<Insert non-offensive thread title here>

[muxecoid]

Let's try to define some rules for forced retreat in city defence. Your original solution is way to radical and introduces more problems, than it fixes.

If attacker had at least 5 units inside the city at the end of turn and defender has exactly none there is a chance defender will be forced to flee at start of his turn using standard fleeing mechanics. Fliers are counted as normal units. Chance to flee and the number of attacking units can be adjusted. Chance to flee may be subject to escalating odds.

[Seravy]

I don't think proving "the problem exists" is possible on something that's entirely subjective and up to the players' personal preferences. Unless by proving you mean to ask every single living human out there about their preferences.

I can only say there is a good example of this from a different game : Magic the Gathering.
In the "old" rules, you had to assign the combat damage of your creatures, which went to the stack, and people could react to it. This had abuse potential : You could return a creature to your hand with a bounce spell, or sacrifice it as a cost, and it still dealt the damage. I believe the actual players liked this system - it was fun, and while counter-intuitive, played a lot better and was really simple.
But then WotC came and said at 10th edition "hey, you know what, we want more money. This rule isn't newbie friendly, and we want everyone to play the game - even that 5 year old kid and that grandma. We are changing the rule. Now you can't respond to combat damage, it doesn't use the stack, it just gets dealt. Oh, wait, but you still need to be able to play spells that prevent damage or reduce enemy power or whatnot, so let's deal the damage in two steps, first you assign a damage order, then people react and then it is dealt."
Well - and this is my personal opinion, not everyone agrees - it made the game much worse.
First, damage prevention effects now suck. You have to activate them without knowing where the damage will go. Yes, there is an order, but it's just an order, it doesn't tell you the AMOUNT. But there is more. Cards that were designed to deal combat damage then get sacrificed for their ability are now unplayable garbage. But there is even more. This new rule is still counterintuitive but also harder to play - you have to order the creatures, then assign damage, in two different steps, and remember the ordering between. More time, more information to keep track of. So there are more players now, but the game is less fun to play. Worth it? For the company, sure, they have more money. For the players? Maybe, there are more opponents to fight, and more people to trade with... but some of them have less fun and the combat phases likely take longer.
However, MoM/CoM isn't a commercial trading card game. I'm not going to earn money if there are more players, and players won't be having a richer experience if there are more players either - this game isn't multiplayer. So all that's left is "players are having less fun." The subjective part, where we might or might not agree and probably won't ever know.

As for your "simple" fixes, they weren't simple. At least not on the side of game code, but I believe also as rules. We haven't really got there to discuss that in detail -as I'm against the whole idea anyway -  but I'm strongly against excluding flying creatures from the "conquest" trigger. It's unfair.  If I'm attacking a city and my creatures are flying, why should I be penalized for that and forced to engage the enemy when I can just move into the city tiles and conquer it. What, the enemy can't attack me? That's their problem, they should have researched web. If my cavalry can do it, my death knights or doom drakes should be able to as well. Again, this is subjective, for me this would be a greater deal breaker than the city not becoming mine even though I enter it. At least the current rules are consistent : You don't get the city until you kill all enemies. New rule would be : You don't get the city until you kill all enemies if your units are flying, otherwise you do. Well, that's just bullshit. But if we don't exclude flying, then I can abuse that to steal cities. Which is even worse.

This is a perfect example of not only "do not fix if it isn't broken" but also "do not fix if fix is not an improvement" at the same time.

Anyway, rant ends here, we should look at the list of problems.

1. This is not a problem, it's a feature. I won't ever change it. As zitro said, in ALL other games, the gate is just closed and the enemy cannot get in at all. That would be the point of a having wall... having an open gate is silly - I bet it's there only because otherwise the AI couldn't possibly win a game like ever. They aren't smart enough to bring catapults with them, and the original game's AI didn't even know how to use wall crusher and Disrupt.
2. Your suggested solution won't work well. I'm quite strongly against any changes here but there is a tiny chance I would accept a solution if it's one I consider an actual improvement.
One thing to note here : we fixed the production interruption bug. That doesn't sound very related but it actually is. I bet about 40-60% of the time, when a player manages to get to keep a city through running in circles, this bug helped them do so - so the 75% damage destroyed the armorer's guild? No worries, the paladin you bought last turn is already completed sir, we are ready to defend now! This will be gone now. You lost a military building? No new unit to defend you next turn. You either can instantly summon a strong creature there, or you can forget about keeping the city.
So my claim is the "problem" might be already fixed, after this change, the tactic will be even less effective.
3. Casting spell and fleeing is...a problem why? If I cast a spell and stay there, I might be able to even cast another spell or two. If I flee, I don't, but I still have a chance of losing my unit(s). There is no 100% success rate fleeing after all. Also, as Zitro said, this is a game about magic. You are  paying for those spells. There is nothing wrong with being able to use them.
4. I doubt this is an effective tactic - the AI does target the highest priority target it can defeat with any stack, land or intercontinental. I can imagine it working if, and only if, the city isn't in the valid range of the stack while your unit is. In which case, instead of heading towards the selected main action continent (which might or might not be yours), it'll be chasing that unit instead. I don't really see a way to fix this problem - raising the range intercontinental stacks can "see" and target would be problematic as that would actually EXTEND the range they can be baited from. At least that is what I was worried about when I decided not to, I believe. We can rethink this, maybe raising the range would actually help, but I'm worried. It kinda defeats the purpose of having a main action continent if the AI can pick a random spreamen 30 tiles away as their target whenever the cities are too well defended to attack. The stack getting stuck there, forcing the player to maintain those high garrison and never split up any of their stacks in their home continent or move  or move units in less than groups of 9 is a way better AI tactic.
5. I already answered this on the first page.
6. I will have to test these, so far I found them underwhelming.
7. I've already responded to the neutral problem in the previous thread and now even zitro seems to be convinced we don't need dumber neutrals, even though he was one of the people who wanted them.

will be forced to flee

Never been a fan of games where I don't get to pick my action and the game forces me into one, especially if that one is not favorable for me.

[muxecoid]

Not sure we have a problem. We do not have a boring corporate software that must adhere to government regulations where "problem" is strictly defined. We have a videogame. Only something that makes it crash is a problem. Everything else is a design consideration.

Everything that does How about forced to pick one either forced to flee or all units are forced to move towards the center. May be too hard to implement correctly though. Battlefield shrinking.

Casting and fleeing or using single spearman defender to cast spell and deplete movement sounds perfectly fine. Defender is the first to act which is reasonable.

[zitro1987]

There are a lot of topics here.

On walls and blocking the 1 open spot, the only feature change I would be comfortable with is having a 100% sealed wall, but units without wall crusher can break walls with a very low probability of success (instead of 50%, maybe 5%?). That keeps it closer to the majority of the games where walls are 100% sealed and the defender can pick the most destructive melee units to stop the wall breaking.
edit: *** oh wait, how do you counter the wall corners. grrr, nevermind!!!

Casting and fleeing - not a problem in theory, but I wonder if the fleeing risk calculation when your units are much faster is lower: instead of 33% (1)-25% (2) -20% (3) it is 50% (1), 25% (2), 12.5 (3), etc

Intercontinential targets and baiting - I would recommend AI having as high priorities not just cities/nodes, but also any large military stack is has a good chance to defeat.
*it seems otherwise to target my single units if it can't attack my cities, which opens them up to a barrage of spell attacks, sometimes when I have little range penalty.
*Please more mass-stack vs mass-stack - it can be fun! not enough of those!

focus magic nagas - honestly, you may do as well with other realm early game tactics, especially multi-color starts (except life without famous)

running away neutrals in advanced and worse - Ideally I would prefer this tough tactic in expert and above, but otherwise, I think it's fine, especially with 'you found inside ______', it is a more generic 'you obtained/looted _______' that implies the monsters keep the treasure.

[Seravy]

but also any large military stack is has a good chance to defeat.

Priority of stacks equals the military force of the stack, so it will target the strongest one it can defeat. (assuming equal distance and no other modifiers)

[Nelphine]

Ok, it sounds like Suriname would like to properly discuss this. I'd like to start by saying, again, there are massive coding restrictions. These are not actually simple fixes.

Pick one of your topics, make a new thread, delete this thread, OR reword the title/poll on this thread. You don't have to like the game, but if you want to discuss it, be respectful. You don't have to like the answer and you can passionately believe Seravy is wrong, but unless you're going to do the work, be respectful. You won't even be the first person who has quit talking on these forums because they didn't like Seravy's responses. But, the best way to get something to change is to be respectful, examine ALL the consequences in a very large game, solve all of them, and make sure you've done it in a way that hex editing can handle. I figured out how to solve quick combat so that the single biggest problem (armor/figures) would actually be handled correctly (which is a far bigger issue than any of the spells that are missing, and the actual main reason that quick combat can be abused), but it won't work in hex editing. We spent months solving the sprites problem, only to realize that there were other strategies that did exactly the same thing, only better, that didn't require sprites. We hear about focus magic over and over, but every time I've heard of it, in most gameplay instances, not casting focus magic is actually even stronger (including, in my opinion, with naga.) This one has exceptions and individual instances where focus magic is stronger, which is why the spell exists, but it makes the problem far more complicated than simply the focus magic + x unit is too strong. It's usually x unit is strong in certain situations, but x unit is also required for y situation, by changing x unit, then z destroys y, and w becomes abuseable. I've missed that at least twice with focus magic units, and gone on long rants and supported people who had a focus magic + x problem, only to later realize that the alternative is worse (in terms of more difficult if the AI uses it, and more abuseable by the human).

The game is very complex. But if you are interested in examining all the intricacies, then I am as well.

[Ryzel]

IMO the clear demonstration of effort and emotion that Suriname is making also serves as a huge compliment of how great CoM is. That he's so invested in making the game a little better just shows how close it already is to being one of his favorite games (if it isn't already).

There's no need for the hostility, we all want the best game possible. Take that effort you're using with these passionate posts and use it instead to look up old discussions on fixing similar problems so you have a better idea of what is and isn't possible (and the consequences of those solutions). I know it's more fun to be passionate than a bookworm, but it helps.

[crusader.mike]

Once you can beat the game like this, where's the challenge? What's the difference with sim farm or some my little pony game? How does repeating a learned trick even make you feel smart, as you say? In short... Keeping these tricks in the game, when they could be very simply fixed, limits the game, reduces its re-playability, and makes it less alluring to newcomers when people see videos on the web where they see these tactics and understand that it's "just all tricks".

Imho it is all BS. I play games to have fun. To discover these tricks and execute them, to deal with RNG gods and dodging stupid AI. To waste time building imaginary empire. And surprise -- I have fun... About replayability: these games are with us since 90s -- if this is not replayability then what is?
If you don't like dealing with these -- there were a lot of games stamped by SSI. All boring to death -- panzer general, etc. All fair and balanced. Or play with ppl online -- they don't do stupid mistakes. Too bad it quickly turns into endless grind perfecting one or two strategies.

[teelaurila]

I don't get this "cavalry defends by running". Could someone point to a video (and time in said video if/when hours long) that would showcase it? Sure, I get you can avoid getting the city captured, but you should lose most buildings, so what's the point of it as this "game breaking trick"?

Thinking about it, it shouldn't be that unrealistic (for what stands for realism in a magic game): If the defender can avoid the attacker, they can do guerilla warfare of all sorts, preventing the enemy from gaining control. But the attacker could make a ruined heap of the area, if so inclined. And that's precisely what does happen.

Furthermore, the tactic seems very precarious as a lot of things can kill your cavalry: direct damage spells, ranged attacks, web.

That said, perhaps dropping the move of cavalry to 4 would be a simple help for the worst of this? That would make it unrealiable to keep avoiding more than 1 move 3 creature (like naga, hell hounds, war bears)

[Suriname]

Well, after seeing Seravy actually engage in conversation I am somewhat hopeful - to the contrary of my previous opinion - that a dedicated discussion will be fruitful. I am therefore opening a dedicated thread. Let's see how that turns out, and if I can break the echoes of this chamber...

I'll use the post just above mine as intro as it shows the issues quite synthetically, thanks.

IMO the clear demonstration of effort and emotion that Suriname is making also serves as a huge compliment of how great CoM is.  That he's so invested in making the game a little better just shows how close it already is to being one of his favorite games (if it isn't already).

There's no need for the hostility, we all want the best game possible.  Take that effort you're using with these passionate posts and use it instead to look up old discussions on fixing similar problems so you have a better idea of what is and isn't possible (and the consequences of those solutions).  I know it's more fun to be passionate than a bookworm, but it helps.

Thanks for the first part. For the second, I think that my hostility has served its purpose: to force people to engage in conversation. Apologies to anyone who felt offended, but just to be clear, I'd do it again. If you mean the hostility towards me, I don't really mind it.