Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

I hear much about about raiding and castles on this forum, there's probably no way that they'll be changed that will suit everyone, but I thought I'd punt out some ideas.

An initiative system for army movement

This sort of thing has been mentioned before, this is how I would figure it:
An army group consists of all the troops and commanders from one province moving to the same destination.
Each army group has an inertia value (rounded to the nearest whole number). An initiative roll of 1d6 (non-open ended) is made for each group, added to the inertia value to give that turn's initiative value.
The movement phase is split into 10 numbered segments, with an extra combat phase at the end of each segment. Each army group moves in the segment corresponding to its initiative value. If an army has initiative greater than 10, it moves in segment 10.
The inertia value (IV) equals log (army size) + (10/action points value of slowest unit in group). For armies consisting entirely of fliers, IV = log (army size).

How it works: initiative rolls are made, armies move in each segment, if opposing armies are in the same province at the end of a segment, a battle occurs. If an army fights a battle before it gets a chance to move, it will attempt to complete the movement order with the survivors later in the movement phase (initiative could be slowed by +1 for each pre-movement battle). Retreating armies resolve their movement after the end of the movement phase.

Removing the castle seige speedbump

Two new orders:
- Attack and storm castle. Becomes available when an army is ordered to move into a province with an enemy held castle.
- Seige and storm castle. Available to seiging armies.

How it works: with these orders, armies will storm the castle as soon as castle defence reaches zero, instead of waiting that extra turn.
Moving and taking castles the same turn may be a bit powerful, so I would suggest the seiging value of units that have moved (or gated in) the same turn be halved as a retooling cost.

Gateway and teleport balance

Commanders and units that have travelled using gateway, teleport or cloud trapeze will now suffer from planar sickness. If said troops fight a battle the same turn as their "jump", they start with a fatigue penalty: 20 fatigue times the size class of the unit.
Note that a size 6 sphinx would start with 120 fatigue were it to use teleport offensively. This change should be enough to allow sphinxes the use of teleport once again whilst being fairly balanced.
Faerie trod and wind ride are unaffected.

Spell AI and gem usage

At the moment, the spell AI will "means test" spell orders, and will refrain from casting listed spells (especially those with gem costs) if deemed unnecessary based on the strength of enemy forces. This was a change made when people complained about their mages' personal gem supply being wasted on enemy scouts and remote summonings.
There is nothing worse in the game than when the AI wrongly chooses to ignore my orders. I would rather it followed my orders, and suffer the consequences. I can always change my orders, but I can't easily compensate for what the AI might do.
My solution: mages start each battle in the same turn with the number of gems they started the turn with. For example, if I give my mage 3 gems, he will start each battle in the following turn with 3 gems. Gems will be taken off the mage at the end of the turn, the amount removed based on whichever battle the mage expended the most of that type of gem. Blood slaves, however, should be expended from battle to battle as normal.
With this set up, the AI can stop attempting to curtail gem use, and mages can go back to using gems with abandon.
The only exception should be the death match, where gems should be used from batle to battle.
My reasoning is that neither the order's available or the spell AI are sophisticated enough to deal with multiple battles in a turn, or a crafty human attacker, when it comes to gem usage. It seems reasonable to give gem using battle mages this kind of boost.

Gem generating items

Limit the total gem output from each type of item on a per province basis. Total gem output available (per type of item) equals friendly dominion strength in the province plus province magic rating (-3 to +3), with a minimum value of one. Additional items above the limit produce no gems. In zero/negative dominion provinces, only one item of each type can produce gems.
For example, if one of my provinces has 10 dominion and a +3 magic rating, then I can productively hoard 13 clam of pearls, 13 fever fetishes and 13 earth blood stones there.


What do you think, forum people? Sensible ideas or frivolous junk?

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

If I've spent several hundred gold on a castle, why should I not be able to use it for defense?

Again, what's the point of this change?

No, it's far worse to have all your gems wasted when a person sends a single casting of arouse hunger at your armies before they attack.

Do you have any idea how overpowered this is? You've just tripled the number of gems that any mage will have.

I've got a better idea. People should stop whining about gem generating items and play on smaller maps. I'm starting to get really frustrated with the people who want to change the game to make it yet another fantasy strategy game where magic doesn't have any significant effects.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

How would removing/nerfing gem generating diminish the effect of magic on the game? Seems to me it would make a broader range of magical strategies feasible because a) you will be more tempted to use your gems on something other than horading and b) the game will not be a wish-rush.

I am tired of people defending gem-generating items. They break large map games outright, turning them into a micro-endurance contest, and SEVERELY imit the range of possible successful strategies.

I like larger maps, but I dont like the way they devolve as they do under the current setup, where essentially you must hoard to survive, and failing to hoard is a death sentence.

So I won't "just play on smaller map", thanks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

If you want I'll take 2 seconds make up a banner and upload a Mod that totally takes out all the gem producers so that the large games can, not be dominated by non-site-producing magics. The best of both worlds, yeah?

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Fewer magical resources means that there will be less magic being used in the world.

The game isn't a wish-rush as it stands. Repeatedly wishing for anything is probably one of the worst possible uses for astral pearls. Doom horrors, despite the amount of hype that surrounds them, die easily to mages on the battlefield. It's impossible to make them immune to all the elements, so you'll always be able to kill them.

There is no need to "horde" gem-producing items to survive, unless you happen to be playing a game where everybody is sitting around and staring at each other. They give you significant resources, but also leave a huge time-window during which you are extremely vulnerable to attack. Playing more aggressively is the cure for that.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Absolutely, however I hardly see how this could possibly result in a situation where "magic doesn't have any significant effects".

Gem producing items are not, in ANY WAY, essential to magic being important in the game.

And a better use for them would be... what?

This is completely untrue. WIth 17 players on a large map, at least some players will be able to fin the time and space neccessary to horde effectively. These players will win. Period. There is NO counter. In fact if I am super aggressive, then I am practically guaranteeing my own defeat since I will have to expend massive resources to maintain that aggression, whereas someone who is quietly turtling (and is aided by my aggression since I am drawing attention to myself) is not only not having to expend much to defend himself but is also growing his gem economy exponentially. Joy oh bliss.

Even on a "Small" crowded map, hording will become a central strategy for those who emerge form the dogfight. The map would have to be very small indeed for hording not to be of central importance in the late game.

Well I do not think that it is neccessary to remove them completely. First, I think it is neccessary to make the required investment much more significant, as you have suggested in another thread. Second, the investment should have a limit... for example not being able to put these items on scouts or other cheap, hidden units would be a big step up.

In any case, obviously had these items never been in the game no one would be bemoaning their lack. In fact I suspect had they not been in the game orginally, and added in a later patch, the reactionaries (like Graeme) would be screaming from the other side of the table...

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

You can e.g. convert them to death and summon tartarians , bane lords etc. .
Graeme is probably right that clamhoarding + then wishing is not a too good strategy because someone else will attack you before your clamhoarding pays off because while you start clamhoarding you look a bit weak to the ones who haven't clamhoarded .

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

No, but to remove them removes an entire class of strategies.

Forge astral based items or alchemize them into other types of gems and use those.

Of course there's a counter. That counter is to use diplomacy and convince other people to attack the stronger player. If they are already at the point where they are too strong for the rest of the players combined to defeat, then they would have won anyways. All gem-producing items do is speed up the endgame so that it doesn't drag out for hundreds of turns on larger maps.

If you see somebody that is quietly turtling, then attack them. If they are spending resources on gem-producers, then they won't be spending them on their military.

Not really, since the game is likely to be over by turn 30 or so on a typical small map.

I suggest that you go back and read some of the threads that have already done this issue to death over hundreds of Posts. You'll find out that you've made an incorrect assumption. I used to believe that clams were too powerful, but that was months ago.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

You are simply being glib at this point.

So far I every game I have been in has been essentially decided on the issue of hording (clams or soul contracts) save for one, where clamming was not allowed... although even in that one were it to continue, soul contracts and fetishes would become the deciding items.

On medium to large maps which are my preference (as I like a long game with lots of maneuver), when I horde I do well, when I dont I lose. That is as far as it goes.

Maybe you have a different experience. It's possible. More likely you just horde along with everyone else... or, as you say, play on VERY small maps which are over in 30 turns.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

No, I'm simply reporting game experience.

You've misidentified the cause. The cause was not hording of those items. It was the diplomacy that allowed those players to sit there in absolute peace and grow with no interruptions.

Then, like I said, you must be playing games where everybody sits there and stares at each other for most of the game.

How would that be relevant, even if it were true?

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

You must be in some interesting games.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Alchemize HOHOHO. Saying that is a better use of gems is retarded. And honestly it only is since you are going to death gems and death has some curiously cost efficient spells.

Sorry that's a *relly* bad answer.

As I have said before and now if commonly being accepted: the utility of hoarding is entirely dependant upon map size.

On Faerun and maps like it hoarding is essential. On Aran it is less of a facor.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Yes, if 17 players all started hoarding and hoping noone attacked them, then the ones who didn't get attacked would have a head start. Much like they would probably be more powerful if they were just researching or site searching or taking indies or any other part of the game. If you are left alone and noone messes with you, you will probably be stronger than people who engaged in early wars and it has nothing to do with clams.

Seriously, how many times have you been beaten by people who did nothing the whole game but build clams ? I don't mean they had a dozen clams because they didn't have anything to do with their water supply, I mean how many people did nothing but clam thae majority of the game ? How many times ? 10 ? 20 ? 30 ?

- Kel

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

Well, it would help if you mentioned what you're trying to achieve by those changes. How the game would benefit from proposed changes?

I'm guessing you are trying to improve games on huge maps (400+ provinces), but in my opinion the major problem in those game is amount of micro-management.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

That's not always true. Quick and successful conquest is very beneficial in the early game (especially if the graphs are off). And good players often go to war with exactly that purpose if they see they can crush the neighbour quickly. Typically, because they've reached their target research or troop production before the neighbour has counter.

In all games I've played, the winner was somebody who has successfully (and quickly) conquered 1 or more neighbours in the early game.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

The only spells that might be too cost-efficient for death would be Tartarian Gate, and that's assuming that you can keep Gift of Health active, or can keep wishing back the chalice every time someone steals it from you, and that you have a nature gem income that's high enough to cast gift of reason constantly. As for alchemizing, 10 casts of summon Lamias will would be a good use for 100 astral pearls, and would possibly be quite a bit more useful than a single doom horror that also requires 20 more nature gems. Or you could put those pearls into gift of health, or forge of the ancients, or haunted forest. All of which are more likely to have game altering effects than a doom horror.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

You still get the defence value of the castle. All that has changed is the attacker gets the option to storm in the same turn defences drop to zero. The storm castle part of the order is ignored if defences are not yet down to zero (probably need to mention this for more clarity).


The teleport spell was taken away from the Sphinx, as it was considered unbalanced being able to port one's Sphinx onto an enemy capital in the early game. I wanted to find a way to give teleport back to the Sphinx, whilst making teleporting it onto a capital a more risky prospect.
The planar sickness idea is basically a paratrooper combat penalty transplanted from another game. It just seems to make sense to me to give teleported troops some kind of fatigue penalty.


Yep, thats annoying too, my change to gem usage takes care of that, however. The idea is to render gem depletion sorties a turn to turn concern, rather than a cheap disruption tactic.


It would only be tripled were the mage in that example to fight in 3 battles that turn, and use all his gems in each battle.
The gem usage boost would be the same for everybody, in the same way as gem producing items can be made by everyone. For a potential exploiter, the trick would be to have your gem carrying mage engage in multiple battles a turn (which is why I wouldn't have it apply to death matches). Arranging things so that your mage fights several battles in a turn may be tricky, even with potentially 11 battle rounds a turn.

I've never whined about gem producers, they are probably fine the way they are. A change is as good as a rest, they say. My suggestion is to make life for the hoarder a little more interesting, by having to spread his generators out a bit among his provinces, or push dominion a bit more. I like to try and think of ways to link important game mechanics to dominion strength, its nice for it to have a little more impact on the game.
With such a change to gem producers, I don't think that they would be rendered insignificant, many hoarders would barely notice any difference in gem output.


Good questions nonetheless, my original post could probably be somewhat clearer.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

A turn represents an entire month. I'm not sure why stepping through a gateway would make you more tired than a month long march into enemy territory.

You can expect to see at least two battles a turn on average for major armies. More if there are multiple opponents all attacking you at once.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

I'm trying to slay a number of percieved game bugbears at a stroke (some are mine, others are ones raised on the forum I at least partly agree with or have some sympathy for). I think the game could be improved if these concerns are dealt with. The worst is probably micro-management, to which my changes would only add, or make no difference, however.


The bugbears:

- Defending unfortified provinces from raids is too hard.
Solution: Initiative system for movement.

- Defending from raids using castles is too easy.
Solution: Castle speedbump effect removed.

- The spell AI ignores my orders.
Solution: Change AI, and the way gems are used in battle.

- Gem generators, used every game, by everybody, yawn.
Solution: Add a dominion based per-province limit.

- Sphinx lost teleport. Effectiveness of magical movement over standard movement for defence and offence.
Solution: Planar sickness.

It is arguable whether these concerns are necessarily valid or important. Its likely the solutions would provoke as much outrage and gnashing of teeth as the problems they are supposed to fix.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

<Thinks on feet> According to my dominions medical textbook of dimensional diseases, Planar Sickness Lasts exactly one month of game time. Fancy that!
Who knows what horrors lurk between worlds? It would give me the heebie-jeebies, at any rate.

An army will still have to be cut off from its gem supply when on offensive maneuvers eg. when seiging castles, or taking unlabbed enemy provinces. This means there is some scope for turn to turn gem attrition.
I think my proposed change wouldn't be too unbalanced. The potential horror could be a pretender SC with many gems, using them to cast battlefield spells, annhilating a succession of small armies in the same turn. A willing or unwary set of opponents and some luck would still be required. I would guess that it'd be difficult for an attacker to actively arrange multiple battles. It doesn't worry me because people can and will adapt to the new tactical environment.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

I find it hard to believe that all your games were like that, no offense. I would certainly say that has not been my experience, though all of my games haven't been absolutely one way or the other.

- Kel

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

These two contradict one another. On the one hand, you imply raiding is too powerful, and on the other hand, you want to make it more powerful.

The first one I think could use some improvement - random movement sequence would fix this.

The second one is insane. Fortifications are _supposed_ to provide defense from raids, that's one reason they were built all over most of the world. The idea of an army being able to come zooming right in, and in less than a month travel, siege, and storm is .... Well, I already used the word insane. Albeit it might be acceptable for mausoleums / watchtowers, which really aren't proper fortifications.

Your "solution" simply makes combat teleportation unusable for many units, while once again allowing the Sphinx to plop right down on an enemy capital, easily surviving the couple of turns it takes to regain consciousness before casting fire shield, astral shield, etc, and winning. You also don't mention why cloud trapeze should have "planar sickness", since it doesn't involve plane shifting. Or why flying units shouldn't have "air sickness".

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

There were few blitzes on a small maps where things were different (usually because somebody was able to conquer enough VP's without totally conquering anybody) and there were few MP games that were never finished, because of uncurable game crashes (in 2 of them which were in later stages it was very likely, that one of early conquestor would won). I don't know the result of my first MP (because I was quickly eliminated). There was also game won by Norfleet (I'm not sure if he has conquered somebody in the early game or not, but all his games are under question now anyway). In all other games the game was won by somebody who had successful early conquest (plus a couple of still going games, where one of the early victors is very likely to win).
So it would be more correct to say that I'm yet to see the game won by somebody who have stayed out of wars and {something}-hoarded.

I've faced clam/fetish hoarders several time myself in the late game. In one case the real war Lasted about 5 turns before hoarder conceded. In another case the hoarder conceded the game even without trying to fight. Of course, I had much larger empires at that time. And if I didn't have a large empire in the late game, that was usually because my lands got added (contrary to my wishes) to somebody else's large empire, which wasn't making things any better for the hoarder.
Concerning the size of the maps, they ranged from Aran to Orania. Nothing super huge, though I've found even Orania to be too much micromanagement for my taste.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

I'm not sure if making defending unfortified provinces from raids easier is a positive thing. Some strategies rely on raiding rather than taking on the clash of armies. And I'm on receiving end of such strategy in one of my MP games. I keep winning major battles with minimal losses and a good loot from the enemy, but I'm still losing the game, because of massive raids. That's an interesting experience, and one thing that makes Dominions 2 great is the variety of different strategies that can lead to success.

In any case, this kind of change would affect the game a lot and it wouldn't be easy to rebalance other things to keep everything in balance.

Actually, it was changed in one of the patches (was it in 2.12?) Before, AI tended to waste gems without a reason. Now it is much smarter and uses the gems sensibly (in most cases). The one problem that I see is that sometimes the mages won't use extra gems to bring their fatigue lower. But this is one is not easy to resolve. Sometimes I'd give the mage extra gems, so that he can lower his fatigue and in another situation I'd give more gems because I expect to fight 2 battles in the same turn. Making it configurable would add even more micromanagement, but if AI would just use spare gems only in the castle battles (storming or defending vs storm), which are bound to be the Last I'd be glad.

Generally, spell-casting AI is not that bad if you brought right mages and gems. Several times I was surprised by AI switching to his own plan (better than mine) after running through my scripts.

Is there actually a problem here? I highly doubt that there's a problem with bloodstones, fever fetishes is not likely to be a problem either, so only clams are candidates, but there's no agreement on that issue. Maybe the latest change (non-stacking gem generators) will be sufficient to close the whole issue.

Personally, I like Sphinx being non-teleportable, it makes him a unique pretender. Magical movement really helps in the late large games. Just imaging dragging that large army of yours across of 15 provinces just to get anywhere close to the enemy. And then the enemy can avoid you infinitively. So in the end it may become just a matter of filling all provinces with a large armies (sooner or later one will have enough gems to do it). But this will cause "army-size-inflataion". Those "large" army will be considered a small forces, while the real "now large" armies will have to be dragged across the map again. So the magic movement is needed at least to avoid horrible micromanagement. If there're too many penalties for teleporting (stands for any kind of magic movement) armies, nobody will use them to engage in a serious battle, which will result in all that extra micromanagement.

Suggested 20 fatigue per size is too much of a penalty, in my opinion. Though just 20 fatigue (or some similar number) can be an interesting option. Another option would be to make teleporting defenders lose initiative, meaning that in this case the turn sequence would be: defending garrison - attacking army - teleported defenders. Dom2 engine probably doesn't support such a sequence, but it can be emulated by making teleporting defenders skip their first round. Attackers (whether they move magically or not) are already at disadvantage, so I'm not sure that any extra penalties would be good.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Hooray for bloated gem incomes. Seriously you think this an interesting way to play?

In any case re: doom horrors I would love to hear how you would kill them so quickly and effectively. Frankly unless you get super lucky or have a serious mass of casters you are unlikely to be able to kill one, let alone two, or three, or four that you will quite likely encounter in a clam-hoarding game.

Since I have to fight doom horrors, I'd love to know what SPECIFIC counters you would propose to kill them.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

My main concern on the matter of clams is the impact of their removal (or at least, their nerfing) on the nations for which clams are the saving grace. For example, while Arcoscephale or Pythium are likely good enough without clams, what about T'ien Ch'i? The Celestial Empire isn't exactly regarded as being the most powerful nation around, and reducing their access to clams will probably have a negative consequence on them.

It would be even worse for Spring and Autumn T'ien Ch'i, and possibly other nations/themes (R'lyeh? Atlantis? Pythium Serpent Cult? I am not a scholar on these). Magic sites remain a solution, but T'ien Ch'i is probably not among the nations with the means to lead the expansion race on its own, and its jack-of-all-trade mages are almost begging for these hefty items boosting their magic paths; since such items are quite expensive, clams are more than welcome here. And of course, Astral pearls provide these versatile mages with a more varied source of gems through alchemy; it isn't so good to have access to all the magic paths if you do not have a steady income to actually use all your nice spells.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

If they don't have a lightning ring. Thunder strike and orb lightning. If they don't have a ring of fire, incinerate. If they don't have a ring of cold, frozen heart. Skeletons or lifeless troops will also work. Any semi-tough SC should also function quite well.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

The devs have specificaly mentioned Atlantis as a nation where clams are a basic part of the strategy. And that any clam-nerfing would have to be considered for what it would do to them. They dont have alot going for them now.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

For frozen heart or incinerate to work, you would need several mages casting simultaneousl AND hope your opponent is foolish enough not to know what your mages can do and provide the correct elemental resistance.

Thunderstrike and Banefire tend to miss alot, at which point the doom horror(s) eat your lunch.

Orb lightning you better have amazing air mages who are also lucky, since orb lightning is also quite imprecise... and furthermore short ranged. Again nevermind the fact that the DH will PROBABLY have a ring of tamed lightning.

Sure you could throw out some chaff to slow the doom horror down, maybe. Although when I have tried this tactic, the Doom Horrors ignored my massed skeletons and kept eating casters.

As for semi-tough SC... have you looked at a DHs stats/attacks? Good... freaking... luck... maybe say 15-20 bane lords armed with moon blades will do the trick.

Only time I killed a doom horror was when it foolishly stormed a castle, alone, with no AMA, and fell victim to 20 or so sauromancers mass-casting disintegrate with one sauromancer casting earth grip to hold him in place... only two sauromancers died. Of course, next up were TWO doom horrors, and they had no trouble eating everyone alive.

Feh.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

If you are at the stage in the game where your opponent is using doom horrors, then you will certainly have plenty of your national mages along with you in an armies.

Thunderstrike doesn't miss that much, and you only need about three hits to kill it.

Which is why you use multiple types of elemental magic. It can't resist all three types at once.

Skeletons should be able to kill it actually, since it won't regain any life from them.

A bane lord with quickness will have attack/defense of 17/17. With a moon blade, that's 19/20, which isn't far off from the doom horror. Put a lucky pendant on them both to make it even. With a strangth of 19 and moon blade damage of 11, the bane lord will do 60 damage on a successful hit. Two such hits will be enough to kill the doom horror.

You could also give the bane lord a spirit helmet or a sculuta columnus and some other type of weapon if you want.

You'd have been far better off casting drain life.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Or you could make 1 or 2 cast relief and some others - animate something. Those doom horrors would be doomed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

So multiple elemental mages of each type casting multiple spells. Thats a lot of casters. Not to mention the fact that there is really no margin for error, and your mages better not decide to target something other than the doom horror.

How the heck will the kill it? Fatigue?

Doom horror has attack 23 and defence 25. 19/20 is not great by comparison.

60 damage? Isn't it 2x 11+1d6 oe, +19 st, -25 for prot = 35?

So 35 damage averge per hit IF YOU HIT because you are att 19 trying to hit def 25, oh and btw you will have to make your own MR check at -2 in order to avoid simply damaging yourself.

EDIT: I stand corrected on this, the str is doubled to, resulting in average 54 damage per hit. Two hits will kill the doom horror.
Tried it, didnt work. I had 8 sauromancers casting drain life at a doom horror and it did squat. Zero damage. Oh well.

I've heard petrify being good, since it paralyzes you even if you make your save... petrify could imobilize it for long enough to kill it. Casters that can cast petrify are hard to come by for most nations though.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

And on the subject of undead, I cast 4 undead hordes and a bunch of raise dead at the start of the battle and the doom horrors ignored them and went right after my casters.

Not that skeletons would be able to HIT the doom horror, and even if they did they would probably just die from the blood vengeance.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Look at the numbers on undead horde, and compare it to raise skeletons and animate dead. The only reason to cast undead horde is if you have a pretender with very high level death magic. Three castings of raise skeletons gives more troops than a single casting of undead horde. Two castings of animate dead gives more troops than a single casting of undead horde.

Sure, but you have an infinite supply of them from the combination of drain life and raise skeletons. After all, the AI casts drain life as soon as its fatigue nears 100.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Sure, but you'll have a lot by the time you start to see doom horrors around turn 60 or 70.

Mages target the units with the largest amount of hitpoints, so unless there's a pretender or abominations there, the doom horrors will be the primary target.

Run it out of turns in the battle so that it retreats, but doesn't have anywhere to retreat to as you've cut off those provinces with ghost riders or other similar spells or stealth attacks.

It's close enough that the bane lords will be probably able to bring doom horrors down for a smaller cost in resources.

No, it's: (2*(11+19)+2d6oe) - (25+2d6oe)

I see that you corrected this later.

Bonus damage multipliers apply to both strength and weapon damage.

It will hit 10% of the time assuming that there are only two units on the battlefield.

With an AMA, the bane lord will make this check at a MR of 17. Without it will be 13. That's a chance of failure of 10% and 30% respectively.

If 40 castings of drain life did not kill the doom horror, and did not kill the sauromancers, then you must have had a rather large number of living troops on the battlefield. That's in the neighbourhood of 560 points of armor negating damage.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Yes however you dont have the luxury of time since the doom horrors will be eating your casters... actually they will eat them anyway since the skeletons run forward and the horrors fly in behind them and start to dine. Seriously I found this tactic wildly ineffectual.

And its even worse whent he doom horror(s) are not alone.
Did I mention drain life didnt work on the doom horrors?

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Looks like you got unlucky then, and attack rearmost worked. Most of the time it won't if you have any other troops on the battlefield.

[qutoe]Did I mention drain life didnt work on the doom horrors?

[/quote]

Yes, you did. I didn't give it much weight, since my own tests show that it works very nicely. Take 8 D4 sauromancers, or 8 demiliches. Have them cast raise skeletons on the first turn. Have them cast drain life on all other turns. For me it works with about 4 dead mages in about three combat rounds.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Yes, you did. I didn't give it much weight, since my own tests show that it works very nicely. Take 8 D4 sauromancers, or 8 demiliches. Have them cast raise skeletons on the first turn. Have them cast drain life on all other turns. For me it works with about 4 dead mages in about three combat rounds.

[/quote]
8 demiliches cost 200 deathgems so unless you fight in your own dominion this is costy then . But you are right demiliches are very good and they have 18 MR so the blood vengeance is not so horrible . And most important they are extremely useful for defense anyway since their function as drainlife/undeadspam brigade works quite well against almost everything .

In some ways i think the king of the world horror is better because he has 2x lifedrain and 2x astral claw as attack while the doom horror has it only once each and 2 mr - negate attacks .

Graeme what do you think is a better wish then ?
The doom horrors because they are rather cheap ( little equipment ) but still quite impressive ?
Air queens ?
Natarajas ?

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

I picked demiliches because it was easier to run the test with them than with sauromancers, since I didn't have to bother making skull staves.

Blood vengeance is not horrible on most mages, since even sauromancers, for example, have a MR of 17. Most mages sit around MR 15.

The most useful wishes are for power and magic power on your pretender. After that, I'd wish for artifacts that someone else has and you want. At that point, I'd start using my astrals for something else probably.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

What's the something else ? SC-wise i still think wishing for SCs is quite good .
100 astral pearls are "only" 50 converted gems so i think wishing is not that bad . I personally like wishing for blood too since you get such a nice output http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
I still haven't really figured out in which lategame things i should put in most of my resources to get the best overall return http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Ah well, if drain life works then my bad... just that when *I* tried drain life, my sauromancers insisted on casting it on everything BUT the Doom Horror!!

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

Firstly, I don't find my changes contradictory. My aim is not to hamstring raiding or fortifications. I just want to iron out a few kinks in the system.

I think armies should be able to travel, seige and storm a castle in the same turn. It doesn't make sense to me that they would seige a castle down to zero defences... and then stop abruptly, waiting a turn for new orders to storm the castle.

It does not strike me as unreasonable that a weak fortification, or one left undefended should not be vulnerable to capture in a single turn by a large force. Note that I have suggested a one half seiging penalty for armies that have moved in the same turn, effectively doubling the size of force needed to achieve a single turn capture. Fort defence values could perhaps be increased 10 or 20% across the board as some compensation.

Note that armies using magical movement would not get the move & storm option. It would be a bonus available to the conventional army, and thus may be easier for a defender to anticipate/intercept.


In game balance terms, if I'm going to penalise teleport, then the same has to go for cloud trapeze, as its just as accessible and effective, a sphinx-type SC can use either spell quite easily. If you allow some fantasy license, you can imagine a powerful spell such as cloud trapeze would involve traversing the elemental plane of air (not in the spell blurb as such, but not something that has to be regarded as gospel). Flying units, and others with large strategic move would be fine, as they simply use natural, "earthly" abilities.

Regarding the Sphinx example, its possible it will still be successfully used to hit capitals, and I'm not against such a use in principle. It will be considerably less effective with 120 starting fatigue, however. If it is tested and still considered too powerful, the fatigue penalty could be exaggerated for the larger creatures, eg. 5, 15, 30, 50, 90, 150 for sizes 1 to 6. Another tweak could be to scale fatigue according to enemy dominion strength, perhaps an additional hit of 5 or 10 fatigue per enemy candle. Alternatively, you could give an extra vulnerability to the Sphinx: dominion dependence. This would work by depriving a pretender (by some combination)of his magical powers and protection when in enemy dominion (and perhaps increase the penalty to hit points substantially).

My original thoughts about gateway were that a fatigue penalty could be a tradeoff in allowing it to target any province, as it did in dominions 1. This is really not needed, as that ability is covered by astral travel. The fatigue penalty, however, keeps it in theme with teleport and cloud trapeze, the trio forming an "economy class" of movement spells. For symmetry, under my fatigue system, at level 8 or 9 research non-fatiguing Versions of teleport and cloud trapeze would be available.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

My suggestion is more of a tweak to the movement system, than an attempt to hurt raiding.

An example: a raiding party is attacking Nation A. It can attack one of 5 provinces. The defenders have one army trying to intercept the raiders. Under the current system, to force a fight, the defenders have to move into the correct province being raided, a 1 in 5 chance of success. Using my suggestion, and assuming both forces are equal, the defenders can attempt to force a fight by moving into the province currently occupied by the raiders. They would have an almost 50/50 chance of moving first, and striking the raiders before they move. Note that in the case of the raiders winning the battle, they would still carry out their movement order and raid their target province.

I think a change to the movement system would be a step forward. At the moment the simultaneous movement system gives the advantage to raiders. With an initiative system, players would have to plan raids more carefully to be successful. They would gain initiative advantages from using faster troops, which would add variety to the game.

Fair enough. I would agree that making spell AI more configurable would help. I just sense that Illwinter want to keep the system as simple as possible.

My argument is basically that players cannot adequately control gem usage of their mages over several battles in one turn. Ideally there would only be one battle a turn for each mage to be prepared for, or fresh orders could be given in between battles. Consider a mage in a lab province, with a stack of gems. He gets involved in a fight, and uses all his gems. He will have no gems for the next fight that turn, as I can't give him the gems until the turn is finished processing, even though he has a lab available. Either a super-AI, more configurable orders, or battle-usage-friendly gems are needed to resolve this.

Perhaps.

Gem generators are not much of a problem to me. However, some dominions players like to limit their use in games. I have (hopefully) suggested a fun, creative, in-theme way to do this.

The non-clam of pearls gem generators are less of a problem, but it makes sense to put the same limits on them, as otherwise the "problem" simply moves to another item. In any case, if they are not produced in large numbers, they are not affected by my limitation, which affects the total number of productive generators in each province, rather than the ability to produce them. Only the wild-eyed, frothing-at-the-mouth horde fetishists should be hurt by my proposed change.

Good suggestions.

Late game army movement would not be affected by my changes, just the offensive use of some of the magical movement spells would be curtailed. The late game, research level 8 and 9 spells would not have a fatigue penalty. And I suggested in another post that level 8 or 9 fatigue-free Versions of teleport and cloud trapeze would be available.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

I would be against a change that reduced access to clams (by increasing their cost) or that made them almost useless(a suggestion I read to no longer allow transfer of gems from commanders to the lab). I'm not wild about horror marking the poor clam holders either.

I hope my suggestion was in the same spirit as Illwinter's recent change, limiting gem generators to one per commander (my suggestion was limiting numbers of each productive generator to dominion strength + magic rating per province, minimum value of 1). Putting an upper limit on the generators (per province) is not too harsh a change, and under my system, a potential hoarder such as Atlantis could tailor nation design toward hoarding, with high magic rating and dominion strength. My idea would probably be more for dominions 3 or a mod, as it would have a devastating effect on current games.

I don't think Atlantis is too weak a nation, anyway, they just seem to be going through a phase of unpopularity. I can remember a dominions 1 discussion about R'lyeh's inferiority to Atlantis, based on their vulnerability to massed war lobster assaults. It amuses me to see the argument come full circle when not a lot has changed since then. Just the void gate, which has made R'lyeh a bit more fun (mental image of squidheads throwing around a beachball, heh).

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

I find it good to have mroe than one battle per turn. It gives more interesting options. Concerning the mage near the lab, it maybe reasonable to replenish gems between the battles, but what is supposed to happen if there isn't enough gems? And in any case 2 battles in the province where you control the lab is really uncommon.


What I don't like about your idea is not the limitation, but "per-province" basis. If now you can just slap clam on the third from the left researher, with your idea you'd have to count how many clams are already in this province (meaning scanning all mages there) and then to take into account possible dominion change. And all these efforts don't really add anything to the game experience. With overall limit, you'd typically know that you're well below the limit, so no worries and counting. I'm still not sure if the overall limit would be a good idea or not.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..
 

Regarding Doom Horrors, I just encountered them for the first time in a MP game, playing against Zapmeisters R'yleh using Jotunheim. While they ate everything (including many Jarls) that I threw at them for awhile I was eventually able to make huge headway against them to the tune of massed vampires and counts (free immortal chaff/disintigrate or drain life or skeleton casters) along with Jade amazons and Gyjas fitted with rune smashers, thistle maces, spell foci, flying boots, and AMA's set to mass cast charm. I was able to pay for my own gear with my own stockpile of clams and fetishes, which gave me enough gem capital to completely create the charm strategy in ~3 turns, which was quick enough to allow me to survive. While its quite likely I will still eventually lose, right now i've killed 3 horrors and brought one over to my own side, complete with ring of regen and AMA of his own.

Doom Horrors are far from invincible, if I was going to spend a hundred astrals on something it would probably be wishing for bloodslaves and mass-casting Vampire Counts.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif I wonder how people determine that the clam-hoarder has won because of clam-hoarding, especially since everybody else hoarded as well?
I've yet to see that clam-hoarding is a successful strategy at all, but on the other hand I do not play maps with more than 150 provinces, which are already way to large for me.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif I also wonder why people like larger maps if they do not like the way the game behaves on such maps...

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

If everyone hoards then "great". However NOT hoarding is not a viable strategy. That's bad.

You might maybe get away with it on a small, crowded map... games that don't Last much past (or get called at) 40-50 turns will probably not see hoarding as a serious problem.

Large maps are fun becuase they are large, there is more opportunity for give and take, the game is more epic, more sweeping. But it loses most of it's allure as you are forced into a few narrowly defined strategies revolving around hoarding. So as you can see the things I find fun about large maps are mostly cancelled out by the devolution of the game caused by hoarding strategies.

It's like any game that has a shortcoming. You fix that shortcoming and you have a better game. It's not complicated.

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

I am on the same boat with Chazar. I don't understand why a hoarder should be able to win someone who has not hoarded but instead conquered twice or thrice as much provinces AND searched them for sites. Sure, if the hoarder is left to be for 30+ turns he will have beter income, but if he is attacked *now* with armies almost twice as large as his he is in great trouble.

Has this been tried, has it worked? If not, why? I don't see any reason for it to *not* to work... ...with all my experience I got solely by reading this forum and playing SP games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and mor
 

Alright lets look at the game I am currently getting smashed in, Faerun Folly.

One player I know for a fact has something like 400 fever fetishes and 250+ clams.

How much of Faerun do you have to conquer before you can compare to that?

Another empire, who is smashing me, overran me with endless castings blackhawks, followed up by armies of mechancial men and multiple doom horrors. And this was circa turn 70... AND he had already been fighting several other powers. I do not know for sure but his astral income is surely in the hundreds. He was territorially probably twice as alrge as me, but he was also fighting two other people.

5 turns into the war I was OUT of gems... completely cleaned out and of course my gem production was insignificant by comparison so while he was able to keep slinging masses of remote spells every turn and generate new armies of mechanical men, I was reduced to a minimum of ritual magic and a desperate scrabble for resources. From there on in it was a downhill slide.

The only thing which has kept me, very feebly, alive is... you guessed it... soul contracts, and some infusions of cash and gems from another hoarding nation. Of course, I am doomed anyway but it just goes to show.