LIFE Realm

[Bahgtru]

I also don't understand why anyone would care about supernatural. It's an end game thing, by which time one has de facto won since some years.

What life provides is the power in the mid game. That's when, if anytime, stacking should be fixed. It's simply unbeatable in the mid game - the moment where you have your berserkers with half the buffs and they can already run around conquering one city per turn. Maybe half the bersies completely buffed and half not but there as meatshields to protect the others... Or maybe all the bersies half-buffed, which is enough for several wizard combinations at that point in the game, or any other strategy that you may choose.

That's when there's a problem, and an upwards limit - like, say, max k times base armor - won't deal with it as when stuff is half buffed you've not reached the limit yet. What would REALLY fix it is introducing more stacking rules, but I doubt that that's feasible.

[zitro1987]

buff stacking is powerful but the problem is not that it is 'too powerful' (it kind of is but), I think the problem is that it is one of the strategies that has few disadvantages/counters. We can fix this, doesn't have to revolve around my suggestions.


My thoughts:
*Specialist granting +100% resistance to dispel is too strong of an ability and clearly part of the problem. Without it, any player could spend 40-50 mana (or a bunch of magicians) to dispel unit stacks rather effectively.
*Few counters to buffs. We do have dispelling wave, but it is not very useful against specialist wizards. What about the other colors? There was a bit of discussion with reaper slash damage introducing a 'buff' variable in formula. That would help a lot. Nature and Chaos only seem to have crack's call and doom bolt which requires a few turns.

[Nelphine]

Yes if I can plan on chaos channels, I can plan on soul linker.

Yes, if I have 6 life books, I can treasure hunt reliably enough to get 8-9 rares - with one good life ally, I can get all the life rares.

No I don't plan for any very rares - I specified where I would get extra if I had archangel or crusade.

Yes my base is 16, because Torin is reliable enough to plan on, so divine barrier is included.


Yes, having 9 with +1 to defend and 24 health is plenty for most of the game.

Yes, my suggestion isn't really good enough to address that, as it's only 0.6 damage less blocked on the average (6 with +2 to defend).

But on the primary doomstsck, it's 6 with +5 to defend (blocking 4.8+2) instead of blocking 10.8+2. Thsts huge.

Maybe levels could stay as is, not count towards the cap, but not increase the cap. I'm not worried about the exact numbers.



Why wouldn't I play buff strategies IF I'm going to use city troops? If I'm using summons, I'll just use them, put all my cities onto de facto power generation via trade goods and not waste time with high end city units that aren't as good as uncommon summons anyway. If I can't get enough Summons for whatever reason (which doesn't actually occur if you maximize everything around summoning), then high strategic strength is the only thing that matters for my city troops, and middle tier city troops are better than high end cityvtroops.

If I want to use high end city troops and make them relevant I have to buff them. If I'm going to buff them, they aren't as good as buffed middle city units. Therefore, I build middle city units and buff those.


High end city units are a trap. They're a complete trap that shouldn't EVER be built except that variety in the ai is nice, and niche 'lone dragon turtle's strategies that only work at a particular time in the game.

[jhsidi]

I guess the effectiveness of edge case buffing strategies depends on how you play. Personally I'd be bored out of my mind running an "optimal" strategy of berzerkers, even if it does involve some nuanced planning. In any case it does seem like Supernatural is not particularly relevant, and I'd also agree that stacking buffs hits its peak around mid-game.

The to-hit and to-defend mechanics still stand out to me as being just, eh, not great. No fault of CoM, they fall under the logic of MoM. To-hit / defend is just inelegant and prone to weirdness in the same sort of way the old D&D THAC0 mechanic was.

I've thought about it for a day or so. If I had to suggest a replacement for to-hit / to-defend, my suggestion would be... to rip them out and not replace them at all; rather, let other game mechanics empower the wizard.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, about the sword / shield mechanic that makes them NEED to-hit / to-defend. You don't need a special mechanic that makes a hero with 20 attack and +1 to hit scale more than a halfling swordsman with 2 attack and +1 to hit. I don't see the benefit in trying to find ways to scale up the 20 attack hero. Any method of scaling his 20 attack will be prone to mechanics where it scales *too much* and the hero runs around deleting everything -- which was the biggest problem for original MoM and still a problem in CoM. Likewise for high shields and to-defend creating an impenetrable defense.

Does anyone here think I'm wrong and that to-hit and to-defend are just wildly fun mechanics to play with? I can't see it, myself. It feels wrong every single time I see some unit with wimpy stats and massive to-hit / to-defend stand around killing everything else and shrugging off all attacks.

Removing to-hit / defend would, undoubtedly, be an effort. The effect of alchemists' guilds and soul linker would need to be revised. Four of the spell realms would be fine, but Life would suffer... and, in my view, it would be worth it. Life would be more fun -- a lot more fun! -- if it didn't rely on casting the same 3-4 spells a zillion times on every copy-pasted unit you have. I submit that Life would be more fun if it was more like the anti-Chaos, anti-Death school that the original designers originally intended -- giving heals and active buffs in battle and acting as a bane to summoned creatures.

Prayer could just offer a % increase to swords and shields. Heal, Mass Healing and Exaltation could be a bit cheaper and more effective (after all, without to-defend screwing up damage calculations, more healing is needed). I'd personally love to see a couple Prayer-like spells that offer a time-limited benefit in battle. Like 1 turn of +3 movement and +5 attack. So strategically, you'd need to move your units into place before hitting the button.

It's just a thought experiment, anyway But I'm curious what others think.

[Bahgtru]

By the time you can buff that much you've won already. By the time you summon Torin you are just playing like a cat with the dead mouse corpse. The mid game point where you need to accelerate - or be out-produced - and where you need to attack despite not having everything buffed up to the level you'd like is the decision point.
At that decision point, a good unit might be useful as you won't have the means (skill) to buff all your units. At that decision point, your proposed maximum limit is not reached yet, at least not on so many units. So having a maximum stacking does not affect the game in any meaningful way.

A thought out of the box... City buffs were changed to not be dispelled for real, only during the combat. What if buffs were treated the same (strengthening them) but were made easier to dispel in-combat (weakening them)? Like... Spending equal to the cost giving 100% for example, or even easier.

[Seravy]

Maybe levels could stay as is, not count towards the cap, but not increase the cap.

That can't be done, levels would count towards the cap since they are extra stats not part of the base unit.
Unless the condition is not base stats but white shield icons vs gold ones, but then levels increase the cap.

High end city units are a trap. They're a complete trap that shouldn't EVER be built

...if you are playing heavy Life magic. Other realms, not so much. Death has no buffs, Chaos rather spends the mana on combat spells, curses and summoning (3 flame blades or a fire storm? Fire Storm please). Nature, you want to put the buffs on summons or summon more, also Iron Skin is better on high end single figure units (as they have higher base armor to begin with and you aren't buffing anything else) , Sorcery doesn't buff stats, it only grants immunities. There are of course exceptions like Nature that relies on adamantium, holy bonus, etc that can work well on the low tier units, but that's just an option, not the primary and only way to play the realm. (Yes, I did use Soul Linker hero with Chaos Channels as a strategy with pure chaos before, too. I also did Blazing March Flame Blade longbowmen or slingers. But those are still only "extras" the realm can do that sometimes work, sometimes not.)

Does anyone here think I'm wrong and that to-hit and to-defend are just wildly fun mechanics to play with?

There is one, fairly big, difference between the To Hit/To Def mechanics and increasing swords/shields. The former increases the average damage output while reducing spread. The latter increases the average damage output but also increases spread.
For example a 3 sword creature at +7 to Hit would deal exactly 3 damage on each attack. A 10 sword creature with no + To Hit deals 0-10 damage with a distribution where the average is 3. Huge difference. On multifigure units the former deals zero damage against 3 damage reduction. The latter deals relevant amounts, as half the rolls, meaning 3 figures, will be above average.
The To Hit and To Def mechanics are great and way more interesting than a plain attack/defense stat with no modifiers. It's a more elegant way to grant percentage bonus to attack/defense, and one that does not suffer from having different effects based on which order they are applied.

What if buffs were treated the same (strengthening them) but were made easier to dispel in-combat (weakening them)? Like... Spending equal to the cost giving 100% for example, or even easier.

The AI needs to be able to dispel overland. Having to dispel in combat is an auto-loss as it uses up all casting skill meaning the AI loses their fortress. (2 dispelling waves at 125 each costs 250. The AI needs roughly 3 to chew through the spell locks plus remove enough buffs to actually be able to beat the stack, and that's with some sort of dispel bonus.)

[Seravy]

btw, one more reasonable idea would be to make To Hit and To Def add chance smaller increments, which would allow slightly more fine tuning of the effects. As is, the lowest we can add is 10% which is quite a lot (equivalent to a 33% increase in damage/reduction). However, each +1 being 10% is intuitive, each being 3.33% or something like that, would not be.

[Bahgtru]

btw, one more reasonable idea would be to make To Hit and To Def add chance smaller increments, which would allow slightly more fine tuning of the effects. As is, the lowest we can add is 10% which is quite a lot (equivalent to a 33% increase in damage/reduction). However, each +1 being 10% is intuitive, each being 3.33% or something like that, would not be.

Or... It could have diminishing returns? 10 -> 9 -> 8 (or even worse)

What if buffs were treated the same (strengthening them) but were made easier to dispel in-combat (weakening them)? Like... Spending equal to the cost giving 100% for example, or even easier.

The AI needs to be able to dispel overland. Having to dispel in combat is an auto-loss as it uses up all casting skill meaning the AI loses their fortress. (2 dispelling waves at 125 each costs 250. The AI needs roughly 3 to chew through the spell locks plus remove enough buffs to actually be able to beat the stack, and that's with some sort of dispel bonus.)

I don't understand, what is the link between temporarily dispellable spells and the fortress fight? Are you assuming that fortress fights happen after other fights? That's rather... Special, in my experience. The fortress fight is the first one in any war that matters.
But if that's a need then there could be two levels of dispel, one that is temporary and one overland. It could be two different spells, or two different results of the dispel roll maybe.

[Seravy]

Exactly because the fortress fight is the first, the AI needs to dispel overland, before that fight happens.
Dispel never will be temporary on unit buffs. It completely contradicts what it is meant for, and is very bad for the AI.

[jhsidi]

Diminishing returns on to-hit / to-defend sounds like it would help. It's a fairly standard idea in games. E.g. your standard RPG, adding your first +1 to strength is a big deal, not so much the fifth time you do it. The way to-hit / defend is now looks linear on the surface, but it's not -- most units are balanced around a baseline of damage / defense. IMO the +3 - +4 range of to-hit or defend pushes units so far out of that baseline that the mechanic feels broken.