Atlantis and upkeep/supply

[The Panther]

Nagot Gick Fel said:

I'll never understand why so many people believe this. There's absolutely no relation between summoning and upkeep.

There must be a problem with using the English language here, Nagot. I don't understand what you mean by 'many people believe this'. Believe what exactly?

And you are wrong about one thing. There definitely IS a relation between summoning and upkeep. When you cast Sea King's Court, you will see a major spike in your upkeep costs. That is a CLEAR relation between the two. But for most summons, the statement about no relation is true, which is prescisely my point as to the gross imbalance in the various types of summons (expecially trolls).

As for the idea of ALL summons costing upkeep, I suppose it does hurts the undead Ermor themes, even if a soulless cost basis were something like 2 gold. However, it would have the nice benefit that Ermor armies would no longer be able to grow nearly to infinity like they can do now.

Perhaps it would be better if NO troops and NO summons cost upkeep. Let your commanders be the only troops which costs upkeep. The commander upkeep costs would, of course, have to be raised to balance the game properly. This would make building armies a GOOD thing for the entire game, unlike they way it is now.

[Endoperez]

He is saying that being a summoned unit does not and should not automatically mean that that unit does not want to be payed. consider Draconians, for example. They are living units , race unlike any others, ready to serve if they are contacted but surely not for free.

And Ashen Empire's armies can only grow to infinity" as long as they manage to gather more provinces under their rule and keep their reanimators safe. And their armies will die very quickly to all kinds of priests, and if they don't have infinite amounts of time they can't have enough units to properly defend themselves...

[Edi]

Even at the cost of 1 gold per unit, that would mean every 15 soulless/longdead would cost 1 upkeep, which is untenable for Ermor.

I don't see a problem with certain types of summons costing money (e.g. trolls, they tend to be greedy), while the black hawks was a sort of "WTF?" revelation because other animals are free. And as for Sea King's Court, can anybody give me a single good reason to summon one other than a desperate stopgap measure when you have no other options? Without the changes to the sea troll that come with Zen's spell mod, the spell is useless unless you need a W3 mage you want to buff up to cast a ritual, but then you could just as well empower a W2 mage to W3 for the same price.

Edi

[Nagot Gick Fel]

The Panther said:

There must be a problem with using the English language here, Nagot. I don't understand what you mean by 'many people believe this'. Believe what exactly?

If I understand you correctly, your main issue (when you write "Either ALL summons should cost or NONE should") is one a game balance, and that's OK with me. Yet I know many people who genuinely believe that, since almost all summonable don't cost upkeep, then Trolls (eg) shouldn't cost upkeep - as if there was a rule that ties summonability to (lack of) upkeepness. And thus they call that a bug, or an oversight, or an inconsistency - or, at best, a misfeature.

And you are wrong about one thing. There definitely IS a relation between summoning and upkeep. When you cast Sea King's Court, you will see a major spike in your upkeep costs. That is a CLEAR relation between the two.

Misunderstanding here: what I say is each unit in the game has a cost (which may be zero) and thus an upkeep value (derived from its cost and its holy status). Then there are mechanisms (summoning rituals, 'call allies' or 'reanimate' ability on leaders, dominion/unit/GE auto-ummoning) that give you specific units. But none of these mechanisms alter these units' cost and upkeep values. In your example, the spike is due to the Trolls' upkeep, and only to that: it would be just the same if you had recruited these units at a site - so it's not related to the summoning ritual itself. It could be demonstrated another way: mod Trolls and Troll Kings so their base cost is zero, then cast the ritual: the spike isn't here anymore - therefore the spike isn't related to the ritual.

As for the idea of ALL summons costing upkeep, I suppose it does hurts the undead Ermor themes, even if a soulless cost basis were something like 2 gold. However, it would have the nice benefit that Ermor armies would no longer be able to grow nearly to infinity like they can do now.

Perhaps it would be better if NO troops and NO summons cost upkeep. Let your commanders be the only troops which costs upkeep. The commander upkeep costs would, of course, have to be raised to balance the game properly. This would make building armies a GOOD thing for the entire game, unlike they way it is now.

The real imbalance is one of magic vs economics. When you compare PPP to Dom 2, the most obvious change is the economics took a major hit while the magic system remained the same. In PPP, the most competitive approach was to max economics at the cost of your magic scale (drain 3 was pretty common then - actually it was the default choice for most PPP players I know), and field huge national armies of elite troops with a snowballing effect. In Dom 2 your recruitable troops still cost the same, but your econ is about ~2.5 weaker, so you need to push research more to compliment your forces with summonable troops ASAP. And Lastly, both faster access to summonables, and the bigger hit of unaltered upkeep over a toned-down econ, tend to make national troops obsolete much much sooner than it used to be in Dom 1.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Edi said:
I don't see a problem with certain types of summons costing money (e.g. trolls, they tend to be greedy), while the black hawks was a sort of "WTF?" revelation because other animals are free.

Too true. On the other hand, Draconians are supposed to be sentient allies rather than tamed pets, IMO they should cost upkeep just like Trolls do. Similarly, I thind it odd that some animal pets (Hydras, Sacred Serpents) cost upkeep, while some (Drakes, Wyverns) don't. It makes sense for elephants or mooses, though (crew).

Maybe one thing that could be done to upkeep-free summons, to help the upkeep/no upkeep debate cooling down, is to give some of the free simmon a chance to disappear in special circumstances. A few ideas:

- Wolves could get a 10% chance to return to wildlife habits each turn they're in a forest.

- Each lesser demon (Devil, FoD, etc.) could get a 30% chance to return to Hell when the blood mage who bound him dies (assuming they bring back the mage's soul to their infernal master). This could also apply to Soul Contract holders.

- Soulless and longdead could get a 5% chance to have the unholy energies that animate them dissipate. Likewise, Vine creatures could turn back to moss and roots.

- Mechanical constructs could get a 20% chance to de-construct (maybe giving a few gems back if there's a lab in the province) when their "assembler" dies.

Well, the numbers may have to be fiddled with, but you get the idea. Maybe the units' experience could be accounted for when these checks are made, eg a 5-stars wolf has certainly been tamed for a long time, and would be less likely to listen to the 'Call of the Wild': 10% - (2 * exp)% chances to desert, say.

And as for Sea King's Court, can anybody give me a single good reason to summon one other than a desperate stopgap measure when you have no other options?

They do a great job in sieges, and I use them mainly for that (although not only). In one game I summoned 3 Sea King's Court in 2 turns just because it was the fastest and safest way for me to crack a seemingly-unbreakable enemy capital's open. I have to admit I did summon them at a site that gave me a huge discount on Conjurations, though (it was called Ultimate Gateway, IIRC).


[/quote]

[johan osterman]

..
Either ALL summons should cost or NONE should. A half-baked measure is not a good idea. ...

Why? Is there any particular reason why this should be the case. Some units costing upkeep is not a balance issue in itself, although it might be a balance issue that Sea Trolls in particular costs upkeep.

[The Panther]

johan osterman said:

Why? Is there any particular reason why this should be the case. Some units costing upkeep is not a balance issue in itself, although it might be a balance issue that Sea Trolls in particular costs upkeep.

I suppose that this is a personal pet peeve on my part. Having played Atlantis twice in the Last month, I do not like the fact that sea trolls are a terrible summons, primarily because they cost upkeep while most other summons do not. It is a huge disadvantage to Atlantis.

But, unfortunately, sea trolls are really the only amphibous water summons which can give you a quick army. However the upkeep kills you, and this makes water gems less useful for summoning than pretty much any other type.

That is another reason why many people convert their water income to astral income through clams.

[Cainehill]

Indeed, many players don't like the way that water magic has very few good mid to high level spells, the worst summoning spells in the game, very few high end magic items, and perhaps most frustrating of all - doesn't even function as well as air magic for underwater combat.

(The fact that water has a few very potent lower level spells / items such as quickness, BoW, boots of haste, etc, doesn't take away the fact that there are very few reasons to desire more than 2 or 3 points of water magic : Water blessing, extra Claymen (dubious), Water Queens, and Murdering Winter or Niefel Flames.)

[Endoperez]

Falling Forst can also get quite powerful with enough Water magic, and Breath of Winter benefits from high Water magic rating as well.

[Chazar]

And wasn't there also thread recently where people demanded the nerfing of frozen hearts? I quite like my water magic!