Poll: morale and routing

[Cheezeninja]

Arryn said:

No.


Any military commander who's not brain-dead knows when a battle is lost and when to retreat to save his forces for another day. Only a fool or a madman (not that there's a difference) wastes valuable lives.

Arryn i believe you meant any commander who's not undead

I finally beat everybody to the cheezy Ermor pun, and boy do i feel clever. =)

[The_Tauren13]

Arryn said:

No.


Any military commander who's not brain-dead knows when a battle is lost and when to retreat to save his forces for another day. Only a fool or a madman (not that there's a difference) wastes valuable lives.

ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

[Arryn]

The_Tauren13 said:
ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

I've said that myself. However, be that as it may, none of us are perfect, and thus we can (and do) make mistakes such as misjudging an enemy's strength. And, if one does get themselves into a situation that is hopeless, the smart thing to do is retreat, as quickly as possible, so as to conserve as much of your force as you can so that you can try again later. Some call it a learning experience, and one needn't suffer a slaughter in order to realize one has made a mistake. As for deserving punishment for mistakes, only masochists enjoy and desire them. Which is why certain games (like Doom 3) exist, to fulfill the needs of such folk.

[Cainehill]

Sheap said:
This seems like it is turning into "I want immortality nerfed because it annoys me." If it were really that strong, everyone would play immortal pretenders, but in reality other than Abysia, Caelum and Ermor, it is rare.

Actually, it's more like, "I want immortality nerfed because I don't like the morale system we have now, and to break the morale system, we have to break immortality, and we have to add a _lot_ more rules and commands, and waa waa waa..."

That said - Jotunheim, Pangaea, the underwater nations can all support immortal pretenders and not infrequently do. Likewise Vanheim, except Vanheim has an uber-pretender that gives another awesome choice. (Actually, so does Pangaea.) I've seen a number of other nations with immortals, even post VQ nerf - Tien Chi VampQ'ueen, and others.

In reality, Esben's proposal doesn't fix anything, it just creates another problem that obscures the current one by forcing it on everyone.

Agreed.

With the GK out of the equation, humans become the only way to gain magical diversity, and become a lot more interesting. Although whether their searching/forging ability makes up for the lack of a good starting (titan/undead) SC, is debatable.

The Nagas are also splendid ways to get versatility, and are also considerably better bang for the buck than humans. Problem is that almost all of the humans have abilities that ... rot. Or no ability at all, such as the Hag. Most of the abilities are ones that _might_ be useful in the early game, but are really a waste of a serious rainbow pretender's time. Turn 40 - my druid pretender will ... summon vine men! Right.

Ulm's Alchemist is one that doesn't totally rot - at least he can alchemize gems for gold without losing a turn. The Sorceress gets a free astral gem, the Frost Father won't get killed by murdering winter or the other cold spells.

The sage bonus is handy early in the game, but gets less and less worthwhile as the game goes on. Like - past turn 5. The Archmage - he _really_ ought to be a more impressive chassis. As is? Likewise the Freaklord, the Hag, etc.

But that's really a different thread.

And I just want to reiterate the insanity of the proposal that commanders rout if they don't have any troops. A grand red dragon, a bane lord, a GoR'ed Tarrasque - any and all of them turning and running, not from a Knight - but from a single stinking point of crappy PD.

What a hoot.

[Cainehill]

The_Tauren13 said:

ive heard people say many times on this forum that they dont go into battle unless they can win

Most people don't go into a battle planning on losing. But even if they "don't go into battle unless they can win", it doesn't mean they're 100% sure they'll win. Historically, commanders can and do gamble - balancing the loss of 100 men (or 1000) against the benefit gained if they do win.

They also go into battle because, while they're not sure they'll win, they know that the other possible battlefields and situations will be worse.

And they go into battle figuring that while they may lose, they'll inflict greater casualties on the enemy - this is especially true both of military defenses and ambushes.

An example of this in Dom2 is sending 4 or 5 spellcasters with a screening troop of 10 or 20 militia or archers in front of them. Going against, say, knights, they can expect to lose - the knights are going to tear up those screening troops, but are going to sustain heavy casualties from the mages.

This is _planned_ for by the force with the mages and militia.

And you think that they _deserve_ to lose half the mages, who are sitting all the way in the rear of the battlefield???

Nice to know the kind of superior military intellects who are in favor of demolishing, I mean, improving, the current morale system.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

OK, a few Last points.

• I never wanted to nerf immortality. I just mentioned a few easy ways to do so, if it proved to be a problem. From the above, it seems to be vampires that are the problem, if any. That can be solved in a mod, and is therefore irrelevant to the current discussion.
• The arguments that "it would be a matter of just killing the chaff" etc. is just lame, for obvious reasons. Just use quality soldiers.
• Most importantly, the entire reason I proposed this was to illustrate that the proposal wasn't about fixing a flaw, but was about making SC even more powerful. I think sheap, Arryn and others have illustrated this point nicely by now. I find it extremely funny that after proposing a SC-boost, these people turn around and deride "my change" as a whine-de-jour. Just like Norfleet did, really
• To bend this point in neon: I proposed this change without any hope that this would happen, but solely to prevent SC to become even stronger by proposing another fix that would stop the "The Moloch is treated so unfairly". That was all.

[The_Tauren13]

Arryn said:

I've said that myself. However, be that as it may, none of us are perfect, and thus we can (and do) make mistakes such as misjudging an enemy's strength. And, if one does get themselves into a situation that is hopeless, the smart thing to do is retreat, as quickly as possible, so as to conserve as much of your force as you can so that you can try again later. Some call it a learning experience, and one needn't suffer a slaughter in order to realize one has made a mistake. As for deserving punishment for mistakes, only masochists enjoy and desire them. Which is why certain games (like Doom 3) exist, to fulfill the needs of such folk.

since battlemages are far stronger and more useful than troops, losing half of them when you lose a battle would be a good thing; it would help balance that out. i mean, would you rather buy 20 militia or a mage? about the same cost, but the mage is far more useful.

[Cainehill]

The_Tauren13 said:
since battlemages are far stronger and more useful than troops, losing half of them when you lose a battle would be a good thing; it would help balance that out. i mean, would you rather buy 20 militia or a mage? about the same cost,
but the mage is far more useful.

You really just don't get it, do you? The militia, when you buy them, are bought because they're disposable. It's the same reason the peasants were rounded up and levied historically : so they do do the dying, instead of the expensive, hard-to-equip-and-train archers, knights, halberdiers, etc.

And then battle plans are made, historically and in Dominions, to ensure that the peasants are the ones dying and not the commanders, knights, mages, etc.

If you think losing half your mages when you lose is a good thing, put them in front of your infantry and militia. Then you can lose your mages, which you think is a good thing, and the rest of us, who don't think losing our mages is a good thing, can continue to try and avoid having that happen.

Also note: Battle mages can and _do_ get wiped out in Dominions, if the opposing commander out-battles and out-thinks them. Try 11 out of 12, and 5 out of 6, mages and commanders killed in a battle between roughly equal forces.

But then, all you're concerned with is the fact that you think SCs and battle mages are over-powered and that the game is more fun for you without them.

To quote the US Army: Suck it up and drive on.

[Arryn]

Cainehill said:
To quote the US Army: Suck it up and drive on.

To also quote the Army: F***ing-A!

[Boron]

Cainehill said:

But then, all you're concerned with is the fact that you think SCs and battle mages are over-powered and that the game is more fun for you without them.

no tauren is true .
and you don't get his point here i think .

tauren says just that almost no national troop is worth being produced .

if you are honest you will admit that with most nations you replace the national troops as quick as you can by better summoned troops .
if leaders alone woudn't rout once the first 1 dies would you build troops at all anymore ?


marignon , ulm , pangenea , vanheim and perhaps jotunheim are somehow exeptions here since they have special national troops which are worth being built over a longer timespan with the right bless effect .
or with flaming arrows + wind guide for marignon x-bows .


but i think you will admit that in general you only use as many troops as you think you need to avoid routing. the rest of your gold goes in commanders instead .
you basically said that in your post . at least i understanded it this way .