Trading commanders, exploit or not?

[Fantomen]

Trading Commanders is only cheating if you're playing a no diplomacy game, as would ANY sort of trading be a sign of cheating in such a game so meh.

Sickle farming. The Sickle is a unique artifact and should offer exeptional possibilities. I would only consider it a problem if it wasn't unique, after all the amount of gems you can get isn't game breaking. And you have to make quite an effort to get there, so the reward is within reasonable limits.

Ank/LOD. In most cases where I've seen it or used it I just found it a cool and useful spell. I could understand the frustration if it is turned into some kind of unstoppable strategy, but I've never seen that happen.

Bogus. I actually think this is a lot of work for minimal reward. No problem if someone does it, myself I wouldn't bother unless the opportunity was served within the range of immediate response (what I could do the same turn without changing my overall plans much)

I've certainly had commanders pick up two eyes of aiming, but that has been from my own dead. Very frustrating. I would consider it broken if someone met my big EA agartha army with scouts wearing EoA and turned all my oracles blind, so I hope the word is right that it won't work. The ultimate mechanic would be if commanders would pick up eyes as long as it doesn't turn them blind.

Throwing chaff units to slow armies doesn't spontanously sound broken, but I understand sombres point. The ultimate mechanic IMO would be it there was a strength treshold to it. So to slow down a big army you would need a decent bunch of kamikaze chaff relative to that size.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

I've certainly had commanders pick up two eyes of aiming, but that has been from my own dead. Very frustrating. I would consider it broken if someone met my big EA agartha army with scouts wearing EoA and turned all my oracles blind, so I hope the word is right that it won't work. The ultimate mechanic would be if commanders would pick up eyes as long as it doesn't turn them blind.

Throwing chaff units to slow armies doesn't spontanously sound broken, but I understand sombres point. The ultimate mechanic IMO would be it there was a strength treshold to it. So to slow down a big army you would need a decent bunch of kamikaze chaff relative to that size.

If not at release, I thought the two eyes thing was fixed pretty early on. Maybe it just doesn't work when picking up friendly items.

I absolutely agree with you on the second point. Slowing down the army with chaff should not be considered an exploit but if there is ever a Dominions 4 the devs should consider changing the mechanics to work more like you two are suggesting.

[Sombre]

Yeah except it isn't really 'throwing chaff units'. I could understand it if armies were bogged down by hordes of chaffy units. The point is it doesn't seem to matter how many units there are on either side and the chaff units down have to be 'thrown' or sent 'kamikaze' style, they just have to appear then retreat. I've also seen it work with just scouts, so it could more accurately be described as constantly attacking with cheap commanders, rather than chaffy troops.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Yeah except it isn't really 'throwing chaff units'. I could understand it if armies were bogged down by hordes of chaffy units. The point is it doesn't seem to matter how many units there are on either side and the chaff units down have to be 'thrown' or sent 'kamikaze' style, they just have to appear then retreat. I've also seen it work with just scouts, so it could more accurately be described as constantly attacking with cheap commanders, rather than chaffy troops.

I've never seen Earthquake or any other BF damaging spell cast against a single target, even when scripted to do so. The AI does override the script if the opposition is not big enough.

Unless you meant a single unit is able to "lock down" an army from moving?

[Zeldor]

Fantomen:

Sickle - hidden income of 30D/turn is not game breaking? It's more than you can get from Well of Misery, and that globals is "I want to win" sign already. There should be no hidden gem profit. Also there shouldn't be a way to kill your own troops for some gains. With Sickle you can just happily turtle and use huge D income for nasty stuff.

Ankh/LoD - sure, I have nothing against that thing, if used as supposed - to get back some fragile afflicted mages as they had bad luck in one battle. But not to create tens of reanimators for nation that is not supposed to have them. Or for having upkeep-free researchers.

Bogus - have you ever seen it in action? Scouts or air mages with bows scripted to 'fire mages'? Flying anti-thugs scripted to attack commanders? I have. And it's not cool and there is no way to use it against your enemy, unless you find another Bogus around. I've heard about people contemplating plans on what scales to pick with N nation to get the most chance for Bogus to appear, so he can be charmed.

Jarkko:

I have, many times. Just put 1-2 really cheap items on a diseased mage, it should be enough to trigger the script.

[Gandalf Parker]

A few skirmishers causing an army to move more cautiously I can understand.
But just a scout? That should be fixed.
But then it would be hard to recognize SCs who should be able to cause an army to stop (at least it does in the movies)

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Yeah except it isn't really 'throwing chaff units'. I could understand it if armies were bogged down by hordes of chaffy units. The point is it doesn't seem to matter how many units there are on either side and the chaff units down have to be 'thrown' or sent 'kamikaze' style, they just have to appear then retreat. I've also seen it work with just scouts, so it could more accurately be described as constantly attacking with cheap commanders, rather than chaffy troops.

ok. The sky is blue btw.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

Unless you meant a single unit is able to "lock down" an army from moving?

Yep. Not reliably, just randomly.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

ok. The sky is blue btw.

I wasn't responding to you. Apparently you already knew that, but others don't and are easily misled when people describe it as 'bogging down armies with chaff' or 'delaying the enemy with kamikaze troops'. These aren't accurate descriptions of what's happening at all.

A few skirmishers causing an army to move more cautiously I can understand.
But just a scout? That should be fixed.
But then it would be hard to recognize SCs who should be able to cause an army to stop (at least it does in the movies)

I don't think it needs to be fixed. I'm just identifying what feels like an exploit to me - far easier to ask people not to do it.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Fantomen:

Sickle - hidden income of 30D/turn is not game breaking? It's more than you can get from Well of Misery, and that globals is "I want to win" sign already. There should be no hidden gem profit. Also there shouldn't be a way to kill your own troops for some gains. With Sickle you can just happily turtle and use huge D income for nasty stuff.

Ankh/LoD - sure, I have nothing against that thing, if used as supposed - to get back some fragile afflicted mages as they had bad luck in one battle. But not to create tens of reanimators for nation that is not supposed to have them. Or for having upkeep-free researchers.

Bogus - have you ever seen it in action? Scouts or air mages with bows scripted to 'fire mages'? Flying anti-thugs scripted to attack commanders? I have. And it's not cool and there is no way to use it against your enemy, unless you find another Bogus around. I've heard about people contemplating plans on what scales to pick with N nation to get the most chance for Bogus to appear, so he can be charmed.

Jarkko:

I have, many times. Just put 1-2 really cheap items on a diseased mage, it should be enough to trigger the script.

I think you exaggerate quite a bit Zeldor. The sickle is not 30 free D gems every turn after you forge it. You need to have a thug - with probably some other equipment which adds cost on top of the sickle. You also need an ally you trust, to manage the micro of shuffling everything around, pay the gold for PD (or whatever) to feed the sickle, lose the income from the provinces turning over. Also, at the point in the game you're forging artifacts it's virtually assured that your use of the sickle won't go unnoticed for very long so if you're using just a thug fighting chaff it's not too hard for somebody to drop in, soul slay you and take off with your sickle. Is it a useful artifact? Sure, but hardly a game breaking 'I win' button. It's about as good as having 2 provinces full of decent bloodhunters.

Ankh abuse is more of a 'I win' play, but it's also easy to spot and takes a good deal of ramp up time to really be a problem. You wouldn't leave a strong player alone with the Forge of the Ancients, I don't really see this as being any different. Again, a worthwhile strategy but hardly something that breaks the game.

Bogus' orders - yet again, useful but far from game breaking. This is a game where you can drop wrathful skies, get mount chaining or put up Gift of Health, so having something that gives you an edge along one angle is part of the game. It's silly to say their is nothing you can do about the orders.

1) Have a bunch of chaff commanders, guarded by thug killing bodyguards
2) Have a bunch of cheap, nasty commanders like banes to smush the guys trying to take out commanders very economically. Or just use indie commanders with things like hammer forged doom glaives (or whatever makes sense)
3) Put cheap shields on your mages and/or rings of tamed lightning - this will make them virtually immune to arrow fire
4) You don't need to find another Bogus - you just complained about being attacked by units who have the orders you want! Charm/HB them if its worth your trouble...
5) Assassinate/mind hunt/earth attack/manifestation/seeking arrow..etc. etc. etc. can go a long way towards reducing snipers.

Again, certainly it can be useful but you're just not trying if you think there's not much you can do about it.