Haha this is the problem with forums that use linear thread structures! The topic changes importantly in mid-conversation, but how is anybody supposed to know that without reading every post.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrelloid
Would you care to specify a unit that, once incapacitated, would be impossible to kill for some nation?
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They wouldn't all become incapacitated. A mundane knight traveling in a foreign land would be in big trouble; where would he get his food? And even a giant Jotun mage with the Monolith Armor etc. would eventually have to sleep. But what about a well-equipped wraith lord or a Vastness or a high-level angel of some kind? Those things get tired when they cast spells, if they cast spells, but they wouldn't lose their ability to walk or fly right out of danger just because they had to rout from one battle. And what if only a few hundred peasants happened to be in the province the unit routed to, and the unit was amphibious, invincible to fire and ice, non-sleeping, non-eating, regenerating, and always ethereal, fire-shielded, and blood vengeance...ful? A naturally ethereal undead commander could achieve that much and more, with the right equipment. What would peasants do to a monster like that, even if it did knock itself out by casting spells at them? They'd leave it alone, or they'd all (or almost all) die, that's what!
I guess if you wanted to be "realistic", you'd have routing units end up starting new fights in whatever places they routed to. Your flying, regenerating titan might jump all over the map, fighting battle after battle, until it either won one or legitimately died. So a commander that teleported into enemy territory with no friendly land around could leave a trail of destruction, and would be even harder to kill than it would be now. Not so good for the game! But relatively realistic.
I think there's surely a way to design a more subtle solution to the problems of routing and of overlong battles than the really harsh rules that the game currently uses. Like, if somebody were writing Dominions 4, I think they could do better than what we have. Maybe a unit routing into enemy territory would start one new battle after another, each time it routed, until it won or died--but all its stats would be halved anew with each battle, to roughly represent the "incapacitation" incurred by its hostile, foreign environment. That still wouldn't make a lot of sense for, like, ghosts and non-sleeping demigods and such, but it'd be less absurd than instant death.
That might still be overpowered though. The defender would still have to defend his land against both primary attackers, and enemies routing in from other provinces. So maybe the defendant could be compensated for that increased burden, with an increased chance of reward due to attack by routing enemies. Maybe, for instance, a commander routing into enemy land could have, say, a 50% chance of starting a new battle there, a 25% chance of instantly dying, and a 25% (with a boost for low morale?) chance of defecting to the enemy side, maybe with any commander status removed. And if it did fight after routing, but then died, maybe minor local shamans or whatever would convert its corpse and equipment into gems that the defender would get to keep.
There are a million ways for it to work! I think the system we have now is good enough, silly as it can seem at times, but there are better ways. If not what I suggested, then something else. But only in the imaginary Dominions 4.
