Ritual Change

[RattleHead]

very true, im sure teh devs could make a bit more mysterious than how i laid it out, but youre right, people would soon find the sweet spot, or just manage to afford the elites anyways.


as for the attack times, thats a difficult mechanic to work out, how predictable will my attack times be under a system like that?

EDIT: ill just add this shameless plug for my dragon suggestion from awhile back http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...Dragons-abound!

this could encourage people to keep standing armies of Ospecs for Attackers, and Dspecs for TMs, as Dragon fodder.

[RattleHead]

So far away from the thread title at this point, but...

What if having Specs in your army spared your Elites from losses entire they were wiped out of your force? At first I thought maybe just have the Specs take maybe half the losses directly themselves, and then share the second half with elites... but based on 5% losses on attack, this would take less than 1 ospec/acre to max out the benefit, and wouldn't have a significant effect on people's training regimens.

So, if we had Specs just eat all the losses until they were dead, it would greatly increase their utility. I am thinking having 20% of your force as specs (2-3 ospec/acre?) in this scenario would buy you 4 hits without taking any elite losses, not withstanding the potential for Night Strike, etc but also not counting the spec credits you get as you attack.

Same as previously, everyone would find their sweet spot and it would still be a race to get to that spot and wait for everyone else, but having that much less to train would tend to speed things up for everyone I would think.

[elmoheadbutt]

I still would get a full elite army. There is no inherent disadvantage of having a full elite army, even if they get NSed, as ospecs still suffer more losses anyway. I reckon elites and specs should serve different purposes in battle, not one is inherently better. Imagine cavalry vs archers vs spears. We need them all, even though cavalry definitely has more maintenance cost.

It would be cool is different races have different abilities for elites.
Humans (knights) get - attack time or stronger horses but cannot march unless you have at least 150% wages.
Faeries (beastmasters) can use horses for defense but cannot attack/defend without horses.
Dryads (will o wisps) pacify enemy troops (removes them from combat before the battle takes place), but dont attack themselves.
Etc.

But maybe it's a bit too much.

[Elldallan]

So far away from the thread title at this point, but...

That's hardly surprising given that the thread went offtopic directly from the first post. The OP mentioned rituals once and then segwayed into something completely different.

What if having Specs in your army spared your Elites from losses entire they were wiped out of your force? At first I thought maybe just have the Specs take maybe half the losses directly themselves, and then share the second half with elites... but based on 5% losses on attack, this would take less than 1 ospec/acre to max out the benefit, and wouldn't have a significant effect on people's training regimens.

So, if we had Specs just eat all the losses until they were dead, it would greatly increase their utility. I am thinking having 20% of your force as specs (2-3 ospec/acre?) in this scenario would buy you 4 hits without taking any elite losses, not withstanding the potential for Night Strike, etc but also not counting the spec credits you get as you attack.

Same as previously, everyone would find their sweet spot and it would still be a race to get to that spot and wait for everyone else, but having that much less to train would tend to speed things up for everyone I would think.

I like that you're trying to come up with something new, my main beef with it is that it'll get even harder to diminish people's off which is already pretty much impossible unless you can overpop them badly just before armies gets home.
Personally I think it should be much much easier to affect the off of attackers.

[elmoheadbutt]

I like that you're trying to come up with something new, my main beef with it is that it'll get even harder to diminish people's off which is already pretty much impossible unless you can overpop them badly just before armies gets home.

Good point. I would like to see an ops similar to BG/PF which kills offense on every attack made on the target province.

[RattleHead]

You can do that, you just have to attack them when their Offence is at home, assuming it isn't made of OSpecs.

http://forums.utopia-game.com/showth...37569-Pitfalls