Qm said

[Edratman]

Just out of curiosity, how often do you see a 50 elephant rush in MP? I'm a SP solely, but amassing 50 elephants is very expensive and quite time consuming. I've never even considered accumulating that many.

[lch]

Rather than adding more hassles to the game through additional micromanagement of animals, another counter like Repel would be a good compromise, I think. Some humans already have those.

Edratman, if you base your whole expansion on elephants then it is possible to have that many after a couple of turns. You only need 5-10 elephants to take on any indy province, so you don't need conventional troops. Get Order 3, maybe some sloth to make up for it, only produce elephants and build another fort in case you can't produce your elephants fast enough.

[krpeters]

Xietor said:
Having animal leadership may unfairly penalize Pangaea however.

If we had a seperate animal leadership category, shouldn't all of Pangaea's commanders automatically get animal leadership? That would be very thematic.

The animal leadership category is a good idea anyway. Nature mages should get a bonus (much as death mages get undead leadership)

[TwoBits]

Remember, we're talking early game rush issues here. It'll take a few turns to research Conj 3 (for Call of the Winds/Call of the Wild) before that uber animal commander could be available to summon, presuming the said rusher goes straight for it, without researching anything else first. So even if your black-hawk/werewolf leader had an animal command rating of 40, he wouldn't be available for a while anyway.

By mid and late game, that 50+ elephant/chariot horde will be just so much expensive barbecue, unless backed up by some serious magic (I can see how a load of elephants with Army of Lead might be very problematic, for example). An army of archers with Fire Arrows set to "fire at large enemy monsters" should melt them away pretty fast, etc..

At least that's my two pence worth.


On the topic of a bless rush, here's my idea for a future patch/Dom 4 change - make the effectiveness of the bless dependent on a combination of the dominion level plus the casting priest level.

If the total is negative (say a level one priest operating in minus two dominion = total of one), your sacreds only get the +2 moral bonus.

At neutral, you get the moral bonus, plus the level 4 bonuses (+2 attack for Fire, etc.).

You'd need say a total of 5 or so (think a first level priest in a province with positive dominion of 4, or a third level priest in a dominion 2 province) to unlock that level 9 bless goodness.

This way, a quick bless-rush might not be possible. The attacker would need to pause more often, while preaching or spend money on temples. That, or forgo his bad-*** bless while moving into enemy territory/dominion.

Thematically, this makes sense. Surely a God's blessing should be more potent in a province where his belief is strong. Or where he has a mighty priest of the faith in operation.

Also, it might encourage ways to creatively boost priest levels (think unique items, Crystal Shields, Power of the Spheres, etc.) too.

Plus, it makes the whole 'dominion' part of Dominions that much more important (imagine that Helheim player debating whether to go for that double-9 bless, or instead choose to pump up his dominion to make his lesser bless more viable).

I like them two cents!

[llamabeast]

I'm not sure that elephants would be barbecue by the time you researched Conj 3. I think they stay powerful a fair way into the game. They have so many hit points that killing them takes a lot of firepower. And the trouble is, you can't make them stand still. No matter how many troops you have you only have two or three rounds before they are plowing into your army, and then you're stuffed.

Speaking from limited experience though, I must admit.

[Sombre]

I like you're idea about bless, TwoBits. I agree with llama regarding the heffalumps though. I don't think that animal leadership is the way to go with them either - I think making def more effective against them to encourage the use of lighter, agile troops/cavalry and giving higher encumbrance to the 'problem' tramplers like Trogs and Heffalumps is the way to go, personally.

[Wahnsinniger]

Animal Leadership is a good idea, especially if it forces players to buy the seldom used "Trainer" commanders (i.e. for salamanders and such). However, this seems like a very round-about way to try to fix elephant rushes, and I'm not sure why it even fixes it. (I personally think my Trample suggestion is better)

The Bless based on Dominion is a great idea, since a bunch of global enchantments and other stuff is already directly based on dominion strength. It probably should be a little simplier system though, just based on inside dominion/outside dominion. Priest level really shouldn't affect it, since that already determines if you can use Blessing vs Diving Blessing, and with some nations having weak priests, it could virtually destroy any Bless strategies they have.

[Ewierl]

thejeff said:
The problem with the animal leadership fix, is that if you limit animal leadership to special commanders then does every nation get one? Just those with recruitable animals? Or national animal summons?

I agree with those who think Nature magic should increase Animal Leadership, if the latter is going to exist. Maybe water too, so that underwater nations don't get stuck with unleadable Krakens. But this does seem like a top-heavy solution.

Repel vs. trampling seems both good and bad; it makes sense for the spearman to get a jab in, but doesn't make sense for the spearman to actually make the charging elephant skid to a halt. Maybe a sort of partial-repel where you can't actually stop the trampler, but can get an advance hit? This too seems like an unwieldy solution.

Also, agree with those who don't think Elephants are useless by Conj 3. Generally, elephants become useless when you can field MR-or-lose spells in enough numbers to stop them... and the mage numbers can be harder to match than the research, when 30 elephants come charging into your lines 2 rounds into the combat.

[llamabeast]

It seems increasingly to me that morale-based solutions to elephants are probably the best approach, giving them some kind of special morale rules. They make the most thematic sense as well.

Pikes should perhaps be able to get a jab in, but I think you're right that it makes no sense for them to stop an elephant/heffalump in its tracks.

[TwoBits]

My point about Conj 3 was this - if you needed a special animal-command leader (say, recruitable national commanders would typically have Animal-10, regular unit-0 = no mixing
animals with high moral infantry for example), the potential rusher would not have an uber-animal commander (black hawk/werewolf with animal leadership of 20+) until they researched Conj 3.

Granted, a pack of 10 elephants is still pretty scary in the first year, but that would be the maximum size of the squad (w/o an experienced leader), and it would have no high moral stiffening available. Putting together that 20+ horde would have to wait until Conj 3 and the summoning (w/ gem cost - and perhaps Call of the Winds should be increased to more than 5 air gems?) of a better animal-leader.

----

Regarding the bless-rush option, I definitely think a higher level priest should be able to impart a better blessing, being that much more "in tight" with God. Nations with great sacreds but crappy priests will just have to put that much more care into pretender design (perhaps spending more points on Dominion, and less on their killer magic paths).

Again, just my two pesos.