National troops and mages vs SC and High Magics

[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.