Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

This made sense, given that the middle game may well feature clashes of actual armies (instead of going from Just Enough Force to Take Indies straight to Massive Supercombatant that can Take On Anything).
From the screenshots in another thread I notice that the new leadership levels are:
Old: 10, 25, 50, 75, 125
New: (not seen yet), 40, 80, 120, (not seen yet)

Given also that true armies are actually viable (for just long enough to matter anyway) it's suddenly not a no-brainer to grab cheap design points with a death scale. I like that.


Unrelated point: Now that nation themes are now seperate eras, do themes that used to require odd scales still require the same odd scales? E.G. does Spring and Autumn still require Turmoil-1 and Magic-1 even while the other Early Era nations either had no restrictions before or are totally fresh concepts? And Late Era Ulm, apparently a cross of Black Forest (req'd Mis, Dea, Mag IIRC) and Iron Faith (Prod, Drain).. eepsie, this would have been a problem...

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Where you say death scale, I assume you mean sloth?

Anyway, to answer some of that, poor leadership still has a value of 10, and forced scales are gone.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

It's 10 (guys like mages and priests usually have that), 40, 80, 120 and <don't remember now>.

Since there is more gold and larger armies in game, leadership has increased.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Also, growth scale has become more desirable as it now reduces chance for old age affictions. Basically, your old people will live longer so most powerful (and usually old) mages will live longer too.

Death 3 is still valid choice but it's no longer a no-brainer.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

When ever Death 3 was a no-brainer? o_O

Except for Death nations that is. And maybe Abysia.

But yay for more leadership. I can now make Lobo Waves like none before!

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

In games with QM or Arch it was almost a no-brainer.
They used death 3 basically always in vanilla Dom2 and still often in Dom2 CB.
And QM won almost all blitzes.

Somehow the usual Dom2 vanilla scales defaulted to magic 3 order 3 misfortune 3 death 3 sloth 3 heat preference +/- 1.

Only in longterm games growth scale was occasionally valuable, especially for blood nations. But there iirc Arch usually took death 3 nontheless and dominated with something else like mass vine ogres or van abuse or whatever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I see then.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

You 3-player blitzes were small maps and fast games. I could see it being used then altho I think that if you know its coming that there would be a logical choice to combat it.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

The logical choice to combat a player who has 120 extra design points from a death 3 scale is to take a death 3 scale yourself. You certainly wouldn't take growth 3, since that would put you at a 240 point disadvantage for no real gain.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

True. What's funny is how I never do this is SP, but only because I don't always enjoy winning a game as efficiently as possible; which is to rely on summoned armies. I can certianly see how, even in a long game, death 3 is choice because you should already have your gem income by the time your gold income begins to wane. Heck, for slow players like myself, Death 3 could be a real asset to force me to play a more efficient game.

=$=

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Yeah in SP which i enjoy a lot too i never play effectively.

But in MP my cruel opponents force me to not play as sloppy as in SP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif.
I am still obsessed with my idea to win a SP game vs. impossible AIs with just using national troops and commanders. So far i have never succeeded at this challenge but always enjoy it to try it again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Death nations and underwater nations do not count as valid nations for this challenge http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I would guess that another strategy would be a strong dominion wall, strong defense (jutenheim), and holding out until his tactics kill him off. Depending of course on which nation he is playing.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

That sounds like an interesting challenge. By death nations do you mean Ermor or any nation that has national death mages? Do you allow battleship summoning (elementals,skeletons,false horrors etc)?

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I plan to make 2 total conversion mods. The first will be a basic fantasy based mod with dwarves, elves etc.

The second mod will be the same, except that all troops for the nations and their summons will be stronger, but they will cost the same mana/resource/gold. However 1 nation's troops won't be upgraded, and that will be the human player's nation. Imho it will be almost impossible to win against the AIs on the hardest diff. level with my upcoming settings in that TC mod.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I've tried the game with the following restrictions:
- only national troops (and pretender can be used) and mercenaries can be used (no indy mages);
- no ritual summons;
- no creature generators (neither permanent, like devil generator nor battlefield ones such as living water, lifelong protection etc);
- no gem generators;

To my surprise I've won without much difficulty, which is probably because I've played Jotunheim. My plan was to use blessed woodsmen and later on use niefel jarls as mini-SC. Considering that research didn't look like a high priority I took drain-2. I've got monolith with E9W6S4 (dom 6) which left me with enough points for decent scales. Early on I wasn't buying mages at all - just woodsmen and jotun jarls to lead them. I had to wait a bit until I got enough woodsmen to keep a good line (to avoid being surrounded) before expanding, but then it went easy - I've steamrolled over indy and my AI neighbours (Man, Arco and Abysia). I only bought few mages to search for sites. After getting construction researched (mostly by pretender) I've bought some more mages and equipped them with skull mentors. I've tried to use Niefel Jarls as SCs, but it didn't work particularly well, they were only useful to take poorly defended provinces, so in the end I've conquered everybody mostly with woodsmen. Afterwards, I think it might be easier to play any other Jotunheim theme - I had virtually no mage support on the battlefield.

Though, I've played on small map without Ermor or water nations (with them things would be more difficult I think). I suspect this approach wouldn't be that successful (but perhaps still viable) on a large map, but I wanted to finish it before Dom3 anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

This strategy will likely work with any other bless-efficient nation.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Yes this is very possible on a small map, however on a large map with impossible AIs...I don't think that it would work. I might give it a try.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I've tried a large map with Machaka (F9N9 sacred spiders) and things went pretty well again (even better than with Jotuns I think). I'm surprised how much different the game is when you're not allowed to use summons. Now I have tons of gems and now I understand why AI likes to give a lot of gems to every magic caster http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Drain 3 seems to be a way to go because there's no big rush to research anymore and later gems can be spent to forge research boosters. Amazingly, it seems that with this strategy it's actually easier to win vs impossible AI. I have never tried this strategy before, but it works really well. Once again I've easily run over 3 neighbours (Arco, Man and Pangaea) with my spiders (and they rarely die) and now (by turn 40) I have the largest empire with large spider army (ability to recruit them in capital only hurts a bit though) and I can afford expensive mages to provide serious firepower support, so effectively I've already overcome advantages impossible AI had. I'll try to play a bit further to make sure nothing unexpected happens...

Dominions doesn't stop to amaze me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I used this tactics in MP blitzes, but why I've never thought that it may work in a larger game? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I'm also a fan of Machaka yet I play most large or huge maps... I moved to different nations because I hated having the worst province defense.

Maybe Dominions_4 will have a feature where gamers can cast spells and/or spend gold to upgrade the units of province defense.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Err... What about the globals? You know, the one with mechanical men, and the other with underwater monsters defending your provinces, and the one with the dead being animated to fight as vine creatures?

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

wow interesting. I will try it also. I've never used this tactic in the MP games to be honest, and usually we play on "small" maps. Hm..perhaps I should give it a try in MP also. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

The globals add new units to province defense they don't upgrade the existing units of province defense. I'm sure many gamers wouldn't mind spending X amount of gold or gems for upgrading province defense. Or perhaps some good events can be created to upgrade province defense in Dominions_4.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

What strategies did you use in small MP games? To my knowledge, fast bless strategy is one of the top methods in such settings...

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Does PD really make much differense? I've never paid much attention to it. Everybody can defend vs single scout and nobody can do anything vs decent army. Well, I suppose, Jotuns have easier time deflecting hawk invasions and such with smaller numbers.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Well "small" map for us means 120 land provinces for a 4 player game, 180 for 6 players and 240 provinces for 8 players. [Water provinces are between 16 and 42] Usually I've never used any fast strategies, since imho I couldn't win a game this way against the lads who I am playing with. I doubt that it will work, but I will try it tomorrow, we will have a 4 player TCP/IP game.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

That's not really "small". Usual small map for 4-player blitz is Urgaia (AFAIR, approx 60 provinces). 120 provinces for 4 players is more like "sparse medium" map. Fast bless strategy can still work, but I'd expect MP-specific problem.

If your opponents play slow strategy you'll likely quickly steamroll one of your opponents and after that remaining 2 will quickly forge alliance against you. You may try to make something like the following: expand quickly toward opponent A. When he sees your scary early armies he will get concerned, but you can offer to stop expanding any further in that direction in exchange either for defensive treaty vs opponent B or aggressive pact vs opponent B. In the first case you can expand like mad toward B, be unreasonable in negotiations, leave your provinces open and make sure you cut-off all his paths for expansion. In the latter case you just attack B. But, of course, it's just a feint and you won't be dedicating much forces to that war. Your real goal is quickly conquer opponent C. By the time the dust settle you should be able to take over C and make good inroads into B (who has to fight 2 fronts). At this stage opps will probably realize what's happening and A will change sides, but he'd still need to reprofile his army vs you, so you should have a chance fighting vs both of them for the rest of the game.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Yes in really large maps I notice a difference. I've had good Machaka province defense lose to 'call of the winds'. Machakas province defense will die from tennis balls because of the zero protection. In SP the weak province defense is mostly an annoyance. In MP the weak province defense is more an issue... but again this is for really large maps.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

Yeah, that isnt really a "small" map, I thought so. However we always play with these settings. Anyways I will surely try some "blitz" strategy, its funny that I've never tried it. Btw we never set up alliances after the game is live. We set up the alliances before the game, so for example a 4 player game can be 2v2 or 1v1v1v1.
Actually I've never played with you lads, since [in Doms 2.] I had too many TCP/IP games with the fans here. [I meant my country fellas]
Most of us are already preordered Doms 3., but I will surely gonna play against you guys. Well at least I hope so, because I don't have too much time to play in these weeks.
I am focusing a lot on real life. [training, girlfriend, parties..oh and school] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I've played really large maps only in MP and in my experience for the most of the game (except early game) the normal way to take opponents provinces was through GR or raiding parties where PD doesn't make much difference anyway. Ok, maybe Pangaea or Caelum can give trouble to some raiding parties, but other than that, what were people attacking with so that PD mattered?

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

My 15_PD was falling to 'call of the winds'.
The opponent with the soulstone could send the wolves which could then sneak into a nearby territory and attack some other location.
Once the farming of pearls becomes effective madmen would easily pounce a territory far behind the lines.
Late stages of the game I notice the bad province defense.

It's also an uncomfortable feeling for me knowing all the other nations have better province defense.

Re: Leadership levels upped, I see?
 

I didn't know it's that bad that 15 loses to COW. Otherwise, I think it's the same for most of nations - PD vs wolves or madmen is impractical. And I agree that those wolves are annoying because they're hard to catch. With a suitable national (Caelum, C'tis) etc it's usually more practical to park a spammer in every worthwhile province.