Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I have a real issue with basic commanders and equipment.

There doesn't seem to be any feasible way of using them in combat other than as leadership trucks to deliver troops to a battle or as subsiduary casters by giving them missle weapons/items that cast spells (sceptre of authority etc).

Whenever I go to the craft item screen I see loads and loads of weapons that I just never ever craft. Am I missing something here ?

If I set commanders to attack they always seem to just get jobbed in a heartbeat, I want to be able to craft stuff like hunters knives or basic upgrades on chainmail etc but I almost dont see the point. When you set them to attack they usually outdistance their troops and get offed. Maybe Dom 3 needs a command for the leader to fight amongst the ranks.

Is it just me or do other people have the same thing ?

Spiro

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Base commanders arn't too helpful in melee combat. As you point out, they often get killed too easily. Most people put good equipment on tougher commanders - Bane Lords, Firbolgs, etc.

For regular (non mage) commanders, a ranged weapon is usually the best option.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

General commanders are a bit useless, yes.

It'd be cool if they had leadership traits, or something like that.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

There are some Base commanders who are also usefull for combat: Niefel Giants and maybee assasins.

But normaly you have to summon commnder to get the magic items to work: Try the Bane Lord, or a Ice Devil, or a combatpretender(any titan) and you will see that they are not too weak http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif(Try giving them the boots(of hase?) and the wraith sword and do not wonder if you change your tactics to super combatants.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Niefel Giants are good combatants, but so are the lesser ones. Jotun Jarls are all sacred, have better skills and equipment than Jotun soldiers, and aren't much more expensive when you factor the halved upkeep in.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Oh aye, I use varying forms of SC when I play. But I can't help but feel that maybe the lower commanders should be able to interact with items against other normal troops with a little bit of survivability. Its not just their base stats I don't think.

Its the way the troops move about, they invariably either never reach the combat as the opponent has routed or they stand out too far and get overwhelmed. I would love to be able to tell my commander (or troops) To allow him to fight in the ranks to allow him his superior attacks on the enemy and be protected on his sides by his own men. As is I am restricted to setting him to attack and his troops to guard him which I'm still trying to figure out if it works.

Im about to try some werewolf commanders with flesh eaters, penadants of luck, lycantropos amulets, shroud of the battle saint and horned helms. See how they work out. Obviously I will be aiming them at normal armies or PD stuff, but it wasnt too hard to kit em out.

Spirokeat

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Werewolf commanders already have regeneration, so this is a bit redundant (unless of course this is this reason they are werewolf commanders http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

The regeneration of the amulets stacks with the native regeneration.

There is a chance for the werewolves to be transformed into skinshifters. Rather weird.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I thought perhaps he was referring to the skinshifters as werewolves (there are so many units in the game it can take a while to learn the terminology http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

Anyway, the amulets do stack, but if you already have regeneration there are better options for your misc slot (and your gems).

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Yeah, I agree. Part of the problem is that groups (much less a commander) don't stay together if they have differing moves. This can be helpful sometimes (elephants, etc.) but other times its a problem. It can be difficult to use units and commanders with the Standard ability (the one that helps morale) because of this.

The other half would be you usually have a lot more normal units than commanders, and they get overwhelmed, even with some ok equipment.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

The Van and Tuatha commanders can get pretty impressive with the right equipment, and any mounted commmander can make for a decent thug as long as you're fighting regular units. Slapping both fear and awe on them (horror helmet and gold shield) really ruins the average grunt's day, especially if the unit also has luck.

Most infantry commanders however are not good for combat, they die too easily. I like putting lightning bow, black bow or longbow of accuracy on them.

Edi

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

or bow of war

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

You get what you pay for. Basic commanders are cheap and frail, so they aren't good candidates for expensive equipment or hand-to-hand combat.

A non-mage commander can be good for holding a spell-casting item. He can't cast any other spells, so if you set him to Cast Spells, you can be 100% sure of what he will cast. Item spells cause only 5 fatigue, so he will be fully active for the first 20 turns.

I am not sure I understand the problem. Any particular unit can't do everything well. There are commanders who can fight well (e.g., Bane Lord, summoned uniques). Basic commanders can't. So it goes.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Its not that there is a problem, thats not what I mean. But usually by the time you can summon a suitable commander to fight (and I dont mean a full blown SC). Its that you have usually bypassed the need to give them things like the trinkets.

Its like there is a whole band of basic equipment that is non-functional due to commander frailty and unit cohesion. And more to the point I'm trying to discover if its something I'm simply missing and they can be used.

In regard to the lycan amulet. Well it adds some good strength too as well as jacking the werewolf (call of wild) regen to 4 per turn not two.

I usually just give basic commanders items like others have said they do, bows or spell casting items.

Spirokeat

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

That sort of basic equipment is primarily used by expander pretenders. Items like the thorn staff are greatly useful for pretenders that start with some junk weapon or even 'fist'.

I'm not saying the lychantropos' amulet is 100% useless, but items like barkskin amulets or girdles of strength seem a better deals in this situation.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

if you want to make a survivable commander give him 2 weapons with high defence and some tough armour and then if you can some sort of spell casting/regenerating/fatigue curing item ( use that last one with heavy armour such as black plate of ulm ) and give him some heavily armoured bodyguards with decent morale

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

As a rule of thumb, don't spend precious gems to equip non-mages commanders with less than say 30hp.
As exceptions you can make some "assassins" out of anything with a good prec and Eth Crossbow or Black Bow, or makes some supporters with Bow of Wars or Skeleton amulets, but limit investments in these to 1 item (2 at most with Eye of Precision).

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I had not considered expander pretenders, I exclusively play immobile ones. Tis a point well made.

I agree with PDF too.

My point is not about 'how' to make a combatant or what armour or weapons one would need, but an observation on a particular band of commanders and a particular band of items. As I play a particular brand of nation and pretender.

I suspect thats where I am missing the point. As a Mictlan player I would never craft a hunters knife as I can chuck out hellswords for fun. And as I play immobile pretenders I rely on standared commanders to expand initially so I wouldnt kit out my god with lowbie items to assist.

Gotta love this game for the multitude of play styles and options.

Spirokeat

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Well, non-mage mundane commanders make very good gem haulers, especially if they are sneaky. Sure, they may not be actually fighting, but your mages will be mighty glad of getting new, shiny gems after their first battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

In the early game, gems are few and far between. Spending gems and a mage turn on something that will soon be obsolete seems a waste to me. As for items that don't seem to be worth forging, I think that's true even at higher levels. Sometimes I can't imagine an item making much of a difference. Sometimes an item is OK, but another available item is better for the same purpose or is a better value for the cost.

You probably know that commanders can hold for up to five turns before attacking. You can play around with various delays and unit placements so that everyone starts fighting at roughly the same time. Those formations will have to change with the speed of the anticipated opponents.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I feel very much the same about low-level items on commoners. It might be fun, but it isnt even remotely cost effective and takes too much time. It is a shame that all this is wasted...

Here is my solution: Alter the mapfile and add some simple commanders to all provinces, each having the random-equip flag set at low-level. Those certainly do not make it more difficult to conquer the independents, but cause that there are many trinkets around waiting to be won in battle. So one can have some fun discovering some unusual items...
However, it is a shame that there is not a single setting allowing to give random trinkets to all independent commanders...


Another option is probably the difficult research option, where the usability window for low-level items is prolonged...

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

There are a few low level items which do not become obsolete - the Burning Pearl is my favourite - make it straight away and then pass it to an Ice Devil later on ...

... but on the whole I agree with spirokeat - there are a fair proportion of items on the forge list which are rarely or never used. Imho this is a real shame, and a priority for fixing/rebalancing in Dom3. I'm not saying every item should be a no-brainer - far from it - but after 18 months of playing this game I would like to be able to say "oh yes, that comes in really handy when ..." for each item.

But maybe part of this is me - after all, I'm the only person I know who's never forged a Staff of Storms ...

CC

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I haven't, either... in DomII. I did, in Dom:PPP, when I played Caelum in multiplayer... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I mainly used Air Elementals, as they could be summoned without gems. SoS offered quite a nice protection. However, my most active offence force were my hordes of Caelian Scouts. They must have captured dozens of undefended provinces. And I had a sneaking, flying, teleporting Archfiend with Boots of the Planes capturing one of the magically rich provinces every turn, thanks to the one-turn Eyes of the God I had cast before. Ah, good times... But the game did take at least half a year, probably closer to a full one.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

There is a very simple solution to the low-level item problem:

They are too expensive. As we can't change that, simply make all summoning spells 2 times as expensive.
As long as you get one or more summons for the gemcost of the lowliest items, no-one will ever make those as the summons give much more "bang for the buck".

PS: I like dropping some Stinger and Black Tower Shield on indie commanders. Not really cost effective, but fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I make use of only a small percentage of summoning spells, so increasing the cost of them all is overkill. Besides, I get to Construction 4 around Turn 15. Construction 0 items just can't compete. You can't make me forge them. I won't do it (with rare exceptions), no matter how much summoning spells cost.

I like the idea of indie commanders owning magical trinkets. Perhaps even commanders you recruit should have a chance of owning a trinket.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

but if you manage to get out the forge of the ancients and ( dont no if it stacks but it does in unpatched domII ) play ulm with their smiths you can seriously crank out items and give them to every1 ( 75% forge bonus )

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I agree whole heartedly. Theres just tons I like the look of but never forge, I just think its a shame not a major game imbalance. A lot of love and attention went into those items and I would like to repond in kind.

I've never forged a staff of storms either...chuckle.

Spirokeat

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

The low-level items shouldn't be very useful, but they should have some use. Of course, the items without any real powers aren't very good (armor piercing isn't enough alone), and some abilities are more powerful than others (SCs have often have higher str than att, so swords are better than axes) even without considering magic. Some items are just hard to use well, because their main use would be as special replacement weapons for normal units (Star of Heroes isn't that good for an SC who should kill critter/turn or could use something that works better against another SC).

Its the second ones I'd like to use more. Star of Heroes is a good example, as is Evening Star, Fire Bola, Flesh Eater, Vine Whip, Rat Tail, Shield of the Accursed (it is easier to just cast Horror Mark against SCs) etc. The chance of losing them is just too big. Maybe, when a commander with bodyguards dies, they should return (most of) his items with his body.
Also, one reason mundane commanders are not used much is the fact that you must choose between buying a mage or a non-magical commander. I'd like to be able to recruit both martial and scholarly commander every turn. This would let me to buy the usual 1st-turn mage, but also get another Spy as Ulm or a Tribal King to levy Slaves as Mictlan. I'm not sure what caste the priests should be in, as some of them lead armies and some of them act as morale raisers, and DomIII having more national priestly spells might change their role a little.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

shield of accursed is by far the best shield that isn't unique, primarily because of its stats, not its horror marking. most shield give lousy defence, but that shield gives 7.

For a while I had a pretty good setup to give an assasin or succubus which included no unique items. rod of incineraton, shield of the accursed, boots of stone where the mainstays. the helmet could either be the wraith crown or the elemental helm, the first providing ethereal form and a small set of undead guards, the second would kill weak commanders on its own. (i use amon hotep once unique items are available, nothing like magic resistance and invulnerability, all in one hat. The best thing of being a wish based pretender is that you can steal unique items back from the computer.) the trinkets can beanything really, gauntlets to add more protection, etc. i usually go with a ring of regeneration and an amulet of antimagic. it made an assassin nearly unstoppable on its own.

now for a single leader who is nearly unstoppable there are some neat combinations of items. one of my favorite is fenris' pelt, soulstone of the wolves, lifelong protection, wraithlord crown, any boots (teleportation boots are nice on this one), any weapons, but faithful is nice for added luck, and maybe a shield that plays an active role, like aegis or scutta volturnus, or for the theme of added battlefield creatures: lantern shield. alternatively you can go with some staff that allows for summoning, and seet them to summon more critters into battle. you actually end up with so many wolves and undead and imps that you usually can't even get to the enemy.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I just use the regular weak commanders as "Carriers Of The Holy Wine" just so my troops can party hardy all night long http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (Love low-magic/abunch of national troops settings)

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

I usually try to have scouts which travel with the armies in stealth mode hold my bags of wine because if the army dies at least you don't lose these items.

Re: Fighting Commanders and Equipment.
 

Ah, the Ninja Lunch Lady tactic. I suppose it was stupid to have my Black Knight lords packing the grub-sword and charging into battle if the grunts would starve after his blaze of glory.