How to solve castling effect?

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Just to repeat myself: A very Illwinter-friendly solution would be to have temples behave like labs: If you conquer a province with a temple, you win a temple. Congrats!

The other proposals are more difficult, including mine.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by PvK:
But what's the problem?

I agree, I don't see any problem with this either.

The problem only occur when someone in the game would start putting crappy castles with temples everywhere. Having uber-VQ as pretender doubles its efficiency as well.

Without such player in the game I see no problem with current game mechanics.

[ May 26, 2004, 19:24: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Esben Mose Hansen:
Just to repeat myself: A very Illwinter-friendly solution would be to have temples behave like labs: If you conquer a province with a temple, you win a temple. Congrats!

If it were done that way, I'd rapidly abandon mad castling: Castling comes with a hefty drawback: If you trapeze/teleport in reinforcements, they sit uselessly in the castle and drink beer. If the attack turns out to have been a feint, you are now potentially stranded unless you bust out yourself, particularly if the castle did not yet have a lab put up. If I didn't have to then replace the temple when the province started flipping, I'd rather go castle-less to enable instant counterattacks.

With castles, you protect your temples...but at the same time, the attacker is protected from all forms of counterattack except for Ghost Riders or Phantasmal Attack: Teleportation drops you in the castle to drink beer, arriving by normal movement occurs after "friendly" movement, so the attacker can always feint.

[PvK]

Is it a problem without a SC VQ involved? Seems to me adding cheap-o castles everywhere costs about as much gold as it's worth for a one-turn delay in sacking a temple, and little other benefit. Also, by taking a wimpy castle type, your home province isn't particularly well protected, either.

If it's only a real problem with a SC VQ, then I'd say the solution involves doing something about the SC VQ, rather than the castles. Either in-game (go nail their home province, with its wimpy castle, and bring some folks who can kill the VQ, like a few Bane Lords with Flambeaux), or some mild nerfing of the VQ, if necessary (as discussed in other threads).

As for the line of thought "temples get destroyed way too easily by attack spells without castles, so I must build castles everywhere, or else I won't be able to have temples everywhere", I think that argument has a flawed premise, specifically:

* Players who expect to be able to build temples everywhere, and have them be safe.

Consider that building temples everywhere is a huge and boring project. Why should it be expected that everyone will do it everywhere? The existing counter to that practice, is the ease of knocking them out with raiders and magic spells. Seems like a feature to me. Building unprotected temples is a risk, as it should be. No?

PvK

[Cohen]

The problem is with every SC that can teleport, trapeze, and evry less used moving spell or item.

The problem is with ghost riders too that shot down your army annhilating it while it siege.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by PvK:
Is it a problem without a SC VQ involved? Seems to me adding cheap-o castles everywhere costs about as much gold as it's worth for a one-turn delay in sacking a temple, and little other benefit. Also, by taking a wimpy castle type, your home province isn't particularly well protected, either.

If it's only a real problem with a SC VQ, then I'd say the solution involves doing something about the SC VQ, rather than the castles. Either in-game (go nail their home province, with its wimpy castle, and bring some folks who can kill the VQ, like a few Bane Lords with Flambeaux), or some mild nerfing of the VQ, if necessary (as discussed in other threads).

I can't really comment about how efficient the same "mad castling" strategy would be without VQ. Obviously I never done it myself, since I consider it to be cheap and abusive. The notorious mad castler Norfleet on the other hand, with whom I played multiply times, is always using uber VQ and massive clam hoarding, since it is obviously multiply the effects of his "mad castling" strategy.


I suspect however that while having immortal uber-VQ clearly makes this strategy much more efficient, it could be done without it as well, although less efficiently.

As for the line of thought "temples get destroyed way too easily by attack spells without castles, so I must build castles everywhere, or else I won't be able to have temples everywhere", I think that argument has a flawed premise, specifically:

* Players who expect to be able to build temples everywhere, and have them be safe.

Consider that building temples everywhere is a huge and boring project. Why should it be expected that everyone will do it everywhere? The existing counter to that practice, is the ease of knocking them out with raiders and magic spells. Seems like a feature to me. Building unprotected temples is a risk, as it should be. No?

PvK

Very true PvK. I agree with everything you've said here.

[ May 26, 2004, 19:53: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by PvK:
Is it a problem without a SC VQ involved? Seems to me adding cheap-o castles everywhere costs about as much gold as it's worth for a one-turn delay in sacking a temple, and little other benefit. Also, by taking a wimpy castle type, your home province isn't particularly well protected, either.

Nope. SC VQs have an entirely seperate issue: It works just as well with SC GKs, SC Allfathers, SC Carrion Dragons, SC Natarajae, or even perfectly mundane SCs like flying Bane Lord squads, Ice Devils, and Elemental Nobility, particularly Air Queens.

VQs are fairly easily swatted if you expect them to show up, and even if they're immortal, every beating dished out yields you a castle that an SC alone is hard-pressed to take back. The strategy is, in essence, brittle: It's hard to break, but when it does, it shatters.