National troops and mages vs SC and High Magics

[Cheezeninja]

I think they simply need to add in a spell or two that dispel's buff's in combat. Maybe someone has already suggested this and its not a good idea for some reason, but a SC usually isn't a SC until they buff themselves up with a few choice spells. So throw in the ability to dispell their buff's... or at least dispel the buff's of a random individual. That way they are forced to take an large army to reduce the chance the SC's buffs are dispelled, and if they take a large army it can be routed.

[Master Shake]

My experience is that SC units are vulnerable to single-target spells like Petrify (a sucessful resist versus petrify mean that SC is paralyzed) or Soul Slay. They CAN be debuffed with things like armor-destroying spells. For SC with very high protection, get some units (e.g. trolls) with very high strength. 25 protection is near invulnerability against 10-strength unit, but not so hot against a 22-strength unit.

Sure, this is not the army-army encounters you are looking for, but that is what I like about the game - there are many different stragtegies and counters. Plus, SC cannot hold territory very well, or pillage, or take castles. Also, drop a couple of your enemies SC (each with half-dozen expensive items) with a couple level 3 astral mages casting soul slay, and he may start thinking about another strategy.

[Kel]

I am not the most experienced player but...I think that SC's definitely do make *most* regular armies obsolete in the late game (though mages for many nations can always be deadly in mass, try a communion based nation like arco/pythium). Eventually, wishing for doom horrors, by all accounts, is going to make your HI pretty meaningless.

What I don't necessarily agree with is that this is a problem. If the game was always dependent on basic troops, I think every game would end with people getting bored and quitting after hundreds of turns of marching HI around the board, with the way the game currently flows.

Additionally, it is clear, by looking at pretenders, that the developers have tried to make pretender SC's a viable option for either the early game or the late game but not both (notice how most good early SC's have limited item slots ?). Not withstanding a couple of SC's VQ that might violate this rule...

I am not sure what maps you are playing on but you might try a larger map. Your armies will always be busy trying to expand and conflicts that you have will occur over more territories than you can cover.

- Kel

[Jondifool]

My take on it is that the core of the problem is not that SC can butcher whole armys , but that they are invulnerble as they do it!
(but I second that summons and no upkeep are part of the problem to - magical upkeep would be nice payed in gems!)

But the core comes down to 2 things.
The open ended dice system, and truly invulnerbilitys in form of 100% resistance. This makes SC limmmitless supirior to normal troops

as a exsample
Lets say that a game had a cap on restances ,say 90% meaning that no matter what 1/10 of damage went trough , and lets say that nomatter what the attack/defense and protecktion/strength differentse that alwas at least 1/10 hits would do damage. And 1/19 that would miss

There would absolut still be a reason to make SC, but they would not be invulnerble, and if balanced right there could be a reason to make the SC that could do the job of hitting thesse numbers and still be affordble to loose!

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Jondifool:
(but I second that summons and no upkeep are part of the problem to - magical upkeep would be nice payed in gems!)

I don't think that summoned units are a problem at all, since most aren't that impressive by themselves, or have extremely large gem costs.

But the core comes down to 2 things.
The open ended dice system,

I cannot see any way in which having open ended dice benefits high stat units more than normal units. Take protection for example. Even with a protection of 30, a unit will quite regularly be damaged by normal troops when hit. Without open ended dice, it would be impossible to damage a unit with a high enough protection value.

[Norfleet]

I agree, the open-endedness is a GOOD thing: It means that no matter how high your protection value is, there's still a chance you'll be hit.

If anything, that works AGAINST SCs, since there's no point at which you can be truly totally invulnerable.

I agree, however, that Elemental Armor's 100% resist all is TOO nifty. Perhaps reducing it to 75% all would be more reasonable.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I agree, however, that Elemental Armor's 100% resist all is TOO nifty. Perhaps reducing it to 75% all would be more reasonable.

75% puts it on par with the dragon armors, which admittedly have better encumbrance values, but are also a construction 6 item instead of construction 4.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
75% puts it on par with the dragon armors, which admittedly have better encumbrance values, but are also a construction 6 item instead of construction 4.

The dragon armors also give only 75% to a SINGLE resist, as opposed to all of them. If this might make it too poor, maybe 90%, if such a resist level exists. As you yourself stated, 100% resist all may be a little too mean. At least he'd still be vulnerable to headshots.

[ April 25, 2004, 21:56: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
The dragon armors also give only 75% to a SINGLE resist, as opposed to all of them.

I know. Giving the Elemental armour, which is a relatively cheap, construction 4 level item 75% resistance to three elements makes it much more useful than the dragon armours. I would suggest making the elemental armor only 50% resist, as this is as good as elemental fortitude.

[HotNifeThruButr]

I place the blame solely on the fact that while your SCs get better with exp and improved forged items and your Summonables improve with more magical research, your mundane units stay the same for the whole game. Please read the following with an open mind.

I think Dominions should have a tech system for your nations which improves normal soldiers by upgrading units or unlocking new and more powerful units. This could be done by researching technology or paying for improved facilities (like MoM). For an example, let's say you start the game being able to train Tien Ch'i Footmen with full leather armor and a spear, standard puny Horsemen with a light lance, level 2 priests, Eunuchs, and a weak magician (weaker than masters of the way). You can build a Blacksmith to open up more options for your nation, giving the ability to train Footmen with scale mail hauberks/cuirasses/whatevers and also unlocking glaives and pikes. Another building is the Fletcher, which gives you access to Footmen with shortbows, and combined with the Blacksmith, allows you to train armored Footmen armed with shortbows. When you get basic buildings, more advanced ones are unlocked, like, say, an Armory after you a Blacksmith and Fletcher. Armories unlock full scale mail armor, tower shields, falchions, and lances for the province with it. This would mean the ability to recruit Heavy Footmen (like the ones from Spring and Autumn) and Heavy Horsemen. After you make a Fletcher, the Bowyer building becomes available and it lets you recruit Composite bowmen and Crossbowmen, again, you can combine these arms with the Armory weapons for better armored archers. As these second teir buildings are created, more are unlocked and you have more racial buildings, like, say, a Celestial Enchantery, which unlocks armors and weapons with special abilities for your troopers. Since Celestial spells use Astral magic, it would give you Astral influenced weapons like bows that give a chance to temporarily blind enemies (much like that Solar Brilliance spell, but watered down) or Herald Weapons that give units improved morale. And so on and so forth. There be separate tech "trees" for separate types of units, like Monasteries to unlock better priests and magical places to unlock better casters. Buildings could be racial, so Tien Ch'i would have beaurucratic offices and imperial palaces that give access to nobility units like the General, Prince General, Imperial units, and the Red Guard while Abysia makes breeding grounds that gives you access to more crossbred units and Machakans can venture further into the bowels of the Godwall to unlock the secrets for more and better sorcerors and spider assassins. Of course, there will be a couple of different tech paths for each nation so you'd want to decide if you want better priests, infantry, ranged units, mages, and etcetera.

Also, to build buildings should require more time for this idea to work, so you don't instantly have flambeau-wielding, weightless-armor wearing, supercharged, crack elite soldiers while everyone could still only summon Fall Bears and Vine Ogres. Perhaps build speed would be linked to the total of strength or HP among the soldiers the building commander leads.

This idea would definitely not come in a patch, but it would be head-explodingly cool in a Dominions 3.

What does everyone think about this?

On a side note, I agree that Elemental Armor should be toned down.