Trading commanders, exploit or not?

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Micah

Maybe I didn't make it clear enough that I wasn't trying to accuse anyone of cheating for stuff that's in a gray area or undefined in a game.

But you are, in that very sentence. You claim some perfectly valid tactics (but not *which* tactics or game elements) to be "gray area". My mindreading capabilities are quite poor, and I will make a wild guess most people reading this thread have about same amount of PSI powers as I do.

You can't just assume people know what you think are cheats or exploits if you are unwilling to tell what you think cheats and exploits. Othewise you are just a person who basically reserves himself the right to after a lost game the right to say "Yeah, well, the others were cheating."

I feel like tactics that interfere with other players' units and orders without actually interacting meaningfully with them (retreating vs fighting a battle, or dying to artillery without doing a single point of damage to bleed gems) are problematic.

So if you cause my troops/commanders to die/rout while I am buffing up, and thus I was never able to do a single point of damage, then I am cheating? But if I had a single slinger up front doing 1 point of damage on one of your screening units I was not cheating?

You provide some general handwaving at "gray area" tactics; that is really insulting the intelligence of the people who read your posts, because nobody can know what you think, even though you make it sound like these things are obvious to everybody and no listing are needed. So please, could you provide a list of the tactics *you* consider cheating? I for one would be very interested in that, because so far I have got (the apparently very wrong) impression you don't like sneaking troops or remote attack spells.

[Illuminated One]

I do not think that using a decoy army to force the enemy to use gems is an exploit. It is used in reality (canvas tanks anyone?). In fact I'd love it if the illusion spells just worked for that purpose.
What doesn't make sense is archer (especially when set to guard rear commander) and mage decoys (well, the latter do to some extend, but it can get ridiculous).
Blocking an army is an exploit imo, but in that sense also cutting of retreat routes is when the thing that cut of the retreat is not significantly stronger than the disorganized fleeing army.

[Zeldor]

Jarkko:

We are not advicating punishing people for doings things like that now. All we want is to CREATE a list of house rules, so game admin has a CHOICE to include them in a game. Of course it may be impossible to make sure they are not abused, but now most people consider copying Bogus orders as a cheat that is not allowed - and you need to look at turn file to spot it. Dominions multiplayer is played mostly by mature players, people that can respect things like house rules. We cannot count on devs to fix problems like that, surely not in dom3. And limiting some things make game more interesting and gives you more fun, freeing you from doing stupid strats that are necessary otherwise.

[Jarkko]

Zeldor, I understand very well the intention (or so I believe) of the discussion. What I do not understand is that people should be aware of what others *think* are cheating. Say the game admin writes that "Breaking other people's units without actually fighting them, and breaking the economy" are cheating -> that would be a masive can of worms, wouldn't it? I bet there are in any MP game dozens of battles where one side doesn't make a single casualty before they are broken, and apparently the losers should be thus considered cheaters if such a home-rule was in effect?

Also, I wonder who decided it is a stupid and un-fun strategy to use sneakers or remote summoning spells, and why the devs even *should* consider changing those? Orders of Bogus&Co I understand, and I would go as far as claim that any charmed/seduced commanders should lose their scripted orders and that would be nice to fixed in a patch. However, in this thread the discussion hasn't been about Bogus orders, but about perfectly valid tactics all of the sudden being declared "grey area" and even cheating or exploiting. *That* is simply something I have a very hard time to stomach.

Now if you set up a game where no sneakers and remote summons are allowed, then that would be ok to me. But to somehow try to forcefeed to the community the opinions of a couple people as the absolute moral truth is a bit little too thick, isn't it?

[Dimaz]

Jarkko, please, try to hear what others are trying to tell before judging. Consider following scenario: you are going to storm a castle of another player in late game with all 9th in research. There are some 20-30 mages inside and tons of summons and whatnot. You have something on the same lines. You have a good battle plan involving playing on other player's race weaknesses: for example, he's vulnerable to cold, or fire, or whatever. He has the same against you. Now, you both need gems to realise your plan. You surely want to cast antimagic, some Army of, perhaps Mass regen etc. He too.
Now, castle storming goes after the magic phase. So he casts 3-5*GR on this castle. Your troops are perfectly capable of destroying all the horses in 10 turns without any magic at all. Still, your mages start casting all scripted spells and after that there are several possibilities: if you gave them just enough gems for their script (usual practice to stop AI from crazy things) you storm the castle without gems and lose. If you gave them many gems, they start doing crazy things and spend all their gems and storm and lose. If you gave them really many gems so they still have them after GRs are killed and the things they were doing were not crazy enough to kill them or your army, you finally have some chance to actually storm the castle, not taking into account that the opponent will be able to use much more gems in the battle.
And you have absolutely no way to do anythinng about it.
Have you experienced it, Jarkko?

[Tollund]

I've experienced what you described and it's a perfectly acceptable tactic. He fixed you to expend resources in his attack by putting a fairly significant chunk of his own resources into play.

[Zeldor]

Huh, have you ever really seen proper fort defences in late game? It's like saying that when you research GR it's fair that your opponents cannot storm your castles any longer. You call 10D for 2x GR fair tactics for making enemy lose 50-100 gems against them + lose his entire army when storming without gems?

[Tollund]

If you can't take his castle without gems, then don't take it. Preach him out or jus leave a sigle unit there and move on to his other provinces. What you are asking for is for your enemies to give up as soon as they attack you. Burning 10-25 death gems to get your opponent to spend his own gems seems like a perfectly reasonable exchange to me. Next you'll be complaining that people shouldn't be allowed to play kingmaker, to throw the game, to trade gems or items or to donate their gems to the enemies of the person who just killed them.

[Maerlande]

Again, though, I think force-fitting comparisons to real life guerrilla tactics is disingenuous. If you can't GUARD your supply wagons because of a engine limitation it's a problem when your opponent can "raid" them.

Only one more thing about this I wanted to say. I agree that there appears to be no counter to some of these. That's what I meant by dropping GR on some one is like fighter bomber interdiction of movement. However, Dom 3 doesn't allow you to put up fighter patrols. So it's a tactic that can't be countered.

And you are right. I am wishing for some functionality that isn't in the game. It would be very nice if an army with flying troops could set up recon patrols to intercept interdiction tactics. I haven't seen some of these used to the extent you've discussed.

[Psycho]

Using ghost riders or some such to spend gems when storming is a annoying, but making a house rule that forbids it is not good IMO, as there is too much gray area. Lets say I sent an AQ with the aegis and armor of virtue to attack your force before storming. Was the intention to do as much damage to you or was the intention to make you spend gems? How can you know? Say I knew you had mostly demon MR 15 troops and you had a mage in the army capable of casting antimagic, which would make the aegis totally ineffective. Maybe I am just a poor player and didn't realize I can't hurt you and you spending all gems was an unintended side-effect. Or maybe I am a good player and was counting on luck, body ethereal and mirror image on AQ to make her stay longer on the battlefield until your mages spend all their gems.

There are several solutions to the problem of gem spending:
1) Don't storm the castle if it's not that crucial to take it.
2) Put twice the amount of gems (or three times if you expect both a magical attack and a regular one before storming) and cast spells that will put your mages to 200 fatigue, so by the time they recover ghost riders are defeated. All the major buffs and BE fall into this category.
3) If you have time, don't storm at once. Let him waste several ghost riders. Make him think you won't storm at all and then storm.

Yes, it makes storming forts in lategame terribly hard. But, I like it that way. It should be easier to defend than to attack. And if your enemy is storming such a well guarded fort, then it is probably your capital and he has already won.