Should the Slave Collar make you Mindless?

[vfb]

Originally Posted by Twan

Actually the only use I ever made of a slave collar was to render useless a mage mercenary when the contract was about to end.

I'd rather like a mindless effect instead of the current one (of course would be very good for already feebleminded tartarians, but for this use you usually would need to spend the 20 nature of a GoR on a magic-less tartarians, so it's not overpowered I think).

No, about 1 in 4 pops out as a commander, and if you don't have the chalice or GoH you're stuck with no magic and feeblemind anyway.

You can also use a slave collar on thugs which have horrible MR anyway, like a caveman commander.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by vfb

No, about 1 in 4 pops out as a commander, and if you don't have the chalice or GoH you're stuck with no magic and feeblemind anyway.

You can also use a slave collar on thugs which have horrible MR anyway, like a caveman commander.

A Captain Caveman?


And I believe it's 1/5.

[capnq]

In my current solo game, the merc Günter Blukraft was wearing a Slave Collar when I hired him.

[HoneyBadger]

Might be nice if it made the unit immune to Awe/Fear effects? Or maybe just add a "rose-tinted glasses" helmet to the game 8)

[AreaOfEffect]

I'm pretty sure that having a 30 moral would effectively make you immune to awe and standard fear checks. I'm not sure if it prevents moral damage though. So I suppose the slave collar already fulfills your request.

[Arralen]

... what I envision:

Commanders on the battlefield should route immediately if wounded.
Without any morale check involved, no matter how low the sustained damage is. Unless, of course, they're
- immortal and in friendly dominion
- berserk
- mindless

This would have the following effects
.. at least I hope so. Open for discussion ..
- make SCs quite a bit more difficult to build and risky to use
- give use to seldom-used items: Berserker Pelt, Slave Collar etc.
- give a little bit more survivability to human commanders and -especially- heros

Slave Collar should be changed to give "mindless" tag instead of "feebleminded"
Basically, I see little use -and sense- in a feebleminding Slave Collar, but quite some -thematically- use if with the changes above. Oh, and regarding spellcasting .. I don't see where an enslaved mind is unable to cast the formulaic magic spells in the Dominions universe. A big hit to the research ability should be in order, though. I think these changes should be quite easy programming-wise, but sadly we cannot test them via modding ..

Whaddoyou think ?

[Tifone]

@ Arralen,

I always appreciate reading about someones ideas, so your one too ^_^ But as you ask waddusthink, excuse me but I think this wouldn't make sense. A Wyrm with 900+ hitpoints running away for a scratch got from a lucky slinger? Seems unthematic - what kind of useless high-hitpoints SCs would those be? I want my commanders and heroes to fight epicly to the bitter end for me! And why really a commander would run away for just a wound? And why soldiers don't so too?
I think i.e. flyers would become extremely overpowered also - they attack rear and if they start just scratching the even most powerful commanders, all the huge army routes?
I think the way it works now is ok as it is, with routing and fear and morale mechanics and all that stuff. just my opinion of course

[PvK]

Even though I tend to dislike SC's, and like my human commanders to stay alive, I wouldn't want all commanders to rout when injured. I would like more control over what causes specific troops and commanders to withdraw, but then, I like to micromanage combats. AI tweaks for routing would be welcome.

As for the Slave Collar, yes I have almost never used it because of the feeblemind effect. I'd suggest just removing that effect, if anything. The cost and slot use seem like enough of a disadvantage to me, and while feeblemind is interesting I'm not sure it makes sense and I do think it tends to add up to an extremely niche item.

[JimMorrison]

It might be interesting if commanders would always run at 75% though. Unless Mindless or Immortal of course. But discretion IS the greatest part of valor, and all that.

[HoneyBadger]

On the long-running question of human surviveability, it strikes me that if human commanders (commanders only) were given a 1 hp. firstform, it would make them a good deal more surviveable, while at the same time not altering their overall Hp.