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[etgfrog]

Shields (even magical) can be damaged or broken. They are auto repaired after battle. And yes, magical shields can be lost permanently this way (they only can get damaged, if broken they dissappear). Magic shields get a bonus to resist this.
Slash weapons have +75% break shields
Blunt weapons have +25%
Pierce weapons have +0%

Rip vineshields thugs.

[nenjin]

My gamer brains says Pierce should be better against shields than slash but I'm sure there's meta balance reasons for this.

[USEC_OFFICER]

So that rains of arrows/bolts don't completely obliterate shields and leave troops vulnerable? Shields are supposed to be a counter to ranged spam after all.

[nenjin]

But 0 versus 75%? Seems like shields would immediately disappear in melee and that's not exactly fitting either.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I was only talking about piercing weapons in that comment but don't worry. That seems really high to me as well.

[etgfrog]

Slash damage is a cut across a large area, it does make sense that it would do more damage to a shield then something that goes strait through the shield. Pierce has a protection reduction that applies to both shields and armor.

[Culise]

Also, I would personally suspect shields have varying abilities to resist being broken.  A straight 75% chance to break a shield on a hit seems astounding, but if that "+" in front means that it's just a percent-point or percentage bonus to some equation with other parameters as I would think, then it may not be as bad depending on how the other parameters play in.

Also also, I hope that the list of "snow walk" countries simply forgot to include Vanarus between Rus and Bogarus.  Elsewise, things might get a bit odd in the snowy north.

[etgfrog]

I don't think its a 75% chance to break the shield, but a +75% damage done to the shield. My guess is anything strong enough to break a shield in a single hit will also just instantly kill the troop. It will get a bit akward with large troops and equipment. The only solution I could see is the protection that gets reduced each hit gets divided by the size of the troop. At least I'm assuming the shield's protection gets reduced each hit.

Which makes sense, then slashing weapons would end up being death by a thousand cuts.

I also just realised, this is going to make slings pretty good.

[Cruxador]

I mean, who uses the default random maps anyway though? I can't remember the last time I've done so except for testing things in singleplayer.

To note, all I play is SP Dominions. So this is important to me on some level, especially because I'm wondering how long it will take a new version of RanDom to appear (think it took at least a month after the Dom4 release), and how important that will be for me to enjoy the game. It'd be nice if Illwinter completely adapted RanDom into their own map generator but if it hasn't happened yet....

I used the word testing for a reason. Even if you don't really play the game to its fullest extent*, if you do have a more in-depth singleplayer game you can still use a custom/premade map.

I think I've seen like 4 posts of that data blub. Do they just keep updating it? Anyways that's a lot of info, thanks.

Yeah, he's updating it with things that beta testers say in the Discord, and presumably anywhere else he happens to notice them talking.

Vanheim
-20% cost to hammers.

I assume this means.....crafting magical hammers? So specific.

Even more specific, it's dwarven hammers. This was an example Zonk gave of the new mechanic where certain nations can have a discount on specific items.

Also can someone explain to me (since I never play MP) why movement is so important? With fliers I can get maybe 3 provinces worth of moves but rarely will I ever have a foot army get more than, or less than, 1 move in a turn. So why does movement seem so important to non-cav, non-fliers? Or is that really who most of these changes are targeted at?

The whole strategic movement system is changed. It's a lot more like most strategy games now, where there's a large number that terrain types then subtract from. That said, movement speed was always important. It's no good having a powerful army if they can't catch your enemy to kill them. Now cavalry can be the ones that don't get caught, where before it was only fliers or elves.

It's just reading all thees movement changes, to me in my head I'm going: "Ok so still one province for foot troops. Still one province. And that one...still one province."

Well, if your foot troops take a one-province step, that means they're slow. So it goes. Fast troops would be meaningless if other troops weren't slow, it would just kill the need to plan ahead.

My gamer brains says Pierce should be better against shields than slash but I'm sure there's meta balance reasons for this.

No, definitely not. It's based on the way real weapons work. Pierce is things like spears and arrows. they pretty much just get stuck in a shield. Blunt things have a chance to break them. But slashing things chop into the shield itself, reaving it from the edge. And it includes axes; there's a reason that the weapon most known for being specialized in breaking shield walls was the dane axe and not the dane spear or something. And a reason that lumberjacks don't typically carry spears.

But 0 versus 75%? Seems like shields would immediately disappear in melee and that's not exactly fitting either.

Similarly, there's a reason that for the formal duels of holmgang, people brought three shields with them, not just one. Unlike certain SCs, they didn't have one shield for every hand but the one with the frost brand.


*I think a fair few people do now. With Desura long dead, it's hard for newer players to get into the active community because there's only the Steam forums (which suck) a discord (which require a certain degree of buy in), and a few places that mostly avoid outsiders.

[Frumple]

It's just reading all thees movement changes, to me in my head I'm going: "Ok so still one province for foot troops. Still one province. And that one...still one province."

I still haven't actually looked at the changes being planned, but most map move 1 dom units (at least in 3 or 4) are either fairly specialized/elite or effectively garbage. There's sorta' exceptions with certain particularly heavy armored nations, but even those have a real nasty problem with getting ran around, out attritioned due to greater ease of reinforcement (mapmove 1 vs mapmove 2 generally means the latter gets where you need them in half the time, at the absolute least until pretty deep into some of the research trees), etc.

Having an army that can move even at two makes a helluva' difference when it comes to... most things. Expansion is about the closest to an exception, and depending on what you run into even for that, being able to redirect to a different front, pull back to defend, and so on, is still a major advantage. An army in transit functionally isn't an army save for purposes of posturing, heh. Also can make it a fair bit harder to get artillery'd on, depending on the situation. It's just a pretty major advantage all around.

[Culise]

Aye.  Just to add on to that point, the ability to reinforce makes high map-move quite useful for offensives.  Being able to concentrate your forces from two provinces away instead of simply adjacent provinces can be heaven-sent, especially if you can predict your opponent's counterattack and arrange for your armies to come together before they arrive.  It's probably the biggest reason survival traits can be rather nice, even though they're not broken in themselves: ignoring the movement costs of specific terrain lets you take better advantage of map-move under Dom4's method of calculating map movement costs. 

[Zonk]

Just passing through (though I did mean to check how the game and community was doing this year, actually).
Since I'm a beta tester I can answer a few quick questions but I suggest you check out other threads such as on the Invision forums, or the Discord severs.

As for shields: yes, piercing can break shields, it's just the worse weapon damage type for it.
The mechanic compares the attack damage to the shield's protection modified by various factors.

Shields don't have pseudo-HP counters, they are either damaged (-20% prot) or broken (-50%). So a shield can't be worn down by many small hits.

Shields are repaired post-battle using province resources - this is for regular, non-magic item shields.

Forged magical shields given to commanders behave somewhat differently: they auto-repair opostbattle if damaged, but if broken they are permanently lost (commander gets his default shield instead).
Magical shields however are harder to break, so it should be rare - except for vine shields, perhaps.
MA Ulm has magical shields (and armor!) on its troops.

I confirm roads are map feature and can't be built anymore. A full plain with no snow or roads costs 6 MM to fully move through. Standard light infanty & heavy cavalry are 14 MM, standard heavy is 8, light cavalry can be 20+.
Legionarie-style troops usually have +4 to represent their discipline and ability to march long distances.

You can also multimove through hostile provinces, but it's far harder especially if not stealthy.
Last but not least, you can move two or more caves or seas, but the cost is high, and flying in caves is slower too.

[E. Albright]

At this point, I'm convinced "always and only indy commanders" is on the way out unless a nation specifically has awful national commanders. Having nothing but box and skirmish formations available at ldr 40 plus morale checks being required to not scatter on retreat (possibly fatally if there are hostile provinces available to scatter into) really takes D4's differentiation between levels of leadership and starts carving it into distinct tiers - even moreso when line loses its morale and speed penalties.

Zonk, is the Formation Fighter command on phalanxes, etc. gone, or does it now merely affect double line/sparse line, or is it a morale (or something else) bonus in line formations, or...?

[Zonk]

Note leadership bonuses are especially important for the new retreat system - they are doubled for the morale check troops make to follow the leader when they retreat.
I'm still not sure 120/+2 commanders are worth it though, when they take the place of 2 80/+1s.

Formation fighter now changes troop density, effectively making unit count as smaller (or bigger) for purpose of fitting in a square.

Human hoplites with formation fighter are 4 to a square despite size 2.
Uruk has Moon Maidens: Enkidu (so size 3), but you can fit 3 to a square.

There are negative examples too: Therodian Dancers and Burning Ones are size 2 & 3 respectively, but 'bad formation fighter' makes them take the space of size 3 and 4 units.

Of course, this means formation fighter is no longer a 100% advantage (even if minor).
The troops get more attacks per square (and can share receiving attacks) and are easier to buff, but are also more vulnerable to enemy AOE attacks.

Also because the repel system is now much closer to Dom3 - only the attacked unit gets a repel attempt - it's not as useful with long weapons as you'd expect.

[sprinkled chariot]

So you cant just wreck low reach weapon crowds by MIGHT OF PHALANX? 

also what is the adress for dominions discord.