I'm sorry about making two posts so quickly but my last post brought something to my attention. I'm pretty sure that researching technology will be a part of this game so i wanted to ask whoever is looking on this forum if having the most advanced technologies and having the largest armies should make you the best civ?
What I mean is that this is a fantasy game so I've been wondering if a barabric minor woodland civ that puts more emphasis into the individual should be able to beat a large prosperous civ that is expanding into their territory?
Its just an idea but i think itd be sweet
If by "technology" you mean spells, most definately! A lot of the GalCiv2 people (myself included) have been compaining about the complacency of minors basically ever since the game came out!
I understand why some people would get mad at that (the gal civ 2 thing) but personally I enjoy the minor races being able to put up a fight (especially if its against an enemy) I just think that having a few underdog stories would make players be more aware of where they should attack. and by technology I mean who builds the best weapons or armor.
I just think, especially since this game will be medievalish and not so much about lasers and massive weapons, the underdog should be able to have a better advantage in defending its home territory. not so much on attacking the massive empires.
True, but if you put the emphasis too much on territory defense, you gwt trench warfare similar to the situation in WW1. I think we can all agree that WW1 was not that enjoyable or even that strategic.
yeah... scoutdog said it. best civ = largest armies + most spells + ability to cast said spells most
I'm not sure how the underdog would have a better advantage of defending its home territory than the... well, not underdog. Like that just doesn't make sense. pre-renaissance warfare was entirely about having the biggest armies. It wasn't until the begining of the renaissance when things like crossbows, complicated war machines, and guns started to appear that allowed for anything other than biggest army to matter. I mean there are a few exceptions where there were particularly well trained troops (spartans, romans, byzentines) and those elites totally kicked everybody else at the time's asses. I wouldn't call them underdogs, nor would I use them as any kind of standard example, since they were much better than everybody else at the time, even when outnumbered. But if you were not one of those super trained guys (or happen to be the only people on the battle field with a chariot, as it was in the ancient age) then it was 100% the size of your army (cavalry counting for more than regular foot soldiers, obviously)
I see the towns themselves providing the bonuses for defenses and even small bonuses for towers. This will help the underdog survive longer, perhaps long enough to finish researching an important spell or acquire a peace treaty with a neighbor or complete an assassination of the enemies channeller. Overall it won't make much difference... but it will help.
The reasons for bonuses within the towns themselves is because of having home advantage. References within history also show a defensive structures/towns provide advantages for the defenders... the city Troy being a good example. The units know the terrain, the units have practiced ranged shooting from these exact walls, the units know they could be defending their loved ones, the towns walls also provide a natural protection. Even wizards would have an advantage as they might be casting spells from a nearby altar or magic circle boosting their effects.
Sadly in a world with things that can fly, burrow, teleport, become incorporeal, transform earth to mud, disintegrate, breath fire, etc castles and all types of fortifications we are used to see in our world are totally useless.
Castles are nice and make sense in a game like Civilization, but in a world with those things defensive structures and tactics will have probably evolved pretty different than in our world (an old Dragon Magazine had a great article about this subject).
You're forgetting defensive spells and wards. It night be easy for a mage to dissolve a stone wall, but he's going to have a LOT more trouble destroying a 20-foot tall ring of magical fire that surrounds a city.
As Scoutdog mentions there should be defensive spells and wards as well... you even named one of them = earth to mud. The spell earth to mud is a defenitely a spell to prevent an advancing army from reaching gates so easily.
In regards to flying creatures a good defensive castle should have ballistas, magic domes, and mages ready to cast something like Double Gravity as seen from AoW:SM.
In regards to burrowing... I like this game idea however it's highly unlikely we'll see burrowing being used on the battlefield or world map. Even in the rare chance it is available only a few limited units would have such a powerful ability.
In regards to disintegrate it would have to be a very very powerful mage to disintegrate an entire city wall... so powerful it's something I would only give to a powerful independent, such as an angel, devil, etc., . Also in regards to city walls they can be enchanted by ritual spells several weeks before a battle occurs... these spells may take longer to cast, but can provide extra strength and resistance for the wall.
Well I could continue.... but the point being that within a fantasy world there are actually more ways to explain defensive bonuses than less ways when compared to real world history.
Apologies for quibbling, but I'm pretty sure the only item in your list that isn't ancient tech is the hand-held gun (rifles and pistols). The crossbow is probably over 2,000 years old, and both Archimedes and Alexander the Great understood how to use complicated war machines.
Quibbles aside, y'all's debate here leaves me vaguely convinced that the newfangled essence stuff is going to lead to some serious re-thinking of what 'underdog' might mean. Your posts seem to assume that no small force can escape being an underdog, but if there's any 'balance' in the base mechanics, it should be possible to play as an essence-hording channeler and still remain a viable obstacle and/or threat to traditional expansionist hordes.
first off i want to thank you guys since you really came up with cool ideas and what not. but ya i do agree with landisaurus and scoutdog that most "underdogs" (however you define that) should not be able to beat the large empires or kingdoms. it is true that the spartans, austrians, romans and whoever else had elite troops, won many battles with other local forces but I'm comparing who's the underdog in a specific war.
ex. spartans were underdogs against persians, austrians underdogs against ottoman empire (lol i cant really think of anymore right now)
so in my opinion there should be the odd "smaller" civ that can compete with a large civ on the battlefield. this would require the large civ to try and use espionage to win or block off tading routes to stop economic prosperity.
and personally i think fighting in your home area should be an advantage like napoleon vs the russians or the english vs the french "coureurs de bois"/natives. basically you know your home territory better and can use nature to try and beat your opponent (this kind of links to the whole element thing lol) and i dont mean like trench warfare i mean like guerrila warfare and magic/spells kind of stuff.
I also agree
The topic title should probably be changed to Defensives for Underdogs
Or to destroy the earth where the walls are resting.
Castles have walls because attackers come walking from the ground. In a world were attackers can come flying, roofs make a lot of sense. And if you need roofs, you can't have structures as big as castles as they would be incredibly hard to build.
Not to say that ballistas lack accuracy, rate of fire and turning capabilities to be effective anti-air weapons.
The thing with disintegrate or many other spells/abilities is that they only need to affect a small portion of a defensive structure to be extremely effective. And the only way to protect against them is warding/enchanting/whatever the whole structure, which is so much expensive that it doesn't make sense. The costs of attacking and defending don't balance at all.
Well the crossbow was not a common sight on the european battle field until near the renessaunce. And alexander the great is well... alexander the great. He is another not-common example. I mean he didn't conquer the known world by being any kind of average example. He used complicated war machines, his enemies did not*. I'm not really sure what the point of arguing that is though.
my point was that in most situations the number of people in an army was what was counted. In general (not counting our best examples of well trained armies who kicked everybody's asses, even when grossly outnumbered) small army = underdog. I suspect the addition of smells will mix that up a bit (as mentioned by others)
anyway, I was trying to use 'underdog' in the same terms as the olp33's post. he says
Some castles have roofs I'd imagine something like the cliff dwellings and castles would be more common where flying creatures are a common place. you know, where a castle is built out of a cliff and the roof is the top of said cliff.
Those types of castles make more sense with flying creatures yes.
And who decides the requirements for using mud to earth for destroying city walls... the developers decide the required range to cast spells, the required magic cost for both offensive and defensive spells, the developers decide even IF something like disintegrate or mud to earth can work on a city wall. Within a fantasy world magic has no rules... allowing defense to be even overpowered if desired.
Actually since its a fantasy world they do balance much more greatly than in the real world because the creators can have defensive structures, units, spells, and magic be significantly cheaper than offensive siege weapons, magic, spells and units. In fact because of the fantasy element the developers can allow the game to lean heavily on the offensive or defensive or anything in between.
A city wall enchantment (once researched) might take 3_turns to cast for only a small amount of magic, because the developers want game balance. On the same note an offensive magic spell to remove a city wall enchantment may require the mage to be within short range of the city wall enchantment and may require anywhere from 2X or 10X the amount of magic to remove the enchantment!! And this is all possible because there is no official rulebook of magic used by all games.... allowing game balance to be more flexible.
I'd just like to point out, that even if it's fantasy, it still has to make some sort of sense. Why would destroying a wall have a different spell cost than building it? Especially if it's the same spell just being used differently.
Because a wall of fire enchantment you WOULD NEED a different spell... two walls of fire won't make them both go away. LOL
Even in the real world it would take only a single match and some bundles of dead grass to generate a huge wall of fire... yet another match and more bundles of dead grass won't be able to stop it.
Same-spell stuff aside, the devs (or custom spell writers) could come up with all manner of 'logical' reasons that destroying a stone wall might be much harder than creating one. The simplest thing that comes to mind is that the defender has strength with Earth while the attacker does not. Instead of being able to grasp and undo the defender's Earth magic, the attacker must use one or more other elements to break down the results of the spell rather than the spell itself.
Of course that raises the question of whether we'll have any 'metamagic' spells at all. Dev journal on magic, pretty please!
I second that! Now, about this wall thing: I could see it happening either way. A spell "move stone" could be used to send stone flying in all directions (destroying the wall) as well as piling it neatly in a line (building a wall). However, it would definately take a different spell to actually counter-act a specific defensive spell. I guess whatever would make the game itslef better (my first thought is different spell required) could be sufficiently "justified" depending on how the devs say magic works.
Yes, it's true the devs can do whatever they want, that's why they are the devs. But players usually expect things to make some sense and follow some internal rules, even when speaking about magic. Or to be similar to other examples they know so they have an easier time understanding how things are supposed to work (for example, similar to D&D, a game the devs have named several times already).
The problem with this argument is that:
- the defender has to ward/enchant somehow the whole wall.
- the attacker can:
1) destroy some part of the wall (the simple one)
2) destroy the ground where the wall is resting so it collapses
3) shrink some blocks at the bottom of the wall so it collapses (again)
4) make the wall ethereal, transform it into something else (mud, air,...)
5) fly/jump over the wall
6) raise the ground to make a ramp that goes to the wall or even above the wall
There are so many posibilities to destroy/avoid the wall that is not even fun
In reality, there are always more ways to destroy a defrense than there are to make it. However, from a strategic perspective, defenses HAVE to carry SOME level of value. Therefore, we need to come up with a way to make it esier to build than to destroy. The first thing that springs to mind is a magic system in which it always takes more energy to undo a spell than to put it in. There does not need to be a reason for this because it is a law of physics, the same way there is no "reason" why protons and elecrons are attracted.
As I wrote earlier a single match can be used to create a gigantic fire... which logically would take 100X times or more resources to stop. The same is true with magic except there's even greater ways to bend the costs for attack and defense.
Please take a look at the spells and battles within Dominions_3 to better understand what not only works, but has a strong thriving community. Even AgeofWonders:SM used a magic domain which provided extra defense for the underdog. To better help take a look at most other fantasy games which have used walls and other defenses with magic in the past... and you'll see it's already been done and done successfully with the most popular ones.
In reality, there are always more ways to destroy a defrense than there are to make it. However, from a strategic perspective, defenses HAVE to carry SOME level of value.
Agreed, I have neved discussed that. I have argued that traditional defenses (and for the same argument, traditional military tactics like close formations) don't make so much sense on a fantasy world.
Therefore, we need to come up with a way to make it esier to build than to destroy. The first thing that springs to mind is a magic system in which it always takes more energy to undo a spell than to put it in. There does not need to be a reason for this because it is a law of physics, the same way there is no "reason" why protons and elecrons are attracted.
The problem is not only destroying (that you could be solved as you say), it's ignoring. If you can make a magic wall, why I can't make a magic bridge over the wall? How do you explain that?
Ofc probably the game won't allow that (which is a pitty, but well). And btw, protons and electrons have a reason to be attracted, I really think I haven't understood that sentence because it's like Physics 101...
There is no good way to explain the fact that you can't go "around" things in games as you could in real life. It's like asking why in an FPs your shots only do damage to enemies, and not walls or other inanimate objects. Fortunately, fantasy gives us a slightly better option in that spells can be designed to frustrate attempts to avoid them. i.e. you can't construct a bridge over a wall or dig under it b/c the wall automatically extends to whatever hight is needed to get in your way, that sort of thing.
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