The problem of low hit points on humans

[B0rsuk]

Agrajag: unconcious is interesting, but I'm afraid it wouldn't work too well. In books etc the hero falls to the ground and is assumed dead. AI won't care.

But perhaps some other kind of mild buff, like amulet of returning or something.
By the way, I'm somewhat disappointed that you (apparently) can't make commanders start with Misc items. On one hand, it makes amulets of all sorts more unique. On the other, it would be quite fitting to give some amulets to high end mages/commanders/sacreds. And some of least popular amulets could actually see play.

There's one mildly annoying thing... as far as I remember, if I give a weapon to a commander, his original weapon is simply disabled. This is not a problem for melee weapons, but suppose I'm giving a Thunder Bow to Pathos. I think I did it once. He lost his short sword, or whatever he used to have. And while Storm Bow is nice, it doesn't help in melee, and doesn't have too much ammo.
I've seen independent archers with both bows and short swords, so it should be possible.

[PvK]

Turin said:

May I ask which heroes you feel bend the system? I felt that I was pretty stingy with giving hp boosts and I think noone has more than 2 times as much as the base unit after which he is modelled, which was my upper limit.

Sorry Turin, I wasn't specifically criticising anything in Worthy Heroes mod. I was talking about the suggestion in this thread to multiply the HP of human units that players would like to use as thugs.

[curtadams]

Even if you insist on "realism" Dominions human thugs are far too fragile. Alexander the Great fought in the front of his army almost every battle and survived dozens of battles, even without the high-end equipment that won't save a human commander on the front lines in Dom. That would be essentially impossible in Dominions. There would be more variety from a game interest viewpoint if human could be made into worthwhile low-end melee thugs. More realistic, more to play - what's not to like about toughening up at least human heros a bit?

[PvK]

A magic bow removing shortsword for some units and not others is a quirk in the data, I think from the order the equipment is listed on the unit.

You can build magic items into units, or place them with map commands, but ya there's no way for player to mod/map items that appear on new units during play.

[UninspiredName]

Yes, but Alexander the Great didn't survive those battles by taking a direct hit from a halberd or javelin, and didn't really turn the tide of battle (Aside from morale, I guess) by being on the frontlines. I half-think the guy had a lot of luck as well as his combat prowess that kept him alive.

And remember, even in most fantasy, a hero rarely manages to alter the outcome of a battle by killing a ton of enemies in pitched combat. Usually they use some sort of magic, use the terrain, (say, triggering a rockslide) or take out an enemy commander, usually the last of the three. Rarely do you get a hero that can stand up to even ten enemies on his own. I'll also point out that these heroes are also rarely targetted by hostile magic and that, when they are, it's frequently a struggle to survive.

[Shovah32]

And your also forgot to add that alexander the great wasnt fighting huge dragons, undead monsters and lightning bolts coming down from the sky.

[PvK]

curtadams, no reason you can't mod that if that's what you want to try.

However, some reasons not to do it to the stock game include:

* The HP stats of units are carefully restrained to a scale where 10 is an average young healthy male human warrior, and 17 is so far about the maximum.

* Even giving heroes 20 HP isn't, I think, really going to double their life expectancy in practice.

* I have been enjoying playing the Dominions for several years with one of the main things I enjoy doing, being using human commanders with or without items and having them enter combat directly and watching their exploits and trying to keep them alive. I've had a great time doing this, and had some nice success, particularly in single-player mode.

Some tips for managing to keep them alive include giving them 2-6 pals who can keep up with them on Guard Commander, maybe putting some more on Guard Commander who are slower than and/or behind the commander, so they can reinforce his position on later turns, and placing them in positions where they will be amidst other friendly troops (and maybe other fighting commanders) instead of getting singled out and killed.
Also, don't be surprised or too disappointed when some of them die sometimes...
Avoiding charging into a battle line of giants with elite mortals may also be a good plan. Numerous disposable light troops work better for dealing with giants. Though, good enough mortals can also take care of them. Early Ages Vanheim can, as long as they aren't Niefel Giants (brrr...).

On the other hand, I would like to see some tweaks to make this style of play more viable and slightly less cruel. I just wouldn't do it by doubling hitpoints. Instead, I'd suggest some game system changes such as:

* Making less injuring wounds more common. Maybe if there were a 50% chance that each wound would only do a fraction of the amount after armor penetration. Of course, that would also probably tend to increase the overall power of giants rather than mortals...

* Allowing some fraction of units who are killed to instead enter limbo for some turns and find their way back to fight again after a while. They were defeated, and perhaps thought dead, but were not actually killed.

* Allowing more units to gain heroic abilities based on their exploits, rather than by being on the top ten Hall of Fame. Any leader who gets some experience stars and participates in combat could have a small chance of gaining a heroic ability. This would be fairer, make more sense, add more personality to the commanders, and encourage their use in combat.

* Add the ability to recruit non-mage/priest commanders at the same time that mage/priests are being recruited in a province, so players don't have to choose one or the other.

PvK

[B0rsuk]

I think it's stupid you can get heroic ability for nothing at all. I had one game in demo where - apparently - no one moved on the first turn. Or was it second. It was a small game.

Next turn, I woke up with Heroic Ability on my scout (!!) and another commander.

[Shovah32]

Because they get experience for living

[Cainehill]

UninspiredName said:
And remember, even in most fantasy, a hero rarely manages to alter the outcome of a battle by killing a ton of enemies in pitched combat. Usually they use some sort of magic, use the terrain, (say, triggering a rockslide) or take out an enemy commander, usually the last of the three. Rarely do you get a hero that can stand up to even ten enemies on his own. I'll also point out that these heroes are also rarely targetted by hostile magic and that, when they are, it's frequently a struggle to survive.

Really??? I wonder what fantasy it is that you've read, because I can remember a _lot_ of fantasy heroes who butchered armies (Elric of Melnibonea being a classic example, or at least slaughtering warbands of well over 10 enemies ( Aileron and Arthur at different times in Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, said trilogy having made it to "best 100 works of fantasty" status, the Morigu trilogy, a number of heroes from the late lamented Paul Edwin Zimmer's books, even the classic "The Worm Ouroboros" from 1922 ).

As far as surviving magic goes, I could give similarly long lists of fiction in which they do just that - some of Glen Cook's works, David Gemmell's, Moorcock, Tanith Lee, etc, etc, etc.

Kindly note that some of those are considered to be amongst the great, seminal, writers of fantasy. And then there's also mythology and fable.