Maenads and siege

[Jazzepi]

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

Jazzepi

[Shovah32]

Well we all know how mindless women are .

[Wyatt Hebert]

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

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

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

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

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

Wyatt Hebert

[Jazzepi]

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

Jazzepi

[Kuritza]

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

[Jazzepi]

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

Jazzepi

[Wyatt Hebert]

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

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

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

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

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

Wyatt Hebert

[Jazzepi]

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

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

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

Jazzepi

[thejeff]

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

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

[Kuritza]

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