Countering Master Enslave...

[MaxWilson]

JimMorrison said:
Introducing any wholly random element takes this away, it says that no matter how well you plan and organize your decisive strike, you may be throwing everything away - not because you failed to accurately predict your opponent's behavior, but because you could not rely on a known quantity.

That's kind of an odd attitude to hear coming from somebody who plays a probabilistic wargame, as opposed to (for example) Diplomacy or Go. There are many, many wholly random factors in the game, e.g. whether Ritual A will be cast before Ritual B, whether army X will attack province P before army Y (and thus which will be the defender if/when they do fight), which and how many nations you'll go up against in the Arena Death Match. By your own argument, these random factors are known quantities and the essence of strategy is to anticipate both your opponent and the unknowable random complications and devise a (probable) counter to each.

You can certainly make the case that the current initiative system is fine as is. I wouldn't dispute that. You could make the defender advantage even stronger than it is and it will still be a playable game, in the same sense that Diplomacy is a playable game (one which offers options to both sides, none of which options dominates all the others). I would like a more random initiative system because in the endgame the defender is so strong--in a way uncorrelated with reality--as to seem unthematic. I love the game as it is, but I happen to think thejeff's suggestion would be really awesome and thematic if it were implemented, and it would probably make the MP players happier in the endgame at the same time. It's not likely to happen unless JK also thinks it would be awesome, so I'll just hope he reads this thread and agrees.

-Max

[JimMorrison]

MaxWilson said:
...There are many, many wholly random factors in the game, e.g. whether Ritual A will be cast before Ritual B, whether army X will attack province P before army Y (and thus which will be the defender if/when they do fight), which and how many nations you'll go up against in the Arena Death Match...

1. How often do multiple rituals get cast in the same turn, that actually affect eachother?

2. You are introducing a third party into this equation, and also working from an inknowable quantity, "will my opponent move to that province this turn?".

3. No one cares about the Death Match.



In all seriousness though, if turn resolution could be worked out with ordinary movement taking place according to predetermined attacker/defender initiative as it is, but casters were interspersed, such that 1 defender casts a spell, 1 attacker casts a spell, 1 defender, and so on, then at least you could say that the change is being made in name of balance. Else, if it will be randomly decided which side gets the "defender" initiative advantage to casting, then at the very least this should have Luck scales used as a modifier.

And finally if a game actually ends up in a deadlock, I fail to see how you can blame that on game mechanics that ARE known throughout the play of the game, and will have obvious effects that you can expect. If you face a nuclear power and you continue to spend decades building nuclear weapons in the vain hope that you'll end up with enough that your opponent either capitulates, or you finally feel confident committing to deployment, then you will probably be waiting for a very long time. Does it take extra game time to broaden research, collect gems, and deploy other alternatives? Of course it does, but the argument that the income is so huge and the turns just take longer and longer only says to me that you need to adjust your map settings to compensate for playstyle - that's why they're there. If you play on too large a map with too fast research (even 200+ with normal research and people will simply hit "end game" fairly early), then you can complain that there is no way to get a clear advantage, but the reality is that if you had arranged the game so that it would take more time and effort for both sides to have equal access to all things, then you would have arrived at a situation where hard choices would have to be made in order to gain anything as powerful as Master Enslave.

I am becoming more and more convinced that MP games would remain more competitive with harder research, and threads such as this, with arguments such as these, only make me more sure that forcing hard choices on spell selection will lead to more complicated player interactions, and games that are less dependent on the Astral-Death-Blood paradigm of "what is powerful enough to win the game".

[cleveland]

Keep the non-magic combat the same.

My suggestion was to, at the beginning of each turn, have ALL mages from BOTH sides cast their spells in a random order.

It's simple.

It makes sense.

It's aesthetically pleasing.

[JimMorrison]

cleveland said:
Keep the non-magic combat the same.

My suggestion was to, at the beginning of each turn, have ALL mages from BOTH sides cast their spells in a random order.

It's simple.

It makes sense.

It's aesthetically pleasing.

Okay, well that actually makes sense. Anything that gets you closer to simulating simultaneous casting is definitely good in my book. And total side by side randomization of casting would surely be better than interleaving. Though I would think you'd still want -some- of the defender advantage left in place. If it's just the mundane troops that get to move first, that's the part that is easiest for the attacker to manipulate directly through placement and spell choice. I still think that defending casters should get some sort of distinct advantage, though something less than "cast a spell that wins the fight in the first round" would be preferable.

[Twan]

For me the ideal system (for dom 4) would be an individual initiative based on ap, or better on a new initiative stat for commander/mages, a little drn for some randomness, a *little* bonus for the defenders (and attackers with adequate survival skill) based on province terrain (so they finally start to matter), and a malus for mages based on the level/requirements of the spell they intend to cast.

Of course some mechanics like communion can't work the same with this kind of system (retro communion isn't an intended mechanic anyway and contribute to astral overpowerness, and suppressing all the micro gestion related to mages id would be a good thing).

For dom3 I think the best way to make late game more interesting would be a simple mod replacing battlefield instants by large ae spells. It would be extremely logical for enslave spells, considering the insane progression they have between level 6 and 9 (level 6 : one spell enslave one guy, level 9 : one spell enslave a whole army, and nothing in between...). Even an aoe 10 master enslave would have been considered an extremely powerful spell, if it was made so instead of aoe = battlefield. And spells like rain of stones have no reason to have a bigger ae and range than the fire/water/air endgame instant spells (or it would be more logical to make RoS a BE working like wrathfull skies, a rain of stones has no reason to be instant when a rain of lightnings isn't).

Personnally I'm so tired of endgame round one victories or boring stalemates that as soon this kind of mod start to be used in MP, I stop playing vanilla games.

[baruk]

The problem as I see it is a combination of the defender advantage and the power of the battlefield wide offensive spells.
I will offer up a new solution: introduce a simultaneous resolution phase solely for the battlefield wide offensive spells.

How it would work:

Defender's turn: Defender moves and casts spells as normal. However, battlefield-wide spells do not take immediate effect.

Attacker's turn: Attacker moves and casts spells. Again, his battlefield wide spells do not take effect just yet.

Battlefield spell resolution phase: Takes place after both sides have moved. All defensive spells resolve first followed by the offensive spells.

eg. In the case of both sides casting master enslave - each unit makes the first MR check against the enemy spell. If the unit fails, it then makes another MR check against the "friendly" master enslave, to see if control of the unit is regained.

Essentially this would make the battlefield spells work a bit like one shot battlefield enchantments, in the sense that they do not necessarily take immediate effect.

[thejeff]

That's not bad for the abusive end game spells, but could be irritating to apply to the less potent early game ones. I'm particularly thinking Divine Blessing. Fanaticism and the various national undead buffs as well.
You could just exempt them, I guess.

[sansanjuan]

Twan said:
For me the ideal system (for dom 4) would be an individual initiative based on ap, or better on a new initiative stat for commander/mages, a little drn for some randomness, a *little* bonus for the defenders (and attackers with adequate survival skill) based on province terrain (so they finally start to matter), and a malus for mages based on the level/requirements of the spell they intend to cast.

I like your train of thought Twan. One based purely on AP +rnd would be very nice. Certainly there would be debate on whether it would be base AP, base AP+ any "natural" quickness or as above + spell casted quickness + magic items...
-SSJ