Dominate as a 1-turn only spell

[Raize]

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.

 

[xienwolf]

I actually quite like the idea. Makes sense all around (and with the change you would no longer lose the Mind III Promotion on failed Domination Attempts)

 

[Mailbox]

And doesn't the Charm person entry mention that people fight off mind magic, with enough time? I do like this change, right now Domination is incredibly powerful and this would still keep it powerful.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Tracking which player the unit used to belong to would be extremely difficult to implement, if not impossible. If it could be done it could be good, but I'm not sure it is worth the effort.


I personally don't think that Domination is overpowered, but rather than most of the level 3 spells are quite underpowered.


One suggestion I had is that the spell have a chance to give the Crazed promotion to either the victim or the caster we know how crazy Perpentach's mind magic made him), or to both . After your mind has been violated like that, it may be hard to reclaim your old identity. You might have no clue who you are, and would not trust those who claimed you were once on their side. This may occasional anger you enough to lose all control, turning barbarian.

 

[westamastaflash]

I might just then cast dominate, attack, and disband the unit? Unless you have it working so if you disband, it reverts back to the owner?

 

[DemonMaster]

But permanent summons are tracked (so I have noticed when a skeleton dies, why did it always belong to a necromancer at the other end of the map), so it can't be that hard.

And by the way, yeah, the problem is not that Dominate is to good, it is the other t3 spells that are to weak Perhaps increasing the "combat promotion" affinity, making it worth more to build specialists (= a mage with fewer spells, but more power behind them) or to have a new set of promotions that you could take that enhance magic power significantly (although I don't know if that is doable).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Permanent summons are not tracked.

The SDK just checks the total number of said summon and the total number of potential casters, and only allow the unit to be summoned if the number of casters is larger.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

I don't see how dominate = 3 units. caster's side +1, enemy -1, net = +2. Two possible balance mechanisms:
1) Spell takes 2 turns to cast.
2) If you win, the unit is damaged already, about 50%, if you lose, your archmage is damaged the same.

 

[DemonMaster]

Permanent summons are not tracked.

The SDK just checks the total number of said summon and the total number of potential casters, and only allow the unit to be summoned if the number of casters is larger.

So why is there that only a certain summoners can summon a skeleton if I recently have lost one. I usually play Amurites and I usually isn't a nice person (i.e. I go for death magic early so the hero can teach Death I to everyone) and when a number of skeletons have died (hmm, been destroyed) I check my spellcasters and most of them have the spell summon skeleton grayed out, is it random which spellcasters that can summon a skeleton again (to bring the number up)?

 

[Verily]

I don't see how dominate = 3 units. caster's side +1, enemy -1, net = +2.

Since the strongest unit in any stack is the first to be Dominated, the newly Dominated unit will typically then turn around and kill the next-strongest unit in that stack in the same way a summon would kill the strongest unit. The two options are that Domination is +3 while summons are +1 (both including combat), or Domination is +2 while summons provide no net benefit (both ignoring combat).

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Umm...maybe some of them have already cast some other spell that turn?

There is no restriction of who can cast the spell to replace the skeleton, except of course that having already cast a spell means you'll need to wait a turn, break a spell staff, or consume a soul before you can cast again. I don't use the spell often, but when I do I tend to tend to summon almost all the skeletons with the same Combat V Death I caster.

 

[DemonMaster]

Umm...maybe some of them have already cast some other spell that turn?

There is no restriction of who can cast the spell to replace the skeleton, except of course that having already cast a spell means you'll need to wait a turn, break a spell staff, or consume a soul before you can cast again. I don't use the spell often, but when I do I tend to tend to summon almost all the skeletons with the same Combat V Death I caster.

Wouldn't that be, if not a bug, a major exploit, you have a bunch of necromancer apprentices, but your number one lich summons them all, the apprentices are just there to yawn or in the case of Amurites, work the fields, guard your home cities and so on?

Damn you MC, I haven't thought about this, now I know and that means that I will in my next game ...

Edit: But since this mod is (loosely) based on DnD and DnD have "spellpools" so you can actually do the same in the RPG as well (meaning that the exploit exist there too).

 

[Blackmantle]

Don't agree with Domination beeing straight out overpowered. Agreeing with Magister that other Tier 3s are rather underpowered (but not by a big margin anymore for most spells). Enhancing Water Elementals for example has helped alot to balance the Elemental summons which are all more or less interesting now.

Also to note: domination is not doubled by twincast, not empowered by casters combat promotions and not enhanced by spell extension (at least not right now on the last one. Might change if targeted Spells are implemented again perhaps.). Also it takes Metamagic 3 to be really reliable.

So for example Water Elementals powered by the tower of the Elements now are the following on Twincast: 7 Attacks per Elemental against really tough defenders (or about 5 Dead Units against mediocre Defenders or if the number of good Defenders is low so your 8 weak Elementals can really kill something off). Makes up to 14 Attacks in "best" case. Hard to do with Domination. (And Water Walking is "included" at Water 2)

One possible drawback i could imagine without making the spell to bad to be used again (which it has been once) whould be to make the dominated unit unable to move for one turn. Makes a bit of sense imo if the unit has moved allready at least. The thing with Loyalty should still be fixed perhaps if unintended.


Another indirect "fix" might be to lower the prerequisite for magic resistance promotion to combat 2 / drill 2.
Against such units it is a gamble indeed without arcane + the tower (for civs that have all that it should be really powerful. Those units are the best casters of domination allright.).
Also it may help to make said promotion a bit better which might be useful imo and make the game more interesting / add fun instead of taking something away.

Here like so often: Not everything that is just good is overpowered. And not anything slightly overpowered is a problem.

@ Demon Master: It makes sense if you think about it. The lich-master creates this skelletons with all his might and then tasks his puny necromantic underlings with controlling them. Why should he bother wasting his time with such low tasks (for his one or two skelleton bodygards its alright though. Won't take the risk to put his security in an lowly adepts hands)?
True for all permanent summons that casters have to controll them to a certain ammount. And at least can't create more if they allready have to use their energy to sustain some of them. Makes it a bit of a stretch to explain more summons of said type than the limit allows but still imaginable.


Its funny how whenever someone finds something good its called an exploit in a moments notice. Its clever play and working as designed. Only things the team bothers to fix or calls unintended are real exploits (and thats not my take on it but the teams comment on the matter). Whould help if that word whould be used with a bit more caution.
As perfect balance is far from the most important priority on the teams map.

 

[Ahriman]

Wouldn't that be, if not a bug, a major exploit, you have a bunch of necromancer apprentices, but your number one lich summons them all, the apprentices are just there to yawn or in the case of Amurites, work the fields, guard your home cities and so on?

Thats not an exploit.... its a totally reasonable strategy. At the most all you can get is 50% combat strength and 3 moves. I always assumed it was a deliberate design intention.

 

[Blackmantle]

There is few doubt about it being deliberate design intention.

 

[Medicine_Man_55]

When you Dominate a hero or a target over a certain level, the spell should kill the caster.

Neat, tidy, non-repeatable.

 

[Fafnir13]

I'd rather not have my units dying just because they cast a spell. Get little enough playtime with the magic in this game without my biggest casters going bye bye.

 

[Frogmanx82]

I would much rather see domination have a lower chance of success than have the ability stripped from my archmage.

 

[MalkutX]

Here like so often: Not everything that is just good is overpowered. And not anything slightly overpowered is a problem.

This. It's powerful, but it's power is balanced by it's high cost, risk, lack of range, late entry into the game, and the vulnerability of archmages. It's just not a problem.

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

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