Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN

[Lord_Bob]

Since some people like being deliberately obtuse, I have decided to be clear.

The totally useless PD of these nations is why none of them have ever registered a single win in multi-player. The mages change, and troops are, of course, replacable, but none of these races has ever registered a win. NOT ONCE. Why?

Because for 230 gold, or less, you can create an "invincible raiding force" that will defeat any PD below 20. After 20 the one Bandar monkey per point makes things mildly more difficult, but not much. You'll probably need 10-20 more gold in archers per point to route all the little monkeys which will route the bandar(you don't ever have to fight the bandar, you just have to make sure they route quickly). That's it. Raid the hell out of them. Easy.

For reference, this is the pathetic Ape PD per point:
Some Markata "soldiers"(Morale 7, Melee Damage 8, yes 8, 0 protection, 5 hitpoints)
Some Markata "archers"(Morale 7, Bow Damage 6, yes 6, 0 protection, 5 hitpoints)
1/2 Per Point(YES THAT'S ONE EVERY OTHER POINT) Atavi "Soldier"(Morale 8, Protection 1)
1/2 Per Point(YES, AGAIN, THAT'S ONE EVERY OTHER POINT!) Atavi "Archer"(Morale 8, Protection 1)

I'm just wondering if it's intentional that PD prevent the monkeys, in any age, from winning. Ever.

Also, if you will notice, KissBlade, the only dedicated Patala Player, has built his entire nation around anti-raiding power. That is, he gets the Vampire Queen. This is the correct thing for KissBlade to do.

HOWEVER, IT IS PATHETIC THAT THE ENTIRE PRETENDER DESIGN BE DETERMINED BY WEAK PD.

[Lord_Bob]

I would like to emphasize that the Markata each count as much as the Atavi and the Bandar towards the 75% lost/routes and everyone routes rule. I would also like people to consider that the Markata have a morale of 7. With Dominion and "full strength" bonus that gives them an effective morale of 7 + 1 + 5 = 13. That means they have a 46% chance of routing on their first morale check.

When does their first morale check occur? Well, they have Protection 0, and 5 hitpoints. The Markata recieve their first morale check the first time they are hit with arrow fire, and every time after.

Because of their greater numbers, once the markata route the 75% rule is either achieved, or very close to achieved, and everyone routes. Game over.

I suspect if you played games you could beat 20 PD with 130 gold. If you had some tough Indy archers. However, I don't care to check, because it is obvious that a raiding group of LESS GOLD THAN THE PD COST can defeat the PD PROBABLY WITHOUT CASUALITIES.

[K]

The monkey PD is can one of the few that defeat a Black Hawk attack with only an investment of 1 gold.

The problem that most people have is that they don't realize that the monkeys get the best summons in the game. If you put a bunch of Gandarvas on the field with a good regen and maybe an Earth bless backed up by some of the Protection buffing spells you get(Wooden Warriors, Iron Warriors, Legions of Steel) and the MR buffs, and even the crazy buffs(ones that grant Luck, Etherealsness, or other powers), and you are unstoppable.

Combine basic magic with wicked troops, and you get armies that don't take losses from fights with armies. Only mages are to be feared, and even they don't do much.

[thejeff]

I'm no monkey or MP expert, but my understanding is PD is nothing more than a speed bump by mid game anyway. Sure it means you can use cheaper raiders, but those cheap raiding forces can be countered by not much more expensive patrols.
Buy a few archers or infantry to back them up.

How is the VQ an anti-raiding strategy. The VQ is a defensive strategy, sure, but I'll send 5 cheap raiders and she can kill one or take back one province a turn. That's not a plan...

In my last mp game against Bandar Log, they were definitely way ahead. Then the player had to drop and the game dissolved, so there was no official winner. I was Jotunheim and I could take any province I wanted, most only had 1 PD anyway. Then he'd annihilate and enslave whatever I'd sent.

It's an annoyance to have lousy PD. Particularly being vulnerable to cheap castings like Call of the Winds/Wild. But the sacreds, sacred summons and astral power can make up for it.

By late game, PD is unimportant. Casual thugs/raiders will take any reasonable PD untouched and a heavy PD investment will be bypassed or hit with a real army and die.

[Lord_Bob]

That's probably why none of these three nations has ever registered a win in multi-player.

You've made it very clear to me that being completely helpless before raiders is no real problem so long as you invest in defense as much as they invest in offense. And don't mind your provinces being continously overtaxed and captured.

But hey, by Late Game, none of this matters. Of course, gold doesn't really matter in Late Game either. So, do you take 3 Disorder and 3 Luck every game? Since Gold doesn't matter in Late Game, that seems like a strategy For The Win. You have an even bigger edge because all those idiots with multiple wins in MP are taking order! They are handicapping themselves by hundreds of points! You'll clean their clocks good!

[Sandman]

Bandar Log is a fairly good nation. The Markatas are okay chaff, and you can always mind hunt or teleport something nasty onto raiders.

[Lord_Bob]

Combine basic magic with wicked troops, and you get armies that don't take losses from fights with armies. Only mages are to be feared, and even they don't do much.



Your problem is that your aren't thinking on the same scale as I am. A mage comes from a castle with a lab. Probably a temple to. He probably costs more than 100 gold. The infrastructure cost is 1700 Gold, at least, and some serious money for the troops.

My "defeat any monkey PD" raiding force is built in a normal Indie province without castle, lab, or temple. It costs less than 200 gold for the whole thing, including commander, and probably can be built using the resources of the province in two turns. The infrastructure required is 0 Gold. 0 Gold. Let that sink in. 0 Gold. The total troop cost is under 200 gold. That is the cost of the single mage you have built. Just him. That's it. I can construct probably 11 of these raiding forces by the time you have your infrastructure set up and your first force built.

Obviously you can spam these raiding forces, quick and easy. If they hit 20 PD(cost 200 gold), they defeat it. Your opponent loses tax income for at least one turn, and you get it, I believe? That's 100 gold right there. Very nearly paying for the raiding force. By itself. Of course, you are also forcing your enemy to respond to your annoying attacks.

[Lord_Bob]

Bandar Log is a fairly good nation. The Markatas are okay chaff, and you can always mind hunt or teleport something nasty onto raiders.



I would like to emphasize that these forces are not "stealth" in any way and can very easily have an Astral Mage lying around. However, I wouldn't bother with that. Mind Hunt forces me, sob, to add another commander to the force. Total cost:230 gold. But if Bandar Log wants to use 4 astral pearls and 2 mage-turns, I'm sorry, 2 BOOSTED Mage-Turns in order to kill 230 gold, then I think he should. Or does it take 3 castings to kill two commanders? Well then, 6 Astral Pearls. I think that's great. Of course, if I get tired of this, I'll develop the nasty habit of teleporting high Astral Mages onto some raiding groups, thus hopefully feebleminding several extremely expensive mages.

[HJFudge]

One solution might be to keep him so busy responding to YOUR attacks and YOUR raids that he does not have the time to do this.

Oh. And people really should have more than one fort and a lab before this happens. Dont wait for the raiding forces to start coming BEFORE you invest in defense. Prepare for it ahead of time. Make your border provinces and chokepoints MORE than 20 PD by whatever amount you need to STOP such attacks.

If you wait till 11 raiding forces are coming in before you begin to make preperations to stop such attack dont cry cause really, its not the games fault you suck http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[thejeff]

Nonsense. I never said gold doesn't matter. I never said lousy PD didn't suck. I just said the monkeys have some other advantages that can make up for it.
So you have to be more active on defense than some others, who can hide behind walls of PD.

But what do I know? They are completely useless nations and I've been trounced by them, so I must really suck anyway.
Listen to K, he's much better with them than I am. They probably just don't fit my playing style. Maybe they're not right for yours either?


There are ~30 nations listed in the Victorious Nations thread out of 60+. 3 nations not appearing is not statistically meaningful.
Lanka has won. Do they have the same PD?

[Evilhomer]

If you have astral you can mind hunt the raiding forces. Also pd is not all, several nations has as bad pd (like the giants) and still manage to score wins in larger mp games.

I would rate the ape nations as average or slightly below average in total. Several nations has alot worse deal (Early age: marvereni, Middle age: ulm, late age: Abysia just to mention a few).

[HJFudge]

Another thing I think you forget is that an enemy investing in any amount of raiding forces (11 is 2200 gold total, NOT cheap) is investing in a one trick poney. They might be good for raiding but really what else use do they have? Any real army will roll over them.

Second point. A fort and lab and mages all have many uses outside of stopping a raiding force bonanza. After said raiding forces are stopped or at least controlled, you can turn to more offensive uses immediately. Its a much more quality investment.

[Lord_Bob]

And yet they never win. In any age.

[quantum_mechani]

What nations have won long term games is a pretty rough guide of the best nations. Considering _all_ the nations are roughly in the 0-3 wins range, a particular nation having 0 instead of the average is easily a statistical anomaly. And further, the winners are generally much more decided by player's skill then nation power (and I would not assume the best players pick the best nations- different people find different nations fun, and mot people get tired of playing the same set of nations).

Also, Jotunhiem is generally regarded as having some of the weakest PD, and has plenty of wins.

[thejeff]

I am curious, and don't have the game in front of me. Does Lanka use the same PD?

[sum1lost]

This is stupid. By Lord Bob's argument, a number of nations are worthless, yet I've seen machaka and agartha be powerhouses.

pd strength isn't why nations win or lose.

[Sandman]

Lord_Bob said:


Bandar Log is a fairly good nation. The Markatas are okay chaff, and you can always mind hunt or teleport something nasty onto raiders.



I would like to emphasize that these forces are not "stealth" in any way and can very easily have an Astral Mage lying around. However, I wouldn't bother with that. Mind Hunt forces me, sob, to add another commander to the force. Total cost:230 gold. But if Bandar Log wants to use 4 astral pearls and 2 mage-turns, I'm sorry, 2 BOOSTED Mage-Turns in order to kill 230 gold, then I think he should. Or does it take 3 castings to kill two commanders? Well then, 6 Astral Pearls. I think that's great. Of course, if I get tired of this, I'll develop the nasty habit of teleporting high Astral Mages onto some raiding groups, thus hopefully feebleminding several extremely expensive mages.



If the Bandar Log player is going for a mind hunt strategy, they're probably going to have booster items lying about anyway. Risking high level astral mages to support a cheap-o incursion strategy strikes me as foolhardy.

In any case, Bandar Log's troops all have move-2 and forest survival, so they're going to be able to move swifty to counter improvised incursions. And don't forget the recruitable-anywhere sacreds.

[Hadrian_II]

I dont think that weak PD is something that counts in MP so the PD of the monkeys has nothing to do with their weakness.
btw. Lanka has the same PD and is not considered weak.

The biggest problem with kailasa is that they are very suspectible to arrows, they have no armor and only bucklers on the basic sacreds, so your powerful armies can easily be shot to peaces by very cheap archers.

But if you survive into the mid game, you can summon gandharvas, and they are about the strongest troop in the game. Sacred, heavy armoured, awe and only 18 pearls for 6 of them.

Also you can summon Kinnaras that are able to cast arrow fend, and then even your sacreds that are recruitable everywhere become useful again.

You have also a national spell that gives all your sacreds quikness.

Then you have some minor benefits like S3 and H3 mages that you can summon and the rudra that has d3f3a3 and makes a very nice SC chassis.

And to the last all your summons are astral based and you have national mages that are able to forge clams, so if you survive the beginning, kailasa will become very strong.

I played them twice in MPs, and in both i was not very succesful.
In one i decided to invade vanheim as he had almost no troops but in the province i invaded i was greeted by 3 E5 bladewind spammers (Worthy Heroes can suck sometimes), and took heavy losses that caused sauromantia to invade me, and i was not able to get back on my feet.
In the other one i started between Nifelheim, Lanka and Helheim and this is not very funny.

Kailasa is for a nation that starts with a dual bless very weak in the beginning, but in the middle game (after conjuration, thraumathurgy and enchantment up to lv 6) they can field f9s9 blessed prot17 troops that have awe +1 and quickness and the basic unarmoured troops have arrow fend and die not so easily either. (w9s9 bless might be better earlyer, but as it does not seem that the quickness stacks, f9s9 should be better after you can cast celestial music).

I think the next EA game that i have time to play, i will try to win with kailasa again.

[Sandman]

In my experience playing a MP game with Bandar Log, the main points of pain for Bandar Log are:

1. Crappy forts. Mostly fortified cities. Sometimes you want these, mostly you want something cheap.

2. Crappy priests. Combined with the above, it blunts the recruitable-everywhere-sacred edge.

3. Crappy searching. Bandar Log is a real gem-hog, with its summons and gem-heavy battlemagic. But the Rishis only have map-move 1, and remote searching spells may accentuate your gem shortage if you're unlucky.

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
The totally useless PD of these nations is why none of them have ever registered a single win in multi-player.


Is this some sort of running gag which I'm missing out on? My irony sensors are a bit perturbed at the moment.

If you honestly think that the PD strength makes that much of a difference then I would think that you are a MP newbie. By your reasoning, the Jotun giants would have to automatically win every game (zOMG GIANT PD!). If you'd actually engage in MP games you'd find out that players don't rely on PD that much, the more sophisticated players usually don't get any more than 1 PD. Because PD cannot be scripted, because PD becomes useless as soon as the nations get their magics/SCs in gear, and because the money you put into heavy PD is generally of better use elsewhere (buying more mages, for example). Caelum's PD impales themselves on the enemies' weapons as soon as they have the chance, BTW.

There is a difference in PD, this is done deliberately, and it can lead to different playstyles, that's the whole idea.

I have to admit that when I looked at the apes for the first time I was a little underwhelmed, too, but if you'd even bother to play with them you'd find out that they are awesome. Their national summons are really nice. Patala actually has some of the most awesome mages, especially for LA. As for the nations not winning any MP games that you know of, I wiped the floor with my opponents as Patala in a recent MP game of mine. Ask them if they felt like the apes were lacking and should be made stronger, if you want.

[Lord_Bob]

Lanka is a blood nation. They can also reanimate undead. While it is true that you need a 90 gold mage on the scene to keep your army of dead operational, it is also true that the 90 gold mage is bloodhunting in that province and has to be there anyway. He needs bodyguards. A bunch of Londead or other summons should do just fine. This won't stop a 200 gold raiding force, it will destroy it. Utterly, while laughing hysterically. Since bloodhunting is required for Lanka to win, Lanka has large amounts of such "PD-Enhanced" provinces quickly.

[Lord_Bob]

I'm sorry, you can only attack a province you are adjacent to. So if by "swiftly", you mean two turns, yes. And the high level astral mage leaves the next turn, using a "move into friendly territory" move. Or he can pop a Returning if for some bizarre reason I decide to do that. Of course, the bandar and teleport mages onto him..... which won't stop the returning though... Now we are getting quite expensive, eh? All for a little 200 gold raiding force.

[Evilhomer]

For some reason you only seem to read and respond to some of the points made in respons to you. First of all as many has pointed out pd is not used very much in mp games among good players, simply because a mobile army is a better buy in most cases.

Also if you checked out some of the nations that has scored several wins (like EA caelum) you will find that those nations has abysmal pd as well and still managed to win. Finally what QM said is very true - there is just to few games played in comparison to the number of available nations in the game to start drawing some statistical conclusions at this point. The monkey nations has some shortcomings (where low pd is just one), but the nations is not as bad as you seem to think.

[Lord_Bob]

Lanka has maintenance free demons and undead as PD. Led around by their bloodhunting priests. Attempts to raid them with "200 gold force" stops when you hit the blood hunters and they kill you instantly.

[thejeff]

Again, nonsense. Your scouts tell you where the bloodhunters are, if you don't just guess by raiding the farms and other high income provinces where no one blood hunts.

Then you send real forces after the bloodhunters. Raiding weak provinces is fine, but trashing your enemies blood income is a real prize.

[VedalkenBear]

To be short, blunt, and to the point:

You have no basis at all for extrapolating from the given data an unequivocal statement on _anything_. Having just had a test where I was required to calculate confidence intervals for several questions, I can tell you that you have no idea how unsupported your claim is.

Your statement is not supported by the evidence. If you made a statement like, "The Ape nations have not won YET because people haven't figured out a way to compensate for their PD being unable to stop raiders," you might get a bit more agreement.

You are making an obviously flawed argument from the subject line on. I would suggest a basic course in statistics before you try to make this or similar claims.

[Lord_Bob]

PD serves one purpose, and one purpose alone. It stops you from having to chase mageless, indie, mini-armies all around your empire. That is the only purpose for which it exists. The giants and Man's PD is QUITE CAPABLE of defeating a 200 gold raiding force at 20.

This is what is going to happen to the "awesome" 17 Indie Archer/1 Indie Commander raiding force against the "lousy" Giant PD. The Giants 2 commanders and 10 Giant Militia are going to take arrow fire and then reach the archers. They are then going to swing. At which point many, many archers will die. The Indie Archers with a morale of 7(-1 Dominion Penalty) are then probably going to route. At that point the giants will run them down and kill every one of them. The Commander will probably get away.

The Giant PD really sucks.

Oh yeah, EA Caleum is going to be PAWNED! By them 17 Indie Archers. They got some fliers, and you see, them fliers going to "stupidly charge" them archers and route them before the archers fire one shot. Them EA Caleum PD is OWNED by them Archers. COMPLETE PAWNAGE!

There is bad, and then there is hidiously ridiclious.

I can't even believe people are talking about Man PD. I have used 65 Man PD, backed by research mages and some longbowman and castle guards to repel 2 waves of 400 man armies backed by multiple mages from EA Ermor in the multiplayer game where I took over a messed up MA Man on some turn. MA Man PD is hidiously more powerfull than Ape PD. It is just plain mighty after 20.

[Hadrian_II]

Sandman said:
In my experience playing a MP game with Bandar Log, the main points of pain for Bandar Log are:

2. Crappy priests. Combined with the above, it blunts the recruitable-everywhere-sacred edge.




I think this only slows down early expansion, as the 9hp unarmored priests just like to be shot with an arrow and rout everything. But later you can either recruit siddhas for your bigger armies or just recruit enough indy priests to bless your armies.


Sandman said:3. Crappy searching. Bandar Log is a real gem-hog, with its summons and gem-heavy battlemagic. But the Rishis only have map-move 1, and remote searching spells may accentuate your gem shortage if you're unlucky.




Sandman said:
This is a problem, especially with their lack of magic paths . But i would say that you get more gems for remote site searching than it costs, so it should not shorten your gem supply.




Lord_Bob said:
Attempts to raid them with "200 gold force"




Why dont you just get your own 200 gold force out if indys instead of buying 20 PD for the same price, so you have at least a 50% chance in winning.

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
Attempts to raid them with "200 gold force" stops when you hit the blood hunters and they kill you instantly.


Let's try again, and then I think I'll just stop responding to this: PD can prevent loss of your provinces by random, unforeseen attacks. What you fail to notice, maybe by playing too much against the AI where there is no possibility to engage in diplomacy, is that an unforeseen attack on a province means a declaration of war. You opponent will then react to that attack and kill you.

I wouldn't think that somebody randomly attacks another just because it'd be a steal because the PD is bad. You can't "shop around" for the easiest provinces to conquer because they're not that well defended. "Oops, sorry, but your defense in there was just so low, I *had* to take that province." No, attacking another player and engaging in war is a rational decision based on a number of things, but if somebody decides to wage war against you, he certainly won't be stopped because your PD is a little stronger or weaker.

[Lord_Bob]

So Lanka can be "freely raided" except for the multiple road blocks that completely destroy such raids. These roadblocks cost nothing as they consist of priest that MUST be there, and maintenance free undead. Or maybe demons for some reason.

Multiple, Lanka Player Placed, Free, raid blockers seems to be quite a difference between them and the other Ape Nations. Also, since blood summons cost no gold to maintain, "Garrisoning" is a perfectly viable plan. And, of course, Lanka is a blood nation and the others aren't.

[VedalkenBear]

Care to respond to the fact that you have no basis for your assertion, considering the lack of data?

Or do you just want to rant some more?

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
I have used 65 Man PD, [...] It is just plain mighty after 20.


Yup, I guess I'll stop arguing at this point.

[Lord_Bob]

I assume a state of war exists. Let's take this nasty raiding and jazz it up some. My raider, after taking a province, guesses that another adjacent province won't have an army there next turn. Let's say he has a 50% chance of being right. I also assume the province I took has a 400 gold monkey force right adjacent to it, ready to take that province back. Let's note that the 400 gold force is twice the cost of mine, and I just tied it up for a turn.

So, I get 35 gold for the turn I own province 1, my enemy loses 50 gold because I took the province from him. My raiding force has a 50 percent chance of doing this again, and just to keep things simple, a 50% chance of dying while inflicting no casualities at all. That means the net loss gain of this force is 127.5 gold(plus the 400 gold force I tied up). But I decide to be a big meanie.

So, as LA T'ien Ch'i, I buy 15 PD at a cost of 112 gold. This PD has a net value of 600 gold and pastes the 400 gold monkey army. And I owned the province for another round, and my opponent didn't. Up another 50 gold, him down another 50 gold. That's another 100 gold. So whats the total loss gain?

127.5+400+100=627.5 gold. YEAH!
My investment=312 gold.

Ok. That worked pretty good. But it only worked because 200 gold can beat monkey PD. No other PD is that weak.

[NTJedi]

I will say the units of PD are more important for larger maps of 400+ size. Personally for multiplayer with large maps I avoid nations with weak PD... I lost a province to a simple 'call of the winds' despite the 15PD for Machaka.

A nice feature included within DOM_4 would allow nations ways of upgrading existing province defense. I haven't given much thought for exact mechanics, but ideally players with the most provinces should have a higher upkeep for these upgrades thus struggling players can put up a stronger fight as they start losing. Not sure if the upkeep should be gems or gold or stationed commanders or a combintation or something else.
*perhaps increasing upkeep as provinces are further from the capital... whatever upkeep combination is decided. *
No talk of DOM_4 in the future yet, but it's in my prayers. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Hadrian_II]

lch said:

Lord_Bob said:
I have used 65 Man PD, [...] It is just plain mighty after 20.


Yup, I guess I'll stop arguing at this point.



I have used PDs of 125, as it is fun to look the AI to waste its troops against it. Offcourse it is no sane strategy for MP but that is something other.

But please dont stop what might become a very nice flamewar http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Lord_Bob]

Why dont you just get your own 200 gold force out if indys instead of buying 20 PD for the same price, so you have at least a 50% chance in winning.



And then I put them in every province and pay maintenace every turn. And then they die to a slightly more powerfull force. PD, in order to be effective, has to be CHEAPER THAN THE RAIDING FORCE THAT CAN BEAT IT.

[Lord_Bob]

I took over another players game, and only had the power to hold onto the capital. It is now 15 turns later, and I have killed over 3500 gold in various nations that have attempted to eliminate me. This is MP. Ha. Ha.

[thejeff]

Those aren't roadblocks. Those are targets. Unless you've built forts or strong garrisons.

Even demonic/undead garrisons have opportunity costs. They aren't counterattacking/raiding your enemy. The mage is summoning not bloodhunting, etc etc.

And the other monkey nations have cheap priests for blessing and upkeep-free sacred summons right? If you really wanted to stop raiders, a couple of those in each province will stop your "200 gp force" dead.

[Agema]

Let a thug wipe out your PD. I'm willing to bet whilst the little monkeys count for one towards the rout chance like a Bandar, they'll also count for one when you slap vengeance of the dead on the thug massacring the little fellas.

[Lord_Bob]

I took over another player and was going to lose anyway.

The point was to hold unto my capital and kill as many poor fools who try to take it as possible. Total losses currently exceed 3500 gold from various nations.

And I even offered to pay some of them not to attack me. They really should have taken the money. Yomi did, and he got a free castle and lab.

[lch]

Lord_Bob said:
I have killed over 3500 gold in various nations that have attempted to eliminate me.


Aren't you sure it was OVER 9000!!http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif!!http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif!?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Lord_Bob]

So you are now comparing priest and gem summons with spending 200 gold(whenever you want, the turn before the attack is just fine) for maintenance PD? Are we even having this discussion?

[Reverend Zombie]

There is only one way to settle this argument: Lord Bob plays the nation of his choice vs. a monkey nation, mano a mano.

[Lord_Bob]

I have killed over 250 men, including 18 lava men, also have killed 90 longdead(I know it's not important), a prophet, 2 mages from abysia, and something like 6 mages from EA Ermor. Not sure what the mages cost. MA MAN's capital has become a Roach Motel. Serious Combat Magic is being to come out though. So I think my fun is nearly over.

[Evilhomer]

I do not wish to get personal in any way here, but it seems you just joined a few month ago and you aren't listed as the winner of any mp games. How much testing have you done with the monkey nations really ? I don't mean single player game here, but mp games.

Really when you evaluate a nation you cannot just pick 1 thing about them and say that the nation is bad, you really want to look at several aspects first.

[NTJedi]

Lord_Bob said:
I have killed over 250 men, including 18 lava men, also have killed 90 longdead(I know it's not important), a prophet, 2 mages from abysia, and something like 6 mages from EA Ermor. Not sure what the mages cost. MA MAN's capital has become a Roach Motel. Serious Combat Magic is being to come out though. So I think my fun is nearly over.



Telestic Animations should help your dominion, hopefully you have an astral mage to cast antimagic... twist of fate might also extend your life for the province.
Before they storm the castle have someone in the back with lots of life holding a staff of storms... this will stop most flyers and you can hold them back at the gate longer.

Don't fight for death and glory... fight for ROHAN and let the horn of Mans Helm be heard one last time !

[Huzurdaddi]

I have no idea what it is about Dominions that causes the masses to freak out when someone says X is not correctly balanced. But for some reason people always come out with some kooky theory as to why it is balanced correctly.

Everyone gets it: who wins in multiplayer is usually dominated by diplomacy, and perhaps starting location.

Everyone also gets: Dominions is a very complex game with a vast number of tactical and strategic options.

However, the above two being true does not mean that Lord Bob is incorrect. As a matter of fact he is correct in that monkey PD is comically bad.

[Shovah32]

But Lord Bobs statement was not that monkey PD is bad(which most players seem to agree on) - but that the poor PD makes them poor nations and causes them to never win.

[Reverend Zombie]

Huzurdaddi said:
However, the above two being true does not mean that Lord Bob is incorrect. As a matter of fact he is correct in that money PD is comically bad.



What he's saying is stonger than that: he's saying that weak PD is why these nations can't win.

[Lord_Bob]

And what does this have to do with MP? Hmm? 1 on 1 Rush Games. The Measure Of A Nation. That said, why not. I'll play MA Man. No Bless at all. Sure. Bandar Log guy can do whatever he wants.

[Lord_Bob]

Oh before this I was upset that a 90 Gold Astral-1 mage could magic duel to death a 450 gold capital only Nagarashi.

But quite frankly this is much, much, worse.

[Evilhomer]

In this instance I do agree with bob, such a test would prove almost nothing.

[Shovah32]

Well I don't think I've ever heard someone claim that bandar log was a rush nation but sounds like a fun match.

I should be free tomorrow if you don't find an opponent by then(or even if you do). I almost never blitz and am not exactly a great player but I find it hard to turn down a game.

[Lord_Bob]

No doubt that will make it even easier for MA Bandar Log to beat MA Man.

I would like to point out that my choices are not cheap in any way. I did not pick Patala, and I did not pick MA Van. I am also not going to use a bless, at all.

Those are very reasonable terms.

[Ironhawk]

LOL

This is the most absurd discussion I've seen on the forums in some time.

[Baalz]

Whooo, seems like some strong opinions here. Not to beat a dead horse, but PD strength is a characteristic of a nation which you plan around. Some nations have crappy PD, I doubt anyone would argue that the monkeys are one of them, this is hardly a insurmountable disadvantage. Some nations have their only good troops cap only, some have old mages, some have dominions with potentially negative effect (disease, insanity, death), some have high resource requirements, some have cold blooded/undead/demonic/aquatic only/no archer/low magic versatility/low MR weaknesses...these are all things you plan around. Several people have offered ways to compensate for weak PD, there are also others if you're clever. Suffice it to say small raiding parties are hardly an unbeatable strategy to use against Bandar Log and I don't consider them weak at all.

[Lord_Bob]

Repeating the revelant comparison with other races "weak" PD:
PD serves one purpose, and one purpose alone. It stops you from having to chase mageless, indie, mini-armies all around your empire. That is the only purpose for which it exists. The giants and Man's PD is QUITE CAPABLE of defeating a 200 gold raiding force at 20.

This is what is going to happen to the "awesome" 17 Indie Archer/1 Indie Commander raiding force against the "lousy" Giant PD. The Giants 2 commanders and 10 Giant Militia are going to take arrow fire and then reach the archers. They are then going to swing. At which point many, many archers will die. The Indie Archers with a morale of 7(-1 Dominion Penalty) are then probably going to route. At that point the giants will run them down and kill every one of them. The Commander will probably get away.

The Giant PD really sucks.

Oh yeah, EA Caleum is going to be PAWNED! By them 17 Indie Archers. They got some fliers, and you see, them fliers going to "stupidly charge" them archers and route them before the archers fire one shot. Them EA Caleum PD is OWNED by them Archers. COMPLETE PAWNAGE!

There is bad, and then there is hidiously ridiclious.

I can't even believe people are talking about Man PD. I have used 65 Man PD, backed by research mages and some longbowman and castle guards to repel 2 waves of 400 man armies backed by multiple mages from EA Ermor in the multiplayer game where I took over a messed up MA Man on some turn. MA Man PD is hidiously more powerfull than Ape PD. It is just plain mighty after 20.

[NTJedi]

Huzurdaddi said:
Everyone also gets: Dominions is a very complex game with a vast number of tactical and strategic options.

However, the above two being true does not mean that Lord Bob is incorrect. As a matter of fact he is correct in that money PD is comically bad.



This is why a new strategy could be introduced for DOM_4 which allowed PD to be upgraded. This would add another layer of depth.
Seems only feasible a nation should have the option to improve its province defence. Considering the pretender controls the nation and all aspects of war... the pretender should have the power to order/research/purchase/etc ways of improving province defence.

{{The PD Story}}

Machaka Pretender, "Give me a report on our research progress!"
Arch_Sorceror, "We've finished learning the last of the spells and the last two enemies should be dead within the week."
Machaka Pretender, "Excellent... have them all move to the front as quickly as possible."
...small pause...
Machaka Pretender, "Give me a report on our income status!"
Elder Bane_Spider, "Our income is safely in the thousands with a little extra stored for an unexpected Utterdark yet our front line indicates it's unlikely."
Machaka Pretender, "Excellent... start having half of all money set aside for creating a personal temple of gold later."
Elder Bane_Spider, "Yes, anything my master."
...small pause...
Machaka Pretender, "Improve the body armor of our province defence and change their weapons from spears to long swords."
SC_Hunter_Lord, "Sorry we can't do that... they are part of a union and no changes for negotiations will occur for another 200 years."
Machaka Pretender, "What the FUDGE? I can call demons and devils from hell, mindlessly send you or anyone in my nation to death, cast globals altering weather and health of the realm BUT I can't improve our province defence!!"
SC_Hunter_Lord, "Yes that is correct... it's that same union which forces us to flee battles at 5pm(50_turns_autoretreat)"
Machaka Pretender, "What about after I'm officially granted godhood?"
SC_Hunter_Lord, "It's my understanding as god of the realm you'll be allowed to talk with union representatives once a month. Just don't piss them off!! That's how the realms last god died."

[HJFudge]

Is this still being talked about?

So they have horribly bad PD. Dont buy any. Surely you do not believe that PD is the only useful way to stop from having to chase mageless, indie, mini-armies.

Yeah you might have to micromanage a bit more each turn and yeah a raiding force who gets in can be annoying, but its not like 1 raiding force is really gonna turn a game around if your busy smushing all the opponents stand up armies.

[thejeff]

Lord_Bob said:
So you are now comparing priest and gem summons with spending 200 gold(whenever you want, the turn before the attack is just fine) for maintenance PD? Are we even having this discussion?



I was comparing with the Lankan example you'd given. Should have quoted, given the flood of posts here.

Anyway, all these examples are silly. You're talking cheap indy attacks, not flying or stealthy or anything. So you're talking attacks along a hostile border. You don't rely on PD to hold a hostile border. You get choke points, build forts, etc.

Sure if you get blindsided, that crappy PD leaves you vulnerable, but that's what happens when you're taken by surprise. If they get behind your lines, hunt them down and kill them, but strengthen your border too.

When I think of raiders, I think of stealth/fliers and remote attacks. They can easily get into the backfield where you'll have little but PD. Anything that has to cross the front lines shouldn't be able to do so with a handful of indy archers. Garrison the borders. There should be troops able to reinforce any border province within a move or two.

[Lord_Bob]

Please name the nation with a weaker PD.

That is my one and only request of you.

Name the nation with a weaker PD.


I am willing to run a simulation of that nations PD against 17 Armoured Indie Archers and a Commander at 15 PD. I will then run Ape PD against 17 Indie Armoured Archers and a Commander at 25 PD. Guess which one will win? Guess which one might win if it is very, very lucky?

[NTJedi]

Lord_Bob said:
Please name the nation with a weaker PD.

That is my one and only request of you.

Name the nation with a weaker PD.


I am willing to run a simulation of that nations PD against 17 Armoured Indie Archers and a Commander at 15 PD. I will then run Ape PD against 17 Indie Armoured Archers and a Commander at 25 PD. Guess which one will win? Guess which one might win if it is very, very lucky?



I'm not on anyones side, but I'd like to see it compared against Machaka's PD of 15.

I do believe an upgrade option should exist for province defence(with upkeep based on distance from capital) which would add another layer of depth to the game.

[thejeff]

Fine, the monkeys have the weakest PD. I never disputed that.
(Don't know for sure, but I'll stipulate it for the sake of argument. It's bad, at least.)

That doesn't mean they're the weakest nations.

[sum1lost]

I propose that Lord Bob use MA ulm against the monkey equivalent. Ulm has some pretty nice pd, it shouldn't be a problem.

[sector24]

I just want to give Lord Bob a hug because he's having a bad day.

[Lord_Bob]

Yes, the Machaka Militia also have no armour and no shield on their base unit. So they to should completely fail the 17 Archer Challenge. They need to be upgraded as well.

Importantly, everyone else also agrees that Machaka is a "troubled" nation. Further proof of my statements.

[johan osterman]

Bob. As others have pointed out the thread in the MP forum doesn't provide the sort of evidence you are ascribing to it. There aren't enough games counted in it to even award 1 victory to each specific nation. So even if all nations had been played by equally skilled players and were exactly balanced there would still be a pretty good chance that any specific nation would have ended up without any wins.

Not that Patala et all might not have very weak PD, or even be weak nations. But in no way do you have support for the claim that they can never win in MP games.

[Yucky]

Hadrian_II said:this only slows down early expansion



Early expansion is one of the most important things in MP.

[Evilhomer]

Ulm is considered one of the weakest (if not THE weakest) nation in the middle age (Ulm is going to have a hard time against bandar log in my opinion). Yet it has a very decent pd. Can you understand that pd is not the full picture and that you really need to look at the whole nation ?

[Lord_Bob]

Sure. I'll take MA Ulm versus Bandar Log One VS. One.

Let's do that.

Do I have to win in 20 turns? Are we putting some sort of time limit on it to make it sporting?

Do you even know what you just said?

We'll be in mortal combat a long time before the powerfull combat magic gets out. And my arrow immune soldiers will run over Bandar easily.

[NTJedi]

johan osterman said:
Bob. As others have pointed out the thread in the MP forum doesn't provide the sort of evidence you are ascribing to it. There aren't enough games counted in it to even award 1 victory to each specific nation. So even if all nations had been played by equally skilled players and were exactly balanced there would still be a pretty good chance that any specific nation would have ended up without any wins.

Not that Patala et all might not have very weak PD, or even be weak nations. But in no way do you have support for the claim that they can never win in MP games.



For improving the depth of gameplay an upgrade feature for province defence should be added to the DOM_4 list.
Explanation with story:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=dom3&Number=562268&#Post56 2268

[Evilhomer]

Sure. I'll take MA Ulm versus Bandar Log One VS. One.

Let's do that.

Do I have to win in 20 turns? Are we putting some sort of time limit on it to make it sporting?

Do you even know what you just said?

We'll be in mortal combat a long time before the powerfull combat magic gets out. And my arrow immune soldiers will run over Bandar easily.



I know what I said. You think I would fight fair in such a setup ? You would obviously have to deal with huge amounts of elephants early on, not archers.

[HJFudge]

lol NT Jedi wants improved province defense as an option. Or at least thats what Ive gathered from every single post hes made in this topic so far. It'd be an interesting option depending exactly how it was implemented.

Lord Bob:

As Ulm, you will roll right over any enemy province only protected by PD. But ESPECIALLY in a one on one situation,
you are going to have trouble getting past any chokepoints the enemy has. Depending on the map, this will either be easier or harder to do.

But you still might lose the game, because your not the only one who will be attacking.

[NTJedi]

HJFudge said:
lol NT Jedi wants improved province defense as an option. Or at least thats what Ive gathered from every single post hes made in this topic so far. It'd be an interesting option depending exactly how it was implemented.




When it's implemented will hopefully be DOM_4. How it's implemented can be by several factors... these are just examples of theories so no one should flip out. Construction research could provide better body armor, an extra scale during pretender design which specifically targets the units of PD, an academy building can provide increased morale and attack skill (destroyed same as lab if province lost), gem investment can provide strength bonus, health bonus and magic resistance bonus(elixirs), gold investment can provide improved shields and helms. I'm sure the developers can add other ideas to the list.
Some type of upkeep based on capital distance should also exist to prevent a powerful player from becoming more powerful.

[Zylithan]

Hopefully this isn't considered offensive, except how it is meant to be...

http://www.roflcat.com/images/cats/270911970_db35fdd4ca.jpg (http://www.roflcat.com)

[Hadrian_II]

Yucky said:

Hadrian_II said:this only slows down early expansion



Early expansion is one of the most important things in MP.



Bandar logs expansion is fast enough, you can start every second turn a force of approx 15 dual blessed white ones in the battle (an early temple does not hurt to get the mages). you might even try to start a conquering party every turn.

I did some short check and i was able to get 15 provinces in a year, and this is not that bad, especially as i did it in 5 minutes. The slowing down of expansion did happen as one of my expanding party (10 tigre riders and a brahmin) got defeated, as the brahmin said hy to an arrow.

[jaif]

One thought. If you start a game on a 2-space map - one space ulm, one space bander log - then bander log probably loses unless I'm missing something. But make it a 2 person game with 500 areas, and ulm doesn't even get to bander log for a long time.

One other thought - everybody here is so quick with telling the bander log player to micro-manage a ton of patrolling forces - that doesn't sound like a lot of fun, even if it is viable.

One question - has anybody here played Bander Log and done well in MP? Even if it's not a win, it's a start.

-Jeff

[Hadrian_II]

jaif said:
One thought. If you start a game on a 2-space map - one space ulm, one space bander log - then bander log probably loses unless I'm missing something. But make it a 2 person game with 500 areas, and ulm doesn't even get to bander log for a long time.

One other thought - everybody here is so quick with telling the bander log player to micro-manage a ton of patrolling forces - that doesn't sound like a lot of fun, even if it is viable.

One question - has anybody here played Bander Log and done well in MP? Even if it's not a win, it's a start.

-Jeff



Hint, the bandar player wont have to micromanage patrollers, as his army of elephants will siege ulms castles, and dual blessed tigre rider raiding parties will either be raiding ulm, or conquer back raided provinces one by one (and yes, the tigre riders will be able to kill 17 armoured archers and one commander)

If ulm wins this, bandar log did something very wrong.

[jaif]

The second thought and the first thought were not connected. In the first thought, I'm pointing out that PD is more important when you start close to each other, and less important when you spread out.

In the second thought, I'm pointing out that when you have many people on many fronts, it is annoying to keep patrols around parrying someone else's jabs, especially when they play guessing games with you.

I'm not saying it isn't doable, but it sure doesn't sound fun.

-Jeff

[NTJedi]

jaif said:
In the first thought, I'm pointing out that PD is more important when you start close to each other, and less important when you spread out.
-Jeff



Actually PD is more important for large maps because on small maps you're more likely to have a traveling army nearby any raids. As the map grows in size it becomes harder and harder to effectively protect those provinces with nearby armies thus relying more on PD.
Much harder tackling a sneaking strike army across 300 provinces compared with 30 provinces.

[Meglobob]

When I have misfortune 3 you get alot of barbarian attacks, knight, troll attacks as random events. This is a little like someone constantly raiding you. I create 1 or 2 cloud trapezing/teleporting/flying thugs/SC's who deal with it all no problem.

They take out raiding forces just as easily.

PD is not very important in MP and plays a very, very, very minor role in deceiding a winner.

Not personally played Kailasa/Bandar Log and Patala but they look okay to me. Elephants/longbows and sacreds are always good.

[Lord_Bob]

My tests show that 17 Heavy Infantry, or 17 Heavy Archers with an independent commander will regularly route 20 Patala PD with 1 or 2 casualities even when the Patala PD is in a friendly Dominion. National troops with kite shields and decent armour would be worse.

It is a sub-function of the game that got overlooked. It is easy to fix and I have no idea why people are upset over it being a real problem in a small number of cases. Are they worried that these races will become all powerfull if their PD is raised to a level comparable with others? Once PD has reached a certain level of power, increased strength really doesn't matter much. Below that level, it does. PD can't be scripted, thus a well put together army with mages will always beat it. But that's isn't the point of PD. The point of PD is to beat very small attacks.

Markata have a Morale of 7, a MR of 8, a strenght of 5 and 5 hitpoints. Yet they are given a gold piece price of 5. This has caused the 30 gold per point of PD system to give a very weak PD to Patala. Further, their complete lack of equipment makes this even worse.

My contention was that Kailasa/Bandar Log/Patala PD is easily defeated because of the morale failure of the Markata, they only have 7, long before any other PD is very testable and provable. Because the Markata are present in far larger numbers than the other troops, when the Markata rout the other troops route as well, because of the 75% rout rule. Tests of the last two hours prove this out. Machaka PD is also very weak. However, since Machaka is also viewed as a troubled nation, this is hardly evidence that my other opinions are wrong. But yes, it is difficult to prove the other contentions.

[Lord_Bob]

Which is why my pretender will be large and have a fear effect.

Since I can design my pretender specifically to trash your only way of fighting back, elephants, not so much a problem. However, your elephants could cower behind your dominion.... that would make it a little harder.

Oh wait, double blessed white ones. Did you know a pretender with fire can cast resist fire and be immune to the AP damage of fire blessed weapons?

[Lord_Bob]

And Ulm's Large Pretender with fear effect will destroy the Elephants.

[Hadrian_II]

Lord_Bob said:
Which is why my pretender will be large and have a fear effect.



If you take dom 10 you even get +2 Awe and will be completely immune to elephants.


Lord_Bob said:
Since I can design my pretender specifically to trash your only way of fighting back, elephants, not so much a problem. However, your elephants could cower behind your dominion.... that would make it a little harder.



the Bandar player could just mix his elephants with high morale troops, and they would not rout.


Lord_Bob said:
Oh wait, double blessed white ones. Did you know a pretender with fire can cast resist fire and be immune to the AP damage of fire blessed weapons?



With Bandar Log you can also go for S9W9 or other blesses, you have no need to take fire.

and btw. even when your pretender cant be killed, he will autorout when the white ones with dual bless would have killed your PD.

[llamabeast]

Don't you think it's a nice and interesting thing that the nations vary so much in many different ways, including the strength of their PD?

[NTJedi]

Meglobob said:
When I have misfortune 3 you get alot of barbarian attacks, knight, troll attacks as random events. This is a little like someone constantly raiding you. I create 1 or 2 cloud trapezing/teleporting/flying thugs/SC's who deal with it all no problem.

They take out raiding forces just as easily.

PD is not very important in MP and plays a very, very, very minor role in deceiding a winner.

Not personally played Kailasa/Bandar Log and Patala but they look okay to me. Elephants/longbows and sacreds are always good.



My comments have simply been PD is more important on larger size maps compared with smaller sized maps... and that DOM_4 could use upgrade options.

From my experience Misfortune 3 is noticeably worse than Misfortune 2 and not worth the point difference.

[Zylithan]

Not making any specific comments to this topic.. I find it simultaneously nice that the different races are different... the game does not have balance by making every race identical. I do sometimes feel like I wish it had more balance though.

[Ironhawk]

Dont let the rage abate! Keep the thread going!

Hahahah. like 100 posts on this one alone

[quantum_mechani]

Indeed, one has to salute Lord_Bob as a master troller. It's no mean feat getting people more worked up over markaka than helhirdlings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Valandil]

Markata are the most powerful unit in the entire game. The entire game!

My sc with the stone sword will kill himself after swinging it 50 times. The most effective way in the game of killing him is 51 markatas, at 255 gold. Plz Nerf Markatas.

[KissBlade]

Since somehow it looked like my kind played a small part in causing this, I should point out that my case of the monkey nations (Aside from Lanka) being weak is that their troops are poor precision low protection chaff for the most part and as a result difficult to early expand with on a consistent one province a turn basis. Elephants make up but Bandar chaff isn't as good as say wingless. The VQ was actually suggested because I didn't want to pick the Ghost King since when I wrote the guide, the GK was by far the best SC chassis but I thought VQ would be fun since Patala can get away with taking neg scales since their nationals aren't too great. I don't know how Kailasa/Bandar Log plays out because Lanka blows Kailasa out of the waters and Bandar Log has some problems on magic diversity. The monkey nations have poor PD but really I think their main problem is, their infantry (aside from broken Elephants) are just overpriced for what they do. The longbows cost 20 gold for larger easier to hit targets with lower precision. Against elemental battlemagics, monkey troops just disappears. To say nothing about good archer platoons early on. Once you get to late game though, they're awesome especially EA/LA with clammable mages off the bat and the astral to use it but it's getting there that's pretty tough.

I think Lordbob has some valid points about how PD can play a role in the success of a nation. PD that's hard to raid is very very annoying to deal with but that's not the main flaw of monkeys.

[Valandil]

Well put.

[Lord_Bob]

I went back and counted the little monkeys. I then built a slightly better raiding force.

For 20 PD, Patala has:
40 Melee Markata
20 Bow Markata
10 Melee Atavi
10 Bow Atavi
1 Atavi Commander
1 Bandar Commander

this can be beaten by:
1 Independent Commander
6 Heavy Human Independent Infantry
8 Archers(any type) behind the heavy infantry

That's it. 170 Gold

[lch]

quantum_mechani said:
It's no mean feat getting people more worked up over markaka than helhirdlings. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I thought this sounded an awful lot like all these Helheim threads from the start. They even proposed to do a test game, one against one, to undermine and proof their theories, see.

[Lord_Bob]

Ulm would like to introduce your Elephants to his little friend, Mr. Flail. Really, Bandar Log troops are poor, Ulm troops are strong, and elephants don't make up the difference.
One on one, there won't be a mid-game for MA Ulm to lose miserably.

[AdmiralZhao]

Please, just play out this game already. I'm tired of hearing about the imaginary war, I want to hear the results of the real war. Or, you know, the real imaginary war. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[sum1lost]

Death bless will molest ulmish troops and pretender, end of story. Afflictions up the wazzoo, with mr based an attack.

[Evilhomer]

Whatever pretender you build there is a counter (not to mention your pretender cannot be everywhere). Also the bandar log player is allowed a pretender of his own you know.

Edit: I feel we have argued this as far as it will go, if you want to test the ulm v bandar log deal feel free to send me a pm.

[Sombre]

Want to play Top Trumps? Before we start, I should point out I've memorised the deck, so you lose. See you around.

[VedalkenBear]

Again.

All the arguing is beside the point. Bob has absolutely no basis for his argument. Let me explain.

1) His premise is flawed. He states that 'Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN' (thread subject line). This is logically equivalent to stating that these nations CANNOT win. He cites the MP win thread as his proof. Statistically, that thread does not prove his point. Therefore, his statement has no support.

2) He then explains why he believes that his unsupported premise is correct. Their PD is bad. Every single response to this point accepts, implicitly, statement 1), above. In other words, you are arguing implicitly accepting that they cannot win. This is a classic (if ridiculous) rhetorical technique. Don't follow it. Someone must prove premises before they are allowed to use them as the basis for other arguments.

3) He does not offer a solution! He is simply describing a rather ridiculous reason for a nonexistant problem. He is complaining, purely and simply. At least NTJedi suggests a solution to this (though again, he is implicitly accepting 1) and most likely 2) above, which is incorrect). Offer some sort of solution if you are going to complain.

Bob, answer these points, or shut. the. hell. up. Even IW people have pointed out to you this very issue, which means the designers of the game _are not going to listen to you until you respond to this_. To the point, you are trolling. This is against forum policy, and you should expect a warning and/or banning for it.

[Humakty]

I find them an under average nation, but they are not the only ones which could use a power up, and I can't see the point of such an argument.
Are they the ONLY nation that haven't won in MP ?

[Sombre]

Humakty said:
Are they the ONLY nation that haven't won in MP ?



Not even close.

[Humakty]

So here we have our Don Quichotte, hopelessly charging windmills...

[llamabeast]

Lord_Bob, I will play you one-on-one, Bandar Log against Ulm if you want. Would be fun. Are you up for it?

[Reverend Zombie]

Evilhomer said:
In this instance I do agree with bob, such a test would prove almost nothing.



The test, should the monkeys win, will be evidence that the argument in the title of this thread is wrong.

The game settings can be set up to allow the two reasonable expansion before contact. This will emulate the following MP situation:

initial expansion complete, NAPs with most neighbors, war with one.

This is the most favorable condition for going to war with someone else, apart form going to war with an ally, of course. And neither player will have to worry about being betrayed or having their NAPs cancelled.

[Lord_Bob]

I just checked MA Ulm's PD. Looks like Mr. Nerf Boy has been at it again. I get 1/2 Infrantry of Ulm per point and 1/2 Crossbowman per point. 10 WHOLE GOLD per point. Yes, that's 10 GOLD of unit. 10 WHOLE GOLD. OH. MY. GOD. SO POWERFULL. A useless arbalest and an Infrantry of Ulm who will pass out rapidly. It is not QUITE as pathetic as monkey PD, but it is quite pathetic. Oh, I also only get one TEN GOLD unit past 20.

And no, the fact that Ulm, which has the weakest results of the entire game also has fairly nerfed PD doesn't prove me wrong. I would like to say that MA Ulm PD is BARELY adequate. BARELY. MARGINALLY. But combined with the other failing of MA Ulm, it is not surprising at all that they never win. How is MA Ulm going to deal with raiding?

[llamabeast]

Alright. How about Man vs Bandar Log. Would you play that?

[Shovah32]

I should be able to play against you in the next few hours if you're up for it.
Pick your nation and I'll play with whatever monkey nation you want.
I'm guessing standard settings? What map?

Also note that I have almost no monkey experience.

[Sombre]

This guy is hilarious. Say something about Abysia's old age problems!

[Meglobob]

I will, I HATE LATE WINTER PLAYING ABYSIA!

All my mages just became feebleminded!

Damn, even those monkeys could beat me now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shovah32]

Abysia doesn't have age problems. Its mages are spring chickens.

[thejeff]

No that's Mictlan. And they're turkeys, not chickens...

[Jurri]

Meglobob said:
Damn, even those monkeys could beat me now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


What's that you say? That sounds like an invitation to me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Lord_Bob]

MA Bandar Log VS. MA Man. I need a little work on my pretender and you'll probably want to work on your white monkey bless.

I'll be able to play you tommorrow. Send me information on how to connect. I would prefer a 35 province rectangular map, but don't want to spend the time to make one.

[Folket]

Is Kissblade a dedicated Patala player?... I did not know we had any players dedicating themself to a nation.

Btw, Jotunheim never wins because the terrible pd.

I'm very impressed about how fast this thread has been going.

[Evilhomer]

So you have given up on playing ulm against the monkeys ? Thought you said it would be so very easy just yesterday.

[Baalz]

Heh, for some reason I tend to like the nations that "everyone" considers underpowered. I think MA Ulm and EA R'yleh can be real powerhouses if you're clever about compensating for their obvious weaknesses, and I'm doing quite well with MA Atlantis in Evermore. With MA Mictlan's new face lift I can't think of anybody I consider really uncompetitive.

[Shovah32]

I assumed we would just be using a premade/randomly generated map.
Tomorrow sounds fine.

[lch]

Coming up next: "WHY MA ULM CAN NEVER WIN AND I'M RIGHT" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

(cudos to Sombre)

[VedalkenBear]

Guys, guys.

Let him respond to the underlying problem with his statement before you offer anything else.

IOW, stop feeding the troll until he stops acting like one.

[Edratman]

I only play PS, but Bandar Log is my favorite MA nation. I guess I like the summons.

The biggest problem I see with Bandar Log is that they do not have access to paths that allow research aid crafting (skulls, lamps or feathers). My normal mid/late game lead in research is nonexistant with Bandar Log.

If the dev's eliminated the two midget monkeys off the recruiting screen I would not notice their absence. Of course the midget monkees are the PD so that probably is unlikely.

I love the national summons. What variety! The 4 armed beauties can be armed to the teeth and 2 or 3 of them are unstoppable.

What this has to do with MP is probably nothing.

[K]

jaif said:

One question - has anybody here played Bander Log and done well in MP? Even if it's not a win, it's a start.

-Jeff



I've done well with them in MP. I played thejeff and some other guys, so you can ask him(he notes it in the one of the first posts in this thread). The game ended when I went to law school, and several people wanted to declare me the winner, but some guys wanted to fight me before they gave up.

This game is more than PD, in my opinion.

PS. Yomi has a weaker PD.

[Meglobob]

Jurri said:

Meglobob said:
Damn, even those monkeys could beat me now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


What's that you say? That sounds like an invitation to me! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



That was a joke of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I had a really good Late Winter, no feebleminds at all. The odd limp here and there but that wont affect there fireball throwing at all!

Anyway, Jurri haven't you read the title thread, 'Re: Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN', ha ha bet you regret choosing Bandar Log now!

Face it, Jurri, your on a loser mate, Lord Bob said so. Those cheeky little monkies will be the death of you, they will never beat my horde from hells.

[Ironhawk]

Whoa whoa whoa!

Step back for a second here. You won't play MA Ulm vs the monkeys? If you refuse to play ANY NATION against any other monkey nation than you have completely negated your entire argument, Lord Bob.

Look at the thread title you used and then switch back to MA Ulm and actually prove your point instead of ranting...


Lord_Bob said:
I just checked MA Ulm's PD. Looks like Mr. Nerf Boy has been at it again. I get 1/2 Infrantry of Ulm per point and 1/2 Crossbowman per point. 10 WHOLE GOLD per point. Yes, that's 10 GOLD of unit. 10 WHOLE GOLD. OH. MY. GOD. SO POWERFULL. A useless arbalest and an Infrantry of Ulm who will pass out rapidly. It is not QUITE as pathetic as monkey PD, but it is quite pathetic. Oh, I also only get one TEN GOLD unit past 20.

And no, the fact that Ulm, which has the weakest results of the entire game also has fairly nerfed PD doesn't prove me wrong. I would like to say that MA Ulm PD is BARELY adequate. BARELY. MARGINALLY. But combined with the other failing of MA Ulm, it is not surprising at all that they never win. How is MA Ulm going to deal with raiding?

[Shovah32]

I certainly wouldn't object to Lord Bob changing to Ulm.

[Velusion]

I can't believe this thread is already up to 9 pages...

Of all the things to complain about someone picks PD?

[duke_commando]

From playing against dual blessed Kailasa in a game I gotta say they are not weak.
Sure they have some glaring weaknesses but their bless troops are monsters.
I mean look at this...
S9W9 Ghandarvas have
-enough moves to reach your front line in about two turns
-17 armor
-20 mr
-17 moral (blessed)
-and a +5 standard so they give each other moral. Basically these guys arn't gonna rout.
-16 defense (they take a hit here from the plate)
-two attacks (so four every other round)
- 25 hps
-twist fate
An S2 mage can summon 6 of them for 18 pearls and the spell is at conjuration five.
Their only weakness seems to be fatigue(kind of) and a somewhat non-impressive attack skill of 13.
Oh yeah, they're also magic beings so if you cast unraveling and wait 500 turns or so they'll die of old age.
If you don't go with a bless/summon strategy I guess you'd have a point about the pd...but why the hell wouldn't you with troops like these??

imo raiding wouldn't work too well against them anyway since they don't seem to need a lot of gold with the 1/2 upkeep of sacreds and also iirc summons don't need upkeep at all.
A squad of like five Ghandarvas with a piest will obliterate your 200 gold raiding force in about five seconds, and could probably take on a much larger raiding force as well.

[Agrajag]

Lord Bob,
If it bothers you so much, why not just mod the game to give them better PD? Its only a few lines in notepad. (or text editor of your choice)

[Lord_Bob]

So you are going to research Conj-5 and summon a army of Ghandarvas before your opponent can build an indy commander and give him 10 heavy infrantry(that's the new low number).

That's fast. Really it is. This does make up, partially, for their low troop strength. And astral pearls can be gotten from anywhere. BUT, those Ghandarvas are going to be in your main army, not every little province of the map. And they need a mage to lead them.

[Lord_Bob]

Actually, because Ulm's flails are so deadly, and all I have to do is reach Evo-4/Conj-3 to spam blade wind, Ulm could do reasonably well against the arrow throwing troops with Mighty Bucklers of Bandar. But a straight beat down is not what I'm looking for. I want to raid the hell out of him so he gets a good idea how problematic no PD is.

[Ironhawk]

Lord Bob - you must play MA Ulm or I will completely ignore everything you have to say from this point on. And encourage all the other vets to do the same.

[Lord_Bob]

MA Ulm won a game, I believe a newby game where the players didn't understand the magic system well enough to kill him.

But Ulm PD is indeed bad. But not nearly as bad as the Monkey PD. The key problem with the monkey PD is you don't even need to hit them. As long as you can survive the Monkey's minor damage long enough the deviated arrow damage will kill enough Markata to route them. At that point 1 or 2 more monkey deaths will take the entire PD below 1/2. This will force the entire PD to make a morale check every turn. You'll hit the 75% point pretty soon.

[Lord_Bob]

Fine. Since some people want to be smart-aleks without thinking, I'll take MA Ulm.

At least I won't have to think to much while I beat you.

Won't really raid to much, but heh, whatever.

[Meglobob]

Game on!

MA Ulm vs MA Bandar Log, the showdown.

Keep us updated...be like a little AAR.

[Jurri]

Meglobob said:
Anyway, Jurri haven't you read the title thread, 'Re: Why Kailasa, Bandar Log, and Patala NEVER WIN', ha ha bet you regret choosing Bandar Log now!

Face it, Jurri, your on a loser mate, Lord Bob said so. Those cheeky little monkies will be the death of you, they will never beat my horde from hells.

I know! You don't have to rub it in, you meanie http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Sheesh, what was I thinking?

Hey, I just realized: Meglo Bob and Lord Bob... is it your alt, perchance?

[Evilhomer]

I can play the monkey side against ulm, I have time right now in fact...

[DrPraetorious]

In general, I think raiding is annoying, and that PD should be better. This is especially true for monkeys and giants.

There are a few game-balance points to consider, however:
* There are a few spells that are *only* useful for raiding, and call of the winds is *supposed* to be used for raiding. Making PD better makes these spells worse, and they are not hugeley competitive at present.

* There are several nations that depend on raiding to be competitive at certain stages of the game. Caelum, obviously, and the now-nerfed *heims.

So if I make a stronger/balanced PD mod, it should also compensate for those changes (cue: swallowed a cat, to catch the fly....)

[lch]

Velusion said:
I can't believe this thread is already up to 9 pages...

Of all the things to complain about someone picks PD?


Hah, I know why you're getting nervous... Lord_bob has the set goal of getting more posts than your Perpetuality thread - in half the time! Be afraid, be very afraid...

[Lord_Bob]

Send me the connection information, and map, and I can play tommorrow at around this time, or earlier.

[Shovah32]

Evilhomer said:
I can play the monkey side against ulm, I have time right now in fact...



I have time too! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
But I think Bob wants to play tomorrow.

Ulm will die - crushed by my furry might.

[Meglobob]

Jurri said:Hey, I just realized: Meglo Bob and Lord Bob... is it your alt, perchance?



No relation at all!

I only have 1 posting name.

[K]

DrPraetorious said:
In general, I think raiding is annoying, and that PD should be better. This is especially true for monkeys and giants.

There are a few game-balance points to consider, however:
* There are a few spells that are *only* useful for raiding, and call of the winds is *supposed* to be used for raiding. Making PD better makes these spells worse, and they are not hugeley competitive at present.




One point of monkey PD is already enough to beat off a Call of Winds . (Had this happen in Perpetuality, where my 5 gold investment beat off five provinces worth of CoW castings).

[llamabeast]

I think several of us have all agreed to fight Lord_Bob. Being as I appear to be coming down with a fever I think I will step down. However, if the others (Shovah32? someone else?) can't play then I will take the reins - this game has to be fought!

[Shovah32]

Homer and myself have both agreed. I personally feel that Homer would do better than I would, but I want to do this http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Lord_Bob]

So I don't have to hurt my head calculating time zones, how many hours from now do you want to start? 14-20 hours from the time I posted this is a good range for me.

[Valandil]

Really, I think we should have petitioned QM or the like to play the monkeys.

To clarify the OP's viewpoint, is it that bad PD makes ANY nation too weak, or just an already below-average nation? If we gave, say, Kailasa recruitable devatas, would they still be woefully underpowered?

If yes, then... err...
If no, then the OP argument goes out the window, since clearly balance CAN exist without PD...

[quantum_mechani]

Valandil said:
Really, I think we should have petitioned QM or the like to play the monkeys.



Actually, I had to restrain myself from volunteering, I really don't have time until the weekend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Digress]

On another low morale furry PD subject. Have you looked at Sombre's Skaven mod ???

<font color="red"> WELL NOW IS YOUR CHANCE </font>

I have signed up for one of llamabeast's games, "Marmoset", not knowing I was to be out of the city for the weekend and need a sub.

The game has just begun and we are on turn three. It features one of Sombre's fine mod efforts, the Skaven, TO BE PLAYED BY YOU (for at least 3 or 4 turns of furry low morale PD action).

It has the added attraction of two further mod nations (Agra Dis and Ulm Reborn) on a modded map - the main mod is delivered in a single package prepared by llamabeast. It is easily installed and equally easily removed (Marmoset's game thread has instructions for this).

Please PM me if you are interested. Thanks.

We now return to regular programming .....

[Evilhomer]

Yeah, go ahead and play shovah if you want it so badly http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[llamabeast]

Digress - _three_ further mod nations - don't forget the Tomb Kings!

[Shovah32]

Curses. Looks like I'm getting kicked off this computer for today :/. Bob, do you want to reschedule or find another opponent?

[Lord_Bob]

If you gave the Markata stealth that would fix it. Give them a flier, that fixes it. Nations need Anti-Raid power. Stealth troops do it. Fliers do it. PD does it.

Main-line mage backed battle forces should smash any PD flat. But we aren't talking "main-line". We are talking non-castle, and cheap at that.

[Lord_Bob]

Tomorrow, an hour later than right now, is fine. But really, send me a time and I'll see if I can play it then.

[thejeff]

How is stealth good for Anti-Raiding?


Raiding, sure. Though Markata would be bad at that, too. Unless you used them in huge numbers, which makes it hard to sneak...

[Evilhomer]

Or, I can play in 2 hours if you still are willing to test the bandar vs ulm theory.

[Edratman]

At last, a MA thread complaining about some nation other than Ulm.

[KissBlade]

Believe it or not, if Bandar doesn't have elephants (a rather broken unit anyway), I think MA Ulm has a very strong chance of winning the matchup.

Also, I think Lord_Bob is making a different claim than what some people think. Essentially, if you look at it as IF Monkey nations had better PD, they would win MORE games. It doesn't look as properly constructed.

[thejeff]

Well yeah, but that's pretty much a truism.

If X had better Y, they would win more games. Isn't that true for any X and Y? (Though some things might be so trivial as to have no effect.)

[Lord_Bob]

Ok, let's take a basic scenario. You have main armies, each on the edge of the the nations border. Both can attack two different provinces of the other player. The player that is playing T'ien Ch'i buys 55 gold worth of PD in his two bordering provinces(a 400 gold army each) and then rushes one of the Patala provinces. The two worst cases for Patala are if Patala hops to the side and T'ien Ch'i charges, T'ien Ch'i takes a Patala province, and Patala takes nothing. If T'ien Ch'i attacks the other province, while Patala charges, then Patala still must face the 400 gold army, while T'ien Ch'i is unharmed by the Patala PD. Worse, now T'ien Ch'i's main army can now attack significantly deeper into Patala than Patala's main army can move to block. Every 15 soldier force broken off siezes a province, builds 10 PD(400 gold worth of soldiers) and then rejoins the main army the turn after. Should Patala break up it's soldiers to attack these province.. oh wait, it can't, because it needs at least an 600 gold army to dispatch 55 gold worth of PD without more casualities than the PD is worth. Of course, it CAN do this, but it is loosing money at it. Meanwhile, T'ien Ch'i occassionally loses a 150 gold force... but deprives it's enemy of far more income than those 150 gold of soldiers are worth. The best case that can happen for Patala is that it guesses right, but doesn't have to face T'ien Ch'i's main army with 400+ gold of PD tacked on. Basically, this will only happen 37.5% of the time. Of course, T'ien Ch'i can still win that fight.

Or T'ien Ch'i can send out a 150 gold raiding force, and sit in the province it is in, hoping to be attacked with the Dominion bonus it has and 400 gold of PD. If Patala fails to hop to the side, the next turn T'ien Ch'i's main army joins the raiding force... and maybe T'ien Ch'i buys a ridiclious amount of PD hoping that Patala attacks and maybe not.

[sum1lost]

KissBlade said:
Believe it or not, if Bandar doesn't have elephants (a rather broken unit anyway), I think MA Ulm has a very strong chance of winning the matchup.

Also, I think Lord_Bob is making a different claim than what some people think. Essentially, if you look at it as IF Monkey nations had better PD, they would win MORE games. It doesn't look as properly constructed.



You may want to reread the title of the thread. "Why patala, bandar log, and kailasa NEVER WIN is pretty cut and dried in terms of meaning.

[Lord_Bob]

Yes it is.

I even posted an example, which, of course, hasn't been commented on.

[Lord_Bob]

Oh, and another thing. That PD is the same PD that protects the capital and prevents rushing. I know that it is "only" 400/500 gold in troops for most nations. But in the starting turns, that is the equivelent of a whole turn worth of income.
With obvious resource restrictions, more than a turn. So it is possible to rush Bandar Capital one turn earlier than other nations, which is bad. Excluding imbalanced bless rushes/ect.
NOTE:
Lightly armoured PD that can still do damage is just the ticket versus elephant rushes... another thing that Patala doesn't have.

[Valandil]

Lord_Bob said:
Ok, let's take a basic scenario. You have main armies, each on the edge of the the nations border. Both can attack two different provinces of the other player. The player that is playing T'ien Ch'i buys 55 gold worth of PD in his two bordering provinces(a 400 gold army each) and then rushes one of the Patala provinces. The two worst cases for Patala are if Patala hops to the side and T'ien Ch'i charges, T'ien Ch'i takes a Patala province, and
Patala takes nothing. If T'ien Ch'i attacks the other province, while Patala charges, then Patala still must face the 400 gold army, while T'ien Ch'i is unharmed by the Patala PD. Worse, now T'ien Ch'i's main army can now attack significantly deeper into Patala than Patala's main army can move to block. Every 15 soldier force broken off siezes a province, builds 10 PD(400 gold worth of soldiers) and then rejoins the main army the turn after. Should Patala break up it's soldiers to attack these province.. oh wait, it can't, because it needs at least an 600 gold army to dispatch 55 gold worth of PD without more casualities than the PD is worth. Of course, it CAN do this, but it is loosing money at it. Meanwhile, T'ien Ch'i occassionally loses a 150 gold force... but deprives it's enemy of far more income than those 150 gold of soldiers are worth. The best case that can happen for Patala is that it guesses right, but doesn't have to face T'ien Ch'i's main army with 400+ gold of PD tacked on. Basically, this will only happen 37.5% of the time. Of course, T'ien Ch'i can still win that fight. Or T'ien Ch'i can send out a 150 gold raiding force, and sit in the province it is in, hoping to be attacked with the Dominion bonus it has and 400 gold of PD. If Patala fails to hop to the side, the next turn T'ien Ch'i's main army joins the raiding force... and maybe T'ien Ch'i buys a ridiclious amount of PD hoping that Patala attacks and maybe not.



Err... so? Only relevant if both nations are equal in toher respects. If Tien Chi could never win a battle with Patala (not true, I know,) then, eventually, Patala would reach about as many provinces as armies. At the same time, Tien Chi would get the remaining provinces, and spend the gold on troops. Thse troops, however, would e absolutely useless because they could not win a fight. It would be like throwing stones across an ocean: number of stones doesn't make much difference.

Of course, that is an extreme example, but again, it demonstrates that nations are not balanced by PD alone. If you modified the original to something like: very weak PD has a disproportionate effect on nation balance, so much so that otherwise balanced nations such as kailasa become weaker than they should be, and in fact have difficulty winning games (maybe), then I MIGHT agree.

Although I'm still not sure that Kailasa eg. is actually a weak nation.

[Lord_Bob]

Oh, and I'll play you to, EvilHomer. LA Patala versus LA T'ien Ch'i in order to painfully and dramatically demonstrate the difference. But really, what honor is there in winning a fight I cannot lose?

But then again, what fun is there in playing a game I can lose?

Hopefully, this will stop the trash talk.

[Sombre]

In my opinion LA Tienchi have a clear advantage vs Patala, but it isn't a matter of PD. It's a matter of Patala's troops being pretty sucky, especially vs massed composite bows and of Patala basically needing to reach the late game to do well, something that's very hard in a duel. Then again my impression of you is that you massively overestimate the importance of PD and probably aren't much good in MP, so who knows?

[Valandil]

This is true. Patala is a late game clam horder, not a eary rusher. If they played on a 1200 province map...

[Evilhomer]

wow, I have made 0 posts claiming that LA patala is better than LA Tien chi. You have however made several post about how easy you can win with MA Ulm vs MA Bandar log. Now you seem to want to avoid that match up, funny.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, come on Lord_Bob - if you have any conviction at all in your original claims you HAVE to play MA Ulm vs Bandar Log - and of course it will be impossible for you to lose, so you may as well.

[Edratman]

This whole thread is based on PD. Last I checked, it was still legal and acceptablee to bolster PD with recruitable troops.

[lch]

Exactly, this thread was about difference in PD strengths, and not about difference in the national recruitable units. "Can never win" was sort of an universal statement, however. It never was "can lose in certain setups". That's obvious.

[Lord_Bob]

Oh I can lose MA Ulm versus MA Bandar Log. Granted, MA Ulm has very poor PD, specializing in Arbalests who will kill the rest of your own soldiers for the enemey, so that has nothing to do with my claims, but, I really don't think I will lose.

I said I was ready yesterday, and I am ready today. Anytime after I make this post for the next 10 hours. I can also do from the time I make this post now, till whenever tommorrow.

It's nice that the frothing has settled down when I throw out LA T'ien Ch'i versus LA Patala. Did you know that LA T'ien Ch'i gets 2 composite bow shooters per point of PD? One of which is light calvarly! After 20, they also get a Heavy Calvary(which also has a composite bow!)! Maybe that should be switched to an Ancestor Vessel, like Mictlan has Jaguars, in order to achieve "balance". Heh, heh.

Oh, and I am perfectly aware that I am messing up my diplomacy by doing this. I however, think that the game shouldn't be broken by a trivial sub-feature that can be corrected with no programming effort at all. You apparently think it should.

[Folket]

I wonder if Lord_Bob only is here to make people upset, say strange stuff and generally mess with everyone, given that he recently made a post accusing people of cheating as he had a capital just three moves away.

[Evilhomer]

The reason I fear LA Patala vs LA Tien chi has nothing to do with pd. Basically LA Tien chi has good bless troops and access to astral magic (LA Patala is very weak against astral magic). I do honestly belive the match up is not at all decided since Patala has some good tactics up their sleave (elephants, much better battle magic), but LA TC has a slight advantage.

I could probably play later on today, in maybe 5-6 hours from now. Send a pm and we can arrange details.

[Hadrian_II]

@Lord_Bob

If i was able to set up some dom3, then you can join a game on 85.2.155.98:8888 where i play bandar log, and you can play whatever you like, if i should loose it wont be because the PD.

[Agrajag]

Oh I can lose MA Ulm versus MA Bandar Log.


Doesn't this disprove the whole "Bandar Log NEVER WINS" thing?

can be corrected with no programming effort at all.


Well, with no programming effort at all, you can make a mod that makes Bandar's PD stronger.

[Lord_Bob]

I wonder if Lord_Bob only is here to make people upset, say strange stuff and generally mess with everyone, given that he recently made a post accusing people of cheating as he had a capital just three moves away.




And surprisingly in my next game I have 4 provinces I can capture without ending up adjacent, by adjacent I mean RIGHT NEXT TO an enemy capital. You can confirm this with Coobe and Yucky. 4 WHOLE PROVINCES! WOO-HOO! I also started out with one of those provinces being a "dead-end" province, forcing my army to turn around, and the other two having barbarians! Yes, that "coveted" corner position is serving me well!

NOTE:
Because I'm not quite sure where Utgard's capital is, I may have had ONE other province I could have taken.... But by the time I could even see it, actually by the earliest possible time I could have taken it, since I needed two turns of Rangers to beat the barbarian, and I took it on Turn 3 using my Black Priest research mage as a commander, Utgard had taken my only possible "fifth province". Currently, I am hoping that Patala will let me out of my corner and have 5 other provinces, but since one of them is adjacent to his capital, I'm thinking he is going to attack me. At that point he can enjoy taking another player down with him as we both lose. Of course, my other option was settling in to my 5 province empire(including capital). So my other option involves me losing to.

[Lord_Bob]

I'm not playing everyone in some bizarre wierdness. Shovah32 wanted to play me MA Bandar versus whatever, and I'm perfectly willing to do that today. I'll play EvilHomer Patala versus T'ien Ch'i today if Shovah can't play today. Six hours from now would be fine.

[Hadrian_II]

Lord_Bob said:
I'm not playing everyone in some bizarre wierdness. Shovah32 wanted to play me MA Bandar versus whatever, and I'm perfectly willing to do that today. I'll play EvilHomer Patala versus T'ien Ch'i today if Shovah can't play today. Six hours from now would be fine.



Too Bad

[llamabeast]

I don't think there is much point in playing Patala vs T'ien Ch'i. As EvilHomer says, T'ien Ch'i probably is a stronger nation, although not particularly because of its PD. MA Ulm vs Bandar Log would be much more meaningful, because many of us feel that Bandar Log would have an advantage, whereas you are certain that Bandar Log can NEVER WIN.

[Folket]

That reminds me that I won a blitz with Bandar Log against Ermor and Pangaea, who are both considered strong MA nations.

[llamabeast]

Oh! Wow Folket. Well in that case I guess the whole thread is disproved.

If you would submit your win to the Victorious Nations thread it would make me very happy.

[Evilhomer]

Duels, blitzes etc are not reported usually to the victorious nation thread, would just flood it I fear http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Folket]

Shall we start recording all duel and blitz wins there? That will give more number but I think it will only start to show what nations people like to play.

In general I do not find the monkey troops that weak. I have played Bandar Log and Patala in MP with fair success.

[Evilhomer]

Might be a plan to have them in a seperate stickied thread. I do belive you have an ordinary game with LA marignon unreported anyway...

[Folket]

that is true. I should report that at a time.

[NTJedi]

Evilhomer said:
Might be a plan to have them in a seperate stickied thread. I do belive you have an ordinary game with LA marignon unreported anyway...



Blitzes should definitely be recorded seperately perhaps in the same sticky, but one or two posts further down.

[Sombre]

Speaking of thread hi-jacks, here's a mod I just made in response to this thread that has obvious implications for some kind of PD mod in the future.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=563021&amp;page=0&amp;view=collap sed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=&amp;fpart=&amp;vc=#Post563021

It applies the '4 to a base' stuff I used for skavenslave and gnoblar chaff in the Skaven and Ogre Kingdoms mods to our own MA Bandar Log. It's in beta, but might be fun for you to try.

[llamabeast]

If recording blitzes, it would be good to record which nations lost as well. Then the stats wouldn't be so biased by which nations people played more often.

[NTJedi]

llamabeast said:
If recording blitzes, it would be good to record which nations lost as well. Then the stats wouldn't be so biased by which nations people played more often.



Recording blitzes would be good, but should be recorded separately from normal games.

[llamabeast]

Yep, I meant that sorry.

[Shovah32]

Ok my duel with Bob is ready.
MA Ulm vrs Bandar Log. Random map with 40 provinces and no water.
The server is up and Bob should be joining soon. I will save the turns and hope I do the monkey nation proud.

I also hope I'm not facing the pretender that I expect.

[KissBlade]

Eh I think Lord_Bob was more exaggerating in his post than actual stating as fact.

[Lord_Bob]

Shovah32 won the game do to my stupidity on Turn 9.

I got greedy and tried to build a second castle to early, and then had to defend it. So my army of Flails died before I researched Strength of Giants, which would have been very helpful. I also think I misplaced my flails against the elephants. He then destroyed the castle construction(1 turn before completion) and that was it. If it had been up I would have ignored his army till getting Strength of Giants, but I didn't. So that's it.

[Shovah32]

I'm not sure if buffing your flails would have given you as much help as you expect but I certainly think that you would have atleast survived alot longer if I hadn't hit you out of the blue like that so early on.

Thank you for the game - I hope we get this rematch quickly.

[Lord_Bob]

Next battle, Shovah32 got some really bad luck, but decided to keep playing. So nothing except the battles mean very much.

As for the battles:
68 Flail troops operating in negative dominion without my Prophet for Sermon of Courage(again, bad luck on his part made me sloppy) fought 22 Tigers with strong bless and something like 8 white monkeys. Had light support from mages. Mostly mages cast Strength of Giants. Thier magma bolts killed like two monkeys. Flail troops killed all white monkeys and about 5 Tigers, with 2 tigers dying to Magma bolts. Flails worked well. But my army routed(would have won had they not). I'd like to repeat that. 68 Flail troops and some smiths almost killed 22 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys, and his prophet. In their dominion.

Next battle, he rushed forward and hit me 15 white tigers. I built the suicidal arbalests using PD. About 35 PD. This worked because they work against things like white tigers. I had my one surviving smith cast Magma bolts and not buff my Flails at all. Flails didn't kill a single tiger. Total tankage. Arbalests kill 10 white tigers and 15 flail troops.

Third battle, Shovah32 gets into the spirit of silliness and buys a large amount of PD. Sadly, this is effective because my now large force of smiths is packing Magma Bolts for Tiger. Instead it gets Markata. So I rain flaming Magma death on Markata. Each casting can kill up to three Markata.
While I have about 100 flail troops and 40 flagellants, I am facing the remaining 5 tigers and something like 14 elephants. Because the Markata screw up my targetting, and the Bandar Warriors do real damage, I lose decisively. However, I do kill like 9 elephants and I think two tigers. By shear luck my armoured smiths escape. Yes they are armoured and have Earth Power waking them up, but they still should have died. My prophet was also in this fight.

Anyway, from the battles, it is pretty clear that Flail troops buffed with Strenght of Giants and used intelligently can do a good job against Bandar.

[Shovah32]

Please note that in the first 2 battles my forces were not scripted to fight Ulm(first battle because it was indy when I attacked it. second battle due to me being lazy).

And in the third battle, your magma bolts actually did target my elephants. Atleast the first volley did.

[Sombre]

So what your saying is you lost a battle due to the GROSSLY INSANELY USELESS monkey pd?

Hahahahahah.

[lch]

ah, you gotta love chaff

[duke_commando]

Lord_Bob said:
Next battle, Shovah32 got some really bad luck, but decided to keep playing. So nothing except the battles mean very much.

As for the battles:
68 Flail troops operating in negative dominion without my Prophet for Sermon of Courage(again, bad luck on his part made me sloppy) fought 22 Tigers with strong bless and something like 8 white monkeys. Had light support from mages. Mostly mages cast Strength of Giants. Thier magma bolts killed like two monkeys. Flail troops killed all white monkeys and about 5 Tigers, with 2 tigers dying to Magma bolts. Flails worked well. But my army routed(would have won had they not). I'd like to repeat that. 68 Flail troops and some smiths almost killed 22 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys, and his prophet. In their dominion.

Next battle, he rushed forward and hit me 15 white tigers. I built the suicidal arbalests using PD. About 35 PD. This worked because they work against things like white tigers. I had my one surviving smith cast Magma bolts and not buff my Flails at all. Flails didn't kill a single tiger. Total tankage. Arbalests kill 10 white tigers and 15 flail troops.

Third battle, Shovah32 gets into the spirit of silliness and buys a large amount of PD. Sadly, this is effective because my now large force of smiths is packing Magma Bolts for Tiger. Instead it gets Markata. So I rain flaming Magma death on Markata. Each casting can kill up to three Markata.
While I have about 100 flail troops and 40 flagellants, I am facing the remaining 5 tigers and something like 14 elephants. Because the Markata screw up my targetting, and the Bandar Warriors do real damage, I lose decisively. However, I do kill like 9 elephants and I think two tigers. By shear luck my armoured smiths escape. Yes they are armoured and have Earth Power waking them up, but they still should have died. My prophet was also in this fight.

Anyway, from the battles, it is pretty clear that Flail troops buffed with Strenght of Giants and used intelligently can do a good job against Bandar.



Were the tigers blessed? Otherwise it's not to surprising they lost against 3x their number in heavy infantry.
I'd think with a f9w9 bless they'd rip though the infantry. If they can't they might need a cost reduction cause 100 gold is pretty steep.

[Archonsod]

Lord_Bob said:
I'd like to repeat that. 68 Flail troops and some smiths almost killed 22 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys, and his prophet. In their dominion.



Not that surprising really, you outnumber them more than two to one. Given sufficient troop numbers you can take out anything thanks to the multiple attacks reduce defence rules.


Sadly, this is effective because my now large force of smiths is packing Magma Bolts for Tiger. Instead it gets Markata. So I rain flaming Magma death on Markata. Each casting can kill up to three Markata.



Cannon fodder has always been useful :lol:


Anyway, from the battles, it is pretty clear that Flail troops buffed with Strenght of Giants and used intelligently can do a good job against Bandar.


I'd think flail troops buffed and used intelligently would do a good job against just about anyone.

You've already lost a battle thanks to the monkey PD, which somewhat disproves your theory of it being useless. The problem with your original premise is that it's based around the value of the troops as toe to toe combatants against another unit, which isn't always the purpose of a troop, nor a good use of the troop. Bandar's PD is pretty much infinitely renewable chaff. They're fairly useless if your relying on them to see off a determined assault, however if their only purpose is to distract your mages and archers long enough for some decent combat troops to engage, or for a mage to get off a particular spell, then they're pretty much perfect. Of course, it means you can't treat defence for Bandar the same as you would for Abyssia, but then I think you could say the same thing about any aspect for any nation. The trick to winning isn't picking the best troops, but using them in the best manner. Sometimes it's crushing your enemy, sometimes it's dying in droves.

I guess to be honest that's the only real flaw with Bandar's little monkeys - thematically, they don't seem like one of the nations which would be happy to sacrifice a few thousand of their own for the 'greater good', but there you go.

[lch]

That was a very good post, Archonsod, which I hope Lord_Bob doesn't ignore, and a good finish to this thread I think.

[Lord_Bob]

They had an W9E9 bless.

F9 gets the Fire Attack, which would make them worse, but the +4 to attack is meaningless. Flail troops have a defence of 5.

[Lord_Bob]

Not that surprising really, you outnumber them more than two to one. Given sufficient troop numbers you can take out anything thanks to the multiple attacks reduce defence rules.



White Tigers cost 100 gold, and White Monkeys cost 23 gold. Flail troops cost 10 gold and 26 resources. Why don't you do the math.
22 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys. 68 Flail Troops and 4 Smiths

The Bless troops had a W9E9 bless. They were fighting in their dominion, with their prophet and only won because my troops didn't have their prophet and routed.(also the -1 from dominion really hurt).

Losses:
7 White Tigers, 8 White Monkeys. 68 Flail Troops and 3 Smiths




You've already lost a battle thanks to the monkey PD, which somewhat disproves your theory of it being useless. The problem with your original premise is that it's based around the value of the troops as toe to toe combatants against another unit, which isn't always the purpose of a troop, nor a good use of the troop. Bandar's PD is pretty much infinitely renewable chaff.



So PD is important now?

And no, it was only usefull ONCE. Now that I know it's there, I can pretty much route any army stationed in that province by having my smiths spam blade wind. There is 2 melee Markate per point, and from the number of Bandar Warriors I think he had at least 40-50 PD. That's 800 gold right there. More importantly, that means I can add 80-100 routed to the army route total with two blade winds. Next, I have to hope the smiths/flails kill enough guys to push the army below 50%. Which, since the total already has 80-100 routed, isn't that hard. Then the Archer Markata(Morale 7 +1 for dominion) must begin making morale rolls every turn. Once they route I will have 120-160+ soldiers routed just from dead markata. I am now closing in on 75% mandatory route.



That was a very good post, Archonsod, which I hope Lord_Bob doesn't ignore, and a good finish to this thread I think.



Since the first line of his post is "logic" which would result in any player using it losing in MP, that's pretty smart.

"My enemy is losing more, and my units only cost 10 times as much!"

[Sir_Dr_D]

Archonsod said:
I guess to be honest that's the only real flaw with Bandar's little monkeys - thematically, they don't seem like one of the nations which would be happy to sacrifice a few thousand of their own for the 'greater good', but there you go.



In the Bandar Log caste system, the markatas are considered nobodies.

[lch]

I give up.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/563278-goodbye.png

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Archonsod said:
I guess to be honest that's the only real flaw with Bandar's little monkeys - thematically, they don't seem like one of the nations which would be happy to sacrifice a few thousand of their own for the 'greater good', but there you go.



Well... not entirely. "intellect barely above that of simple beasts [...] despised by larger monkeys and apes."

Given that they evolved intelligence under the blessing of divine beings and their belief in transmigration, they'd likely form an opinion that either Markatas were spurned by the divine beings or that they are a white one or other ape that did something horrible enough that they were reborn into a lesser form.

[Lord_Bob]

Hey, T'ien Ch'i this turn attempted what should have been a highly successfull strike back against my empire.

You see, I pretty muched totally destroyed his army and sieged his capital last turn. But. 4 Archers, with Protection 9, and a single commander escaped into another province. T'ien Ch'i launched a devasting, massed attack on one of my province. I know what you guys are thinking. What could stop 4 unarmoured archers and a commander. Well, it turns out 11 Monkey PD can do it if your lucky. Now, the Melee Markata routed, and one of the Atavi groups failed it's mandatory roll and routed, but, within one round of my whole army routing the bowmen finally failed their morale roll. I won. Woo-hoo.

Another attack only failed because the Morale 14 Cave Drake inexplicably failed it's morale roll on round 2. Also, he targetted my archers, not my melee units. Oh, the Cave Drake was backed up by 6 archers, a commander, 2-3 crossbowmen, and a single pale one. That force should have won. PD 10. But if the Cave Drake hadn't wussed out it wouldn't have matterred how much PD I had. My own archers would have killed enough PD to rout my own army.
[Not inexplicable. I remember now that a Pale One was in the battle group with the cave drake. When the Pale One died the "group" was brought to 50% strength and suffered a severe morale penalty. Alone the Cave Drake would have won.]

But I could take these provinces back?

That's funny! You silly people make me laugh! For 55 gold he can put 10 Footman, 10 Archers, and 10 Light Calvary in the province!

As a result, my entire siege army is now diverted, lest the 4 Archers of Death strike again.

They are terrible to behold in their 4 archer glory, are they not?

You are wrong. I am right. That is why there is no discussion, only whining on your part.

[Shovah32]

Is Tien Chis PD considered strong? Yes.
Is the PD of the monkey nations considered among the worst in the game? Yes.
Do either of these facts make/break these nations? I think not.

Are you trolling now? I have a suspicion that you are.

The monkey nations CAN win as I have proven to you. Sure, their PD is a weakness but it can be compensated for. Every nation has pros and cons - One of Tien Chis pros is it's strong PD, one of the cons of the monkey nations is their weak PD.

It may change their multiplayer effectiveness but they CAN still win.

[Lord_Bob]

Oh I know exactly what I'm dealing with.

[Lord_Bob]

I have had to divert nearly all my reinforcements from the siege in order to prevent him from raiding me with the 10% of his army that is left. My only viable method of cleaning up his current provinces is to leave a skeleton force in the capital and send massive armies versus his provinces. Rather than do that, I'm going to try to break his capital(without the additional siegers, but he is a new player, so hopefully there isn't an army of militia in his capital, HOPEFULLY). I am also attempting a Dominion kill. Since I killed his prophet(by luck) this is possible. There is that luck again. I'm doing well. Luck. Luck. Luck. Luck. Luck. He didn't pre-make 5 Tower Shield Footman Death Squads before I broke his capital, so he only has archers and such to raid me. But because the Cave Drake is an effective unit for raiding, I am stuck with massive armies everywhere.

And that's after a Win-Or-Die attack on his capital. In which he didn't use his research mages to back him up.

I am only doing semi-well by Luck. Luck. Luck.

[Archonsod]

Lord_Bob said:
White Tigers cost 100 gold, and White Monkeys cost 23 gold. Flail troops cost 10 gold and 26 resources. Why don't you do the math.



You do realise that units are balanced among their nation, not necessarily with those of other nations?


So PD is important now?



Only if you choose to include it in your strategy. As I've said in another thread, there are times I won't buy a single point of PD. There are others where I will spend 20 points or so on PD.


I can pretty much route any army stationed in that province by having my smiths spam blade wind.



Assuming of course your opponent doesn't bother moving in a force to defend, or otherwise change the playing field, which if they had any sense would be their next move...


I will have 120-160+ soldiers routed just from dead markata. I am now closing in on 75% mandatory route.



As I said, assuming he simply leaves it alone, and doesn't move up troops who'll laugh at blade wind, or even a mage to counter it. Of course, it would be incredibly nasty if he actually decided to attack that province on the off chance you'd set up the army there to take on the chaff of his PD rather than the heavy infantry of his main army.



You are wrong. I am right.



Only if we forget why you're playing these games in the first place. At the moment, you're only proving you can't use the monkeys effectively http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shovah32]

Lord_Bob said:
I have had to divert nearly all my reinforcements from the siege in order to prevent him from raiding me with the 10% of his army that is left. My only viable method of cleaning up his current provinces is to leave a skeleton force in the capital and send massive armies versus his provinces. Rather than do that, I'm going to try to break his capital(without the additional siegers, but he is a new player, so hopefully there isn't an army of militia in his capital, HOPEFULLY). I am also attempting a Dominion kill. Since I killed his prophet(by luck) this is possible. There is that luck again. I'm doing well. Luck. Luck. Luck. Luck. Luck. He didn't pre-make 5 Tower Shield Footman Death Squads before I broke his capital, so he only has archers and such to raid me. But because the Cave Drake is an effective unit for raiding, I am stuck with massive armies everywhere.

And that's after a Win-Or-Die attack on his capital. In which he didn't use his research mages to back him up.

I am only doing semi-well by Luck. Luck. Luck.



He has small armies raiding you? Use slightly larger forces to push him back. If he is raiding you then he is most probably close to atleast a few of your castles - recruit a couple of units to take out his raiding forces.

[Gregstrom]

I think these arguments about cost of units are flawed anyway. The limiting factor for Ulm recruitment is resources, not gold. That's their schtick.

Looking at the resource cost, Ulm took more than 3 times as many resources into the battle as Bandar.

Looking at cost of dead units, Ulm lost out on both gold and resources.

(I suspect that both armies in the Ulm vs. Bandar fight mentioned were equivalent to 4-5 turns of maxed-out unit production - perhaps they could be considered equivalent in that respect?)

[Lord_Bob]

So I could send in, maybe 15 Longbow Bandar archers(18 hitpoints and 14 protection) costing 300 gold and a indie commander.

And he could spend 120 gold on 15 PD and have 15 Footmen, 15 Archers(Composite Bow), and 15 Light Calvary(Composite Bow) waiting for me. Then, I could lose the 15 Archers and gain nothing.

Counter-raiding doesn't seem like a very good idea. No. I need 200 gold plus commander armies in every province he can attack to prevent raids. That's only 920 gold! + 60 gold in maintenance a turn. Of course, I can only get away with that because he has no real army left.

[Lord_Bob]

You are quite right that resource cost is the limiting factor for Ulm. That's what makes elephants an effective weapon. They are gold eaters, and even when you win they tend to get Limps and Cripples and Battle Frights that ruin 100 gold elepants. But they are VERY VERY LOW RESOURCE COST. So they can be spammed out aggressively. However, it is also true that W9E9 bless isn't cheap. However, I suspect that Shovah32 was messing around, and had he been serious W9F9 would have inflicted alot more casualities.

But the cost of a good bless should also be included. You can be certain he didn't have Production-3.

[Archonsod]

Those 15 Bandar archers can be moved around the map, join other armies or defend provinces. The PD on the other hand can't ever attack, can't ever move and is a total waste of money if you never attack the province.

It won't even stop the province rebelling ...

[Gregstrom]

On similar grounds, surely the cost of Prod-3 for Ulm should be taken into consideration. Some nations need good scales to get the best out of them, and some need a good bless. As I see it, it's all part of the intricate web of race balance.

[Boron]

Lord_Bob said:
But they are VERY VERY LOW RESOURCE COST. So they can be spammed out aggressively.


I wouldn't call 20 resources low resource cost.

Unfortunately only the ulm guys have even higher resource costs but they also get +25% resources as nation bonus.
So 1 ulm guy takes ulm about as long to produce as another nation an elephant if they have equal production scales.

The elephants are problematic though since they are so devastating. If the elephant user can amass a critical mass of elephants he usually wipes out your whole army and takes nearly zero own casualities.

I don't do tests anymore, but i guess with decent LI that can be produced as fast as the elephants at equal gold costs the LI has a fair chance of winning. Anything that costs only 1-3 resources in huge masses.

[Evilhomer]

Elephants are rather low on resources, if you compare the gold/resource ratio (which is really what you want to do).

[Folket]

Keep this up and this thread will have more posts then the bug thread in a week.

[Evilhomer]

Bug thread has 13 replies, so it is not that hard to beat.

[Valandil]

Umm... so, best I can tell, Monkey nations can win, and have done so. This thread might as well die.

[Folket]

Evilhomer...

1300 replies to the bug thread. You should get some new glasses. Or did you not learn that zeroes at the end of number do have a meaning in school?

[Sombre]

You're both right, the Bug Thread has both 13 and 1300+ replies.

[Sombre]

lch said:
I give up.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/563278-goodbye.png

[Evilhomer]

Ah there is two bug threads, be more specific http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

[Lord_Bob]

&lt;for various reasons this post has been deleted by Lord_Bob&gt;

[llamabeast]

Lord_Bob, what game are you talking about? I'm almost sure you never said. It can be kind of hard to follow you. Also it is quite random you talking about some game you're playing on this thread - I can't tell if it has any bearing on the topic or not, but it doesn't seem to.

[Sombre]

I seriously wouldn't try to make sense of this guy, he's clearly living in his own little world. Take his sudden unprovoked rant against "Western European arrogance", for example.

[lch]

I propose to change the thread title to

"Why Lord_Bob will NEVER QUIT"

[Hadrian_II]

Maybe we can see in this thread the bad effect of this forum counting the posts and giving ranks for it.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I'm not going to ignore Lord_Bob, but I am going to ignore this thread. It was alive, but now its a walking corpse.

When the thread itself is more a topic for discussion than the topic of discussion, its time to hold a funeral service. It's a civilized enough zombie - not a flame war - so I don't want to lock it - just let it cross over to the other side.

/Starts funeral music

"Go into the light. Don't be afraid. You died a long time ago. Niefelheim is waiting for you on the other side."

/walks out, never to look back

[Edi]

On LP's closing note, thread locked.