an idea to reduce turtling

[zlefin]

Since we don't have a dom 4 to work with, i'm pondering other ways to make games more fun. This is rather of a hack solution, but it'd be feasible under dom 3 as a way to cut down on turtling and make the midgame more interesting.



it center around the issue that part of the problem is the need to hire mages each turn to research, lest you fall behind, and all those researchers means they aren't on the front lines
so here's what ya do: all units in the game get a big research malus, so they're bad researchers; then, one special unit is added with mod that is a good researcher, a special site is made that allows recruitment of that unit, and one is placed next to each players' capital. other could also be placed to make prizes to fight over. they could be marekd with vps so they're easy to find.
so everyone gets in research from the new guys, and all their normal commander buys and mages can go to actual fighting

[Fate]

An interesting idea. I suggest you make this very map! I would like to see it, if only to try it.

[MaxWilson]

So your incentive is to capture as many enemy capitals as possible, because research comes only from the UberSages? (You'd need to give all existing units something like a -30 RP penalty to prevent anyone from boosting back to positive RP w/ items.)

Another possibility would be to start a game where everyone begins with all spells researched. This would be radically different from a typical Dom3 game, but perhaps fun--and even if you get knocked out early at least you got to play with your toys. Obviously everybody would take Drain-3, and the nations with good national research mages lose part of their competitive advantage, but national power rankings shuffle around anyway depending upon what mods you're using.

-Max

[Ironhawk]

I'm not entirely sure how this relates to turtling? However its not a bad idea. What you'd need to do tho is make 0-level sites of every path which allow you to recruit these special research units. That way you would ensure they were common enough that it would simply be a matter of 'gold == research' for all nations.

[llamabeast]

Well it wouldn't really matter what path they were if they o-level, cos 0-levels are automatically known anyway.

[Micah]

I'd suggest a unit that can summon allies that starts in each player's cap instead, that way it wouldn't be able to be captured. You could then also make it summon appropriate researchers for the nation so that national research differences are still in play, unless someone thinks that Vanheim and Bogarus should have the same level of research potential. Since their troops are so evenly matched it would be unfair otherwise. =)

Pretenders should also not get a malus so that rainbow/researcher types are still a viable choice to kickstart research.

I think using a cap-start unit you could also make this into a mod, as opposed to having it be a specific map, but I'm not familiar with such things so I could be mistaken.

[MaxWilson]

Micah is correct, you could make it a cap-only recruitable unit with a mod and then anyone who captured your capital wouldn't be able to recruit UberSages there. I thought you wanted the opposite, that you CAN recruit UberSages at captured capitals in order to encourage aggressive gameplay.

-Max

[Sombre]

Well it can all be done via modding pretty much. I mean the crux of all the ideas in this thread. None of em are really a problem. Of course the solutions have a few issues, but it's all doable.

[Wrana]

I'd say it has more than a few issues. At least one was already mentioned - there are nations which have a strong research and weaker troops. Plus, different paths require a different research level to really affect game. I think you are offering solution to an absent problem - if you don't want to turtle up - play a bless rush nation. Of course, you may be mowed down when your opponents complete a neccessary research - but that's the game. It doesn't consist of tank rushes... :P

[Dragar]

Surely this would favour the strong early game nations even more?

To be honest I'm not really aware of much turtling in this game. Winners almost always have powerful starts and expand aggresively