Some ideas: raiding, seiging, spell AI and more..

[baruk]

I hear much about about raiding and castles on this forum, there's probably no way that they'll be changed that will suit everyone, but I thought I'd punt out some ideas.

An initiative system for army movement

This sort of thing has been mentioned before, this is how I would figure it:
An army group consists of all the troops and commanders from one province moving to the same destination.
Each army group has an inertia value (rounded to the nearest whole number). An initiative roll of 1d6 (non-open ended) is made for each group, added to the inertia value to give that turn's initiative value.
The movement phase is split into 10 numbered segments, with an extra combat phase at the end of each segment. Each army group moves in the segment corresponding to its initiative value. If an army has initiative greater than 10, it moves in segment 10.
The inertia value (IV) equals log (army size) + (10/action points value of slowest unit in group). For armies consisting entirely of fliers, IV = log (army size).

How it works: initiative rolls are made, armies move in each segment, if opposing armies are in the same province at the end of a segment, a battle occurs. If an army fights a battle before it gets a chance to move, it will attempt to complete the movement order with the survivors later in the movement phase (initiative could be slowed by +1 for each pre-movement battle). Retreating armies resolve their movement after the end of the movement phase.

Removing the castle seige speedbump

Two new orders:
- Attack and storm castle. Becomes available when an army is ordered to move into a province with an enemy held castle.
- Seige and storm castle. Available to seiging armies.

How it works: with these orders, armies will storm the castle as soon as castle defence reaches zero, instead of waiting that extra turn.
Moving and taking castles the same turn may be a bit powerful, so I would suggest the seiging value of units that have moved (or gated in) the same turn be halved as a retooling cost.

Gateway and teleport balance

Commanders and units that have travelled using gateway, teleport or cloud trapeze will now suffer from planar sickness. If said troops fight a battle the same turn as their "jump", they start with a fatigue penalty: 20 fatigue times the size class of the unit.
Note that a size 6 sphinx would start with 120 fatigue were it to use teleport offensively. This change should be enough to allow sphinxes the use of teleport once again whilst being fairly balanced.
Faerie trod and wind ride are unaffected.

Spell AI and gem usage

At the moment, the spell AI will "means test" spell orders, and will refrain from casting listed spells (especially those with gem costs) if deemed unnecessary based on the strength of enemy forces. This was a change made when people complained about their mages' personal gem supply being wasted on enemy scouts and remote summonings.
There is nothing worse in the game than when the AI wrongly chooses to ignore my orders. I would rather it followed my orders, and suffer the consequences. I can always change my orders, but I can't easily compensate for what the AI might do.
My solution: mages start each battle in the same turn with the number of gems they started the turn with. For example, if I give my mage 3 gems, he will start each battle in the following turn with 3 gems. Gems will be taken off the mage at the end of the turn, the amount removed based on whichever battle the mage expended the most of that type of gem. Blood slaves, however, should be expended from battle to battle as normal.
With this set up, the AI can stop attempting to curtail gem use, and mages can go back to using gems with abandon.
The only exception should be the death match, where gems should be used from batle to battle.
My reasoning is that neither the order's available or the spell AI are sophisticated enough to deal with multiple battles in a turn, or a crafty human attacker, when it comes to gem usage. It seems reasonable to give gem using battle mages this kind of boost.

Gem generating items

Limit the total gem output from each type of item on a per province basis. Total gem output available (per type of item) equals friendly dominion strength in the province plus province magic rating (-3 to +3), with a minimum value of one. Additional items above the limit produce no gems. In zero/negative dominion provinces, only one item of each type can produce gems.
For example, if one of my provinces has 10 dominion and a +3 magic rating, then I can productively hoard 13 clam of pearls, 13 fever fetishes and 13 earth blood stones there.


What do you think, forum people? Sensible ideas or frivolous junk?