Castles are odd, aint they?

[Chazar]

There were already many recent discussions about the usefulness of the different fortresses, but I just rediscovered something that bugs me with castles of all types. It might have been discussed before, but I could not find where:

My situation: There's a chokepoint on the shady rim which I wish to merely defend against Baphomet (AI). Hence I bought myself some province defense and added a mage to boost them. This cheap defense worked well so far, but soon more than one mage will be required to secure that province. Mages are expensive, so before they bore themselves to death doing nothing but patrolling, I thought to myself that I should build a lab there so that they can busy themselves while not actively defending the province. This is cute: with nothing but a lab, the mages garrisoned there double as active researchers and as active defenders at the same time!

However, once I invested in a lab, I want to make the most of my investment and use the lab to build more mages. However, the locals are pretty dumb, so I cannot recruit mages unless I also build a fortress there. If I were to invest in an expensive fortress, my mages could not research anymore, as they must be set to patrol in order to boost the PD, for otherwise they would merely hide in their labs when the hapless PD gets slaughtered. With the PD being useless, I need to garrison non-upkeep-free troops there to defend the castle, making the whole thing superfluous (i.e. securing the choke point with the least expenses, as money is scarce on the shady rim and I really need to attack Baphomet (AI) on the main front).

I know that it all makes sense somehow game-wise, but I really feel that it is somehow wrong that building a castle is actually disadvantageous! Why does the presence of the castle prevent my mages do perform the feats they could do before???

[Saber Cherry]

...There could be a command, "Research and Defend Province," that would solve the problem. AFAIK, only "Research" has this problem... I think Blood Hunt, Summon Allies, Preach, and so forth also defend the province, but I'm not sure. Maybe any action that can be done while under siege prevents you from defending the province when a castle is in place?

Maybe the only way to solve it is to have a discrete "Defend Province When Attacked" toggle, apart from orders. Much like a "Never retreat from battle, you stupid Moloch, even if your wimpy imps rout" toggle.

[Endoperez]

I think that the only action that lets you defend the province, instead of the castle, is Patrol (and Move&Patrol). All other commands happen "inside" the castle.

[Boron]

You have to evaluate if you prefer defense from Ghost Riders or normal defense .
In games vs. the AI normal defense is often better but in MP you need castles vs. Ghost Riders , Horrors etc. otherwise it is too annoying .

Unfortunately Ghost Riders are really rather cheap and easy accessible for all Nations . Just 25 Deathgems for a new Demilich and you have another Ghost Rider caster .

Expect your 1-2 Main Armies Ghost riders can kill almost any of your armies/SCs . But there are also the Artillery Spells like Flames from the Sky .

That combination forces you to only use Devils + Mech Men if you can do so .
Everything else either dies to Ghost Riders or the Artillery spells .
If you have a few turns time , e.g. you have lots of castled lands , then with a combination of the following spells you normally can wear down (almost) any army :
Leprosy
Beckoning
Mind Hunt
Earth Attack/Ashen Angel
Ghost Riders/(Lesser) Horror
Flames from the Sky/Murdering Winter

And then there are the Battle Spells like Rain of Stones , Earthquake and Wrathful skies which reduce the army reliable down to SCs + Air immune Troops .

[Chazar]

Please, this is not about the quality of province defense nor ghost riders, this thread is about castles downgrading the usefulness of commanders: Why cant a commander in a castled province not functions as in an unfortified province?
With a castle: research OR defend
Without castle: research AND defend

IMHO, I would expect to gain more choice by building a castle, not loosing choice!

Of course, it is usually preferrable to have commanders locked up and secured, so it is easy to see why the game simplifies things and always assumes commanders to be hidden behind thick walls, but nevertheless it is sometimes odd to me and I am wondering how everyone else feels and whether other people would also like an option for this like Saber Cherry already proposed...

Of course, one may make up some somehwat contrived explanations like "those castles have real long corridors and its is pretty easy for an aged researcher to get lost in the labyrinth, especially with the red alert trumpets sounding everywhere...".

BTW, I also think Endropez is right: nothing but patrolling exposes commanders. I think I recall that it is written explicitely somewhere in the manual.

@Boron: I am talking about turn 21 in a Shepherd of Creation game, where a Vanheim PD of 13 combined with a single dwarven smith set on LegionsOfSteel and BladeWind successfully safeguards my flank from occasional attacks from Baphomet's armies coming from one of my neighbors already deep in distress for the last 6 turns, but this is not relevant to this topic either other than providing some plausible background for the problem to arise.

[sushiboat]

I think the consistent thing to do would be to have researching mages who have to defend an unfortified province not be able to finish their turn of research. Then a fort allowing researchers to research uninterrupted would be a step up. I think that for a single unit to do both (research and defend) in one turn is unreasonable. Enemy attacks are disruptive, and forts are a buffer against that disruption -- not a way for one unit to do everything at once.

[Chazar]

sushiboat said:
I think the consistent thing to do would be to have researching mages who have to defend an unfortified province not be able to finish their turn of research.

I agree with you generally, but the issue is probably more complicated: Even killed mages contribute their research!

This is, of course, a sensible thing from the game-play perspective and allows research to be planned in an exact manner. Another example is item forging: The gems are deducted when the order is assigned, and it would be a major hassle if killed mages would not forge the items as assigned (consider a endgame situation where you forge a lot of things).

So one could argue that a game month isnt a discrete thing, hence there is no single spot in time when all orders are issued. Furthermore armies need time for movement, so battles can be imagined to take place at the end of the imaginary time frame that we players call a "turn", but not all time frames for all units are aligned like the "turn" suggests. Hence the mage starts forging and researching long before and might be done at the end of his timeframe/month when the attack actually takes place...

...so what I want to say here is: I know it is thematically wrong to allow forgers/researchers to finish their doing while also participating in battles, but it really makes sense to simplify gameplay. I think that was the reason for having research and forging coming early in the turn order, despite research already affecting spells cast in later battles...

The castle breaks it somehow and the solutions is currently see are either to restrict lab building to fortified provinces , add a checkbox to mark actively defending (but not patrolling) units [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img] or live with the things as they are... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

Better ideas?

[slimemold]

Chazar said:
The castle breaks it somehow and the solutions is currently see are either to restrict lab building to fortified provinces , add a checkbox to mark actively defending (but not patrolling) units [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img] or live with the things as they are... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

Better ideas?

As someone who only plays single-player and depends quite a bit on provincial defense, I totally agree with the observation of oddness. Finding a "fix" is a little harder.

I think the "Move and Patrol" order exists purely to get around this issue. It could be generalized to a "... and Patrol" order for all the in-castle actions like preaching, blood-hunting, research, summon allies, forging, ritual spells, etc. The only difference would be that a "Move and Patrol" morphs into a "Patrol" for the next turn, while "... and Patrol" shouldn't morph at all. However, here it gets more complicated, since casting and forging revert to "Defend" on the next turn, while if they reverted to "Patrol" you'd have trouble cycling through inactive commanders with the "n" key.

[FrankTrollman]

It's not "losing choice" when you build a castle. Not by a long shot.

With a castle:
Research and be safe.

Without a castle:
Research and fight.

Sometimes one is better than the other. Admittedly, there should be a command "research and fight for province", just like there should be a "preach and fight for province", just like there should be a "preach and hide". In general, there should be more commands than there are, you should have more choices than you do.

But right now, the castle does not give you "less options", it gives you "different options". That's weird, and it should give you "additional options" if there are going to be any differences at all. But that's a separate thing.

Possibly "Hide/Defend Castle/Fight For Province" should be a separately togglable order completely distinct from the basic orders you are giving people.

-Frank