But do you really like SC in dominions2 ?

[Yvelina]

Taking life drain without removing regeneration and reivigoration from items will not have much of an effect. It will certainly shift the balance of power, but it will not bring back any of the fun.

[Saber Cherry]

Yvelina said:
Taking life drain without removing regeneration and reivigoration from items will not have much of an effect. It will certainly shift the balance of power, but it will not bring back any of the fun.

Not true. Regeneration and reinvigoration work once per turn, while life drain works once per strike. An ice devil with +200% heroic quickness, magical quickness, boots of the behemoth, and 2 weapons gets 12 attacks per turn and can trample lots of units. In return it generates 6 times the normal fatigue, plus a huge amount of fatigue from trample.

There is no way to equip this unit with reinvigoration items so that it will regain all of its fatigue each turn (it would probably fall asleep after 2 turns). There is no way to equip it so it will regenerate all its damage every turn, even if it is just up against hordes of weaker units and has heavy armor and ethereality.

However, give it 2 blood thorns, and it suddenly has 12 lifesteal attacks per turn - more than enough to replenish all fatigue (even from 100 to 0) and restore health to above maximum (even from 1 HP) every turn - except when fighting entirely lifeless armies.

Regeneration and reinvigoration items can make a combat unit much more powerful, and reinvigoration items are especially nice for mages. But they cannot create super-monsters that singlehandedly destroy massive armies unless there are units that are already overpowered and underpriced. In which case, the solution is to change those units. Lifedrain, on the other hand, can turn "balanced" units into virtually invincible units... the way lifedrain currently works. But lifedrain is set to change for Dominions 3.

[Graeme Dice]

Saber Cherry said:
However, give it 2 blood thorns, and it suddenly has 12 lifesteal attacks per turn - more than enough to replenish all fatigue (even from 100 to 0) and restore health to above maximum (even from 1 HP) every turn - except when fighting entirely lifeless armies.

Since that ice devil has trample, it will never use its weapon attacks, and will never regain fatigue or health from them.

But lifedrain is set to change for Dominions 3.

I hope that fatigue changes at the same time, as it is currently far too granular for the effect to work well.

[Saber Cherry]

Graeme Dice said:
Since that ice devil has trample, it will never use its weapon attacks, and will never regain fatigue or health from them.

Are you sure about that? I thought tramplers were supposed to trample until AP ran out, then use weapons... is it bugged?

[WraithLord]

I agree about life drain. Being as it is now (drain life+fatigue) has following effect in MP games.
Players rush to summon SCs, then mass produce wraith swords/blood thorns to equip them.
It's very rewarding and efficient tactic.
So much that it has become a no brainner.

I think that taking away fatigue drain from drain life will have a real significant impact reducing SC tactics.

I also think that national troops and battle summons should be made cheaper. But this is only because I like epic battles. I want to see more armies made of varied troops that complement each other, backed by support units (mages. priests).

Currently in my typical MP game I have any number of small armies (usually one-four SCs) as my offensive force.

edit: wonder what are the devs planning to do about this on DOM-III

[Graeme Dice]

Saber Cherry said:
Are you sure about that? I thought tramplers were supposed to trample until AP ran out, then use weapons... is it bugged?

Yes I'm sure, and no, they never use their weapons unless the creature they are attacking is their size or larger.

[Yvelina]

Saber Cherry said:

Not true. Regeneration and reinvigoration work once per turn, while life drain works once per strike. [snipety-snip]

Which part of 'shift the balance of power' did you not understand? Of course, the king of the hill will change! The ice devil you described will fall in power (but sticking him with boots of trampling already ruins him)

On the other hand, there are units which do not use fatigue in hand to hand combat, there are units that have such huge amounts of HPs that they regenerate 30-40 hps with one item and build-in regeneration, and there are units that do not get hit in combat, even when it is a clash of SCs armies that lasts the full 50 turns.

Some units match all three of the above. If we were to forbid the life drain items in a game, I assure you that it will still be won with supercombatants.

By the way, a few weeks ago I watching my boyfriend's arch and ice devils one-shot killed by supercombatants without lifedraining weapons. I think that once he saw that happenning, he used mages to take care of the opposition. A supercombatant is no match for three well-scripted mages. An army of pure-melee supercombatants is no match for a similary priced army of mages. The only type of unit that gets the short end of the stick is non-commander, melee units. But in an age where the gods come down from Heaven to fight, how much would a dude with a short sword accomplish?

[BigDaddy]

I was wondering about Life Drain SC's versus SC's, even maringal ones with big swords like, Frost/Fire Brand(or armor piercing/negating), which are cheap, 1 handed, and do huge damage.

[liga]

Panther ... i really like your answer ...

that's true! SC are good just as "hero" in an army (and theyr are, of course, funny) ... what I don't' like is just have a SC that kills armies alone!

... anyway, making sure that no one could really get rid of all fatigue alone (with items and spells) could help a lot!

good play
Liga

[Yvelina]

I would have never believe I'd write that, but I mostly agree with Panther. The best battles are these in which well equiped supercombatants and a retinue of well-scripted mages face off. I have saved three battles like this, and sometimes watch them and draw conclusions. I think we posted one or two here.

Personally, I am not too worried about SCs taking on armies and winning. If one rushes for SCs, she will get low-end SCs by turn 10-15. By that time, good nations can come up with a mage-based anti-SC squad. Not all nations, of course.

As for those who try, on turn 30, to fight SCs or mage squads with vanilla national troops, I have no sympathy for them. Cavarly charges against tanks have been tried, and I have no sympathy for those who got slaughtered in them. The Russians claim that Gen. Dovator had quite a bit of success using partisan cavalry tactics in WWII... but even if that's true, it's only the exception that confirms the rule.