PD wars! (no monkeys allowed)

[Muse]

Radio_Star is quite the fan of sensationalism, but it however seems to be a verbose attempt to ridicule what amounts to be a useful suggestion:

"Make PD more complex."

Even the simple feature available to mobile armies, a squad positioning and orders interface, would be rather helpful.
I can surmise that the developers may have shied away from such in an effort not to overload the player with micromanagement; with perhaps a more intuitive interface, it may be a plausible improvement.

As it stands now, I personally have no great displeasure over the PD system--it has a niche to fill, the wooden picket against roving bands of mystical slaughter.
Ostensibly stationary chaff, perhaps its greatest use is to assist mages lying in wait for an ambush: A good Fog Warriors, or even a behind-the-lines Paralyze caster can multiply the effectiveness of PD manyfold.


As a side note: As 13lackGu4rd indicates, it may be best to create a thread on 'PD Use and Improvement,' giving this thread back to the Dragons.

[Muse]

[This is a repost from the linked thread, for the sake of clarity.]

Radio_Star is quite the fan of sensationalism, but it however seems to be a verbose attempt to ridicule what amounts to be a useful suggestion:

"Make PD more complex."

Even the simple feature available to mobile armies, a squad positioning and orders interface, would be rather helpful.
I can surmise that the developers may have shied away from such in an effort not to overload the player with micromanagement; with perhaps a more intuitive interface, it may be a plausible improvement.

As it stands now, I personally have no great displeasure over the PD system--it has a niche to fill, the wooden picket against roving bands of mystical slaughter.
Ostensibly stationary chaff, perhaps its greatest use is to assist mages lying in wait for an ambush: A good Fog Warriors, or even a behind-the-lines Paralyze caster can multiply the effectiveness of PD manyfold.

[Gandalf Parker]

I will try to dig up some of the original discussions, but Id like to lay out something...

Thematically the Province Defence is supposed to be a local militia. They dont appear as an army because they dont exist as one until the province is attacked. Its simply farmers and merchants coming to the rescue of their local area. They are basically untrained and do not do formations.

The impression I got was that the PD was meant to handle the types of things that went on in the world without the pretenders (like events) but not meant to actually be able to handle the things done by the national powers in the world (players). PD protects against natural events, and the reason than an independent province would "join" under a power was to protect them from other powers.

One of the more extensive (and reasonable IMHO) discussions was whether or not PD should be national or represent the recruitables of that province. If the PD were fixed, Id like to see it go to recruitables which would be thematic and fair. BUT we dont have an option there.

We CAN fix national PD if someone decides to. Nations which are able to be duped by mods can have their PD reset (yes, bringing back my wish for more duped nations for more Civil War and Chess style games). So a future game might allow use of the NewImproved Kailasa mod. But it would only be able to change what units show up, not change their actions. Still though, a discussion along those lines could at least lead to a change that we can see sometime soon

[HoneyBadger]

Originally Posted by Muse

Radio_Star is quite the fan of sensationalism, but it however seems to be a verbose attempt to ridicule what amounts to be a useful suggestion:

I'm glad that's clear, so I don't have to bother wading through the above.

Disregarding the rest, moving the post was a good idea.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm a fan of National PD too. Ideally, it could somehow be tied to poptypes, giving you combined forces (human/hoburg/icthyd dirt farmers with pitchforks, supported by a handful of legionnaires). More work for modders, but not for the player (except maybe in the brains department, strategywise).

Gandalf makes a good argument for why PD can reasonably be kept formationless.

And, considering that this is a game very heavily influenced by real world history and mythology (lest anyone forget!), I feel it's very important to the nature of the game, and the *fun* of the game, to attempt to tie as many aspects of the game as reasonably possible, to the real world.

[rdonj]

I still want to hear how having PD that's much more effective than it is currently doesn't turn the game into a giant turtle fest for the first 3 years. If PD was efficient, it would not be economically viable to attack other players until you had advanced magic (and even then, with terracotta warriors and such, it would probably start to take insane amounts of military to defeat cheap, inexpensive and potentially self-replacing PD). Personally, I don't think I would like to move very far in that direction. PD can already quite useful when used correctly to add bodies to your armies. But if you want MP games to ever end, powerful PD is a bad idea.

[Gandalf Parker]

@rdonj I can agree with that.
But that would be more of an argument vs changing it in the game. Which is unlikely anyway.

The subject does keep coming up over and over and over. So if people want to discuss it AS A MOD (the only way Id prefer it be pursued) then its not a problem. It will be like any other mod. To be used if you want, or not. There is no reason to control that.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, I'm all for it being optional. If an idea works well, it will be adopted. If it doesn't, it won't be. The rest is simply speculation.

I'm always in favor of all aspects of the game becoming more interesting, however.

Whether it's the best format for "competitive" play or not, Dom3 is a game, and it's there to entertain (while educating). If you just wanted pure competition, you could get the same thrill by running a marathon, and probably do your body a favor in the process.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

While we're daydreaming, the idea of adding gems to PD is a rather intriguing one...

This is pretty OT from a discussion re: Green Dragon pretender....

However, I'd point you to the Globals that add to PD, such as Mechanical Militia, Fata Morgana, Enchanted Forest, etc. The mechanics are different, but the effect is similar to what you're daydreaming of.

[Knai]

Originally Posted by Stavis_L

This is pretty OT from a discussion re: Green Dragon pretender....

However, I'd point you to the Globals that add to PD, such as Mechanical Militia, Fata Morgana, Enchanted Forest, etc. The mechanics are different, but the effect is similar to what you're daydreaming of.

Sure, but they aren't any good as a rule. Mechanical Militia is pretty much worthless, and the other two only marginally better.