Grossly, insanely different PD strengths

[KissBlade]

NTJedi said:

Some nations have mages as part of their PD... for example one nation has 1air and 1holy horsemen as commanders. As a result 3 rounds of combat with two of these PD mages usually results in 6 phantasmal warriors or banishing undead! Other nations have regular stand behind (do_nothing) commanders.

I don't mind seeing some nations with weaker PD, but hopefully DOM_4 will allow pretenders different options for upgrading existing PD such as improving the type of weapons being used, type of shields being used, and type of armor being worn, etc.

I am so confused as to why you quoted me... o_O?

[Archonsod]

Lord_Bob said:
It's not exactly surprising that your opponent doesn't build a strategy around something that doesn't work against you.

Yes, but at the same time it's foolish to build a strategy based on something which simply does not work for your nation, such as relying on sub-par PD alone to discourage raiding. As you're recent game shows, Bandar can go far simply by stationing a spare mage or similar unit in a province, and enjoy watching them obliterate would be raiders while the raiders themselves waste time and energy trying to deal with a horde of monkeys.

If you don't even build a SINGLE point of PD, you will lose to any player worth his salt. Guaranteed. Qm and I have shown many newbier players to at least sink a point or risk losing provinces to a scout.

Only a problem if I was hoping said provinces would remain mine for long, or generally wasn't expecting a scout to take them. If I'm following a scorched Earth policy, then any province I don't have an army in is going to have literally been bled dry already, thus losing it is matterless to me and does nothing for you (depending on scales, it could actually be a liability). Like most things in the game, it's a question of which strategy you adopt, sometimes losing a province can be devestating, sometimes you won't notice, and sometimes it can even be intentional.

[Sir_Dr_D]

It would help if size of the units is taken into conideration when determining auto army routing. Then 2 markatas would count as one regular sized unit routing, and then the rest of the army would be less likely to route when the markatas do. That would make the army routing more logical. Giants woudn't care if all the goblins ran, nearly as much as goblins would care if the Jotuns ran.

[Lord_Bob]

In my ideal world
Units should simply count to routing by size. A size 1 unit contributes one point. A size 6 unit contributes 6 points. Not exact, no, but simple, understandable, and it fixes the largest distortions.

PD should be made stronger, but nations should be limited to buying only 20 points per turn per province. A nation should not be able to drop 1200 gold into a province the turn after they take it in preparation for the counter attack. Does it make any logical sense at all that T'ien Ch'i can boost it's main army by 1300 gold in one turn by spending 450 gold on PD? PD being used for what it is meant to be used for will work just fine at 20 a point limit per turn. If someone wants to play games, they can easily buy 10 in all their provinces and then REALLY boost it in a single turn to 30.

PD should be given the "home province" morale bonus. Obviously, they are in their home province.
OR
*PD can be given a special "milita" morale penalty of -1 and then made stronger to compensate. This represents cheap troops that either win easily, or bolt.*

Since the point of PD is to stop small attacks, not build "uber-armies", then the level 20 troops should be present from level 1 and players should recieve half of them per point. Programatically, set PD 20 to zero, except the commander, and put in half at PD-1.

[NTJedi]

Lord_Bob said:
PD should be made stronger, but nations should be limited to buying only 20 points per turn per province. A nation should not be able to drop 1200 gold into a province the turn after they take it in preparation for the counter attack. Does it make any logical sense at all that T'ien Ch'i can boost it's main army by 1300 gold in one turn by spending 450 gold on PD? PD being used for what it is meant to be used for will work just fine at 20 a point limit per turn. If someone wants to play games, they can easily buy 10 in all their provinces and then REALLY boost it in a single turn to 30.

PD should be given the "home province" morale bonus. Obviously, they are in their home province.
OR
*PD can be given a special "milita" morale penalty of -1 and then made stronger to compensate. This represents cheap troops that either win easily, or bolt.*

Since the point of PD is to stop small attacks, not build "uber-armies", then the level 20 troops should be present from level 1 and players should recieve half of them per point. Programatically, set PD 20 to zero, except the commander, and put in half at PD-1.

Unfortunately I doubt we'll be seeing any changes/updates to PD within DOM_3. The DOM_3 game still has Red Major Bugs which existed at the original base version and the developers haven't been around lately so they're probably working on their next project. If major bugs are not even being fixed which have been around since the games original release I'm not sure if we can even hope for PD balancing.
I'd say your best hope would be if the developers provided new PD options within DOM_4... such as another +/- scale specific for PD or upgrade options for PD. If the developers enjoyed the money profits from DOM_3 then we'll most likely see a DOM_4.

[Boron]

NTJedi said:
Unfortunately I doubt we'll be seeing any changes/updates to PD within DOM_3. The DOM_3 game still has Red Major Bugs which existed at the original base version and the developers haven't been around lately so they're probably working on their next project. If major bugs are not even being fixed which have been around since the games original release I'm not sure if we can even hope for PD balancing.

Which major bugs does Dom3 have?
In earlier versions there has been the game breaking bug with the phantasmal warriors global, but that bug has been fixed.
Apart from that one i can't think of any bug Dom3 3.10 has that i would subscribe as Red Major Bug

[lch]

Limitations for modding, couple of spells are (still?) broken and there are bugs that aren't on the lists, officially.

[Lord_Bob]

"Ideal" Monkey PD:
The Number 1 problem is that the Markata and Atavi archers kill more of their own Melee Markata than enemy troops. This can be fixed easily. Make PD only Melee Markata. Six of them per point. At 20 PD, they an extra 3 Melee Markata and a Naga King to cast Sermon of Courage and various spells.

At that point, without mages to spam damage spells, any mortal troops will fear the wrath of the Markata!

At 20 PD there are 120 Melee Markata swarming the enemy troops in a vast wave of little monkey death!

[The Melee Markata routing causing everyone else to route isn't a problem because there are only Melee Markata. Thus when they route, well, the army has already routed. But this will be harder than most people think, without Markata arrows and Atavi arrows killing them.]

[Valandil]

FYI, PD at 125 would have:

20(6)+105(9) = 1065 Markatas!

You could put a PD 30 (210 Markatas) province in front of an enemy thug or sc, and then VotD them a few times.

[Sir_Dr_D]

You better VotD them. All those poor monkeys.