I think you are overstimating the size of the Dominions community and understimating the size of the community a game like Elemental should have.

And btw, the battles of Dominions are the perfect example of lots of things that make so little sense that sometimes is sad looking at them: oh yes, my slaves are hitting your Jarl, probably stabbing his toe or his ankle to death, but well...

It has been a long time since I last played AoW, which magic domain was it and how it helped the underdog more than any other player?

And it makes no sense at all in any of them. Dominions is the best example of the "put anything no matter what if it looks cool enough", and then battles become an exercise of simply closing your eyes to any type of logic and watch a dance of random numbers. It's amazing that in such a magical world as Dominions things work as they do in the game (yeah, Caelum having castles with walls...).

But what is true too is that I'm probably the minority in this argument.

Exactly. In real life there would be no technical reason for it to work that way because it WOULDN'T work that way. That's why you have to come up with weak explanations. I am sure that with some time and effort the devs can come up with explanations that are less weak than an infinite-hight wall, but the sad fact is...... games are not like real life, and if they were like real life they probably wouldn't be all that fun.

Ofc games aren't like real life because if not they wouldn't be fun, but too many "weak/unreal explanations" and they break inmersion totally. In all games the player has to believe some things that would be impossible in our real world, but there's a limit on how many things you can believe until the game becomes totally unbelivable.

One example was Doom 3: there were times that some monsters would appear behind you (to try scare you), but it was impossible for that monster to be there because you would have scouted every inch of the map so that monster just couldn't be there. The player can believe those monsters exist and enjoy the game, but just teleporting the monster behind him to try to scare him was too much: it was a weak way to try to scare the player and it made the game feel cheap rather than scary.

Same happens if you put that infinite high magic wall (and if you can't use the bridge around it but you can climb it with normal ladders then it moves from weak to cheap).

   We're not talking about graphics, tools, support, etc., ...  the topic was specific in regards to player defenses and more specifically on underdogs.  If you need to use a game which has a major publisher than AgeofWonders:SM will work.  For this game the magic domain allowed the wizard to better defend his own units or harm enemy units, allowing the underdog a better fight. 

This was definitely one I feel is worth keeping installed.  I recommend installing the 1.4 patch as well, especially if you're a map maker.  The community is still alive and even developing a 1.5 patch .

  So based on the reply#26 post walls and defenses with magic makes no sense at all in any fantasy games.  If there's not a single fantasy game which can meet your needs than you would either need to accept what past and future developers provide or switch to a different type of game.  As I wrote earlier the developers(past or future) can CHOOSE to add more defensive or more offensive or anything in between for the purpose of gameplay fun and balance. 

The flying unit will ONLY be barbecued before it can act if it's of low level  OR  if the enemy target has multiple heroes/ranged units.  And I never said a single unit with spells would kill them...  I wrote they would be wounded upon finally reaching a town... and they would.  And the heroes only have a single hex for a domain so there's very little they can do as compared to what a wizards_tower and/or magic relay.  Of course the defender gets first action in battle... this is just another method how the underdog receives an advantage.  On this same note, maps can exist where towers must be passed to enter a players section of map...  this is another example which provides the underdog defenses.  Think what would happen to an approaching enemy army which has to attack two towers in your domain to eventually attack your city.  The domain is also very useful for domain spells such as the fire domain and poison domain.  So the domain is clearly valuable for underdogs, in fact you only pointed out another underdog defense which is how the battles allow the defender to go first.

  I don't see how this response is even remotely related to this discussion of walls and defenses with magic.  Please stay focused on the current topic of discussion or send me a PM if you wish to change the topic.

  The flying units are used depending on the type of approaching army... so naturally players won't send a Zephyr Bird at 5 ballistas.  The flying unit(s) usually only needs one turn to fly out of range of any ranged units where the wizard can then pound the enemies turn after turn after turn with spells.  This allows the underdog defender to pound invaders.   Heroes are limited and not available in mass numbers any bad decision could cost you a valuable spell casting hero.

   Actually spells can be used in combination against your approaching army to shred it before you can react.  Here's just one example... Player_A has 3 Air Elementals on nearby mountain ranges and then casts Tornado because you entered his domain.  Unless you are actively watching that specific army at the time this occurs which is unlikely unless a small map Player_A would use those Air Elementals to swoop in and kill one or two now vunerable units from your army.  In fact each turn you march in the enemies domain Player_A can once again strike with his tornado and sweep or other combinations.   The hero has a single hex range which means he would have to walk directly next to the an enemy before being able to use his poison domain, fire domain, or tornado spell.

The defender going first during battle is an advantage for the underdog since it's first strike.  First strike is clearly an advantage.  If the attacker was allowed to go first during battle the underdog would be at the disadvantage.

  A majority of the games played use existing maps where towns are not allowed to built OR the proximity of existing towns prevent the construction of new ones.  This is done by players for game balance and even against the AI opponents since the AI lacks the skill for building pioneers.  Even with the ability to build towns, it takes time to build and pay for the pioneer, travel to a worthy location for a new town, then spend the 400 gold for building a wizard tower which then takes at least 8 turns to build plus you have to know the location(s) of your enemy or this could be a poor decision.    This is a significant amount of time allowing the underdog time for a fighting chance.


Any further discussion regarding gameplay with AgeofWonders:SM should really be done on their forums, or at least moved to the PCGaming forum here at Stardock since this discussion could take days or longer.  Even better for a pure more solid proof of evidence defenses favor the underdog we could post this question to the community at AgeofWonders:SM .

Depending on the types of approaching enemies 40_feet walls would be useful against an enemy which mainly used ground troops.  Using magic walls can be easily destroyed or easily defended depending on what the developers choose for gameplay balance and fun.  For example the game could provide a spell or section of land which is anti-magic preventing those walls from being avoided or destroyed by magic as seen within Heroes_3(Anti-Magic Garrisons & Terrain)  as well as AgeofWonders:SM .