The problem of low hit points on humans

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Maybe a new Heroes mod wherein a new unit could be created that is a thematically appropriate commander who costs much much more than what a normal commander would? Give him two heroic traits and double his cost, three and triple it.... Something like this Tank who sacrifices leadership ability for personal power, at extremely high expense:

#newmonster 2865
#name "Seasoned Champion"
#descr "Seasoned Champions have learned/developed unusual and exotic tricks/abilities/skills to ensure their battles are triumphant."
#ap 10
#mapmove 2
#hp 30
#prot 5
#size 2
#str 25
#enc 0
#att 10
#def 15
#prec 10
#mr 15
#mor 15
#gcost 300
#rcost 1
#armor "full plate mail"
#armor "full helmet"
#armor "tower shield"
#regeneration 10
#fear 0
#end

[PvK]

Cainehill said:
...
3) Yes, it's possible to get nations from other eras into the same game, but it requires _map_ commands - hardly something that allows you to sneak in an unlikely variation like Return of the Raptors, since the game-host has to do it for you.
...

It doesn't require a map command. It's a very easy mod to make to allow all nations from all eras in the same game. Isn't one posted to the public forums yet?

[Evil Dave]

Uh-Nu-Buh said:

#newmonster 2865
#name "Seasoned Champion"
#descr "Seasoned Champions have learned/developed unusual and exotic tricks/abilities/skills to ensure their battles are triumphant."

Why not just give him immortality and be done with it?

This thread is really confusing me. Forget notions of "realism" and "thematic correctness" for a second... what are people really asking for in terms of game mechanics? A recruited 30hp commander? Um, ok, a bunch of nations have those already. If that's how you want to play, play them, or make up a new faction.

"Human" is just a label on an arbitrary game piece, there's no reason to get hung up about it.

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects.

It's a dumbing down because the part of the game that took practice, good decision making, and the ability to apply strategies, which was the magic part of the game was replaced by pushing armies around the map. That's something that the AI can manage to do.

The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.

So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages? Because that's where the balance currently lies. Magic doesn't become powerful enough to even be worth sending many nations' mages onto the battlefield till about level 5 research arrives, which is long after the balance of power in the game has been decided.

* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.

You are still labouring under your previous misunderstanding of the Dominions battle mechanics. Any unit that fights against a full grid square of size 2 units is fighting a 3 to 1 battle, even if it has two other friendly units in the same square. If the commander is to be useful, ie. be able to kill his own gold cost in units and still survive the battle, then he has to be able to survive against three to one odds.

* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective?

I want commanders to be as effective for their gold cost as mages are for their gold cost, and I'd leave the gold costs for heavy infantry alone, since they are probably about the right cost. Light infantry would have their price quartered to represent their actual battlefield utility.

[Graeme Dice]

Evil Dave said:
A recruited 30hp commander? Um, ok, a bunch of nations have those already. If that's how you want to play, play them, or make up a new faction.

Jotunheim is almost the only nation that has non-mage commanders with 30 hitpoints. The Jotun Herse would also be necessarily boosted in hitpoints and defense so that they would be proportionally as powerful and able to survive against troops as human commanders.

Of course, a better solution would probably be to boost hitpoints universally by about three times, leave weapon damage the same, and make the combats last for 150 turns. The only problem then is that you run into the overly granular fatigue system.

[PvK]

Clearly we have very different perceptions of this game series, Graeme.

Regardless of your perception, though, it is clearly a gross exaggeration to say that the magic part of the game was "replaced" by armies. Magic still seems to me far more powerful AND far more cost-effective than mundane armies in Dom 3, though the point were it gains a decisive advantage may be delayed more than in Dom 2. It's always been influenced by the scenario settings (nations, map, settings) but even moreso now that one can easily set the gold/resources/supplies on game creation. So if you like the Dom 2 pacing better, you can of course do things like set faster research, higher magic sites, or even lower the gold/res/supply multipliers.

Personally, I find the non-magical military side of the game to be quite interesting and prefer the magical and fantastic elements to be exceptions that gain their meaning by contrast to the mundane norm, and not by completely dominating it, as I thought was the case in vanilla Dom 2.

"So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages?"
- No, I'm increasing the gem costs and path requirements of the strong magical effects so that they require much more investment to amass, and thus become rarer.

As for your argument about how I "misunderstood" combat mechanics is unconvincing. Even with all attacks during a turn concentrating on one fighter at a time, it is still quite helpful to have guards for a commander. Also, as I've been playing with melee commanders and watching their combats for years, and mine generally do survive and achieve good success, while you say yours generally die, I would say that practical experience shows that proper placement/orders/guards definitely make a large difference in their survival rate.

PvK

Graeme Dice said:

It's a dumbing down because the part of the game that took practice, good decision making, and the ability to apply strategies, which was the magic part of the game was replaced by pushing armies around the map. That's something that the AI can manage to do.

So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages? Because that's where the balance currently lies. Magic doesn't become powerful enough to even be worth sending many nations' mages onto the battlefield till about level 5 research arrives, which is long after the balance of power in the game has been decided.

You are still labouring under your previous misunderstanding of the Dominions battle mechanics. Any unit that fights against a full grid square of size 2 units is fighting a 3 to 1 battle, even if it has two other friendly units in the same square. If the commander is to be useful, ie. be able to kill his own gold cost in units and still survive the battle, then he has to be able to survive against three to one odds.

I want commanders to be as effective for their gold cost as mages are for their gold cost, and I'd leave the gold costs for heavy infantry alone, since they are probably about the right cost. Light infantry would have their price quartered to represent their actual battlefield utility.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I dunno. One of the major points of mods seems to me to give the ability for individuals to tailor the game to their own desires. E.g. to modify your favorite nation/race to have 15hp--or even 30hp--commanders.

I don't see it making that big of a difference as long as each of the players in that particular game agree to the change/s.

With my previous offering of the "Seasoned Champion" I was just offering a concrete example of such, and proferring the view that for each "heroic" trait (such as hugely increased hp or def) the cost of such a recruitable unit be doubled. E.g. 30gp commander with 20hp would be 60gp; if you add a standard to him it becomes 120gp; if you then give him def 20 he costs 240gp; and then if you add minor regeneration he would cost 480gp. None of this is outside the bounds of the game, and none of it would ruin the game. Mods alter the flavor on an individual basis--which I feel is appropriate here. OTOH, if you were to double or triple the HP of all human commanders (as some have suggested), then you would fundamentally change the game itself.... It might be interesting, but then it would be "Dom IIIb" or "Dom IV: Warlords" or somesuch.

[PvK]

That explanation makes it clearer what you were suggesting, Uh-Nu-Buh, and it sounds quite reasonable to me when explained that way.

[HoneyBadger]

Rather than argue for or against humans with more/less hp, I thought I'd put forth an alternative system for dealing with hp. because I enjoy designing role-playing and game elements better than I do arguing about them (which I end up doing a lot anyway ) I'm not sure what the copyright laws have to say about things posted to this forum, but to the extent the forum rules and the law allows, I'd like to retain the rights to the following:

Size: expanded, 1-12
hp: based on levels of size, each unit recieves 1-12 hp per size level. This means that a Hoburg unit (for instance, not taking into account any rebalancing necessary with size increase) can have between 1 and 12 hp. Very weak Hoburg children have 1 hp, while mighty Hoburg warriors with mutant genes and adamantium bones have 12. The same thing applies to size 12 titans, except that with every increase in size level, the unit gains a minimum hp base of their size PLUS the minimum hp they could otherwise have, thus size 12 titans have between 24 and 144 hp, while size 2 humans would have between 4 and 24 hp. and size 1 hoburgs actually have between 2 and 12 hp, despite what I just said in the above example. In addition:
Commanders, not because of their own personal, physical body, whether they're Alexander the Great, Ajax, Hercules, or Napoleon, but because of A: their status on the battlefield, B: the unseen but present national network of support they gain by being commanders-better equipment, better food, better triage, all that stuff, and C: because they are better able to both understand and to determine their place on the battlefield, have double hp. Example: a human commander could have between 6 and 48 hp.
This system allows for a wide range of variation between the very weak and the very strong up to heroic levels, allowing an extremely mighty buff human to go "toe-to-toe" with an extremely weak, scrawny, out of shape, but still size 12 titan, atleast in terms of HP. The greater size variation is there for personal preference, and to add a greater range of sizes for purposes of demonstrating that there's a big difference between what is very small and what is very large aka scale. Also, it helps this system cope, in terms of sheer numbers of hp and gradiants of size, with both a wide range of hps in the game and a wide range of units, and the effect they would have on a battlefield. Lastly, it enables the general advice that most races in the game have members which will vary in size by 1 level. Thus you can have humans from size 1 (Verne Troyer) to size 3 (Andre the Giant) and heroic abilities/disabilities could raise or lower size by a step without being unrealistic.

As far as legality goes, if Illwinter wants to use this system in Dominions, they are more than welcome to, and I'd probably be open to others using it as well. I just would appreciate it not blatantly being stolen, since it is something I came up with a long time ago, for my own gaming purposes, and am rather proud of. If you want to use it, feel free to let me know, (and I really have no problem with anyone using it as long as they don't plan to publish it, or plan to publish it without my name on it, and once again Illwinter/Dominions is free to use it regardless) and we'll talk about it. Thanks!

Edited because the first time through I didn't really understand the rule I was espousing, but now I think I do.

[Agrajag]

HoneyBadger, while your idea is generaly speaking a good one (thuogh very reminicent of D&D rules), I'd have to say that (again, sorry ) it doesn't really fit into Dominions.
Such a huge variation as you are suggesting would simply make the game much too random, as you can't even estimate what unit you will get when you purchase it.
Furthermore, this will shift the balance of power much in the favour of mages, since a mage's HP isn't very important (sure, its nice to have more HP to survive a battle that has gone bad, but more often than not, your mages are sitting safely at the back of your army).
My idea as to how something similar could be made to fit into Dominions is to:
1) Keep all the stats exactly as they are right now.
2) Make it so each unit/commander recruited will have a random amount of HP between (HP + Size) and (HP - Size), when recruited.

Though either way, I'd rather see Dominions stay as it is right now, because I like knowing exactly the stats of the unit I'm about to get when I'm purchasing it :X

Also, as far as the idea goes thematically, while it seems to make sense to have such a wide range of HP because people can be really puny or really big and strong, practically, you'd expect anyone that has been recruited into the military and is being payed to fight will atleast go through some screening process and training, which should weed out "very weak hoburg children". Atleast in all grades of unit besides militia (which already has -1 hp IIRC) and PD (which traditionally is made up of the local population of fat unemployed people )