But do you really like SC in dominions2 ?

[liga]

P.S. How often do VQs actually get played these days?

I don't know ...anyway scripting invulnearbility, attack and than 3 x life drain is very difficult to stop for most of the nations

[NTJedi]

but you need to know the SC you are fighting and prepare the right army and that is much more time and resources consuming that building up the SC.

Prepare the right army?
Well the following setup below works for 95% of SC's.

3 or more priests, scouts or commanders with 2 experience stars... give them eye of aiming and one of the special bows like the one which does feeblemind, blind or 999 damage. Then give them some thick buffers such as vine ogres, living statues, mechanical men, or maybe some devils. The air queens are always one of the toughest where another strategy is most likely needed.

>I don't know ...anyway scripting invulnearbility, attack and than 3 x life drain is very difficult to stop for most of the nations

Surely not. I mean, it obviously depends on the state of the game and the level of magic research, access to magic schools etc, but there are any number of ways to hit that VQ.

My problem in playing against the VQ - which I haven't had to do for a while - is not that she's so tough, but that the ***** keeps coming back...

[Thilock_Dominus]

My problem in playing against the VQ - which I haven't had to do for a while - is not that she's so tough, but that the ***** keeps coming back...

So do my ex....but you don't hear me complain

[Ironhawk]

The game does enforce a set of penalties which keeps solo units from wiping out entire armies. Namely: Fatigue and the -1 defense per attack after the first rule. Unfortunately, life drains drains both HP and fatigue so you are doomed anyway. Take away lifedrain and building an SC becomes more complicated.

izaqyos said:
I think that hugh armies should be able to kill even the most potent SCs.
I think the game should enforce a set of penalties/rules to make sure that no solo unit can destroy armies made of many hundreds of units.

It gives a good rpg feel to "nurture" a SC and see how potent it becomes. But I think if most powerful units will have major impact in battlefields but are not a one unit army that rpg feel will stay without the SCs problems.

[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.

[Huzurdaddi]

Ironhawk said:
The game does enforce a set of penalties which keeps solo units from wiping out entire armies. Namely: Fatigue and the -1 defense per attack after the first rule. Unfortunately, life drains drains both HP and fatigue so you are doomed anyway. Take away lifedrain and building an SC becomes more complicated.

Actually take away life drain and insure that every unit has at least 1 base encumberance. That pretty much fixes the SC problem. ( oh and change soul vortex to take a gem and/or require very high paths -- or remove it your choice ).

I don't know if it makes the game better over all but it pretty much eliminates the SC taking on an army thing.

[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?