.com.unity Forums
  The Official e-Store of Shrapnel Games

This Month's Specials

Raging Tiger- Save $9.00
winSPMBT: Main Battle Tank- Save $6.00

   







Go Back   .com.unity Forums > Illwinter Game Design > Dominions 2: The Ascension Wars

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #21  
Old September 23rd, 2004, 12:18 AM
Arralen's Avatar

Arralen Arralen is offline
Major General
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: 500km from Ulm
Posts: 2,279
Thanks: 9
Thanked 18 Times in 12 Posts
Arralen is on a distinguished road
Default Re: I\'m very confused as to how and why I lost a

fatigue, damage and affictions:
Lemme see:
Earth mother has 55hp/turn regen, Def 8, Prot 19(!), MR 20

You're attacking with
3 Carrion Elephants .. 2x SleepVine (3Attacks , Dam 33Stun, Att 5, MR negates)
2 Carrion Bear ... 1x SleepVine, 1x Claw (Dam 17, Att 6)
1 Carrion Boar(?) .. 1x SleepVine (Att -2), 1x Bite (Att-1)
.. that gives you 30 attacks on her per turn.
The rest of you troops simply can't hit her as those above are blocking the way.

=> Question: Does fatigue over 100 still adds to defense reduction, or is it capped at -10 at 100 fatigue? Can effective defense go negativ through reduction by fatigue? In this case, the EM would wind up with -11Def instead of -2, or even only 0 ...

In the Last case, the Boars attacks would be negligible unless they are the very first to happen. In that case, they'll help you drive down the EMs defense value.

With 2 Dam17 attacks it's unlikely to do any real damage against her Prot of 19.

That leaves you with about 24 SleepVine attacks which are neither armor piercing nor ignoring. So they have to go through her Prot18 (plus 2 d6oe: lets say 26 on average ?!) to do their fixed damage (33, no d6oe roll here ?!).

24 attacks which do 7 pts of damage.
How many attacks are negated by the MR20 ?
One succesful attack is needed to drive her over 200 fatigue again. The other are going to do real damage.

Finally, she regenerates 55 hp/turn, or about another 8 attacks worth of damage. And with 238 hitpoints and regen, you won't see that much afflictions from Dam-7 attacks.


path finding
There is an -albeit small- issue with pathfinding, or two

The layout of Ermorian Citadel is the same (or similar) to the hill fortress (IIRC). The entry path is 2 wide only, while one could think it's 3 wide judging from the look of the buildings. And it is not where the terrain is flattest, but moved one row towards the spectator.

That means, you troops to the "south" (spectator side) simply could go around the EM because the where blocked by the wall/ the ramp besides the gate way.

That the Vine Ogre to the "north" didn't move was correct in so far, as they tried to attack the nearest enemy but where blocked by the Carrion Beasts.

They couldn't get around them because a) they would have had to go backwards after moving past the CBs (did I get that grammar right?), what units are very reluctant to do unless when routing. B) pathfinding is left-right orientated. You can try this out by spreading some slow-moving targets on the battle map and have a bunch of knights mop them up. As long as the knights are going left-right (back or forth from their pov), they'll happily spread out to the left and right of the target (their pov again). But if they have to traverse the battlefield, they'll string up one after another. And that's what happened to your Vine Ogres as well.

additional remarks
You have lost the game anyway. C'tis has enough troops to roll over you everywhere at once.
You're forging to many useless items. At least, useless on the commanders you give them to. An undead has fixed encumbrance=0, but spellcasting encumbrance suffers from enc-4 armor (result +8 enc) as with any other spellcaster. Stuffing spellcasters which are placed in the very back of the battlefield with melee gear does only makes sense if they are a)threatened by assassins and b)able to make use of it (which pans certainly are, ok).
With 234 astral, 119 death and 340 nature gems in the treasury you should summon much more upkeep-free troops and commanders. (Some Horned Serpent to poison the EM would have been great)
If you've got the Ettin Mandragora, you should stuff it to the teeth, err, bone and use it to force the way into any sieged castle. There are few things which could really block him. Maybe an EM could
And you have got the Harpy Queen, and lots of free harpies therefore. Bring them along, set them to "attack rearmost", or "archers" or something. That would make the defenders go for them, and sometime un-block the gate way.
__________________
As for AI the most effective work around to this problem so far is to simply use an American instead, they tend to put up a bit more of a fight than your average Artificial Idiot.
... James McGuigan on rec.games.computer.stars somewhen back in 1998 ...
Reply With Quote
  #22  
Old September 23rd, 2004, 01:00 AM

quantum_mechani quantum_mechani is offline
Lieutenant General
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Alaska
Posts: 2,968
Thanks: 24
Thanked 221 Times in 46 Posts
quantum_mechani is on a distinguished road
Default Re: I\'m very confused as to how and why I lost a

Quote:
Yossar said:
Quote:
quantum_mechani said:
I think it is likely a bug, those would be some very unlucky rolls to get her to 200 fatigue that many times, but never quite over that amout.
How so? It makes sense to me. A bunch of times she goes over 200 fatigue. But fatigue is capped at 200 so that damage goes to her hps. The next turn she's at 200 fatigue, regains 5, and goes down to 195. With regeneration, 235 hps, and relatively small amounts of damage being done to her, it makes sense that she doesn't receive any afflictions. What do you think is bugged?
My understanding was that going over 200 fatigue kills the unit... I am fairly sure I've seen it happen that way with a many HP unit fighting CW pan.
Reply With Quote
  #23  
Old September 23rd, 2004, 01:01 AM
Graeme Dice's Avatar

Graeme Dice Graeme Dice is offline
General
 
Join Date: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,013
Thanks: 17
Thanked 25 Times in 22 Posts
Graeme Dice is on a distinguished road
Default Re: I\'m very confused as to how and why I lost a

Quote:
quantum_mechani said:
My understanding was that going over 200 fatigue kills the unit... I've fairly sure I've seen it happen that way with a many HP unit fighting CW pan.
Going over 200 fatigue causes damage to the unit. Most units have very low hitpoints though, so they will be killed easily by that.
Reply With Quote
  #24  
Old September 23rd, 2004, 01:06 AM

Yossar Yossar is offline
Sergeant
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 365
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Yossar is on a distinguished road
Default Re: I\'m very confused as to how and why I lost a

Communion slaves can Last quite a few turns at 200 fatigue if the master sticks to low-fatigue spells. They'll just lose a few hps every turn.
Reply With Quote
  #25  
Old September 23rd, 2004, 06:59 PM

Nappa Nappa is offline
Corporal
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Norcal
Posts: 102
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
Nappa is on a distinguished road
Default Re: I\'m very confused as to how and why I lost a

Thanks for looking. I've got a much better understanding of what happened now. Though, clearly pathing IS bugged.

The items sitting on spell casting commanders are a precurser to a group of sc commanders with some spell casting backup (no + end items). The carrion lords you see with + encumbrance items will be scripted to cast elemental fortitude then attack closest (or rearmost if flying boots on) they are very effective with 53 hp and mages in the back casting regrowth.

If the C'tis AI were smart enough to attack I would be gone but it's not and will die once I finish mopping up Marignon

I still see a major problem with the pathing/setup of that fort. I ran a bunch of scenarios with about 50 troops and in another instance my troops got stuck again. It apears to be a matter of luck whether it happens or not as I'm placing troops all the way to the front all the way to the back and watching.

I bet there is a way to build a size 6 super regenerating monster with that castle type, put lots of spell casters behind it and it will be almost undefeatable. Also, watch the damage my troops take from the tower arrows. Has anyone tested this?
Reply With Quote
  #26  
Old September 23rd, 2004, 07:42 PM
Taqwus's Avatar

Taqwus Taqwus is offline
Major General
 
Join Date: Aug 2000
Location: Mountain View, CA
Posts: 2,162
Thanks: 2
Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts
Taqwus is on a distinguished road
Default Re: I\'m very confused as to how and why I lost a

Unbeatable? Practically nothing short of an incredible investment in gems is unbeatable (defeating a horde of a thousand Tartarians under twenty decked-out Tartarian Titan mages would be ugly, but that's not normally a realistic scenario).

An Elemental Queen of Air, for instance, laughs at Storms, so short of paralysis, death or other incapacitation means there's no practical way to prevent one from flying over the wall to wreak havoc. Pazuzu might be the same way, never tried. Horrors, spring hawks, storm demons are the same way.

Nasty long-range magic could also wreak havoc on the backup; even mere Illithids can mind-bLast across the map with perfect accuracy regardless of storms, night and even blindness. And SCs are still KO'd by Magebane (100 fatigue per hit, unresistable; rapidly turns into ugly damage), always paralyzed by Petrify, and take massive wounds if hit by megadamage toys like Gate Cleaver or the Summit with the latter wielded by a strong commander or under Weapons of Sharpness, or the ever-fun if not particularly accurate Gifts from Heaven.
__________________
Are we insane yet? Are we insane yet? Aiiieeeeee...
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 12:33 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©1999 - 2024, Shrapnel Games, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.