Fighting Commanders and Equipment.

[sushiboat]

You get what you pay for. Basic commanders are cheap and frail, so they aren't good candidates for expensive equipment or hand-to-hand combat.

A non-mage commander can be good for holding a spell-casting item. He can't cast any other spells, so if you set him to Cast Spells, you can be 100% sure of what he will cast. Item spells cause only 5 fatigue, so he will be fully active for the first 20 turns.

I am not sure I understand the problem. Any particular unit can't do everything well. There are commanders who can fight well (e.g., Bane Lord, summoned uniques). Basic commanders can't. So it goes.

[spirokeat]

Its not that there is a problem, thats not what I mean. But usually by the time you can summon a suitable commander to fight (and I dont mean a full blown SC). Its that you have usually bypassed the need to give them things like the trinkets.

Its like there is a whole band of basic equipment that is non-functional due to commander frailty and unit cohesion. And more to the point I'm trying to discover if its something I'm simply missing and they can be used.

In regard to the lycan amulet. Well it adds some good strength too as well as jacking the werewolf (call of wild) regen to 4 per turn not two.

I usually just give basic commanders items like others have said they do, bows or spell casting items.

Spirokeat

[quantum_mechani]

spirokeat said:

Its like there is a whole band of basic equipment that is non-functional due to commander frailty and unit cohesion. And more to the point I'm trying to discover if its something I'm simply missing and they can be used.

In regard to the lycan amulet. Well it adds some good strength too as well as jacking the werewolf (call of wild) regen to 4 per turn not two.

That sort of basic equipment is primarily used by expander pretenders. Items like the thorn staff are greatly useful for pretenders that start with some junk weapon or even 'fist'.

I'm not saying the lychantropos' amulet is 100% useless, but items like barkskin amulets or girdles of strength seem a better deals in this situation.

[shovah]

if you want to make a survivable commander give him 2 weapons with high defence and some tough armour and then if you can some sort of spell casting/regenerating/fatigue curing item ( use that last one with heavy armour such as black plate of ulm ) and give him some heavily armoured bodyguards with decent morale

[sushiboat]

spirokeat said:
Its not that there is a problem, thats not what I mean. But usually by the time you can summon a suitable commander to fight (and I dont mean a full blown SC). Its that you have usually bypassed the need to give them things like the trinkets.

Its like there is a whole band of basic equipment that is non-functional due to commander frailty and unit cohesion. And more to the point I'm trying to discover if its something I'm simply missing and they can be used.

In the early game, gems are few and far between. Spending gems and a mage turn on something that will soon be obsolete seems a waste to me. As for items that don't seem to be worth forging, I think that's true even at higher levels. Sometimes I can't imagine an item making much of a difference. Sometimes an item is OK, but another available item is better for the same purpose or is a better value for the cost.

You probably know that commanders can hold for up to five turns before attacking. You can play around with various delays and unit placements so that everyone starts fighting at roughly the same time. Those formations will have to change with the speed of the anticipated opponents.

[Chazar]

I feel very much the same about low-level items on commoners. It might be fun, but it isnt even remotely cost effective and takes too much time. It is a shame that all this is wasted...

Here is my solution: Alter the mapfile and add some simple commanders to all provinces, each having the random-equip flag set at low-level. Those certainly do not make it more difficult to conquer the independents, but cause that there are many trinkets around waiting to be won in battle. So one can have some fun discovering some unusual items...
However, it is a shame that there is not a single setting allowing to give random trinkets to all independent commanders...


Another option is probably the difficult research option, where the usability window for low-level items is prolonged...

[magnate]

There are a few low level items which do not become obsolete - the Burning Pearl is my favourite - make it straight away and then pass it to an Ice Devil later on ...

... but on the whole I agree with spirokeat - there are a fair proportion of items on the forge list which are rarely or never used. Imho this is a real shame, and a priority for fixing/rebalancing in Dom3. I'm not saying every item should be a no-brainer - far from it - but after 18 months of playing this game I would like to be able to say "oh yes, that comes in really handy when ..." for each item.

But maybe part of this is me - after all, I'm the only person I know who's never forged a Staff of Storms ...

CC

[Endoperez]

I haven't, either... in DomII. I did, in Dom:PPP, when I played Caelum in multiplayer...

I mainly used Air Elementals, as they could be summoned without gems. SoS offered quite a nice protection. However, my most active offence force were my hordes of Caelian Scouts. They must have captured dozens of undefended provinces. And I had a sneaking, flying, teleporting Archfiend with Boots of the Planes capturing one of the magically rich provinces every turn, thanks to the one-turn Eyes of the God I had cast before. Ah, good times... But the game did take at least half a year, probably closer to a full one.

[Arralen]

There is a very simple solution to the low-level item problem:

They are too expensive. As we can't change that, simply make all summoning spells 2 times as expensive.
As long as you get one or more summons for the gemcost of the lowliest items, no-one will ever make those as the summons give much more "bang for the buck".

PS: I like dropping some Stinger and Black Tower Shield on indie commanders. Not really cost effective, but fun

[spirokeat]

magnate said:
... but on the whole I agree with spirokeat - there are a fair proportion of items on the forge list which are rarely or never used. Imho this is a real shame, and a priority for fixing/rebalancing in Dom3. I'm not saying every item should be a no-brainer - far from it - but after 18 months of playing this game I would like to be able to say "oh yes, that comes in really handy when ..." for each item.
CC

I agree whole heartedly. Theres just tons I like the look of but never forge, I just think its a shame not a major game imbalance. A lot of love and attention went into those items and I would like to repond in kind.

I've never forged a staff of storms either...chuckle.

Spirokeat