High PD kinda useless.

[Graeme Dice]

Forrest said:
Over 1000 troops and two Gods died trying to take that province. I held with minimal reinforcements and just a three or four spell casters. That 40 PD was the best spent money of the game.

Except that it wasn't. There's little point in raising defense beyond the point where it costs more per additional troop than those troops would cost you to buy in the first place, and that breakpoint is around 20 for most nations. Beyond 20, you are throwing gold away on immobile troops that cost more than their equivalent mobile versions. It wasn't the province defense that allowed you to defeat your enemies, it was the flaming arrows from 100 longbows.

[Twan]

Immobile troops but without upkeep. Even at twice the price if you have to defend the province turn after turn and if you succeed a sufficient time it's not a bad investment.

[Forrest]

BUT..... those 40 troops died every time.

They slowed the advance to allow my archers multiple shots. If I had used my infantry then my archers would have wiped out my infantry in no time. That is the biggest draw back to archers especialy with flaming arrows.

That 40 PD saved me many hundreds of troops that I would have killed not counting the enemies efforts if they had not been weakened before they came hand to hand with my infantry. There were three kingdoms that made at least ten respectable efforts between them to take that province.

Mind you I did have to replace my infantry a few times as some attacks were very strong.

That is what a choke point is. If I had had the money I would have bought more PD. But the other two fronts were sucking me dry.

[Graeme Dice]

Twan said:
Immobile troops but without upkeep.

What about upkeep? If you got two units you for the 40th point of defense, for a cost of 40 gold, it takes 15 turns for that point of province defense to pay for itself. That's assuming, of course, that the province is ever attacked in the first place.

Even at twice the price if you have to defend the province turn after turn and if you succeed a sufficient time it's not a bad investment.

It's not as good an investment as buying real troops that you can use to attack for half the cost.

[NTJedi]

Graeme Dice said:
Beyond 20, you are throwing gold away on immobile troops that cost more than their equivalent mobile versions.

Well that depends on the situation. Mobile troops use food supplies, can pickup afflictions, die permanently and the more mobile troops purchased the greater their gold upkeep.
The units from province defense don't need food supplies, won't die permanently and have no gold upkeep.

Graeme Dice said:It wasn't the province defense that allowed you to defeat your enemies, it was the flaming arrows from 100 longbows.

I agree... the flaming arrows from 100 longbows definitely was the reason for holding the province.

[Saxon]

Hmm, spamming forts along an active border and not manning them is a bit dangerous. If your enemy grabs one, they have a nice base to build from and you have to retake it at some cost. I prefer defending against with a more flexible border, where you can lose and re-take a province relativly easily. But as some one else wrote, if you have real problems on the border, you should have a real army to deal with it. Once you defeat the attacking force, you may wish to go and visit the enemy provinces for a little chat. After all, the best defense is a good offense...

[isodea]

PD is certainly a double-edged sword cost vs. effectivness wise. It's one of the most interesting features of Dom for me. I usaually dont go above 31 in any given province. Sometimes when I take an enemy province deep in thier lands and am waiting for reinforcements I'll bump it up to 50+ as a stalling tactic. It brings a smile to my face when they throw a big army at it and, win or lose, it costs them mass casualties.

[Cainehill]

Consider PD in terms of maintainence free chaff, but _not_ as a replacement for troops. If you had something like 30 PD plus 10-20 troops, maybe a mage or priest (for sermon of courage), you'd probably find that much more effective - the PD soaks up the losses but is renewed so long as you win the battles, while the mage and real troops help ensure that you win, both because of troops quality and because of tactics.

Yes, you have to pay upkeep on those troops there - but upkeep is probably cheaper than the equivalent of 183 troops getting lost because PD sucks. Even better, you can move those troops and mages as your border shifts, while your investment in 50 PD turns out to be a very poor investment once you've expanded enough beyond that province and it never gets attacked.

(Kind of disheartening to read that PD has actually been nerfed even more, vis a vis Jotuns and whatnot. )

[Endoperez]

Cainehill said:(Kind of disheartening to read that PD has actually been nerfed even more, vis a vis Jotuns and whatnot. )

It hasn't been nerfed per se. Jotunheim provincial defense is weaker now, but not because it was made weaker, but because larger armies are more common and they are one of the nations whose province defence wasn't boosted. They might not be one of the nations with very good PD any more.

Man, as an example, seems to have very good PD now. They get spearmen and 2 militia for every point of PD, which is lots of chaff. Further, their better troops at 20+ PD are Longbowmen AND Tower Guards! In MA, they have Bards as second leader! 10 Longbowmen, 10 Tower Guards, 30 Spearmen and 60 Militia sound good? What if the militia came back if they died? What if you increased that, or recruited some indy archers in addition to the longbows?

[Nerfix]

I think there's a point where buying PD is no longer efective and just putting some troops and mages is much more effective.