Fixing PD?

[The Panther]

Any good Dominions MP player knows how mostly useless PD happens to be. Even a smallish army can roll through 20 PD quite easily. I mean, one sauromancer spamming undead can frequently kill 20 PD (without archers) all by himself! How much PD can a single High Seraph spamming false horrors plus 1 archer kill? And what about Ghost Riders? I recently had a fight where my 35 Machaka PD lost to one single lesser horror! Bah! That should never happen...

So, how to fix the PD problem.

One idea suggested to me by my son is to add mages to the mix. Give each nation the obligatory commander at 1 PD. Then, every 5 PD, add the national lesser mage. Each 10 PD, add a national priest instead of the mage. On the even 20s, use the nations greater mage instead. Let them use whatever spells the nation has researched to that point.

This means at 40 PD, you have the 40 (minimum) national troops, 1 commander, 2 greater mages (at 20 and 40), 2 priests (at 10 and 30), and 4 lesser mages (at 5, 15, 25, and 35). This means a player can't just attack any old province with a tiny strike force anymore.

Also, you can improve the national troop selection every 10 (or so) levels of PD. I can see having a top-notch, high-protection infantry force supported by archers (if available to the nation) or spearmen plus many mages at 50 PD. This would take a real army to kill, not a wimpy raiding force with a lone mage. So much for players needing to take watch towers and spamming them all over their lands.

Is this enough? Is it too much? Is PD even mod-able?

What do you think?

[sushiboat]

I like the suggestions for mages.

I would like to see troops drawn from the recruitable troops in the province. If you originally battled indie barabarians to take the province, then PD would consist of recruiting barbarians. This would make up for the differences in the strengths of national troops across nations without making PD completely homogeneous (e.g., only human infantry and archers). Each province retains its original local "flavor." Just as in the beginning, some provinces are tougher than others because the locals are tougher.

[Verjigorm]

PD is moddable. PD is weak, but it's also cheap. I think it should have more value tiers. You shouldn't get 60 gold knights for 20 or so gold apiece, and on the flip-side, you shouldn't get slingers for a similar cost. The cost scale is a little bit odd in that it has an increasing cost with a linear return creating an "optimum" point for each nation. Some of the better optimum points are for Atlantis and Jotunheim. Some of the worst are for Pythium and Machaka--at some point it becomes more cost-effective to hire or summon (preferably) units for defense as the cost of slingers and militia escalate into the stratusphere.

[BigDaddy]

I'd say giving PD double Morale in a friendly dominions is both thematically correct and effective. I would also like to see another commander every 20 points, but leave the mix to each nation, but at least 1 mage, commander, and priest by 60pts.

[Jurri]

One Sauromancer costs 180g plus one province's (with castle and lab) allotment of commanders per turn, 20 PD costs 210g... The sauromancer will lose against many nations' PDs and beat some others, so it sounds about right cost-wise. Unless for some reason one wanted to emphasize defense over offense.

What use should Ghost Riders/Lesser Horrors have if not beating PD? Or false horror for that matter; what is the niche you see these spells fill? Defeating moderate amounts of infantry sounds about right to me. I haven't tried but I think 35 points of Machaka PD can beat a lesser horror more often than not, so that may have been a fluke. (At least to me it appeared that your dudes routed pretty easily compared to the normal performance of lesser horrors.)

I think it would help much if one could script PD. To not get bogged in micro there could be a nationwide PD-script to be applied to every province. Of course to retain balance some PD commanders should be re-evaluated, to not give f. ex. Vanheim too big an advantage.

[Verjigorm]

Certain nations like Pythium have very nice groups of castle hirables, but extraordinarily crappy province defense. One has to consider a nation's individual propensity toward offense or defense when assigning province defense. I think that GR/Horror/etc should be useful in beating province defense, but that certain (expensive) levels of province defense should not be so easily dispatched. 40 province defense costs 820 gold. Should such an alottment of resources be susceptible to a cheap (5 gem) attack? OF COURSE, GR isn't really "cheap" considering the amount of research that must be done to acquire it AND the investment in wizards who can cast it. Lesser Horrors on the other hand are from a LEVEL 5 spell costing only 9 slaves (with moderately difficult paths) can scare away sizable PD. 9 slaves is very cheap....

Drawing units from those available in the province would be neat--perhaps each tier could "hire" an appropriate number of a certain valuation of troop e.g. Militia at 1-10, Archers at 11-20, Light Infantry at 21-30, Heavy at 31-40, Cavalry at 41-50, etc... I especially like the idea of adding more commanders--having few commanders makes PD susceptible to flying unit attacks (imps/horrors). Mages (in provinces with labs) and priests (in those with temples) would also be very nice to see.

[Jurri]

Verjigorm said:
I think that GR/Horror/etc should be useful in beating province defense, but that certain (expensive) levels of province defense should not be so easily dispatched. 40 province defense costs 820 gold. Should such an alottment of resources be susceptible to a cheap (5 gem) attack? OF COURSE, GR isn't really "cheap" considering the amount of research that must be done to acquire it AND the investment in wizards who can cast it. Lesser Horrors on the other hand are from a LEVEL 5 spell costing only 9 slaves (with moderately difficult paths) can scare away sizable PD. 9 slaves is very cheap....

How come Lesser Horrors are cast so seldom if it is only moderately difficult and very cheap? At least in my experience it is very rare too see send lesser horror except from a gift of kurgi, and not that, even, too often. ('Cause the Gift is so damn expensive!) Abysia can utilize them but to others B2S3 is quite a lot; giving two or three boosters for a mage to cast a lesser horror is far too much usually. And 9 slaves is a third of a Horde from Hell. I'd go so far as to say that a single HfH is better for the purpose than three send lesser horrors, especially if mage/booster time is taken into account.

Ghost Riders has been discussed to death earlier, I think, but in my opinion defeating PD is exactly the niche for it. A single GR can't beat even that if there's proper mage/priest support available. It's not like one must leave PD to cope on its own, is it?

[Agrajag]

Jurri said:
One Sauromancer costs 180g plus one province's (with castle and lab) allotment of commanders per turn, 20 PD costs 210g... The sauromancer will lose against many nations' PDs and beat some others, so it sounds about right cost-wise. Unless for some reason one wanted to emphasize defense over offense.

But when you buy 20 PD you will get much more than only one sauromancer, you get 20 units and two priests and a commander, which together cost much less than 210 gold, and the PD version doesnt cost upkeep or requires supplies!
You could also look at it from another angle, it only costs 20g to increase PD from 19 to 20, and that little increase is what you need to get that sauromancer.

While I'd really like to see PD made better, your ideas go a bit too far.
Maybe they should only follow the "tiers" idea, where PD 1-10 are crappy units, PD 11-20 are slightly better etc.

[Endoperez]

I have no idea about balance. However, that would be no 20gp Arch Theurg. It would be costly, but I don't have that handy Provincial Defence Cost Calculator so I can't tell how much more expensive it would be.

I posted that example in the hopes of someone doing a mod to correct or "correct" the provincial defences. Both would help the discussion.

[Jurri]

Agrajag said:

But when you buy 20 PD you will get much more than only one sauromancer, you get 20 units and two priests and a commander, which together cost much less than 210 gold, and the PD version doesnt cost upkeep or requires supplies!

Ummm, I just wanted to comment on Panther's gripe about sauromancers beating PDs on their own. In fact the exact opposite you read me to mean That is to say, I don't think it's too terrible that a 180g sauromancer can beat a 210g Province Defense by himself, so perhaps no radical changes are necessary.