The problem of low hit points on humans

[UninspiredName]

Graeme Dice said:
They are ulmish heroes, so there's no ring of tamed lightning until you've bought a huge amount of master smiths. The copper plate just means that they'll die to a couple of smites, or a fireball instead.

Ah, so what you want is humans to survive three-meter radius (give or take) orbs of fire. Besides, they rarely hit their intended square anyways.

At any rate, between 'assassin' spells and combat magic, magic is pretty much the bane of heroes. I don't deny that, it's just the way Dominions works.

Heroes cost you a good portion of the 120 design points you'd otherwise get if you took misfortune 3.

I get enough crappy events with Order 3 Luck 0, thank you. I haven't even dared try a misfortune scale.

As I expected, you sound like one of the players who are happy with the dumbing down of Dominions 3 compared to Dom2 and the general reduction in the power of magic.

First-off, I fail to see how Dominions 3 was 'dumbed down' compared to 2. All I can think of off the top of my head is the inability to choose a Pretender's castle, (I'll admit, that was a neat feature, but I find it restricted the flow of the game. You shouldn't have to build an ultra-expensive citadel as a defensive precaution on the frontlines that will be abandoned soon enough, or a low-admin Mausoleum where you want to crank out former Independent Knights.) special dominions being replaced with ritual spells and new ages, (I'm sort of indifferent on this one, honestly) and auto-setting the taxes (Which I'll assume you weren't referring to).

If magic was weakened any between Dominions 2 and 3, it's still pretty damned tough. You cite it as pretty much the #1 way of killing generals, summons are the real 'heroes' of Dominions, national spells shape nations, and six E3 mages and a small team of heavilly armored men can fend back 120 somewhat skilled and decently armored troops (Happened to me once, my Nagarishis and Bandars vs. Jomon's samurai. I ended up losing, but only due to sucky morale checks. Jomon had no more than 10 units left, which were commanders, by battle's end. They massacared my sleeping mages). I'll admit the researching is a hit, but I don't see how it was weakened aside from that.

You sound like one of the players that would rather be playing Dominions 2 if it had an active modding community.

I want the elite commanders with no added equipment to be able to survive nearly any battle that their side wins. These are supposed to be experienced frontline soldiers, not rank and file cannon fodder.

That's sort of ridiculous to my way of thinking. Many times you'll be fighting elite, possibly F9-blessed men, combat mages, (which are many times the price equivelant of 'elite commanders' themselves, despite having no commander talents) and summoned monsters that are simply more powerful than humans. The kind your 'rank and file cannon fodder' would be torn to shreds by, even outnumbered 3 to 1. Expecting one elite soldier to fend off groups of three somewhat less elite soldiers for an entire battle might be asking too much.

The commander would see no change in cost at all, since that's the bare minimum to make them anywhere as useful as a battle mage.

But you forget one thing, that commanders command. Commanders may be elite warriors, yes, but that's not what most people recruit them as. Most people just prefer recruiting elite warriors to serve as elite warriors. One can recruit battle mages instead of commanders, but then battle mages would be all you have. Maybe a few men as well, but it would be a small enough amount that it wouldn't be able to hold off a commander or two with any respectable amount of men. Commanders will always have that talent, which Battle Mages can never take.

When it comes down to it, this entire argument is a matter of taste. The way I see it, human commanders aren't meant to be on the frontlines. One doesn't recruit a Myrmidon Commander instead of a Myrmidon to put it on the frontlines and expect it to somehow fare better than warriors of equal skill, but worse commanding ability.

[Graeme Dice]

UninspiredName said:
Ah, so what you want is humans to survive three-meter radius (give or take) orbs of fire. Besides, they rarely hit their intended square anyways.

I have little problem with somebody who's survived decades of combat against armies that routinely lob fireballs around being able to survive those hits.

At any rate, between 'assassin' spells and combat magic, magic is pretty much the bane of heroes. I don't deny that, it's just the way Dominions works.

The way that the system works though is that human combat mages can gather a couple of doezen kills over their career without any gem investment and with fairly minimal danger. A human commander is virtually never going to reach that goal.

First-off, I fail to see how Dominions 3 was 'dumbed down' compared to 2.

There are a number of reasons. The morale system is still broken and still autorouts commanders when their troops die, and still kills troops that don't have a province to retreat to, yet now it even affects beings that aren't even hurt by the attacks they are experiencing. Quickness no longer affects spells, so all those mages (and there are a lot of them) that cost extra gold for W1 no longer see any benefit from that extra path. Research is at the very difficult setting by default, so that pushing armies around the map, especially armies composed of undercosted sacred troops is the best strategy for the majority of the important turns of the game.

You sound like one of the players that would rather be playing Dominions 2 if it had an active modding community.

I would. Other than the obvious interface improvements and additional nations, I think that Dom2 was a better game than Dom3.

Many times you'll be fighting elite, possibly F9-blessed men,

Commanders are not just slightly more elite than your normal troops. They have such supposedly impressive abilities that you can only recruit a single one per month.

Expecting one elite soldier to fend off groups of three somewhat less elite soldiers for an entire battle might be asking too much.

If he can't, then there's no point in his existing in the first place. That's why people use independent commanders who are cheaper and just as good at standing behind the troops.

But you forget one thing, that commanders command. Commanders may be elite warriors, yes, but that's not what most people recruit them as.

That's a game mechanic convention, nothing else.

One can recruit battle mages instead of commanders, but then battle mages would be all you have.

I wasn't aware that recruiting battle mages prevented you from recruiting independent commanders to move your troops around, becaue that's what you're arguing here.

When it comes down to it, this entire argument is a matter of taste. The way I see it, human commanders aren't meant to be on the frontlines.

Then the elite versions might as well not exist for all the gameplay effect that they have. You get more survivability and more utility out of three independent commanders than a single black lord, and they both have the same cost.

[curtadams]

There seem to be some straw man arguments going on. Has ANYBODY suggested human melee commanders should be able to take on dragons, high-end summons, or real giants (not Jotunheim chaff) with a nontrivial chance of success? I can't find anybody who's said that but there seems to be a lot of people arguing human heros shouldn't get another 5-10 hp because they'd be able to trash dragons.

On a side note, it's an overdone fear anyway. My last effort at human melee commanders was with EA Ulm. With a forge bonus, earth, and 16 hp commanders, they are as good for human melee commanders as you'll ever see. And, against the human nations, scripted to fight along with the troops, with about 4 items each, they were acceptable and didn't die too much, although still distinctly inferior to commanders with artillery gear in terms of bang for the buck and the PITA factor of setting them up. However, even against Jotumheim chaff, they started getting squished in droves.

Based on my experience, 16 hp human melee commanders is about right - not 10. They survive well against human-level troops, and poorly against superhuman troops, which is about what a top fighter should do. I actually think they should be a sniff better than that, to make meleeing commanders more competitive with artillery commanders. 10 hp is way too little.

Part of the problem is that, in spite of some claims here the Dom melee system is not realistic. In particular, humans are far tougher than the game gives them credit for. A single dagger blow by an ordinary person on an unarmored man will usually kill in Dom - and that's way too easy. Even a sword blow will not usually really kill somebody although it will probably result in a nasty wound (i.e., an affliction). There are legit game reasons for this variation, mostly that fights don't take so long, and with disposable units the inaccuracies are pretty ignorable. But when we're talking about a kitted out melee commander, the inaccuracies are pretty noticeable. 15 to 20 hp would much better model how much punishment it takes to kill somebody - a single weapon blow, unreduced by armor, can, but usually won't.

[curtadams]

UninspiredName said:
If magic was weakened any between Dominions 2 and 3, it's still pretty damned tough. You cite it as pretty much the #1 way of killing generals, summons are the real 'heroes' of Dominions, national spells shape nations, and six E3 mages and a small team of heavilly armored men can fend back 120 somewhat skilled and decently armored troops (Happened to me once, my Nagarishis and Bandars vs. Jomon's samurai. I ended up losing, but only due to sucky morale checks. Jomon had no more than 10 units left, which were commanders, by battle's end. They massacared my sleeping mages). I'll admit the researching is a hit, but I don't see how it was weakened aside from that.

I have to agree with GD that magic is considerably less important than before. Because resources were roughly doubled but the number of castle lab complexes wasn't you can recruit many more troops per mage and because of the supply increases (which are huge) you can field them too. Finally, the morale check changes seem to have made it harder to break troops. Before low-level artillery was useful because you could make and field enough to break a supply-limited army. Now it's pretty much hopeless until you've got a half-dozen castles because you've got twice as much to fight and you've got to dish out more per unit on top of that.

The best artillery strategy I've found so far is Pythium Communioned Smite. It was fun, sure, but even 4 communioned Theurg acolytes pitching Smite just didn't make a big difference with 200+ troops on the field. Only AOE or strong summons make a big difference now and prior to level 6, that's pretty much Strength of Giants, Bladewind, Wind Guide, Flaming Arrows, and a couple of level 4 summons like Fall Bears. Those mostly require gems, which mean you need to be searching too and in any case most nations can't generate a good supply of mages for any of those spells without path boosters, which means Con 4 or 6 too.

On top of that, your cost-benefit wasn't too good there. You lost 6 mages at about 180 = 1080 to kill 100 troops at, say, 15 = 1500. That's ahead, but not by much. Even if you can get some of the stronger early magic going it's possible to be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, as you experienced.

I play SP, against 10 or so computer opponents, and by the time I can start using the magic that really makes a difference the game is effectively over. Either I'm on the exponential growth curve with mostly vanilla armies or there are huge AI armies rampaging through my heartland and I've given up.

[PvK]

* I play Ulm frequently, and if my pretnender lacks Air-1, I typically find someone with Air-1 by the time I need to worry about lots of lightning.

* Heroes are not the only thing gained with Luck. Having heroes is not (or at most, not merely) an investment of 120 points I would otherwise have gained by taking Misfortune-3.

* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects. The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.

* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.

* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective? Divide most of those by 5 or so?

PvK

Graeme Dice said:

They are ulmish heroes, so there's no ring of tamed lightning until you've bought a huge amount of master smiths. The copper plate just means that they'll die to a couple of smites, or a fireball instead.

Heroes cost you a good portion of the 120 design points you'd otherwise get if you took misfortune 3.

As I expected, you sound like one of the players who are happy with the dumbing down of Dominions 3 compared to Dom2 and the general reduction in the power of magic.

I want the elite commanders with no added equipment to be able to survive nearly any battle that their side wins. These are supposed to be experienced frontline soldiers, not rank and file cannon fodder.

The commander would see no change in cost at all, since that's the bare minimum to make them anywhere as useful as a battle mage.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Maybe a new Heroes mod wherein a new unit could be created that is a thematically appropriate commander who costs much much more than what a normal commander would? Give him two heroic traits and double his cost, three and triple it.... Something like this Tank who sacrifices leadership ability for personal power, at extremely high expense:

#newmonster 2865
#name "Seasoned Champion"
#descr "Seasoned Champions have learned/developed unusual and exotic tricks/abilities/skills to ensure their battles are triumphant."
#ap 10
#mapmove 2
#hp 30
#prot 5
#size 2
#str 25
#enc 0
#att 10
#def 15
#prec 10
#mr 15
#mor 15
#gcost 300
#rcost 1
#armor "full plate mail"
#armor "full helmet"
#armor "tower shield"
#regeneration 10
#fear 0
#end

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects.

It's a dumbing down because the part of the game that took practice, good decision making, and the ability to apply strategies, which was the magic part of the game was replaced by pushing armies around the map. That's something that the AI can manage to do.

The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.

So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages? Because that's where the balance currently lies. Magic doesn't become powerful enough to even be worth sending many nations' mages onto the battlefield till about level 5 research arrives, which is long after the balance of power in the game has been decided.

* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.

You are still labouring under your previous misunderstanding of the Dominions battle mechanics. Any unit that fights against a full grid square of size 2 units is fighting a 3 to 1 battle, even if it has two other friendly units in the same square. If the commander is to be useful, ie. be able to kill his own gold cost in units and still survive the battle, then he has to be able to survive against three to one odds.

* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective?

I want commanders to be as effective for their gold cost as mages are for their gold cost, and I'd leave the gold costs for heavy infantry alone, since they are probably about the right cost. Light infantry would have their price quartered to represent their actual battlefield utility.