National troops and mages vs SC and High Magics

[Kel]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Who win the game?
Who's the most clams ... who has the best research and the more gems, and best SCs.

Other than your initial pretender SC, if you choose to use one, all of those are obtained by early expansion. Which, even if oyu have an SC pretender, you are still using troops for.

If you make troops retain their strength throughout the whole game, we will be micro-managing troops around 40 provinces for hours each turn and people will just quit the game.

I personally think that baseline troops being outdated in the end game was a design decision and a good one at that.

- Kel

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Cohen:
Well, for mages taking out SC, as Graeme told, isn't very easy because there's SC-Fodder shielding them, attracting the spells ...
so on SC vs SC is almost the lone chance ...

Your mages will automatically target the highest hitpoint units that are close to them on the battlefield, so they will almost always go for any SCs that are present. If they don't, then you don't have enough mages.

What Ulm can do? Where's the strength of stell, the valour of soldiers, the epic of heroic acts, and battle tactics if all solve with magery and related summons?

Ulm has to use independent mages, elemental immune summons like mechanical men, and a tough pretender. That's just the way Ulm plays.

who has the best research and the more gems

Well, yes, that is kind of the point really. If you aren't keeping up with research then you will lose in a game that involves powerful magic.

What to do for repel?

What about repel? It only works 50% of the time against normal morale soldiers anyways, so it's not like its a particularly powerful effect.

[Cohen]

Kel I believe a lover of strategy, and not a power player, enjoys building up a strong economy to support armies, having reinforcments lines, and keep in mind logistics and terrain surface (I'll put rules too for terrain type, so as Knights in Mountain provinces should fight dismounted, LI have armor bonus in forest and mountain provs because they skirmish while HI should fight in close formations --- graphic for skirmish is difficult to set, or better a code that spread the group out --- well all these modifiers should be applied to gold and production cost ... I made some examples of terrain affecting battle units).

I enjoy having 40 provinces and to manage my armies there and there ...
I enjoy preparing army setup.

Well ... I'm Italian and I could talk about ancient rome warfare like Pithium, only related to common units you can know.
Velites had pilums, rushed forward skirmishing to avoid enemy fire better, throw the pilums and started retreating or flanking.
Hastati was the first line, the green troops, to soften the enemy with more pilum and hand-to-hand combat, and to fatigue them.
Princeps comes after, veteran troops ... hardened fighters, and the second line would cover the retreat of the first.
Triarii were the first, the eldest of the army, that soon have to leave and be granted to have a piace of land where to live. And were far more better than Princeps ... and they cover the second line in case of routing.

This is a strategy. That will be avoided at all by "I take the big guy who does all the work ... and a little shielding forces to take the first hits and spells".

Someone of you have ever played a wargame ... those games with hexes grilled map, and square hardpaper pieces with strange simbols (usually a rectagle with X inside were infantry, with / were cavalry, and so on; sometime something more fancy like the shapes of the unit type) to represent troops with their stats (usually move and strenght, att and def, or only one representing both of them ... sometimes having morale too, leadership and so on). And you've to think about artillery support fire, weather, if your troops are supplied (not only food... ammo too), and many things?
Well perhaps is because I play these games since I was 6 years old (started with Napoleon Last Battle ... don't remember the house producint it, perhaps Avalon Hill) I like so much deep strategy ... and Dom2 has and high potential value to improve his already very good strat value.
_________________________
Repel should be changed ... a morale check should represent the fear of becoming struken by the longer weapon the enemy handle, not the skill to enter the enemy defence without taking a strike.
I believe it's better:
Repel is an Defender Attack Skill vs Attacker Attack Skill ... if defender hits, attackes take one normal it by common rules. If he doesn't he takes 1 damage, as usual, or 0.
Attacker should attack in each case, even if it had taken an hit or less.
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Some spells like the undead striking forces of 33 mounted longdead is too cheap, as Earth Attack, and many others.

[ April 26, 2004, 04:10: Message edited by: Cohen ]

[Kel]

I did some snipping but I think it's all still in context...

Originally posted by Cohen:

I enjoy having 40 provinces and to manage my armies there and there ...
I enjoy preparing army setup.
Well ... I'm Italian and I could talk about ancient rome warfare like Pithium, only related to common units you can know.
Velites had pilums...
Hastati was the first line...
Princeps comes after, veteran troops...
Triarii were the first...

Someone of you have ever played a wargame ... those games with hexes grilled map, and square hardpaper pieces with strange simbols

I played Empires In Arms when I was 15 or so, as well as several other AH and SSI games. They had their place and they were good for occupying mass amounts of time (and Mountain Dew) but they weren't the only kind of 'real' strategy game, they were just one kind. No offense but played as a PBEM, *those* games would take many, many years. I mean years -very- literally with absolutely no hyperbole or exageration, years! I mean, I bet by the time you finished a game, everyone else would be playing Dom3, maybe Dom4

I would not really like to see Dom2 changed from an unusually deep fantasy wargame to an ultra-realistic (but bogged down) epic monster wargame. Those are just my feelings, of course, but I feel that the 'pacing' of the game is pretty good already and reducing the power of magic, summons and SCs would only drag out a game until everyone got bored, quit and noone was really satisfied.

I could be wrong, though. You could make a poll to see how people feel about the pacing if you like. Games Last too long ? Not long enough ? Just right ?

- Kel

[Cohen]

I played wargames on table, not Pc ...

I'm not telling about how long should be a Dom2 game however ... only to rebalance it giving more importance to National Troops/Mages, even in mid and later game.

[johan osterman]

Hotknife: Dominions 2 doesnt have extensive province/city upgrade features, this is intentional. Adding the sort of buildings and upgrade paths you suggest would take dominions down a road that have been consciously avoided, so it is unlikely that it will ever appear in any possible future inststallment expansion or patch.

As for avoiding of super combatants, play with rich, slow research, low site frequency and agree to not pick blood nations, use a smaller map. And with curse and a few choice items or spells, most supercombatants can be countered, obviously it costs a bit but it should, since most supercombatants represent a significant investment in gems and research effort.

[Jondifool]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
I cannot see any way in which having open ended dice benefits high stat units more than normal units. Take protection for example. Even with a protection of 30, a unit will quite regularly be damaged by normal troops when hit. Without open ended dice, it would be impossible to damage a unit with a high enough protection value. [/QB]

I did certainly not explain my self clearly when I said that the core problem is the open enden dice system. Though I tried, so I try again

In theory the open enden system is good. But the actual numbers make it a lot bigger advantages to the SC than to the weak troop, than a regular non open system where there INSTEAD is a cap, as exsample in form of a 10% hits always miss and and 10% always hits no matter what modifiers on rolls!

Don't let the open ende dice delude you, they are very big advantages to Super Combetants,

Modifiers on +7 or 8 hits the 10 % mark I gives as an exsample. All differense bigger than that and the open ended dice system is an advantage to the better unit.

a unit with protection 30 would only take damaged from a light infantery in around 1/200 times.

But the reason i mention it is that was not to do number chrunching but to point at the fact , that the game could be balanced to ensure that the weakest unit had a value against the best.

when using fixed numbers (always miss/hits) a game can support a situation where its a waste to use the biggest guns in a battle as there are others doing it just aswell, and more affordble to loose/get hurt at least.

I like to think of encumberence and afflicktions as the modifier there should ensure that players don't want to use their strongest troops on too easy tasks, but actual try to field the units suitable for butchering the opponent.

But with ways to get around that, my suggestion is to use a hard cap in form of a always hit alwas miss % chance as I don't see the value of this open ended dice system when difference in modifiers gets big. (In my thinking encumberence and affliktions would be nice candidates for a fix/ penality on SC, but here i don't really have a suggestion yet!)

A hard cap could be used alot better than a open ended dice system to ensure that differense doesn't get to big. Special in a game here where SC gets build better and better, with more and more dream equipment (and also getting encreased exp).

I hope I got it better explained this time

Seems to me neither considers balance, but rather playstyle and preference for what they want Dom2 to play akin to. Not what it play's like.

[Tris]

I'd disagree with a "probability cap". For me 20 militia men with fists should find it almost impossible to injure a giant in full plate armour, let alone a magically enchanted, fully equipped with legendary kit, ready-and-willing-to-kick-*** would be god.

I like the open ended system.

Although I have to admit, I can't readily come up with a way to reduce the influence of big scary things that is as simple and effective as the "probability cap". I just don't like it's implications.

Hmmm - one way would be to have a spell which locked the caster and its target into Stasis, for as long as the spell was maintained. It could cost astral each turn, or just be dispellable, or both. If the casting requirements were high enough (lots of astral? lots of water?) then the wizards to cast the spell would be rare and expensive. You'd have to get one into battle with the SC in question, and then he could cast the spell.

You could tone the power requirements of the spell based on what sort of power level of nastything you want it to be economical to "Stasis"

[Taqwus]

If somebody does substantial research and site searching, they *should* get something which isn't terribly bothered by light infantry that could have been purchased from the get-go. That's the whole point.
That said, between Curse, the large number of affliction-causing items, and the availability of AP power (Weapons of Sharpness doesn't even cost a gem, for instance), the finite equipment slots, the existence of specific counters like the unresistable Wither Bones, and pure ugliness like Gifts from Heaven or even Gate Cleaver, nothing's invulnerable.
Even a Tartarian with an outrageously good kit isn't a meaningful threat if somebody's just lopped off both its arms with Picas and Procas, and somebody else hit it a couple of times with Vision's Foe.