The problem of low hit points on humans

[Epaminondas]

I am sure this issue has been thrashed about here, so forgive me if I am reviving a tired topic. Nonetheless, it is extremely frustrating for me to play Arco or Marveni in the Demo, as it was extremely frustrating for me to play human nations in Dom II due to the extremely low hit points of their commanders. And after seeing my super-kitted Arco hero Pathos getting one-shotted by a Mind Blast (and he had like 24 MR due to the MR trinket, Solaris Helm, and the MR increasing battlefield spell), I've had it.

The fundamental problem is this: the hit points for the human commander are so low (usually 10-15) that he is constantly menaced by the possibility of getting one-shotted--even by low quality units--and this makes the possibility of turning him into thug a problematic endeavor, to put it charitably. Absent turning him into a prophet or acquiring hit points increasing heroic skills such as Toughness or Unequaled Obesity (I believe these two are the only ones), a human commander will typically have less than 15 hit points. Compared to the durability of a Niefel Jarl or a Basalt King or a Dai Oni, you can see there is a serious imbalance.

Now, I understand that it is unrealistic for humans to approach the hit points of these giant-sized creatures; and that is not what I am asking. But surely, there is a way to slightly increase human commander hit points across the board so that the one-shot phenomenon unique it can be mitigated? It seems to make sense both gameplay-wise and context wise, given Dom III's fantasy-like setting. (Yes, Dom III is not an RPG, but it has an RPG element, and the current system where the commanders/heroes are only some 10-30 percent stronger than the base units that they are modeled on seems a bit out of whack.)

So I think a reasonable solution would be to double the base hit points of the human commanders; say, if an average human soldier has 10 hit points, why not 20 hit points for a human commander? In conjunction with something like 1 hit-point or 2 hit-point increase per experience level, this would enable a fairly experienced human commander to approach 25-30 hit points, which seems more reasonable.

Would this unbalance the game? I don't think so, if the human commanders would cost slightly more. While this may concededly be a serious adjustment in the game mechanics, I do not think it would unbalance the game in a way that would require other serious adjustments. Am I off on this? Or is this simply a dead horse topic? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Patriot]

I understand the frustration, but in the end, I believe that commanders are valued because of their leadership and should not be cradeled like a baby. Like a common soldier, they are replacable. Sub-commanders are placed in armies in case, your prophetized rare-item ridden leader of God gets obliterated with one spell.

Maybe it's a mistake to nurture a low hp commander as a SC. I've never played a game where I rely on one powerful soldier, so I'm pretty stupid on that subject. I went off topic.

I think that humans are average and thus 10hp is average. Raise human commander hp to 20 and Niefel Jarls and Basalt King should have hps in the realm of Pretender Gods. Personally, I wouldn't care if the game was patched to raise human hp though. Still I'm leaning to thinking that it's fine the way it is.

[Ighalli]

I think humans surviving a sword through the gut or being enveloped in a blast of fire is against the flavor of dominions. Personally, I like the fact that commander HP are done the same as soldier HP; it makes for a more gritty ("realistic" maybe?) fantasy world. If you don't like it, at least you can write a mod and increase the HP of the commanders you use.

[alexti]

I feel that human commander's HP are just fine. It seems normal that a single lightning bolt, or a hit by a giant, or even a well aimed arrow can kill them. They're pretty cheap and easily replaceable (it's good idea to have few spare commanders in your army). They're commanders because of their leadership skills, not because they're superhumans. Though they usually pretty good fighters and can often defeat 2 regular human soldiers.

And even Niefel Jarl can be wiped out in pretty much one shot. Ok, paralyze may not kill him outright, but routing work by a few soliders will finish him in that state.

I don't think it's a good idea to put too much equipment on those humans - they die quite easily. I'd usually put some cheap shield and armor so that they can survive stray arrows and, appropriate cheap magic booster when necessary. Of course, the end game is another story and you have to equip all your battlemages (armor and at least fire and cold resistance).

[Endoperez]

Human mages would still be recruited over human commanders, independent commanders would still be the most often recruited type to lead units, and only human sacred/otherwise elite melee commanders would really benefit from this (they MIGHT have a minor use with the change)... except that the best of the best humans already have increased hitpoints. Paladin - 15 hp. Black Lord - 17 hp. Lord Warden of Man - 20 hp (although that's from a magical enchantment, LW of Chelms has "only" 14 hp.)
Some of that seems to be 2 bonus hp that heavy cavalry seem to have. Daimyos of Jomon only have 11 hp, but lesser Hatamotos have 12, so I quess Daimyos are meant to have 13. Hoplite Commander has 13 hp, Agema Commander has 15 hp, etc.

[B0rsuk]

I think the thread starter's frustration comes from three reasons:

- he insists on entering the SC game
- he insists on making SC's out of humans
- he insists on playing a nation that doesn't fit his playing style. I could suggest playing Ulm, it has more HPs by default. By the way, I think sending Pathos to front line is misusing him - he has a strong Standard ability for a reason. Send the minotaur hero into battle, he can't really do anything else. 20+ hp and 16 base protection seems what you're looking for.

Personally I'm fine with the way humans are in Dominions. Dominions is the first game I see in a long time that doesn't pretend humans are demigods. Players are used to games where it takes like 20 sword hits to kill a human. (Warcraft3 ....)
Please notice that commanders in Dominions are called commanders, and not heroes. This is because, well, they're not heroes. You have to work hard to become a hero. Dominions has a mechanic for this called Heroic Ability.

[Hullu]

Which reminds me of...

Would be nice if the heroic abilities made sense. It's annoying to get valor or quickness for a mage. When your SC-non-caster gets some semi-useless reinvigoration(not useless, but I'd prefer quickness or somesuch):/

In my last singleplayer game I actually waited to get a melee guy with quickness before I made anyone a prophet. Combined with imprisoned pretender I played my first 30 turns without propher or a pretender:)

[Forrest]

Hit points are not jack.

In my last game a 300+ Hp pretender jumped into a little slot between my blessed Wardens and my H inf all backed by longbows with aim. The fact it took 3 rounds to kill him is a tribute to the +95 hp for domain that he had.

This is a army game. Commanders die like flies no matter how many hit points. If he survives a few front line conflicts he'll be damaged or marked.

[Twan]

I think a difference should be made between normal humans and surhuman heroes. It's a shame to see most warrior type heroes useless except as normal leaders, they need more than 20hp to have an use as heroic warriors (I would even say 25-30 hp + recup or regen, as hp here represent their extra capacity to avoid any kind of dammage -defense doesn't work as "heroes points" as it's useless against missiles/spells, luck is an option but too random and easy to have with gear, 50% all resist is another-) . Anything that have high chances to be one-shoted by a fireball or a level 3 summon is not a med-fan heroic warrior. Anyway, normal, recruitable, humans are not supposed to be exceptionnal warriors, and I find normal to see them having less than 20 hp.

[thejeff]

Agreed. I don't have a problem with most of the non-mage human commanders being fragile. They're there to lead troops.

It's the human melee heroes that are a problem. They should be special and it seems worthless to just use them like indy commanders. Since Hall of Fame heroes can get hp increasing abilities, it doesn't seem out of line to boost some of the national heroes hp.

There are a few recruitable types (Paladins & Black Lords were mentioned) that don't seem to have any real purpose other than to be thugs, but they're really too fragile for that. Does anyone actually use them?

I'd also suggested, in another thread, an item that would add 10-15 hp. Enough to really help out the human thugs, but little enough to not be worth it on real SCs.

And Forrest, if that pretender had been kitted out as an SC he would have ignored the longbows and your Heavy Infantry. The blessed Wardens might have done some damage, depending. Hps are just a buffer to ward against lucky shots and to give time for life drain & regen to work.

[Shovah32]

E9N4 Paladins can make decent thugs, they also have high leadership, good movement and can bless your knights of the chalice.

[B0rsuk]

Twan said:
as hp here represent their extra capacity to avoid any kind of dammage -defense doesn't work as "heroes points" as it's useless against missiles/spells,



Wrong. Hp is here precisely to represent creatures who are more sturdy and can resist more damage dealt to them. I know there are some games out there that use this oversimplification (especially D&D) but here it's not the case. Titans aren't harder to hit with bows and crossbows, they're just more resistant. And you certainly can improve your toughness to a certain degree with exercises. Also, some people are just tougher than others.

Dominions is actually pretty realistic game. In real life, you can't count on dodging arrows on bullets. There's no contradiction here - even heroes have to obey basic rules of physics. Strenght of heroes often comes from skills. That's what I like about Dominions.

They can't be all heroes. Simple. You can never protect your thugs from everything. And it's clearly intentional judging by the way Illwinter changed buff spells in Dominions3. Many buff spells now add a disadvantage such as poison vulnerability.
Contrary to what some people (coming from shallow fantasy RPGs, no doubt) say, some armor and a shield is not wasted on a commander. If it was so simple, everyone would use commanders like Tien Chi's eunuch (essentially 9hp 0 prot, no equipment or something very similar). And people would kill themselves over a chance of playing Pangaea, because even small amount of harpies would be able to instantly kill all enemy commanders.
Really, there are still dangers, even if you command an army from rear row. Howl, Imps, harpies, arrows...

[Twan]

Yes, I've just said that Hp used the D&D way *in their case* are the best way to have med fan warrior type heroes (like you can find in legends or books) in the limits of the dominion system. The other approach for hp, using a low number for humans even exceptionnal + abilities like defense to avoid to be hit also came from RPGs (call of cthulhu, runequest etc...), but is far worse to simulate med fan warrior type heroes and make them useful in a strategy game, as dominions shows it. The main caracteristic of the cthulhu/runequest concept of hp is to be far more random, as it is "you dodge or die fast" instead of "the better you are the slower you die". Too much random to give a reason to risk gear on heroes used as warriors when there are summons with far more hp (or other stats have to be so better that this system would favor heroes far more than some use of the D&Dian hp concept).

[alexti]

Maybe it'd make sense if human heroes were giving extra experience to the troops they lead (some small bonus, let's say +3 per month). It is thematic and seems to fit into Dominion concept. Another option is to make some such heroes have +1 morale on the battlefield effect. Those look like effects real human heroes might have had.

[HoneyBadger]

I agree with everything that's been said against humans having extra hp. The reasons are solid. That said, I see no reason why a magic item couldn't be included in the game that would bump up hp. Maybe +15. Not a huge boost gameplay-wise, but it would help out human SC heroes while ofcourse draining that nation of valuable gems (I'm thinking 1 type that would cost 5 earth and 5 nature at const 6 and 1 type, possibly +25, that would cost 25 blood at const 4). Certainly, it should atleast further lead astray those who play with SC humans. And it could be decent, in combination with regeneration-to stick on a very weak human pretender, incase that pretender is going out-dominion, which he or she probably shouldn't be.

[Teraswaerto]

I've always liked how in Dominions HP is clearly tied to size. A human will die much easier than giant, and a giant will die much easier than an ancient Kraken. It makes such perfect sense, and there are very few exceptions to it.

[mivayan]

Twan said:
Yes, I've just said that Hp used the D&D way *in their case* are the best way to have med fan warrior type heroes (like you can find in legends or books) in the limits of the dominion system.


If you want to mod in Medieval Fantasy Heroes, higher hp works. But I'm glad they are not in the base game, humans surviving arrows and spells in a war zone doesn't fit in dominions.

[PvK]

Twan said:
Yes, I've just said that Hp used the D&D way *in their case* are the best way to have med fan warrior type heroes (like you can find in legends or books) in the limits of the dominion system.


I entirely disagree. In legends and books you do NOT see heroes that get hit by axes and swords and fireballs, and just chuckle and say, "Sorry, I'm a Hero(tm), and you will need to impale me another 50 times before it will have any effect!"

That's D&D, and the unwashed ocean of unimaginative-designed computer games that follow its mold.

In heroic legend and fiction, as well as in movies and in real life, extremely successful heroes survive combat by avoiding getting hit with a battleaxe (etc), through skill, luck, cunning, knowing when to run away, etc.

The other thing that makes heroic tales and heroes is 20/20 hindsight, not that some people are branded heroes and given the ability to ignore getting impaled, etc. That is, for every war hero, there are many others who in theory may have been just as tough, but who died or otherwise didn't get an opportunity to do anything heroic.


Twan said:
...
Too much random to give a reason to risk gear on heroes used as warriors when there are summons with far more hp
...


This I do agree with. Dominions currently offers many summons which are not only better than most regular humanoids, but are also more cost-effective once one has the means to summon them. So in a competetive multi-player game, after that point, it becomes the smart strategy to give the best magic items to those guys. Also, by that point in the game, battlefield magic is also really strong and cost-effective, also making humanoid thugs quite vulnerable. I see those as just logical effects of the magical arms race and the cheap costs given to high-powered magic, and not a reason to make a group of heroic humans with lots of hit points.

Using human thugs is one of my own favorite parts of Dominions, and I do it both in single-player and multi-player, though in multi-player late-game it's often not very cost-effective compared to the alternatives. It's a compelling challenge for me to try to keep my mortals alive and effective in the face of increasing magical threats. My approach to improve things is to make mods which help by offering a different magic cost balance, so human thugs can be closer to cost-effective even into the late game.

PvK

[Twan]

In legends and books you do NOT see heroes that get hit by axes and swords and fireballs, and just chuckle and say, "Sorry, I'm a Hero(tm), and you will need to impale me another 50 times before it will have any effect!"



It's why the D&Dian definition of hit points is "capacity to survive" *including all non conventional ways to avoid being hit*. The old D&D system even (perhaps not the last editions, I've stopped at AD&D 1 and this kind of concepts have been denatured by extra rules to sell paper since then) only included hp and armor (a little influenced by dexterity), not things like parry, acrobatic moves, zigzag runs to avoid missiles, having a bible which stop a bullet (oops Conan not Robert Mitchum), use of the corpse of a dead soldier as a shield, or any other thing Conan or Fafhrd will do 42 times per book. It's also why I consider logical if extra hp are given to heroes to represent that to give them also recuperation or regeneration to reduce the number of afflictions, as the extra h(it/eroic) points they lose are not supposed to represent real wounds in the heroes case (personnally I don't believe in culturism giving more than 1 or 2 "real" hit points).

[Potatoman]

It's amusing that the primary arguments used to defend the current model of national heroes being only slightly stronger than generic HI are "realism" and "common sense".
This is a game in which knife-wielding assassins charge at their targets over an open field, Minotaurs won't swing their axes at any enemy smaller than themselves, and magic is everywhere. Realism and common sense take a back seat to playability and theme in dominions.

In both real legends and "shallow fantasy RPGs" (quoted to preserve the snootiness), heroes are heroic because of their extraordinary skill, strength, power, etc. But this didn't really translate that well into dominions, where most of the heroes didn't get enhancements that are statistically significant enough to make them survivable in combat. I'd really like to see an official implementation of the Worthy Heroes mod or something similar.

[PvK]

Thinking of HP as "heroic (survival) points" is an abstraction that might satisfy some players for a while. But it's not a very accurate abstraction, and of course leads to characters being practically unkillable until they wear out, which is good if your goal is to avoid making players sad by seeing their characters die by any sudden bad luck. Of course, when the HP run out in such a system, suddenly the character can't afford to stay in combat.

Personally, I enjoy that Dominions has more detailed game mechanics that more directly represent things like fatigue, luck, defense skill, etc, instead of lumping things into a big buffer of hitpoints. I also enjoy the unpredictableness of the results, and the sudden tragic injuries and losses (and successes) against the odds. I think a lot of interesting and sense-making cause-and-effect would be lost if a bunch of bonus hitpoints were thrown on some human characters to keep them alive (though I can see that some players would enjoy doing so in a mod in order to have it play more like games they're used to).

To increase the power and survivability of some heroes, I'd sooner give them higher Defense, Luck, MR, Air Shield (representing caution/tactics/dodging/whatever), or even a few points of Prot (representing toughness or the ability to do something to reduce wound severity), before I'd resort to dumping on HP.

As for arguments that "it's a fantasy game; it shouldn't be realistic" - bah! The detail and realism of the framework and non-magical statistics are what give the magical stuff context, meaning, and proportion. Without the foundation of realistic systems and appropriate values, the magic and fantastic stuff would lose its meaning. In Dominions, if a spell says it will rip people limb from limb, it really will - but as soon as people's Hit Points start multiplying, it's also nerfing the fantastic and removing its meaning - the giants would no longer be giants compared to men, etc.

As for citing weaknesses of the representation of assassination and trampling, those are just weaknesses, not intentionally put there to improve "playability and theme"!

I enjoy worthy heroes, but I want their abilities to fit the system rather than bend it (like my Warrior King of Ulm mod for Dom 2).

PvK

[B0rsuk]

Realism is not mutually exclusive with fantasy. And yes, most RPGs are shallow, disconnected from reality, common sense, history. What I like about Dominions is that it feels much more real than most of game worlds out there. You never see an item described like 'This is a very manly talisman, and a woman wearing it will speak in low voice, or even grow a beard' in other games. This is because, unlike many others, Dominions draws heavily from history, real world beliefs, psychology etc.
Funny how you become original by drawing heavily from history and real-world myths.

I, in turn, find it amusing that so many people can't accept that cannon fodder can also exist in ancient/medieval styled worlds. Make one different fantasy game with cannon fodder and suddenly you missed the One True Way. I don't think it's a coincidence that sides are called Nations instead of Races, and Commanders instead of Heroes.

[Turin]

PvK said:

I enjoy worthy heroes, but I want their abilities to fit the system rather than bend it (like my Warrior King of Ulm mod for Dom 2).

PvK



May I ask which heroes you feel bend the system? I felt that I was pretty stingy with giving hp boosts and I think noone has more than 2 times as much as the base unit after which he is modelled, which was my upper limit.

[Potatoman]

I, in turn, find it amusing that so many people can't accept that cannon fodder can also exist in ancient/medieval styled worlds. Make one different fantasy game with cannon fodder and suddenly you missed the One True Way. I don't think it's a coincidence that sides are called Nations instead of Races, and Commanders instead of Heroes.



So you believe that Dominions invented the faceless thug, and that it's suddenly become the step in game design? Would you also find it more realistic (and therefore better) to eliminate the magic summons or abstact them to re-skinned HI? Magic is, after all, part of the mythology & fantasy aspect of the game which you hold in such disdain.

Realism and fantasy are not mutualy exclusive, but they are by definition not entirely compatible. The issue is where you chose to sacrifice realism for fantasy and where you uphold history. Human heroes feature prominently in every single mythology, legend, and culture upon which Dominions is based, yet they are unworkable in the game. I agree that this is realistic. But it is also unthematic and untrue to the source material of the game. It's also pretty disappointing to finally get a national hero event (notice the distinction from "commanders" which are recruitable), only to find out that it's just some useless human "hero" with 2 more att than a normal schmuck. This isn't an irrational desire to impose "The One True Way" on anybody, this is an opportunity to improve the game.

[Epaminondas]

Potatoman said:
It's amusing that the primary arguments used to defend the current model of national heroes being only slightly stronger than generic HI are "realism" and "common sense".
This is a game in which knife-wielding assassins charge at their targets over an open field, Minotaurs won't swing their axes at any enemy smaller than themselves, and magic is everywhere. Realism and common sense take a back seat to playability and theme in dominions.

In both real legends and "shallow fantasy RPGs" (quoted to preserve the snootiness), heroes are heroic because of their extraordinary skill, strength, power, etc. But this didn't really translate that well into dominions, where most of the heroes didn't get enhancements that are statistically significant enough to make them survivable in combat. I'd really like to see an official implementation of the Worthy Heroes mod or something similar.



You took the words out of my mouth.

1. It's not like this game is intended to be historical or "realistic" a la the Total War series. Even then, the Total War series had certain units (remember the sword saint in the original version? and Generals after certain boots became near-superhuman in many versions) that defied conventional logic, units that could single-handedly take on hundreds of units.

2. I also noticed the "snoot[y]" comment you isolated--which must've been directed at me since I am the original poster. I suppose I must be a total loser because I must've played "shallow fantasy" games in the past (which is an unwarranted speculation itself, as I prefer strategy games). Truly amusing. I didn't know that there was a caste system among hardcore gamers.

3. To put things in perspective, I think I should re-emphasize it's not a dramatic HP point increase I am asking; i.e., I am not asking human commanders to be in anyways comparable to Basalt Kings or Niefel Jarls or what not. Not even close. I am asking an increase to the extent that the more heroic or successful or exceptional human commanders can reach around 20 HPs, without being a Prophet or acquiring an HP-enhancing Heroic trait. 20. That is all. You would still have less than a third of what a Niefel Jarl has and way less than half of other heavy hitters like Dai Onis or Basalt Kings.

4. In general, I am very disappointed at the level of interaction on this forum, if I may so. Sure, this is still a gamer forum but I'd expect better than what you'd find in, say, Warcraft III forums, given the complexity of this game and the comparatively high age of its fan base. But newcomers are persistently treated rudely by some posters (see Arralen's reponse to my damage question--even though I clearly said that I don't have the game manual and I apologized in advance if the question were so elementary; in particular, see the rather innocuous thread where a new poster posted his game impressions and what needs to be improved--causing an orgy of flame fest among the believers here).

In the end, I doubt Shrapnel or even the gaming community benefits much if you guys are so intent on offending those very potential customers who are relatively new to the game (e.g. me) but have enthusiastically embraced the Demo and wish to know more.

[mivayan]

Potatoman said:
It's amusing that the primary arguments used to defend the current model of national heroes being only slightly stronger than generic HI are "realism" and "common sense".
This is a game in which knife-wielding assassins charge at their targets over an open field, (...)


The last guy to tell the general to not go for a morning walk alone was hanged. The general *always* goes for morning walks. Over fields. Too bad he's dead. Perhaps the next one will bring bodyguards.

Anyone got a quick reference to fun heroic tales that cant happen in current dominions?

[Taqwus]

Heroes, even in fantasy literature, are not exactly considered to be common. They're heroic due to persisting despite the fact that the odds ARE against them -- even the exceptional ones -- and because others WILL get stomped. Heroes try or die -- and the odds are that they die. Those piles of jewels, magical armor and ancient weapons lying around the dragon's lair didn't come from peasants or their goats. Those hordes of ravaging monsters are fearsome because they're NOT easy to defeat. That legendary beast which slew all the wannabe slayers for years... was killing those who thought themselves the best equipped, the bravest, the most skilled. Eventually, somebody succeeds and gets regarded as the savior of the realm to be respected while the also-rans get... some posthumous appreciation. Or the monsters run riot and destroy the kingdom, but that sort of dampens the ability to write sequels, and there aren't that many orcs or trolls to constitute a market for that sort of literature.

To make recruitable commanders have more hp to turn them into superhuman warriors is to ignore the point of heroism unless you're turning it into a vast nation of superior humans and pricing them accordingly. The few exceptional heroes themselves -- I'd concur with the notion that it's their skill, their guile, their luck, their willpower, and not too infrequently their gear that makes the most of the difference, at least for the humans. For half-human, half-sidhe champions or that sort of thing, other properties make some sense.

[Mind Elemental]

Epaminondas said:

4. In general, I am very disappointed at the level of interaction on this forum, if I may so. Sure, this is still a gamer forum but I'd expect better than what you'd find in, say, Warcraft III forums, given the complexity of this game and the comparatively high age of its fan base. But newcomers are persistently treated rudely by some posters (see Arralen's reponse to my damage question--even though I clearly said that I don't have the game manual and I apologized in advance if the question were so elementary; in particular, see the rather innocuous thread where a new poster posted his game impressions and what needs to be improved--causing an orgy of flame fest among the believers here).

In the end, I doubt Shrapnel or even the gaming community benefits much if you guys are so intent on offending those very potential customers who are relatively new to the game (e.g. me) but have enthusiastically embraced the Demo and wish to know more.



Commanders: What would be nice would be twofold:

- multiple levels of the standard ability (so a Firbolg with Valor, or an emerald lord, would have a greater effect than an ordinary Pythian standard bearer or centurion);

- lower all troops' morale, and to compensate give every commander a standard. Now taking along plenty of commanders to inspire the men -- and bringing good commanders -- would be important!

Heroes: I agree with what's been said here, and in the thread where someone first suggested giving the national heroes a boost in HP. The human melee heroes have awesome flavour, and are indeed superior to ordinary humans, but ultimately aren't much more useful than ordinary commanders. Try to use them as thugs, and you will be down a hero. Since all the fancy abilities (lifedrain, regen, etc) won't matter much if one lucky sword stroke can cut them down, I think increasing their HPs to 20ish is the simplest, most balanced way of boosting them. You still won't see them taking on armies by themselves, but with proper equipment, they could be quite decent army-supporting mini-thugs.

EDIT TO CLARIFY: I prefer, in principle, the better gear/abilities approach. However, I'm not sure it would be as useful in practice, for the reason mentioned above. Besides, you could also argue that heroic persistence/determination could lead to more HPs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Rudeness: I see your point, but it only seems to be a minority. Please, hang around? The more of us here -- even as lurkers, like myself -- the better. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Epaminondas]

Taqwus said:
Heroes, even in fantasy literature, are not exactly considered to be common. They're heroic due to persisting despite the fact that the odds ARE against them -- even the exceptional ones -- and because others WILL get stomped. Heroes try or die -- and the odds are that they die....

To make recruitable commanders have more hp to turn them into superhuman warriors is to ignore the point of heroism unless you're turning it into a vast nation of superior humans and pricing them accordingly....



Taqwus,

Let me make two points.

First, again, I think you--like other posters here--are vastly (to be ironic here) exaggerating the level of HP increase I would prefer. In fact, I would say you and others are misrepresenting my argument to discredit me. So let me put things into perspective.

A base HP of around 20 for a human nation's best melee commanders would be only 7-8 HP increase from the current commanders. For some human nations (e.g. Ulm), it would be an increase of only 4-5 hit points. Does such a modest gain really constitute tranmogrifying these commanders into "superhuman" (your adjective) Herakles and Beowulfs? Oh, my. I think the true heroes of legend would be insulted, to put it mildly. Herakles (who by the way an offspring of a mortal and a god, a la our own Pathos) single-handedly took out monsters that would be represented by units with over 100 HPs in this game!

Even from a "realistic" perspective, is it so implausible to consider that the very toughest, meanest human soldiers can be 70-80 percent more or even twice as tougher or durable than your common everyday soldier? Humans display an amazing variety, and if you have read the annals of warfare throughout the ages, some men are clearly capable of--whether through simply a hardier constitution or willpower--shrugging wounds that would incapacitate or even kill the vast majority of men.

I can understand the uproar if I actually suggested that human commanders ought to have 30-40 HPs, but really, I think you protest too much in this context.

Second, okay, you say that genuine heroes "are not exactly... common" even in fantasy literature.

Fine. Would you then consider it permissible to at least apply the HP increase I suggest to national "heroes" we get? There aren't too many of them per nation (save a few exceptions), so having 3-4 humans per nation with such "superhuman" traits would not be so "common" or unbalancing in my opinion.

[Agrajag]

Epaminondas said:
4. In general, I am very disappointed at the level of interaction on this forum, if I may so. Sure, this is still a gamer forum but I'd expect better than what you'd find in, say, Warcraft III forums, given the complexity of this game and the comparatively high age of its fan base. But newcomers are persistently treated rudely by some posters (see Arralen's reponse to my damage question--even though I clearly said that I don't have the game manual and I apologized in advance if the question were so elementary; in particular, see the rather innocuous thread where a new poster posted his game impressions and what needs to be improved--causing an orgy of flame fest among the believers here).

In the end, I doubt Shrapnel or even the gaming community benefits much if you guys are so intent on offending those very potential customers who are relatively new to the game (e.g. me) but have enthusiastically embraced the Demo and wish to know more.


If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that Arralen thought that the lack of manual on your side has less to do with you playing the game's demo, and more to do with you obtaining a copy of the game in what we call here* cynically "my uncle from america"
Furthermore, I'm sure by looking at the date I registered and my post count you can see I've been here for a while (though much less time than the veterans, and quite a lot of none-veterans like myself), and I can tell you from experience that this community usually treats other people (including new guys) quite well, and often much better than in other communities I frequent**, with the exception of few who tend to be a bit more flame-happy (but are otherwise nice people).


*-here being Israel, but I'm sure you get my point.
**-This has a bit to do with the average age over here, but also about this being a small and "sheltered" community, in another forum I visit, seeing spam posts from random bored people, registering just to annoy other people, is not uncommon.

[Epaminondas]

Agarajag,

I am not sure what you meant by the following statement:

"If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that Arralen thought that the lack of manual on your side has less to do with you playing the game's demo, and more to do with you obtaining a copy of the game in what we call here* cynically 'my uncle from america'".

Regardless, I have made it clear that the primary reason I don't have a copy of the game is because my old computer has a CD-drive malfunction, and that I have ordered a new computer from Dell to replace it. Further, it makes no sense for me to have the full game when I can't play it until the new computer arrives. In fact, I have even started a thread asking what computer specification is needed to play the game tolerably, and further posted the specification of the computer I have ordered from Dell.

[Zebion]

Why not give some heros, points of experience as their already gained,and boost them by that? Some of those heros have been fighting a long time

[Taqwus]

...in particular, it gives a way of distinguishing those that between veteran heroes who are unusually good mostly because of their experience (and thus who may not have that much room to improve, instead of getting 5 stars worth of additional experience and bonuses) versus those who have more innate potential (ex. the extremely lucky, the assorted spawn of philandering deities, et al).

But ordinary humans... are humans. Doesn't really matter how hardy they are when they've just been disemboweled with a trident or bitten in two by a dragon. High Defense, maybe even innate Air Shield (extreme skill at missile dodging) or if Luck were more granular rather than 50-50 always, perhaps lower encumberance reflecting staying power... most aren't walking around after being almost entirely dipped in the Styx, or bearing arms from the forges of Hephaestos, or walking around with god's blood.

[UninspiredName]

most aren't walking around after being almost entirely dipped in the Styx, or bearing arms from the forges of Hephaestos, or walking around with god's blood.



...And if they were, they'd be Pretenders. :P

At any rate, I suppose a line needs to be drawn between 'mundane' realism and 'suspension of disbelief' realism. In D&D HP is an abstraction, but just looking at the hitpoints of units in this game tells you they're not. The other RPGs people speak of are all centered on your party, so making them so vulnerable is a bad idea. In Dominions, between aging, afflictions, 'commander attack' spells, etc, it's obvious the 'characters' aren't meant to be constants to any extent.

...That's not to understate the effectiveness of an ordinary general on the frontlines with an attack-boosting item and a Wave Breaker. Just not alone. Also bring a backup general.

[Graeme Dice]

UninspiredName said:
...That's not to understate the effectiveness of an ordinary general on the frontlines with an attack-boosting item and a Wave Breaker. Just not alone.



It's effectiveness is decent until you run into a holy three priest who kills him in an average of two turns (For a commander with MR 10).

[CaptainGimpy]

Well it wouldn't be so bad for heroes like Conan the Barbarian who fit into dominions' setting to have some sort of ability to get into scraps and survive. Either through really high attack and defense skills or some sort of heroic ability that lets them get a stat boost when they're in a tough spot.

[Agrajag]

Epaminondas said:
Agarajag,

I am not sure what you meant by the following statement:

"If I had to hazard a guess, it would be that Arralen thought that the lack of manual on your side has less to do with you playing the game's demo, and more to do with you obtaining a copy of the game in what we call here* cynically 'my uncle from america'".


'my uncle from america' is an expression, describing something obtained from dubious sources, specifically, pirated games.
Furthermore, check out the Lich pretender, he has 30 HP, and that's because his body is "leathery and dry and lacks all organs of importance"
The ***** Queen has 25 hp, and she is a giant werewolf.
A Pheonix has 15 hp.
And I'd say its pretty obvious that there are more pretenders with even less HP, which are less worthy of mention.

So a boost to 20 HP is not minor thematically, and besides increasing a unit from 13 hp to 20 hp is a ~54% boost! (which would make them more than ~54% more valuable and useful)

[Hullu]

I find it weird that people find this a problem.

If 10hp is the 'average human', I then personally know people in real life who have less than 5hp, and people who have way over 20hp.

Why don't our FANTASY heroes have the variety that is present even in our normal everyday life?

If someone failed to understand, I don't see any realistic, thematic, moral or balance reason why human heroes should have 15hp or so maximum. I just fail to see _ANY_ reason why they have to be so brittle.

[Endoperez]

I wouldn't say boost to 20 hp is thematically major, but it IS huge when compared to other units.

I don't think low hp are a problem. It makes some people's preferred tactics hard to pull off. There are many theoretical ways we can fix this, some of which might get more uniform support. We can't mod these things yet, and perhaps never will be able to, but here we go:

- Every star of experience gives an extra hitpoint. Some would opt for more than 1 hp, e.g. 1,1,2,1,2 hp. A 3-star human would have 3-5 extra hp (depending on suggestion), so 16 to 18 (if they started from 13, common for melee commanders).

- Lycanthropos' Amulet boosts the base unit instead of transforming the unittype. +1 att, +4 str, +10hp, "Bite" attack, regen, a downside or two. Again, details change between people.

I'm not sure why I even wrote this post, btw. It doesn't really add anything.

[Saarud]

While I like how the game currently treats human commanders I also understand that some people want more human heroes, heck I would like that myself. Isn't it possible to keep the commanders as they are and create a new unit for human nations that is called Hero. This unit could be abit better at certain things including HP. The best thing would be if it could be randomized (kinda like mages with magic) on certain skills. They should be quite abit more expensive though as heroes do demand more treasures than regular people.Also they should have zero commanding ability and leave that to the regular commanders.

Can anyone with the skills make a hero mod like that?

[Epaminondas]

Agrajag said:

'my uncle from america' is an expression, describing something obtained from dubious sources, specifically, pirated games.




If that is the case, then he was being a jack ***--pure and simple. Someone comes to a game forum looking for more information on the game before he buys it, and he is warrantlessly treated like a common thief?

WTF?

It also says a lot about the intelligence of such a person. If I actually had a copy of the full game (pirated or not) why would I be asking Endoperez and others for more photos of units that interest me--and ask other questions that clearly indicate that I do not know what happens in late-game?

But then I suppose behind the veil of anonymity online, you can throw out any kind of scurrilous accusations about someone, because you are not accountable.

[Epaminondas]

Endoperez,

I don't mind an HP boost via additional levels; in fact, I have already thrown out that suggestion.

Since you have broached the topic of what is possible and what is not possible in terms of modding, can base unit stats be easily modded by a computer illiterate like me?

[Hullu]

Saarud said:
Isn't it possible to keep the commanders as they are and create a new unit for human nations that is called Hero.


There already are heroes, you get them with (at least) positive luck scales. That's the point (I think) of this thread to begin with that human heroes suck:)

[Epaminondas]

Hullu said:
I find it weird that people find this a problem.

If 10hp is the 'average human', I then personally know people in real life who have less than 5hp, and people who have way over 20hp.

Why don't our FANTASY heroes have the variety that is present even in our normal everyday life?

If someone failed to understand, I don't see any realistic, thematic, moral or balance reason why human heroes should have 15hp or so maximum. I just fail to see _ANY_ reason why they have to be so brittle.



Yes, Hullu. The "variety" argument is precisely why I said that it is actually "realistic" for some humans to have considerably higher HPs than the average man.

[Agrajag]

Epaminondas said:

Agrajag said:

'my uncle from america' is an expression, describing something obtained from dubious sources, specifically, pirated games.




If that is the case, then he was being a jack ***--pure and simple. Someone comes to a game forum looking for more information on the game before he buys it, and he is warrantlessly treated like a common thief?

WTF?

It also says a lot about the intelligence of such a person. If I actually had a copy of the full game (pirated or not) why would I be asking Endoperez and others for more photos of units that interest me--and ask other questions that clearly indicate that I do not know what happens in late-game?

But then I suppose behind the veil of anonymity online, you can throw out any kind of scurrilous accusations about someone, because you are not accountable.


Well, I did just say that's my guess as to what he thought.
Beyond that... The veil of anonymity is also a great way for someone with an illegal copy of the game to go unnoticed, and in this case make do without a manual.
Also, since the manual is one of the selling points of this game, I could see why we would not want to make manual knowledge available to those who don't pay for it.

Also, did you consider that option that Arralen just didn't see the part where you had no manual (and maybe even felt a bit upset at how lazy you are not checking the manual http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif)


Either way I don't see why you have to get so upset, you did get your answer after all, and considering how you are just another anonymous person over here, there's no reason not to be suspicious. Other than being curteous to other people.

[Saarud]

Hullu said:

Saarud said:
Isn't it possible to keep the commanders as they are and create a new unit for human nations that is called Hero.


There already are heroes, you get them with (at least) positive luck scales. That's the point (I think) of this thread to begin with that human heroes suck:)



Hey don't be rude.... I'm very well aware of the predone heroes that appears randomly. And I do agree that some of those human heroes do suck. In the initial post he also mention that commanders should have more HP than the regular guy, and I disagree with that I do think commanders feels quite good now, they are there to command. Getting free heroes is also great even if they aren't as good as they perhaps should be, but it would also be fun to have a recruitable hero with variable skills (such as some mages with magics).

[Twan]

Moddable xp effects would be good and please everyone (as it gives freedom to add more hp or other stats or not, or even reduce some actual effects if a modder want, and this in a mod far easier to do than one changing the base stats of dozens of units) it's in good place in my wishlist of mod commands.

[TomD]

How much variety in hp is there really in real life? If your head is cut off you die. If you take an arrow in the lung then in real life you're not fighting any more, no matter how big and tough you are.

But I agree that human heroes need a boost. If some heroes had "super-luck" (80% or higher even)then that alone would greatly improve their survivability, and still be in character.

"Whether it is the favour of his God, the Fates, or the universe itself, X has an uncanny ability to trip over just as the fatal blow slices through the space where his head was moments before."

[Hullu]

How much variety in hp is there really in real life? If your head is cut off you die. If you take an arrow in the lung then in real life you're not fighting any more, no matter how big and tough you are.



Depends a lot.

I know a guy in rl who feels almost no pain, I don't know how you could really model this into an mmorpg but a guy like that would certainly be combat-capable a _LOT_ longer than the average guy.

Then come blunt weapons, physical size helps a LOT against blunt weapons. Whereas a small guy fractures a bone a really big guy is hardly even hurt.

Piercing weapons? You need to pierce a LOT further on a 110kg Conan compared to a 45kg geek - again more durability.

Sharp cutting edges, even on those you need considerably more force to cut 'all the way to the bone' if there's triple the amount of flesh in the way.

The smaller it is, the easier it is to kill. I'd BET there's differences of hundreds of percentages when it comes to survibability from trauma when it comes to humans. Actually no need to bet on that, everyone knows that.

So back to your questions:


If your head is cut off you die.



It is actually considerably harder to cut the head off a big man, than from a small man. If you 'only' cut to the bone, surviving is possible, with modern medicine, and certainly with healing spells.



If you take an arrow in the lung then in real life you're not fighting any more, no matter how big and tough you are.



On the big man the arrow might not penetrate all the way to the lung, thus creating a 1-3hp damage instead of 100% hp damage.

[Endoperez]

Epaminondas said:
Since you have broached the topic of what is possible and what is not possible in terms of modding, can base unit stats be easily modded by a computer illiterate like me?



Modding is done by editing text files. There is a syntax (simple rules). As an example, to give MA Ulm's Black Lord mounted commander 20 hp instead of 14, you'd have to :

1) select the correct unit
2) change the things you want
3) deselect the unit

In this case, it'd be just the matter of writing:

#selectmonster "Black Lord"
#hp 20
#end

into a valid mod file. A valid mod file is a text file with ".dm" ending instead of ".txt", and at least line #modname "Something".

To change Ulmish infantry units, you can't use just their name, as they all have the same name. You have to use their unit id number. You can see this number by pressing Shift+i (I) while viewing a unit's description. To change the hp of all MA Ulm's infantry, you'd have to change hps of units 67, 68, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80.

Demo doesn't support mods, and the modding.pdf only comes with the full version. All existing modding commands are described in there. If there's no command, you can't add or change the ability.

[Endoperez]

Hullu said:
The smaller it is, the easier it is to kill. I'd BET there's differences of hundreds of percentages when it comes to survibability from trauma when it comes to humans. Actually no need to bet on that, everyone knows that.



Actually, you defined natural protection in there. While being big might have that effect in real life, having natural protection 5 would have the same effect in Dominions world. Cutting your throat still kills you, but one hit won't do it. If the arrow to the chest was a crossbow bolt, instead, the big guy would still die.

[Hullu]

Endoperez said:
Actually, you defined natural protection in there. While being big might have that effect in real life, having natural protection 5 would have the same effect in Dominions world. Cutting your throat still kills you, but one hit won't do it. If the arrow to the chest was a crossbow bolt, instead, the big guy would still die.


Then why do giants not die to a single hit. Aren't they just big humans by all means?

If big humans equal small humans, why not REALLY BIG HUMANS aka giants don't equal any humans? The logic just doesn't stand. With that logic giants would have 10hp, but have enormously bigger protection value.

[Endoperez]

There are no giants in Dominions that'd be JUST bigger humans.

Firbolgs probably come closest, and they have 26 hp and 17 str, as well as nat. protection 2.
Cavemen have 23 hp, 17 str, but cold/heat resistance and lower magic resistance. And natural protection 2.
Jotun seem to have 32 or so hp, 21 or so str and natural protection 5.

However, I doubt you meant big humans in the size 3-4 sense. I, at least, understood you meant a big human in an Ulmish warrior, the best of the best, with natural talent for killing without being killed, burly and strong and not really slowed down by his mass. Your examples made it sound as if he had natural protection instead of more hp. I'll write down some numbers and compare things:

A tough human using a spear:
11 str, 3 dam from weapon == 14 damage per hit

A tough guy A being hit by the said spear:
18 hp
A tough guy B being hit by the said spear:
12 hp, nat prot 5

A) would take 14 damage (out of 18 hp), and could easily die from the first straight hit.
B) would take 9 damage (out of 12 hp), and could easily die from the first straight hit. But, as you can see, the increase in hp and in nat prot have about the same effect.

If the attacker had better weapon, both A and B would probably die.

Now, let's give misters A and B some light armor. Leather Cuirass and Cap, say. Protection 6 for body and head for Guy A, prot 10* for Guy B.

Guy A would take 14-6 or 8 points of damage, out of his 18. Half of his hp before random factor.
Guy B would take 14-10 or 4 points of damage - a third of his 12! Random factor would have a slightly bigger effect here.

If they had better protection, like, say, Plate Cuirass (14) and Iron Cap (15), like a hero-type might have in MA or LA...

With 14 dam attack, Guy A would take about 0 damage, but with the randoms he would still rack up damage pretty fast, few points at a time, with his protection being only 14/15.
Guy B would have 17 body, 18 head protection (rounded down), so he'd be much less likely to get actually damaged.

If the attacker had a better weapon, and dealt 16 damage... Guy A would be taking damage almost every turn. Guy B would often take a point or two, sometimes a little more, but more than that would be uncommon. I'm not going through that math right now, so let's say they're about equal.

If both had armor with prot 20/20... Guy A would be better off against most guys. Guy B would have actual prot 22.5 (22 or 23, I'm not sure), and the difference wouldn't be that important at this point, as the biggest danger would be armor-piercing and negating attacks, like crossbows and spells.


With no armor, more hp and more nat prot gives us about the same effect. With light to medium armor, nat prot is better. With heavy armor, natural protection matters less and less. The guy with nat prot might get away with a little lighter armor, and thus lower encumberance, but would be more suspectible to AP and AN damage.


* Total prot = Natural prot + Armor prot - (Np*Ap/40) = 5+6 - (30/40) = 10

[Hullu]

I don't see why an unusually heroic HUMAN couldn't be as tough and strong as a caveman. In dominions it seems impossible.

I see those on Smackdown all the time... big strong men that is... heroic... well..:)

Or why an unusually heroic superCaveman couldn't be pretty close to a giant, etc.


Traditionally this problem is solved with dice in RPGs. Human has attributes between 3 and 18 or something similiar. In Dominions all humans are bound to 10. Why must even the heroes be clones of the ordinary crap militia-humans?:/ Yes, slight exaggerations here but you get the point.

[atul]

Heh. I just realized what made this thread feeling so familiar (apart from the subject being beaten to death every now and then from different angles).

Mel Gibson's character William Wallace in Braveheart.

Especially the scene where some grunts say that he can't be the legendary Wallace as the famous hero is a lot taller and stronger than he is. Instead, WW is just a skilled fighter with good oratory skills (um, high Standard ability) and dies when gutted as any one of us. Nothing without an army, but still portrayed as a Hero.

I like my heroes that way (and do like to send lightly equipped warrior queens to front lines to lead their troops), but DnD-esque players can disagree. Importing a Rolemaster-like system into a Dominions-like game would be a dream come true, but people would probably complain it isn't transparent enough as most of the kills would be due to critical hits...

[Hullu]

Dominions already has Rolemaster like open ended critical hits. Your militia can score a 1044999 damage hit on your god.

Anyways. If it's William Wallace you consider a fantasy hero instead of Conan, then I agree with dominions 10hp. But I'd prefer Conan for a fantasy hero.

[Twan]

IIRC William Wallace survives after several wounds, including a knight attack, he was only killed when he was surrounded in an ennemy dominion province. The pendant of luck his wife gave to him before being killed and the 80% missile deflection kilt he had like most scot sacred warriors (in the movie you even see their strange gestures to activate the power of the item http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) can't explain all.

[Endoperez]

Hullu said:
I don't see why an unusually heroic HUMAN couldn't be as tough and strong as a caveman. In dominions it seems impossible.

I see those on Smackdown all the time... big strong men that is... heroic... well..:)

Or why an unusually heroic superCaveman couldn't be pretty close to a giant, etc.


Traditionally this problem is solved with dice in RPGs. Human has attributes between 3 and 18 or something similiar. In Dominions all humans are bound to 10. Why must even the heroes be clones of the ordinary crap militia-humans?:/ Yes, slight exaggerations here but you get the point.



A militiaman has hp 10, att/def 8-9. A hero has hp 15-19, att/def 13-15.

A Caveman has 23 hp. EA Ulm's Son of Steel (there's your Conan) has 17. Strength 17 against 14, att 10 against 15, def 10 against 13... Warenheris also starts with a two-handed Sword of Sharpness, with att/def 3 and lots of AP damage. That's GOOD!

Warenheris can kill a Caveman, one-on-one. He could do so even without equipment. He could kill a Jotun, too, one-on-one. That's GOOD! It's not good enough to win you a war, because ten Heavy Infantry might kill Warenheris, but he's still an exceptional human who could defeat most size 3-4 giants!


Also, you ask why human can't have as many hp as a Caveman? Caveman has 23. The best, strongest, toughest humans that currently exist in Dominions have 17 hp. 5 more hp would make it 30% increase over the current best humans. It might still work, for few exceptional guys, if they were rare. If other heroes were upgraded to hp 17-19 range, Son of Steel could have 20-21, and an equally tough mounted knight might have 22-23. But I don't think a human can have 30 hp, in Dominions terms. And in my opinion, 20 is a good, round limit for one of the many factors that affect survivability. Why? A Great Ape, a gorilla, has hp 18 and str 15. Son of Steel has hp 17 and str 14. The man's a beast!

But... A Water Elemental will crush him. He could beat a Troglodyte, and would have a good chance against Krakens, Gargoyles and the like, but then there are the Manticores, and the Iron Dragons, and the Wyrms - he doesn't have a chance in a fair fight. And even when he has a good chance, he won't do as well as Iron Dragons and Wyrms and undead monstrosities. The scale is just too big for a human to be too good in any one area.

There are MANY ways to make human heroes better. Increasing hp is one way that works, but I'd rather see something different.

At 20 hp, I'd start lowering enc, increasing natural protection, changing starting equipment to stronger ones, giving special abilities... a human isn't a giant. Human can beat a giant, and some Dominions heroes can. I think humans can even BECOME giants (some strange Foul Spawn via Transformation).

If you really want to make human heroes that survivable, we'd need something like White Ones' reincarnation ability - kill a hero, and there's a chance of him being reborn in a new body. Giving all nations two-three forms for reincarnated leaders would take a lot of time, and we don't have the modding commands, and the afflictions would vanish... but that would be a nice way of modeling heroic humans. Not perfect, of course, because there should be a chance of the hero taking few months to reappear (Lost in Space and Time?), and healing all afflictions a few times is a bit too miraculous in Dominions world... but it'd be a nice start.

[Hullu]

This conversation however, is pointless.

Some people want tougher human heroes, some don't. Mostly the arguments both ways are more or less good and plausible. People are not too likely to change their opinions over what the others say.

So how about we call it quits and let the game/mod designers decide.

[Agrajag]

Here's another idea, how about someone makes it so (in a mod) all those weak heroes have second forms they turn into when they die? (like Dai Oni into ghost-thingeys)
Make it so the secondary form represents them as unconcious (they can't attack or move, have much decreased stats etc.), that would give them a chance to survive a battle where they take one critical hit, and I think its quite thematic (there are several instances in books where the hero is knocked unconcious and then reawakens to see the results of the battle).
Only in a mod though, of course http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[B0rsuk]

Agrajag: unconcious is interesting, but I'm afraid it wouldn't work too well. In books etc the hero falls to the ground and is assumed dead. AI won't care.

But perhaps some other kind of mild buff, like amulet of returning or something.
By the way, I'm somewhat disappointed that you (apparently) can't make commanders start with Misc items. On one hand, it makes amulets of all sorts more unique. On the other, it would be quite fitting to give some amulets to high end mages/commanders/sacreds. And some of least popular amulets could actually see play.

There's one mildly annoying thing... as far as I remember, if I give a weapon to a commander, his original weapon is simply disabled. This is not a problem for melee weapons, but suppose I'm giving a Thunder Bow to Pathos. I think I did it once. He lost his short sword, or whatever he used to have. And while Storm Bow is nice, it doesn't help in melee, and doesn't have too much ammo.
I've seen independent archers with both bows and short swords, so it should be possible.

[PvK]

Turin said:

PvK said:

I enjoy worthy heroes, but I want their abilities to fit the system rather than bend it (like my Warrior King of Ulm mod for Dom 2).

PvK



May I ask which heroes you feel bend the system? I felt that I was pretty stingy with giving hp boosts and I think noone has more than 2 times as much as the base unit after which he is modelled, which was my upper limit.



Sorry Turin, I wasn't specifically criticising anything in Worthy Heroes mod. I was talking about the suggestion in this thread to multiply the HP of human units that players would like to use as thugs.

[curtadams]

Even if you insist on "realism" Dominions human thugs are far too fragile. Alexander the Great fought in the front of his army almost every battle and survived dozens of battles, even without the high-end equipment that won't save a human commander on the front lines in Dom. That would be essentially impossible in Dominions. There would be more variety from a game interest viewpoint if human could be made into worthwhile low-end melee thugs. More realistic, more to play - what's not to like about toughening up at least human heros a bit?

[PvK]

A magic bow removing shortsword for some units and not others is a quirk in the data, I think from the order the equipment is listed on the unit.

You can build magic items into units, or place them with map commands, but ya there's no way for player to mod/map items that appear on new units during play.

[UninspiredName]

Yes, but Alexander the Great didn't survive those battles by taking a direct hit from a halberd or javelin, and didn't really turn the tide of battle (Aside from morale, I guess) by being on the frontlines. I half-think the guy had a lot of luck as well as his combat prowess that kept him alive.

And remember, even in most fantasy, a hero rarely manages to alter the outcome of a battle by killing a ton of enemies in pitched combat. Usually they use some sort of magic, use the terrain, (say, triggering a rockslide) or take out an enemy commander, usually the last of the three. Rarely do you get a hero that can stand up to even ten enemies on his own. I'll also point out that these heroes are also rarely targetted by hostile magic and that, when they are, it's frequently a struggle to survive.

[Shovah32]

And your also forgot to add that alexander the great wasnt fighting huge dragons, undead monsters and lightning bolts coming down from the sky.

[PvK]

curtadams, no reason you can't mod that if that's what you want to try.

However, some reasons not to do it to the stock game include:

* The HP stats of units are carefully restrained to a scale where 10 is an average young healthy male human warrior, and 17 is so far about the maximum.

* Even giving heroes 20 HP isn't, I think, really going to double their life expectancy in practice.

* I have been enjoying playing the Dominions for several years with one of the main things I enjoy doing, being using human commanders with or without items and having them enter combat directly and watching their exploits and trying to keep them alive. I've had a great time doing this, and had some nice success, particularly in single-player mode.

Some tips for managing to keep them alive include giving them 2-6 pals who can keep up with them on Guard Commander, maybe putting some more on Guard Commander who are slower than and/or behind the commander, so they can reinforce his position on later turns, and placing them in positions where they will be amidst other friendly troops (and maybe other fighting commanders) instead of getting singled out and killed.
Also, don't be surprised or too disappointed when some of them die sometimes...
Avoiding charging into a battle line of giants with elite mortals may also be a good plan. Numerous disposable light troops work better for dealing with giants. Though, good enough mortals can also take care of them. Early Ages Vanheim can, as long as they aren't Niefel Giants (brrr...).

On the other hand, I would like to see some tweaks to make this style of play more viable and slightly less cruel. I just wouldn't do it by doubling hitpoints. Instead, I'd suggest some game system changes such as:

* Making less injuring wounds more common. Maybe if there were a 50% chance that each wound would only do a fraction of the amount after armor penetration. Of course, that would also probably tend to increase the overall power of giants rather than mortals...

* Allowing some fraction of units who are killed to instead enter limbo for some turns and find their way back to fight again after a while. They were defeated, and perhaps thought dead, but were not actually killed.

* Allowing more units to gain heroic abilities based on their exploits, rather than by being on the top ten Hall of Fame. Any leader who gets some experience stars and participates in combat could have a small chance of gaining a heroic ability. This would be fairer, make more sense, add more personality to the commanders, and encourage their use in combat.

* Add the ability to recruit non-mage/priest commanders at the same time that mage/priests are being recruited in a province, so players don't have to choose one or the other.

PvK

[B0rsuk]

I think it's stupid you can get heroic ability for nothing at all. I had one game in demo where - apparently - no one moved on the first turn. Or was it second. It was a small game.

Next turn, I woke up with Heroic Ability on my scout (!!) and another commander.

[Shovah32]

Because they get experience for living http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Cainehill]

UninspiredName said:
And remember, even in most fantasy, a hero rarely manages to alter the outcome of a battle by killing a ton of enemies in pitched combat. Usually they use some sort of magic, use the terrain, (say, triggering a rockslide) or take out an enemy commander, usually the last of the three. Rarely do you get a hero that can stand up to even ten enemies on his own. I'll also point out that these heroes are also rarely targetted by hostile magic and that, when they are, it's frequently a struggle to survive.



Really??? I wonder what fantasy it is that you've read, because I can remember a _lot_ of fantasy heroes who butchered armies (Elric of Melnibonea being a classic example, or at least slaughtering warbands of well over 10 enemies ( Aileron and Arthur at different times in Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, said trilogy having made it to "best 100 works of fantasty" status, the Morigu trilogy, a number of heroes from the late lamented Paul Edwin Zimmer's books, even the classic "The Worm Ouroboros" from 1922 ).

As far as surviving magic goes, I could give similarly long lists of fiction in which they do just that - some of Glen Cook's works, David Gemmell's, Moorcock, Tanith Lee, etc, etc, etc.

Kindly note that some of those are considered to be amongst the great, seminal, writers of fantasy. And then there's also mythology and fable.

[UninspiredName]

I didn't say that they don't usually survive a magic attack, but from my experience the heroes tend to really take a hit from magic arrayed against them. On the other hand, you've obviously read more fantasy than me.

Fair enough on the others, though.

[PvK]

Even for the fictional heroes who manage to defeat many enemies in direct combat, are there any pre-D&D examples of heroes who do so because of a non-magical/blessed heroic ability to survive wounds that would drop lesser men? "Wound Sustaining Man"? "Sir Hurtmenot?" "Captain Fleshwound"?

The only "high HP" genre that comes to mind is SE Asian martial arts fantasy, where semi-magic Chi powers give hyper-expert heroic martial artists the ability to survive many blows that would incapacitate lesser men, but also give them the ability to jump 30 meters in the air, and defy physics in various other ways. Edit: Still, those are mostly fights with bare hands and feet or blunt and improvised weapons. When swordsmen are defeated by martial arts masters in these films, for example, they almost always do so by avoiding getting chopped or skewered, not by shrugging off weapon injuries.

[alexti]

Another idea to make human heroes more useful: built-in "heroic luck". Let's say your regular hero fights in the battle, takes a big hit and dies. But when "heroically lucky" hero fights and takes a big hit he only kind of dies - he isn't anywhere on the battlefield and he doesn't participate in the battle in any way, but if your army wins you'll get a message that as the army returned to the camp hero "such and such" appeared out of his tent cursing that some prankster stole his armour while he was sleeping http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Hullu]

PvK said:
Even for the fictional heroes who manage to defeat many enemies in direct combat, are there any pre-D&D examples of heroes who do so because of a non-magical/blessed heroic ability to survive wounds that would drop lesser men? "Wound Sustaining Man"? "Sir Hurtmenot?" "Captain Fleshwound"?



Any pre-D&D? Herakles and Achilles come to mind. I doubt they're the only ones. Oh you mentioned non-magical/blessed - the Dom3 heroes ARE blessed and/or magical and/or just HEROES.

They're NOT called militia for a reason, or are they?

[Twan]

PvK said:
Even for the fictional heroes who manage to defeat many enemies in direct combat, are there any pre-D&D examples of heroes who do so because of a non-magical/blessed heroic ability to survive wounds that would drop lesser men? "Wound Sustaining Man"? "Sir Hurtmenot?" "Captain Fleshwound"?



One more time : the D&Dian original definition of hit points was "capacity to survive" *including all non conventional ways to avoid being hit*. To resume the original hit points are an abstraction representing not only endurance but luck, skill and fate of the character. D&D was based on miniatures strategy game rules, unlike the following RPGs made once they were a specific genre. In a miniature game you would have paid hundreds of budget points for your heroe, so you prefer "the better he is the longer he will survive, but he won't be able to survive without limit if you use him too much" (to resume : he worth his budget) over "he may dodge or be one shoted, if you have luck he will survive for eternity, if you have not... ahah you lose" (to resume : he may worth 0 or ten times his cost). I still can't understand how some strategy gamers may be so convinced that the D&D approach is only a weird RPG thing, and the second the best for strategy games, when it's very clearly the contrary IMHO.

[Taqwus]

Hullu said:
Any pre-D&D? Herakles and Achilles come to mind. I doubt they're the only ones. Oh you mentioned non-magical/blessed - the Dom3 heroes ARE blessed and/or magical and/or just HEROES.

They're NOT called militia for a reason, or are they?



Herakles was not human -- he was half-man, half-god... and was killed with a bit of poison, not by being repeatedly smashed into the ground. He overpowered his opponents with strength, not his damage-taking ability.

Achilles was killed with a single well-aimed blow -- he had high PROT everywhere else, not unusually high HP. And if you read the classics... well, the Iliad is littered with dead heroes.

[Epaminondas]

Taqwus said:


Herakles was not human -- he was half-man, half-god... and was killed with a bit of poison, not by being repeatedly smashed into the ground. He overpowered his opponents with strength, not his damage-taking ability.

Achilles was killed with a single well-aimed blow -- he had high PROT everywhere else, not unusually high HP. And if you read the classics... well, the Iliad is littered with dead heroes.



You are either factually off or misleading on some of your assertions.

1. While Herakles was indeed killed with poison, it was no ordinary poison but a superabundant dose of poison from a supernatural creature. Even then, he did not die immediately. Compare this to Paris, who died nearly instantly when he was shot with a poison-dipped arrow from Philoctetes--who had been Herakles' companion who had used a much smaller dose of the same poison that killed Herakles.

Further, while I am not sure if Herakles ever took a severe blow from many of his mythical enemies, my assumption is that he must have, given the number of his accounts. In this respect, perhaps it is important to emphasize that the legends usually emphasize Herakles' strength and hardiness, not his agility, in contrast to, say, Achilles, who is usually depicted as swift or fleet-footed.

2. Achilles' near invulnerability came from his mother Thetis dipping most of his body (except the notorious Achilles' "Heel") in the River Styx. One could say that that is an equivalent of his natural armor or "protection" but it could also said to represent his natural hardiness or constitution or--gasp!--HP. To insist on Achilles' near-invulnerability solely as a category of "protection" may be to try to interpret everything according to your convenience.

3. Yes, the "Iliad is littered with dead heroes." But so what? I don't know too many instances where heroes in the Iliad (I can't think of any at the moment) die due to causes other than the might of other heroes or divine interventions. That is, heroes do not die by a lucky stroke from an ill-trained militiaman. And that is the whole point with the dissatisfaction of some who have expressed concern about the human heroes' low HP. We do not mind if a human is killed by a full blow from a Niefel Jarl; but if Pathos--who like Herakles is half-god and half-man--dies by a few militiamen surrounding him getting a lucky thrust, then there is a problem.

[Epaminondas]

Agrajag said:

Well, I did just say that's my guess as to what he thought....


Either way I don't see why you have to get so upset, you did get your answer after all, and considering how you are just another anonymous person over here, there's no reason not to be suspicious. Other than being curteous to other people.



Agrajag,

1. And I did say that Arralen is a jack *** only IF that is what he thought.

2. So you think it's normal to accuse everyone who doesn't have the game manual to have a pirated version instead of just a demo version? Even if you subtract the evidence I put forth before that clearly demonstrate that I don't know what happens in late game and do not have full version of the game, I'd suspect just as a percentage thing that the most reasonable assumption is actually that someone who doesn't have a manual only has a Demo copy rather than a pirated copy.

[Epaminondas]

UninspiredName said:


And remember, even in most fantasy, a hero rarely manages to alter the outcome of a battle by killing a ton of enemies in pitched combat. Usually they use some sort of magic, use the terrain, (say, triggering a rockslide) or take out an enemy commander, usually the last of the three. Rarely do you get a hero that can stand up to even ten enemies on his own. I'll also point out that these heroes are also rarely targetted by hostile magic and that, when they are, it's frequently a struggle to survive.



This is not always true. In many fantasy, heroes do take on and triumph over literally hundreds of men.

In fact, such is the case in even quasi-historical fantasies in the Far East: e.g. The Three Kingdoms novel.

[Epaminondas]

Shovah32 said:
And your also forgot to add that alexander the great wasnt fighting huge dragons, undead monsters and lightning bolts coming down from the sky.



Yes, but Alexander also didn't have all those magical trinkets and other magical boosts to help him either.

[Epaminondas]

alexti said:
Another idea to make human heroes more useful: built-in "heroic luck". Let's say your regular hero fights in the battle, takes a big hit and dies. But when "heroically lucky" hero fights and takes a big hit he only kind of dies - he isn't anywhere on the battlefield and he doesn't participate in the battle in any way, but if your army wins you'll get a message that as the army returned to the camp hero "such and such" appeared out of his tent cursing that some prankster stole his armour while he was sleeping http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



I would love to see a Heroic Luck prowess as well. Perhaps add a Luck attribute that stacks with normal Luck? In other words, if you already had Luck cast on you, you could have 75 percent chance of surviving the hit, instead of the normal 50 percent.

[Epaminondas]

Epaminondas said:

alexti said:
Another idea to make human heroes more useful: built-in "heroic luck". Let's say your regular hero fights in the battle, takes a big hit and dies. But when "heroically lucky" hero fights and takes a big hit he only kind of dies - he isn't anywhere on the battlefield and he doesn't participate in the battle in any way, but if your army wins you'll get a message that as the army returned to the camp hero "such and such" appeared out of his tent cursing that some prankster stole his armour while he was sleeping http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



I would love to see a Heroic Luck prowess as well. Perhaps add a Luck attribute that stacks with normal Luck? In other words, if you already had Luck cast on you, you could have 75 percent chance of surviving the hit, instead of the normal 50 percent.



Hmmm. I recant. I am not sure if this is a good idea. Most HoF heroic prowess continues to increase, and this attribute could increase to the point where your hero may be unkillable! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[PvK]

Hullu said:
... Oh you mentioned non-magical/blessed - the Dom3 heroes ARE blessed and/or magical and/or just HEROES.


Only the ones marked as such, and therein lies part of the problem. Many of the heroes in Dom 3 are only somewhat better than typical commanders. I and others enjoy them that way, but they really start as people with hero potential, rather than fully-fleged heroes. Once they have experience and heroic abilities and items, they can be quite powerful, if still mortal. But with some exceptions, most of them don't appear from the start at "quite powerful" level. You have to build most of them up, and unless you embrace the challenge and risks of doing so, it's not particularly worth the time and attention, especially from a competetive standpoint when there are more powerful summons you can blink up for a small pile of magic gems.

I think the "Worthy Heroes" mod is really the right approach. The designers offer a built-in set of heroes, many of whom are just somewhat better than national commanders, and many of us find them interesting and nicely restrained in their abilities. If you want more super heroes, you can mod them in and/or use mods than do so. It's far easier to do so now in Dom 3 too because there are much nicer mod commands for heroes than there were in Dom 2.

[Taqwus]

Epaminondas said:
Further, while I am not sure if Herakles ever took a severe blow from many of his mythical enemies, my assumption is that he must have, given the number of his accounts. In this respect, perhaps it is important to emphasize that the legends usually emphasize Herakles' strength and hardiness, not his agility, in contrast to, say, Achilles, who is usually depicted as swift or fleet-footed.
[/b]



As noted, he was also not human -- he was half-god, and not just any god, but the leader of the pantheon known for direct divine intervention. He's therefore not a great example of what should be achievable by humans.


[/b]
2. Achilles' near invulnerability came from his mother Thetis dipping most of his body (except the notorious Achilles' "Heel") in the River Styx. One could say that that is an equivalent of his natural armor or "protection" but it could also said to represent his natural hardiness or constitution or--gasp!--HP. To insist on Achilles' near-invulnerability solely as a category of "protection" may be to try to interpret everything according to your convenience.
[/b]



That is the textbook definition of protection. He could not be harmed save by a blow to the one vulnerable location. When he was struck there by an enemy who was forewarned, Achilles died. That's protection, not hp -- hp reflect being hurt. He was simply not hurt when hit elsewhere. His ability to not be hurt when hit elsewhere, was completely irrelevant when he was hit in his one vulnerable location. That is not consistent with any explanation that relies on a global stack of hit points, not protection + critical hit.



3. Yes, the "Iliad is littered with dead heroes." But so what? I don't know too many instances where heroes in the Iliad (I can't think of any at the moment) die due to causes other than the might of other heroes or divine interventions. That is, heroes do not die by a lucky stroke from an ill-trained militiaman.



...as if a soldier who killed a hero wouldn't be treated as one in the tales, at least tales written by his own side?

Also, consider this: was Patroclus considered a hero in his own right, until he demonstrated the skill of fighting as Achilles did, to the point that his opponents believed his armor? Or was it his (not special!) damage-taking ability that fooled them?

Pathos gets godly protection, just like Achilles. In fact... unless it's been reduced, he's BETTER protected than the average mage who just cast Invulnerability, if memory serves. Like Achilles, if he takes a well-aimed critical hit, he can die. If he gets tired and his skills effectively degrade, he can easily die -- just as, say, Zhang Fei died to two lowly, common soldiers.

[PvK]

Twan said:
...
One more time : the D&Dian original definition of hit points was "capacity to survive" *including all non conventional ways to avoid being hit*. To resume the original hit points are an abstraction representing not only endurance but luck, skill and fate of the character. D&D was based on miniatures strategy game rules, unlike the following RPGs made once they were a specific genre. In a miniature game you would have paid hundreds of budget points for your heroe, so you prefer "the better he is the longer he will survive, but he won't be able to survive without limit if you use him too much" (to resume : he worth his budget) over "he may dodge or be one shoted, if you have luck he will survive for eternity, if you have not... ahah you lose" (to resume : he may worth 0 or ten times his cost). I still can't understand how some strategy gamers may be so convinced that the D&D approach is only a weird RPG thing, and the second the best for strategy games, when it's very clearly the contrary IMHO.

I already knew the history, and I accept that some players are OK with (or even prefer) massive-HP characters for various reasons. Personally, I find it an unsatisfactory and tired abstraction which is far overused in far too many computer games for my tastes. To me, it makes the tactics very artificial and annoying (i.e., I'm pretty invulnerable until I wear out, and then after getting steadily whittled down, I'm almost sure to die unless I withdraw and heal...). I think it's unfortunate how many games rely on high-HP-based damage systems, because I tend to find them really bland and uninteresting, because they tend to just be about wearing down enemies at constant and predictable rates, and don't model situations in a very accurate or interesting way. They tend to remove risk and unpredictability. And so, I tend to cherish the few games like Dominions that model combat results in more detailed and unpredictable ways, that are more like the actual situations they say they represent - more about risk and cause and effect, and less about "my hero can't die on turn one - that's not supposed to happen - he's a hero!" etc.

[Epaminondas]

Taqwus,

I am glad we are having an intelligent debate rather than shouting matches. This is what I expected from this forum, as opposed to a Blizzard forum.

Now let me respond to all three of your points:

1. I am not completely sure Herakles is so exceptional as heroes go. Yes, he is probably the greatest hero in the Greek mythos, but the trait you single out for his exceptional character--his half-divine birth--is not so exceptional in Greek myth or other prominent myths. That is, many of the great heroes of various sagas claim to have half-divine births. In Greek myth alone, many--if not the majority--of the greatest heroes do have such pedigrees. For instance, Achilles himself is born of an immortal mother, Thetis (though she was indeed not Zeus or even Hera or Athena but a nymph).

More germane, Pathos does have the same half-divine lineage, and he is nowhere as overpowering as a Herakles or an Achilles. Achilles, it should be pointed out, was not simply another Joe with high "protection." He battled a damn river god in the Iliad!

2. I concede wholeheartedly that Achilles' near-invulnerability is best defined as "Protection" not HP in the context of Dom III. Nonetheless, it is not "Protection" in the sense of armor you "wear" but what is called "Natural" armor or protection. My point is that it is not so easy to separate natural armor or toughness and high constitution or high HPs. But I suppose this has to do with my own conceptual biases.

3. Most of the Iliad's near-superhuman or frankly superhuman heroes were considered as such prior to the Trojan War. Achilles was long considered the best warrior in the world, and that is why the Greeks fetched Odysseus, the most clever among them, to get him to participate in the war. Ajax or Aias was already considered the next greatest warrior. Hector, likewise, was considered the greatest Trojan Warrior. Diomedes' and other heroes' heroic pedigrees were also well-established.

I do agree that the case of Patroclus is an exception, but exceptions do not make an argument--or at least an argument of a general nature.

Finally, regarding Zhang Fei--he died in old age and rather drunk. Since you appear to be familiar with Luo Guanzhong's tale, you know what kind of rear-end kicker he was when in prime and sober! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Taqwus]

Heroic Luck wouldn't necessarily make a hero unkillable. After all, there's no reason why it'd have to increase linearly and unbounded, rather than asymptotically approaching some sub-100% upper bound. And even if it did reach 100%... that's nothing that Umor can't handle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif (and one might consider perhaps cons6 or cons8 items to weaken luck).

On a related note, it strikes me that it would be useful if a modder could give constraints or hints as to what HoF ability would be given to a specific hero. In fact, for a veteran hero (say, an already legendary one) -- it would make sense to assign both XP and a specific HoF ability (but one which wouldn't increase further unless he remained within the HoF).

For 'neophytes with potential' heroes, constraining HoF ability choice would lower the risk of getting something wildly athematic. For instance, it would be galling for Heroic Stupidity to land on your average heroic sorceror-type, and Unequaled Obesity might not make sense against a backstory describing feats of long-distance running, et al. A great paladin champion and enemy of the undead shouldn't suddenly get Undead General. For a healer-type to get Legendary Cruelty would be rather bizarre, unless she's got a rather odd personality or doubles as an inquisitor... I don't know if the game would ever be perverse enough to assign such, but the ability to give hints to the engine would help.

[Epaminondas]

By the way, I am surprised at the number of replies and interest this thread has generated.

If anything, that shows that a lot of people do agree with me in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commander or hero HPs.

[PvK]

Exactly, Taqwus!

Edit: LOL! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
We're all posting at the same time. I should have written "Exactly, Epaminondas", about the points about Achilles being a great example of high Prot with human HP, Herakles being like a Dom 3 Prophet, etc.

[PvK]

Epaminondas said:
...
If anything, that shows that a lot of people do agree with me in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commander or hero HPs.

Actually, my posts are all about trying to point out that the low hit points on humans is not a problem, and that even if it seems that humans have a survival problem, the HP themselves are not the problem. At most, the damage amounts may be a problem, but the HP ratings are in line.

[Epaminondas]

PvK said:

Epaminondas said:
...
If anything, that shows that a lot of people do agree with me in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commander or hero HPs.

Actually, my posts are all about trying to point out that the low hit points on humans is not a problem, and that even if it seems that humans have a survival problem, the HP themselves are not the problem. At most, the damage amounts may be a problem, but the HP ratings are in line.



I wasn't referring to you: It's not all about you, even though I often think that way myself! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[curtadams]

UninspiredName said:
Yes, but Alexander the Great didn't survive those battles by taking a direct hit from a halberd or javelin, and didn't really turn the tide of battle (Aside from morale, I guess) by being on the frontlines. I half-think the guy had a lot of luck as well as his combat prowess that kept him alive.



Actually he took many, many direct hits and once got stuck alone on the wrong side of a city wall. He was expected to die then, and several other times, but survived.

[curtadams]

Shovah32 said:
And your also forgot to add that alexander the great wasnt fighting huge dragons, undead monsters and lightning bolts coming down from the sky.


I don't have a problem with much of that (other than of course many Dom3 undead are pretty pathetic) but the problem is that it doesn't take anything like that to kill a melee commander. 20 hp heros will accomplish your idea quite nicely as a dragon will still shred them.

[Taqwus]

One way in which Dominions is a bit weird regarding the interplay of strength and skill is that the effectiveness of a weapon parry / defense skill isn't affected by relative strength.

For instance, to take a fairly extreme case: if a Hoburg with two Main Gauches of Parrying is fighting a Niefel Jarl with a Hammer of the Mountains, is the Hoburg going to bother to block the massively strong attacks, or is he going to rely on ducking and dodging? Unless he's got some incredible strength for a Hoburg... he'd be better off with Vision's Foe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

If relative strength affected defense skill somewhat (just as attacker's strength now impacts shield parries -- against the Niefel Jarl with that Hammer, even a decent shield may not be a great deal of help), then it'd be possible for a hero to have very high defense, turning away opposing blades with ease (until he fatigues...) but still have a rough time against giant-strength opponents.

[B0rsuk]

Increasing HP would be redundant, because we already have 'burning out' mechanic. It's called Fatigue. Fatigued enemies are easier to hit, and after certain point can no longer fight.


2. Achilles' near invulnerability came from his mother Thetis dipping most of his body (except the notorious Achilles' "Heel") in the River Styx. One could say that that is an equivalent of his natural armor or "protection" but it could also said to represent his natural hardiness or constitution or--gasp!--HP. To insist on Achilles' near-invulnerability solely as a category of "protection" may be to try to interpret everything according to your convenience



Translation: I like the legend about Achilles, but not that part about magical origins of his power. The part about hero is right, the part about magical protection is wrong. Because I say so.

Some quotes from wikipedia:

When Achilles was born, Thetis tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx. However, she forgot to wet the heel she held him by, leaving him vulnerable at that spot




In another version of the story, Thetis anointed the boy in ambrosia and put him on top of a fire to burn away the mortal parts of his body. She was interrupted by Peleus and abandoned both father and son in a rage.





Homer does not make reference to this invulnerability in the Iliad. To the contrary, he mentions Achilles being wounded. (In Book 21 the Paeonian hero Asteropaeus, son of Pelegon, challenged Achilles by the river Scamander. He cast two spears at once, one grazed Achilles' elbow, "drawing a spurt of blood.")




So, in two first quotes Achilles is said to be nearly immortal. Styx is no ordinary river, and ambrosia is food of the gods. There's also mention of burning away mortal parts of his body.
We see Homer didn't mention Achilles' invulnerability, and there's one case of him being wounded. His elbow was grazed by a thrown spear. You don't easily die from a hit to elbow, much less a graze. If anything, it could be said that Thetis' Blessing gave him heroic defence/reflexes. Because the worst wound he received (before the final one) was grazed elbow.
Doesn't sound like he had a lot of hps, does it ? It's either Protection, or reflexes (Defence) if you listen to Homer.


As predicted by Hector with his dying breath, Achilles was thereafter killed by Paris — either by an arrow to the heel, or in an older version by a knife to the back while visiting Polyxena, a princess of Troy. In some versions, the god Apollo guided Paris' arrow.

Both versions conspicuously deny the killer any sort of valor owing to the common conception that Paris was a coward and not the man his brother Hector was, and Achilles remains undefeated on the battlefield.



So in one version he was hit in the heel and it was enough to kill him. In another(never saw this one), he was killed (one shot !!!) by knife in the back.
Even if you assume totally realistic point of view and support the idea that Achilles' tendon was crippled, it seems to imply that it made him lose his Defence and dodging ability.
I'd also like to note that Greeks considered all ranged weapons, especially bows, cowardly. Their military was really centered around heavy infantry. Most probably because bows tend to ignore target's Defence, and you can't show your skill in melee combat.
Either way, Achilles died from a single blow.

As to Herakles, the only instance of him being wounded I remember was a crab that cut into his feet while he was wrestling with a legendary monster, don't remember which one.



Achilles' armor was the object of a feud between Odysseus and Telamonian Ajax (Achilles' older cousin). They competed for it by giving speeches on why they were the bravest after Achilles and the most deserving to receive it. Odysseus won. Ajax went mad with grief and vowed to kill his comrades; he started killing cattle or sheep, thinking in his madness that they were Greek soldiers. He then killed himself.



Because there's mention of Odysseus, I assume it was Homer who wrote this. It seems to imply that Achilles' power at least partially came from his armor - or so the two Greeks believed. What it doesn't do is support the HP hypothesis.

Let's face it, HP is a crude, old oversimplification in an old and flawed system like D&D. And if I remember correctly, the way AC works in D&D comes from pen&paper Mechwarrior games. (Just to support the idea that D&D). D&D says futuristic giant walking robots have more in common with ancient/medieval combat than history. That's guilty enough for me. And let's not forget D&D was optimised for humans - that is, GM had to be able to calculate everything quickly without help of computers.

[Endoperez]

Taqwus said:
One way in which Dominions is a bit weird regarding the interplay of strength and skill is that the effectiveness of a weapon parry / defense skill isn't affected by relative strength.

For instance, to take a fairly extreme case: if a Hoburg with two Main Gauches of Parrying is fighting a Niefel Jarl with a Hammer of the Mountains, is the Hoburg going to bother to block the massively strong attacks, or is he going to rely on ducking and dodging? Unless he's got some incredible strength for a Hoburg... he'd be better off with Vision's Foe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

If relative strength affected defense skill somewhat (just as attacker's strength now impacts shield parries -- against the Niefel Jarl with that Hammer, even a decent shield may not be a great deal of help), then it'd be possible for a hero to have very high defense, turning away opposing blades with ease (until he fatigues...) but still have a rough time against giant-strength opponents.



Actually, that might be doable. Horned Helmet is both a helmet (adds a new piece of armor to the unit) and a weapon (adds a Gore attack). If Main Gauche of Parrying added a weapon (Main Gauche of Parrying, dam 3, att 0, def 0, lngth 0) and a shield (Main Gauche of Parrying, def 0, parry 5, prot 20), high strength could be used to over-power it. I statted the shield named Main Gauche of Parrying after Shield of Valor, which combines E1 (shield) and A1 (Air shield) items into one. They're at the same level of construction.

Of course, it's a bit far-fetched to do this for ALL weapons of ALL units - but it could work for some of the magical items.

[Agrajag]

Epaminondas said:

Agrajag said:

Well, I did just say that's my guess as to what he thought....


Either way I don't see why you have to get so upset, you did get your answer after all, and considering how you are just another anonymous person over here, there's no reason not to be suspicious. Other than being curteous to other people.


2. So you think it's normal to accuse everyone who doesn't have the game manual to have a pirated version instead of just a demo version? Even if you subtract the evidence I put forth before that clearly demonstrate that I don't know what happens in late game and do not have full version of the game, I'd suspect just as a percentage thing that the most reasonable assumption is actually that someone who doesn't have a manual only has a Demo copy rather than a pirated copy.


Compare what I said in italic and what you said in italic.


Epaminondas said:
If anything, that shows that a lot of people do agree with me in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commander or hero HPs.


If anything, that shows that a lot of people do disagree with you in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commnder or hero HPs...

All this means is that there is much debate on the subject. Just because a lot of people discuss something it doesn't mean they think one way or another about it, just that they think about it.

[Forrest]

A little common sense please!

If I want to play giants I play giants. If I want to play munchkins I play munchkins. If I want sea I don't play land.

Each makes for a totaly different playing style. That is what makes this game great.

If you want a mighty commander than give him toys. If you don't like the toys then you can mod some. What more do you want?

[Turin]

I don´t think anyone wants humans to be giants. The problem is simply that most human thuggie heroes are practically basic commanders with a trivial stat increase.

Take marius lorca for example:
Unmodded he is an 80gp Emerald lod with +1 hp +1 str +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale, + 2 ap and one less encumbrance.
A recruitable emerald lord with 2 stars of experience is a better fighter than marius, who is supposed to be a living legend.

Shouldn´t a living legend excel the run of the mill recruitables a little bit?

[Hullu]

One thing popped to mind.

If it's 'unrealistic' or whatever that human heroes have more hp.

How is it not unrealistic if they get it from a heroic ability?

Why can't our HEROES have more than average hp, if our HEROES can?:)

[Cainehill]

B0rsuk said:
Let's face it, HP is a crude, old oversimplification in an old and flawed system like D&D. And if I remember correctly, the way AC works in D&D comes from pen&paper Mechwarrior games. (Just to support the idea that D&D). D&D says futuristic giant walking robots have more in common with ancient/medieval combat than history. That's guilty enough for me. And let's not forget D&D was optimised for humans - that is, GM had to be able to calculate everything quickly without help of computers.



Was wondering if anyone else was _ever_ going to rebut Twan's " I still can't understand how some strategy gamers may be so convinced that the D&D approach is only a weird RPG thing, and the second the best for strategy games, when it's very clearly the contrary IMHO."

D&D's HP system was retarded even for a pen and pencil RPG from day one, and games that came out at roughly the same time handled the issue _far_ better. (Runequest being the main one that came out at roughly the same time, but also AH's Powers and Perils, Hero Systems (ie Champions), etc.)

One of the most blatantly retarded aspects was that HPs supposedly represented luck, fatigue, etc, and yet, HPs recovered at the rate of roughly 1 HP a day, WITH rest and treatment! Under D&D's system, Conan could've fought an army single-handedly one day - and then required 90-some days to recuperate, not to mention weeks before he could've safely gone against a 1st level foe. Imagine the Three Musketeers requiring weeks between battles, instead of simply needing a chance to sit down and quaff a bottle of wine before re-entering the fray. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And of course, the flip side to the retardedness was the AC system, where platemail and agility (dexterity) both made you harder to _hit_, instead of plate armor making you easier to hit, but harder to significantly _hurt_.

Other games separated fatigue-type damage from actual bodily harm, and/or handled armor as reducing the effect of blows. Dominions to a large extent does this also, and contrary to Epaminondas's "If anything, that shows that a lot of people do agree with me in feeling that there is a problem with the base human commander or hero HPs", an awful lot of people have no problem with the base human commanders dying like flies - it's only the fact that heroes (without Turin's mod) are so useless that we have a problem with. (And some people don't even have a problem with that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

[Taqwus]

Hmmm. A weapon that's both a weapon and a shield... makes sense, so long as the engine handles multiple 'shields' reasonably. The use is fairly obvious so long as there's only one shield, but if there are multiple shields with different prot values it becomes important to have a way of deciding which ones get checked for which hit rolls.

[alexti]

Epaminondas said:
Hmmm. I recant. I am not sure if this is a good idea. Most HoF heroic prowess continues to increase, and this attribute could increase to the point where your hero may be unkillable! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Considering that he'd be out of the battle after the first "deadly" hit, the near immortality wouldn't be too overpowering (besides he could die if the army lost). Idea was to make human heroes more useful without using unthematic means.

[Sandman]

For human melee heroes, I'd just add a 'chosen' attribute (with an icon resembling the pretender/prophet icons) which makes them immune to curse, horror mark and serious afflictions. Handy, but not overwhelming.

[PvK]

Turin said:
I don´t think anyone wants humans to be giants. The problem is simply that most human thuggie heroes are practically basic commanders with a trivial stat increase.

Take marius lorca for example:
Unmodded he is an 80gp Emerald lod with +1 hp +1 str +1 att, +1 def, +2 morale, + 2 ap and one less encumbrance.
A recruitable emerald lord with 2 stars of experience is a better fighter than marius, who is supposed to be a living legend.

Shouldn´t a living legend excel the run of the mill recruitables a little bit?


Yes, you're basically right - The way it currently works, many of the randomly-arriving heroes are just above-average and slightly unique. They only live up to their descriptions if they survive to get experience and items and/or heroic abilities or are made prophets or whatever.

I don't really see that as a big problem, though I think they could be several levels better in abilities like fighting skills without breaking balance. On the other hand, if the mundane heroes were to be given boosts so that they arrived much better than average commanders, I'd miss having the kind of heroes we have now - the "hero material" guys. Though those could be added too as regenerating heroes for all nations. Especially now that we can mod two types of those in for every nation... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective. Vanheim's Vanlade is even less impressive compared to typical Vans (he's about the same), though again, mounted Vans are some of the best mounter human combat commanders (and they have magic too).

PvK

[Twan]

Cainehill said:

One of the most blatantly retarded aspects was that HPs supposedly represented luck, fatigue, etc, and yet, HPs recovered at the rate of roughly 1 HP a day, WITH rest and treatment!



IIRC hp were supposed to be given back by cleric spells and at the level your Conan would have 90hp his cleric friend was supposed to be able to give him back 90hp in a day or two. Of course the fact that these priest spells were called "cure" and "heal" aggravated the confusion about the hp definition, but they could easily be seen as the need to be in good terms with a god to regenerate the hero/luck/fate part of the points.

Anyway dominions has a system which is closer from rolemaster with its open ended dice rolls allowing with extreme critical hits to one shot anybody or give severe afflictions, but rolemaster hadn't a limited by size hp system, it used a light form the D&D hp concept with the possibility to develop them with leveling, so there is no real need of chaosium systems limitations to make heroes mortal.

Note that I don't think there is a problem with humans hp in general (out of heroic characters and eventually very experienced commanders) I was just tired by the nonsense of some D&D-hp-concept* bashing arguements (*I don't remember having defended the way they modeled armor, recuperation or other parts of the mechanics) when it was far more able to model med fan heroes without making them unbalanced than one in which the GM was forced to cheat to avoid to see "Conan" one shoted in each fight (runequest), and when boosting stats like defense or giving luck instead of hp risks to make heroes far more overpowered in case a lucky roll never happen (some suggestions for dominions).

[Endoperez]

PvK said:
As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective.



Marius Lorca is one of the few units in Dominions who has base Attack rating over 15. He has 16. Bane Lords, Scorpion Men, the Devourer of Souls, Devata, Dai Oni, one Heliophagus - 14. Firbolgs, Tartarians, at least 3 of the elemental royalty, Arch Devil, Abomination, angelic Seraph - 15. In a quick browse through the manual, I found only Wraith Consuls, Wraith Lords and the Ashen Angels (from Manifestation), and Horrors (from Send Horror). Horrors had attack 18, the three others had attack 16.

Marius Lorca is impossibly skilled - unfortunately, that doesn't help him to survive in battles. Not much. He'd need expensive equipment, and could still easily die. He'd be easy to kill as well, if he did survive to become enough of a threat.

[DrPraetorious]

Well, Marius Lorca is a hero, but lets talk Emerald Lord (who is nearly as bad-***.)

The emerald lord costs *80 gold*.

That's roughly equivalent to a four or five gem summoned monster. The emerald lord, on average, smacks a wyvern like a red-headed stepchild. So, the emerald lord doesn't need more than 15 hit points - if he had 25, he'd beat the wyvern almost every time, which would be unfair.

Now, it's true, the niefel lord is a *way* better chassis than he is. This is why the niefel lord costs six times as much.

So, I'd agree that -
Mantle of Life (Constr 6, NNEE) - Body Prot 13, +20 hp.
Blood Vigor Charm (Constr 4, BB) - +10 hp. That's 1 hit point per blood slave.
Equinox (Constr 8, AAAANNN) - Sword, poisonous, does lightning damage, resist poison and lightning, +30 hit points.
etc. would be fair and reasonable.

[DrPraetorious]

Well, Marius Lorca is a hero, but lets talk Emerald Lord (who is nearly as bad-***.)

The emerald lord costs *80 gold*.

That's roughly equivalent to a four or five gem summoned monster. The emerald lord, on average, smacks a wyvern like a red-headed stepchild. So, the emerald lord doesn't need more than 15 hit points - if he had 25, he'd beat the wyvern almost every time, which would be unfair.

Now, it's true, the niefel jarl is a *way* better chassis than he is - but, without items, six emerald lords chop him at the knees until he dies, and the niefel jarl costs six times as much.

But, if you're really set on letting people use human heroes into the late game, I think it would be reasonable for blood/fire/earth/nature (in various combinations) to add hit points - I notice no-one has requested a "bonus hit points" power for magic items in the modders wishlist.

[curtadams]

Endoperez said:Marius Lorca is one of the few units in Dominions who has base Attack rating over 15. He has 16. Bane Lords, Scorpion Men, the Devourer of Souls, Devata, Dai Oni, one Heliophagus - 14. Firbolgs, Tartarians, at least 3 of the elemental royalty, Arch Devil, Abomination, angelic Seraph - 15. In a quick browse through the manual, I found only Wraith Consuls, Wraith Lords and the Ashen Angels (from Manifestation), and Horrors (from Send Horror). Horrors had attack 18, the three others had attack 16.


That indicates not that Marius Lorca has a fabulous attack skill but that attack skill doesn't vary much in Dominions. He hits about 3-4 times as often as a smuck human. If he had "heroic" skill, akin to fiction, you'd be looking at a 50-100-fold ratio. Absolutely nothing in Dominions fights anything like Bruce Lee or Fafhrd.

[Cainehill]

Twan said:

Cainehill said:
One of the most blatantly retarded aspects was that HPs supposedly represented luck, fatigue, etc, and yet, HPs recovered at the rate of roughly 1 HP a day, WITH rest and treatment!



IIRC hp were supposed to be given back by cleric spells and at the level your Conan would have 90hp his cleric friend was supposed to be able to give him back 90hp in a day or two. Of course the fact that these priest spells were called "cure" and "heal" aggravated the confusion about the hp definition, but they could easily be seen as the need to be in good terms with a god to regenerate the hero/luck/fate part of the points.




Which simply forced parties to have a druid or cleric if they wanted to get anywhere. And it was _still_ retarded that a lvl-1 who got beat to within an inch of his life (-9 HPs) could be completely healed and ready to go (as ready as they ever were) within 3 weeks, while Conan would feel he needed to rest for 3 months.

Didn't keep me from spending man-months or years playing and writing up adventures for AD&D, but that was mostly because of the difficulty in finding a group that'd play Champions/Hero Systems, or Powers & Perils, or Rolemaster, or Runequest, or half a dozen other far better systems.

D&D was damn near the most retarded, stupid system, and so, like MacDonalds, it succeeded hugely. Never underestimate the poor taste of the American people. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[curtadams]

Originally D&D hit points were the ability to take damage. "Cure", "heal", "rest" were all based on that concept. I don't remember if it was explicit (the original books were just pamphlets and lacked extensive discourses on concepts and design philosophy), but it was pretty obvious. However, from the start, D&D took a lot of flack from the ridiculous results, like competent characters easily being able to survive being squashed by a large boulder. The patch for this was to reinterpret "hit points" as an abstraction reflcting the ability to survive by any means, not just to able to take the damage. This was made "official" in AD&D in 1980 although many (including me) had already come up with it on their own. I remember this pretty well as I'd had numerous arguments with people over reinterpreting hit points and really enjoyed shoving that passage under their noses when it came out. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

Unfortunately "cure" spells and the like were never reinterpreted in light of the reinterpretation. In fairness, D&D is a game, not a sim, and the HP abstraction works pretty well for having fun regardless of the bizarrities simulating certain events.

[UninspiredName]

Hey! I like D&D... Also, it's not 1 HP, but 1 HP per level. So a level 20 fighter resting with treatment would heal 20 HP instead of 1. Then you factor in how item-based D&D is, and it likely becomes much more. Potions are also fine in the absence of a druid or cleric.

Though I'll agree, the HP system is messed up as far as suspension of disbelief goes. Still, as far as gameplay goes, I find it works.

[curtadams]

Cainehill said:
Didn't keep me from spending man-months or years playing and writing up adventures for AD&D, but that was mostly because of the difficulty in finding a group that'd play Champions/Hero Systems, or Powers & Perils, or Rolemaster, or Runequest, or half a dozen other far better systems.

D&D was damn near the most retarded, stupid system, and so, like MacDonalds, it succeeded hugely. Never underestimate the poor taste of the American people. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


It was more a network effect than stupidity. Lots of people saw the flaws, but everybody knew how to play, everybody had the manuals, there were a gazillion scenarios, etc.

The other systems had their flaws too. Runequest was like a horror movie sometimes with multiple limbs flying off in a typical combat. Rolemaster (sometimes called Rollmaster http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) had those critical hit tables that were very entertaining to read but not so entertaining when characters experienced them so often. Hero systems was IMO the best but it was pretty late to the game - non-superhero versions didn't come out until 10 years after D&D and the fad aspect had faded.

[Cainehill]

UninspiredName said:
Hey! I like D&D... Also, it's not 1 HP, but 1 HP per level. So a level 20 fighter resting with treatment would heal 20 HP instead of 1. Then you factor in how item-based D&D is, and it likely becomes much more. Potions are also fine in the absence of a druid or cleric.




Eh, _if_ it's 1 HP per level, that's a very recent change in AD&D's rules - for more than 20 years, it was essentially 1 HP per day of _rest_, period. IIRC, every week you may've gotten a bonus bit of healing equal to your constitution bonus. That was it - if you were traveling, you weren't healing.

As far as potions go - they might've been fine in a Monty-Haul campaign, but generally speaking healing potions were rare, expensive (if they could even be purchased), and used in the direst of circumstances. Oh, and let's not forget, most of the potions were relatively useless for most characters who weren't very low level. The "common" potions healed something like 1-8, 2-16 and 3-18 HPs. Not really meaningful when your fight is down 70+ HPs, and then rolls a 2 out of possible 16.

So, you were stuck with needing a cleric in your party, in a game with the most insane ethical/moral framework of "alignment" (*), where most players would have throttled someone attempting to roleplay a cleric properly (ie, preaching and attempting to convince everyone to do things as their deity would wish).

* Yes, insane. When an entire alignment (Chaotic Neutral) is described as being likely to flip a coin to decide whether or not to follow a suicidal plan of action, that's more insane than the CN characters are supposed to be. It also ignores that CN might simply mean that a person didn't care much about good or evil, didn't like laws and conventions and cared more about individuals than the swarming masses of people. Oh, and evil alignments, as described (especially CE and NE), meant that you should be flaying puppies, openly torturing and killing, etc.

[PvK]

curtadams said:

Endoperez said:Marius Lorca is one of the few units in Dominions who has base Attack rating over 15. He has 16. Bane Lords, Scorpion Men, the Devourer of Souls, Devata, Dai Oni, one Heliophagus - 14. Firbolgs, Tartarians, at least 3 of the elemental royalty, Arch Devil, Abomination, angelic Seraph - 15. In a quick browse through the manual, I found only Wraith Consuls, Wraith Lords and the Ashen Angels (from Manifestation), and Horrors (from Send Horror). Horrors had attack 18, the three others had attack 16.


That indicates not that Marius Lorca has a fabulous attack skill but that attack skill doesn't vary much in Dominions. He hits about 3-4 times as often as a smuck human. If he had "heroic" skill, akin to fiction, you'd be looking at a 50-100-fold ratio. Absolutely nothing in Dominions fights anything like Bruce Lee or Fafhrd.


Things with stacked abilities (magic, blessings, experience, heroic abilities, spells, etc.) do. Do you really think you want supercombattants to simply show up for free and not need to take any risk or investment before they start wiping out entire armies without risk? If so, it can easily be modded in.

BTW, comparing Marius Lorca with _no_ experience and no magic items to a plain trained heavy infantryman (#38) (skills at 10, equipped a spear, ringmail, shield) spear-carrier: Looks to me like Marius hits him and not the shield 76% of the time averaging 10 points of damage after armor (the man has 10 HP). If such a man tries to hit minimal Marius Lorca, he has a 6% chance, and even if he hits, has only about a 14% chance of doing any damage at all through Marius' armor. That's before Marius gets any experience or abilities or magical help, etc.

PvK

[UninspiredName]

At any rate, healing potions (and potions in general) are cheaper now as well, and it's not so much that clerics/druids are necessary anymore as that they're grossly overpowered. (Particularly Druids) I wouldn't know much about AD&D, I've only gotten into it a couple of years ago. (3.5 edition)

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
They only live up to their descriptions if they survive to get experience and items and/or heroic abilities or are made prophets or whatever.



What items are you planning to give the Ulmish heroes so that they aren't killed by the first A2 mage they meet that casts lightning bolt twice? Melee commanders have nowhere near as much effect on the battlefield as the equivalent gold cost in mages, and that's part of the problem.


As for Marius Lorca, just to annoyingly quibble about your example, he may not be much better than an Emerald Lord, but Emerald Lords are some of the best human melee foot commanders in the game, so adding a bunch of +1's to one of them is actually quite good from a mortal human perspective.



The problem is that it's not good enough from a game mechanics standpoint. As a random guess, Emerald lords should probably have basic attack and defense stats of around 20 if you want to use them in a battle situation. This is necesary if you don't want them to die in the very first battle they ever see, especially with the extremely granular fatigue system that Dominions uses.


Vanheim's Vanlade is even less impressive compared to typical Vans (he's about the same), though again, mounted Vans are some of the best mounter human combat commanders (and they have magic too).



A basic van commander is about how powerful in combat without boosting spells or blesses as I would like to see most human commanders. Skilled enough to take on a dozen or so untrained or even well trained normal humans.

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
If such a man tries to hit minimal Marius Lorca, he has a 6% chance, and even if he hits, has only about a 14% chance of doing any damage at all through Marius' armor.



So, in other words, when he experiences 30 attacks in ten rounds of combat against size two opponents, he's not particularly likely to survive.

Edit:Size two opponents, not size three.

[alexti]

Cainehill said:
So, you were stuck with needing a cleric in your party, in a game with the most insane ethical/moral framework of "alignment" (*), where most players would have throttled someone attempting to roleplay a cleric properly (ie, preaching and attempting to convince everyone to do things as their deity would wish).



Thinking about, priest of Odin might be quite useful in various situations http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Forrest]

I repeat, a little common sense please.

No one has mentioned "Wish" to buff a commander.
"Power" : the caster gets +20 strength, +10 attack, +10 defence, +10 precision, and +50 hitpoints

Does that not qualify?

What you should do is ask the programers to change the effect so you can wish "Power (Commander's name)" and buff the leader you want without having to get him to astral 9.

I still feel you people are focusing on the wrong things. I like the fact that a human is not going to take a giant with out buffing just like I like being able to buff him till he can.

[Action]

Hullu said:
One thing popped to mind.

If it's 'unrealistic' or whatever that human heroes have more hp.

How is it not unrealistic if they get it from a heroic ability?

Why can't our HEROES have more than average hp, if our HEROES can?:)



Yah, this is the point I get stuck on too.

An Emerald Lord or something who gets unequaled obesity or the other HP boosting heroic ability and hangs around in the hall of fame for a while can gain a decent cushion of HP and will indeed survive hits that would kill a normal man.

If he can do it, why can't some of the national heroes do it? Why is it that the only way to get that HP up is via a random ability?

[PvK]

Graeme Dice said:
What items are you planning to give the Ulmish heroes so that they aren't killed by the first A2 mage they meet that casts lightning bolt twice?


Usually either Ring of Tamed Lightning, or Copper Plate.


Melee commanders have nowhere near as much effect on the battlefield as the equivalent gold cost in mages, and that's part of the problem.


True (though heroes generally cost zero, and I tend to use both). I do see this as an issue for my own tastes, and am continuing my mod which rebalances the magic costs.


The problem is that it's not good enough from a game mechanics standpoint. As a random guess, Emerald lords should probably have basic attack and defense stats of around 20 if you want to use them in a battle situation. This is necesary if you don't want them to die in the very first battle they ever see, especially with the extremely granular fatigue system that Dominions uses.


Whether it's "good enough" depends on what you want, and what tactics you use. If your Emerald Lords die in the first battle, then you are either exaggerating or using bad tactics, since my C'tissian commanders and utterly non-elite Ulmish commanders tend to survive battles quite often without any experience or magical help, and get into the HoF, etc.. See the tactics I mentioned below.


A basic van commander is about how powerful in combat without boosting spells or blesses as I would like to see most human commanders. Skilled enough to take on a dozen or so untrained or even well trained normal humans.


Sounds like a nice mod to me. Though, I assume you will tweak the costs so a commander costs what? 20 x what a normal soldier costs?

[PvK]

Graeme Dice said:

PvK said:
If such a man tries to hit minimal Marius Lorca, he has a 6% chance, and even if he hits, has only about a 14% chance of doing any damage at all through Marius' armor.



So, in other words, when he experiences 30 attacks in ten rounds of combat against size two opponents, he's not particularly likely to survive.

Edit:Size two opponents, not size three.


Yes, which only makes complete sense, if he is getting ganged up by a steady stream of enemies at 3:1 odds. That's why you don't send him out alone, but assign a few men to stay with him on Guard Commander, and place him near other blocks of troops, etc.

[PvK]

Action said:

Hullu said:
One thing popped to mind.

If it's 'unrealistic' or whatever that human heroes have more hp.

How is it not unrealistic if they get it from a heroic ability?

Why can't our HEROES have more than average hp, if our HEROES can?:)



Yah, this is the point I get stuck on too.

An Emerald Lord or something who gets unequaled obesity or the other HP boosting heroic ability and hangs around in the hall of fame for a while can gain a decent cushion of HP and will indeed survive hits that would kill a normal man.

If he can do it, why can't some of the national heroes do it? Why is it that the only way to get that HP up is via a random ability?


Other, non-random, ways are Prophetizing and Wish.
Heroic abilities are a bit exaggerated, especially when some of them get to high levels. People with high heroic abilities are more like the characters some people are wanting to see. I prefer to get legendary Defense skill to legendary ability to not die when butchered (i.e. Hit Points), personally. I agree that it's too bad it requires the attention of the gods who oversee the Hall of Fame to get them, and that they are a bit much in some cases. I'd like to see more minor abilities, and a different way to earn them besides the HoF.

[Ewierl]

Twan said:
(I would even say 25-30 hp + recup or regen, as hp here represent their extra capacity to avoid any kind of dammage



That is, I'm afraid, a fundamental misconception about how Dom3's system represents its world. If hp represented abstract damage avoidance ability, units wouldn't get afflictions based on damage dealt.

In Dominions, hp quite explicitly represent raw physical durability. Basically, meat and muscle! Even human "heroes" are still human, and will still die if they take an unlucky sword to the face. That realistic lethality is a core conception of how Dominions' mechanic works. If you find that particularly annoying, I'd recommend playing any of the numerous nonhuman races with higher-hp commanders. (Although you can replicate the general idea quite well with Summon Firbolg.)

Dominions isn't the kind of fantasy setting where the badass human singlehandedly slays the dragon. It's the kind of setting where an army of humans with greatswords and mage support kills the dragon.

As an aside, though, I do agree that it'd be nice to have HoF bonuses try to be appropriate to the commander type. Mages with boosted attack skill are pretty sad heroes!

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
Usually either Ring of Tamed Lightning, or Copper Plate.



They are ulmish heroes, so there's no ring of tamed lightning until you've bought a huge amount of master smiths. The copper plate just means that they'll die to a couple of smites, or a fireball instead.


True (though heroes generally cost zero, and I tend to use both).



Heroes cost you a good portion of the 120 design points you'd otherwise get if you took misfortune 3.


I do see this as an issue for my own tastes, and am continuing my mod which rebalances the magic costs.



As I expected, you sound like one of the players who are happy with the dumbing down of Dominions 3 compared to Dom2 and the general reduction in the power of magic.


Whether it's "good enough" depends on what you want, and what tactics you use.



I want the elite commanders with no added equipment to be able to survive nearly any battle that their side wins. These are supposed to be experienced frontline soldiers, not rank and file cannon fodder.


Sounds like a nice mod to me. Though, I assume you will tweak the costs so a commander costs what? 20 x what a normal soldier costs?



The commander would see no change in cost at all, since that's the bare minimum to make them anywhere as useful as a battle mage.

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
Yes, which only makes complete sense, if he is getting ganged up by a steady stream of enemies at 3:1 odds. That's why you don't send him out alone, but assign a few men to stay with him on Guard Commander, and place him near other blocks of troops, etc.



It's clear that you don't have much understanding of the battle mechanic from this statement. It doesn't matter if you give him bodyguards, or supporting troops, since melee attacks are effectively all concentrated on the most survivable unit in a square. In a single combat round, every single attack will be dealt to him (or to friendlies in the same square until they are dead) until he dies and they move onto the next target. 3:1 odds are almost exactly what a unit needs to be able to survive when supported by other troops because three units ganging up on a single other unit is the norm in dominions.

[Twan]

Ewierl : (longely explained in other messages of the thread, the question is how to boost heroes and I support an use of D&Dian hp for them it's why there is a "here" in the sentence and why I've also suggested to be logical and to give them a way to avoid afflictions as their extra hp wouldn't be "real hp" but hero points ; muscle can't give a sufficient number of "real" hp to make humans heroes worth to give them gear IMO).

[Turin]

For the people who can´t accept a bit higher hp for heros:

Consider this:
a run of the mill human unit has 10 hp.

The most skilled recruitable human fighters already have 15+hp(Emerald Lord,Warrior Chiefs, Boar Lord etc). So clearly skilled fighters can gain more than the ordinary amount of hps. Why does it break immersion then if Hero units, i. e. the best of the best have ~20 hp?
After all it would be only the logical progression from
standard soldier---->elite soldier---->Hero

[UninspiredName]

Graeme Dice said:
They are ulmish heroes, so there's no ring of tamed lightning until you've bought a huge amount of master smiths. The copper plate just means that they'll die to a couple of smites, or a fireball instead.



Ah, so what you want is humans to survive three-meter radius (give or take) orbs of fire. Besides, they rarely hit their intended square anyways. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

At any rate, between 'assassin' spells and combat magic, magic is pretty much the bane of heroes. I don't deny that, it's just the way Dominions works.


Heroes cost you a good portion of the 120 design points you'd otherwise get if you took misfortune 3.



I get enough crappy events with Order 3 Luck 0, thank you. I haven't even dared try a misfortune scale.



As I expected, you sound like one of the players who are happy with the dumbing down of Dominions 3 compared to Dom2 and the general reduction in the power of magic.



First-off, I fail to see how Dominions 3 was 'dumbed down' compared to 2. All I can think of off the top of my head is the inability to choose a Pretender's castle, (I'll admit, that was a neat feature, but I find it restricted the flow of the game. You shouldn't have to build an ultra-expensive citadel as a defensive precaution on the frontlines that will be abandoned soon enough, or a low-admin Mausoleum where you want to crank out former Independent Knights.) special dominions being replaced with ritual spells and new ages, (I'm sort of indifferent on this one, honestly) and auto-setting the taxes (Which I'll assume you weren't referring to).

If magic was weakened any between Dominions 2 and 3, it's still pretty damned tough. You cite it as pretty much the #1 way of killing generals, summons are the real 'heroes' of Dominions, national spells shape nations, and six E3 mages and a small team of heavilly armored men can fend back 120 somewhat skilled and decently armored troops (Happened to me once, my Nagarishis and Bandars vs. Jomon's samurai. I ended up losing, but only due to sucky morale checks. Jomon had no more than 10 units left, which were commanders, by battle's end. They massacared my sleeping mages). I'll admit the researching is a hit, but I don't see how it was weakened aside from that.

You sound like one of the players that would rather be playing Dominions 2 if it had an active modding community.


I want the elite commanders with no added equipment to be able to survive nearly any battle that their side wins. These are supposed to be experienced frontline soldiers, not rank and file cannon fodder.



That's sort of ridiculous to my way of thinking. Many times you'll be fighting elite, possibly F9-blessed men, combat mages, (which are many times the price equivelant of 'elite commanders' themselves, despite having no commander talents) and summoned monsters that are simply more powerful than humans. The kind your 'rank and file cannon fodder' would be torn to shreds by, even outnumbered 3 to 1. Expecting one elite soldier to fend off groups of three somewhat less elite soldiers for an entire battle might be asking too much.



The commander would see no change in cost at all, since that's the bare minimum to make them anywhere as useful as a battle mage.



But you forget one thing, that commanders command. Commanders may be elite warriors, yes, but that's not what most people recruit them as. Most people just prefer recruiting elite warriors to serve as elite warriors. One can recruit battle mages instead of commanders, but then battle mages would be all you have. Maybe a few men as well, but it would be a small enough amount that it wouldn't be able to hold off a commander or two with any respectable amount of men. Commanders will always have that talent, which Battle Mages can never take.

When it comes down to it, this entire argument is a matter of taste. The way I see it, human commanders aren't meant to be on the frontlines. One doesn't recruit a Myrmidon Commander instead of a Myrmidon to put it on the frontlines and expect it to somehow fare better than warriors of equal skill, but worse commanding ability.

[Graeme Dice]

UninspiredName said:
Ah, so what you want is humans to survive three-meter radius (give or take) orbs of fire. Besides, they rarely hit their intended square anyways.



I have little problem with somebody who's survived decades of combat against armies that routinely lob fireballs around being able to survive those hits.


At any rate, between 'assassin' spells and combat magic, magic is pretty much the bane of heroes. I don't deny that, it's just the way Dominions works.



The way that the system works though is that human combat mages can gather a couple of doezen kills over their career without any gem investment and with fairly minimal danger. A human commander is virtually never going to reach that goal.


First-off, I fail to see how Dominions 3 was 'dumbed down' compared to 2.



There are a number of reasons. The morale system is still broken and still autorouts commanders when their troops die, and still kills troops that don't have a province to retreat to, yet now it even affects beings that aren't even hurt by the attacks they are experiencing. Quickness no longer affects spells, so all those mages (and there are a lot of them) that cost extra gold for W1 no longer see any benefit from that extra path. Research is at the very difficult setting by default, so that pushing armies around the map, especially armies composed of undercosted sacred troops is the best strategy for the majority of the important turns of the game.


You sound like one of the players that would rather be playing Dominions 2 if it had an active modding community.



I would. Other than the obvious interface improvements and additional nations, I think that Dom2 was a better game than Dom3.


Many times you'll be fighting elite, possibly F9-blessed men,



Commanders are not just slightly more elite than your normal troops. They have such supposedly impressive abilities that you can only recruit a single one per month.


Expecting one elite soldier to fend off groups of three somewhat less elite soldiers for an entire battle might be asking too much.



If he can't, then there's no point in his existing in the first place. That's why people use independent commanders who are cheaper and just as good at standing behind the troops.


But you forget one thing, that commanders command. Commanders may be elite warriors, yes, but that's not what most people recruit them as.



That's a game mechanic convention, nothing else.


One can recruit battle mages instead of commanders, but then battle mages would be all you have.



I wasn't aware that recruiting battle mages prevented you from recruiting independent commanders to move your troops around, becaue that's what you're arguing here.


When it comes down to it, this entire argument is a matter of taste. The way I see it, human commanders aren't meant to be on the frontlines.



Then the elite versions might as well not exist for all the gameplay effect that they have. You get more survivability and more utility out of three independent commanders than a single black lord, and they both have the same cost.

[curtadams]

There seem to be some straw man arguments going on. Has ANYBODY suggested human melee commanders should be able to take on dragons, high-end summons, or real giants (not Jotunheim chaff) with a nontrivial chance of success? I can't find anybody who's said that but there seems to be a lot of people arguing human heros shouldn't get another 5-10 hp because they'd be able to trash dragons.

On a side note, it's an overdone fear anyway. My last effort at human melee commanders was with EA Ulm. With a forge bonus, earth, and 16 hp commanders, they are as good for human melee commanders as you'll ever see. And, against the human nations, scripted to fight along with the troops, with about 4 items each, they were acceptable and didn't die too much, although still distinctly inferior to commanders with artillery gear in terms of bang for the buck and the PITA factor of setting them up. However, even against Jotumheim chaff, they started getting squished in droves.

Based on my experience, 16 hp human melee commanders is about right - not 10. They survive well against human-level troops, and poorly against superhuman troops, which is about what a top fighter should do. I actually think they should be a sniff better than that, to make meleeing commanders more competitive with artillery commanders. 10 hp is way too little.

Part of the problem is that, in spite of some claims here the Dom melee system is not realistic. In particular, humans are far tougher than the game gives them credit for. A single dagger blow by an ordinary person on an unarmored man will usually kill in Dom - and that's way too easy. Even a sword blow will not usually really kill somebody although it will probably result in a nasty wound (i.e., an affliction). There are legit game reasons for this variation, mostly that fights don't take so long, and with disposable units the inaccuracies are pretty ignorable. But when we're talking about a kitted out melee commander, the inaccuracies are pretty noticeable. 15 to 20 hp would much better model how much punishment it takes to kill somebody - a single weapon blow, unreduced by armor, can, but usually won't.

[GwyrgynBlood]

UninspiredName said:
First-off, I fail to see how Dominions 3 was 'dumbed down' compared to 2. All I can think of off the top of my head is the inability to choose a Pretender's castle, (I'll admit, that was a neat feature, but I find it restricted the flow of the game. You shouldn't have to build an ultra-expensive citadel as a defensive precaution on the frontlines that will be abandoned soon enough, or a low-admin Mausoleum where you want to crank out former Independent Knights.) special dominions being replaced with ritual spells and new ages, (I'm sort of indifferent on this one, honestly) and auto-setting the taxes (Which I'll assume you weren't referring to).



I think the intension was to replace the castle choice with the awakening choice. I always thought having a 'national castle type' was pretty weird. I like the way Dom3 does it better personally, and I like the idea behind the choice of awakening. I think there's a big problem here due to balance though ... with Dormant being overpowered in a lot of cases.

In general, when one (or a few) simple strategies are the most effective, a game has a lot less depth and interest to it. But much of this is just balance issues right now, which can be fixed over time.



But you forget one thing, that commanders command. Commanders may be elite warriors, yes, but that's not what most people recruit them as. Most people just prefer recruiting elite warriors to serve as elite warriors. One can recruit battle mages instead of commanders, but then battle mages would be all you have. Maybe a few men as well, but it would be a small enough amount that it wouldn't be able to hold off a commander or two with any respectable amount of men. Commanders will always have that talent, which Battle Mages can never take.



I think part of the issue here is people not distinguishing between 'Troop Commanders' and 'Heroes' and 'Melee Commanders' enough. Being able to command a large number of troops doesn't necessarily mean you are any tougher than the troops you command. In the real world, troop commanders tend to stay out of the way of harm when possible so that they can keep the troops organized and issue orders.

Perhaps these 'troop commanders' who aren't anything special physically could stand to be improved in the commanding department. More commanders with the Standard ability, and perhaps increase the effect of the Standard (or otherwise increase the morale effect of 'troop commanders' as compared to other commanders, like mages or SCs).

Mages can make for powerful and effective battle mages. Troop commanders can lead large numbers of troops and inspire them. But there is no real melee commander unit to recruit.

I would see this as a difference in the races though ... humans would need to use other strategies because they couldn't use normal recruitable commanders as super melee units. They could rely more on summons or avoid using super melee units in general.

Differences in the races are a good thing, as long as it works. You have to consider Balance first of all... if a race performs poorly, then they need improvements. You also have to consider depth and width of strategy... a race that does exactly 1 thing from start to finish is boring, even if it is effective. A race who only has 1 potential game plan is limited, and probably will have a lot of bad matchups too.

'Heroes' are a different story, they are supposed to be heroic in some way. For them, they SHOULD be substantially better/stronger or more able to survive, depending on what makes them special.



curtadams said:
There seem to be some straw man arguments going on. Has ANYBODY suggested human melee commanders should be able to take on dragons, high-end summons, or real giants (not Jotunheim chaff) with a nontrivial chance of success? I can't find anybody who's said that but there seems to be a lot of people arguing human heroes shouldn't get another 5-10 hp because they'd be able to trash dragons.



Yes, I agree with this. Like I said, humans don't (and shouldn't) have recruitable melee commanders of considerable strength. But a hero should be someone who has been through a lot and is a lot more experience than an ordinary commander. You could, for example, think of a hero as a commander who already has 5+ stars of experience, and thus would already have his stat bonuses from those.

[curtadams]

UninspiredName said:
If magic was weakened any between Dominions 2 and 3, it's still pretty damned tough. You cite it as pretty much the #1 way of killing generals, summons are the real 'heroes' of Dominions, national spells shape nations, and six E3 mages and a small team of heavilly armored men can fend back 120 somewhat skilled and decently armored troops (Happened to me once, my Nagarishis and Bandars vs. Jomon's samurai. I ended up losing, but only due to sucky morale checks. Jomon had no more than 10 units left, which were commanders, by battle's end. They massacared my sleeping mages). I'll admit the researching is a hit, but I don't see how it was weakened aside from that.


I have to agree with GD that magic is considerably less important than before. Because resources were roughly doubled but the number of castle lab complexes wasn't you can recruit many more troops per mage and because of the supply increases (which are huge) you can field them too. Finally, the morale check changes seem to have made it harder to break troops. Before low-level artillery was useful because you could make and field enough to break a supply-limited army. Now it's pretty much hopeless until you've got a half-dozen castles because you've got twice as much to fight and you've got to dish out more per unit on top of that.

The best artillery strategy I've found so far is Pythium Communioned Smite. It was fun, sure, but even 4 communioned Theurg acolytes pitching Smite just didn't make a big difference with 200+ troops on the field. Only AOE or strong summons make a big difference now and prior to level 6, that's pretty much Strength of Giants, Bladewind, Wind Guide, Flaming Arrows, and a couple of level 4 summons like Fall Bears. Those mostly require gems, which mean you need to be searching too and in any case most nations can't generate a good supply of mages for any of those spells without path boosters, which means Con 4 or 6 too.

On top of that, your cost-benefit wasn't too good there. You lost 6 mages at about 180 = 1080 to kill 100 troops at, say, 15 = 1500. That's ahead, but not by much. Even if you can get some of the stronger early magic going it's possible to be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, as you experienced.

I play SP, against 10 or so computer opponents, and by the time I can start using the magic that really makes a difference the game is effectively over. Either I'm on the exponential growth curve with mostly vanilla armies or there are huge AI armies rampaging through my heartland and I've given up.

[UninspiredName]

The way that the system works though is that human combat mages can gather a couple of doezen kills over their career without any gem investment and with fairly minimal danger. A human commander is virtually never going to reach that goal.



But a human commander shouldn't be trying to reach that goal. They're an entirely different breed of unit. Asking for them to kill enemies in melee combat while being in minimal danger seems, again, ridiculous. Once, I had a skinshifter commander on the frontlines who racked up a large number of kills unequipped, but as I was playing as Patala it technically cost me 10 nature gems for the Lycanthropos Amulet, and either way it was certainly not safe for him. He even turned the tide (or so it seemed from the video) of a few 20-30 men per side skirmishes.


The morale system is still broken and still autorouts commanders when their troops die,



I'll go back to the Patala vs. Jomon battle from before, in which the enemy definitely fled. I even got the 'The armies of Jomon are routing' message up top, and the battle continued for maybe ten turns after that up until his commanders destroyed me. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if it was a glitch in that case, but I'm sure I've seen non-mage commanders linger while the entire remaining army flees.


yet now it even affects beings that aren't even hurt by the attacks they are experiencing.



I'll give you that one, as I haven't had any Dom2 experience with that sort of situation.


Quickness no longer affects spells, so all those mages (and there are a lot of them) that cost extra gold for W1 no longer see any benefit from that extra path.



It allows searching for water sites, which shouldn't be underestimated, as well as limited item forging and easier empowerment, which you can take for what you will.


Research is at the very difficult setting by default, so that pushing armies around the map, especially armies composed of undercosted sacred troops is the best strategy for the majority of the important turns of the game.



The ever-so-popular F9/W9 bless only really helps for melee combat. (and reaching ranged combatants, I suppose) They still wither under attack spells, most outstandingly Blade Wind, and projectiles, and other blesses have similar weaknesses. Still, I'll admit it can cut through independents like butter.



Commanders are not just slightly more elite than your normal troops. They have such supposedly impressive abilities that you can only recruit a single one per month.



It's not that they have such impressive abilities, just look at the many relatively crappy level-one priests that also take up that precious slot. I don't know about you, but I'd usually take a commander over one of them. It's that they're not run-of-the-mill military that stops mass-recruiting.


If he can't, then there's no point in his existing in the first place. That's why people use independent commanders who are cheaper and just as good at standing behind the troops.



Whether they have a point in existing or not depends on the commander in question. Some have standards, a couple are stealthy, some are priests, some have limited magic capability, and many have a much higher Leadership score than the generic human Commander.



That's a game mechanic convention, nothing else.



Perhaps, but it's a cruicial one. Unless you're suggesting they remove the Leadership mechanic from the game altogether, Leadership is at least somewhat valuable.


I wasn't aware that recruiting battle mages prevented you from recruiting independent commanders to move your troops around, becaue that's what you're arguing here.



Your arguments sort of suggested that battlemages were solidly 'better' than commanders. I'm simply saying that's not the case. I apologize if I read between the lines too much.


Then the elite versions might as well not exist for all the gameplay effect that they have. You get more survivability and more utility out of three independent commanders than a single black lord, and they both have the same cost.



I'm not familiar with the Black Lord unit, and you could very well be right. Still, there are plenty of other cases where human commanders can be more worthwhile than their independent counterparts.

EDIT:

On top of that, your cost-benefit wasn't too good there. You lost 6 mages at about 180 = 1080 to kill 100 troops at, say, 15 = 1500. That's ahead, but not by much. Even if you can get some of the stronger early magic going it's possible to be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers, as you experienced.



I didn't plan on them dying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
I was actually against another human in that game, and we had agreed for various reasons to call the game once we defeated CPU Abysia (Down to one province and outnumbered), so I decided to go out with a bang.

[Taqwus]

Hm. It's a valid point that, in terms of pure leadership, plain vanilla independent commanders may be significantly better deals than national ones.

~~~

Some ideas which would shift various balances:

Making most mages absolutely lousy commanders of normal troops -- perhaps only able to have a few bodyguards. Most have studied magic, not men.

For the same reason, giving troops led by mages less free staying-alive experience than troops led by more military-minded commanders. This could be made dependent on the normal leadership value. Better leaders drill more effectively. One might argue for similar effects on siege and patrol efficiency, or even supply usage; a great military leader would do more with the same army and logistical support, where one accustomed to alchemy and moldy tomes might be hamper the army with poor decisions (resulting in waste, confusion, et al).

A morale bonus for national troops (normal or capital site) being commanded by a national commander (normal, pretender, hero, or capital site); a morale penalty for national troops commanded by a non-national commander. This would reflect different confidence, pride, loyalty, et al.

As a side note, this could be further augmented by a bonus for being commanded by a national commander from the same home province.

[Cainehill]

Graeme Dice said:
I would. Other than the obvious interface improvements and additional nations, I think that Dom2 was a better game than Dom3.



Have to say I agree - Dom3 took a number of steps backwards, gameplay-wise. I (and others) have ranted enough about the age system, but some people like it. But the new shield mechanic is essentially broken (as per the mathematical analysis of shields vice air shield against missiles), the old flawed morale system was replaced with a new morale system that's bug-ridden as well as flawed (1), the removal of themes _diminished_ variety (2), and improvements to balance (such as the CB mods) were ignored, while long standing bugs and issues still haven't been addressed.

Instead, we got a bit more content that in _theory_ increased variety, but effectively reduced it by restricting each nation to a different age. (3)

Some of these things may be fixed in patches (or more likely, things that can be fixed will be fixed in mods), but given past history, the bugs and core issues seem unlikely to be fixed. (4)

1) Admittedly, the old morale system had its bugs too, as _sometimes_ troops kept fighting when all commanders had died and vice versa.

2) For instance, in Dom2, knowing that Marignon or Ermor was in a game didn't help you know _which_ Marignon/Ermor you'd be up against, as each has themes that drastically change the nation. Even without the major themes (Machaka, etc), a player could take Water Cult or some other theme that had an impact on how they'd play. So, instead of letting us finally choose those minor themes in conjunction with major themes (ie, Niefelheim or Carrion Woods with Water Cult, etc), the themes were eradicated.

3) Yes, it's possible to get nations from other eras into the same game, but it requires _map_ commands - hardly something that allows you to sneak in an unlikely variation like Return of the Raptors, since the game-host has to do it for you.

4) Supporting evidence, problems that have been around for _ages_ have never been addressed, such as the bug that sometimes kills immortals dead in friendly dominion, or the lack of _any_ battle summary for castle stormings.

[mivayan]

Graeme Dice said:
Then the elite versions might as well not exist for all the gameplay effect that they have. You get more survivability and more utility out of three independent commanders than a single black lord, and they both have the same cost.


Oh. *that* is a point. Perhaps something like +1 morale and attack for units under a commander with 100+ leadership? (80 base + one or two experience stars) would be neat?

Edit, in stead of doublepost:

curtadams said:
I have to agree with GD that magic is considerably less important than before. Because resources were roughly doubled but the number of castle lab complexes wasn't you can recruit many more troops per mage and because of the supply increases (which are huge) you can field them too.


Oh... that's right. Double gold income isn't *nearly* double amount of mages compared to dom2, at least for the first two dozen turns.

[PvK]

* I play Ulm frequently, and if my pretnender lacks Air-1, I typically find someone with Air-1 by the time I need to worry about lots of lightning.

* Heroes are not the only thing gained with Luck. Having heroes is not (or at most, not merely) an investment of 120 points I would otherwise have gained by taking Misfortune-3.

* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects. The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.

* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.

* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective? Divide most of those by 5 or so?

PvK


Graeme Dice said:

PvK said:
Usually either Ring of Tamed Lightning, or Copper Plate.



They are ulmish heroes, so there's no ring of tamed lightning until you've bought a huge amount of master smiths. The copper plate just means that they'll die to a couple of smites, or a fireball instead.


True (though heroes generally cost zero, and I tend to use both).



Heroes cost you a good portion of the 120 design points you'd otherwise get if you took misfortune 3.


I do see this as an issue for my own tastes, and am continuing my mod which rebalances the magic costs.



As I expected, you sound like one of the players who are happy with the dumbing down of Dominions 3 compared to Dom2 and the general reduction in the power of magic.


Whether it's "good enough" depends on what you want, and what tactics you use.



I want the elite commanders with no added equipment to be able to survive nearly any battle that their side wins. These are supposed to be experienced frontline soldiers, not rank and file cannon fodder.


Sounds like a nice mod to me. Though, I assume you will tweak the costs so a commander costs what? 20 x what a normal soldier costs?



The commander would see no change in cost at all, since that's the bare minimum to make them anywhere as useful as a battle mage.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

Maybe a new Heroes mod wherein a new unit could be created that is a thematically appropriate commander who costs much much more than what a normal commander would? Give him two heroic traits and double his cost, three and triple it.... Something like this Tank who sacrifices leadership ability for personal power, at extremely high expense:

#newmonster 2865
#name "Seasoned Champion"
#descr "Seasoned Champions have learned/developed unusual and exotic tricks/abilities/skills to ensure their battles are triumphant."
#ap 10
#mapmove 2
#hp 30
#prot 5
#size 2
#str 25
#enc 0
#att 10
#def 15
#prec 10
#mr 15
#mor 15
#gcost 300
#rcost 1
#armor "full plate mail"
#armor "full helmet"
#armor "tower shield"
#regeneration 10
#fear 0
#end

[PvK]

Cainehill said:
...
3) Yes, it's possible to get nations from other eras into the same game, but it requires _map_ commands - hardly something that allows you to sneak in an unlikely variation like Return of the Raptors, since the game-host has to do it for you.
...



It doesn't require a map command. It's a very easy mod to make to allow all nations from all eras in the same game. Isn't one posted to the public forums yet?

[Evil Dave]

Uh-Nu-Buh said:

#newmonster 2865
#name "Seasoned Champion"
#descr "Seasoned Champions have learned/developed unusual and exotic tricks/abilities/skills to ensure their battles are triumphant."




Why not just give him immortality and be done with it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

This thread is really confusing me. Forget notions of "realism" and "thematic correctness" for a second... what are people really asking for in terms of game mechanics? A recruited 30hp commander? Um, ok, a bunch of nations have those already. If that's how you want to play, play them, or make up a new faction.

"Human" is just a label on an arbitrary game piece, there's no reason to get hung up about it.

[Graeme Dice]

PvK said:
* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects.



It's a dumbing down because the part of the game that took practice, good decision making, and the ability to apply strategies, which was the magic part of the game was replaced by pushing armies around the map. That's something that the AI can manage to do.


The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.



So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages? Because that's where the balance currently lies. Magic doesn't become powerful enough to even be worth sending many nations' mages onto the battlefield till about level 5 research arrives, which is long after the balance of power in the game has been decided.


* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.



You are still labouring under your previous misunderstanding of the Dominions battle mechanics. Any unit that fights against a full grid square of size 2 units is fighting a 3 to 1 battle, even if it has two other friendly units in the same square. If the commander is to be useful, ie. be able to kill his own gold cost in units and still survive the battle, then he has to be able to survive against three to one odds.


* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective?



I want commanders to be as effective for their gold cost as mages are for their gold cost, and I'd leave the gold costs for heavy infantry alone, since they are probably about the right cost. Light infantry would have their price quartered to represent their actual battlefield utility.

[Graeme Dice]

Evil Dave said:
A recruited 30hp commander? Um, ok, a bunch of nations have those already. If that's how you want to play, play them, or make up a new faction.



Jotunheim is almost the only nation that has non-mage commanders with 30 hitpoints. The Jotun Herse would also be necessarily boosted in hitpoints and defense so that they would be proportionally as powerful and able to survive against troops as human commanders.

Of course, a better solution would probably be to boost hitpoints universally by about three times, leave weapon damage the same, and make the combats last for 150 turns. The only problem then is that you run into the overly granular fatigue system.

[PvK]

Clearly we have very different perceptions of this game series, Graeme.

Regardless of your perception, though, it is clearly a gross exaggeration to say that the magic part of the game was "replaced" by armies. Magic still seems to me far more powerful AND far more cost-effective than mundane armies in Dom 3, though the point were it gains a decisive advantage may be delayed more than in Dom 2. It's always been influenced by the scenario settings (nations, map, settings) but even moreso now that one can easily set the gold/resources/supplies on game creation. So if you like the Dom 2 pacing better, you can of course do things like set faster research, higher magic sites, or even lower the gold/res/supply multipliers.

Personally, I find the non-magical military side of the game to be quite interesting and prefer the magical and fantastic elements to be exceptions that gain their meaning by contrast to the mundane norm, and not by completely dominating it, as I thought was the case in vanilla Dom 2.

"So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages?"
- No, I'm increasing the gem costs and path requirements of the strong magical effects so that they require much more investment to amass, and thus become rarer.

As for your argument about how I "misunderstood" combat mechanics is unconvincing. Even with all attacks during a turn concentrating on one fighter at a time, it is still quite helpful to have guards for a commander. Also, as I've been playing with melee commanders and watching their combats for years, and mine generally do survive and achieve good success, while you say yours generally die, I would say that practical experience shows that proper placement/orders/guards definitely make a large difference in their survival rate.

PvK


Graeme Dice said:

PvK said:
* I don't see how Dominions 3 is a "dumbing down" of Dominions 2, unless you mean the reduced magic skill levels. And yes, I am happy with the somewhat reduced access to overpowered magical effects.



It's a dumbing down because the part of the game that took practice, good decision making, and the ability to apply strategies, which was the magic part of the game was replaced by pushing armies around the map. That's something that the AI can manage to do.


The mods I'm working on for my own tastes further "weaken" magic by making it cost appropriate amounts relative to other elements such as mortal armies, etc.



So you are increasing the power of magic and/or reducing the cost of mages? Because that's where the balance currently lies. Magic doesn't become powerful enough to even be worth sending many nations' mages onto the battlefield till about level 5 research arrives, which is long after the balance of power in the game has been decided.


* You seem to be still missing my point. Commanders generally do survive battles when their side wins, as long as they deploy sensibly so that they don't fight alone against a mob of foes.



You are still labouring under your previous misunderstanding of the Dominions battle mechanics. Any unit that fights against a full grid square of size 2 units is fighting a 3 to 1 battle, even if it has two other friendly units in the same square. If the commander is to be useful, ie. be able to kill his own gold cost in units and still survive the battle, then he has to be able to survive against three to one odds.


* If you mod commanders to be as effective as battle mages without changing their costs, then what about the foot soldiers, as especially the common troops, who will now be even less cost-effective?



I want commanders to be as effective for their gold cost as mages are for their gold cost, and I'd leave the gold costs for heavy infantry alone, since they are probably about the right cost. Light infantry would have their price quartered to represent their actual battlefield utility.

[Uh-Nu-Buh]

I dunno. One of the major points of mods seems to me to give the ability for individuals to tailor the game to their own desires. E.g. to modify your favorite nation/race to have 15hp--or even 30hp--commanders.

I don't see it making that big of a difference as long as each of the players in that particular game agree to the change/s.

With my previous offering of the "Seasoned Champion" I was just offering a concrete example of such, and proferring the view that for each "heroic" trait (such as hugely increased hp or def) the cost of such a recruitable unit be doubled. E.g. 30gp commander with 20hp would be 60gp; if you add a standard to him it becomes 120gp; if you then give him def 20 he costs 240gp; and then if you add minor regeneration he would cost 480gp. None of this is outside the bounds of the game, and none of it would ruin the game. Mods alter the flavor on an individual basis--which I feel is appropriate here. OTOH, if you were to double or triple the HP of all human commanders (as some have suggested), then you would fundamentally change the game itself.... It might be interesting, but then it would be "Dom IIIb" or "Dom IV: Warlords" or somesuch.

[PvK]

That explanation makes it clearer what you were suggesting, Uh-Nu-Buh, and it sounds quite reasonable to me when explained that way.

[HoneyBadger]

Rather than argue for or against humans with more/less hp, I thought I'd put forth an alternative system for dealing with hp. because I enjoy designing role-playing and game elements better than I do arguing about them (which I end up doing a lot anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ) I'm not sure what the copyright laws have to say about things posted to this forum, but to the extent the forum rules and the law allows, I'd like to retain the rights to the following:

Size: expanded, 1-12
hp: based on levels of size, each unit recieves 1-12 hp per size level. This means that a Hoburg unit (for instance, not taking into account any rebalancing necessary with size increase) can have between 1 and 12 hp. Very weak Hoburg children have 1 hp, while mighty Hoburg warriors with mutant genes and adamantium bones have 12. The same thing applies to size 12 titans, except that with every increase in size level, the unit gains a minimum hp base of their size PLUS the minimum hp they could otherwise have, thus size 12 titans have between 24 and 144 hp, while size 2 humans would have between 4 and 24 hp. and size 1 hoburgs actually have between 2 and 12 hp, despite what I just said in the above example. In addition:
Commanders, not because of their own personal, physical body, whether they're Alexander the Great, Ajax, Hercules, or Napoleon, but because of A: their status on the battlefield, B: the unseen but present national network of support they gain by being commanders-better equipment, better food, better triage, all that stuff, and C: because they are better able to both understand and to determine their place on the battlefield, have double hp. Example: a human commander could have between 6 and 48 hp.
This system allows for a wide range of variation between the very weak and the very strong up to heroic levels, allowing an extremely mighty buff human to go "toe-to-toe" with an extremely weak, scrawny, out of shape, but still size 12 titan, atleast in terms of HP. The greater size variation is there for personal preference, and to add a greater range of sizes for purposes of demonstrating that there's a big difference between what is very small and what is very large aka scale. Also, it helps this system cope, in terms of sheer numbers of hp and gradiants of size, with both a wide range of hps in the game and a wide range of units, and the effect they would have on a battlefield. Lastly, it enables the general advice that most races in the game have members which will vary in size by 1 level. Thus you can have humans from size 1 (Verne Troyer) to size 3 (Andre the Giant) and heroic abilities/disabilities could raise or lower size by a step without being unrealistic.

As far as legality goes, if Illwinter wants to use this system in Dominions, they are more than welcome to, and I'd probably be open to others using it as well. I just would appreciate it not blatantly being stolen, since it is something I came up with a long time ago, for my own gaming purposes, and am rather proud of. If you want to use it, feel free to let me know, (and I really have no problem with anyone using it as long as they don't plan to publish it, or plan to publish it without my name on it, and once again Illwinter/Dominions is free to use it regardless) and we'll talk about it. Thanks!

Edited because the first time through I didn't really understand the rule I was espousing, but now I think I do.

[Agrajag]

HoneyBadger, while your idea is generaly speaking a good one (thuogh very reminicent of D&D rules), I'd have to say that (again, sorry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif) it doesn't really fit into Dominions.
Such a huge variation as you are suggesting would simply make the game much too random, as you can't even estimate what unit you will get when you purchase it.
Furthermore, this will shift the balance of power much in the favour of mages, since a mage's HP isn't very important (sure, its nice to have more HP to survive a battle that has gone bad, but more often than not, your mages are sitting safely at the back of your army).
My idea as to how something similar could be made to fit into Dominions is to:
1) Keep all the stats exactly as they are right now.
2) Make it so each unit/commander recruited will have a random amount of HP between (HP + Size) and (HP - Size), when recruited.

Though either way, I'd rather see Dominions stay as it is right now, because I like knowing exactly the stats of the unit I'm about to get when I'm purchasing it :X

Also, as far as the idea goes thematically, while it seems to make sense to have such a wide range of HP because people can be really puny or really big and strong, practically, you'd expect anyone that has been recruited into the military and is being payed to fight will atleast go through some screening process and training, which should weed out "very weak hoburg children". Atleast in all grades of unit besides militia (which already has -1 hp IIRC) and PD (which traditionally is made up of the local population of fat unemployed people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif)

[HoneyBadger]

Agrajag, have you made it your mission in life to make my life more difficult? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

You're right, I guess I'd better explain it more thoroughly.

1: it doesn't have to be a totally random process, if you're going for big buff warriors, naturally they're going to be larger, the same generalizations can be made for smaller units, and ofcourse, most units are going to be "average" sized, and estimates of size can lead to exact numbers quite easily. Size levels don't translate into centimeters and kilograms, they're categories as in general, but defined, ranges. Sizes outside the "average"
for a race would be used only in special circumstances, like specific heroes for instance. This is what is meant by "general advice".
2: if it's got hp, it's reminiscent of D&D, it's pretty unavoidable, and I've played D&D for long enough to know that it's not really very reminiscent, you're thinking levels, not size categories, and I've put a cap on hp.
3: mages are already quite powerful, and a simple ruling that mage commanders don't get double hp because with all the magical periphenalia they carry around, and with the stress caused by, and the concentration necessary for, combat magic, it negates the double hp commanders normally get, and solves that problem
4: you're right, recruitment/training probably would in many to most circumstances weed out the weak, depending on the specific type of unit (obviously more in ultra-elite units than in province defense militia), which is why you'd want a variety of units in the game to take advantages of different levels of training/quality. This process could be used to explain and increase the usefulness of some otherwise pretty redundant units currently present in the game.
5: I'm ok with hp as they are now, and already said so, this is just a little fun project for me, but some controlled randomness (knowing that a specific soldier is going to have between 7 and 9 hp or a dragon within 135-150) can be a good thing because then there's less complaining by people about how weak humans are in the game, because some humans would now be stronger than others, which is more realistic, and would make battles more realistic.

[Agrajag]

Reply inside the quote and in bold


HoneyBadger said:
Agrajag, have you made it your mission in life to make my life more difficult? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
No, but since I've already "upset" you twice, I promise that the next idea you come up with that I will like, will receive a full and comprehensive response praising each and every part of your idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You're right, I guess I'd better explain it more thoroughly.

1: it doesn't have to be a totally random process, if you're going for big buff warriors, naturally they're going to be larger, the same generalizations can be made for smaller units, and ofcourse, most units are going to be "average" sized, and estimates of size can lead to exact numbers quite easily. Size levels don't translate into centimeters and kilograms, they're categories as in general, but defined, ranges. Sizes outside the "average"
for a race would be used only in special circumstances, like specific heroes for instance. This is what is meant by "general advice".
A nice explanation of the size system, I'm having trouble seeing how relevant it is, though :X
If the important part of this point is "it doesn't have to be a totally random process", then I think my suggestion of having HP= rnd()*(2*Size) - Size + BaseHP is it pretty nice way.
I suppose that having the range of HPs as you suggest and having it distribute normally with a standard deviation of Size would work as well (forgive me if I got the statistics expressions wrong, I've only learned statistics in Hebrew, and quite a while ago as well)

2: if it's got hp, it's reminiscent of D&D, it's pretty unavoidable, and I've played D&D for long enough to know that it's not really very reminiscent, you're thinking levels, not size categories, and I've put a cap on hp.
Yep, I was thinking of levels http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

3: mages are already quite powerful, and a simple ruling that mage commanders don't get double hp because with all the magical periphenalia they carry around, and with the stress caused by, and the concentration necessary for, combat magic, it negates the double hp commanders normally get, and solves that problem
Actually, what I'm saying is that it doesn't.
Even at half HP compared to other commanders, mages would still be more reliable, since their HP is almost meaningless
Given the choice between 15-150 HP's of units and 1 mage, I'd choose the mage almost every time. The only time I'd choose the units in this case is as meatshields for my mages.
This means that what you are suggesting will probably require some sort of magic rebalance, or atleast an increase in mages cost.

4: you're right, recruitment/training probably would in many to most circumstances weed out the weak, depending on the specific type of unit (obviously more in ultra-elite units than in province defense militia), which is why you'd want a variety of units in the game to take advantages of different levels of training/quality. This process could be used to explain and increase the usefulness of some otherwise pretty redundant units currently present in the game.
I'm not sure how this point supports your suggestion rather than counter it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

5: I'm ok with hp as they are now, and already said so, this is just a little fun project for me, but some controlled randomness (knowing that a specific soldier is going to have between 7 and 9 hp or a dragon within 135-150) can be a good thing because then there's less complaining by people about how weak humans are in the game, because some humans would now be stronger than others, which is more realistic, and would make battles more realistic.
Which is more along the lines of the ammendment I suggested in my post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



EDIT: must have gotten a bold mixed up somewhere.

[HoneyBadger]

Also, Agrajag, I think PD is something along the lines of National Guard/Standing Militia. I doubt too many midieval burgs successfully employed the fat and lazy, primarily because the fat were almost 100% necessarily wealthy and would at best have served as commanders. Not many of those would have been lazy if they were successful, laziness would have been a trait of some of the landed nobility and the clergy, if anyone. Real PD would be English Longbowmen with arms literally deformed by the musculature necessary to use their bows, or tough freemen (of which their were few, and the ones serving as town guards would have been specialized to the task, alert and energetic (because the alternative is being impaled by sneaky Mongols while they sell your children) and in good physical shape). The ones with the wide, low range of hp. would have been levees. Others with wide ranges would be dynastic warriors where soldiers serve as a duty for generations in the same family, as landed knights etc. Hp. ranges would depend a lot more on honor, rights, duties, and that kind of thing, in a feudal society than they would one's "place" in society, because either you're poor and weak and diseased, and probably won't survive without being rich or atleast gifted with noble/religious rank and/or an education, or you're tough enough to overcome the conditions of midieval society, which weren't very good for anyone. Now, it's true that the levees would be used for PD, but after you buy the first 20, you're dealing with a healthier class of people, because you're dishing out major loot, and only a complete idiot is going to spend that kind of gold on feeding fat lazy peasants who could be working their fat off in the fields. Don't forget, you're talking societies of fanatical people who are willing to kill, die, and sacrifice by way of flaying 10 year old virgin girls, in the name of their god. They're not gonna let potential fieldhands just stand around holding a spear, especially when the national welfare program is a visit by your local necromancer.

[Agrajag]

HoneyBadger said:
Also, Agrajag, I think PD is something along the lines of National Guard/Standing Militia. I doubt too many midieval burgs successfully employed the fat and lazy, primarily because the fat were almost 100% necessarily wealthy and would at best have served as commanders. Not many of those would have been lazy if they were successful, laziness would have been a trait of some of the landed nobility and the clergy, if anyone. Real PD would be English Longbowmen with arms literally deformed by the musculature necessary to use their bows, or tough freemen (of which their were few, and the ones serving as town guards would have been specialized to the task, alert and energetic (because the alternative is being impaled by sneaky Mongols while they sell your children) and in good physical shape). The ones with the wide, low range of hp. would have been levees. Others with wide ranges would be dynastic warriors where soldiers serve as a duty for generations in the same family, as landed knights etc. Hp. ranges would depend a lot more on honor, rights, duties, and that kind of thing, in a feudal society than they would one's "place" in society, because either you're poor and weak and diseased, and probably won't survive without being rich or atleast gifted with noble/religious rank and/or an education, or you're tough enough to overcome the conditions of midieval society, which weren't very good for anyone. Now, it's true that the levees would be used for PD, but after you buy the first 20, you're dealing with a healthier class of people, because you're dishing out major loot, and only a complete idiot is going to spend that kind of gold on feeding fat lazy peasants who could be working their fat off in the fields. Don't forget, you're talking societies of fanatical people who are willing to kill, die, and sacrifice by way of flaying 10 year old virgin girls, in the name of their god. They're not gonna let potential fieldhands just stand around holding a spear, especially when the national welfare program is a visit by your local necromancer.


Well, this being a purely thematic discussion, I'll just say that my image of PD is just the kind of guys that are paid to sit on their arses all day long, looking out of their tower for potential threats. But mostly just sitting on their arses since they never actually get to fight anything.
Furthermore, they eat all the standard military issued food (known to be very nutritious), and supplement it with some ale/beer and roast at the local inn.
So yeah, they are fat and lazy, probably dumb as well. (else, why would they be in the Provincial Defence and not the actual military?)
I'm currently reading a book that employs a mildly appropriate description of such men: "Barracks Rats" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Arralen]

Graeme Dice said:
It doesn't matter if you give him bodyguards, or supporting troops, since melee attacks are effectively all concentrated on the most survivable unit in a square.



Where did you get this from?
I haven't found it in neither the Dom2 nor the Dom3 manual, nor did Kristoffer or Johan ever mention this, AFAIK.
And my own observations tell me otherwise, too.


In a single combat round, every single attack will be dealt to him (or to friendlies in the same square until they are dead) until he dies and they move onto the next target.



This is a contradictory statement - in itself and therefore to everything you're posting here.

In fact, I think I have empirical evidence that at least the target of all attacks vs. a square is chosen randomly, if not every single target.
Which one from the following units would you consider "most survivable unit"?:

Light Infantry #29
HP 10, Prot 15/8, Def 13 (actual fat in the test battle: 8, therefore no reduction)

Heavy Infantry #40
HP 10, Prot 17/14, Def 13 (actual fat: 6, no penalty)

Jaguar Warrior #727
HP 12, Prot 6/7, Def 13, regen 1 (actual fat: 4, no penalty)

[Sheap]

I don't really understand what Graeme is saying about attacks concentrated on the "most survivable unit" in a square. The closest thing to that I can think of is that attacks are targeted randomly until everyone has died except the toughest unit, then the toughest unit is hit for the remainder of the round. Which means that the toughest unit receives most of the attacks because he is left after everyone else has died and there is no one else for the enemies to hit.

This hardly counts as needing to survive 3:1 odds. Even if both your other friendly troops are killed with a single attack each, the chaff factor lowers your odds to at worst 2:1, and that is only if the enemy troops are capable of killing yours very easily. In reality most of the time the difference in infantry will not be so dramatic (your troops might even be better than the enemy) and the friendly infantry will significantly increase the survivability of the commander.

[HoneyBadger]

First reply:
You haven't upset me Agrajag, I was being sarcastic on the first occasion, and teasing on the second.

I've tried twice now to make sense of your hp formula, and I can't, but I'm tired, so maybe it makes sense. I do remain unconvinced that it's simpler to understand than my idea, but it may work as well. As it is, it might as well be written in Yiddish, worse infact because atleast I comprehend how the Yiddish language operates, more or less, and can consult outside sources.
The choice of 12 sizes isn't meant to be relevant beyond being a nice range, a perfect number, and the cultural relevance of the number 12. It's just a good number to settle on, one most people are familiar with from elementary mathematics, and easy to divide.

As per mages, I'll accept that mages are powerful, but I fail to see how my hp. system, even in relation your explanation, can be blamed for this. By cutting mages' hp. in half in comparison to all other units, I think I've done my part to reduce their power. Since you seem to be saying that it doesn't matter how many hp. mages have anyway, then what difference does it make if they have more or less total under a new system, if that system gives them a relative total of half all other commanding units?

My next statement (4) was written to agree with your point and to expand it. I don't feel it's necessary that it exist to support my suggestion, it doesn't implode it in any way, though, and serves to illustate my point that randomness can be used subjectively and in moderation, and that my system can simulate this as well or better than another.

The reason your hp + size, hp - size idea doesn't make a lot of sense is because it doesn't have any reason behind it, there's no system to support it. You're picking size to base calculations on hp without having a reason for picking size. You might as well pick haircolor and base a number off that. You could give them all levels and it would be the same D&D logic. It's the same argument that a very tough human should have half again as many hp, or double hp, or whichever random percentile of hp the arguer feels would be right, and that's all it is, a feeling. Size 1 units would have a randomness of -1 or +1, that's not enough of a variety to illustrate anything, it doesn't say anything about that unit, it's just arbitrary. 6 hp variation on a very large unit amounts to the same or less difference. Rather than having the opportunity to compare humans against each other, you're just bringing it down to size again. It's just not a very useful tool because not very much can be done with it, and what can be done, is done to every single unit. With my system, you can break down races into subgroups. You can do weak groups, elite groups, ultra-elite, groups with a broad range of hp, groups who all have the same hp, anything you like. With your idea, you've basically got slightly weak, average, slightly tough. Larger creatures, for no good reason, have a much broader range of differences than small creatures, while at the same time those differences mean very little and are purely based on size and randomness. It's far less in the "style" of Dominions than my idea because it's a slanted oversimplification. Sometimes simple is just not best.

Second reply:
Agrajag, PD is thematic, but you also have to look at it from a pragmatic perspective if you want to find any facts, or if not facts then sense. The dumb ones (or the ones who don't have a real choice in the matter) are the ones leaving their families and farms to the mercy of whatever comes along. Maybe, like the Vikings, they don't own enough farmland to prosper and are tough people with excellent wartime skills and a need to go out and build up their gene-pool, or like the Mongols, they're a nomadic people anyway, have a chip on their shoulder, and find warfare and conquest far easier than farming. Anybody just out there fighting is doing it for someone else's glory, because they have to, because it's their job, and because they don't have the skills or the inner strength and stoicness to be farmers, or the brains and capital to be merchants. The only really smart soldiers are the ones who have something to gain from conquest, and they aren't that smart because they're taking a big risk in the first place. People back then, atleast poor people with no say, like what would make up your version of PD, went to war for 3 reasons: 1 because they had to, 2 because they were ordered by their liege and they had to, or 3 because they didn't have families, didn't own any property, didn't have any peacetime skills, and they had to. But mostly, they did it because they had to, not because someone was paying them to. The mercenaries were either big-contract guys working for wealthy empires like Carthage, or they were roving bands of homeless people who happened to pick up military skills in the process of preying on farmers. PD would be made up of older, well-established citizens with property, their first and second sons, and those men-at-arms they would hire to protect their property, which men would not be fat and lazy, or the homeland would be at risk and money-valuable solid currency-would be wasted. Your fat, lazy types would run away or be slaughtered.

Whole networks of highly disciplined agents would be minding the borders of a well-established, well-run nation, especially if you consider that in Dom, they wouldn't be on the alert just for wolves or human raiders, but all manner of magic, spells and beings. You're looking at things from a modern perspective at small kingdoms in midieval times that happened to be run sloppily, not at nations like Rome, Greece, and China where being on the alert for enemies was very big business indeed. In Greece and Rome for instance-atleast early Rome, you had to be a soldier just to own land, and a landowner just to be a citizen, and most of those citizens, including Socrates, served in wartime and didn't just suddenly forget how to be soldiers, sit around and get fat. In China, in 300 years, the Great Wall was only overrun 36 times, that's pretty good considering how many miles the Great Wall runs. In a smaller kingdom, providing the ruler wasn't completely inbred, there would be a citizen defense force, well-maintained and trained on a regular basis, and most if not all citizens, serfs, nobles, peasants, everyone who wasn't an outright bottom-of-the-barrel slave, would contribute to that force, because the threat of destruction would be great. All you need are a few dozen horsemen with torches going through your fields at harvest-time and you're burying your kids for Christmas, providing they don't get eaten by the wolves, lions, leopards, coyotes, bears, etc. that your fat and lazy guards let run loose.

I'll probably be suggesting that PD become more complex, once I work out a solid system, and I look forward to you complaining about it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Agrajag]

HoneyBadger said:
I've tried twice now to make sense of your hp formula, and I can't, but I'm tired, so maybe it makes sense. I do remain unconvinced that it's simpler to understand than my idea, but it may work as well. As it is, it might as well be written in Yiddish, worse infact because atleast I comprehend how the Yiddish language operates, more or less, and can consult outside sources.

The choice of 12 sizes isn't meant to be relevant beyond being a nice range, a perfect number, and the cultural relevance of the number 12. It's just a good number to settle on, one most people are familiar with from elementary mathematics, and easy to divide.
The only number 12 divides by that 6 doesn't, is 12.
This would also add a lot of numbers that you may want to divide by, but can't.
Beyond that, the problem with 12 sizes is just that it would require a lot of work to be fitted into Dominions http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
You'd have to:
A) Create a new forumla for supplies. Possibly changing every single supply item to reflect this change.
B) Go over almost every single "water breathing" item and double its water breathing value.
C) Partially rewrite the combat simulator (since a single tile supports up to 6 size)

As per mages, I'll accept that mages are powerful, but I fail to see how my hp. system, even in relation your explanation, can be blamed for this. By cutting mages' hp. in half in comparison to all other units, I think I've done my part to reduce their power. Since you seem to be saying that it doesn't matter how many hp. mages have anyway, then what difference does it make if they have more or less total under a new system, if that system gives them a relative total of half all other commanding units?
Fine, then let me explain it again:
With the system you suggest, you make every single unit besides mages much less good, since these units become much less reliable and desirable to recruit.
Mages however, are unaffected, because the desirability of a mage rarely has anything to do with his HP, but depends mostly on what paths he has, and partly on encumberance and age.

The reason your hp + size, hp - size idea doesn't make a lot of sense is because it doesn't have any reason behind it, there's no system to support it. You're picking size to base calculations on hp without having a reason for picking size. You might as well pick haircolor and base a number off that. You could give them all levels and it would be the same D&D logic. It's the same argument that a very tough human should have half again as many hp, or double hp, or whichever random percentile of hp the arguer feels would be right, and that's all it is, a feeling. Size 1 units would have a randomness of -1 or +1, that's not enough of a variety to illustrate anything, it doesn't say anything about that unit, it's just arbitrary. 6 hp variation on a very large unit amounts to the same or less difference. Rather than having the opportunity to compare humans against each other, you're just bringing it down to size again. It's just not a very useful tool because not very much can be done with it, and what can be done, is done to every single unit. With my system, you can break down races into subgroups. You can do weak groups, elite groups, ultra-elite, groups with a broad range of hp, groups who all have the same hp, anything you like. With your idea, you've basically got slightly weak, average, slightly tough. Larger creatures, for no good reason, have a much broader range of differences than small creatures, while at the same time those differences mean very little and are purely based on size and randomness. It's far less in the "style" of Dominions than my idea because it's a slanted oversimplification. Sometimes simple is just not best.
1) No, in your idea HP is based solely on size, which would mean the difference between different "elite levels" of units is their size. So are more elite units now suddenly bigger in size? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/confused.gif
Furthermore, Size as variation does make sense, because usually the bigger the general size of the race, the more variation there will be. Mice differ in length by mere CM, Giants can differ in height by meters.

Second reply:
Agrajag, PD is thematic, but you also have to look at it from a pragmatic perspective if you want to find any facts, or if not facts then sense. The dumb ones (or the ones who don't have a real choice in the matter) are the ones leaving their families and farms to the mercy of whatever comes along. Maybe, like the Vikings, they don't own enough farmland to prosper and are tough people with excellent wartime skills and a need to go out and build up their gene-pool, or like the Mongols, they're a nomadic people anyway, have a chip on their shoulder, and find warfare and conquest far easier than farming. Anybody just out there fighting is doing it for someone else's glory, because they have to, because it's their job, and because they don't have the skills or the inner strength and stoicness to be farmers, or the brains and capital to be merchants. The only really smart soldiers are the ones who have something to gain from conquest, and they aren't that smart because they're taking a big risk in the first place. People back then, atleast poor people with no say, like what would make up your version of PD, went to war for 3 reasons: 1 because they had to, 2 because they were ordered by their liege and they had to, or 3 because they didn't have families, didn't own any property, didn't have any peacetime skills, and they had to. But mostly, they did it because they had to, not because someone was paying them to. The mercenaries were either big-contract guys working for wealthy empires like Carthage, or they were roving bands of homeless people who happened to pick up military skills in the process of preying on farmers. PD would be made up of older, well-established citizens with property, their first and second sons, and those men-at-arms they would hire to protect their property, which men would not be fat and lazy, or the homeland would be at risk and money-valuable solid currency-would be wasted. Your fat, lazy types would run away or be slaughtered.

Whole networks of highly disciplined agents would be minding the borders of a well-established, well-run nation, especially if you consider that in Dom, they wouldn't be on the alert just for wolves or human raiders, but all manner of magic, spells and beings. You're looking at things from a modern perspective at small kingdoms in midieval times that happened to be run sloppily, not at nations like Rome, Greece, and China where being on the alert for enemies was very big business indeed. In Greece and Rome for instance-atleast early Rome, you had to be a soldier just to own land, and a landowner just to be a citizen, and most of those citizens, including Socrates, served in wartime and didn't just suddenly forget how to be soldiers, sit around and get fat. In China, in 300 years, the Great Wall was only overrun 36 times, that's pretty good considering how many miles the Great Wall runs. In a smaller kingdom, providing the ruler wasn't completely inbred, there would be a citizen defense force, well-maintained and trained on a regular basis, and most if not all citizens, serfs, nobles, peasants, everyone who wasn't an outright bottom-of-the-barrel slave, would contribute to that force, because the threat of destruction would be great. All you need are a few dozen horsemen with torches going through your fields at harvest-time and you're burying your kids for Christmas, providing they don't get eaten by the wolves, lions, leopards, coyotes, bears, etc. that your fat and lazy guards let run loose.
Now, are we talking history of fantasy here?
1st of all, not all nations are Rome, Greece or China, so you can't apply that model to everyone. And considering how Ermor (the equivilant of Rome in dom) has excellent PD, the distinction can be quite clear.
Beyond that... The more standard image of provincial defence in fantasy books (remeber, Dominions is fantasy), is that of the local schmoe doing guard duty.
Mostly this is because of several reasons:
1) All the good warriors have been sent to war, leaving only the weaker and dumber schmoes that can't do much behind.
2) The local population is made up of farmers, they can't afford anything better some renegade rouge turned mercenary. This can be seen in the game as well, your rich capital starts out well defended (25 PD), and also by how PD is purchased in a small, one-time cost which is all the farmers can afford (And can also be seen by the fact that PD is made up of the weaker soldiers of that nation, and usually is very lousy.)
3) Medieval, lamely run countries (as you more or less refer to them) are pretty much the model of every one of the more common fantasy books, so it makes sense to follow that model.
4) PD is all the force that that poor province could muster to defend itself against an attack, not some uber-elite force that likes to hang 'round back.
5) Also remember that the local population of the province usually isn't of the same type as the conquering nation, which can be seen by the difference between troops you can build in your capital, and the units the local province can recruit. The PD however is made up of troops from your home province, which would mean the guys sent over for guard duty must be the lowest quality of all, these are the guys that were refused into the regular military that is already stretched trying to conquer the entire world (or atleast all of the victory points http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif)


I'll probably be suggesting that PD become more complex, once I work out a solid system, and I look forward to you complaining about it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I'll only complain about it if I wont like http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Also, writing my post gave me the idea that maybe PD should depend on the local populace rather than the conquering nation's forces. Probably except in the case of a fortress in that province which allows recruitment of national troops.
Maybe if you put that in your idea I'll like it better http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Epaminondas]

I just want to announce that my copy finally arrived! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[NTJedi]

Epaminondas said:
I just want to announce that my copy finally arrived! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Now you have a very good reason to never work again!

[HoneyBadger]

Sorry it's taken so long for me to respond, Agrajag, but I've had the worst cold. I'm not going to copypaste the whole argument and take your statements apart line by line because the modifiers have asked that we keep that sort of thing to a minimum.

First of all, Agrajag, randomness doesn't make a unit better or worse by itself. All you're saying is that you prefer cloned robots in sterile environments over dynamic models. So would I if I were fighting a war with them, but that doesn't mean such a thing makes the game better in any way. One of the best parts of this game is that unpredictible things can and do happen.
Yes, Mages have abilities which are not Hp dependent, my suggestion to combat this might be to make some spells cost hp to cast. Regardless, you're not making a valid argument because the problem with Mages exists now as you state it, and my Hp system doesn't affect it, other than changing something unrealistic into something more realistic. Eggs-your sterile environment where all the baby chicks look alike-must be broken to make a good omelette.

Second of all, yes, 12 sizes would take more work to implement, because you'd be doubling the scale of the combat square. That would both cause problems and create opportunities.
12 divides by 4. It divides by half, thirds, fourths, sixths, and twelths, which makes it more useful than the number 6, and infinitely better than the number 10, which I'm glad to see Dom makes minimal use of. It's just a suggestion though, to reiterate: done for personal preference and because it provides nice scaling.

No, in my idea, Hp are not based solely on size, which is why I allow for a broad range of Hp at every size level to reflect various degrees of toughness at every level of size. If I suggested that units have from 1 to 12 hp depending on their size level, instead of per size level, with the minimum Hp modified by size level, then your statement would be correct.
Elite units would probably fall between 9 and 11 hp per size level. The range of randomness should be quite small due to the selection process you mentioned earlier, and because I agree that, generally speaking, more expensive, resource-intensive units should be more predictible (but not totally, automatonically predictible).

Ok, here is where you are the most incorrect, I feel. Dom is fantasy, yes, but it's not the kind of pulp fantasy you're referring to. It's based on real-world history and real-world mythology, as well as creative fantasy, which is different than elves and dwarves and dragons in different lewd combinations. The "fantasy books" it's based on, if any, are H.P. Lovecraft's works, the Mabinogion, the Bible, the Prose and Poetic Eddas of Snorri Sturluson, the Egyptian and Tibetan Books of the Dead, the Illiad and the Odyssey, etc. So, while not all nations are Rome or Greece or China, all of the nations in the game are meant to be every bit as valid as a Rome a Greece or a China, which means they should be portrayed as realistic and sensible to a competitive degree. And for that matter, quite a lot of the nations aren't medieval. I dislike the word "fantasy" used to discribe this game and related areas of interest, anyway, I feel it's not only incorrect, but demeaning. Even Tolkien, who started the whole pulp fantasy phenomenon (with help and influence from H. Ryder Haggard, R.A. Howard, H.P Lovecraft, C.S. Lewis and L. Frank Baum, among others) was-along with his peers-a great deal more creative and energetic than much if not most of the derivitive drivel that came after. It's a good thing there were authors like Michael Moorcock and Fritz Leiber writing fantasy, or I might have become an accountant or a lawyer.

[Lord_Bob]

I know this is an old topic that I am resurrecting, but instead of making the "Human Heroes" more powerfull.... why not make more of them? Certainly there are more humans than Giants, so why not more human heroes? Make the "Heroe Event" for the "lesser" heroes more common???? OR Make it for more heroes. Like a squad of Human Heroes show up, instead of one ancient vampire. There defense and attack should be bumped up a lot though. It's not like that will stop them from dying.

"And he killed a man with every stroke... until the arrow hit him in the eye."