Clearly we have very different perceptions of this game series, Graeme.
Regardless of your perception, though, it is clearly a gross exaggeration to say that the magic part of the game was "replaced" by armies. Magic still seems to me far more powerful AND far more cost-effective than mundane armies in Dom 3, though the point were it gains a decisive advantage may be delayed more than in Dom 2. It's always been influenced by the scenario settings (nations, map, settings) but even moreso now that one can easily set the gold/resources/supplies on game creation. So if you like the Dom 2 pacing better, you can of course do things like set faster research, higher magic sites, or even lower the gold/res/supply multipliers.
Personally, I find the non-magical military side of the game to be quite interesting and prefer the magical and fantastic elements to be exceptions that gain their meaning by contrast to the mundane norm, and not by completely dominating it, as I thought was the case in vanilla Dom 2.
"So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages?"
- No, I'm increasing the gem costs and path requirements of the strong magical effects so that they require much more investment to amass, and thus become rarer.
As for your argument about how I "misunderstood" combat mechanics is unconvincing. Even with all attacks during a turn concentrating on one fighter at a time, it is still quite helpful to have guards for a commander. Also, as I've been playing with melee commanders and watching their combats for years, and mine generally do survive and achieve good success, while you say yours generally die, I would say that practical experience shows that proper placement/orders/guards definitely make a large difference in their survival rate.
PvK
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Graeme Dice said:
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PvK said:
* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects.
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It's a dumbing down because the part of the game that took practice, good decision making, and the ability to apply strategies, which was the magic part of the game was replaced by pushing armies around the map. That's something that the AI can manage to do.
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The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.
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So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages? Because that's where the balance currently lies. Magic doesn't become powerful enough to even be worth sending many nations' mages onto the battlefield till about level 5 research arrives, which is long after the balance of power in the game has been decided.
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* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.
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You are still labouring under your previous misunderstanding of the Dominions battle mechanics. Any unit that fights against a full grid square of size 2 units is fighting a 3 to 1 battle, even if it has two other friendly units in the same square. If the commander is to be useful, ie. be able to kill his own gold cost in units and still survive the battle, then he has to be able to survive against three to one odds.
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* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective?
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I want commanders to be as effective for their gold cost as mages are for their gold cost, and I'd leave the gold costs for heavy infantry alone, since they are probably about the right cost. Light infantry would have their price quartered to represent their actual battlefield utility.
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