Ideas to stop mass castle building for DOM_3

[Huzurdaddi]

6) Make it so that mass castling isn´t necessary, because of useless pd and cheap raiding spells like horde from hell and ghost riders.

Sounds like the best fix to me. Sure it's not "realistic" but what is in a game with undead, demons and all manner of strange beasts?

Perhaps in this fantasy realm the "real men" stay home and only the less fit have to travel outside their realm. Who knows?

[quantum_mechani]

I don't think the cheap castles are overpowered so much as the more expensive ones underpowered. I think a good solution would be to give special bonus to each of the less used castles. Dark Citadel could spawn skeletons, normal Citadel could recruit two commanders per turn, Fortified City could draw population from other provinces, ect..

[Chazar]

quantum_mechani said:
I don't think the cheap castles are overpowered so much as the more expensive ones underpowered. I think a good solution would be to give special bonus to each of the less used castles. Dark Citadel could spawn skeletons, normal Citadel could recruit two commanders per turn, Fortified City could draw population from other provinces, ect..

That is a good suggestion, although I wonder why population draining is a good thing. Maybe an additional growth bonus would also do...

[Boron]

Nah don't dare to reduce castling .

Please do not even think of nerfing clams or even abolishing all hoard items .
The same for castles . Fortunately most other ppl agree .

Maybe you could completely reform castle building by allowing a player to chose an individual castle by designing it ?
Example :
You have 3 base Versions of a castle : small , medium , big . They give 10 , 25 and 40 admin and cost e.g. 0 , 20 , 50 design points .
Now players can buy additional towers for their castles and place them in the castle designing where they want .
In the battle tactics screen you can place your troops on your castles walls/towers where archers gain +3 precision , + 3 to attack and all troops gain +5 defense .
You can select from various towers and other toys like x-bow tower , ballista tower , mine field sourrounding the castle etc. . All those toys cost like 5-10 extra designpoints .

This would enchance the depths of castle fights quite a lot .

[Chazar]

In reply to Boron: I do not think that full custimisation is a good idea. There are always some exploits so everyone will end up with the same castle. I think quantum_mechani's proposal encourages much more diversity!

[Tuidjy]

Great idea!!! Lets make it impossible to build too many castles!!! Making each
castle cost 50 golds more than the previous one will really help! And then, we
will have to get rid of Ghost Riders, Phantasmal attack, Imprint Souls, etc...
Good riddance, it is a pain to have to react to an attack in the rear. Of
course, for the sake of Allmighty Balance Himself, we have to get rid of sneaky
armies as well. And, there was an unsung genius who earlier suggested that all
teleporting armies should suffer from plane-sickness for an year or so. That's
awesome too! Or lets just abolish all teleporting spells altogether!!!

Now I have to go have a lie down, but I am sure to be back to enlighten you
about the next steps we have to take in order to balance Dominions II...

[peasant]

Aren't Ghost Riders and other cheap raiding spells "end of game" spells like Wish?

If they weren't powerful, games would stalemate badly. I guess it is a deliberate design choice - to have v powerful offensive spells at the end, to avoid stalemate/ attrition

[tinkthank]

I dont want to argue for or against madcastling, but would just like to add that a rehaul of the fortress choice system during God Creation would be great -- so that, conceivably, other forttress types become more viable and that their in-game gold cost is not necessarily coupled to their build time.

[Chazar]

Yep, I agree as well. I do not mind castling. In fact, since I was raised in the german country side I am pretty used to see a castle around every other corner. Nevertheless, I think that some castle types need to be made much more attractive than they are right now, especially the 4-5 turners!

BUT:
I'd also say that it is ridiculous that a single limping milita man suffices to defend a castle against immediate storming! I'd say that if the attacking force not only breaks the gates immediately on the first turn, but still has the same amount of siege points additionally leftover, it should be allowed to storm immediately. So those watchtowers will still protect a temple against GhostRiders as it currently does, but it wouldnt be such a hindrance to a proper attacking force as it is now (because of long sieges, ghost riders and fires from afar,...)! And nothing would be different for a moderately manned castle having a sensible amount of defense as well.

I would say that anything that encourages attacking with masses of national troops is a good thing. And if it encourages to choose sturdy castles as well, well...

[Edi]

The best fix for the problem of massive use of raiding spells is using a magic site frequency of 25 or less for MP games, then the players will really have to CAREFULLY consider what they use their hard earned gems for. This way summoning anything powerful is a major decision and the role of national units is greatly increased. If you also put research on very difficult, they become even more prominent and you need to carefully consider what to research to maximize your strengths.

Of course, blood nations are more powerful on magic poor maps, but that is not an insurmountable problem either.

On such maps, madcastling is not such an attractive strategy, and massive raiding spell use is not viable at all.

Edi