Dominate as a 1-turn only spell

[Marksman77]

I like the idea of 1-turn Domination.
The solution to problems with tracking the unit previous ownership could be the unit being turned barbarian on the next turn. I think it makes sense - the unit's mind is so badly damaged by caster taking control over it, that it loses its sense of identity.

 

[Nicopol]

meeh
i like the spell the way it is now...

 

[Vitek]

I don't have too much problems with domination. It's quite likely to be resisted if you don't have really strong Archmage.
Only thing I don't like is that it affect heroes. They are supposed to be tough boys with strong minds don't they? Maybe Hero promotion could gice some magic resistance?
Or, if it is possible, the spell would only affect units of lower (or equal) level than caster?

 

[Blackmantle]

Hero allready gives +10% to resist spells. Not that it whould be a bad idea to up that to 20% though imo. Together with a reduced requirement for magic resistence that whould make heroes really hard to dominate without serious preparation. (And if loyalty should be fixed that whould be enough of a counter. If you do to much something like invisibility happens, where counters are much cheaper and earlier than the actual feature making it near-useless if your opponent knows how to use the counters.)

 

[Raize]

I don't think Domination is too powerful on an absolute scale; it is an archmage-level spell, after all.

For me, the trouble is that Domination is much more powerful than the other archmage-level spells. It makes it a no-brainer to beeline Mind 3; all the other options are simply inferior. You can defeat an entire opposing nation with just 4 mind-3 archmages. Imagine trying to do that with just 4 earth-3 archmages.

Whether one tones down Domination, or makes the other ones more powerful, it doesn't matter to me personally.

The most direct way to up the power of the other spheres is to simply make the summoned elementals stay around permanently, rather than disappearing at the end of the turn. This makes those spells quadratic in growth, rather than linear. Then they have roughly the same power level as Domination (as it is now).

 

[eerr]

won't mind 3 convert the caster if it fails?
also, heros get so little bonus from the hero promotion because so much comes from xp

 

[Ksi]

I like it the way it is, I would be unhappy with these changes.

I have the same opinion.

 

[Draconian]

won't mind 3 convert the caster if it fails?

It was changed, now the caster only loses his mind 3 promotion if domination fails.

 

[zantai]

I would like to see all the third level spells be useful in certain circumstances. Right now it seems like there are only two spells that are ever more useful than domination: air 3 and life 3. Life 3 is only better if playing as the Elohim, while arguably useful for civs with high strength heroes (Kurios, Sheim, Mazatl). Air 3 is better if you rush it and get air elementals when the enemy still lacks many champion level units, allowing you to level entire civs without ever getting close enough to be attacked (while giving you free assassin fodder!). The difference is that air elementals lose most of there usefulness in the late game, while domination is always useful. I would like to see domination brought down so it is only a superpowered spell in some cases (maybe making it significantly less likely to work on high strength units and heroes?), while making all the other level three spells similar in conditional power to air 3 and life 3.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I was just thinking about Dominate, versus the other Level 3 spells (basically all summons.) Domination is basically, at the minimum, 3 times as powerful.

When you summon, you create something like a Djinn. It lasts for 1 turn unless you have a summoner trait. With the Djinn/Earth Elemental/whatever, you assault the enemy stack, most likely killing something.

The gross effect: enemy -1 unit (strongest defender); player no change
The net effect: power balance shifts 1 towards player

Now, when you use Dominate, you permanently take control of the strongest unit in the enemy stack. Many times, you can attack with this unit the turn you get it. If you do this, most likely you will kill off or seriously damage something.

The gross effect: enemy -2 (domination, killed); player +1 unit
The net effect: power balance shifts 3 towards player

This makes Domination 3x as powerful as a level 3 spell from another sphere. On top of that, it ignores the fact that you can continue to use the Dominated unit in subsequent turns without having to recast Dominate. (Which makes Dominate have a snowballing, quadratic effect, while the others remain linear.)

It seems to be overpowered relative to the other spells.

What if Dominate lasted only 1 turn, and reverted control in the same manner as Enrage? By my math, you can take control of an enemy unit, then kill something, damaging the unit in the process. Then they get the damaged unit back.

The gross effect: enemy -1.5 unit (weakened, killed); player no change
The net effect: power balance shifts 1.5 towards the player

This further reduces Dominate's effect to something linear because the Archmage has to cast it every turn. It's still more powerful than the other spheres, but at least it's more comparable this way.

I think it would be more balanced this way (assuming failed Dominations no longer caused the caster to lose the promotion.)

Also, thematically, Domination is supposed to take concentration by the domineer. It doesn't really make sense for the caster to be able to dominate as many as he or she pleases without some at least of them breaking away, unless the caster is Perpentach himself.

No offense, man, but I disagree with your mathematical assessment. I think it's a simple "Enemy -1, Player +1". Plus, the spell never seems overpowered to me. Underused, yes; overpowered, no.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Obviously Dom is overpowered relative to other tier3 spells, but I think it's ALSO overpowered in an absolute sense. Archmages are supposed to be awesome, yes, but I think they're not supposed to be able to win a war by themselves, with literally zero supporting units. Yet this is easily possible.

1) amphibious landing of 4 archmages onto a forested hill next to an enemy city with 4 decent defenders.

2) dominate after you land, on the same turn. You get 4 good defenders on a good defensive tile; you won't be killed in the IBT.

3) dominate all units that come near. You win.


I think most of the alternatives put forward here are good ideas to tone it down without losing the uniqueness of the spell or the viability of a domination-centric strategy. If dominated units can be coded to revert back, that's an excellent solution. If not, just make the spell have ~50% success rate. This would maintain the flavor and fun while preventing (or slowing) the ridiculousness of having 4x more dominated units than built units, which I have done several times.

 

[MalkutX]

Archmages are supposed to be awesome, yes, but I think they're not supposed to be able to win a war by themselves, with literally zero supporting units. Yet this is easily possible.

I've done the same thing with regular mages, easily and without losses. Heck, under certain circumstances, this might be possible with adepts (many adepts, but still).

That's because the AI is an AI. In competitive 2-player (the ONLY place where quibbling little issues of balance like this matter, since the AI doesn't do this, and you can always choose not to use it when playing alone), someone trying this would be get a bunch of dead archmages, since you don't have to get near something to kill it, you don't have to use living units, and you can stop them with blinding light, summon, fireball +maelstrom, send invisible units . . . .

 

[Darksaber1]

against a player, a stack of archmage would be eliminated in no time by assasins, unless you're Dominating units with less then five strength.

 

[xilr]

By the time you can get Mind3, it is usually a long time to get it back when its lost. That being said, I'd support ideas that would allow you to keep Mind3. Losing a promotion that late in a units development is too hard to regain.

Making them "Lose their identity" and go crazy is not a bad idea. Maybe make dominated units have a "docile" promotion that lowers attributes.

Or just leave Domination alone, as it stands its high risk and high reward.

 

[rocklikeafool]

Obviously Dom is overpowered relative to other tier3 spells, but I think it's ALSO overpowered in an absolute sense. Archmages are supposed to be awesome, yes, but I think they're not supposed to be able to win a war by themselves, with literally zero supporting units. Yet this is easily possible.

1) amphibious landing of 4 archmages onto a forested hill next to an enemy city with 4 decent defenders.

2) dominate after you land, on the same turn. You get 4 good defenders on a good defensive tile; you won't be killed in the IBT.

3) dominate all units that come near. You win.

Have you ever tried wat you're suggestin? I have. It doesn't quite work that way. So, try it and tell me if it holds for you.

 

[Raize]

Have you ever tried wat you're suggestin? I have. It doesn't quite work that way. So, try it and tell me if it holds for you.

You really shouldn't assume that everyone besides you is talking out of their ass.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I resent that you're assumin that you say I'm talkin out my ass.

Here are some basic evidences that it isn't as clear cut as "1., 2., 3.":
Based on the differences in game-speeds, the changes in combat chance caused by reloads, and numerous other factors that few ever consider, wat I'm sayin is logical. Probability alone says that sooner or later, your chance (that you think is 100% but isn't ever, like it or not) is goin to be low (or high, dependin on which side you consider).
Here's an example. For the crazed promotion, there is a 3% chance it goes barbarian. Now, I (and many others) can attest that for a 3% chance, it sure happens a lot. Why is that? Others factors (such as a few I listed in the above paragraph) affect that chance. Now, someone might try to argue that Domination and Crazed are two different things. Agreed, but the chances affectin them are the same.
Also, since the AI has improved (as part of the recent movement by Kael and team), the AI uses assassins now, whereas they didn't (as a general rule) before. There is also a Chance that Domination will be resisted. Unfortunately, we don't know wat that chance is cuz the pedia says, "Attempts control of an enemy unit within range, if the target resists the caster loses this ability". So, imho, it isn't as overpowered as it seems.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Have you ever tried wat you're suggestin? I have. It doesn't quite work that way. So, try it and tell me if it holds for you.

Yes, I have. A Mind 3, Metamagic 3 archmage will fail domination infrequently enough that you can save enough xp to re-promote to Mind 3 very quickly. Worst case, you turtle for a turn or two behind your horde of captured units to generate that last xp point for the re-promotion.

Edit: Arcane helps a lot here, obviously...

(Full disclosure: I actually tried this invasion with a stack of four archmages and 6 workers, to protect against assassins. I'm not sure if this seriously weakens my point, which is that domination allows conquest with basically no support).

@MalkutX: How do you pull that with just mages? That's VERY impressive. Maybe with a ton of mages and Death2 / Law2 / Entropy2?

 

[rocklikeafool]

Well, you obviously had some support. But I will say that altho it is possible to do wat you're sayin, it's highly unlikely anyone will (except for sh*ts and giggles). And in light of that fact, I think Mind 3 is fine.

 

[MalkutX]

MalkutX: How do you pull that with just mages? That's VERY impressive.

I explain my whole wizard strategy over here. The short version: min/maxing all to heck and back. My mages only do one thing each, but they're the best at what they do, and what they do ain't pretty.

I fried Hyborem, his entourage, and his city very early in the game with six wizards working alone, no summoning, just damage spells, zero losses, and they're resistant to fire. I was taken by surprise, and this wasn't something I would have chosen to do, but when he pops up right next to your Empyrean holy shrine with his army, than you have to make do with what you have on hand. I doubt you could do that with Domination, too.

It would have been trickier with a larger opponent, but not impossible. In that case, I'd probably would throw in another with magic eye summoning, maybe someone with haste. Of course, if I'm in a position to prepare a stack like that, then I can no doubt round up a few melee guys for protection, so this is all hypothetical, but I think it can be done.