National troops and mages vs SC and High Magics

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
If it's a VQ, even better - whoever can cast Stellar Cascades can finish her off with Solar Rays.

I do find that the AI would often rather cast cast paralyze with a low probability of success than solar rays, stellar cascades, and star fires.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Vynd:
But by that same token, I don't think it is right to argue that things should be changed such that it becomes impossible to follow a SC strategy, and that everyone should have to rely on national troops. That is just swapping SCs for national troops at the top of the heap. The best thing for the game, in my opnion, is a rough balance in which it is possible to pursue either of these (or some entirely different) strategy, and have a chance to win.

Quite true. I don't think that eliminating SCs and powerful magic from the game is feasible - too many players love the high magics, and frankly - life as a bog mummy rocks.



Another idea would be to have settings that one could adjust during God creation that would result in better national troops, but at a price that would prevent you from getting a powerful SC Pretender at the same time. Like, say, a 250 point national theme (is that what they're called, I forget...) that would give your nation a set of national troops that are much more powerful than the norm.

Could always crib an idea from MoM - allow mithril / adamantium mines to be located at the capitol. Troops recruited there would have magic weapons and superior armor.

Or add some new buildings, that provide upgrades to the troops. A minor increase to attack Ratings; enchanting the weapons / bows so they can affect etherealness... Or that increase morale, or cause the troops to be created with 1 experience star already.

Without something ... Norfleet mentions Petrify. Great idea - but against flying SCs in particular, how do you get one of your _very_ rare E5 mages in combat? Right now, flying SCs (such as VQs and Ice Devils) with a full set of gear are essentially immune to normal armies. I've watched one Ice Devil destroy 100+ troop armies of Marignon, complete with paladins, High Inquisitors and Grand Masters. Then it wings to another province, and repeats the process.

Pretty soon the armies are gone, and can't quickly (or cheaply) be rebuilt.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Without something ... Norfleet mentions Petrify. Great idea - but against flying SCs in particular, how do you get one of your _very_ rare E5 mages in combat?

It's easy for Vanheim, and doable for Arcoscephale and Machaka, but most other nations will have many problems. Ulm can manage it if they've developed a good blood economy for earth blood stones. All you need is an earth 3 mage who is wearing earth boots, and then casts summon earthpower. The flying SC is going to spend at least one turn casting buffs, so you have time to petrify it before it attacks you. If there are lots of troops around as well, then you will have more trouble targeting the SC.

I've watched one Ice Devil destroy 100+ troop armies of Marignon, complete with paladins, High Inquisitors and Grand Masters.

I think the problem in that case must have been that the Ice Devil was immune to fire damage. Otherwise the 18+ armor negating fire damage from incinerate would have killed it fairly effectively. It would have also helped greatly if one of the grand masters had cast light of the northern star, or if someone was carrying a banner of the northern star. This would have enabled all the grand masters to cast astral fires on the ice devil.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
If it's a VQ, even better - whoever can cast Stellar Cascades can finish her off with Solar Rays.

I do find that the AI would often rather cast cast paralyze with a low probability of success than solar rays, stellar cascades, and star fires.

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That may be true, but 5 Volvur - or similar mages - scripted (Stellar Cascades)x2 (Solar Rays)x3 will take care of any VQ without worrying about this issue. For non-undead SCs, once they're at 200 fatigue, ordinary steel is usually adequate.

[love crime]

Personally, I think the strength of SCs, summons and high magic in general are exactly fitting with the theme of Dominions 2: achieving godhood. Although it shares aspects of it, Dom2 is not a historical combat simulator. If it allows for godlike beings to take the field and slaughter 1000s of mere mortals, well, that's because the game centers around godlike beings.

Like other people said, if you want to play it as more of an army simulation, find people who want to play it that way with you, and use the settings that make the game play that way. As far as radically changing the default behaviour of the game: well, that would be a whole different game you are wanting to play.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
That may be true, but 5 Volvur - or similar mages - scripted (Stellar Cascades)x2 (Solar Rays)x3 will take care of any VQ without worrying about this issue.

They will take care of any normal VQ, but I've seen one that's had several thousand pearls dumped into it. One that had 250 hitpoints thanks to a wish for power and from being in a province with a dominion strength of 10 with gift of health active.

[Cohen]

I'd like new buildings such blacksmith (perhaps building only where you find a mine -not so- magic site) or other buildings to improve a little your armies recruited there.

Mithril, Adamantium and other materials, found in mines could be nice.

Add sites for army training ... ie Academy of War gives all the troops recruited there some experience. If you want to add more enhancment to this, you can order to a commander Train ... and troops recruited there have starting experience = TrainerExp/X - where X is a variable -.

I'd heavily improve too the stats of National Heroes, and giving them all the prophet bonus in stat for friendly domain. (not the conVersion rate however) ...

I proposed scales for military, but this is another good way.