Qm said

[TwoBits]

Remember, we're talking early game rush issues here. It'll take a few turns to research Conj 3 (for Call of the Winds/Call of the Wild) before that uber animal commander could be available to summon, presuming the said rusher goes straight for it, without researching anything else first. So even if your black-hawk/werewolf leader had an animal command rating of 40, he wouldn't be available for a while anyway.

By mid and late game, that 50+ elephant/chariot horde will be just so much expensive barbecue, unless backed up by some serious magic (I can see how a load of elephants with Army of Lead might be very problematic, for example). An army of archers with Fire Arrows set to "fire at large enemy monsters" should melt them away pretty fast, etc..

At least that's my two pence worth.


On the topic of a bless rush, here's my idea for a future patch/Dom 4 change - make the effectiveness of the bless dependent on a combination of the dominion level plus the casting priest level.

If the total is negative (say a level one priest operating in minus two dominion = total of one), your sacreds only get the +2 moral bonus.

At neutral, you get the moral bonus, plus the level 4 bonuses (+2 attack for Fire, etc.).

You'd need say a total of 5 or so (think a first level priest in a province with positive dominion of 4, or a third level priest in a dominion 2 province) to unlock that level 9 bless goodness.

This way, a quick bless-rush might not be possible. The attacker would need to pause more often, while preaching or spend money on temples. That, or forgo his bad-*** bless while moving into enemy territory/dominion.

Thematically, this makes sense. Surely a God's blessing should be more potent in a province where his belief is strong. Or where he has a mighty priest of the faith in operation.

Also, it might encourage ways to creatively boost priest levels (think unique items, Crystal Shields, Power of the Spheres, etc.) too.

Plus, it makes the whole 'dominion' part of Dominions that much more important (imagine that Helheim player debating whether to go for that double-9 bless, or instead choose to pump up his dominion to make his lesser bless more viable).

I like them two cents!

[llamabeast]

I'm not sure that elephants would be barbecue by the time you researched Conj 3. I think they stay powerful a fair way into the game. They have so many hit points that killing them takes a lot of firepower. And the trouble is, you can't make them stand still. No matter how many troops you have you only have two or three rounds before they are plowing into your army, and then you're stuffed.

Speaking from limited experience though, I must admit.

[Sombre]

I like you're idea about bless, TwoBits. I agree with llama regarding the heffalumps though. I don't think that animal leadership is the way to go with them either - I think making def more effective against them to encourage the use of lighter, agile troops/cavalry and giving higher encumbrance to the 'problem' tramplers like Trogs and Heffalumps is the way to go, personally.

[Wahnsinniger]

Animal Leadership is a good idea, especially if it forces players to buy the seldom used "Trainer" commanders (i.e. for salamanders and such). However, this seems like a very round-about way to try to fix elephant rushes, and I'm not sure why it even fixes it. (I personally think my Trample suggestion is better)

The Bless based on Dominion is a great idea, since a bunch of global enchantments and other stuff is already directly based on dominion strength. It probably should be a little simplier system though, just based on inside dominion/outside dominion. Priest level really shouldn't affect it, since that already determines if you can use Blessing vs Diving Blessing, and with some nations having weak priests, it could virtually destroy any Bless strategies they have.

[TwoBits]

My point about Conj 3 was this - if you needed a special animal-command leader (say, recruitable national commanders would typically have Animal-10, regular unit-0 = no mixing
animals with high moral infantry for example), the potential rusher would not have an uber-animal commander (black hawk/werewolf with animal leadership of 20+) until they researched Conj 3.

Granted, a pack of 10 elephants is still pretty scary in the first year, but that would be the maximum size of the squad (w/o an experienced leader), and it would have no high moral stiffening available. Putting together that 20+ horde would have to wait until Conj 3 and the summoning (w/ gem cost - and perhaps Call of the Winds should be increased to more than 5 air gems?) of a better animal-leader.

----

Regarding the bless-rush option, I definitely think a higher level priest should be able to impart a better blessing, being that much more "in tight" with God. Nations with great sacreds but crappy priests will just have to put that much more care into pretender design (perhaps spending more points on Dominion, and less on their killer magic paths).

Again, just my two pesos.

[TwoBits]

Now that I think about it though, while an 'animal-leadership' rating might tame elephants/mammoths/ to some extent, it doesn't necessarily solve the problem of a trampler rush.

Many nations can put together a rush based on chariots, troglodytes, or minotaurs. While you might categorize the later two as animals of a sort, where do chariots fit in? With the right scales, they can be just as nasty as elephants - they're cheaper, and often have better moral and protection to boot (I scoff at your slings and arrows!).

Maybe units with long weapons DO need a bonus against tramplers (heck, and charge bonus units while we're at it!). It would give us a reason to actually buy those pike-men/spear-men...

[thejeff]

There's a long way between Black Hawks at Conjuration3 and when normal armies aren't useful any more.
You could use your animal leaders with 10 elephants to expand and push research in Conjuration. Should be able to get there within the first year and have a nice backlog of elephants waiting for a leader.
(On the gripping hand, do any of the elephant nation even have Nature magic and income? Arcosephale, though only N1 right? )


More importantly, even if it addressed the elephant rush problem, it introduces all sorts of micromanagement and unforeseen hassles. Does every nation get animal leaders? Do no animal leaders have regular (or magical?) leadership? What about the ape nations? Do they only have animal leadership? So they can't use independents? Nature mages should get animal leadership. But then you can mix elephants and regular troops. Unless no nature mages can lead regular troops. Do indy elephants come with animal commanders? Are the various summon animals (pack of wolves/bears/lions, etc) spells now even more useless?

In general, the problem is tramplers, particularly elephants and this fix addresses animals in general.

I like the repel idea better. It's more specific to the problem.

[MaxWilson]

It's easier to find a counter to chariots/minotaurs, because more nations have access to size 4 creatures than size 6, and chariots can't trample anything of size 4 or bigger. That way, you can at least put up a front line with archers behind it, whereas elephants just trample all over your whole army. (And of course they do more damage, since trample damage is (8 + 2*size difference) AP.)

That said, I'm not entirely convinced that you can't delay an elephant horde for a few rounds with the right tactical placement. Tramplers do great against large masses of troops, but tend to spend a lot of movement chasing down stragglers. Break your 300-man army up into 20 15-man squads and see how much time that buys you. I doubt it would win the battle vs. a large horde, but it might let you inflict a few more casualties.

-Max

[Ironhawk]

All we really need to do to fix elephants is to drop thier protection. It's really as simple as that, guys. Drop thier prot to like 5-6... maybe 7 and you will see a radical difference in thier usability. Instead of just plowing unstoppably through any number of troops, they will get cut down by arrows and the hordes of the troops that surround them after a trample. If they are unsupported by infantry to take heat off them on the ground and archers to counter-attack the enemy shooters, they will be cut to ribbons -- as it should be.