second class super combattants

[Saber Cherry]

There's also the possiblity of cumulative armor damage. As in... every hit that lands, regardless of whether it penetrates, has a chance of reducing the opponent's protection by 1. This should be proportional to the strength of the damage roll (str+weapon+2d6). So neither a damage roll of 10 nor a damage roll of 20 would damage a unit with a protection roll of 22, but the damage roll of 20 would be twice as likely to degrade the victim's armor. An attack would probably have (damage roll)% of damaging the armor by 1 point.

The protection reduction would stay for the length of the turn (but be repaired each month). So heavy infantry peppered with slings would take no damage at first, but after 10 rounds of being hit by 5 rocks per person per round, their armor would be badly degraded, and they'd start taking HP damage. Entropy should eventually cause the demise of any highly armored supercombatant=)

Well, that's just a little suggestion I have.

[PvK]

Chris: Oh, I agree. I mentioned the original leaky armor suggestion, but I prefer your Version. I just didn't exactly like the specific mechanic of the minimum 1-point damage per hit, since it would penalize mortal fighters more than giants and seemed to certain and not quite "right". I prefer the small chance of a critical hit, either by small chances of armor-piercing or armor-negating, and/or the open-ended damage you just posted.

For the already -1 per subsequent attack, maybe just tweak it to -2 or even -3 (though unable to reduce below the effect of armor-only). Because the problem is for folks who get up to 30 or so, and become able to parry even 5 or 6 guys easily.

PvK

[ November 03, 2003, 02:03: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Sammual]

I think that any changes in this direction should be made slowly.

As stated by Chris Byler - "Actually, some of the heavy vs. light issues are the same problems that any unit has vs. supercombatants. So one change could affect both places."

In addition to the cumulative -1 def per additional attack I would like to see an increase in the defenders fatigue by one for every hit that bypasses Defense but not Protection.

And if that change shows to be too little add 1 fatigue per attack made on a unit. That WILL have an effect.

Sammual

[HJ]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
There's also the possiblity of cumulative armor damage. As in... every hit that lands, regardless of whether it penetrates, has a chance of reducing the opponent's protection by 1. This should be proportional to the strength of the damage roll (str+weapon+2d6). So neither a damage roll of 10 nor a damage roll of 20 would damage a unit with a protection roll of 22, but the damage roll of 20 would be twice as likely to degrade the victim's armor. An attack would probably have (damage roll)% of damaging the armor by 1 point.

The protection reduction would stay for the length of the turn (but be repaired each month). So heavy infantry peppered with slings would take no damage at first, but after 10 rounds of being hit by 5 rocks per person per round, their armor would be badly degraded, and they'd start taking HP damage. Entropy should eventually cause the demise of any highly armored supercombatant=)

Well, that's just a little suggestion I have.

I think this would penalize Jotun giants and similar units a lot. They already have problems when they are ganged up on, and if they are going to lose 1 prot for each attack made on them for the duration of the battle, it just seems too much. The whole point of armoured units is that they can withstand punishment. For every supercombatant, there are dozens of regular units that would be stricken by the changes made. So in an attempt to remove a threat from a single unit, you could easily sink the whole system altogether.


General comment (not specifically related to Saber's post):
If you go for the kill, killing is what you're going to get. I don't see why this is made into such a big problem. If you want to rush everybody and kill everything in sight in the first few turns, you are going to succeed if you do it right. So why the complaints when this actually happens? If you weren't doing it on purpose, it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Why is the game to blame for this then?

[ November 03, 2003, 03:12: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by HJ:
I think this would penalize Jotun giants and similar units a lot. They already have problems when they are ganged up on, and if they are going to lose 1 prot for each attack made on them for the duration of the battle, it just seems too much.

True. Perhaps size or HP could be factored in as well. A big Jotun armor should not be damaged as by a sling shot much relative to a tiny Hoburg armor, since there is so much more surface area.

But to clarify, it was not -1prot per hit, just a small chance of -1prot per hit. The chance could be adjusted until it was not much of a factor for most units, but if an SC tried to wade solo through 1000 pikemen, eventually his armor would get trashed during the battle.

-Cherry

[Keir Maxwell]

I have to admit to being a bit lost regarding some of the early game SC concerns due to lack of details.

I've experimented with a Niefelheim SC Bless race (see Niefelheimn thread) with the Earth mother Earth 9, nature 9 and my experiances don't fit the picture being painted. My blessed, sacred Niefel Giants die with great ease fighting any troops capable of dealing out alot of damage. Remember they have prot +4, berserk 3, regeneration and reinvigoration - yet they get slaughtered by Knights! The Earth Mother is very vunerable without magic items - slowing down her usage and making her researching ability tempting.

Don't get me wrong this race is very nasty, perhaps broken, but then I'm hoping to find I can do some pretty over the top things with Heart Companions and Sacred Serpents . . . so I'm not sure that SC is the central issue.

Have I been really unlucky or are people somewhat inflating their stories of successes with super combatents? Do people go back to copied files to avoid the disasters I encounter when I'm too aggressive with SC's?

I would like to here detailed accounts of games in which people played with no backed up turns and to hear of the things that went wrong as well as those that go right. I worry at the thought that the game balence might be altered by people saying "I wasted the AI using the SC abuse isn't it pathetic?" I require more detail before I find this convincing and I think the problems with the AI have more to do with the light/heavy issues and the desire to not have the AI "cheat" - I wish they would at least pick on me playing impossible.

I'm no idiot and I find it easy enough to lose super combatents - always have. Even ID's with a heap of magic items which took a pile of gems, heaps of searching . . . and in Dom I I lost my first 2 (PBEM) ones against 30 Tritons! Go figure - nothing anybody said prepared me for that one but the heat of my dominion (Abysia) in the seas was enough to overwhelm all that investment.

So please Johan don't go making changes because people are making complaints lacking detailed backing. I certainly don't know enough to make definitive statements at this point and I doubt anyone who wasn't invovled in the development is in a different position. As such views of people responding to the demo should not be given too much weight - myself included

Cheers

Keir

[Jasper]

I'm typically arguing for Super Combatants to be toned down a bit, but it seems that much of this thread's solutions are overboard -- especially since the game hasn't even shipped yet.

In any event, it would make sense to add changes incrementally. IMHO changing the cumulative defense penalty from -1 to -2 per blow may well be enough to shift the balance.

I think the automatic damage per hit is a bad idea -- there's enough chance of that sort of thing with the openended roles, not to mention armor piercing/negating attacks.

I also think giving extra fatigue is a bad idea, and will make super combatants pointless. However, it might be a good idea to make the major contenders all have encumberance > 0, so they aren't completely immune to fatigue damage.

[MStavros]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
That's fine, but that's not what the thread was about. Perhaps your post should have been more clear? Your original post did not in any way mention pretenders, and from the location, the implication was that you, personally, found that "second-class summonable supercombattants" were destroying the strategic portion of Dominions 2.

Anyway, I'm not going to pollute the thread anymore with a pointless argument. But keep in mind there's a difference between gratuitous humor and gratuitous criticism. If you're going to criticize, at least explain what you're criticizing, and then post it somewhere relevant - this thread is NOT about pretenders.

-Cherry

Yes, maybe I wasn't clear enough. Still DO NOT call anyone a troll, since you are one of them. You are posting too much trollish things (Saber C. is trying to be funny in 8/10 Posts, and those are totally useless Posts}, so you should be quiet.
Anyways no hard feelings, I WAS talking about pretender SCs, but late game SCs COULD be a problem, since a few SCs killing whole armies makes no sense to me you know...that is why I've posted that they are killing the strategic part of the game, but this won't be a problem, if the mod tools will be good enough.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Jasper:
I think the automatic damage per hit is a bad idea

Indeed. That would make all low def/low hp (eg, Ulm Guardians) useless.

[Sammual]

Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
I have to admit to being a bit lost regarding some of the early game SC concerns due to lack of details.

I've experimented with a Niefelheim SC Bless race (see Niefelheimn thread) with the Earth mother Earth 9, nature 9 and my experiances don't fit the picture being painted. My blessed, sacred Niefel Giants die with great ease fighting any troops capable of dealing out alot of damage. Remember they have prot +4, berserk 3, regeneration and reinvigoration - yet they get slaughtered by Knights! The Earth Mother is very vunerable without magic items - slowing down her usage and making her researching ability tempting.

My Niefel Giants with Water 9 / Nature 9 Blessings go down alot as well. Worse I have the hardest time keeping my Pretender and my Prophet from going blind.

I am not saying that they are not effective because they are. I just lose them almost as fast as I make them. I trade them for new provences and winning battles.

Sammual