Dud nations

[Xietor]

I love endperez thoughts, if you can make Wardens(warlords) recruitable everywhere mod, that sounds like a mod that i would play ulm with.

With all due respect, more spells is not something Ulm should need. There ought to be 1 race, where its strength is its army, and that race should be Ulm. They hate magic, they rely on steel, so i say boost their units so they in fact, and not in theory, rely on cold steel.

But the spell idea in the construction line are nice. It is thematic that forge masters would research construction.

Giving them a warden at every castle would help, as they at least would have a decent thug with decent mr. I think there mr needs to be 11, and there morale raised to 12. Remove that ridiculous national spell, and boost their morale.

The Black Knights would be formidable with a decent mr.

I am going to try endoperez' ulm mod! Thanks.

[Endoperez]

Dedas said:And don't forget that pikes ignore shields also so it is actually not so hard to hit knights for example.

And just a while ago I wondered why people didn't know Morningstar had the Flail bonus...

Praetorius:

Sparks is nice, although earth gem to fire damage is a bit odd.

Purified Lance/Shrapmetal are strange because they're very powerful evocation spells put into Construction. Word of Steel seems fine as long as it isn't armor-negating. Bane Metal is just strange. I agree with Xietor in that giving Ulm powerful spells doesn't feel like a proper answer, although I could make an exception with a Word of Steel-type spell.

Earth Power/Boots of Antaeus are a good example of Earth giving reinvigoration. Haste would be another good ability. Bigger versions of Legions of Steel/Strength of Giants would be nice.

Xietor:
Warlords are like Lord Guardians, not like Lord Wardens. 15 hp, 13 att/str, 11 def, morale 16, mag res 9. Protection 22/22 and Standard 10, which Black Lords and Lord Guardians also have in the mod. Basically, they're Black Lords who can be given boots (for flying, reinvigoration or resistance purposes), or when you can't afford the gold or the resources (70 g and about 36 r against 110 g and about 70 r).

[Dedas]

Well,
"Construction 3, Sparks. The master smith shatters an earth gem in his mailed fist, sending the fragments hurtling into..."

So I thought it should cost an earth gem.


I am right about the pike aren't I? I think I got it from you somewhere.

Here it is:
"Pikes have base damage of 5, so they aren't that good at piercing heavy armor. Most cavalry units have rather high morale, so repel doesn't keep them from attacking, but as long as the pikeman can hit the knight he deals 1 point of repel damage. IIRC, shield parry doesn't affect repel, so it's usually attack 10+1(pike) against defense of 9 to 11 defense (heavy cavalry) or 11-13 (light/medium cavalry). Pikes can also parry lances and light lances."

Ok, I was kind of right, parry doesn't affect repel.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...786&Forum=f187

[DrPraetorious]

Sparks does cost an earth gem. That's why the fatigue is set to 100.

Earth Magic can go in construction if it wants - why is Legions of Steel in construction instead of alteration or enchantment? Weapons of sharpness, likewise? So, both Purified Lance and Shrapmetal work on constructed materials, so they can go in Construction if they want.

As for Ulm not wanting spells - well, that's fine, but I don't think it'll fix the problem. With a minor improvement in Ulm's military, especially a toughness related improvement, you still do most of your killing with Magma Eruptions.

It's a magic-heavy game. If you want Ulm to make more use of her troops, give her national-troop buffing spells.

[Endoperez]

DrPraetorious said:
As for Ulm not wanting spells - well, that's fine, but I don't think it'll fix the problem. With a minor improvement in Ulm's military, especially a toughness related improvement, you still do most of your killing with Magma Eruptions.

Ulm wants to use spells, of course. However, I'd rather like to see new spells that everyone can use, but which only Ulm can excel with. Your Sparks would be a spell that Earth/Fire mages could use with heavy troops, and the nation using it would also need some Earth income. MA Agartha has almost the same mages (W1 instead of 10%FAES random), but as the nations are similar and both've been called duds in this thread boosting it won't be a problem. To avoid E3F1 and better mages from abusing it, it'd have to scale much more slowly as a non-restricted spell. Otherwise it could probably stay as you wrote it. Apart from an occasional Abysian or perhaps EA/LA Agarthan mage casting it, it wouldn't see much use.

[Endoperez]

Dedas said:
Well,
"Construction 3, Sparks. The master smith shatters an earth gem in his mailed fist, sending the fragments hurtling into..."

So I thought it should cost an earth gem.

Gem use is directly linked to fatigue. My comment was meant to DrPraetorius, who said the spell's fatigue would be 100, and thus it would take one gem. I'm just wondering why the spell doesn't either deal physical damage or have F1E1 requirement.

I am right about the pike aren't I? I think I got it from you somewhere.

Here it is:
"Pikes have base damage of 5, so they aren't that good at piercing heavy armor. Most cavalry units have rather high morale, so repel doesn't keep them from attacking, but as long as the pikeman can hit the knight he deals 1 point of repel damage. IIRC, shield parry doesn't affect repel, so it's usually attack 10+1(pike) against defense of 9 to 11 defense (heavy cavalry) or 11-13 (light/medium cavalry). Pikes can also parry lances and light lances."

Ok, I was kind of right, parry doesn't affect repel.

Repel is just 1 point of damage, even though it's armor-negating. If Pike had the actual #flail ability (which it doesn't, according to Edi's list), pikes would have surprising offensive uses against e.g. knights. It's the difference of (att 10 against parry 12 [prot 18+shield 18]) or (att 10 against defense 7 [prot 18]) or so. They'd be even better against infantry using heavy shields, like Ermorian/Pythian legionnaires and, to a lesser extent, the various Hoplites. It's an interesting idea.

[Sombre]

Endoperez said:
Repel is just 1 point of damage, even though it's armor-negating. If Pike had the actual #flail ability (which it doesn't, according to Edi's list), pikes would have surprising offensive uses against e.g. knights. It's the difference of (att 10 against parry 12 [prot 18+shield 18]) or (att 10 against defense 7 [prot 18]) or so. They'd be even better against infantry using heavy shields, like Ermorian/Pythian legionnaires and, to a lesser extent, the various Hoplites. It's an interesting idea.

Yes it is. I think pikes are currently rather underpowered and their seemingly most natural use, versus cavalry, doesn't actually work out. I rarely build pike units when others are available for roughly the same cost, because repel never seems to do much for me. Now if pikes had some other hook, such as flail bonus,... well that would make them rather more interesting. Is there some other bonus that could be given to them to make them more effective against cavalry and other very offensive units? Perhaps a simple defence boost would make sense? I mean it would just be like improving the repel effect - keeping your pikey alive so other units can do more damage.

[Endoperez]

Sombre said:
Yes it is. I think pikes are currently rather underpowered and their seemingly most natural use, versus cavalry, doesn't actually work out. I rarely build pike units when others are available for roughly the same cost, because repel never seems to do much for me. Now if pikes had some other hook, such as flail bonus,... well that would make them rather more interesting. Is there some other bonus that could be given to them to make them more effective against cavalry and other very offensive units? Perhaps a simple defence boost would make sense? I mean it would just be like improving the repel effect - keeping your pikey alive so other units can do more damage.

Improving attack would improve repel, as would improving damage.

#charge would give the pikeneers one stronger attack (although it would be much weaker than a knight's charge).

Oh, and according to the mod manual:
4.24 #flail
The weapon has an attack bonus against shields.

I don't have my Dom3 manual with me, so I can't check if it has the details of the ability... Seeing as I'm misremembering lots of things recently, my earlier post about flail-pike vs knight is probably wrong. #flail doesn't negate the shield, just has a bonus (static? dependent on parry value?) against shielded troops.

Also, it seems repel doesn't AUTOMATICALLY deal that 1 point of damage, but the defender has to overcome the attacker's protection as well. From the Dom:PPP manual:

20.4.9 Repel
If an attacker strikes at an enemy with a longer
weapon he might be repelled and possibly lose
his attack. This is worked out as follows:
A: Attacking , D: Defending
A strikes but D has a longer weapon. D makes
an immediate attack vs A. If it is a miss A will
continue his attack on D. If D hit A with the repelling
attack A is forced to make a morale check
or lose his attack on D.
If A makes the morale check he strikes D even
thoughD has placed his weapon between him and
A. D generates a damage value and A generates
a protection value. If the damage value is greater
then the protection value A takes one hit point of
damage. A can now make his strike.
Repel is most effective against light and cowardly
units. Natural weapons such as claws and
bites have a length of 0 and are easy to repel.

[Dedas]

What makes length 0 "weapons" easier to repel than a spear (length 4) when you have a pike (length 5)? I cannot see that in the description except that it states it to be so.

[Sombre]

I still don't 100% understand that. Is the most damage a repel can do 1 damage then? I mean if A attacks, D launches his repel attack and hits, then A fails his morale check, is that 1 damage max, or is it a standard hit from the weapon?

It doesn't make sense that he would take less damage purely because of his morale, so I'm guessing repel either does 1 damage and stops their attack, 1 damage and doesn't stop them, or fails completely.

If that's the case, increasing the damage dealt by long weapons wouldn't aid repel, but adding to attack would. One problem with the system seems to be that repelling a 0 length weapon is equally as easy with a 1 length weapon as a 6 length weapon,... and 1 length weapons are more likely to have an attack bonus.