Forthcoming patch notes

Tifone · #1 July 21st, 2008, 08:04 AM

I still don't understand why should it be raised but if the devs think it's necessary I will of course adapt even if not understanding

Long life to pacific solutions - Peace at you Zeldor

(I think KO reads our threads and makes his consideration by himself?

but good luck with it, what else can I say)

Sombre · #2 July 21st, 2008, 08:21 AM

I think the arguments as to why it should be raised are fairly clear. I don't mind it that much but there are definitely pros and cons.

Tifone · #3 July 21st, 2008, 08:37 AM

I don't want to sound an unrequested "adviser" or "i-am-the-smart-guy". But a (humble and just one of the possible ones) solution came maybe to my mind, so I'd like to expose it at the attention of you experts for any comment - stone me alive if you wish

.

Wouldn't it be nice if, regardless of the turn, when the whole enemy army has been routed (the "The armies of XXX has routed"), it has, let's say 5 or 10 more turns to retreat all the units, and then the ones remaining on the battlefield of the defeated side - the slow, fatigued ones, the mindless, the phantasm, the unretreating ones, the immobiles - disappear? They didn't make it, they were unable to rout or "out of autonomy", so the winning army and even the paesants of the nation killed/dismantled them?
Wouldn't it be logical and resolving all the problems you have with turn limit?

I feel in real discomfort suggesting things that might take too much time to the devs to implement, or changing the gameplay (that I really like).
But if you guys think at this issue as a problem, maybe this needs to be repaired someway, and imho this one could be a nice, logical solution which doesn't create endless battles (sorry, an hyperbole to talk about the 200! turns long battles someone talked about)

Peace, with humility your friend Tifone

Zeldor · #4 July 21st, 2008, 08:41 AM

Tifone:

The problems is that maybe it would be better, but we should make reasonable requests for devs. Increasing turn limit is easy. Changing mechanics take a lot of time and we can get many other things coded instead.

atul · #5 July 21st, 2008, 09:08 AM

This talk about increasing turn limit by some fraction reminds me of Murphy's Law. Anyone know why the lost thing is always in the last place you look into? Because you stop looking afterwards. Why some stuff appears to always happen in conjunction with something else totally unrelated? Because you only make the mental note when the conjunction happens, not when it doesn't.

My point being, if the limit would be set to 75/100 it wouldn't do much. Soon people would complain it's too little since they always remember the instances when there was only two crippled guys fleeing too slowly, or something. Seriously, if berserking thugs without a fear aura or area effect weapons kill chaff for 75 rounds, they've caused huge amounts of damage. Maybe they just drop dead from exhaustion after that, but surely they've done a lot. Killing opponent's thugs by flooding them under your own dead corpses is costly and really last-ditch effort, not something easily and cheaply done (like those blessed giants with minimal gear).

With Golems, well, their mindlessness status makes them immune to so many conventional Bad Stuff, that they might get some malus.

Anyway, my opinion in a nutshell: let the little guys accomplish also something. But people can and will disagree, it's probably just a matter of opinion.

EDIT: Oops didn't notice a new page of posts. Meza green! Anyway, given the examples, it would seem to me that there is a huge focus on defences in those thugs. Shouldn't they try to put some into, you people know, offence too? Shouldn't be a surprise they can't take big armies by themselves, they're just holding back.

NTJedi · #6 July 21st, 2008, 09:12 AM

Quote:

atul said:
But people can and will disagree, it's probably just a matter of opinion.

That's why the battlefield turn limit should be an adjustable game setting set at the start of the game.

THUS EVERYONE IS HAPPY.

Another painful point is the auto-kill which should be changed to an auto-retreat.
The game shouldn't be auto-killing mages, commanders and SCs just because of a battlefield turn limitation.

Sombre · #7 July 21st, 2008, 09:33 AM

Each game turn is several months? What makes you say that? I don't think we have any information at all on how long the game turns that isn't related to seasons, do we?

Tifone · #8 July 21st, 2008, 09:37 AM

NTJedi,

I don't have much time now 'cuz I gotta go. I hope you will excuse this green player if he doesn't have the time to quote and comment your points one by one.

I'd just like to say that your points, about sending 1 or 2 SCs against hundreds and not being able to kill more than 100 units in one turn, possibly means that you sent a too little force, with not enough killing potential in 50 turns, against a too big army for the given amount of time for a battle, and not that the gameplay mechanic is broken. In poker I wouldn't say that a two pair doesn't beat the three of a kind because the hand of 5 cards is restrictive. I just didn't have enough "power" to beat the opponent's hand. This one is a very limited example, but just a thought about the complaining about the "restrictive mechanics" and not that maybe you got used to send not enough SCs, or not strong enough, into the battle, and not that the battle is broken.

2nd, your examples about mindless units have been discussed a bit yet by me and atul, and vfb actually talked about a possible solution for them that don't require to change the whole battle timing mechanic.

3rd, isn't a year 12 turns? 4 seasons x 3 turns each... 12 turns... no? And in this time the army does the preparatives, reaches the enemy province, reaches the enemy army, possibly after an honorful "date" of the battle a couple of days after comes the (sample of) battle, and has the time to retreat back to another province. Seems to take whole weeks to do everything. And I don't think the *sample* of a battle can tell you how much time does it take. Does Check, as a well-known *sample* of a battle, tell you that a battle took one day?

NTJedi · #9 July 21st, 2008, 09:46 AM

My math is off, since I didn't sleep last night.

My little force of 2 SCs fought less than 200 units... and since each game turn is a month it's more than enough time to kill 200 units. The worst part was the enemy was routed and fleeing, my remaining SC wasn't even wounded chasing down the routing enemy... yet auto-killed because of a game turn I lost. This result is illogical and wrong.

Dominions_3 cannot be compared to poker... both are extremely different on multiple levels.

NTJedi · #10 July 21st, 2008, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Tifone said:

3rd, in this time the army does the preparatives, reaches the enemy province, reaches the enemy army, possibly after an honorful "date" of the battle a couple of days after comes the (sample of) battle, and has the time to retreat back to another province. Seems to take whole weeks to do everything. And I don't think the *sample* of a battle can tell you how much time does it take. Does Check, as a well-known *sample* of a battle, tell you that a battle took one day?

The firing of arrows is one method of identifying the timeframe of a battle, the fatigued generated by soldiers wearing armor on the battlefield is another method, look and you'll find more.

Even KO could not justify an explanation for the auto-killing of units on the battlefield after the battlefield turn limit expires. Simply it was the decision so the battles don't last forever. I estimate the auto-retreat would have been implemented by now, however it's probably too late for the programming code.