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Trample balance discussion
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Personally, I'd like to see some way for e.g. MA Ulm to use either units or summons to have a chance against an elephant horde. Using Bonds of Fire or other spells is fine as such, but it'd be nice to have an alternate option. Some kind of repel mechanic might work, but it shouldn't be too powerful. Perhaps ability to deal 1 point of damage to the trampler if the trample is repelled? Another way to nerf trample would be to change all recruitable tramplers to size 5. This would lower the damage they deal and allow Drakes and other size 5 summons to stop them. Third change I once thought was a good idea would be to make trampling big units slow take more action points than trampling small ones. It would be nice if few size 5 Fire Drakes or whatever among your infantry would slow the elephants considerably. |
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Drakes are size 5? Wow. That's crazy.
How big a drake knights for Agartha? |
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I like elephants being size 6. I don't see drakes being so big that they can't be trampled. The average size of an Indian elephant is 10 feet tall, 18 feet long, weighing maybe 15,000lbs. That's roughly the same mass as an average Tyrannosaurus Rex.
From their pictures and their ability to dish out damage, I'd give a very rough, uneducated, high estimate of average earth drake size at 6 feet at the shoulder, 21 feet long, 2000 lbs tops-and that's still gigantic for a predator, especially one that lives entirely on land (tigers rarely get to be 700lbs, and even the largest crocodiles don't get over 3000lbs). If it were up to me, sizes in the game would run from 1-12, and they'd be graduated, because there's not enough differentiation between sizes in the game, with only 6 incremental designations-30 enormous (400lb) human professional linebackers wouldn't have the same mass as a single healthy adult elephant, and they're still size 2, compared to size 6. And there are creatures in the game that are certainly larger than elephants-Dagon for instance, and the Sphinx. The easiest solution to elephant rushes would be to provide a generic, 0 level Construction summon that simply placed a stationary, immobile, size 6 unit on the battlefield. It would cost maybe 1 Earth gem a piece, and be summoned individually, and you'd need several to stop elephant rushes. You couldn't move them around, and they'd be vulnerable to fire, but they'd stop elephants for a long time, until the elephants pulled them apart with their trunks, or your other units got to them. The balance would be nice, since they'd be non-teleport, so you'd have to spend a minimum of 6-15 Earth gems a Province, each Province, and all that mage time, just to protect against Elephants. |
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Make Javelines do X3 damage to Elephants.
I just read an interesting history where Ceaser extenively trained his 3rd legion to deal with elephants by using Javelins. he placed the 3rd legion on both flanks of his army where normally elephants would line up against him. Sure enough the 3rd legion routed the 80 african elephants arrayed on the flanks using their Javelins.No magic needed. |
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That's training, it's not a magical property that all javelins (or javelineers) have, so it's circumstantial-for that matter, elephant plate barding exists, and 80 plate-barded elephants would certainly have shrugged off most of Caesar's iron javelins.
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Sombre:
Size 4 only. Endoperez: The real problem with tramplers is that you usually need a lot of mage power to stop them. And killing them is even harder. And nations that have tramplers available usually can make the use of research lead they can gain, when enemy uses mages to stop elephants. And they can also use their mages to make that tramplers even more powerful [ethereality, beat that!] to boost tramplers in many ways. |
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For some reason I seem to find that slingers do well against elephants. Maybe its a wrong impression but I still fall back to it whenever Im faced with elephants. Or maybe its just because I can put alot of shots in the air cheaply with some chance to do damage and cause a rout.
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i've seen many elephants. they would have difficulty trampling even a small riding drake :)
probably shouldn't be size 6 |
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There are way too many size6 creatures. Elephants, Golems, Dragons, Juggernauts, they should have some size difference.
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Elephants are huge. They are bigger than horses, and dogs. They're bigger than camels. Hell, I could go on listing animals they're bigger than. They're definitely pretty big.
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I wouldn't be against elephants being size 5 and mammoths 6. There are certainly numerous dom3 creatures larger than elephants, like the machaka fetish pretender for instance. I think there are a lot of creatures with weird sizing in dom3 though. Krakens have a graphic that's like size 3 or 4 in size, but they're size 6 iirc. |
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I also agree with those who feel Elephants should not be size 6. I can't imagine them being bigger than Niefel Giants (size 5)! :) |
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Looking at trample in the grand scheme of things, I don't see nations with elephants really dominating the Victorious Nations record. In fact, when it comes to Arcos and the Bandar nations, they rarely appear, so I have difficulty understanding the motivation for changing a core mechanic that would hurt nations that already struggle. Not to take the thread off topic, but if we were focused on balance then I'd say Pythium's hydras are more of an overpowered unit for what they cost in gold and resources and looking at the big picture of national summons. My point is, yes elephants are powerful, but they provide a slight edge for nations that are in need of it, and any apparent imbalance does not seem to be reflected in the elephant nations dominating games.
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I think they're just not very fun to fight. Unless you can muster paralyze or something, you're basically stuffed. I've always found them to be quite unfun for that reason.
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Elephants are not supposed to be "fun" to fight. If you read about historical accounts of their use in Ancient Greek times, they were a terror in battles. While Lord of the Rings battle scenes has them too big, it actually may not exaggerate the terror they cause even battle hardened troops.
Given these accounts it would be justified to give them fear. Obviously that would not be good for balance. But arcos needs its elephants. I challenge someone to play ma or la arcos and not use elephants. If elephants are nerfed, arcos needs a better sacred. maybe a chariot with good armor, attack, and defense that does not trample. And the national summon cannot use s gems. arcos heart and soul is its s gems. a sirrush either has to be so good it is like an abomination, or it needs to cost n gems. As it is they are useless as a 10s item. maybe if you could get 5 of them for 10s, and move them down the tree a bit. But at 10s a piece they might as well cost a 100s a piece. no one in their right mind would buy one. Too many arcos units use spears. thematic yes. But maybe a sacred unit with a sword. Greeks knew what swords were you know. And swords do more dmage. and 25 gold for a heart companion? they are not as good as the 15 gold units which are all i buy when i have the gold and resources. Now this thread is not about arcos., but that is the nation most hurt by an elephant nerf. bandar log has strong nationals and good sacreds, and caelum gets cold bonus and better attack mages. |
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How about a new defensive formation, the square? If could have all the historical strengths and weakness of squares: great at repelling, but very vulnerable to ranged fire.
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Firstly, just because something is bigger doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be a size bigger. A mammoth may be bigger than an elephant, but what would make a size difference is whether the mammoth has the bulk to knock an elephant out of the way. I'd suggest possibly not - a 6 foot tall man cannot reliably just knock a 5 foot tall man out of his way.
Secondly, why shouldn't Elephants be bigger than Niefel Giants? I could suggest even if a Niefel Giant were taller, it still might not have even close to the same mass as they're much thinner. Generally, it's pretty pointless second-guessing the size of many mythological creatures. Although the Egyptians made a really big sphinx statue, the sphinx was a winged lion with a human head, from which we could assume a sphinx was, well, about lion-sized. Just because there's a 100+ foot-high statue of Jesus in Rio it doesn't mean we think Jesus was 100 feet tall. Similarly, dragons vary enormously in myths. Maybe in Dominions they really are about the size of an Elephant or mammoth. |
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Agema: Completely ignoring graphics when it comes to the size of units is counter-intuitive and silly. They are there for a reason. |
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My only beefs with Trample are the automatic 1 point of damage, and the fact that one target can be trampled several times in a single turn.
Without those, I'd be quite happy. I'd still like to see my Dagon actually use the ice swords I give him too, instead of just using them to parry and fight other siz 6 critters. |
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Xietor:
Yeah, and I play with LA Agartha. Some people try to play with Marverni or MA Agartha. They have no elephants. They sacreds are a joke. They have no cheap infantry to expand. Their crossbowmen have lame precision and need flaming arrows to be effective. And they all get owned by elephants. |
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Bandar Log does not have good national troops?
Are you mad? Or have you just never played Bandar Log? Do you know what a Mandaha is? It is one of the best summons in the game. I have spent 100s gems wishing for them before. And they have many many other less expensive but very good national summons. I would check out Baalz guide to Bandar Log as he touches on most of them. |
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Six sizes just aren't enough.
Agema: you're missing the point that the Sphinx in the game *is* just a statue. That's why it can't move. If it was a lion with wings, then yes, winged-lion-size all the way. Golems should really just be human-sized, maybe size 3 at the most--if you're basing them on the Golem of Prague. The other critters mentioned, Dragons and Juggernauts, really should be as large as an elephant. 1: because Dragons *carried off and ate* elephants-so did Rocs, only Rocs did it in the AIR. And making the Juggernaut anything less than size 6 kindof seems anticlimactic. Even the guy who played him in the X-men movie was about a size 4 or so :p And Jesus *was* a hundred feet tall, haven't you ever read the Bible??? And the Ancient Kraken, beloved though he is by me, could use a makeover. It's a fun graphic, but it's starting to show it's age-as in, it would go great as a Pretender for a "Plan 9 from Outer Space" Nation. :) |
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If you aren't claiming that BL's recruitable troops are strong then I'm not disagreeing with you. No need to act like an *******. |
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Oh sorry then, we are talking 2 different things. They have very powerful national summons.
Their castle bought troops are good as well. their sacreds put heart companions to shame. And cost less gold and resources. And bandar log gets 80 free design points(2 heat). My only point, perhaps poorly made, is a nerf to elephants would imo adversely affect arcos the most. |
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But I remember you saying a while back that MA Arco was one of the better nations precisely because they have heart companions. Have you just changed your mind, or am I misremembering? |
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I think i once said Heart Companions can be good with an f9e4 bless. And if they got design points like Bandar Log or caelum, perhaps arcos could afford a bless. But they cant.
That conversation was in the context of what could kill vans prenerf. and people were throwing out various ideas. Heart Companions with a bless was mine. If I am not mistaken Tuidy, who never lets anything lie without a test, proved me wrong. And they turned out to be inferior even with a f9e4 bless. Shrug. |
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LOUD NOISES!
I agree that 6 sizes are a bit restrictive in gradation. Though it does seem as if the best way to tune the power of recruitable tramplers, is a size reduction of any trampler that is size 6 currently, down to size 5. Also, perhaps a small increase in resource cost, to slow down availability. Though ultimately, I think the main problem is just Hinnom. They simply have so many strengths, that the chariots really stick out as unnecessary in general. |
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Why is six sizes too restrictive? Its not as if a slight difference in size will allow one unit to trample the other. There has to be a really large difference. Any size can have many units of many different sizes but for trample the only thing that needs to be reflected by two sizes in Dom is a really large difference. Trample isnt the same as just being able to roll over a creature.
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I mean, regular elephants only need to be countered with archers of Fire Large Monster and chaff (like PD) to die for the cause, while super armored elephants need something more exotic to get them to flee. Blessed troops will do, but I favor the Water bless for it's high defense and additional attacks. I suppose most people default to magery, but it seems a waste for units that break spectacularly with minimal damage. |
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I will sum it up thusly - you can easily fit more than 3 combat functional people in the space that an elephant fills. I can go into much greater detail if you like, but I think that unless that point can be adequately discounted, then the premise stands. (EDIT- Bear in mind, the size mechanic impact many other impacts of the game besides trampling, personally I think something like a range from 2-10 would provide greater functionality.) |
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If it were up to me, sizes in the game would range from 1 to 12, and combat squares would hold 64 spaces. The sizes themselves wouldn't correspond exactly to their numerical order-while size 1 would equal 1 space, size 12 wouldn't equal 12 spaces on a square. Instead, they'd have these values:
(Size)=(Spaces occupied). 1=1 (dragonfly, Aboleth Polyp.) 2=2 (hoburg, goblin, imp) 3=3 (human sized) 4=4 (shambler, troll, Warhammer ogre) 5=6 (Jotun, unridden horse, shark, Living Pillar, giant eagle) 6=8 (heavy calvalry, unridden moose, unridden drake) 7=12 (Niefel sized, moose + troll rider) 8=16 (Basalt King, Cyclops) 9=24 (monster fish, Aboleth, Titan) 10=36 (elephant, mammoth, earth mother, Aboleth Mind-lord) 11=48 (Dagon, Baluchitherium, Colossal Fetish, Ziz, dragon) 12=64 (filling an entire square: Ancient Kraken, Sphinx, Asp turtle, whale, larger dinosaurs) |
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So ummmm. You could fit 21 humans in a square, or....? :shock:
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Yep, exactly.
I said 12 sizes was a good idea, I never suggested it wouldn't dramatically alter combat in Dominions. |
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Yeah, now they play the 'Dukes of Hazard' car horn, it's great!
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What I'm getting at is that I think people are applying too much logic and reality to it all. It's a game. It's about the interplay between various statistics, attributes and effects, where the designers put a lot of time and effort into making it work. Hence if elephants should be nerfed to size 5 you should make the case with whether they are unbalanced or not. When you start basing arguments on the fact you can fit more than 3 humans into the area an elephant takes up, or that a mammoth was 20% larger than an elephant is in real life, guessing that Niefel giants were supposed to be 15, 20 or 30 feet tall according to Nordic myth, or that the in-game graphical dragon has 28% more pixels than the in-game graphical elephant, it's all missing the point. |
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Realism can serve a similar purpose. When you call a weapon a sword or a short bow or 'fire breath' people immediately have some idea of what it will do. They can still go and look at the stats (which are 'hidden' for a /reason/) if they want to know exactly how it works, but believe me people would enjoy the game far less if a unit called a 'knight' with a heavily armoured powerful looking graphic was actuall a hoburg with a pitchfork. According to your logic there wouldn't be a problem there - It would still be just as pretty, in terms of gameplay people would only need to look at the stats to know. Yet it's clearly absurd and counterintuitive. You're also putting far too much emphasis on the design decisions of the devs. I'm willing to bet KO doesn't even remember why krakens are whatever size they are. He's said numerous times he isn't even very concerned about balance and he's often very surprised at how things actually work in terms of gameplay. I'm not criticising him here, it's just the way he is. People have already, many, many times discussed the balance of elephants and tramplers more generally. When people talk about size and graphics and so on, they are considering the other effects a change in size has - besides graphics. Whether it will make the game less intuitive, or has a 'wrong' feeling about it. That's precisely the sort of thing KO thinks about, not so much balance and stats. He primarily wants an elephant to be an elephant (as he envisions), not unit X to do Y or Nation A to be stronger than nation B at point C in the game. |
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Your first two paragraphs are the worst act of reductio ad absurdam I've seen in a long time. Please at least try to view my argument with at least some reasonable spirit.
I'm not going to second-guess KO or assume I know his motives. But to me the elephant graphic looks damn large enough to be size 5 or 6. I don't honestly see what the problem with its representation is, or with Titans, krakens, and the rest of it. You know there are 6 sizes. If they look big, you check the size stat to make sure, just like you see a knight and check to see quite how nasty it is. The "feeling" is fine to me, and I suspect most other Dom3 users. |
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The rest of your post suggests to me you haven't actually looked at the kraken graphic. Not the ancient kraken. The regular summon. I believe the shark is also size 6. It doesn't seem intuitive to me, but being underwater it doesn't come into play that much. It's not something I'd go on and on about. Regardless, I don't really disagree with your second post. Elephants look size 5 or 6 graphically speaking. Or put another way, considering they're size 6, their graphic looks of an appropriate size. It would also be appropriate for a size 5. |
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Btw, I still think MA Arcos is one of the better MA Races. But it is based on their strong astral magic, mind hunts, communions, and reverse communions. But they need elephants to survive early. If Elephants were nerfed, they would no longer be one of the better MA Races. They are in fact better than LA Arcos because astrologers get more s magic then sybils.
Both arcos races are hard to play, as they need much pregame planning. They need thugs to survive in the midgame due to elephants becoming obsolete, and no decent national summons or sacred troops. I am quite happy with the Lich as a pretender for LA Arcos. |
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By the way, it's been a very long time since I've read the elephant description, but I'm not 100% certain that Kristoffer intended that they just be average sized Indian elephants--which I still believe should be size six. They could very well be African elephants, which are significantly larger, or even imperial mammoths, which reached heights of 16 feet or more at the shoulder. I *do* remember something being said about them being the largest of all beasts, which to me says size 6 all the way.
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Endoperez:
Nothing is more ugly than mind burning illithids. You can get at least an headache from it. Or worse. |
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BTW as we are on topic:
How would a couple of good, untrampeable thugs with ivy crowns (some animal awe), work against, let's say, a dozen elephants? And does normal Awe work against elephants as well? |
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I didn't say graphics had nothing to do with the creature: you extrapolated that unfairly. Similarly I don't know why you are implying I thought elephants should be size 4 or under. I feel like you are putting words in my mouth and arguing against them instead of what I've actually said. If I can clarify, I read the file and saw people arguing size stats for some units are "wrong" or need reconstructing to 12 sizes. I don't find some of the arguments about 'realism', graphical niceties, and so on convincing. I think the important arguments are about game balance. That's where I'm coming from, even if I didn't just stamp that statement down straight away. |
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Awe works against elephants. Pretty well too, though their morale isn't really that low. Normal humans with Ivy crowns would probably get squished pretty quickly. Giants (or the equivalent) would last long enough to matter. I wonder if that's the niche use for the Rat Tail? Fear on hit & Animal Awe
Anything untrampleable works wonders against elephants, but the only things elephants can't trample are other size 6 creatures, which at the start where elephants a threat is your pretender (or your own elephants) |
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Yeah rat tail does ok against elephants. However with enough of them or a morale boost, your dude will get trampled fairly quickly. Only has to lose one awe check and he's toast.
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? :happy: |
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Ive given some of the EA Ctiss sacred chariot riders a rat tails and used them as linebackers to hold hordes of Mammoths while terror spam finally made them route.
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