Poll: morale and routing

[Huzurdaddi]

Sheap said:

By making all troops require upkeep, the pressure would be to focus on the troops that are most efficient relative to their cost. Since most of the value in SCs is in their equipment, not their summoning cost, they are comparatively more efficient than non-SC summons. If summoned troops cost upkeep probably no one would cast Vine Critters, undead, etc any more.

PHEW! Thank god someone was able to reason it out.

I have to agree that the moral system is a little wacky and probably should be changed I seriosuly doubt it was designed this way.

Also I seriously doubt that the game was designed with the idea that it would revolve around SC's *by themselves* in the end game. I'm sure that they wanted some units to be very powerful and for these well equiped units to be the center pieces of the massive armies but not to be the whole army.

I still think that Esben Mose Hansen 1st post ( the 1st post on the whole thread!) fixes basically everything by itself. Heck the human pretenders start to become better with his change as well ( however the ghost king is still probably a better choice for almost all nations ).

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
gold dragons , dark angels , angels , the dark dragons etc. were a waste of resources ?

You can't build anywhere near enough of them to make up any significant part of your army.

most battlespells were great like fireball , the armageddon like spell , cosmic spray etc. etc.

They can kill one or two units at most, like I said. They have very little real effect on the battlefield. Fireball for example, would have to have about a fifth to a tenth of the cost to be really worthwhile.

you seem to have not played aow 2 sm much right ?

I've played AOW2 enough to know what the major problems with its design are. Unless the game rules have been completely overhauled from the ground up in Shadow Magic, the basic problems are still going to remain.

[Graeme Dice]

Boron said:
it would force you to use all 4 elments :
scs , national leaders , national troops and summons .

If you aren't using your national troops, then you will almost certainly be beaten by somebody who is, unless you have an absolutely massive blood economy. In that case, you've traded the gold from those provinces for magical ability.

the only thing that can kill scs half reliable are battle mages or other scs .

This is not a problem.

a well balanced system should always be like rock , paper & scissisor .

No, it shouldn't. That's an overly simplistic system that leads to ridiculous results.

if you encounter a bane lord standard sc if you don't have blessed troops which many nations lack with national troops only you already almost can't beat him .

Why should you be able to beat one with only normal troops and no magical backup?

if you have only firemages since he will be fire resistent they don#t work too .

air mages may only work with false horrors but against scs with fireshield this is not reliable too .

Air mages should be using thunderstrike, not false horrors.
You should make up your mind about what kind of equipment your banelord has. If it has fire and lightning immunity, then it's MR will be low enough to kill it with the instant kill spells. If it isn't fire and lightning immune, then you can kill it with incinerate or thunderstrike. 20 Lamias can also often hold off a completely equipped bane lord for more than 50 turns.

since normal mages can be killed by assasins / flames from the sky etc. relative easy too and you can't move them around via magic move since they would lose their army scs are overall even better then battlemages probably .

Are all of your strategies based around your opponents sitting there and not doing anything to affect how well your plans work?

there is teleport to move around but this is always difficult because of mind duel .
so bringing astral mages to battle is always risky .

Astral mages that can teleport or gateway are not at a serious risk to mind duel attacks. They should probably be dueling themselves.

replace them as quick as you can with a few summons .
invest almost all your gold in mages ( rest in temples + castles and a few preists , scouts as item mules ).

Once again, how is this a problem, and what are you planning to use for summoned troops. There are very few that will replace your normal troops.

as it is if some players of equal skill play against each other if one takes caelum , one abysia , one atlantis and one pan cw normally the pan cw and the atlantis player have no chance to win at all and only caelum + abysia fight for who is winning .

I think you need to play more games and spend less time theorizing. You might also want to avoid playing games on huge maps, and not put magic site frequency above 50%. Both Atlantis and Carrion Woods have everything they need to defeat the nations you've just listed.

but balance between national troops , national leaders , summoned troops and summoned SCS would be greatly improved .

Destroyed you mean, since there would no longer be any point in summoning them.

for a more dominonlike game i recommened a closer look at the age of wonders series , especially age of wonders 2 sm .

I have looked at it. I've already outlined a few of the many numerous problems with the game. Another one is that unit upkeep is far too high.

so why would you ever cast anything else with them against other troops ?

Are you now complaining that there are choices that are better in many situations? This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. You paid for the better spells with research, and put a huge amount of resources into that research. Why _shouldn't_ it give you real benefits?

once you have the choice then between bane lords and tartarians you always take tartaians .

Hardly. Tartarians require you to be able to hold on to either gift of health or the chalice, and to have a nature gem income of more than 20 per turn for gift of reason. You won't be able to keep gift of health for that long in most games, and the chalice moves around anytime someone wishes for it.

[Cainehill]

Boron said:
have you ever played age of wonders 2 shadow magic cainehill ?

Trust me, I've played more computer games than you can imagine under heaven and hell. Yes, I've played AoW, AoW2, AoW2SM. The first one was the best, SM was seriously flawed right down to the campaign system. Worst of all, like the Disciples series of games, units had to _kill_ an opponent to really gain experience, making you play stupid arse games (in the game) to get the good units / heroes to get the kills. In this, it was rather like several of the Final Fantasy video games, where even if you could kill a group of enemies right away, you had to dick around and swap in each character if you wanted them to advance / get experience.

i played it seriously for about 1/2 year and enjoyed it .
the only problem is that you have only about 200 units and 200 spells and know all too quick .
but it was really well balanced .

No it wasn't. Certain races and heroes were definately better than the others. The campaign mode helped to disguise this by _forcing_ you to use certain races.

You point out that you only played it for 1/2 a year, because you know it all too quick.

So - why do you want to dumb down Dominions2? Yes, it gets frustrating seeing your carefully crafted army get toasted by an SC or a couple of mages. So _LEARN_ from it. I'd like to think that at this point I'm a solid intermediate Dom2 player; there's still a lot of things I _know_ I don't do well enough, and personally, I like that.

My SCs don't match up well against the really good players yet - I don't forge enough items. Oh well - solution, forge more. I didn't scout enough - solution, build more scouts. I didn't use summoned troops well enough - solved.

Proper use of summoned troops, of SCs, of powerful spells (not counting Wish (half-joke) , is a huge part of being a good Dominions2 player. I've been playing _very_ steadily for over half a year, and there's still a lot to learn and improve on.

So, again - why do you want to cripple the parts of the game that give it such a long lifespan?

i just wonder why you are so reluctant against small changes cainehill where the majority agrees that they would strengthen the dominion experience even more .
esben agreed to me , panther agreed , cohen will agree .

Okay. Now I'm going to give voice to my inner feelings based on this. Is your nickname "Boron the Moron" by any chance?

My reason for this is: "The majority agrees"???? You gave three names - Tauren is certainly a 4th. This is a bleeding majority?

Second - you're an idiot if you think that what you, Tauren, and even Panther (no moron there) propose are "small changes". You obviously aren't a programmer, aren't a grognard, aren't an analyst or anything close. "Small" changes have big ripples, especially in a game with such widely varying factions as Dom2 has. And what y'all propose aren't small changes.

You propose having reduced upkeep for national troops. Why? I've served in my nations military. They don't get paid any _less_ as the years go on. Why do you think knights would take 1/4 salary as they got better at their trade?

And you want _upkeep_ for all summoned troops? Where in Dog's name is this justified? If I summon ... undead, I slit a throat, and I have zombies. Why would they cost upkeep? If I conjure sea monkeys, I enticed them with the gems I offered in the casting. Demons, I offer some souls up front - I don't offer them "20 souls, plus 5 souls a month amortized and averaged over the per diem cost per soul in Ulm."

the aow / MoM approach here is just more righteous .

And you're on bad drugs. MoM's approach was totally different, as was AoW's. They have different game systems, different mechanics. If you want a MoM style game that's better - write it. Two amateurs (programming wise) did a damn fine job with Dominions and Dominions 2. Why can't you do the same? Especially since "the majority" agrees with you.

( Note : I just spent 3 hours on the phone before I completed this message, so it might not have the overall coherency I usually prefer. Then again, I'm not debating coherent people. )

[Stossel]

Is your nickname "Boron the Moron" by any chance?

Cainehill said:
( Note : I just spent 3 hours on the phone before I completed this message, so it might not have the overall coherency I usually prefer. Then again, I'm not debating coherent people. )

Ad Hominem never helps your case.

So - why do you want to dumb down Dominions2? Yes, it gets frustrating seeing your carefully crafted army get toasted by an SC or a couple of mages. So _LEARN_ from it. I'd like to think that at this point I'm a solid intermediate Dom2 player; there's still a lot of things I _know_ I don't do well enough, and personally, I like that.

My SCs don't match up well against the really good players yet - I don't forge enough items. Oh well - solution, forge more. I didn't scout enough - solution, build more scouts. I didn't use summoned troops well enough - solved.

Proper use of summoned troops, of SCs, of powerful spells (not counting Wish (half-joke) , is a huge part of being a good Dominions2 player. I've been playing _very_ steadily for over half a year, and there's still a lot to learn and improve on.

A proper RTS analogy for this idea would be, in order to stop the rush, rush yourself. This attitude however devolves the game into nothing but rushing, and is a big sign of a design flaw.

He's not attempting to "dumb down" the game, his intention is to make the game a richer experience by not making national units completely obsolete in the late game.

It just seems to me there's something wrong with how things are working. However, like many people have already pointed out, the game setup migh have a huge part to do with it. Easy research, lots of magic sites, over-sized maps for how many people are playing, etc. contribute to an SC/mage-heavy type of setup.

Even so, I'd like to see research and gems, items, etc. be able to benefit troops as well. Create a series of flag standards that would be forgeable and give bonuses to the units under the bearers command. Strengthen troop-bonusing spells, or give bonuses to the national troops when they get buffed. These troops are after all your loyal subjects. Trolls and Ice devils are all fine and dandy, but they aren't building your temples and worshipping you day to day.

[deccan]

Whoa, a flame-fest. This kind of reminds me of the debate I ran across on the White Wolf forums. Basically there was one group going: werewolves are slice 'em and dice 'em killing machines, vampires are pale-skinned effetes who drink blood, an average werewolf should kill an average vampire in, like, two seconds tops.

Then the other group was going: no, no, no vampires are "IMMORTAL LORDS OF THE NIGHT" and werewolves are mortals who can shapeshift into wolves, werewolves should be pet *****es for vampires etc.

What was amusing of course is that neither vampires nor werewolves exist in reality, everything lies in how the individual wants to conceive them as being.

In the same way, there's no universal, end all, be all, fantasy strategy game. Inevitably, different players will conceive of what is for them the ultimate fantasy strategy game in different ways.

On the one side, we have Graeme Dice and Cainehill whose idea of fantasy is fantastic, high fantasy, the stuff of legends, like Middle Earth in the First Age, when there were lots of dragons and balrogs about, when Morgorth walked the earth in physical form, when the Ents were awake and the power of gods like Tom Bombadil were in full bloom, and mortal humans could do no more than stare at them in open-mouthed awe.

On the other side, we have people like Panther and FM_Surrigon whose idea of fantasy is a more subdued, subtle kind, where ordinary joes can and do play a part in the great scheme of things. Sort of like Middle Earth in the Third or Fourth Ages. This is the age of mortals, where force of arms determine the fate of the world. Magic is rare but when found, always prized. I have to say that I tend to lean towards this camp.

But that doesn't mean that we can't agree to disagree. This is simply a matter of taste. I agree that at this point Dom leans heavily in the direction of high fantasy and it may well be that this is what the developers prefer themselves.

But surely, we of the latter camp can make suggestions and say what kind of game we'd like to have. After all, not everyone has the time, inclination, dedication or talent to make a game as good as Dom2.

[deccan]

FM_Surrigon said:
Ad Hominem never helps your case.

I second that. Cainehill's remarks were totally uncalled for.

FM_Surrigon said:
Even so, I'd like to see research and gems, items, etc. be able to benefit troops as well. Create a series of flag standards that would be forgeable and give bonuses to the units under the bearers command. Strengthen troop-bonusing spells, or give bonuses to the national troops when they get buffed.

Great ideas. I miss the MoM mechanic of enchanting the equipment of ordinary troops, or having troops builts in places with mithril deposits have better weapons / armor.

However, I agree that changes of this magnitude will be impossible in Dom2. These are all things for a future Version of the game or some other game entirely.

[deccan]

Cainehill said:
And you want _upkeep_ for all summoned troops? Where in Dog's name is this justified? If I summon ... undead, I slit a throat, and I have zombies. Why would they cost upkeep? If I conjure sea monkeys, I enticed them with the gems I offered in the casting. Demons, I offer some souls up front - I don't offer them "20 souls, plus 5 souls a month amortized and averaged over the per diem cost per soul in Ulm."

Makes perfect sense to me, thematically anyway. This way if I don't keep my 7/7 flying trampling Lord of the Pit well fed with blood slaves, he will come to my capital and personally kill my pretender.

[johan osterman]

Boron:

If summoned troops start to cost upkeep it will skew the game in favour of items and gem guzzling spells. This will, if items are not made upkeep dependent as well, amongst other things make SC's more prevalent, render far summons and army killing spells relatively more effective etc, in short result in a number of balance changes whose merit is debateable. Besides the balance changes upkeep would also introduce gameplay changes. For example it would render early summons with bad gem for punch ratio that much less interesting. It would also make you very reluctant to cast summoning spells with gems from which you do not have a reliable income, if as was suggested units without the gems to keep upkeep were to depart. There are more problems of this sort. Besides balance and gameplay changes there are implementation problems that are quite a bit more demanding than what you seem to imagine. First of all there is no hardcoded gem cost for a unit like there is for the gold. This means that each summonable unit would have to be assigned a gem cost induvidually. If this was derived from the summoning spells most commonly used to summon the unit it would mean that units that are summonable in different quantities dependent on outside factors would have to be subjected to some consideration, take a troll for example, part of the cost for the troll is that it requires a lvl 3 mage to spend a whole turn sommong it, should it still cost just 1/15 gem in upkeep? or should it be calculated based on the troll court? While these problems are not insurmountable the gains of the change is not readily apperent either, especially since part of what you appear to desire can be achieved by f�ddling with starting parameters. In other words, upkeep for summoned units is not going to happen in dom2.

[Arralen]

written without seeing johans posting ..

supplies:
One big problem with standard troops is the lack of supplies in most provinces. (As someone stated above)
This not only makes it impossible to use more than, say, 100 human troops in one army, it almost 100% assures that the AI will attack you with an army of starving and diseased units, if it ever gathers a strong enough hord of its medium inf to do so. (That it doesn't build castles isn't that much of a help, either)

This supply issue stems from the fact that units in Dom2 eat at least as much as in Dom1, but provinces have noticeable less pop, and therefore less supplies, too. Furthermore, on most of the popular maps you'll notice a overuse of the terrain feature. But anything else than grass land and plains has poor pop, and modifiers from terrain plainly add up, so you can "ruin" a grassland prov by marking it as forest .. .


upkeep-free troops
There are, obviously, 3 types of upkeep-free troops:

At first the auto-summons which are rather week and sometimes cause more problems than they help. Charging a, however small, fee for them will simply kill some themes. (Pan CW, Pan w. turmoil, Ermors etc.)

Then there's the second type: Troops/commanders you can summon using gems. Some of them are quite costly for their stats etc., some are one-shots-only as they don't heal etc. Those aren't that much of a concern, balancing-wise. The problem is with those which are better than all buyable commanders/troops and don't have a glaring weekness within the area of their "intended use" - as soon as you have the gems and the path level, there's few reason to buy any regular commanders/troops any more.

But worst of all are those commanders/items which can summon upkeep-free units .. so you basically all you pay for commanders and units is the starting gems .. speak of deminishing cost, exponential returns here.

excursus:
Midnight Games ruined their Module "Realm of Immortals" for their PBEM "Legends" that way: Every unit had a race and a magical status. Some stati where able to inflict lesser ones from their "chain" onto soldiers for free - and on commanders, which in turn could inflict lower stati themselves, than. Units were upkeep-free in general. Game ended up after 100 turns with armies of tens of thousands "Vampire Lord Elven Guards of xy" - soldiers or similar crap. Each of them as strong as the avareage fighting commanders where - but the game was designed with a clear emphasis on those commanders/characters, which where only useful as troops trainers in the end. (And mages, using a handful of critical spells).
Been there, tried it, suffered horribly .. why should we repeat this in Dom2?


suggestions for solutions
Temporary solution to fix (and test) the suppliy issue is to use a scale mod that ups supply production by 200..300%. I'm running 150% at the moment, and it seems it could use more. Creates an interesting strategical effect: Because it's a %-tage, mountains and swamp don't get that much improvement, so there's the choice to take a smaller force through the mountain and/or make a detour with the big horde.
(ATM, you'll either forge supply items en masse or use non-eating summons)
Maybe one wants to beef up gold income, too .. would tip the scale in favour of buyable units as well.

Using max. 40% magic sites and very difficult research will let players test how the game plays without �ber-magic and -summons.
To really fix the problem, making those summons limited in number definitly isn't a solution. Quite the contrary: this does encourage rushing for "tech".
Upkeep in gems most likely poses too much programming problems.

One possible solution would be that the summons simply leave after a while (this mechanism is already there).
"Secondary summons" shoudl be either very weak, or completly removed, imho.