Trading commanders, exploit or not?

[Maerlande]

Micah

Stuff like blocking movement with an army set to retreat is bad (IMO) because it infringes upon your opponent's orders without actually beating their units. It's extremely frustrating and just exploits a weakness in the game engine. Likewise with using remotes to bleed gems, because the gemuse AI is so atrocious. I suppose a good litmus test for this sort of thing would be asking if the decision would make sense without knowing the secondary mechanical effects that can result...IE, would attacking with this army that will be utterly crushed be a good choice? Obviously no. Would casting these ghost riders into an army that will crush them without significant losses be a good choice? Again, if the answer is no then it feels like abuse to just get the AI to burn gems. Both of these tactics are also unable to be countered or outplayed in any sort of reasonable manner (not casting gem spells late game is not an option...)

I'd rate these as viable real world tactics. Sending a sacrificial unit of infantry to cause the opponent to burn ammunition is perfectly valid. It may be a bit calous but it's not like human wave attacks are new or rare. Wave after wave of guys getting killed will eventually cause the opponent to run low on ammunition. Now, it's not quite the same, but frankly, Dom 3 is missing a whole bunch of movement restricting techniques. Sending fighter bombers to interdict movement is classic. Much like air dropping Ghost Riders. Much the same functionality. It is sad that there isn't a counter. You can't put up CAP.

But if a large dangerous army was moving to attack, a flanking probe is a classic maneuver to force it to turn and engage, providing time to reorganize your main force or collect the remnants. That's the functionality I see provided by the interception capability.

One of the things I really notice missing in Dom3 is zone of control. For a game of land armies, it plays much more like fleets. You can't hold a line with light skirmishers to allow the formation of a counterattack. Those tricks are the closest I've seen. And flank attacks do not cause significant disorganization in the armies. In reality they mess up formations and disturb plans.

But, I hope I was clear. I see nothing wrong with specific games setting specific house rules. Nor do I see anything wrong with modding out the truly annoying and enjoyment reducing problems. I am playing one gem gen game of my 6 games and I can see the problem with that.

I just don't think that you can set up a list of meta rules that can be broadly used. Unless it's through a mod.

Clearly if a game has house rules that I don't like, I have the choice to not play. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of games available at any time.