale system you will be able to see past its quirks and appreciate its value.

Re: Dammit
 

Really? Strange, since I do have the game installed on my system (well, it actually belongs to a friend of my BF's), and played it through Act 1 Chapter 6 before getting annoyed with it. Obviously, you should be a bit more careful about the ASSumptions you make and whom to.

Re: Dammit
 

If commanders without troops don’t rout when the army routs, what happens to support mages and priests? Should they stay on the field and wait for the opposing army to come and mop them up?

If you are using a *real* army, the commander routing is probably what you *want* to happen.

Suppose I have one commander leading 50 heavy infantry, 3-4 mages casting spells and a couple of priests for morale. If the 50 infantry get killed that means I’ve almost certainly lost of the battle. If the mages and priests stick around they will just die, costing me more.

For situations like this, changing the routing system would be very detrimental. Do SCs really need the extra boost at the expense of conventional armies?

Re: Dammit
 

> and played it through Act 1 Chapter 6 before getting annoyed with it.

Act1 Chapter 6? Funny, this is EXACTLY where my boyfriend ditched that game.

Re: Dammit
 

Do you really want all your human mages to stick around on the battlefield when the rest of the army runs away past them?

The best solution would be a switch that could force commanders to only rout if they personally fail a morale check, instead of routing on the army rout conditions. This would have the added benefit of making minicombatants more likely to take down a single supercombatant if one of them dies.

Re: Dammit
 

ive noticed that fans of underated strategy games that havent recieved the popularity they deserve, such as dominions II, have a tendency to diss on the popular games, refusing to admit that they, too, are good

dont mind me... just a pet peeve i guess.

Re: Dammit
 

Sounds to me like you didn't really play Warcraft 3 if you never went to MP. War 3 MP is extremely good, even though SP ain't all that great. Sounds like it was a GOOD ASSumption after all.

As for the basic premise of this post, the routing thing is very counter-intuitive. It is one of the hard lessons to learn when trying to make an SC and moving onto MP from SP. For example, the guy who summons the free imps is a lousy SC because he routes when the imps die.

This clearly is not a good situation. I stand by my earlier comments. The presence of troops OUGHT to decrease the chances of routing, not increase it. Game play balance, role playing, whatever. It is still very counter-intuitive and fundamentally wrong.

This could be fixed with some fairly easy changes:

1. A commander should not automatically rout when all the troops are gone. It should definitely increase the chance of routing, though, in order to protect the vulnerable mages. Maybe a single hit in the presence of fatigue or even just fatigue itself (like maybe 50%) should be enough to cause the rout of a commander without an army. This would help protect the mages in a losing battle.
2. A commander without troops should rout far easier than one who still has troops. The commander without troops should be the exact same chance of routing as in point 1 above. Thus the guy who brings an army with his commander is not punished for doing that, like it is now. He would therefore be more likely to win such a battle against a lone SC, even with mini-SCs like properly outfitted national commanders, as long as he has a support army. THIS would be far more intuitive than the current system.
3. When support troops start dying, the chances of a commander to rout should slowly rise. It ought to be the exact same kind of check that a squad has to determine when to rout. After all, the commander is the leader of the army and should never act independant of his troops. He will also stay on the battlefield much longer simply because he starts with higher morale than most living troops do.


Someone earlier in this thread said that concrete suggestions should be proposed for consideration by the devs instead of whining. Nuf said.

Re: Dammit
 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution that does the "right thing" for both combat mages and SCs. No matter what spin you put on it, either your mages won't rout soon enough or your SCs will rout too soon.

The current system is bad only for a group of mini-SCs, who could tolerate the loss of a couple of their members, and for regular SCs with mage backup. Even in that case, it's only a problem if the mage dies. If the SC dies, you still want the mage(s) to rout.

I'm relatively satisfied with the way it is. SCs and mages are strong enough already. Sure there are cases where it is a nuisance, but balance-wise, it works out best. But if you start dinking around with it, everything you try will be in the end worse.

The only solution would be to allow the player to specify, for each commander, whether for him to rout on army loss or not. Or, to specify this as part of the unit definition. (This would certainly fix the Moloch, who is the only unit who really needs this sort of adjustment).

Re: Dammit
 

Well Sheap, your solution would solve the knotty issue of being penalized for taking troops into battle. So it is really not all that bad, actually. You could put you mages on rout-yes and your fighters on rout-no. But it still seems contrived. Maybe this could be auto built into the troop.

Somehow, though, the problem where you are penalized for having troops with your commander truly needs to be fixed. Especially in the case of an SC pretender sitting in a owned province with 1 PD.

I recently killed a power VQ owned by Arch in a game by cutting off the retreat province and attacking the pretender with just enough random troops to kill the 1 PD. It was such a cheesy strat that it left a bad taste in my mouth even though it worked out like I intended.

Re: Dammit
 

oh thanks for bringing up my being rooked like a noob http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I was just being greedy and didn't expect a flying mammoth.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

and i had bought that stupid PD just w/out thinking. I would say that the "oh no, my one useless follower is dead, I must flee" is the worst example of the unthematic nature of the current rout system. or why all rout if one cheesy commander in an all commander army dies.

Now, if the pretender were to die on the battlefield, I sure could see a general rout...

Re: Dammit
 

hmmmm, that does sound like a noob mistake! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Dammit
 

Even if you don't EXPECT the flying mammoth, you should FEAR the flying mammoth. I sure do. Right now. In RL.

On topic, can there be a mod for the routing commanders issue? Or is this so hard-coded to be impossible? It seems attractive to set the routing to be %80 or so if a commander dies on field with no troops, adjustable by relative total army strengths... isn't that how troops decide to immediately flee or not, anyway?

Re: Dammit
 

Exempting PD from the rout calculations would probably help, but my guess is it would be difficult to implement.

I have to confess, I normally play nations where PD is either strong enough, that having it die isn't a real problem, or else so bad, that you would never recruit any for any reason http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So while I understand this argument, it doesn't have much visceral impact.

Maybe including rout behavior into the unit definition would be best. Unfortunately, there are 1000-some units, and they'd all need to be modified, since theoretically any unit can become a commander.

No es bueno.

Re: Dammit
 

I wasn't sold on the whole "SuperCommander" (or whatever it is thing) until I decided to send 10 Avalon knights, 50 archers, and 30 or so infantry against Bogus and his friends... and totally got my armored *** handed to me. Funny how he decided afterwards to hang out at Marignon's castle and keep them from doing ANYTHING at all... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Bogus is Baroken.

Re: Dammit
 

You, too, are making bad assumptions. It is perfectly valid to judge a game based on its SP value, alone. The majority of computer game players play only in SP. You may not like to admit it, but MP players are a minority, albeit a large and disproportionately vocal one. There are plenty of games that are good in SP and great in MP (such as Diablo 2, Call of Duty, Dom 2, just to name three) that I needn't waste time with those that suck in SP and *might* be better than sucky in MP.

I said it.

Re: Dammit
 

Dom 2 is not "underated". It received glowing reviews from both CG and CGW magazines (which was what prompted me to check out the demo). The only thing "underated" about Dom 2 is the lack of appreciation the devs get for a game they basically did/do in their spare time. As for popularity, TBS strategy games in general do not appeal to the "me now" generation of console twitch gamers, which is fine by me as I really don't care much for the opinions of kids who hadn't even been born yet when U.S. soldiers were coming home in body bags from a "police action" called Vietnam.

There are hordes of games that are popular and are still crap. Deus Ex:IW is a perfect example. Scratch beneath the pretty graphics of Doom 3 and what do you find? A crappy game. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Though quality sometimes helps spur popularity.

Is that an invitation to ignore you?

Re: Dammit
 

Not if your mages have morale 10 and your SCs have morale 30, which is what I tend to find is the case ....

I'm not saying that troopless commanders shouldn't have to make a morale check when another commander (or army) routs, just that it shouldn't be an automatic fail. That defeats the point of having high morale on your SCs!

Also, the PD thing is very important - having that single point of PD is really useful for getting a look at the exact composition of an invading army, so you want to be able to build PD without fear of them screwing up your SCs.

I like Panther's suggestions. When any friendly army routs or dies, all friendly commanders have to make a morale check. If they fail, they rout too. If not, they keep on fighting. Then again when the 2nd army routs etc. That seems both realistic and intuitive. Your mages will flee after a couple of armies rout (they're tired and scared, even if undamaged), but the SCs won't unless badly damaged. It also doesn't require the sort of recoding that the rout-yes and rout-no option would.

Can anybody find anything wrong with it?

CC
P.S. I loved the flying mammoth story - did anyone else think "NOBODY expects the flying mammoth ..."?

Re: Dammit
 

Woah - while not wishing to assist you in hijacking this thread, I can't help but ask, what lack of appreciation? I think Dom2 is the most awesome game I've ever played, the only worthy successor to MoM, right up there with Civ1 and Elite etc. etc. etc., and I'm fairly sure thousands of other people do too, judging by this board alone.

The fact that people gripe about bugs or features they don't like does not, I hope, count as failing to appreciate IW's achievement. If you believe in the power of word of mouth (look at GalCiv), they're not underrated at all. Then there's the glowing reviews. Is there some sort of medal or award they missed out on??

Er, yeah. There are also some hugely popular games that are very good indeed. This argument isn't getting either of you anywhere.

CC

Re: Dammit
 

Of course. Flying pachyderms. Can you just picture a castle bracing for an attack. The guard commander tells his lookouts to watch for huge hairy flying beasts. One guard turns to another and whispers,

"What's Sir Justin been drinkin' tonight?" to which the other replies,
"Dunno, but them nobles never share the good stuff. Ain't fair."
"Bah. Flying elephants. Next, he'll have us on the lookout for walking sharks and dancing trees."
"Ain't natural. Damn wizards."

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon01.gif[/img]

Re: Dammit
 

Such as KoTOR.

Indeed. Since when did that ever stop anyone? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Dammit
 

It is, but the games are fundamentally different - both Dom2 & WarcraftIII are better MP (going from dire to excellent in both cases).

Your analysis of Warcraft (more or bigger sticks) just does not sound like the Warcraft I played where you want the right stick for the job.

Computer games are like sex, even when you are playing SP you are thinking about MP.

Pickles

Re: Dammit
 

Yeah, that was one cool game. Hear about "Jade Empire" yet?

Re: Dammit
 

Someone lost in nested quotes said
"The only thing "underated" about Dom 2 is the lack of
appreciation the devs get for a game they basically did/do in their spare time."

The fact that it was done in their spare time does not make it a better game. Neither does it make the horrible faults (OK the message system) go away. It does make me more ready to accept the problems but only because the core game is so very good.

Plus I agree it is tiring that so many people seem to reject things on the grounds that they are popular. I am sure that here it is mostly due to differing tastes not prejudice though.
Whats KoTOR? Oh knights of the old republic - that was good but not great in the BGII way.

Pickles

Re: Dammit
 

A stereotypical male fantasy. It's particularly rampant amongst those that are relationship-challenged and spend too much time in auto-erotic endeavors.

Quality is more important than quantity. It applies to both sex and computer games, though it's especially true for sex. You'll grow to appreciate this fact as you get older and (hopefully) wiser. If you happen to have a girlfriend (most hardcore gamers barely understand the concept of there being another sex), ask her if she agrees. And listen to the answer. You might just learn something.

Re: Dammit
 

Yes. I'm a big fan of BioWare. However, their upcoming game I'm most excited about is ... KoTOR 2. But I have no doubt that I'll be getting JE sometime next year. My favorite game genre is RPGs. I'm anxiously waiting on Call of C. (due out next week) and Vampire:Bloodlines (in about 2 months).

Re: Dammit
 

And this week's award for humourless and patronising post goes to...

Re: Dammit
 

A stereotypical male fantasy. It's particularly rampant amongst those that are relationship-challenged and spend too much time in auto-erotic endeavors.


[/quote]

I am not sure you really mean that. You are saying that when men are "perpetrating the sin of Onan" they are NOT thinking about having sex with someone else? How do you know? - I have good reason to believe that in the case of at least one man this is not true. You are also implying that women think differently & have different auto erotic fantasies, about what one wonders? Hmm getting far OT here.

My apologies if you are not a native speaker but you appear to have completely reversed the logic of what I said plus missed the fact that is was, above all, a joke.

Pickles

PS Who is making the CoC computer game.
PPS In the absence of Norfleet it important to maintain some personal animosities, a task which Arryn & I seem to have taken on ourselves