Ideas to stop mass castle building for DOM_3

[Zapmeister]

Has anyone mooted the idea of charging maintenance on castles? If the ongoing cost was prohibitive, no-one would be able to lay down a blanket of castles. You would also need to beef up PD as Huzurdaddi (I am, BTW) says, so that flyers don't get a field day.

Maybe also make the maintenance cost of a building increase with its age, making you think about maybe demolishing some of those inner-kingdom castles that are not currently needed for defense of the perimeter.

[Zapmeister]

BTW, has there ever been a comment from a dev that indicates that they think blanket castling is even an issue? If not, I'll stop worrying about it

[Tuidjy]

> BTW, has there ever been a comment from a dev that indicates that they think
> blanket castling is even an issue?

Thanks the Powers that Be, no. I would even go further - there aren't that
many players that think that ubiquitous casles are a problem. Last time I
made a survey about this, the votes were overwhelmingly against making mad
castling impossible. Many players said that they hated it, but it was part
of the game, and one had to learn to deal with it.

Speaking for myself, I do not see a problem. All a castle does is provide
the defender with one turn of safety. People go on about the attacker being
subject to remote spells, as if the defender is somehow protected. I think
that, as Yvelina said, anyone who want to conquer a strong empire should be
able to deal with a defended castle. In my book the attacker still has the
advantage.

Castles, just like hoarding, or building mages, or any useful stratagem have
a cost and a return. In my ongoing game, I gave someone a three turn warning,
and when I attacked, about two thirds of his provinces were castled. So?
I have two gatecleavers, and two sizable armies. Five turns later, most of the
castles are mine, and in two or three turns, they will all be. Saves me the
cash to build them, and makes me wonder how many additional Niefel Jarls I would
have had to face, were the money invested otherwise. In the same game, Ermor
had a castle in each province of his. At some point, there were about ten of
them. According to my scouts, right now he has exactly one left.

It is turn 50 in that game. Most of my castles used to belong to someone else.
The ones I built were raised around temples, bloodhunter labs, or particularly
impressive magic sites - a sound investment to protect a valuable ressource.

Where is the problem?

Well, if there is a problem, it lies in the fact that most of the existing
fortifications are improperly priced, or simply extremely ineffective, which
leads to only watchtowers and castles being used in multiplayer games.

Instead of proposing ridiculous, poorly thought-out anti-castle measures, which
would create horrendous problems, like a 'move and storm' command, something
should be done about making castles more varied and useful.

A couple of ideas, none of which are mine...

1. Castle upkeep. A watchtower needs maintainance. All it has is a skeleton
watch, so someone should pay for replacing the stones and fixing the roof. Ten
gold per season. A wizard tower has some magic going which keeps it nice and
shiny all year long. No upkeep. A fortified city not only has plenty of
manpower for maintainance, but also can earn some extra cash. Twenty golds of
additional income.

2. Domain shift. For example, a fortified city could give a tiny population
boost to the province. Plus one to the life scale. A Mountain citadel can
be made of ice, so it can cause a cold shift. A castle has a strong garrison,
so its presence would lead to an shift towards order.

3. Extra units. A wizard tower could add some kind of magic familiar to the
build list. A castle may train units with a bonus to defense. The ice of a
mountain citadel may be caused by some cold generating critters, and maybe
an industrious pretentder will figure out how to train them.

4. Gem income. A bigger type of kelp fortress could generate nature crystals,
an ice citadel would create water gems, a wizard tower may bring astral pearls...

5. Permanent fortress defenders, similar to province defense, who always fight
in castle battles. Imps for the wizard tower, ice elementals for the montain
citadel, well armoured men-at-arms for the castle.

6. Additional ranged units on the towers.

All of these will serve to make the castles more varied, and will make it less
of a no-brainer to go for the watchtower. And of course, building a fortified
city which actually generates income will take a long time, and cost a lot, so
we will probably no see them built in every province until the very late game.

As for castles being too hard to take, give me a break. Any task force that
cannot weather a storm of fireballs and a dozen of ghost rider squads will not
take one of my castles anyway.

Oh, and a question for those hypothetical whinners who find it too hard to take
castles right now. What in the world makes you think that after you change the
rules, I and my ilk will be slow in addapting to them? We will formulate a
winning strategy and make you cry 'Cheese!' before you have finished patting
yourself on the back for the latest nerf.

Zen's mods are well thought-out, and do a good job at eliminating no-brainers.
But did someone notice powergamers doing worse under his conditions? I doubt it.
When the dust settles, there are two kind of players standing - the proud
powergamers and the closet ones.

[Oversway]

For Dom 3, these arguments could go away if modding castle types was available. Being able to specify layout, cost, defense, storage, etc. would be kind of neat. Especially if build time could be specified seperately from cost. I know other people have suggested this as well, but I couldn't find their posts with a quick search.

[NTJedi]

Zapmeister said:

Maybe also make the maintenance cost .....

I really like the idea of a maintenance cost for castles and it's realistic as well. Another idea would be placing some adjustment margin for the weekly maintenance cost where paying a higher maintenance would give troops better morale. For example- a well furnished room, with excellent food and services would do much better for morale then a cold floor, blanket with bread and water.
High Maintenance cost = 5 gold per turn
Average Maintenance cost = 3 gold per turn
Low Maintenance cost = 1 gold per turn

Oversway also has an excellent suggestion.

[Chazar]

Tuidjy said:Instead of proposing ridiculous, poorly thought-out anti-castle measures, which would create horrendous problems, like a 'move and storm' command, something should be done about making castles more varied and useful.

No need to get rude! I immediately agree with you that being able to put a castle in every province is nothing that should be prohibited at all! Actually when I proposed a "move and strom" command myself, it was in another thread with the topic about diversifying the castle types and making other castle types more interesting. Sorry for being stupid, but I think of this forum here as a place for brain-storming and therefore not everything written has to be developed and balanced to the edge already for me!

The "move and storm" command that I had in mind was meant to diversify the game and to be almost inapplicable to non-watchtowers (somehow, maybe by requiring to exceeding defense twice or more): So let's just state it the other way around, and propose merely the watchtower being weakened to be the only castle type to be vulnerable to "move and storm" in the sense of your other fine suggestions: This would give us something that would protect temples and bloodhunters against teleporters, lone SCs, and ghost raiders and their friends, while not being already a full fledged castle. So players would have a new choice: something cheap for the mere purpose of protecting blood hunter and temples, or choosing a proper castle like mausoleum or wizard tower or...

So I was talking about adding even more variety to Dom2 rather than prohibiting something, just inspired on the fact that I felt it somewhat unfitting that an almost unoccupied watchtower prevents an army of 500 militia men from pillaging an entire province. It is okay for a proper castle or a fortified city to do feats like that, but a mere watchtower? But this is not a real problem: I am capable to rename the watchtower in mind and think of it as the central keep of a half-built castle or something else which is able to do the things the watchtower does now and fits its stats. My suggestion was just inspired by that name...

[baruk]

Tuidjy said:
> BTW, has there ever been a comment from a dev that indicates that they think
> blanket castling is even an issue?

Thanks the Powers that Be, no. I would even go further - there aren't that
many players that think that ubiquitous casles are a problem. Last time I
made a survey about this, the votes were overwhelmingly against making mad
castling impossible. Many players said that they hated it, but it was part
of the game, and one had to learn to deal with it.

1. The Devs don't determine what aspects of the game are discussed here. I suspect for the most part they have better things to do, like make Dom 3, or watch tv. If they think something is an issue, often the first time the players hear about it is in the patch notes.

2. I'm totally against the suggestions to make "mad-castling" impossible. They strike me as unworkable, awkward and unnecessary, such as the limits of building castles in only a fraction of your territory. I don't think there is anything "wrong" with ubiquitous castling.

Tuidjy said:
Speaking for myself, I do not see a problem. All a castle does is provide
the defender with one turn of safety. People go on about the attacker being
subject to remote spells, as if the defender is somehow protected. I think
that, as Yvelina said, anyone who want to conquer a strong empire should be
able to deal with a defended castle. In my book the attacker still has the
advantage.

Check my previous post.
My suggested alteration to the "move and storm" idea restores the "one turn of safety" to the defender's castled province, as long as the province is controlled by the defender.
The option for earlier storming becomes available once the attacker has taken the castled province, but not the castle. The attacker's storming force can be kept in reserve, then move up and storm the castle in a single turn once the province is taken (as long the fort defence has been reduced to zero). Also, seiging forces at the castle would be able to have a seige and storm order, so that they would storm the fort as soon as defences hit zero, instead of waiting around for a turn

Tuidjy said:
Castles, just like hoarding, or building mages, or any useful stratagem have
a cost and a return. In my ongoing game, I gave someone a three turn warning,
and when I attacked, about two thirds of his provinces were castled. So?
I have two gatecleavers, and two sizable armies. Five turns later, most of the
castles are mine, and in two or three turns, they will all be. Saves me the
cash to build them, and makes me wonder how many additional Niefel Jarls I would
have had to face, were the money invested otherwise. In the same game, Ermor
had a castle in each province of his. At some point, there were about ten of
them. According to my scouts, right now he has exactly one left.

It is turn 50 in that game. Most of my castles used to belong to someone else.
The ones I built were raised around temples, bloodhunter labs, or particularly
impressive magic sites - a sound investment to protect a valuable ressource.

Its not that hard to take a poorly supported castle. I could give my own list of examples.
The combination of blanket forts and a well run magical industrial complex in the late game is a potent defensive force. The (unnecessary and unrealistic) extra turn endured by castle seigers, between seiging and storming, really begins to hurt when up against a prepared opponent. Removing it would make the endgame more playable, in my opinion, leading to fewer stalemates.

Tuidjy said:
Where is the problem?

Well, if there is a problem, it lies in the fact that most of the existing
fortifications are improperly priced, or simply extremely ineffective, which
leads to only watchtowers and castles being used in multiplayer games.
-snip many interesting castle ideas

I would like to see a boost given to forts, to make them more variable and interesting. The ability to build them quickly and cheaply seems to be the main selling point at the moment. The effectiveness of raiding, coupled with the weakness of PD, has led to the rise of the cheap castle.
About the income generation/maintenance idea: forts already boost province income by a percentage equal to their admin value. Would this be removed under a castle maintenance system? I like the idea of investment and reward with castles, but maybe there is an argument for the quick, cheap castles to have a net maintenance cost, and the slow, expensive ones to boost your income overall. Though the more castles become polarised in this way, the greater the effect on smaller maps, when your free, starting castle has a greater influence.

Tuidjy said:
Instead of proposing ridiculous, poorly thought-out anti-castle measures, which
would create horrendous problems, like a 'move and storm' command, something
should be done about making castles more varied and useful.

I'd like to hear more about these "horrendous problems" a move and storm order would create, as no one has mentioned them before. This is a forum for discussion, after all.

Tuidjy said:

As for castles being too hard to take, give me a break. Any task force that
cannot weather a storm of fireballs and a dozen of ghost rider squads will not
take one of my castles anyway.

I suppose that you are suggesting that your castles are garrisonned with the finest mages, troops and SCs? My point is that you don't have to, as the defender you have the extra turn you need to 'port in the troops and mages you need to repel the castle stormers. You can quite happily keep your rapid response units safely tucked away behind your protective domes, whilst you wait for an enemy to attack one of your ungarrisoned castle provinces.

Tuidjy said:
Oh, and a question for those hypothetical whinners who find it too hard to take
castles right now. What in the world makes you think that after you change the
rules, I and my ilk will be slow in addapting to them? We will formulate a
winning strategy and make you cry 'Cheese!' before you have finished patting
yourself on the back for the latest nerf.

Zen's mods are well thought-out, and do a good job at eliminating no-brainers.
But did someone notice powergamers doing worse under his conditions? I doubt it.
When the dust settles, there are two kind of players standing - the proud
powergamers and the closet ones.

I too am a powergamer, I've never said otherwise. It doesn't have any relevance to my ideas or suggestions, which should be valued on their own merits.

As I said before, do not confuse the means with the end. The end is always to improve the game in some way. Game balance is just one means of doing this, it's not an end in itself. Adding extra orders for seiging armies is hardly a game balance issue anyway, as it will affect all nations equally.

I have no desire to make the game easier or harder for imaginary distinctions of players, such as "powergamers" or "noobs". I want to improve the game for everybody, I think the "move and storm" suggestion in particular may make the endgame more playable, and less of a stalemate.

[NTJedi]

Another idea to add... imagine 4 magic sites exist on this one province: Magic site A, B, C, D

Some magic sites should be consider outside and others inside. For example those sieging a province would gain control of magic site A & C... and those inside the castle control magic site B & D.

[baruk]

Chazar said:

No need to get rude! I immediately agree with you that being able to put a castle in every province is nothing that should be prohibited at all! Actually when I proposed a "move and strom" command myself, it was in another thread with the topic about diversifying the castle types and making other castle types more interesting.

On making castle types more worthwhile, what if the building process was altered, so that after every turn of the build, the province gets a fort with a fraction of its final capabilities.
For example: after the first turn of building a fortified city, the province would get a "stage one fortified city", which would have one fifth the stats of the finished product: 10 admin, 100 supply and 20 defence. I would suggest that the 100% increase in resources only be available to the finished version of the fort.
This would change things quite a lot, and I imagine that the forts would need to be repriced.
If an attacker was to capture an unfinished fort, he would be able to continue construction at no extra price.

[NTJedi]

It's not realistic to say castles can exist anywhere with the type of technology used in this game. Terrain types such as 'swamps' should be impossible for building castles since they would obviously sink into the land. Also other terrain types should delay the building time since very very few resources are nearby such as Wastelands.