Trample balance discussion

[Endoperez]

Hinnom will likely be nerfed with next patch.
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)

Poor Kristoffer, he mentions something offhand and a discussion explodes into being. Because the other thread is about Hinnom, I hope to take the discussion here.

I hope I didn't miss anything major.


Nerfing tramplers in general would be great, in my opinion. Elephants have always been a bit crazy.


I feel that nerfing elephants would nerf nations which are weak as it is like Caelum or Arco


What would la arcos do without elephants? my god(: No national summons. In kingmaker i am being raided by angels(la marignon), and Bandar Log's national summons. Take away elephants then make those sirrush cost water gems or something besides s gems, or give them some anti thug ability(an affliction causing attack, arm loss or something).


I'd quite like to see def stat (not including parry from shield) have more of an impact on trampling. That way tramplers would be a bit worse and light infantry with virtually no armour, plus light cavlary, would be a lot better.


I'd prefer to see tramplers not get nerfed. They give some otherwise weak early game nations a nice boost. And they always have the risk of trampling their own troops and have some significant morale issues that can be exploited.


What would la arcos do without elephants?

A resource increase, though a restriction for early-game expansion, is not a mid-game or late-game restriction. Personally I care more about the Hinnom chariots then I do about the elephants.


What has always balanced trampling units is the fact that when they rout, they kill your own men, instead of the enemy. Thats the key.

But the way things are right now, tramplers generally have too high hp and prot to be really risky to use in combat. Particularly if you balance thier morale by adding some slow, good morale troops to thier squad. If we just nerf thier prot and hp stats somewhat and make them vulnerable (not totally helpless, mind you!) to the relatively moderate attacks of a mundane army, then you will take tramplers back from being a no-brainer to a really interesting and risky decision.



Chariot nerf - Just increase resources to decrease early numbers. They are easily dealt with later.


General trampler nerf - Please don't. It will effect alot of nations, all Caelum/Arco/Monkey nations and weaken them considerably. Elephants/Mammoths are very good as a alternative strategy to a bless and allow nice scales. After turn 20'ish elephants/mammoths are fairly useless, indeed they are expansive to maintain, so should be killed off, perhaps keep a small force to distract the enemy perhaps.


On the question of Tramplers, I always beleived the best way to "nerf" them would be force repel checks on sufficiently long weapons (say 12 length of weapons in the square). They'd still be fine for expansion, but would give players a non-magic option for countering them with out lots of mages.


Personally, I'd like to see some way for e.g. MA Ulm to use either units or summons to have a chance against an elephant horde. Using Bonds of Fire or other spells is fine as such, but it'd be nice to have an alternate option.

Some kind of repel mechanic might work, but it shouldn't be too powerful. Perhaps ability to deal 1 point of damage to the trampler if the trample is repelled?

Another way to nerf trample would be to change all recruitable tramplers to size 5. This would lower the damage they deal and allow Drakes and other size 5 summons to stop them.

Third change I once thought was a good idea would be to make trampling big units slow take more action points than trampling small ones. It would be nice if few size 5 Fire Drakes or whatever among your infantry would slow the elephants considerably.

[Sombre]

Drakes are size 5? Wow. That's crazy.

How big a drake knights for Agartha?

[HoneyBadger]

I like elephants being size 6. I don't see drakes being so big that they can't be trampled. The average size of an Indian elephant is 10 feet tall, 18 feet long, weighing maybe 15,000lbs. That's roughly the same mass as an average Tyrannosaurus Rex.

From their pictures and their ability to dish out damage, I'd give a very rough, uneducated, high estimate of average earth drake size at 6 feet at the shoulder, 21 feet long, 2000 lbs tops-and that's still gigantic for a predator, especially one that lives entirely on land (tigers rarely get to be 700lbs, and even the largest crocodiles don't get over 3000lbs).

If it were up to me, sizes in the game would run from 1-12, and they'd be graduated, because there's not enough differentiation between sizes in the game, with only 6 incremental designations-30 enormous (400lb) human professional linebackers wouldn't have the same mass as a single healthy adult elephant, and they're still size 2, compared to size 6. And there are creatures in the game that are certainly larger than elephants-Dagon for instance, and the Sphinx.

The easiest solution to elephant rushes would be to provide a generic, 0 level Construction summon that simply placed a stationary, immobile, size 6 unit on the battlefield. It would cost maybe 1 Earth gem a piece, and be summoned individually, and you'd need several to stop elephant rushes. You couldn't move them around, and they'd be vulnerable to fire, but they'd stop elephants for a long time, until the elephants pulled them apart with their trunks, or your other units got to them. The balance would be nice, since they'd be non-teleport, so you'd have to spend a minimum of 6-15 Earth gems a Province, each Province, and all that mage time, just to protect against Elephants.

[Endoperez]

Drakes are size 5? Wow. That's crazy.

How big a drake knights for Agartha?

I could be wrong. I remember testing size 5 elephants against size 5 drakes, but perhaps I modded both (instead of just the elephants).

[Rytek]

Make Javelines do X3 damage to Elephants.
I just read an interesting history where Ceaser extenively trained his 3rd legion to deal with elephants by using Javelins. he placed the 3rd legion on both flanks of his army where normally elephants would line up against him. Sure enough the 3rd legion routed the 80 african elephants arrayed on the flanks using their Javelins.No magic needed.

[HoneyBadger]

That's training, it's not a magical property that all javelins (or javelineers) have, so it's circumstantial-for that matter, elephant plate barding exists, and 80 plate-barded elephants would certainly have shrugged off most of Caesar's iron javelins.

[Zeldor]

Sombre:

Size 4 only.

Endoperez:

The real problem with tramplers is that you usually need a lot of mage power to stop them. And killing them is even harder. And nations that have tramplers available usually can make the use of research lead they can gain, when enemy uses mages to stop elephants. And they can also use their mages to make that tramplers even more powerful [ethereality, beat that!] to boost tramplers in many ways.

[Gandalf Parker]

For some reason I seem to find that slingers do well against elephants. Maybe its a wrong impression but I still fall back to it whenever Im faced with elephants. Or maybe its just because I can put alot of shots in the air cheaply with some chance to do damage and cause a rout.

[archaeolept]

i've seen many elephants. they would have difficulty trampling even a small riding drake :)

probably shouldn't be size 6

[Zeldor]

There are way too many size6 creatures. Elephants, Golems, Dragons, Juggernauts, they should have some size difference.

[llamabeast]

Elephants are huge. They are bigger than horses, and dogs. They're bigger than camels. Hell, I could go on listing animals they're bigger than. They're definitely pretty big.

[Sombre]

For some reason I seem to find that slingers do well against elephants. Maybe its a wrong impression but I still fall back to it whenever Im faced with elephants. Or maybe its just because I can put alot of shots in the air cheaply with some chance to do damage and cause a rout.

Well you're talking about SP. I don't think anyone is too worried about the power of elephants in SP. Though if you can't resist building them yourself they might make winning very boring, because the AI has absolutely no chance against them.

I wouldn't be against elephants being size 5 and mammoths 6. There are certainly numerous dom3 creatures larger than elephants, like the machaka fetish pretender for instance.

I think there are a lot of creatures with weird sizing in dom3 though. Krakens have a graphic that's like size 3 or 4 in size, but they're size 6 iirc.

[Epaminondas]

For some reason I seem to find that slingers do well against elephants. Maybe its a wrong impression but I still fall back to it whenever Im faced with elephants. Or maybe its just because I can put alot of shots in the air cheaply with some chance to do damage and cause a rout.

Well you're talking about SP. I don't think anyone is too worried about the power of elephants in SP. Though if you can't resist building them yourself they might make winning very boring, because the AI has absolutely no chance against them.

I wouldn't be against elephants being size 5 and mammoths 6. There are certainly numerous dom3 creatures larger than elephants, like the machaka fetish pretender for instance.

I think there are a lot of creatures with weird sizing in dom3 though. Krakens have a graphic that's like size 3 or 4 in size, but they're size 6 iirc.

Hmmm, so graphics size is not automatically altered when you mod a unit size? I thought it did.

I also agree with those who feel Elephants should not be size 6. I can't imagine them being bigger than Niefel Giants (size 5)! :)

[DonCorazon]

Looking at trample in the grand scheme of things, I don't see nations with elephants really dominating the Victorious Nations record. In fact, when it comes to Arcos and the Bandar nations, they rarely appear, so I have difficulty understanding the motivation for changing a core mechanic that would hurt nations that already struggle. Not to take the thread off topic, but if we were focused on balance then I'd say Pythium's hydras are more of an overpowered unit for what they cost in gold and resources and looking at the big picture of national summons. My point is, yes elephants are powerful, but they provide a slight edge for nations that are in need of it, and any apparent imbalance does not seem to be reflected in the elephant nations dominating games.

[llamabeast]

I think they're just not very fun to fight. Unless you can muster paralyze or something, you're basically stuffed. I've always found them to be quite unfun for that reason.

[Xietor]

Elephants are not supposed to be "fun" to fight. If you read about historical accounts of their use in Ancient Greek times, they were a terror in battles. While Lord of the Rings battle scenes has them too big, it actually may not exaggerate the terror they cause even battle hardened troops.

Given these accounts it would be justified to give them fear. Obviously that would not be good for balance. But arcos needs its elephants. I challenge someone to play ma or la arcos and not use elephants.

If elephants are nerfed, arcos needs a better sacred. maybe a chariot with good armor, attack, and defense that does not trample. And the national summon cannot use s gems. arcos heart and soul is its s gems. a sirrush either has to be so good it is like an abomination, or it needs to cost n gems. As it is they are useless as a 10s item.

maybe if you could get 5 of them for 10s, and move them down the tree a bit. But at 10s a piece they might as well cost a 100s a piece. no one in their right mind would buy one.

Too many arcos units use spears. thematic yes. But maybe a sacred unit with a sword.
Greeks knew what swords were you know. And swords do more dmage. and 25 gold for a heart companion? they are not as good as the 15 gold units which are all i buy when i have the gold and resources.

Now this thread is not about arcos., but that is the nation most hurt by an elephant nerf. bandar log has strong nationals and good sacreds, and caelum gets cold bonus
and better attack mages.

[Edratman]

How about a new defensive formation, the square? If could have all the historical strengths and weakness of squares: great at repelling, but very vulnerable to ranged fire.

[Agema]

Firstly, just because something is bigger doesn't necessarily mean it needs to be a size bigger. A mammoth may be bigger than an elephant, but what would make a size difference is whether the mammoth has the bulk to knock an elephant out of the way. I'd suggest possibly not - a 6 foot tall man cannot reliably just knock a 5 foot tall man out of his way.

Secondly, why shouldn't Elephants be bigger than Niefel Giants? I could suggest even if a Niefel Giant were taller, it still might not have even close to the same mass as they're much thinner. Generally, it's pretty pointless second-guessing the size of many mythological creatures. Although the Egyptians made a really big sphinx statue, the sphinx was a winged lion with a human head, from which we could assume a sphinx was, well, about lion-sized. Just because there's a 100+ foot-high statue of Jesus in Rio it doesn't mean we think Jesus was 100 feet tall. Similarly, dragons vary enormously in myths. Maybe in Dominions they really are about the size of an Elephant or mammoth.

[Sombre]

bandar log has strong nationals

What? No it doesn't.

Agema: Completely ignoring graphics when it comes to the size of units is counter-intuitive and silly. They are there for a reason.

[Adept]

My only beefs with Trample are the automatic 1 point of damage, and the fact that one target can be trampled several times in a single turn.

Without those, I'd be quite happy. I'd still like to see my Dagon actually use the ice swords I give him too, instead of just using them to parry and fight other siz 6 critters.

[Zeldor]

Xietor:

Yeah, and I play with LA Agartha. Some people try to play with Marverni or MA Agartha. They have no elephants. They sacreds are a joke. They have no cheap infantry to expand. Their crossbowmen have lame precision and need flaming arrows to be effective. And they all get owned by elephants.

[Xietor]

Bandar Log does not have good national troops?

Are you mad? Or have you just never played Bandar Log? Do you know what a Mandaha is? It is one of the best summons in the game. I have spent 100s gems wishing for them before. And they have many many other less expensive but very good national summons.

I would check out Baalz guide to Bandar Log as he touches on most of them.

[HoneyBadger]

Six sizes just aren't enough.

Agema: you're missing the point that the Sphinx in the game *is* just a statue. That's why it can't move. If it was a lion with wings, then yes, winged-lion-size all the way.

Golems should really just be human-sized, maybe size 3 at the most--if you're basing them on the Golem of Prague. The other critters mentioned, Dragons and Juggernauts, really should be as large as an elephant. 1: because Dragons *carried off and ate* elephants-so did Rocs, only Rocs did it in the AIR. And making the Juggernaut anything less than size 6 kindof seems anticlimactic. Even the guy who played him in the X-men movie was about a size 4 or so :p

And Jesus *was* a hundred feet tall, haven't you ever read the Bible???

And the Ancient Kraken, beloved though he is by me, could use a makeover. It's a fun graphic, but it's starting to show it's age-as in, it would go great as a Pretender for a "Plan 9 from Outer Space" Nation. :)

[Sombre]

Are you mad? Or have you just never played Bandar Log? Do you know what a Mandaha is? It is one of the best summons in the game. I have spent 100s gems wishing for them before. And they have many many other less expensive but very good national summons.

I would check out Baalz guide to Bandar Log as he touches on most of them.

That's a national summon and a commander/mage/SC, not a troop by any definition. As for the troop summons, you even refer to them in the post I quote as national summons.

If you aren't claiming that BL's recruitable troops are strong then I'm not disagreeing with you. No need to act like an *******.

[Xietor]

Oh sorry then, we are talking 2 different things. They have very powerful national summons.

Their castle bought troops are good as well. their sacreds put heart companions to shame. And cost less gold and resources. And bandar log gets 80 free design points(2 heat).

My only point, perhaps poorly made, is a nerf to elephants would imo adversely affect arcos the most.

[lch]

Hell, I could go on listing animals they're bigger than. They're definitely pretty big.
For example bats and south american mammals. I'm pretty sure you know a couple. :smirk:

[Sombre]

There castle bought troops are good as well. their sacreds put heart companions to shame.

You've said a couple of times how bad they are.

But I remember you saying a while back that MA Arco was one of the better nations precisely because they have heart companions.

Have you just changed your mind, or am I misremembering?

[Xietor]

I think i once said Heart Companions can be good with an f9e4 bless. And if they got design points like Bandar Log or caelum, perhaps arcos could afford a bless. But they cant.

That conversation was in the context of what could kill vans prenerf. and people were throwing out various ideas. Heart Companions with a bless was mine. If I am not mistaken Tuidy, who never lets anything lie without a test, proved me wrong. And they turned out to be inferior even with a f9e4 bless. Shrug.

[JimMorrison]

LOUD NOISES!


I agree that 6 sizes are a bit restrictive in gradation. Though it does seem as if the best way to tune the power of recruitable tramplers, is a size reduction of any trampler that is size 6 currently, down to size 5. Also, perhaps a small increase in resource cost, to slow down availability.

Though ultimately, I think the main problem is just Hinnom. They simply have so many strengths, that the chariots really stick out as unnecessary in general.

[Gandalf Parker]

Why is six sizes too restrictive? Its not as if a slight difference in size will allow one unit to trample the other. There has to be a really large difference. Any size can have many units of many different sizes but for trample the only thing that needs to be reflected by two sizes in Dom is a really large difference. Trample isnt the same as just being able to roll over a creature.

[K]

I think they're just not very fun to fight. Unless you can muster paralyze or something, you're basically stuffed. I've always found them to be quite unfun for that reason.

Really? I've always found them super fun to fight because once they break they take out the enemy army/mages.

I mean, regular elephants only need to be countered with archers of Fire Large Monster and chaff (like PD) to die for the cause, while super armored elephants need something more exotic to get them to flee.

Blessed troops will do, but I favor the Water bless for it's high defense and additional attacks.

I suppose most people default to magery, but it seems a waste for units that break spectacularly with minimal damage.

[JimMorrison]

Why is six sizes too restrictive? Its not as if a slight difference in size will allow one unit to trample the other. There has to be a really large difference. Any size can have many units of many different sizes but for trample the only thing that needs to be reflected by two sizes in Dom is a really large difference. Trample isnt the same as just being able to roll over a creature.

I could write several pages on why 6 sizes is insufficient to encompass the range of size among combat-worthy creatures in a (real or) mythical world.

I will sum it up thusly - you can easily fit more than 3 combat functional people in the space that an elephant fills.

I can go into much greater detail if you like, but I think that unless that point can be adequately discounted, then the premise stands.


(EDIT- Bear in mind, the size mechanic impact many other impacts of the game besides trampling, personally I think something like a range from 2-10 would provide greater functionality.)

[HoneyBadger]

If it were up to me, sizes in the game would range from 1 to 12, and combat squares would hold 64 spaces. The sizes themselves wouldn't correspond exactly to their numerical order-while size 1 would equal 1 space, size 12 wouldn't equal 12 spaces on a square. Instead, they'd have these values:

(Size)=(Spaces occupied).
1=1 (dragonfly, Aboleth Polyp.)
2=2 (hoburg, goblin, imp)
3=3 (human sized)
4=4 (shambler, troll, Warhammer ogre)
5=6 (Jotun, unridden horse, shark, Living Pillar, giant eagle)
6=8 (heavy calvalry, unridden moose, unridden drake)
7=12 (Niefel sized, moose + troll rider)
8=16 (Basalt King, Cyclops)
9=24 (monster fish, Aboleth, Titan)
10=36 (elephant, mammoth, earth mother, Aboleth Mind-lord)
11=48 (Dagon, Baluchitherium, Colossal Fetish, Ziz, dragon)
12=64 (filling an entire square: Ancient Kraken, Sphinx, Asp turtle, whale, larger dinosaurs)

[JimMorrison]

So ummmm. You could fit 21 humans in a square, or....? :shock:

[HoneyBadger]

Yep, exactly.

I said 12 sizes was a good idea, I never suggested it wouldn't dramatically alter combat in Dominions.

[Endoperez]

LOUD NOISES!

Oh, that reminds me. Elephants used to have a really, REALLY annoying sound. Then Ballbarian saved our ears with his Mod Sound Pack (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37761). :up::up:

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, now they play the 'Dukes of Hazard' car horn, it's great!

[Agema]

Agema: Completely ignoring graphics when it comes to the size of units is counter-intuitive and silly. They are there for a reason.

No. It's the size stat that is there for a reason. The reason for the graphics is they make everything look prettier: you could do the battles with ASCII symbols representing everything (like Nethack) and get as much information out of it. Similarly WRT the sphinx, I know it's a statue in-game. My point is that the Egypt statue is not reflective of what sphinx has to be: there are statues and bas-reliefs of sphinxes from India to Europe, many (all?) of which are much smaller.

What I'm getting at is that I think people are applying too much logic and reality to it all. It's a game. It's about the interplay between various statistics, attributes and effects, where the designers put a lot of time and effort into making it work. Hence if elephants should be nerfed to size 5 you should make the case with whether they are unbalanced or not.

When you start basing arguments on the fact you can fit more than 3 humans into the area an elephant takes up, or that a mammoth was 20% larger than an elephant is in real life, guessing that Niefel giants were supposed to be 15, 20 or 30 feet tall according to Nordic myth, or that the in-game graphical dragon has 28% more pixels than the in-game graphical elephant, it's all missing the point.

[Sombre]

Agema: Completely ignoring graphics when it comes to the size of units is counter-intuitive and silly. They are there for a reason.

No. It's the size stat that is there for a reason. The reason for the graphics is they make everything look prettier: you could do the battles with ASCII symbols representing everything (like Nethack) and get as much information out of it. Similarly WRT the sphinx, I know it's a statue in-game. My point is that the Egypt statue is not reflective of what sphinx has to be: there are statues and bas-reliefs of sphinxes from India to Europe, many (all?) of which are much smaller.

What I'm getting at is that I think people are applying too much logic and reality to it all. It's a game. It's about the interplay between various statistics, attributes and effects, where the designers put a lot of time and effort into making it work. Hence if elephants should be nerfed to size 5 you should make the case with whether they are unbalanced or not.

When you start basing arguments on the fact you can fit more than 3 humans into the area an elephant takes up, or that a mammoth was 20% larger than an elephant is in real life, guessing that Niefel giants were supposed to be 15, 20 or 30 feet tall according to Nordic myth, or that the in-game graphical dragon has 28% more pixels than the in-game graphical elephant, it's all missing the point.

No, I think it is you who is missing the point. For one, saying the graphics are just there to look pretty is ludicrous. They are a massive boon to play - you can at a glance tell what sort of unit it is, what weapons and armour it might have, even guess at resistances and other attributes. Of course you might want to know more, in which case you can look over the stats, but to have /just/ the stats would make the game virtually impenetrable.

Realism can serve a similar purpose. When you call a weapon a sword or a short bow or 'fire breath' people immediately have some idea of what it will do. They can still go and look at the stats (which are 'hidden' for a /reason/) if they want to know exactly how it works, but believe me people would enjoy the game far less if a unit called a 'knight' with a heavily armoured powerful looking graphic was actuall a hoburg with a pitchfork. According to your logic there wouldn't be a problem there - It would still be just as pretty, in terms of gameplay people would only need to look at the stats to know. Yet it's clearly absurd and counterintuitive.

You're also putting far too much emphasis on the design decisions of the devs. I'm willing to bet KO doesn't even remember why krakens are whatever size they are. He's said numerous times he isn't even very concerned about balance and he's often very surprised at how things actually work in terms of gameplay. I'm not criticising him here, it's just the way he is.

People have already, many, many times discussed the balance of elephants and tramplers more generally. When people talk about size and graphics and so on, they are considering the other effects a change in size has - besides graphics. Whether it will make the game less intuitive, or has a 'wrong' feeling about it. That's precisely the sort of thing KO thinks about, not so much balance and stats. He primarily wants an elephant to be an elephant (as he envisions), not unit X to do Y or Nation A to be stronger than nation B at point C in the game.

[Agema]

Your first two paragraphs are the worst act of reductio ad absurdam I've seen in a long time. Please at least try to view my argument with at least some reasonable spirit.

I'm not going to second-guess KO or assume I know his motives. But to me the elephant graphic looks damn large enough to be size 5 or 6. I don't honestly see what the problem with its representation is, or with Titans, krakens, and the rest of it. You know there are 6 sizes. If they look big, you check the size stat to make sure, just like you see a knight and check to see quite how nasty it is. The "feeling" is fine to me, and I suspect most other Dom3 users.

[Sombre]

Your first two paragraphs are the worst act of reductio ad absurdam I've seen in a long time. Please at least try to view my argument with at least some reasonable spirit.

I'm not going to second-guess KO or assume I know his motives. But to me the elephant graphic looks damn large enough to be size 5 or 6. I don't honestly see what the problem with its representation is, or with Titans, krakens, and the rest of it. You know there are 6 sizes. If they look big, you check the size stat to make sure, just like you see a knight and check to see quite how nasty it is. The "feeling" is fine to me, and I suspect most other Dom3 users.

You don't have any argument. Or rather you've changed it to the extent that I have no idea what your position actually is. You first stated graphics were irrelevant to size and are now say elephants look size 5 or 6 so there isn't a problem. No-one has said elephants should be below size 5. The talk has been of setting them at size 5 to nerf them a bit and whether or not that is sensibly justifiable in terms of graphics, realism (to the extent that it's useful) and flavour.

The rest of your post suggests to me you haven't actually looked at the kraken graphic. Not the ancient kraken. The regular summon. I believe the shark is also size 6. It doesn't seem intuitive to me, but being underwater it doesn't come into play that much. It's not something I'd go on and on about.

Regardless, I don't really disagree with your second post. Elephants look size 5 or 6 graphically speaking. Or put another way, considering they're size 6, their graphic looks of an appropriate size. It would also be appropriate for a size 5.

[Xietor]

Btw, I still think MA Arcos is one of the better MA Races. But it is based on their strong astral magic, mind hunts, communions, and reverse communions. But they need elephants to survive early. If Elephants were nerfed, they would no longer be one of the better MA Races. They are in fact better than LA Arcos because astrologers get more s magic then sybils.

Both arcos races are hard to play, as they need much pregame planning. They need thugs to survive in the midgame due to elephants becoming obsolete, and no decent national summons or sacred troops. I am quite happy with the Lich as a pretender for LA Arcos.

[HoneyBadger]

By the way, it's been a very long time since I've read the elephant description, but I'm not 100% certain that Kristoffer intended that they just be average sized Indian elephants--which I still believe should be size six. They could very well be African elephants, which are significantly larger, or even imperial mammoths, which reached heights of 16 feet or more at the shoulder. I *do* remember something being said about them being the largest of all beasts, which to me says size 6 all the way.

[Zeldor]

Endoperez:

Nothing is more ugly than mind burning illithids. You can get at least an headache from it. Or worse.

[Tifone]

BTW as we are on topic:

How would a couple of good, untrampeable thugs with ivy crowns (some animal awe), work against, let's say, a dozen elephants?
And does normal Awe work against elephants as well?

[Agema]

You don't have any argument. Or rather you've changed it to the extent that I have no idea what your position actually is. You first stated graphics were irrelevant to size and are now say elephants look size 5 or 6 so there isn't a problem. No-one has said elephants should be below size 5. The talk has been of setting them at size 5 to nerf them a bit and whether or not that is sensibly justifiable in terms of graphics, realism (to the extent that it's useful) and flavour.

The rest of your post suggests to me you haven't actually looked at the kraken graphic. Not the ancient kraken. The regular summon. I believe the shark is also size 6. It doesn't seem intuitive to me, but being underwater it doesn't come into play that much. It's not something I'd go on and on about.


You seem a bit unnecessarily aggressive. You've chucked around terms like "silly" and "ludicrous", misrepresented my opinions, and stuff like "suggests to me you haven't actually looked at the kraken graphic" comes across as a bit insultingly dismissive (never mind wrong).

I didn't say graphics had nothing to do with the creature: you extrapolated that unfairly. Similarly I don't know why you are implying I thought elephants should be size 4 or under. I feel like you are putting words in my mouth and arguing against them instead of what I've actually said.

If I can clarify, I read the file and saw people arguing size stats for some units are "wrong" or need reconstructing to 12 sizes. I don't find some of the arguments about 'realism', graphical niceties, and so on convincing. I think the important arguments are about game balance. That's where I'm coming from, even if I didn't just stamp that statement down straight away.

[thejeff]

Awe works against elephants. Pretty well too, though their morale isn't really that low. Normal humans with Ivy crowns would probably get squished pretty quickly. Giants (or the equivalent) would last long enough to matter. I wonder if that's the niche use for the Rat Tail? Fear on hit & Animal Awe

Anything untrampleable works wonders against elephants, but the only things elephants can't trample are other size 6 creatures, which at the start where elephants a threat is your pretender (or your own elephants)

[Sombre]

Yeah rat tail does ok against elephants. However with enough of them or a morale boost, your dude will get trampled fairly quickly. Only has to lose one awe check and he's toast.

[JimMorrison]

Yeah rat tail does ok against elephants. However with enough of them or a morale boost, your dude will get trampled fairly quickly. Only has to lose one awe check and he's toast.

Cast Flight > Cast Personal Quickness > Attack Large Monsters

? :happy:

[Rytek]

Ive given some of the EA Ctiss sacred chariot riders a rat tails and used them as linebackers to hold hordes of Mammoths while terror spam finally made them route.

[Deadnature]

I think that the point isn't to change elephants or other tramplers, like many people here said: some nations rely on them. Instead, I think the best idea is to give some units a boost against elephants.

My suggestion:

For every unit with a weapon over length 3 (all spears/pikes) that is successfully trampled, have that unit deal its base weapon damage to the trampler. After all, a wall of spears or pikes might not stop an elephant dead but certainly the elephant would impale itself in the process of trampling.

This is a soft nerf that makes sense. Elephants will still be powerful, but now there is a decent way to counter or at least slow them down. I mean, what sense does it make to see an elephant crush 10+/- pikemen without getting hurt at all? That's like trying to crush a beehive with your foot and not getting stung.

I think this idea with some modification would be acceptable to many people in regards to the elephant/tramplers question.

[Endoperez]

Endoperez:

Nothing is more ugly than mind burning illithids. You can get at least an headache from it. Or worse.

That's not a bug, it's a feature! :p

But the sound mod also changes that, and the female death-scream. It's a lifesaver, really. And the 247 downloads it has seem to agree with me.

EDIT:
Regarding Deadnature's suggestion: the spearmen would need some kind of attack roll. Furthermore, pikes should be better than glaives, but glaives have higher base damage, not to mention Hammer of the Mountains (base dmg 25!). Dealing (weapon length - 3) damage would probably work better. It wouldn't probably kill, but it would cause lots of morale checks.

[HoneyBadger]

I like that idea, but I think it should work this way: If a unit with a pike-only-is trampled, that unit rolls an attack-if the attack hits, the pike does triple damage, if it misses, it only does regular damage. Spears, tridents, and the like, do double damage, regular if they miss, whereas weapons like glaives, halberds, that sort of thing, do regular damage if they hit, no damage if they miss.

[Taqwus]

This is a soft nerf that makes sense. Elephants will still be powerful, but now there is a decent way to counter or at least slow them down. I mean, what sense does it make to see an elephant crush 10+/- pikemen without getting hurt at all? That's like trying to crush a beehive with your foot and not getting stung.

I would suggest that it depends heavily on the morale and numbers of the pikemen. Starving conscripts are likely to break and run from a trampler, instead of holding; and an isolated square of three pikemen wouldn't be very effective no matter how brave they were, since three pikes don't cover a whole lot of frontage.

Units with or close to a *lot* of spear-type weapons, however, gaining some extra repel from this would seem quite reasonable -- with smarter self-preserving tramplers simply refusing to trample, and others getting hit hard.

Edit -- Additionally, similar things should apply to the lance attack; if the horse ain't going to impale himself on a wall of spears, the knight shouldn't be using his lance w/ charge-bonus.

[Adept]

They already take the 1 point of damage from rushing units with longer weapons, don't they? Or does that not happen with trample?

[OmikronWarrior]

Blast from the Past. (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35346&page=7)

Alright, I must have gone through a dozen different schemes of various complexities (some requiring four seperate moral checks before doing some attack vs. defense checks). I finally settled on the simplest. First, what my criteria were.

A) It had to make sense "realistically".
B) It couldn't create any new abilities, attributes, etc.
C) It had to be simpler than the mechanics governing missles.
D) It would have to employee similar mechanics to those already used by the game.
E) It had to be readily available to any nation thematically.

For A, the obvious solution to being charged by giant creatures would be long pointy sticks that the creature would have to impale itself on to get to you. Hence, weapon length vs. trampler morale became the dominant theme. As for D, I noticed that while the game has "repel" checks for normal attacks, it has nothing of the sort for trample attacks. This doesn't make sense. Therefore, in order for a unit to trample a square, it must pass the following morale check:

(Trampler Morale)+(Trampler Size)+DRN-(Trampler Fatigue)/10

vs.

(Modified Sum of Weapon Length in Attacked Square)+DRN

The "Sum of Weapon Length" is modified the same way presicion is, all points over 10 are doubled. Note that the moral check is based on the INDIVIDUAL trampler's morale, and no survivor bonus is applied, just a fatigue penalty. Which makes sense, the more tired you are the more daunting the task of avoiding a wall of spikes becomes.

What happens next is simple. If the trampler fails the morale check the unit will simply attack normally with whatever weapon it has (trunk, spear, whatever). If it succeeds it now is vulnerable to "attacks of opportunity", much like a normal soldier who succeeds their morale check vs. a longer weapon. Each unit in the square gets a free attack against the trampler (whose defense is reduce by 2 each time it defends against such an attack) which can cause at most an amount of damage equal to the weapon's length (which symbolizes the creature impaling itself on the long weapon). Plus, each such attack will cause a fatigue hit.



The baseline in my head was a squad of 3 spearment (total weapon length 12) should have a "reasonable" chance to parry a low morale elephant, while 3 phalanxes each with length six weapons should stop all but the most determined trampler cold. Meanwhile, isolated and short length weapon fighters should rarely be able to repel even the most uncertain of tramplers.

The match ups.

Mammoth vs. 3 spearmen: The Mammoth has morale 10 and size 6, while the spearmen have modified weapon lengths of 14. Assuming no fatigue, the Mammoth will trample the spearmen 62% of the time. It's enough to blunt a trampler's charge and give the defendants a fighting chance against an amassed Mammoth horde beelining for the capital.

Indie Elephants vs. 3 Spearment: The difference between indie elephants and Mammoths is the elephants have a morale of 8. This means they'll only successfully trample the spearmen 46% of the time.

Indi Elephant vs. Isolate Phalanx (WL6) or 3 short swordsmen (WL2x3)

The Elephant would roll 14 vs 6. A plus 8 difference means it will trample the units 86% of the time. That almost identical to the current situation.

Mammoth vs. 3 Phalanxes (WL6x3)

The Mammoth would still have 16, but 6 times 3 is 18, which would be modified to 26. Thats a deficiet of 10 which only gives the Mammoth a 3% chance of actually trampling.

Finally, SC vs. 3 Phalanxes

I'm assuming a size 6 Commander with 30 morale tries to trample the best anti-trample defense available. Its 36 vs. 26, and the commander will successfully trample 95% of the time. Fortunately, such units don't grow on trees.

Thoughts? Exploits? Understandable?

[HoneyBadger]

I don't see what the problem is-since we're talking about modifying the game anyway-with just adding a generic, reasonably cheap, size 6 summon that just sits there and doesn't do anything?

Nobody's refuting this, but we've got all these complicated solutions that would take even *more* modding (to the code, requiring Dev time).

Is this a bad idea, a good idea, or is it just being ignored as a solution?

[JimMorrison]

Indie Elephants vs. 3 Spearment: The difference between indie elephants and Mammoths is the elephants have a morale of 8. This means they'll only successfully trample the spearmen 46% of the time.


Pretty good work on this, looks pretty good. I think the math could be tweaked a bit though. Just seems to me that this might be too severe a change, on the low end.

Though, keeping THAT math how it is, and giving all tramplers a Fear+0 effect might actually strike a good balance.

(EDIT - Oh, and Badger, I think that one is getting largely ignored - it just seems kind of artificial and unappealing.)

<3

[HoneyBadger]

(Yah, but it's "artificial and unappealing, but can be put into effect in about 5 minutes" vs "probably never gonna happen, ever")

[Sombre]

Well there are numerous nerfs that don't put weird size 6 blockades into the game and are easier and probably more appealing to people.

Like size 5 eles, resource hikes, cost hikes, increased enc, decreased prot etc.

[Xietor]

I think we had these discussions before. And elephants are not overpowered. the issue was allowing them to be mixed with infantry boosting their morale.

But elephants cost 100 gold, and 3 10 gold spearmen should really not be a counter to them in general. And I do not think reducing their size or trampling is an answer either.

I have been on the receiving end of an elephant blitz at the hands of a very good player using MA Arcos and backing up the horde of elephants with squads of soul slaying astrologists.

I was playing MA Pangaea(3 order no free spawn), and managed to deal with them just fine. No it is not a fun experience, but neither is ghost riders, earth attacks, disease demons, seeking arrows, mind hunts, etc. And I suffered heavy losses. But when arcos invests many thousand gold in his elephants, you should suffer heavy losses to stop his army.

[Adept]

Indie Elephants vs. 3 Spearment: The difference between indie elephants and Mammoths is the elephants have a morale of 8. This means they'll only successfully trample the spearmen 46% of the time.


Pretty good work on this, looks pretty good. I think the math could be tweaked a bit though. Just seems to me that this might be too severe a change, on the low end.

Though, keeping THAT math how it is, and giving all tramplers a Fear+0 effect might actually strike a good balance.
<3

Yes that does seem neat!

[HoneyBadger]

I don't think there's anything "weird" about them, Sombre--no weirder than summoning up a Crusher or Mechanical men, in any case. Lots of games of this type have magical walls. There's even spells in the game that create castles-one in three seconds-and that's a *lot* more extreme than a single, small, barricade.

Size 5 elephants would be a lot weirder to me.

[Tifone]

Yep, reducing the size of the elephants (after 2 years :D) seems cheap to me too.

Very much better giving some advantages vs. being trampled at their "natural enemies", IMHO, if ppl (read: devs) feel they are overpowered.

[Sombre]

I don't think there's anything "weird" about them, Sombre--no weirder than summoning up a Crusher or Mechanical men, in any case. Lots of games of this type have magical walls. There's even spells in the game that create castles-one in three seconds-and that's a *lot* more extreme than a single, small, barricade.

They are a lot weirder than a crusher or a mechanical man. Those are fighting units. Even a watcher or monolith /does/ something. What you're proposing is just a big lump of elephant bait. Why would the elephant go attacking that? Why would soliders? Why wouldn't they just go around it? A barricade is not a valid unit. It's the sort of thing you might get in a mod, but no chance it will ever be in the vanilla game.

[HoneyBadger]

Are you familiar at all with the concept of field fortifications? How about breaking up a charge? Armies made field works all the time-especially good armies, like the Roman legions.

It's weird *not* to include them. It's weird *not* to do *anything* that works-not to mention pompous and suicidal. Ideally, soldiers should be able to dig pitfalls and spread caltrops, or just set up a bunch of spiked mounds-elephants are only very dangerous to an army when it has to face them out in the field, not when the opposing army's dug in. Elephants aren't modern tanks, afterall.

Since soldiers can't do that in the game, it should be allowable by magic.

The reason the elephants would attack them is because they'd be there. Why *wouldn't* they attack them? They're in the way.

If you need the summons to attack, for whatever reason, they certainly could do that. Just give each one 2 pike attacks per round, maybe a crossbow too, and up the cost to 5-6 Earth gems.

[Sombre]

Again, I have no issue with them in terms of 'realism' I just think a size 6 lump of crud as a unit doesn't actually work in the game.

Anyway it isn't going to be put in the game, so I don't mind :]

[Tifone]

Mmh, wouldn't adding the "barricade" start again all the warmachines and catapults and trebutchets etc. discussion? It's a thing I really wouldn't like to see :D Expecially as I personally don't feel the need of all that boring stuff :angel

[Illuminated One]

I don't think there's anything "weird" about them, Sombre--no weirder than summoning up a Crusher or Mechanical men, in any case. Lots of games of this type have magical walls. There's even spells in the game that create castles-one in three seconds-and that's a *lot* more extreme than a single, small, barricade.

But that those litte barricades are so "not extreme" makes them weird in my eyes. I can imagine some powerful wizard to summon a bunch of demons or earth spirits whatever to build some enormous citadel for him.
But I dont think that a mage of some self-esteem would even bother to "summon" some field barricades.

Also I don't think it would really work with the current games mechanics.
You cant make barricades that stop only elephants but not infantry or thugs. Would be kind of nice for archer nations though.

I'd much more like to see pikemen being able to repel them or deal damage if they're trampled.

[HoneyBadger]

I seriously doubt that *any* of these suggestions are going to be added to the game-and Sombre, you're not Kristoffer or Johan that I've noticed, so you have approximately as much clue as the rest of us to what's going to be added. Saying that something is or isn't going to be added is just unnecessarily discouraging, and pointless, so I don't know why you're wasting your time.

Illuminated One: How is it that a mage isn't so self important/self aggrandizing as to toss a bunch of pebbles across a field, with Earth Shard, but is too classy to create a wall of earth to stop an elephant from running him over? That argument doesn't even make any sense.

For that matter, why *shouldn't* barricades stop other troops too? They could still go around them, ofcourse, being smaller than elephants, and it would be good balance to allow other troops to tear them down. It's meant to be effective against elephants and other large tramplers, it's not meant to be an "anti-elephants only" spell.

[Sombre]

I seriously doubt that *any* of these suggestions are going to be added to the game-and Sombre, you're not Kristoffer or Johan that I've noticed, so you have approximately as much clue as the rest of us to what's going to be added. Saying that something is or isn't going to be added is just unnecessarily discouraging, and pointless, so I don't know why you're wasting your time.


"I doubt any of these suggestions will be added" followed by "Saying that something is or isn't going to be added is (bad)"? Huh?

As for wasting my time,.. that's a strange thing for you to say to me. You often post at great length about things which clearly aren't going to be added. I'm not sure why you think I'm wasting my time and you aren't, when all I'm doing is shelving an argument about this because it's pointless. I'm not trying to be rude or discourage you, but I don't have to be KO or JK to make an educated guess.

They could still go around them, ofcourse, being smaller than elephants, and it would be good balance to allow other troops to tear them down. It's meant to be effective against elephants and other large tramplers, it's not meant to be an "anti-elephants only" spell.

Size makes no difference in the ability of a unit to 'go around' an enemy that's 'blocking' it. As units the fortifications will be targeted and aggressively sought out and attacked, not simply chopped at because they're in the way. You'll end up with a throng of guys surrounding it trying to get at it and attack while mages bomb it (and the troops around it) with spells.

[HoneyBadger]

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying that it's pointless, and the only reason I'm saying it is that it's potentially harmful, in that it might give some of the newer people the impression that you know what you're talking about when you're just guessing.

And I post ideas, as I've stated before, in the full awareness that a lot of them probably will never make it into the game. I do it because it's fun, because I'm hoping to give other people ideas, and on the slim chance that they *might* go into the game.

Your third comment is helpful, in that it actually gives reasons why being able to make such units might not be a good idea.

I won't bother replying to comments that they're "boring", since that's purely a matter of opinion--and ofcourse, things can always be made more interesting/engaging, with a little creative thought.

[Illuminated One]

How is it that a mage isn't so self important/self aggrandizing as to toss a bunch of pebbles across a field, with Earth Shard, but is too classy to create a wall of earth to stop an elephant from running him over? That argument doesn't even make any sense.

There's still a big difference in parttaking in a battle (even if it comes to only throwing a bunch of low level spells around) and building field fortifications.
In many medieval cultures the first is honorable and worthy of men and nobles while the latter is a work of the slaves and the peasants.

[Sombre]

I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying that it's pointless, and the only reason I'm saying it is that it's potentially harmful, in that it might give some of the newer people the impression that you know what you're talking about when you're just guessing.

I do know what I'm talking about. That's the point of an educated guess. Observation, previous experience and understanding of the mechanics of dom3 lead me to make my statement. I wouldn't make a statement like that if I had just arrived here and had no idea what was going on.

[HoneyBadger]

Illuminated One: That might possibly be the case-if you discount that most of the early Roman armies were citizens, or that their commanders were generally nobles and landowners-but that's not from any prejudices against the type of work involved, it's that they type of work involved was dirty and hard and dangerous. The Romans-again-used engineers and skilled craftspeople on the field, when their own soldiers weren't up to a particular task, and then they trained the soldiers better. They didn't assign peasants or unskilled slaves to do anything other than unskilled labour.

In any case, I assure you that, in all likelyhood, they would have made exceptions for people who could do that kind of work *with the power of their minds*.

And who says mages weren't of the "peasant" class? With the Church being pretty hard on pagan and heretical rulers and all, with the excommunicating and the cruisading and the witch-burning, mages were more likely to be peasants than nobility, or atleast not shout to the world that they had powers of witchcraft and demonology at their fingertips.

[HoneyBadger]

I understand that it's an educated guess-and I respect your opinion, Sombre, I even share it, that yes it's unlikely to go into the game-but you were framing it as a statement, not a guess. It's either one or the other.

A lot of people on these boards, who haven't spent as much time here as you or I have, might look at your stats, and your statement, and assume that you had inside knowledge of what Illwinter's policies were, or even that you were in a position to make those decisions, yourself.

That's where I took exception to what you said, and the way you said it, not at the fact that you *are* very knowledgeable, that you *do* have a lot of experience and know what you're talking about, and that you probably *are* correct.

[vfb]

Instead of creating the fortifications in advance, you could have mages create them on the battlefield.

I don't think it would be difficult to mod, it could be pretty much a clone of the earth elemental spell. Call it 'wall of earth', and give it more range. Make the earth elemental clone immobile and give it a bit more HP. It's fine that the enemy attacks it, that's them tearing it down. You could have the walls shrink like elementals, or just get destroyed when they get to zero HP.

You could make a 'wall of thorns' nature spell too (with poison thorns), 'wall of ice' (cold aura), 'wall of magma' (with heat and fire shield), etc.

If you spammed enough of the spell you could make the battlefield impassible or at least difficult to navigate. The effect wouldn't really be a wall unless you had a line of mages spanning the whole width of the battlefield. But it might give you the effect you're looking for.

[Tifone]

A few opinions from a guy without the experiences of the gurus here :happy:

I think barricades would only make battles longer and boring, making soldiers go and attack a barricade over and over. Wouldn't it be terribly annoying to see your Dragon set on "Fire large enemy monsters" fire and attack the barricade instead of the enemy's elephants??

Also, wouldn't that be an mindless, immobile (so not retreating) and high-hp and prot unit? vfb has suggested a summonable one, but I think that the ability to summon lots of these would be easily exploited to make battles end just by turn limit. The discussion about this has gone on fire many times before (NTJedi, are you there? :D) and such a thing would bring it to the extreme.

On a final note, I'd say it doesn't seem to me that it would fit dom3's spirit a lot. The battles on dom3 have always been mostly furious battles between soldiers, mages and so on. THere are just a few, limited immobile pretenders. Starting to put in the cauldron immoblie structures on every battlefield seems just unthematic to me and distorting the nature of the game's furious battles.

Obviously just my opinions ^^

[HoneyBadger]

It all depends on how the immobile units work--as in: their stats. If they've got 60 Hp each, and 30 Prot, obviously they become a major factor in the game, but if-for example-you only gave them 1 Hp and just enough Prot that it would require the elephants to do a Crit to destroy them, then that only slows the elephant down for a limited amount of time-and other units can easily remove them in a single shot. And they can still be flown over (by empowered elephants).

And these things would be immobile gem-sinks. You couldn't move them to any other Province-which is why I suggested they be summons. If you make them combat castings, they become a whole lot more powerful. If they're summons, then they have to be permanently assigned to a single Province, which all makes them *very* niche.

[Illuminated One]

@HoneyBadger

Ok, for some mages it might be ok if they did some digging, but then again for most mages I can't see why anyone would want to waste a mage +gems for something a bunch of soldiers with picks and shovels could do as well.
There are possibilities to couter elephants with magic allready (Bonds of Fire, Paralyze). Well I don't know how powerful these are in a real game but then I think it sucks to be forced to use your mages to counter something that could be easily countered by mundane means.
However it occured to me that you could also give some infantry commanders (say ulm's siege engineer) the ability to domsummon barricades which would indeed make sense imo.

Still I don't think it would work very vell in battles as long as units can't differentiate between enemies and obstacles. And while a wooden pallisade torn down by elephants makes sense a couple of spearmen stabbing the palisade to death while under enemy fire does not.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, inevitably it's an abstraction. It has to be, considering the confines of the game. The mage you use to cast the spell, you can assume is the engineer overseeing the work, and the earth gems, special resources and terrain features utilized in the project. Making it cost earth gems, rather than just resources, is again a way to balance this out.

And you're absolutely right, there *are* other ways to stop Elephant Rushes. Good ways, infact, but not always ways that are effective or useable early in the game, for certain Nations.

As far as it cutting into turn limits (which I agree are kind of short, atleast for me), I'm aware of the problem, and there are things that can be done to mitigate the problem (like making them 1 hit=1 kill). Elephants themselves, though, with all their HP, and the possibility of regeneration, are just as much of a potential battle-lengthener as a bunch of barriers would be.

And there are some *really* interesting things that could be done with these kinds of units-Ice, Poison, and Fire have already been mentioned by vfb, but how about phantasmal wall (etherial), wall of clouds (flying), wall of shadows (stronger in darkness-as a deterrant to undead, for Nations which lack other undead/darkness deterrants), etc. (how about a spell that spammed a bunch of blinking walls?) and all the different immobile monster "walls" that could still attack, but couldn't otherwise move?

There's a lot of creative stuff that can be done with this.

[chrispedersen]

For some reason I seem to find that slingers do well against elephants. Maybe its a wrong impression but I still fall back to it whenever Im faced with elephants. Or maybe its just because I can put alot of shots in the air cheaply with some chance to do damage and cause a rout.

You are correct Gandalf. Slingers are cheap, and hordes of them generally defeat elephants. Even if they make it through the missiles, there are usually enough to force a morale check.

[HoneyBadger]

Funnily enough, independent provinces containing elephants often contain slingers, as well.

[Alderanas]

I think the only problem with sizing up creatures is that in every story or myth the creatures are all different sizes. I have books where dragons are huge and can crush an elephant by landing on it and there are others where dragons are smaller than horses. Golems can range in size as well from huge to tiny. I do agree there should be more than 6 sizes. Huh i kinda forgot where i was goin with this. nvm

[Tifone]

Still I don't think it would work very vell in battles as long as units can't differentiate between enemies and obstacles. And while a wooden pallisade torn down by elephants makes sense a couple of spearmen stabbing the palisade to death while under enemy fire does not.

Yeah, I think this one is the real point of the discussion. :)

[HoneyBadger]

How do you suppose those ancient soldiers dealt with palisades that were in their way, other than to tear them down?

[Sombre]

Went around them.

[thejeff]

Well, if they were actual fortification stretching across the field, you'd tear them down. If there was just a block of palisades in the middle you'd go around them to get at the other soldiers.

I'm just envisioning the front rank breaking and the attacking army milling around trying to destroy the abandoned barricade while still having arrows and spells rained down on them.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, that's definitely what would happen.

It's a nice idea HB, but can't be done in the Dom3 engine, because soldiers would always stop to attack every bit of palisade before moving on to fight the real threats.

[HoneyBadger]

Well, don't forget, there will be arrows and spells raining down from the attackers' side as well-not to mention, this is designed to stop elephants, so likely, the other side is going to *have* elephants-remember, this is niche, and meant to be too expensive to be used for anything *other* than as a niche effect. If soldiers stop to destroy them, they might be slowed for a little while, but they're still destroying a very expensive, pretty fragile, hard to replace unit.
More valuable by far than the average PD unit. They're not destroying every spare bit of scrapwood on the field, like a bunch of mindless maniacs, they're destroying earth gems, and a mage's time.

[llamabeast]

If it's a barricade it makes no sense. But if it's an "Elephant totem" or something, it could be justified I guess.

[HoneyBadger]

Every unit is a "barricade" in some sense-some are just moving, fighting barricades. And I wouldn't mind if this one had some fighting ability, that's optional. The point is that a cheap-but not free, or good-size 6 summon would stop elephants from running rampant.

You could call it "Dumbo's last stop mini bar-and-grille" for all I care :)

Semantics seem to be a "barricade" here, anyway...