Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Here's an idea I've got about supplies in Dom 3: The use of supply lines to get supplies from one province to another.

To illustrate, let's say you're playing Jotunheimen. Your capital produces 300 supplies and uses 10 for the units in it, leaving 290. A neighbouring province produces 21, and the province your army is in produces 4. The problem is that it requires 192 (don't ask how you can have such a huge army and only three provinces, 'k, I'm just providing an example:p).

So the army in the third province needs 188 supply units to avoid starvation. The neighbouring province has 4 supply units it's not using, and sends them over. The capital has 290 supplies left-over, and easily manages to cough up the 184 your hungry army needs.

Maybe there should be a delay before supplies made it to armies, and maybe some of it would get lost along the way. For example, if Jotunheim is giving 100 supplies to a province five provinces away, less than 100 would reach it?

I'd also like it if you could prioritize armies for supplies with settings scuh as "Keep this army fed when possible".

Also, it'd open for new strategies. Unimportant provinces could suddenly become very important as taking them cut off supply lines and left armies starving.

In addition, there could be spells, items, upgrades, etc. based around the supply lines.

Finally, spies could have an "Harrass caravans" order, which decreased the amount of supply units an army received.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Very neat idea. I'm a big fan of supply lines in games (man does that sound dorky) because of the facts you listed above. It definitely adds a new layer of strategy to the game and if done right, could be a lot of fun. For instance, wouldn't it be cool if you persuade bandits/independants in an enemy's province to attack more often and give your support to them? You could have them attack caravans, supply deopts etc. Another thing it could bring to the table are bazaars where you could sell excess supplies and buy supplies when needed, at expensive prices of course.

Only problem I see with all this is maybe Dom3 is already too far into development to add all this? Perhaps a skilled modder could bring our fantastic dreams to fruition?

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Yeah either we will get this in Dom3 already, or Id have to say that its an item for the Dom4 wishlist

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Simple supply lines already exist. The numbers don't show up, and it's hard to notice, but provinces around castles have more supplies. If you ever lose the province between th closest fort and your main army, you'll notice the effect, even if you can't identify the reason.

I don't remember the numbers, but it works from castles' admin values IIRC.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

"Zplendid":)!

As an addition, should the supplies take some time to get flowing as the caravans have to move physically to get there? Something like a line materializing out of the source province and slowly making its way to the target province?

So that when you're in a province with a black line, you can get supplies from the source province. If you're not, no good. And the lines are first thin, then they thicken up, marking that you can get more and more supplies in that province as the caravans for that part of the stretch are getting more organized. Just ideas. It might be better if it was instantenous.

Oh, and the Vanir and whatever other "sailing nations" should be able to transport supplies across sea provincres.

As a side note, I'm all for more interaction with independent provinces, and independent provinces interacting with each others. For example, pay off a neighbouring province too well-defended to conveniently invade and you're allowed to take your supply lines through it.

PS: Who did I fool with the thread heading and the Red Cross symbol?

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I dont think its IN Dom3. Im just saying that by this time it either is, or its a thing for Dom4. Im pretty sure its too late for major additions.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Then I misunderstood. Damn. Well, I'll cross my claws.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I also like this idea. This would enchance the strategic part of the game definitely.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Unless modding in dom3 is drastically different than in dom2, this is not going to be possible. In any case, there are supply lines already in dominions. Forts provide a lot of supplies to provinces around them; should there no longer be a line of supply between your fort and the province your army is in, the supplies go away. It's not a huge effect, and only comes into play once in a while, but it's there.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I think it would make more sense for supply shortfall to cause population drop.

I can't see a hungry dragon running out of food in a large, well populated province!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Hmm, you're right about the army getting the good food, but this is more a game balance issue than a realisum one. the army shall starve http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

It's not exactly unbalanced. It's usually a lot easier to replace the army than population.
The main danger would be getting locked into a cycle - as the population decreases, the supply decreases, next turn there's an even bigger shortfall....

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what is unbalanced that needs to be fixed?

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Nobody said anything was unbalanced and needed to be fixed.

The supply requirement is a balancing factor. The larger the army, the more supplies it consumes. Remove this fact, and the game basically comes down to whoever can recruit the most troops the quickest.

If this were altered, then something would need to replace it. My point was that having the army consume population if it were undersupplied would be just as balancing - Unless you had a death dominion (who don't usually need supplies anyway) you couldn't leave the army in any friendly province without it damaging yourself, and you'd need to quickly move it out of conquered provinces otherwise they'd become worthless.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

We cant say anything is imbalanced in Dom3 yet.
In fact, I would be critical of anyone who makes statements about balance within the first year of Dom3's release. It took me that long to stop crying imbalance in Dom2 about one nation before trying another and finding the balance was there. Trying them all is going to take awhile.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Well, pillaging generates supplies. So it's really in Dom2 already.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Depends. I mean, if there's a "kill all other pretenders and win" spell which is only available to a specific side they might have a point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
With something like Dominions I suspect any imbalance is more than likely the player misunderstanding the full implications of a particular strategy, nation or pretender. It's easy to see why - the disadvantages of a given nation may only appear if you attempt to play them a certain way, or your opponent takes advantage of a specific troop type.
It's something you always face in a game with the depth and variety of Dominions. Most people have a preferred style of play, and if they are playing a nation which suits that style of play then it will naturally seem more powerful. It may never occur to the player that there are critical weaknesses in their style until they meet an opponent who can take advantage of them.
Multiplayer doesn't help much. It's easy to see an imbalance when a player dominates with a particular strategy, especially if you have already written off the particular strategy as weak. In all likelihood, it's probably the case that your opponent has noticed something about the strategy which you overlooked - it's something that works to their own personal playing style but not necessarily to your own.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

While there is no doubt no shortage of such misunderstandings, it is far from saying most perceived imbalances are such. I could make a list a mile long of things in base dom2 experienced players simply would never consider using, and a much shorter list of things that were so useful the game could be said to more or less revolve around being the first to acquire the most of them.

It doesn't even take years of balance testing to discover that almost any use for death gems is better than summon shades, or that the slave collar is useless. And it only takes a few games to notice that people rushing for air queens/vine ogre hordes/spectres perform much better than others.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

You mean if one nation has a spell that makes it so that at the start of each game all other nations will ally together against it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Wow, I guess I need to stop summoning shades. Or just stop using them in front-line armies?

Im guessing by your comments that you are a "mass armies" kinda guy. Shades are useful in creating a unit to go after SC's or Heroes. Adding them to sap strength while something else hits.

Also for drawing fire since they are etheral and poison resistant.

and for attacking water provinces

and of course my favorite, to add to a stealth army

Did you mean they were no good after other later summonings become available in large games?

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

No, I mean they are very near useless at any stage of the game. Of course almost all low level summon share the problem of becoming obsolete very quicky, but shades are in a class of their own as far as wasting gems.

I'm not a 'mass armies' or 'sc' or 'stealth' player, I tend to use all of the above when available/useful. Shades are virtually useless against SCs, their low (vs. sc defense) attack stat and magic resistance negates weapon mean they almost never do anything. They simply die to the SC's damage shield in a couple rounds. For drawing fire, anything works as a decoy, and you can use junk that it is a lot less expensive.

If it is really an emergency where you are getting rushed and you need your early death gems to support your army, you are better off casting reanimate or revive wight. If you want to do stealth raiding, black servants are a far better choice, they can in some cases actually perform better than three shades, and finding undead stealth leadership for the shades is not easy/cheap. Trying to build up enough of them to do almost anything underwater is ridiculously expensive, and longdead from reanimate would perform better in most cases. Even all of that is mostly theoretical... the situations where you would use revive wight or reanimation are extremely rare, but when you do encounter them, they are certainly a better choice than shades.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Anything is a better choice than shades. Anything is a better choice than anything if you use them by themselves. But a simulation of shades mixed in slightly with other units does pretty well. Unless of course you have higher level units available with amphib, or stealth, or ethereal, or strngth sap.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Yes, and mixing any not very good unit with other stuff dilutes their suckiness, that doesn't really show anything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

The abilities you list are either 'extras' (i.e ethereal doesn't isn't really a niche in itself, it's just nice to have, and on a weak and expensive unit it is just not nice enough alone), available easier and better other ways (amphibian and stealth) or just plain negligible (steal strength).

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

If you say so, I dont see it except in later units

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Well, I don't know what to say then. I've clearly pointed out better same-or-lower-level alternatives to all their niches (apart from steal strength, and it only takes a few combat tests to see how ineffective that is vs. almost anything).

I should also point out that the CB mod more than halved their price and they were still almost never used.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Doesn't necessarily mean it's a balance problem though. In fact, the whole shade debate kind of proved my point http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gifAny game which includes an advance system of some kind is going to get the same thing occuring, it often makes sense to ignore certain tiers of units simply because your resources would be better spent reaching the next tier. Simply because those units are obsolete doesn't mean they are unbalanced.
With any game that includes a gradual power increase you get the same effect. Of course people rushing to get the better, higher class units are going to do well - otherwise what would be the point in having a research tree at all?

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Right. Its like saying that the lower level skills in an RPG game is worthless because everyone pushes for higher levels.

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Of course higher research spells are and should be better, but they are not perfectly so. My point was not 'shades suck because higher level stuff is better'. My examples, in fact, were of lower level spells.

By the same token, some high level spells are more than worth the research to get too, while others would barely be useful even if they were low level. Research cost can be a great balancer, but with so many spells it's silly to think it's perfectly applied everywhere.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

It kind of depends. One thing to consider is how the spell type effects this process - Shades may be weaker than other summons of the same level, but if you only took the Death path at creation you have no alternative, without a large outlay of resources to learn another path. To take something you said earlier: "The abilities you list are either 'extras', available easier and better other ways or just plain negligible. " Is it possible to get all of those abilities on a single unit? with a single selected path?
To be honest, comparing directly across spell lists is ignoring a huge factor of what goes into the balance of those lists. From the creation of your pretender your going to be paying for it - perhaps you'd be better off spending points on Dominion scales, or strength, or a better castle, or a better pretender. Then you need to consider the nation your using - will you start with access to gems of the path, or will you need to find a site which can give you those gems first? Can you afford to raise your paths with gems rather than paying for them at creation? Is it worth taking a specific path to make up for deficiencies in another (which leads on to multi-path spells, items available and similar).
You have imbalance on the one hand because, unlike chess, all of the choices a player makes are not equal. On the other, the balance is across the whole game rather than concentrating on a specific area - the choices the player can make are balanced, but only if the player understands the effect of those choices. It is possible for the player to ignore magic completely and go for a combat oriented pretender with hordes of troops, and still win.Or simply max out their Dominion strength and go for the dominion victory. Neither way is inherently imbalanced, each require different choices and offer different challenges. However, if a player doesn't know precisely what they're doing then it can lead to percieved imbalance. If the above mentioned combat player gets wiped out by the dominion player they may come to the conclusion that there is an imbalance in the way dominion works. However, what is more likely is that the combat player has made some poor choices in the creation of their nation/pretender, or simply don't know how to combat dominion spread - i.e. they don't fully understand how to play their chosen strategy.
This is why you get the experienced players ignoring certain units. It doesn't necessarily mean that those units are useless, imbalanced or obsolete. It's more to do with the player understanding enough about how the game works to know that those particular units or choices are not the best (or most required) compliment to the strategy (or what they are attempting to achieve). These units will change depending on what the player wants to achieve - what is ignored in one strategy may play a central role in another. Units which never see the light of day in multiplayer may be indispensable in single player. Simply because most players ignore a particular unit does not necessarily point to a problem with that unit, it may simply be that nobody has found a strategy which would suit the particular unit.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Actually, all of the examples I gave were using death magic.

While it's true many combinations of abilities/stats can allow the application of unique strategies, it's a matter of cost. The whole point of balance is insuring that a variety of strategies get into play, since at the first go at pricing things are naturally not all at similar levels of cost effectiveness. They don't need to be perfectly so, it's not really possible anyway, but they need to be comparably effective for the price or the entire strategy will just get pushed aside. It is certainly the case that a player that is skilled/familiar with their strategy can still win with one that that is less cost effective, but like everything else, it's a matter of degree. Someone who trained all their life with a bow and arrow could probably easily beat someone who just picked up a gun for the first time in their life, but that doesn't make the weapons 'balanced'. If you pit people very familiar with both weapons against each other, they are going to end up picking the same one. The nice thing about a game rather than reality though, you can give each option a unique advantage (it doesn't have to be a direct advantage, it could be something as simple as price, if the incentive is enough).

I think we agree that almost everything has possibilities to be used in a strategy, the hang up is just that some strategies can be employed far more effectively than others with the same resources available. That, and sometimes units/spells/items are simply so similar to each other they need some tweaks to find their own unique niche.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

What is the number of shades/gems used ratio?

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

3 shades for 5 gems.

Looking at an old game I remembered that I dont know how many times they have saved my mages from assassination. In most cases I cant think of anything else Id use that I wouldnt rather use front-line instead. And as I said, its often the only stealth or aquatic troop I have available early in the game that an draw fire so my mages or priests or leader with a a nasty weapon can do their work.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

Well, first of all, there are few assassins shade bodyguards can kill that national troops ones can't. Second, you can for the most part only use them for death or blood mages, which are pretty tough to assassinate in any case.

I don't see how it could possibly the only stealth or aquatic troop available often, reanimation and black servant are both level one research. And for both cases you still need a leader to use them for the purpose.

I'm not saying that shades can never kill anything, I'm not even saying that their abilities can't be useful, only that you can virtually always accomplish the same things better in other ways. Just because the hammer you paid 100$ for works for pounding in nails doesn't mean you weren't gypped compared to the 25$ hammer that does the same thing.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I mostly agree about the shades, but note that black servants aren't aquatic unless you put an item on them.

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I didnt say they killed anything. But having someone to draw fire for even one shot can mean survival for many leaders. If I have a stealth leader then I need stealth bodyguards. If I have an aquatic leader then I need aquatic bodyguards. And ethereal isnt bad to toss in also.
I havent verified the thing about strength-sap never working. I had thought it was a factor in my taking out strong units with leaders/bodyguards that wouldnt otherwise have prevailed. But I may have been wrong.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I didn't say strength sap wasn't working, only that in most cases it was a negligible effect. Against normal troops having sometimes a couple points less damage from one of them is an extremely minor effect, large summons tend to have extra str and mr to spare, and SCs most of the time use damage shields rather that strength based damage anyway.

Stealth leaders that are sneaking every other turn can't be assassinated anyway, and if they aren't normal guards will do. As for aquatic, I've said it before, the longdead from reanimation can go underwater. It is certainly true in assassination attempt even one bodyguard is usually a lot better than none... but that's a niche other things fill much better than shades.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

like what?

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Almost anything you have available, most universally, national troops work fine for the purpose. Also, the longdead from reanimation are at least a somewhat better option.

If you want really want to take this debate out of vagueness, you (or someone else) could attach a savegame where you are or are planning use shades. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

any national troop or longdead is better than an ethereal at drawing fire? They last longer?

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The question is not one of lasting longer, but more one of cost effectiveness. If we are dealing with assasinations, then the best defense is having so many commanders that the ones you care about aren't likely to get attacked.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

thats cost effective over a few death gems?

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You only get three shades for your five death gems, so the comparison is between 25 gold independent commanders that protect every other commander from assasination, and spending half the cost of a bane lord to protect a commander is considerably more expensive.

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I guess so. It still smacks of the big-army tactics which are different than mine. But I can see the point

Re: Starvation victims abroad need help NOW!
 

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by big-army tactics, but I assume you mean as opposed to raiding tactics. That's certainly not counter to my playing style, I'm actually somewhat infamous for abusing any kind of raiding available. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

But the key thing in raiding is to have parties that are more cost/combat effective than the defense that is mounted, and shades don't fall into that category even just against PD. In any case, raiding is extremely hard to counter with assassination, as it doesn't work versus stealth, and versus a good raider it is extremely hard to predict where to send the assassins.