Forthcoming patch notes

[Tifone]

vfb, this one would be viable too, a minor flaw is how did a maybe surrounded unit to escape (there would be plenty of angry players too because their soldiers surrounded completely the enemy Pretender and he just vanishes and appears in a sure place some miles far, as they are now because /their/ Pretender disappeared). But this is a nice suggestion, maybe to improve a bit?

[NTJedi]

Tifone said:
To me this is just not a "computers' power" issue... It is a logical issue - that battles that last a long time aren't placed in a limbo out of the world, but it's normal that after a while both defenders and attackers have their reinforcements arrive, and need to reorganize.

It's illogical units and commanders are being auto-killed because of a game turn limit. It would be nice if defenders and attackers could reorganize unfortunately the game turn limit causes an auto-kill for the golems and other mindless SCs.

I just lost another golem who was auto-killed because of the game turn limit because the enemy could not flee the battlefield in time. Illogical and frustrating to not only lose the battle where I was declared the winner, but to also have my SC killed!

Tifone said:
For the battle's timing too, 50 seem a lot, and just right. I mean, after 3 turns waiting, the most of the troops need to attack or retreat. That's maybe one turn to reach the enemy and then 44 to bash each other. It doesn't seem so restrictive.

50 turns is very restrictive... take a look at these battle results because of the restrictive game turn limits.

Friendly Combatants
Commanders: 2, killed 1

Enemy Combatants
Commanders: 4, killed 1
Regular Units: 91, killed 53
Magic Beings: 1, killed 1
Undead Beings: 64, killed 48


Thus my two SCs barely killed over 100 before one was auto-killed. YES, barely over 100 enemy troops killed from two SCs. All remaining enemy troops were fleeing yet I lost the battle because of the game turn limit.

Tifone said:
I just would like someone to tell me what can an upper turn limit add to the game experience - actually, I see no advantage. While the things as they are have the advantage are:

-low-systems friendly for no long waits
-logical for the needs of the armies to reorganize
-a balance issue as the troops you have in the proximities of the battle (near provinces) should be able to join the fight after some time.

Really, why do you ask for an upper turn limit?

-utilizing high-systems means being able to play larger maps with larger battles on a more realistic level. It's unrealistic for battle turns to end so early considering each game turn is several months!
-each game turn is several months, yet the current battle turn limit is less than one day when examining battlefield actions.
-Your third statement would make sense if each game turn was a few days instead of a few months! You haven't played the game long enough to understand the needs.

* Now the needs for the increased game turn limits:
Allows for larger battles where the attacker isn't pressured to battle against an unrealistic clock which forces retreat.
Helps prevent SCs from being auto-killed when victory was so close.
Provides a game which can better utilize the computers of today and tomorrow which won't recognize any delay from increasing the game turn limits.

Tifone said:
Even an adjustable issue - I dunno. Wouldn't that create a lot of confusion for the MP games? I mean, having battles ending at 50 turns or at 200 goes for a ground-breaking change in gameplay. Deciding a turn limit for every MP game, while many adjusts it in SP the way they like, could end up being uncomfortable for people used to different battle tactics.

I don't wanna do destructive criticism for that. I would like someone explaining me the point, if there is any. Peace

You're too new(green) playing Dominions_3 to have identified the importance of increasing the game turn limit so I'll try and explain the points. The main reason is forcing an auto-retreat and auto-kill after 50_turns is unrealistic where each game turn is several months. Second SCs are being killed by not enemy units or spells but because of a game turn limitation which is illogical and painfully wrong. Third it prevents gamers from attacking some large armies knowing they will be also fighting a game battlefield clock which is not even close for matching the several months of each game turn.

Ideally a battlefield turn limit should be adjustable.

[atul]

This talk about increasing turn limit by some fraction reminds me of Murphy's Law. Anyone know why the lost thing is always in the last place you look into? Because you stop looking afterwards. Why some stuff appears to always happen in conjunction with something else totally unrelated? Because you only make the mental note when the conjunction happens, not when it doesn't.

My point being, if the limit would be set to 75/100 it wouldn't do much. Soon people would complain it's too little since they always remember the instances when there was only two crippled guys fleeing too slowly, or something. Seriously, if berserking thugs without a fear aura or area effect weapons kill chaff for 75 rounds, they've caused huge amounts of damage. Maybe they just drop dead from exhaustion after that, but surely they've done a lot. Killing opponent's thugs by flooding them under your own dead corpses is costly and really last-ditch effort, not something easily and cheaply done (like those blessed giants with minimal gear).

With Golems, well, their mindlessness status makes them immune to so many conventional Bad Stuff, that they might get some malus.

Anyway, my opinion in a nutshell: let the little guys accomplish also something. But people can and will disagree, it's probably just a matter of opinion.

EDIT: Oops didn't notice a new page of posts. Meza green! Anyway, given the examples, it would seem to me that there is a huge focus on defences in those thugs. Shouldn't they try to put some into, you people know, offence too? Shouldn't be a surprise they can't take big armies by themselves, they're just holding back.

[NTJedi]

atul said:
But people can and will disagree, it's probably just a matter of opinion.

That's why the battlefield turn limit should be an adjustable game setting set at the start of the game.

THUS EVERYONE IS HAPPY.


Another painful point is the auto-kill which should be changed to an auto-retreat.
The game shouldn't be auto-killing mages, commanders and SCs just because of a battlefield turn limitation.

[Sombre]

Each game turn is several months? What makes you say that? I don't think we have any information at all on how long the game turns that isn't related to seasons, do we?

[NTJedi]

Sombre said:
Each game turn is several months? What makes you say that? I don't think we have any information at all on how long the game turns that isn't related to seasons, do we?

After all 4 seasons have finished one year passes. Each season is has three game turns... roughly 1.33 months for every game turn.

[Tifone]

NTJedi,

I don't have much time now 'cuz I gotta go. I hope you will excuse this green player if he doesn't have the time to quote and comment your points one by one.

I'd just like to say that your points, about sending 1 or 2 SCs against hundreds and not being able to kill more than 100 units in one turn, possibly means that you sent a too little force, with not enough killing potential in 50 turns, against a too big army for the given amount of time for a battle, and not that the gameplay mechanic is broken. In poker I wouldn't say that a two pair doesn't beat the three of a kind because the hand of 5 cards is restrictive. I just didn't have enough "power" to beat the opponent's hand. This one is a very limited example, but just a thought about the complaining about the "restrictive mechanics" and not that maybe you got used to send not enough SCs, or not strong enough, into the battle, and not that the battle is broken.

2nd, your examples about mindless units have been discussed a bit yet by me and atul, and vfb actually talked about a possible solution for them that don't require to change the whole battle timing mechanic.

3rd, isn't a year 12 turns? 4 seasons x 3 turns each... 12 turns... no? And in this time the army does the preparatives, reaches the enemy province, reaches the enemy army, possibly after an honorful "date" of the battle a couple of days after comes the (sample of) battle, and has the time to retreat back to another province. Seems to take whole weeks to do everything. And I don't think the *sample* of a battle can tell you how much time does it take. Does Check, as a well-known *sample* of a battle, tell you that a battle took one day?

[Xietor]

I favor the changes. If there is an army of mages spamming skellies, then use different spells to targets the mages.

Or have an sc cast the spells you want to cast so he does not need to flee from skelly spam.

There are many options to using tactics that are already banned in many current mp games.

[NTJedi]

My math is off, since I didn't sleep last night.


My little force of 2 SCs fought less than 200 units... and since each game turn is a month it's more than enough time to kill 200 units. The worst part was the enemy was routed and fleeing, my remaining SC wasn't even wounded chasing down the routing enemy... yet auto-killed because of a game turn I lost. This result is illogical and wrong.

Dominions_3 cannot be compared to poker... both are extremely different on multiple levels.

[NTJedi]

Tifone said:


3rd, in this time the army does the preparatives, reaches the enemy province, reaches the enemy army, possibly after an honorful "date" of the battle a couple of days after comes the (sample of) battle, and has the time to retreat back to another province. Seems to take whole weeks to do everything. And I don't think the *sample* of a battle can tell you how much time does it take. Does Check, as a well-known *sample* of a battle, tell you that a battle took one day?

The firing of arrows is one method of identifying the timeframe of a battle, the fatigued generated by soldiers wearing armor on the battlefield is another method, look and you'll find more.

Even KO could not justify an explanation for the auto-killing of units on the battlefield after the battlefield turn limit expires. Simply it was the decision so the battles don't last forever. I estimate the auto-retreat would have been implemented by now, however it's probably too late for the programming code.