Maenads and siege

[Kuritza]

Btw, is it working as intended that Pangaea's castles are impossible to siege due to constant supply of maenads? In one of our games winner couldnt take Pangaea's capitol till the end of the game (needless to say, it stalled him greatly). Pangaea simply skipped turns and survived until the end of game, it doesnt seem right.

[Sombre]

Well there's always domkill, massing of siege equipment, remote spells to clear them out, massing of flying troops and high str troops,...

[Wyatt Hebert]

I'm curious as to how many Pans with what Turmoil scale it required to stave off the entire army. Granted, it will take, what, 11 turns for each Maenad to die, but it's still interesting.

What nation was the winner playing? I'm curious that he couldn't manage Gate Cleavers, Siege Golems, or other options for breaking the gate down.

And domkill would be a very good option, I _think_. Even dropping the Turmoil scale there would help a lot.

Wyatt Hebert

[thejeff]

What do you mean by 11 turns for each Maenad to die?

Disease due to starvation? With enough supply bonus due to nature magic and items, it may not be an issue.

[Kuritza]

Winner was Bandar Log, and he had Turmoil scale himself so he couldnt turn off the maenads income. I believe there were some dryads preaching inside as well. He said he was throwing everything he could at the walls, elephants and such, but maenads were repairing it faster anyway.

[Rytek]

Why didnt he mind hunt every weenie inside of the castle?

[Gandalf Parker]

Pangaea has a hard time "out in the field" handling armies. If their balance is being able to party hard in a sieged castle then that might not be bad.

Does the other common Pangaea option, carrion vines, have a like benefit?

[Baalz]

Yeah, in Afterthough it was quite amusing, Pangea went AI about halfway in due to being smushed between 3-4 hungry neighbors and the smallish empire (Argatha) that took their capital couldn't manage to break down the castle walls...but nobody ever got around to eating Argatha up. By the end of the game Pangea had one of the larger army graphs in the game despite being effectively eliminated relatively early. I don't know that this is so much a Pangean advantage but more an aggravation once they've already lost.

[Jazzepi]

Yeah I'm not really sure why I stayed in that game so long, but I enjoyed snatching up Pangea's capital.

It's funny, because I had 6 mages ready to spam blade wind and out of all the people sieging Pangea's different fortresses I think I was in the best position to take them. I couldn't start breaking down the walls until I got about 400-500 troops in that territory. I never did manage to knock them down.

Jazzepi

[Kuritza]

So, let me clarify myself.
I have no problem with Pangaea being hard to defeat and such. After all, having besieged enemy's capitol, you cripple him hard enough already. But its rather unfair for Pangaea's enemies - imagine being spawned close to aggressibe Pangaea, defeating it and stalemating for the rest of the game. Pangaea denies you a chance to win, simply by being there. Mind hunt may be not an option if Pangaea was clever enough to hire a lizard shaman (mind hunt isnt as uncounterable as VotD, har har).
I really felt for these monkeys. I think these maenads shouldnt spawn inside a besieged castle - they cannot get inside, after all, its besieged. Maybe let the spawned maenads attack the sieging army instead? It would be quite thematical - crazed maenads throwing themselves on these between them and the music that drives them with extasy.

[Jazzepi]

While I honestly don't think this problem is really an issue worth addressing, Maenad's could always have their status changed to mindless so that they'd count for 1/10th of their strength in defending the castle.

Jazzepi

[Shovah32]

Well we all know how mindless women are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Unless, of course, the Maenads were coming from the population in the walls. Besides, it's a game... some inconsistencies with 'realistic' behavior must be expected.

I truly fail to see the problem. It was a good point about the supplies being generated keeping some of the Maenads fed, but they WILL start starving. I'm actually curious what the break even point per Pan per Turmoil scale is.

Kuritza, it seems the problem you have is that it takes too many resources to actually take out Pangaea's capital under the conditions given, at least in multiplayer, i.e. it _could_ be done, but the amount of resources required at the stage it might be required is too high.

I am curious why you believe the investment too high. I am also curious why you say starting next to Pangaea would mean someone loses in MP (the same argument about double-bless rushes come to mind, btw). It seems to me that the argument is the resource drain required to keep them bottled up is enough to make you lose. Soo... what? It's rather interesting to me that people might not worry too much about Pangaea when they're active, but they'll make you lose in a siege?

Please, educate me as to what the issue really is?

Wyatt Hebert

[Jazzepi]

Actually, I'm really curious on how long they can maintain the upkeep on the Pan mages. I think you only get half the income of a territory that is under seige, so if you just drove the unrest up in their capital province with taxes at 200%, and it was the only one they had left, you could both starve out the maenads faster by making them disband the pan mages (which naturally provide food) AND cut off the supply of new maenads by getting rid of the pans.

Jazzepi

[Kuritza]

Wyatt, I just described the situation from one of our games. Monkeys defeated Pangaea, Pangaea turtled in its capitol and started skipping turns.
After that, monkeys couldnt neither defeat Pangaea nor leave it alone. Isnt it a lose-lose situation? With all the monkeys busy at the siege, he couldnt claim territories from other players or participate in politics other than by trading.
Frankly, when you win against any other nation, you get extra gem income etc. When you win against Pangaea, you get a headache. This is what I was saying.

[Jazzepi]

I still think my idea of setting the taxes up and running up the unrest would work.

Jazzepi

[Wyatt Hebert]

My point, Kuritza, was that I am curious why extra effort could not be devoted to cracking the capital. _THAT_ was my point. I am not terribly conversant with multiplayer, but my thought was that, due to MP issues, diverting the resources required to crack the capital would spell suicide on other fronts.

I would also point out that there are other nations this could easily be duplicated with. EA Rl'yeh, with enough polypal mothers, could duplicate this feat, I _think_, though their spawns may be mindless.

Another curiosity is how many Pans does it take to hold off <=500 piece Bandar Log army. I'm thinking that Pangaea must be able to expand quickly to be able to afford a Pan each turn, and so hitting them quickly may be the best way to avoid this problem.

How quickly can a nation take an opponent's capital in MP?

Jazzepi: I noticed in Dom2 that the only income you got while being sieged was Tax%*Castle Admin, whereas the besieger got the rest. Dropping the prov taxes to zero removes all income the player would get from the province. Unsure if this carried over as is to Dom3.

Wyatt Hebert

[Jazzepi]

I just tested this. Indeed if you drop the tax rate to 0 while sieging a castle that castle provides ZERO income for the one who owns it.

Honestly, I think this should solve all the problems of "oh I sieged the last capital but now I can't finish it off".

Without gold you can't maintain the Pans, or any commanders for that matter.

Jazzepi

[thejeff]

You get any income from a besieged province? I thought the besieger got it all?

It does raise the question of how those Pans were being paid. I've never really run into that serious a cash flow problem.

[Kuritza]

Hmmm. It seems an ok way of dealing with Pans... but will they really disband? I'm not sure how disbanding works. Isnt it possible that maenads will disband first instead?... slower than they are generated?

[Hadrian_II]

Maenads are cost 0 units, so they dont cost upkeep and should stay for all eternity, even when no gold is around. Pans on the otherhand are 350 gold non sacred units, and cost 23 gold upkeep per turn. (but i heard somewhere that leaders dont desert)

[Kuritza]

>> (but i heard somewhere that leaders dont desert)
In which case upkeep isnt a problem for Pangaea and this can really last forever. Pans wont starve, maenads can starve and die all they want as long as they keep spawning.
Besieging army cannot move, hence winner gets stuck instead of reaping the rewards of his victory.

[thejeff]

So the solution is to either break the doors down quick with a ton of troops and/or siege items early, before the numbers get too high.

Or go for a dominion victory.

Changing scales to order would help, but that's hard to do without getting your dominion in, which gives you the dominion victory.

Or assassin/remote spells to kill the Pans.


I suspect most players would concede at this point. It's a boring game if nothing else. And I'm surprised the AI doesn't waste all those troops trying to break siege.

[Jazzepi]

Boo. Unfortunately, even after force hosting through about 20 turns of negative upkeep not a single one of the Pans deserted.

Jazzepi

[Wyatt Hebert]

thejeff: As I pointed out, the admin income from the castle in the province goes to the owner of the castle. All the other income goes to the sieger. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Interesting that commanders can never disband. I suppose it makes Utterdark better for Lanka and/or Mictlan, who have upkeep commanders but can possibly go over to a fully non-upkeep army. granted, they'll never have money they don't pillage or get from events, but hey, them's the breaks.

Wyatt Hebert

[Gandalf Parker]

After raising the taxes and pillaging the unrest to over 100 I pull out of the province for a few turns so I can attack with with spells and assassins.

[thejeff]

That may also allow the AI to attack with some of it's force.
Which could be a good thing, as it'll let you kill off some troops and hopefully commanders.

I'm still surprised the AI doesn't slaughter all those maenads trying to break the siege. That's how my AI sieges always end.

[Kristoffer O]

Shovah32 said:
Well we all know how mindless women are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif.



Actually there are some women on these forums. Not many, but I wouldn't mind if there were some more. This summer Illwinter have had an interm (if that is what it is called) working on the graphics for a new nation (expected in the patch after this one). She hasn't been active on the forum, but lurked a lot. I don't think she would mind this post in particular, but I think it is better if we don't expect all who read these forums to be male.

I hope you don't mind me saying this. It was not intended as a reprimand or anything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Gandalf Parker]

If we were talking about the maenads then it should have been how mindless the party women are http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I want to be a Pan when I grow up.

[Ballbarian]

I just don't understand what all of the fuss is about. Preach out the enemy dominion and the problem is solved. You should be able to surround his cap with temples and move in your own prophet or god to speed things up. Remember that you can change sieging priests orders to preach as well.

In the mien time, just maintain enough of a force to protect your hold on the province and protect the preachers, then move on with your main force to more juicy targets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Loren]

Ballbarian said:
I just don't understand what all of the fuss is about. Preach out the enemy dominion and the problem is solved. You should be able to surround his cap with temples and move in your own prophet or god to speed things up. Remember that you can change sieging priests orders to preach as well.

In the mien time, just maintain enough of a force to protect your hold on the province and protect the preachers, then move on with your main force to more juicy targets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Yeah, that's how I see it also. It's called Dominions after all! I've had castles I couldn't crack (not this problem but ones held by critters powerful enough I would auto-rout before winning) in SP but it was never an issue, they were easy to dominion-kill.