Wishlist: Assassinations

[llamabeast]

The reason I haven't commented much on your suggestions, by the way, is that I think they are unlikely to be implemented. Despite the game being more than two years old the devs still regularly make very significant patches, but the changes tend to fall into either bug fixes or additional content. They don't seem to like tweaking the rules.

[Dorjan]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

The reason I haven't commented much on your suggestions, by the way, is that I think they are unlikely to be implemented. Despite the game being more than two years old the devs still regularly make very significant patches, but the changes tend to fall into either bug fixes or additional content. They don't seem to like tweaking the rules.

Thank you for your honesty.

Originally Posted by Agema

There's always the element of chance. Sure, your 19Mor guy ran away. But everyone will have stories of extreme luck: PD minions scoring freak huge hits on thugs/SCs and killing them; 25+ MR SCs failing a single mind control; and much more.

Yes, these are moments where you could tear your hair out in frustration, but it's part of the game. They are balanced out by the 99% of times the worst doesn't happen, but we have to remember that the 1% is always there and will eventually happen.

I would love to agree with you but it happens more than 1%, more like 80% of the time in an assasination the person runs when one or two of his bodyguards run unless he has morale of 30.

Thats why I would like to see a change. I honestly just want to see the target fight to the death! Thats all I want to see...

[Dorjan]

"... bodyguards DIE unless he has morale of 30."

Sorry, it won't let me edit for whatever reason.

[Agema]

There's always the element of chance. Sure, your 19Mor guy ran away. But everyone will have stories of extreme luck: PD minions scoring freak huge hits on thugs/SCs and killing them; 25+ MR SCs failing a single mind control; and much more.

Yes, these are moments where you could tear your hair out in frustration, but it's part of the game. They are balanced out by the 99% of times the worst doesn't happen, but we have to remember that the 1% is always there and will eventually happen.

[Gregstrom]

What are you using for bodyguards, btw?

[llamabeast]

I think against Earth Elementals almost anything smaller than size 5 (or 6?) will be simply a hindrance.

He certainly won't run away until his side has started to take nasty damage so you have to avoid that happening.

[Dorjan]

Yeah, I've tried loads of different bodyguards. All sacreds and size 3's but unless it's a size 6, they will die and they will cause the guy to run after about 2 dead.

[Agema]

I haven't got the book handy to make this precise but I believe it works a bit like this.

Your "army" for the assassination consists of two units, the commander and the bodyguard. Unit morale checks are made after a certain proportion of HP damage (20-25%?) is suffered by the unit: with 5 bodyguards (assuming the same HP per trooper), one death and another injured could trigger it. For a unit with morale abut 10, it's relatively easy to fail a morale test (not far below 50% chance), and it will carry on taking tests, with increased chance of failure, as more damage is suffered. Once the bodyguard routs, the army will have probably reached the 75% threshold for autorouting, and the commander will flee as well. So your commander never actually takes a morale test himself - the autorout accounts for him. Consequently, you'd want bodyguards with as high morale as possible. Morale 10 bodyguards are risky, 14 is pretty safe, and 30/50/99 ideal.

Because of this, bodyguards can be a liability and if your unit is tough enough, it can be best without any bodyguard. Weak mages often just need a bodyguard to hold off the assassin long enough for the mage to fire a suitable spell or three. Alternatively, maybe try a 2-man bodyguard: enough to hold off an assassin for a turn or three but not enough to autorout the commander when they go. In my experience, a quality bodyguard + commander/mage should beat a recruitable assassin unless the assassin is very well equipped with magic gear, and even beat the angel from the spell Manifestation.

Earth Attack is the biggest problem - they can even kill Bane Lord thugs. You'd need a bodyguard composed of (as per the above comment) like Crushers that the elemental effectively can't kill. The other tactic is to put a huge swarm of unimportant chaff characters with the army: spending a lot of gems and the effort of an E5 mage to kill a 20-gold scout will give your opponent second thoughts. I'd argue even your average recruit-anywhere mages are less valuable than the cost of Earth Attack, and save the expensive bodyguards for the important/rare/expensive mages.

I do have a lot of sympathies: the assassination mechanics excite a lot of frustration for many users, not just for the defending target, but the ease with which many assassins can be defeated. As Llamabeast said, it's very doubtful they are going to change, so hopefully we can just explain how it's happening and supply some ideas so you can get the best defence up.

[Dorjan]

Originally Posted by Agema

Alternatively, maybe try a 2-man bodyguard: enough to hold off an assassin for a turn or three but not enough to autorout the commander when they go.

Thank you! I never thought that, I was always taking one extream (full bodyguards) to the other (no bodyguards) but taking just two might be worth while!

And I understand that they might not want to change it. Thats cool, I'm glad to see that many also think that the assasinations (from both sides) is broken and therefore "buggish". Maybe for dom4 eh?

[Endoperez]

It could also be that the elementals cause lots of damage all around, and when the one or two guys die, the others are already badly wounded and total damage exceeds 75% of the total starting hps.