Oh the enchant thing was pretty straight forward, the buffing spells - burning sword etc stack. You can keep casting them for cumulative effect.

I can completely understand the "irritating & frustrating" side of luck. In the game of ASL (you may or may not be familiar with), it uses a two die six method for "to-hit" and IFT purposes. Low rolls are better and a "snakeys" or 1,1 is usually considered a critical hit. Usually, if you're at the recieveing end of CH, you're dead, as it either doubles the armor penetration (against AFVs & tends to turn them into burning wrecks with no crew surival possible) or doubles the high explosive effect against infantry with a reverse TEM (buildings & pillboxes are death traps to CHs). ASL if a very complex "deep" game where even luck can be managed to some extent by a player that knows how to minimize risk (risk vs reward).

Anyway, I don't really have a problem with the concept of extreme luck .. is it possible that someone could lose a battle a battle against an inferior unit because you rolled a 0 ... sure, I don't see why not. Someone could chuck that dagger through a vision slit in your helmet turning that armor factor into a 0. It *is* possible after all, should it happen all the time? hell no, then what's a reasonable frequency? 1 out of 12, one out of 100? depends on the game & reality ... and, just because it's 1 out of 100, that doesn't mean you won't roll that 1/00 three times in a row (or 1 in a million ... after all people do win the mega millions lottery at even wose odds). Some (computer) random number generators are not so random, due to the use of "seeding" which is based on (clock) time. As a result, sometimes a bunch of quick back-to-back die or dice rolls will result in a disproportianate number of duplicates or "stuck" rolls (called "sticking" in other forums) ... There have actually been huge debates on other forums over computer generated random numbers and "seeding" vs how dice rolls come out in reality (i.e. physically rolling them with your hands using a set of "fair" dice). Believe it or not, I've seen players roll thousands of dice rolls and compare them on charts vs "computer generated seeded" dice rolls and compare the results. This is one of those "heated" debate topics that occurs in some games. Does this happen in this game? I don't know, I'd guess so, but frankly if has happened it hasen't bothered me in the least because the AI is so damn weak.

.. I don't ask myself "if it makes sense?" rather "is it possible?" if it is possible, what's a reasonable frequency? I have no idea how this particular game models critical hits (or "luck") as far as (in)frequency goes, it's simply not explained in the manual [that's for Admiral Xia]   I don't feel like I've been hindered by CHs or "luck" myself, but I also don't mind losing heroes now and then, shit happens. I just take my losses, shrug it off, and move on. I've grown thick-skinned and try to focus on the bigger picture of winning the game as a whole & not individual units. I'm a strategy game player, not a RPGr, so if I lose Sir RootinTootinHelluvaGuyMassiveStud I could care less, he's just one guy whose death needs to move me closer to victory. I probably average losing 3 to 6 heroes a game, usually due to AI spellcasters & very occasionally a wandering monster that I've underestimated. They never get killed in melee from my perspective because I never use them that way. Heroes are all spellcasters and/or archers in my games, or get put in a city to use their special bonus.

agree. But I think that until the game is completely balanced/fleshed out this will be a problem. I feel that once they have unit and item balances to where they want them, they will be able to fix "random" number rolls.  But this may be wishful thinking.

Ok so a follow up to Fishslayer's method of winning the game in a an unbeatable fashion.

To summarize: he uses one of several methods documented in the forums that are a complaint of the current rule implementation of the game. He has documented his experiences and forwarded the results to the devs to ensure for a better playing experience, there is no fudging of game files involved, all legit. Just one of the problems of the current game system.

You can't "balance" the current system anyway, MoM wasn't balanced either.  Invincible units were aplenty, and cheese ball counter spells or your own invincible unit were the only way you killed them.

The version that most (probably 75%) game systems use is AF -DV + a random roll, in *very* simplified terms, with a seperate attack roll (or effect) for sucessful hits.

So, for example, if this method was applied in this game you'd have, say, attack value of 20 - defense value of 40 results in a modifier of -20 (20-40 = -20) now both players get a random roll to add to their attack or defense, some games use 6 sided die, others 10 or 12 whatever. say we used 12 sided dice, attacker rolls 12 and defender rolls 1: 12-1 = 9 add the -20 modifier calculated above and you get: 9-20 = -11, negative number would still indicate a "miss." the final possible range of results would be -9 to -31 (a 22 point possible spread using 12 sided die as RNG: impossible to hit without a CH component: if a hit "was" possible it would do "weapon" damage plus a random roll: say 4 for a mace + die 12 roll or 5 to 16 possible point spread range of damage for "normal" hits). In the system we now have, using this same example, we have a range of 20 to -40 point spread (or a 60 point spread where attacker hits roughly 1/3 the time silmulataneously doing from 1 to 20 damage when hitting). What a difference!!

The difference with the most "common" system is that you're guaranteed the full effect of both your attack and defender's defense rating, making the results much more "predictable" as Tidus noted in the other post. That gurantee doesn't hold in the system now. The downside is that it would be impossible to hit (or miss) if the difference between atk and defense was too high. Most games add the possiblility of CHs to always insure the attacker a small chance, some games use "open ended" rolls like Dominions III, so for example if you roll a 12 you get to roll again and sum the rolls. Usually there's not such a disparity between atk and defense ratings (at least in most games I play). 

Probably a good idea would be to add the attacker's and defender's combat levels as modifiers too, which would be a realistic modifier that takes into account experience. Of course, there could be a whole slew of ways I could add mods & make melee more realistic, but at a very basic "simple" level the first paragraph with the "common" method (adding CH possibility) would be preferable to the way it is now. Also, magic resistance needs to be separate from physical defense, that's a 200% necessity. Other rock/paper/scissors factorizations are needed to equalize macemen/archers/2-handed swordsman/magic users. 3guys attacking one guy in melee should get some kind of multiple attack "to hit" bonus, that's a given in pretty much most games like this. Guys attacking someone from behind should also get an attack bonus. It should also be possible to negate a shield defense for some probability range or multiple attack/rear situation, which would also be highly realistic. Auto-adding a shield defense against two guys attacking from both front and rear silmultaneously is just silly.

But who knows? 1.1 is supposed to overhaul everything, so who knows how Tac Combat will be affected. It can only improve from my perspective.  

It was just a wandering monster, a forest drake, but I only saw it happen this one time so I think it was an anomaly. Maybe teh drake has different effects vs different type of troops or armor combos, but I don't know it doesn't say anything about this in the manual. I'm thinking it's just a but, but I just don't know.

The ergog egg, dragon thing is broken on my system, so I've never been able to use that dragon.

he he, I usually don't get past level one diplomacy with caravans before switching to something else like military tech. I think the diplomacy tree is my least-used tree.

Foret drakes are the one monster that doesn't alwyas do the same thing, most of the time it 1) moves forward and attacks normally with a very strong melee attack, but sometimes 2) moves a square & fires breath, repeat each round

90%+ of the time it does 1) but sometimes drakes do the 2) ... I think it might be tied to level, or perhaps some other factor.

I prefer to carry a big stick and not speak at all  

just crack skulls  

After all, war is just diplomacy by alternate means.

... of course, that dragon could certainly serve as one big stick, provided it could be gotten early enough into the game. What diplomatic tech unlocks that dragon quest? I thought it was tied to the adventure techs?

That's interesting, I'll have to try this out in my next game. Hopefully it's not broken on my system like the quest is.

Since multiplayer can charitably be described as "weak" in this game (and more accurately descibed as "not fully implemented"), I don't think there's a whole lot to worry about.

Deep or Big I all for an AI like one of them ) Give me/us an ai that will make us cry and whine and scream because it's so HARD not because it's lame and so easy on its hardest difficulty.