How to solve castling effect?

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
[qb]Bull****. You can kill VQ again and again and again, but it will be back immideatly just as strong (or stronger) as before, as long it is her dominion. (and with temples in every province it is always her dominion).

And every time this happens, she loses another castle and temple.

---

Wrong. You can attack with VQ every turn if you want to. You can't take more than 1 castled province per two turns with your army.

Even if you win an offensive battle against her, you are risking of losing large part of your army in each successeful battle against her, or being totally annihilated. The max benefits that you can get from wining against her - is one crappy castle. Losing one castle is nothing when you have castles in every province.

Look. I've taken on an SG Ermor with a fair level of castle spam and a VQ that was being regularly lobbed at me, inside its own dominion. Hey, thanks for the castles, buddy!

And "losing a large part of your army"? You're joking, right? I don't call 5 Seraphs, a pair of Bane Lords, and an Air Queen a "large part of my army". I don't call 0 losses "losing".

I have no way of knowing what happened in these games that you are refering to, no do I know the level of your oppoennts that you are talking about. Given your history of lies and distortions you surely don't expect me to take your word on it.


The only possible and logical way for you to prove your point is to stop using the only tactic that you are constantly using to win your games, which is VQ + mad castling + clam hoarding. Up until now you have been always madcastling, you have been always clamhoarding, and you almost always use uberVQ pretenders. I observed it in each of my games where you was present, and I've seen it in several dozens of your other games that I've read about on this Boards, as well as from numerious other players who have played with you in the past, and who are sick of it just like I am. You can't deny it.


If you will win such games against experienced opponents than it'll be clear proof for everybody that you are indeed winning because of your skills and not because of the fact that you are using cheesy and exploitive strategy, that requres little skills to impliment. Since you never done that, prefering to use the same lame strategy in all your games, the rest of your "personal" examples is meaningless for the purpose of this discussion.


Personally I've been in 4 games with you so far, and it was always the same - mad castling, massive clamhoarding(unless prohibited), and uber-VQs. Must be purely coincidence of course...

To compare VQ to SC banelord is just plain stupid.

SC Banelords can take down a VQ, particularly a poorly equipped one, if they attack quickly and aggressively. Even if you don't care to pit one head-to-head against the enemy's fully-equipped VQ, the fact of the matter is that you can cover more ground with SC Banelords than you can with a VQ. Think battleships, cruisers, and destroyers.

If you would know marine military history you would know, that you can't win major sea battle with cruisers and destroyers alone, against enemy float that includes battleships.

(we are not talking about modern ships of course, with nuclear anti-ship missiles)

AllFather, Natataraje, etc are strong SCs (and btw unlike VQ they are unique). But they are not immortal, so once they die even once they are crippled due to losing magic pathes that made them efficient.

So don't die. Ain't rocket science.

Death can happen. To VQ as well to any other pretender. Nobody is invincible. But some are immortal.

quote:

---

They also risk taking battle injuries in each and every battle while they would be trying to defend "castled" dominion. VQ risk nothing.

The Arco Nataraja is as proof against afflictions as any VQ, due to the healing priestesses.

---

Arco is the only nation that have healing ability, as you should be aware of. And even Arco priestess can not cure death.

Anyone can get GoH, Chalice, Fairy Queens.

Which are not avaliable until the end game. And none of them make your pretender immortal.

Norfleet is just trying to turn facts upside down in his usual manner. Playing "mad castling" with Natataraje for example is brittle , since once your pretender dead or crippled your resistanse is significantly weakened. Playing it with VQ is an opposite of that.

Got a mad castling game going with a Nataraja just fine. Got a mad castling game going with a freaking W9 Blue Dragon that I don't even use as an SC and has never left the freaking capitol. You don't need to use your pretender as an SC to play castles + Point defense SCs. Had a mad castling game going with a rainbow Archmage. Had another mad castling game going with an immobile Monolith.

Again you are trying to dodge the question. I've said three times already that I am not disputing that mad castling can be done with none-VQ pretenders. But it is clear that VQ pretender multiplies effect of mad castling, that's why you are using VQ in a majority of your games.


And I've said that what you have said is not true, and mad castling with AllFather or BlueDragon is much more "brittle", as you put it, than with VQ. Are you disputing it?

In fact, as my strategy and grasp has improved, I've been using the VQ less and less lately...
Now I just keep her around because VQs are such great distractions.

[ May 26, 2004, 22:12: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:

And I've said that what you have said is not true, and mad castling with AllFather or BlueDragon is much more "brittle", as you put it, than with VQ. Are you disputing it?

I do not know about Norfleet, but I am disputing
it. I will take Odin against a VQ anyday. VQ is
better against masses of crap, but against SC and
thugs, including a VQ, Odin is significantly
better.

And both ARE brittle against a squad designed and
scripted to take them out.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Stormbinder:

And I've said that what you have said is not true, and mad castling with AllFather or BlueDragon is much more "brittle", as you put it, than with VQ. Are you disputing it?

I do not know about Norfleet, but I am disputing
it. I will take Odin against a VQ anyday. VQ is
better against masses of crap, but against SC and
thugs, including a VQ, Odin is significantly
better.

And both ARE brittle against a squad designed and
scripted to take them out.

---

I think you are missing the point Tuidjy. We are not talking about single battles. We are talking about the war. The war in which the player is defending completely castled dominion. Sure, you are correct, the Odin maybe as strong or even stronger than VQ in single battle against certain opponents. But the thing is every time you are using him you are risking to lose him, or even if you win you are risking to get nasty battle afflictions. Few affliction can easely cripple AllFather. A single death will hurt him a lot, since to be a strong SC he have to rely on several magaic pathes, which he will lose with death.


None of this matter at all to VQ. So she can just keep attacking armies who are trying to storm her fully castled dominion indeffiently, wearing them down or just wiping them out straight away, without any risk to herself.

When/if AllFather dies, his castled dominion defense is shattered. When VQ dies it doesn't mean anything to her. That's why the first case is "brittle", unlike the second case. Do you see what I mean?

[ May 27, 2004, 00:31: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[HotNifeThruButr]

So if I'm hearing things correctly, and I might not be, the problem comes in immortal Supercombatants and/or Ermor, where castles that you take over have no use.

Does any problem NOT spawn from SCs and Ermor?

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by HotNifeThruButr:
So if I'm hearing things correctly, and I might not be, the problem comes in immortal Supercombatants and/or Ermor, where castles that you take over have no use.

Does any problem NOT spawn from SCs and Ermor?

Whining?

[Gandalf Parker]

This is someone who builds a castle in every province AND boosts the defence over 20 AND builds units in that province? If not then I would think that Pangaea, and maybe Man, would be the response.

[LintMan]

Originally posted by Anglachel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anglachel:
Or simply not have temples auto-destroy upon conquering of a province. Require a commander to take out a turn to dismantle it much like someone dismantling thier own buildings in thier own province. Make the timing of the dismantling of said building take place after movement and combat giving time for trying to retake the province and protect the temple. Of course this wouldn't really solve castling but would remove the need to use castles to protect temples somewhat anyways.

Just a thought.

Hrmmmmm, I think I just just saw the problem with the above "fix" thanks to Lintman mentioning the ghost rider spell. If casting the spell on a castle-less province with a temple in it that has to be dismantled by a commander then what would happen to the province when the temple doesn't go away and the province goes to independant status? Oh well, was a nice thought while it Lasted.

---

I don't think that's a big problem... Two reasonable ways to deal with this situation are:
1) A temple in an independent province (or an enemy-held province) is marked as "abandoned" (or as someone else suggested: "damaged", and does not generate dominion checks until the temple owner restores control, or it is destroyed by the new province owner.
2) The temple works as normal in an independent province (and maybe even in an enemy-held one).

I don't think either of these options is unreasonable (though I prefer #1). Of course, either of these would require a bit of coding on Illwinter's part (with #2 likely a bit easier), but nothing that seems to me (as a programmer myself) that it would be particularly hard/complex to do.