National troops and mages vs SC and High Magics

[Cohen]

The problem is that most players want "standard" settings ...

I agree with Nation enhancments, but not to standard troops ...

New weaponry, tactic and so on Scales ...
Another set of scales ... to improve common units.

A dispelling battle spell ... another spell enabling to give "magic attribute" to weapons of common troops.

Not all summons are good ... well, let's do only the good summons ...

I'm not saying mages are bad ! Instead I agree and use a lot National Mages ... because they're included in Nation peculiarity.

SC should be not "Super Combatant" but "Good Combatant", even I'll do less powerful items, and more standard type magic item, that not increase only morale but even other things.

Change the rule of the assassins ... pre-fight with only bodyguard on 75% chance ... on 25% assassins avoid them (they should be skilled in that) ... because in a month the assassin should find a nice moment to strike, and start directly near the victim and with the first action cause surprise ... I suppose an assassin strike when the victim is distracted, with a starting backstab.

Here I see however plenty of ideas there can fit in.
I'll add more when I concretize them, I hope only Illwinter devs read there and do something.

[Graeme Dice]

As long as a particular SC is not immune to every element, then most national mages should not have too much trouble dealing with it. Air mages have thunder strike, fire mages have incinerate, water mages have frozen heart, and earth mages have petrify. For undead SC's, astral nations always have communion and Light of the Northern Star to boost the damage of solar rays. Astral fires is also a good possibility. Death mages have many spells to use against undead SC's, and have drain life against most other things. Blood mages are not really very good on the battlefield, but can field their own SC's and devils, which are both very effective. Nature magic doesn't have a lot that will help, although charm can be quite effective against non-pretenders.

[Huzurdaddi]

There is already a solution, mentioned earlier in the thread - playing a game with difficult research and fewer sites makes for a more "national" game.

Fewer sites and hard research WOOT! Let's play! I call a blood nation!

[HotNifeThruButr]

Huzurdaddi makes a good point, and so does Cohen. Standard settings on Aran (at least for me) almost always makes normal soldiers obsolete after 1/4 of the game.

[Cohen]

Huzurdaddy told a right thing ... Magic Site freq should be "related" to the magic site freq settings, so Slaves found are correlated to gems founded.

Well, for mages taking out SC, as Graeme told, isn't very easy because there's SC-Fodder shielding them, attracting the spells ...
so on SC vs SC is almost the lone chance ...

The fact is that one single unit, pretender, Sc or similar, should't actually destroy any regular army. And why I've to stop an SC only by magic? What Ulm can do? Where's the strength of stell, the valour of soldiers, the epic of heroic acts, and battle tactics if all solve with magery and related summons?

Who win the game?
Who's the most clams ... who has the best research and the more gems, and best SCs.

Nation matters only early expansion ...
I know sometimes I repeat myself ... but I've very fond in this topic.
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Most magic summons have high morale (like undead), so very difficult to rout, and not only, high morale prevents them from repelling, and distruct any Awe benefits ... this is to solve too ...
Awe can work as a "X damage Shield" on Magic and Undead creatures...

What to do for repel?

[ April 26, 2004, 02:56: Message edited by: Cohen ]

[Huzurdaddi]

And don't forget more that's great about blood with rules like this : you don't need research!

Construction 2 : Soul Contract! YAY!
Blood 3: Bind Devil
Blood 5: Bind Ice Devil

Honestly I don't think I need anymore than that.

Hell I probably don't even need more than Soul Contract!

YAY! Let's even make research super-duper hard!

[Kel]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Who win the game?
Who's the most clams ... who has the best research and the more gems, and best SCs.

Other than your initial pretender SC, if you choose to use one, all of those are obtained by early expansion. Which, even if oyu have an SC pretender, you are still using troops for.

If you make troops retain their strength throughout the whole game, we will be micro-managing troops around 40 provinces for hours each turn and people will just quit the game.

I personally think that baseline troops being outdated in the end game was a design decision and a good one at that.

- Kel