what about castles
 

is the combat when a castle is breached pretty like in doms I, that is you see a big gap where the gate was, and you are trying to hold the enemy where the bottleneck is? Perhaps some improvements were made on that?

Also, is the mechanic of castle defence the same, that is each race has a hard coded set of ballistae and archers firing, or is it now dependant of the type of castle, the national theme, etc. ?

Just to get a new discussion rolling on castles, the forum is slowing his pace http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: what about castles
 

It'd be nice if the defense type was dependent on the actual castle rather than nation. I'd expect a fortress to have better defenses than just a regular castle, no matter whether it's Abysia or Pangaea or whoever holding it.

Edi

Re: what about castles
 

The theme alters what archers/support units you get but the fort choice does not. It would certainly make sense for it to do so. Possibly, the bonus for fort defenses are meant to be rolled into their larger Defense stat, but I'd rather see the troops in combat.

Re: what about castles
 

This may have already been covered but are castles spreading out alittle? When the stats on castles were changed in Dom 1 the lowest two dropped off of everynes use list. The highest ones also I think.

IMHO Id like to the more variety in the pros and cons of the castles to allow for more variety in tactics. Just a couple examples...

If the mausoleum were 100 and a 2-day build then it would be quite useful strategically to races such as Ulm and Pangaea.

If the high end castles were long-build, high-cost, but had great admin/supply boosts it would be useful to races such as Man

Re: what about castles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I like the sound of this. right now the advantages of some of the higher end castles don't seem to outweigh the long build time and cost.

I would also like to see some more variety, like an expensive (in gold) castle that takes a while to build, but because of (relatively) low admin% etc. is really cheap from a design point perspective.

I also like the sound of different castles having different kinds of defense, but I think it's unlikely that we'll see that. But for whatever it's worth, it would get my vote.

[ October 07, 2003, 18:51: Message edited by: st.patrik ]

Re: what about castles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Judging from screenshots, the gate is, literaly, breached, so it is still a "hole" where gate should be.

At least themes will affect how much/what tower archers you get. I saw mention about Jotunheim themes Utgård and Niefelheim having less tower archers than nor Jotunheim.

Re: what about castles
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Eheh, this is because the game hasnt been released yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif