Countering Master Enslave...

[JimMorrison]

cleveland said:
Keep the non-magic combat the same.

My suggestion was to, at the beginning of each turn, have ALL mages from BOTH sides cast their spells in a random order.

It's simple.

It makes sense.

It's aesthetically pleasing.

Okay, well that actually makes sense. Anything that gets you closer to simulating simultaneous casting is definitely good in my book. And total side by side randomization of casting would surely be better than interleaving. Though I would think you'd still want -some- of the defender advantage left in place. If it's just the mundane troops that get to move first, that's the part that is easiest for the attacker to manipulate directly through placement and spell choice. I still think that defending casters should get some sort of distinct advantage, though something less than "cast a spell that wins the fight in the first round" would be preferable.

[Twan]

For me the ideal system (for dom 4) would be an individual initiative based on ap, or better on a new initiative stat for commander/mages, a little drn for some randomness, a *little* bonus for the defenders (and attackers with adequate survival skill) based on province terrain (so they finally start to matter), and a malus for mages based on the level/requirements of the spell they intend to cast.

Of course some mechanics like communion can't work the same with this kind of system (retro communion isn't an intended mechanic anyway and contribute to astral overpowerness, and suppressing all the micro gestion related to mages id would be a good thing).

For dom3 I think the best way to make late game more interesting would be a simple mod replacing battlefield instants by large ae spells. It would be extremely logical for enslave spells, considering the insane progression they have between level 6 and 9 (level 6 : one spell enslave one guy, level 9 : one spell enslave a whole army, and nothing in between...). Even an aoe 10 master enslave would have been considered an extremely powerful spell, if it was made so instead of aoe = battlefield. And spells like rain of stones have no reason to have a bigger ae and range than the fire/water/air endgame instant spells (or it would be more logical to make RoS a BE working like wrathfull skies, a rain of stones has no reason to be instant when a rain of lightnings isn't).

Personnally I'm so tired of endgame round one victories or boring stalemates that as soon this kind of mod start to be used in MP, I stop playing vanilla games.

[baruk]

The problem as I see it is a combination of the defender advantage and the power of the battlefield wide offensive spells.
I will offer up a new solution: introduce a simultaneous resolution phase solely for the battlefield wide offensive spells.

How it would work:

Defender's turn: Defender moves and casts spells as normal. However, battlefield-wide spells do not take immediate effect.

Attacker's turn: Attacker moves and casts spells. Again, his battlefield wide spells do not take effect just yet.

Battlefield spell resolution phase: Takes place after both sides have moved. All defensive spells resolve first followed by the offensive spells.

eg. In the case of both sides casting master enslave - each unit makes the first MR check against the enemy spell. If the unit fails, it then makes another MR check against the "friendly" master enslave, to see if control of the unit is regained.

Essentially this would make the battlefield spells work a bit like one shot battlefield enchantments, in the sense that they do not necessarily take immediate effect.

[thejeff]

That's not bad for the abusive end game spells, but could be irritating to apply to the less potent early game ones. I'm particularly thinking Divine Blessing. Fanaticism and the various national undead buffs as well.
You could just exempt them, I guess.

[zlefin]

Is the problem some of the endgame spells in general or master enslave in particular?
If it's just master enslave; then just address the issue in the simplest way possible: changing master enslave.

If it's in general; then i'd like a full list of the offending spells to deal with.
Perhaps the problem lies with spells that are battlefield but only hit enemies? changing such to high aoe might cover it.

It sounds like many of these issues could be addressed by spell modding easily enough.

[sansanjuan]

Twan said:
For me the ideal system (for dom 4) would be an individual initiative based on ap, or better on a new initiative stat for commander/mages, a little drn for some randomness, a *little* bonus for the defenders (and attackers with adequate survival skill) based on province terrain (so they finally start to matter), and a malus for mages based on the level/requirements of the spell they intend to cast.

I like your train of thought Twan. One based purely on AP +rnd would be very nice. Certainly there would be debate on whether it would be base AP, base AP+ any "natural" quickness or as above + spell casted quickness + magic items...
-SSJ