PD wars! (no monkeys allowed)

[rdonj]

Radio Star has a point though. The stronger you make PD, the weaker you make standard troops. And since PD is cheaper than armies, up to a certain point, that makes it a no brainer buy to impede armies. Personally, I think if you make PD too much stronger it will make attacking people much too difficult in a resources/province taken ratio to make attacking worthwhile, and makes huge amounts of PD not only likely, but your best course of action.

[Radio_Star]

Originally Posted by thejeff

Of course by that argument, having PD at all eliminates the viability of certain force levels, levels 1-3, thus limiting strategic options.
Therefore PD should be removed from the game. Anyone who doesn't agree just wants the game to be simpler and easier so that they don't suck as hard.

Yup!

One could also argue that PD is itself a strategic option and thus increases the the diversity and complexity of the game. Making it more viable would then add to to your options. You would have to choose between building static defenses and mobile forces rather than just putting a point into PD to stop scouts and investing everything else in "mobile forces"

And one would be arguing a straw man again! You could place mobile forces in every province just as you can PD. Here's the deal: PD sacrifices complexity for lower micromanagement. There does come a point of limited returns in that equation. To put it simply for people like Honey Badger, the small amount of skill differentiation (again, that's what competitive gaming is all about) gained by lessening the effectiveness of PD, or simply removing it altogether, would not be worth the resulting headache of small defensive force micromanagement. Those are the terms of debate; the balance of increased micromanagement vs. loss of complexity for the express purpose of creating a competitive environment. Please and I think the balance is just peachy where it's at.

What's that? You want more evidence that PD is perfect where it's at? Okay, consider this: Reasonable amount of PD have trouble stopping any sort of offensive. This makes for complexity. On the other hand, it's just effective enough to make for an interesting tool when combined with intelligently placed mobile forces. PD at its current power level eliminates only the most micro-heavy offensive options while being potent enough to supplement true engagements.

If that aint balance, folks, I don't know what is.




Edit: Let's move this over yonder!http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?p=758580

[Fantomen]

I like PD pretty much as it is. I actually don't agree with it being useless. I often buy high PD to combine with mage support at chokepoints for example. Or to force my enemy to spend more gems on his thugs before I kill them. Etc.

My only beef is with the nations that has broken PD that literally kills itself, archers shooting militia in the back etc. Machaka and Caelum come to mind. Those should be tweaked so they at least fight properly, by just having militia OR archers, or by giving them shielded infantry.

And MA tien chi should have stronger PD just for thematic reasons.

Other than that I think it's pretty much fine as it is.

[13lackGu4rd]

don't forget Marignon's PD, having crossbows behind various shieldless infantries

but why the sudden discussion on PD? this thread is about the Dragon pretenders, especially the Green Dragon. has nothing to do with PD whatsoever...

[Muse]

Radio_Star is quite the fan of sensationalism, but it however seems to be a verbose attempt to ridicule what amounts to be a useful suggestion:

"Make PD more complex."

Even the simple feature available to mobile armies, a squad positioning and orders interface, would be rather helpful.
I can surmise that the developers may have shied away from such in an effort not to overload the player with micromanagement; with perhaps a more intuitive interface, it may be a plausible improvement.

As it stands now, I personally have no great displeasure over the PD system--it has a niche to fill, the wooden picket against roving bands of mystical slaughter.
Ostensibly stationary chaff, perhaps its greatest use is to assist mages lying in wait for an ambush: A good Fog Warriors, or even a behind-the-lines Paralyze caster can multiply the effectiveness of PD manyfold.


As a side note: As 13lackGu4rd indicates, it may be best to create a thread on 'PD Use and Improvement,' giving this thread back to the Dragons.

[HoneyBadger]

Originally Posted by Muse

Radio_Star is quite the fan of sensationalism, but it however seems to be a verbose attempt to ridicule what amounts to be a useful suggestion:

I'm glad that's clear, so I don't have to bother wading through the above.

Disregarding the rest, moving the post was a good idea.

[Muse]

[This is a repost from the linked thread, for the sake of clarity.]

Radio_Star is quite the fan of sensationalism, but it however seems to be a verbose attempt to ridicule what amounts to be a useful suggestion:

"Make PD more complex."

Even the simple feature available to mobile armies, a squad positioning and orders interface, would be rather helpful.
I can surmise that the developers may have shied away from such in an effort not to overload the player with micromanagement; with perhaps a more intuitive interface, it may be a plausible improvement.

As it stands now, I personally have no great displeasure over the PD system--it has a niche to fill, the wooden picket against roving bands of mystical slaughter.
Ostensibly stationary chaff, perhaps its greatest use is to assist mages lying in wait for an ambush: A good Fog Warriors, or even a behind-the-lines Paralyze caster can multiply the effectiveness of PD manyfold.

[Gandalf Parker]

I will try to dig up some of the original discussions, but Id like to lay out something...

Thematically the Province Defence is supposed to be a local militia. They dont appear as an army because they dont exist as one until the province is attacked. Its simply farmers and merchants coming to the rescue of their local area. They are basically untrained and do not do formations.

The impression I got was that the PD was meant to handle the types of things that went on in the world without the pretenders (like events) but not meant to actually be able to handle the things done by the national powers in the world (players). PD protects against natural events, and the reason than an independent province would "join" under a power was to protect them from other powers.

One of the more extensive (and reasonable IMHO) discussions was whether or not PD should be national or represent the recruitables of that province. If the PD were fixed, Id like to see it go to recruitables which would be thematic and fair. BUT we dont have an option there.

We CAN fix national PD if someone decides to. Nations which are able to be duped by mods can have their PD reset (yes, bringing back my wish for more duped nations for more Civil War and Chess style games). So a future game might allow use of the NewImproved Kailasa mod. But it would only be able to change what units show up, not change their actions. Still though, a discussion along those lines could at least lead to a change that we can see sometime soon

[HoneyBadger]

I'm a fan of National PD too. Ideally, it could somehow be tied to poptypes, giving you combined forces (human/hoburg/icthyd dirt farmers with pitchforks, supported by a handful of legionnaires). More work for modders, but not for the player (except maybe in the brains department, strategywise).

Gandalf makes a good argument for why PD can reasonably be kept formationless.

And, considering that this is a game very heavily influenced by real world history and mythology (lest anyone forget!), I feel it's very important to the nature of the game, and the *fun* of the game, to attempt to tie as many aspects of the game as reasonably possible, to the real world.

[rdonj]

I still want to hear how having PD that's much more effective than it is currently doesn't turn the game into a giant turtle fest for the first 3 years. If PD was efficient, it would not be economically viable to attack other players until you had advanced magic (and even then, with terracotta warriors and such, it would probably start to take insane amounts of military to defeat cheap, inexpensive and potentially self-replacing PD). Personally, I don't think I would like to move very far in that direction. PD can already quite useful when used correctly to add bodies to your armies. But if you want MP games to ever end, powerful PD is a bad idea.