Fixing PD?

[NTJedi]

I've included the list below for the WishList of Dom_3... however the developers might be able to use one or two of these for Dominions_2.

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Improving Province Defense

One or more of these ideas can be used for improving province defense:

A) Provinces adjacent to the main capital and including the main capital have very powerful defenders for its province defense. These units should have much higher morale, defense, magic resist, and protection.

B) More unique and stronger defenders as provinces defense increases. Province defense(1_thru_10) basic units, Province defense(11_thru_20)average units added with basic units, Province defense(21_thru_30)strong units added with basic and average units, and so on...

C) For province defense beyond 20... adding a commander with a standard(+8) and additional commanders with standards for every additional 10pts of province defense.

D) Some unique powerful unit(depending on the race) added for any location with province defense of 50 or more.

E) Increase resources in a province when the province defense goes beyond 25, yet doesn't work on capital. This would give province defense a second value. Province defense beyond 25 is an investment of over 350 gold.

[The_Tauren13]

or
F) What Panther and I suggested:

One idea suggested to me by my son is to add mages to the mix. Give each nation the obligatory commander at 1 PD. Then, every 5 PD, add the national lesser mage. Each 10 PD, add a national priest instead of the mage. On the even 20s, use the nations greater mage instead. Let them use whatever spells the nation has researched to that point.

This means at 40 PD, you have the 40 (minimum) national troops, 1 commander, 2 greater mages (at 20 and 40), 2 priests (at 10 and 30), and 4 lesser mages (at 5, 15, 25, and 35). This means a player can't just attack any old province with a tiny strike force anymore.

Perhaps you should put all that into the dom III wishlist thread...

[Tuidjy]

I am damn sure I do not want to play a game in which 250 golds worth of province
defence rout 500 golds worth of troops or mages.

It is beyond me why anyone would ask for province defence that is relevant after
turn 20 or so. Without utterly changing the game balance or improving the
tactical AI beyond belief, no amount of unscripted national troops and mages
will be more than a speed bump to well designed turn 40 thug, let alone SC.
In my current game, I teleported, more or less accidentally, my pretender on
top of what I think was one of another player's three main armies, complete
with prophet and life drain/raise dead sauromancer. Five of his two hundred
units escaped. Are you suggesting that one should be able to buy PD that would
have made a difference?

I repeat, my pretender was scripted for dealing with AI resistance, and I am
sure that the army was as well (the original province owner went AI)

I have said it dozens of times before. Play the game you have - tunning it is
one thing, but trying to transform it into a different game is silly. Dominions
is a game of godlike beings, world-altering enchantments and powerful wizards.
If you want to lead legions of infantry, cavalry, and archers, there are plenty
of other games out there. There are even games for those who like a smattering
of magic - I recommend the mods for Shadow of the Horned Rat/Dark Omen. Of
course, I do not know whether anyone outside of Eastern Europe still plays these.

[FrankTrollman]

That would lead to some pretty nasty trips through PD. In Guerilla warfare, provinces are changing hands rapidly. Every time the defender throws down 15 gold, he'd get a mage - mages that are things like Seraphs (throwing one or more lightning bolts before she goes down), Witch Doctors (throwing one or more Fire Darts before going down), and so on and so forth. If every time you attacked a province, people could spend very tiny amounts of money (15 gold) to cause you 1+ casualties of real troops, that would favor the defense a lot.

Already it's a pretty ugly experience trying to get a force into the dominion of someone who has Lure of the Deep or Wrath of God going - I don't think that everyone needs to be able to shoot lazers at interlopers for pocket lint.

What I would like to see is a better return on investment for PD of more than 10. As is, 1 gold gets you a look-see at exactly what just came in and took your province (so you can decide whether to Mind Hunt it or not), and 55 gold gets you a net that catches the occassional spy. Since it doesn't cost any upkeep, that's cheaper than a lone indep commander doing the same thing after 13 turns. And it works more and is more likely to win when it finds one and can't be assasinated and is invisible to enemies on the main map most of the time.

So 1 PD and 10 PD are worth it in the abstract - without actually taking into account whatever military worth they may have (which is usually nothing if you are talking Machaka, but quite substantial if you are talking Atlantis, Ulm, or Caelum). But PDs in excess of that are not. They generally suck, even for groups who in general have very nice PD - I wouldn't buy 17 points of Caelum PD under any circumstances.

So what I'd like to see is a breakpoint or three in the 11-19 range. I could deal with having wizards show up, for example. If Atlantis got a Deep Seer or Sea King at some intermediate point, we'd ever see those intermediate PD levels, which would be good.

-Frank