[Radio_Star]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

The two have little to do with each other. You might as well suggest we all learn to navigate our aircraft carriers better, instead of maintaining roads.

Your ability to utilize your armies (one of two forms of defense) and your use of PD (your other form of defense) are of course related. The more effective one is in your hands, the less reliant you are on the other.

To say that your two forms of defense, being inextricably linked in their dualistic nature (big words, booyakasha!) "have little to do with each other" is ... well, wrong. You should add sophistry to your study list.

Let's see what other gifts of silliness you're giving to us inexperienced players. It's like Christmas every day!

PD is separate from mobile armies. That should be obvious to everyone.

Uh huh.

There's no reason that it can't be made more useful and interesting, without somehow taking away from "using armies".

(Screeching tires and accident noises. Maybe DJ-style record scratch/needle jump) Hm. Let's talk about this with some numbers. I like numbers. In addition to adding numbers, we're going to stop using the word "army". In this context it's incredibly misleading as what you really mean is 'mobile force'. Let's create a scale of strength and label it 1-10. 1 will be a single indie commander, and 10 will be a nearly mythical late game army comprised of hundreds of battle mages, thousands of troops, supporting thugs/scs/ etc. PD in its current form can, with a reasonable degree of economy, stop force levels 1 to, let's say 3. If you make PD more effective, it'll be able to stop, with a reasonable degree of economy, up to let's say 5.

If you eliminate the viability of certain force levels, you "[take] away" from the depth of mobile forces, necessarily limiting strategic options.

The way I see PD working is akin to adding infrastructure: You build it up from nothing, and as you do, more people settle there, more business is done, your workshops are more productive, your smiths and craftsmen more skilled. You attract the richer merchants and the famous bards. You also probably attract more crime.

The end result is a functioning defensive force, created by your people living there, out of a desire to protect themselves and maintain the peace, but it comes about from a lot of hidden factors that might be represented by 20+ buildings in a Civilization-type game, but that in Dom3 is refined and distilled down to a single number.

The way you see PD working is immaterial to the argument. 'nuff said.

People didn't stop "using armies" once they learned to build castles or create an effective police force. That doesn't make fortifications or military police any less important.

Straw man. Again, back to sophistry school with you.

Please remember to phrase your arguments with relation to the competitive game we're discussing. Your pseudo-historical references and theorizing about the nature of PD just don't matter in this context. Cease and desist, yo.


In the end, here's what's going on: as humans, we like win. As such, we like to modify the rules of competition to better suit us as individuals. This is fine and natural. Howeva. You're attempting to pull the balance away from the diversity and complexity that gives rise to strategic options, which then in turn serves to delineate skill levels. Every competitive MP community I've ever been in has people like you. People who want the game to be simpler and easier so that they don't suck quite as hard. These people are called 'scrubs'.

To summarize your response:

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

My name in Inigo Montoya. You killed my argument. Prepare to die.