[Agrajag]

HoneyBadger said:
I've tried twice now to make sense of your hp formula, and I can't, but I'm tired, so maybe it makes sense. I do remain unconvinced that it's simpler to understand than my idea, but it may work as well. As it is, it might as well be written in Yiddish, worse infact because atleast I comprehend how the Yiddish language operates, more or less, and can consult outside sources.

The choice of 12 sizes isn't meant to be relevant beyond being a nice range, a perfect number, and the cultural relevance of the number 12. It's just a good number to settle on, one most people are familiar with from elementary mathematics, and easy to divide.
The only number 12 divides by that 6 doesn't, is 12.
This would also add a lot of numbers that you may want to divide by, but can't.
Beyond that, the problem with 12 sizes is just that it would require a lot of work to be fitted into Dominions
You'd have to:
A) Create a new forumla for supplies. Possibly changing every single supply item to reflect this change.
B) Go over almost every single "water breathing" item and double its water breathing value.
C) Partially rewrite the combat simulator (since a single tile supports up to 6 size)

As per mages, I'll accept that mages are powerful, but I fail to see how my hp. system, even in relation your explanation, can be blamed for this. By cutting mages' hp. in half in comparison to all other units, I think I've done my part to reduce their power. Since you seem to be saying that it doesn't matter how many hp. mages have anyway, then what difference does it make if they have more or less total under a new system, if that system gives them a relative total of half all other commanding units?
Fine, then let me explain it again:
With the system you suggest, you make every single unit besides mages much less good, since these units become much less reliable and desirable to recruit.
Mages however, are unaffected, because the desirability of a mage rarely has anything to do with his HP, but depends mostly on what paths he has, and partly on encumberance and age.

The reason your hp + size, hp - size idea doesn't make a lot of sense is because it doesn't have any reason behind it, there's no system to support it. You're picking size to base calculations on hp without having a reason for picking size. You might as well pick haircolor and base a number off that. You could give them all levels and it would be the same D&D logic. It's the same argument that a very tough human should have half again as many hp, or double hp, or whichever random percentile of hp the arguer feels would be right, and that's all it is, a feeling. Size 1 units would have a randomness of -1 or +1, that's not enough of a variety to illustrate anything, it doesn't say anything about that unit, it's just arbitrary. 6 hp variation on a very large unit amounts to the same or less difference. Rather than having the opportunity to compare humans against each other, you're just bringing it down to size again. It's just not a very useful tool because not very much can be done with it, and what can be done, is done to every single unit. With my system, you can break down races into subgroups. You can do weak groups, elite groups, ultra-elite, groups with a broad range of hp, groups who all have the same hp, anything you like. With your idea, you've basically got slightly weak, average, slightly tough. Larger creatures, for no good reason, have a much broader range of differences than small creatures, while at the same time those differences mean very little and are purely based on size and randomness. It's far less in the "style" of Dominions than my idea because it's a slanted oversimplification. Sometimes simple is just not best.
1) No, in your idea HP is based solely on size, which would mean the difference between different "elite levels" of units is their size. So are more elite units now suddenly bigger in size?
Furthermore, Size as variation does make sense, because usually the bigger the general size of the race, the more variation there will be. Mice differ in length by mere CM, Giants can differ in height by meters.

Second reply:
Agrajag, PD is thematic, but you also have to look at it from a pragmatic perspective if you want to find any facts, or if not facts then sense. The dumb ones (or the ones who don't have a real choice in the matter) are the ones leaving their families and farms to the mercy of whatever comes along. Maybe, like the Vikings, they don't own enough farmland to prosper and are tough people with excellent wartime skills and a need to go out and build up their gene-pool, or like the Mongols, they're a nomadic people anyway, have a chip on their shoulder, and find warfare and conquest far easier than farming. Anybody just out there fighting is doing it for someone else's glory, because they have to, because it's their job, and because they don't have the skills or the inner strength and stoicness to be farmers, or the brains and capital to be merchants. The only really smart soldiers are the ones who have something to gain from conquest, and they aren't that smart because they're taking a big risk in the first place. People back then, atleast poor people with no say, like what would make up your version of PD, went to war for 3 reasons: 1 because they had to, 2 because they were ordered by their liege and they had to, or 3 because they didn't have families, didn't own any property, didn't have any peacetime skills, and they had to. But mostly, they did it because they had to, not because someone was paying them to. The mercenaries were either big-contract guys working for wealthy empires like Carthage, or they were roving bands of homeless people who happened to pick up military skills in the process of preying on farmers. PD would be made up of older, well-established citizens with property, their first and second sons, and those men-at-arms they would hire to protect their property, which men would not be fat and lazy, or the homeland would be at risk and money-valuable solid currency-would be wasted. Your fat, lazy types would run away or be slaughtered.

Whole networks of highly disciplined agents would be minding the borders of a well-established, well-run nation, especially if you consider that in Dom, they wouldn't be on the alert just for wolves or human raiders, but all manner of magic, spells and beings. You're looking at things from a modern perspective at small kingdoms in midieval times that happened to be run sloppily, not at nations like Rome, Greece, and China where being on the alert for enemies was very big business indeed. In Greece and Rome for instance-atleast early Rome, you had to be a soldier just to own land, and a landowner just to be a citizen, and most of those citizens, including Socrates, served in wartime and didn't just suddenly forget how to be soldiers, sit around and get fat. In China, in 300 years, the Great Wall was only overrun 36 times, that's pretty good considering how many miles the Great Wall runs. In a smaller kingdom, providing the ruler wasn't completely inbred, there would be a citizen defense force, well-maintained and trained on a regular basis, and most if not all citizens, serfs, nobles, peasants, everyone who wasn't an outright bottom-of-the-barrel slave, would contribute to that force, because the threat of destruction would be great. All you need are a few dozen horsemen with torches going through your fields at harvest-time and you're burying your kids for Christmas, providing they don't get eaten by the wolves, lions, leopards, coyotes, bears, etc. that your fat and lazy guards let run loose.
Now, are we talking history of fantasy here?
1st of all, not all nations are Rome, Greece or China, so you can't apply that model to everyone. And considering how Ermor (the equivilant of Rome in dom) has excellent PD, the distinction can be quite clear.
Beyond that... The more standard image of provincial defence in fantasy books (remeber, Dominions is fantasy), is that of the local schmoe doing guard duty.
Mostly this is because of several reasons:
1) All the good warriors have been sent to war, leaving only the weaker and dumber schmoes that can't do much behind.
2) The local population is made up of farmers, they can't afford anything better some renegade rouge turned mercenary. This can be seen in the game as well, your rich capital starts out well defended (25 PD), and also by how PD is purchased in a small, one-time cost which is all the farmers can afford (And can also be seen by the fact that PD is made up of the weaker soldiers of that nation, and usually is very lousy.)
3) Medieval, lamely run countries (as you more or less refer to them) are pretty much the model of every one of the more common fantasy books, so it makes sense to follow that model.
4) PD is all the force that that poor province could muster to defend itself against an attack, not some uber-elite force that likes to hang 'round back.
5) Also remember that the local population of the province usually isn't of the same type as the conquering nation, which can be seen by the difference between troops you can build in your capital, and the units the local province can recruit. The PD however is made up of troops from your home province, which would mean the guys sent over for guard duty must be the lowest quality of all, these are the guys that were refused into the regular military that is already stretched trying to conquer the entire world (or atleast all of the victory points )


I'll probably be suggesting that PD become more complex, once I work out a solid system, and I look forward to you complaining about it
I'll only complain about it if I wont like
Also, writing my post gave me the idea that maybe PD should depend on the local populace rather than the conquering nation's forces. Probably except in the case of a fortress in that province which allows recruitment of national troops.
Maybe if you put that in your idea I'll like it better