Experience tweaking

[Azhur]

Currently IMO experience needs some improvement. While it surely gives nice stat raises & heroic ability, it remains as a rather dull feature.

- When normal units reach five stars, they become commanders and gain +5hp.

- Commander units gain heroic ability at one and three stars. At five they may gain ?1-?5 magic and a new ability. The ability depends upon the class / race: e.g knights = awe, whereas giants = trample.

- At 5 stars, mages produce 1 random magic gem.

- Mindless & Undead don't gain experience. This naturally means, that they need to be buffed up a bit.

[Agrajag]

Azhur said:
Currently IMO experience needs some improvement. While it surely gives nice stat raises & heroic ability, it remains as a rather dull feature.
Experience does not give heroic abilities directly, it just gives a higher rating and thus a better chance of enetering the Hall of Fame, all commanders in the Hall of Fame get a heroic ability, that get stronger the longer they stay in the Hall of Fame.

- When normal units reach five stars, they become commanders and gain +5hp.
Even commander version of the same unit doesn't have 5 more hp than the unit version, so +5hp and commander status for a unit sounds way too much.
Also, you don't always want a certain unit to become a hero, since it can be easier to manage as units.
Imagin if your army all turned to commanders in a turn or two (not unlikely since they all fight together), that would be a nightmare to manage!
Maybe make it so XP levels 2 and 5 both give +1hp or something like that, if you insist on +hp

- Commander units gain heroic ability at one and three stars. At five they may gain ?1-?5 magic and a new ability. The ability depends upon the class / race: e.g knights = awe, whereas giants = trample.
Three heroic abilities at level 5? You have seriously gone too far. +Magic is not only insane, it is also unthematic.
A certain special ability specific to that unit type that can only be obtained at level 5 could be acceptable, I suppose.

- At 5 stars, mages produce 1 random magic gem.
This makes some sense, especially as the special ability of the mage mentioned before. Though the gem type should probably be tied to the type of magic the mage knows

- Mindless & Undead don't gain experience. This naturally means, that they need to be buffed up a bit.
[b]Undead have other advantages, but this is not a point I am going to argue with

[Taqwus]

Besides, a 3- or 4- star unit already has a significant advantage over a 0- or 1- star unit. Look at the table on page 5 of the manual: a contest between two open die rolls with no net modifiers is at 46% chance of success, while a difference of 3 turns it to 70%.

att 13 vs def 10is a difference of 3; 70% chance of hit
att 10 vs def 13 is 24% chance of hit; roughly 3:1 ratio

att 10 vs def 10 (before 3 star difference) is 46% of hit


There's also effects on precision and morale. That morale boost might come in handy against Fear and Awe effects.

[Tyrant]

I think the original ideas are a bit much, but i too would like to see a bit more benefit out of exp. Especially since the age thing makes HoF abilites even less useful than in DomII.

Perhaps something like a straight + 1 Morale per star in addition to the existing bonuses and/or a random two point stat boost at three stars.

[Arralen]

I wonder if everyone realizes what the benefits of experience actually are already..

Effects of increased experience (non-cumulative)

XP 1 (15pts)
Att +1
Def +1
Prec +1
Mrl +1

XP 2 (50pts.)
Att +2
Def +2
Prec +2
Mrl +2

XP 3 (100pts)
Att +3
Def +3
Prec +3
Mrl +3
Str +1

XP 4 (200pts)
Att +4
Def +4
Prec +4
Mrl +4
Str +1
Enc -1
HP +2

XP 5 (400pts)
Att +5
Def +5
Prec +5
Mrl +5
Str +2
Enc -1
HP +2

... do we really need more? Remember, that's what every single unit (unless mindless) can get ...

[Sandman]

I like the Dominions experience system. Experience is all too often the dominant factor in games like this. The afflictions are cool as well. Old age... less so.

[Tyrant]

Thanks for that post Arralan, now that i see it layed out it looks just fine (i did not realize that the skills went up every level.

[PvK]

I think ironic heroic abilities are good for two reasons:

1) It means the Hall of Fame isn't _guaranteed_ to give you a directly useful ability.

2) It creates peculiar and interesting or amusing nearly unique characters, who sometimes have new uses because of their odd abilities.

However I'd like to see special abilities available to remarkable characters via a mechanic that isn't limited to the top few people on a world-wide "top" list.