Forthcoming patch notes - Page 2

Lingchih · #11 July 21st, 2008, 01:48 AM

I agree with Micah that the overall nerfing of battlefield enchantments, so that the caster cannot retreat and still have his spell active, is too much. True, this would fix the Mists of Deception cheat, but it also severely limits other tactics that are not considered cheats.

I would ask that the Devs rethink this before they release the next patch.

Jazzepi · #12 July 21st, 2008, 01:51 AM

Personally I'm glad to see air queen 1 + air queen 2 = army anywhere on the map destroyed, gone from the game. The whole process of having a mage who can cast a BE enchantment, and then leave, without maintaining it, but then if they die while they're still there, it goes away, seems nonthematic, and silly to me. If you're going to cast heat from hell, grip of winter, quagmire, solar brilliance, then you better be damn well willing to risk that mage in the fight that the mage is bringing his value to. By letting mages retreat from battle, that risk/reward ratio is severely impaired by simply removing a good deal of risk.

If anything, it just seems like your complaint is more about the low turn limit. Since armies can get so large, especially in the late game, I wouldn't mind seeing the 50 turn limit raised.

I mean, the whole reason you put a turn limit is to prevent fights from going on into infinity, but the cap should be something high enough that you only reach it /when/ fights would go onto infinity. Right now the problem is that you reach the cap with a regular army.

I think a 200 turn hard limit would probably be fine.

Anyways, bravo on resolving a long standing bug.

Jazzepi

Lingchih · #13 July 21st, 2008, 01:56 AM

And what would a 200 turn limit do to those of us with slower processors? I agree that it would be nice, but would it be playable?

Jazzepi · #14 July 21st, 2008, 02:08 AM

Quote:

Lingchih said:
And what would a 200 turn limit do to those of us with slower processors? I agree that it would be nice, but would it be playable?

I don't think it would do anything but effect the turn processing time. The battleview itself would run at the same speed, though it might take longer to watch the whole thing.

The change would be mostly transparent for people playing MP since the turn processes would be done on the host machine. Also, you probably wouldn't hit that 200 turn limit cap too often.

Jazzepi

Micah · #15 July 21st, 2008, 02:12 AM

Upping the turn limit would help, it's true, although an SC taking 150 turns to clear things out wouldn't get any of the mages, which is one of the nice things about the BEs...you actually do some real damage to your unprepared opponent.

And the key here really is that they have to be unprepared. I certainly wouldn't drop a pair of AQs into an enemy army that was slinging around any of the myriad SC-killer spells (Life for a life, gifts from heaven, enslave mind/soul slay, weapons of sharpness + strength of giants, Stream of life/CHARM...and all of those have excellent range aside from charm, there are plenty more short range ones) so your claim that any army on the map can be killed by a couple of queens is pretty laughable.

The other reason just fixing the turn limit still isn't what I'd like to see is because of cheap summon chaff. Skel spam is already incredibly powerful in a lot of situations, and if you have critical mass of mages they can keep it up for 50 turns or 5000. I've been buried in imps from lifelong protections. An unending supply of ghost wolves should not be enough to fend off an avenging nephilim until he gets bored and wanders off. BE's are supposed to be the ultimate answer to over-bloated but improperly constructed armies. Hell, it's in the rulebook. Let them do their job.

Jazzepi · #16 July 21st, 2008, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Micah said:
The other reason just fixing the turn limit still isn't what I'd like to see is because of cheap summon chaff. Skel spam is already incredibly powerful in a lot of situations, and if you have critical mass of mages they can keep it up for 50 turns or 5000. I've been buried in imps from lifelong protections. An unending supply of ghost wolves should not be enough to fend off an avenging nephilim until he gets bored and wanders off. BE's are supposed to be the ultimate answer to over-bloated but improperly constructed armies. Hell, it's in the rulebook. Let them do their job.

I don't see how that has anything to do with the BE

Obviously the quote about two air queens killing any army was an exercise in hyperbole, but a properly equipped air queen can push her MR to something like 28 or so. All she needs then is regen and two shields to hold off chaff indefinitely. Especially if the opponent has their mages to the far back (which tends to be the default position).

About the only thing I'd be afraid of then would be petrify and drain life, and that's only if the chaff doesn't move fast enough while the air queen is buffing that the mages don't get caught in the back casting self-buffs, and then spamming useless spells.

Jazzepi

quantum_mechani · #17 July 21st, 2008, 02:33 AM

Quote:

Jazzepi said:
About the only thing I'd be afraid of then would be petrify and drain life

Personally, life for life and gifts from heaven are what terrify my SCs the most.

Tifone · #18 July 21st, 2008, 03:27 AM

Really I don't understand all this hatred against the turn limit

As this game is supposed to work well even on low-level systems, pumping up this limit would render the waiting between turns a lot longer... can you imagine 200 turn battles in a large map with 15 nations? Heeek!

2nd, I think a not so long turn limit makes perfect sense. After all, a turn just represent a month and (unless teleportations, which still take time for magic preparatives) involves the preparatives for the equipment tents and stuff, the trip from one region to another, the battle which takes days... And it's not easy to fight and stay in a province under the direct control of the enemy - after some time, you want or not, an army has to fall back for resupplying, regathering troops, reorganize formations. And both the attacker and the defender have their right to see their reinforcements on the march from the neighbour provinces come after some time battling - they are not fighting endlessy in a limbo separed from the physic world.
As it is IMHO, the turn limit gives plenty of time for a strong attacker to kill many, many units. But if it is unable to kill/rout all of them before 50 turns, he just wasn't strong enough to do it in just one month. He reorganizes, receives the reinforcements, the defender does so, and the fight begins again.

The only minor problem came from MoD (solved) and the other few tactics - usually spells - not working as stated, with units non-retreating after their time and the defender dying. Vengeance of the Dead i.e.

WraithLord · #19 July 21st, 2008, 05:09 AM

I'm all in favor of increasing the hard coded turn limit to something in the range [100,200].

I can relate to some Micah's points. Yes, I think the change has huge impact on game play, much beyond what a simple bug fix should do, and Yes, it will eliminate a favorite tactic of using SCs to eradicate armies.

Having said that I must confess that I'm still in favor of the BE change for the following reason:
A. Consistency. As Jazzepi pointed out, it doesn't make sense that the mages death will stop the BE while his fleeing the battle won't.
B. Flavor. IMHO, MP end games deteriorate too much into SC slug fest where mundane armies lose their relevancy. I don't really like having the spend so much of my thinking at the end game to analyzing what SCs the enemy has, how they are equipped and scripted and then have to come up with counters (in the form of my SCs) to those. And this process takes place every turn b/c a capable opponent will always adapt. The game is about nations and their gods battling for supremacy and not a glorified death match.
Given, its all about the balance of things. I like SCs, I like the role play feel to them and their ability to take and deal sever punishment. But I think the scale has tipped too far towards SC dominance.

The change will not invalidate SCs at all. A group of SCs, some blockers and some BE casters could still eradicate unprepared armies. But it will be a bit more difficult to execute and the risk will be greater (as Jazzepi has pointed out).

I don't think this will make end game less about tactics. tactics would still be there, from raiding, assassinating, casting artillery spells and so on and so forth. The tactic of casting and BE and retreating will not be there, and the end of the day, I like it better that way.

llamabeast · #20 July 21st, 2008, 05:13 AM

Gandalf - I think the most common use will simply be to add more, interesting nations to multiplayer, where they are of similar strength to the base game. e.g. Sombre's Skaven, Arga Dis, Ulm Reborn and so on. I've really enjoyed the games I've played with them in.

Sombre: Well, the games I've started with mod nations included have always filled up. I just don't really have time to start many games.