Allow The AI To Use Teleport To Defend Its Cities And You'll Finally Realize How Annoying That Is!

I'm fine with getting rid of Teleport, only if we find someway to speed up movement.  Kraxis declared war on me, and it too me 100 turns to even be able to send an army across the map over to him.  How god awful boring is that? We need stagnant portals.  Portals would mean that they only connect to other portals in the world and you know if an army wants to move, they have to use a portal, it becomes something that needs to be defended and guarded.  That way we can still travel great distances, but cant go anywhere at any time.  That adds both movement and strategy. 

I totally agree that movement is too slow, Lord Xia! That is why I have suggested several times to speed units a little bit. Having the other way around (teleporting units) would be just as annoying though, actually it would completely spoil the game.

In my opinion speeding up units a little and having boats from the beginning would help addressing that problem. In otrder to to that we should also have an intelligent AI that knows as to use boats efficiently and we should have boats from the beginning (small boats in small upgradable ports)

Also I have played and completed a lot of Age Of Wonders Shadow Magic games, mostly in Play By E Mail mode, which is the most difficult thing to achieve when turns are boring (people just quit after having spent a few days when nothing happens) and I rarely have suffered the slow pace that I have to bear in this game.

The main reasons is because in that game you manage to put together a few small armies from the beginning (actually a trick is to start the game with already a small army that explores the map  in all directions and make things happen from turn 1!). The main problem so far with EWOM is that you spend the first 100 turns walking in a desert, then you have about another 100 turns that are fun and well balanced but from turn 200 all the cities you have spammed to get there start to become hard to manage and by conquering even more towns the micromanagement becomes unbearable.

That is not something that can be fixed by having one superstack jumping around, that would only help speeding things up when they become boring. It's not a solution, it's a new issue!

I believe that by having less cities and a lot more armies (which is completely realistic!) we wouldn't feel the need to teleport stuff around. I mean, of course if someone plays in a silly unbalanced way not defending the empire, that person will still feel vulnerable... but that would be because he was not reasonable in his strategy, not because he just had a couple of armies and just HAD to move them if didn't want to pass another 100 turns doing nothing.

I believe we all share your frustration when it is turn 100 and we just have ONE decent stack. But the solution is that we need more stacks not that we need a starship to move faster!

Regarding portals what can I say, I see your frustrationa and I share it, but I have seen what happens with portals both in the Heroes of M&M series and in the AOW series. Unfortunately the AI becomes way too good at using portals an all the sense of geography becomes lost since places that look far instad are just une turn away. Placing armies in an organized realistic way becomes impossible... Not to talk about when by chance you start a game next to a portal!!  OMG if your game start and your main city is by a portal you could just be destroyed in one turn after you played for hundreds of them. That is because you don't see the enemy coming. Even if you did check the other end of the portal and guarded it it just becomnes impossible to stare at a big map and realize at every given moment which portal brings where... It becomes way too easy not to notice an enemy approaching! Not realistic for me and not fun at all.

The only advantage for portals is that in a good random map generator they could easily and safely be... unchecked! While for a spell it probably won't happen.

Id actually love to see the AI use teleport,it would add some challenge.

(sorry double post)

Believe me that is NOT the challenge you want. We need to be challenged intellectually, not forced to defend a stupid portal, which would make us waste hundred of turns just to see our empire destroyed in a second in a way we could not prevent.

You're becoming a broken record.  You've posted this same argument over and over.

Solutions than don't need Stardock to do anything:

1.  Don't use teleport.

2.  Tell your opponent not to use teleport.

or

1.  Make a mod deleting the offending spells.  Seriously, XML is readable.  I taught an RN who hated her computer how to modify an XML file for god's sake.

or

1.  Realize that an undefended city = annihilation.  Mages are powerful beings.  It isn't too much of a stretch to assume that a wizard can open a portal, as it is to assume he can throw a firebolt, or create a lightning storm.  And adjust your strategy to the opponent by... defending your important cities with stationed armies and your own mage with teleport standing ready.

I think there should be teleport, but there should be a balancing factor.  With the global mana pool this could work out well.  The cost of the teleport should be based on....

party size + distance traveled

It would make teleport useful, but not a win all strategy. 

Another way of "fixing" teleport is to make it open a gateway.  Instead of instantly teleporting troops to a location, the spell could take several turns to cast, open a portal that stays open for several turns.  This might be harder to do with the engine though...

Actually it is the first time that I explain what will happen in ALL your games if the AI learns how to use teleport defensively: all games will be the same no matter how beautiful the map is and the strategic element will fall flat.

If you make it too complex players will abuse the AI in single player mode, if it is too simple it wil be  the other way around: The AI will move superstacks and take you by surprise in ways you cannot possibly prevent (challenging but not in a fun way!)

Sure any limitation would be welcome but why not make it optional then and work on allowing players to build a well balanced empire, with enough units to defend all borders?

All empires throughout history had problems when they became too large, its not by adding something as "fake" as that, that this game will improve. Every time something doesn't work, the solution should be realistic not something that brings on new troubles. I believe at this point the main pourpose of the developers is to try and get a game that feels real. Having empty cities and just a couple of superstacks jumping around is BAD!

(by the way I love the fact that within the empire there are monstars that force us to keep units in cities, I wish there were a bit more, like with the earlier versions of this game... Again they had to remove them because the game was badly balanced and player were unable to have enough units to defend themselves: they decided to remove something good and unique to this game, instead than fixing the real problem: a real bad call IMO cities should have armies in them and woods should be filled with monster: the tension should be palpable! Instead like this they balanced the empty cities by emptying the forests too! The result: the map feels empty, it is like a desert where nothing happens for at least 100 turns!)

Maybe the number of roaming monsters should depend on the level of difficulty or should be a setting that can be modified at the start, also if they attack and conquer a city they shouldn't maybe necessarily be able to raze it (a bear doesn't raze a city an army maybe)

The first version of Age Of Wonders had a teleporting spell that was a game breaker: I know what I am talking about I have seen it! You guys should google "BTOOIC" and see all the endless discussions made in the Age of Wonders forum, that brought to make teleports optional!

They did and AOWSM, the sequel, was a huge success.

Rather than Teleport, I prefer town portal. A magic that allow your sovereign to transport himself (only himself) to the city he choose (his own cities)

How about any of the following:

teleport induced vulnerability? (reduced combat capability -50% attack/defence/tactical movement, unable to cast combat magic in moving stack without interrupting, sov counts as being in enemy lands in terms of death penalty)

Make a teleport have a charge up time and cooldown? (say instant for short hops, 1 turn for 5+tile jumps, 2 turns for n+. Allow teleport to be interrupted during that time. Prevent movement from target location for a similar time and apply above debuffs.

Make teleporting require portals to be built/placed and require units travelling to have essence or other requirements to travel (as with subtractive magic requirements in sword of truth series)

Have units exist in two places at once and share HP/stats between two stacks, have them transfer to target, lowering the strength of the source stack as the troops move to the new location.

Teleporting equipment only - make the teleport spell linked to a relic, give it a single charge that has a long recharge time/special recharge requirements (souls of the enemy, tiles walked etc.)

Make teleport have a fixed target or source, for defensive teleport spells have a fixed target building (capital) while offensive have a fixed source (capital). I think defensive teleports should be cheaper and more common, while offensive war teleports should be high end magic.

-e.g. War portal, create a walking teleport anchor allowing reinforcements to join the battle without a debuff
Attack teleport, teleport to cause confusion and distress moving behind enemy lines and moving the enemy several tiles in random directions

How about being only able to teleport the sovreign alone and only in the capital instead than complicating life to these poor guys who are trying to fix already another million issues?

(But the word "optional" makes no sense uh?)

Honestly, if you hate teleport so much, make rules in your games, personally remove the spell in your games, or something to that effect. But really, you are blowing everything out or proportion. Take a few things into account.

1. Casters who can teleport go with the army. Thus, if I do send an army somewhere via teleport, then that champion is with them. Given that archery can turn any caster into a pincushion, it's a vast risk to teleport an army on top of an enemy.
2. Teleport to defend cities? Same as above, but at the end of the day, you have the ability to shift troops via either one (just the Sovereign) or perhaps even champions with the power to do so. It is not an instance of gather-all-of-my-armies-and-use-them. If people DO teleport around the map, then they are losing the protection that the caster offers in terms of buffs, damage, and what have you - all because the mana to power, say, a lightning storm is being used on teleporting.
3. Teleportation is indeed limited. Realize that if the enemy drops an army in on top of you, it won't be a constant thing that happens every turn. Once you take out one enemy army with the teleporting caster, it won't happen again unless another caster teleports in. Meanwhile, if you are victorious, the enemy is weakening their cities and losing valuable magic-wielding champions. It's not anywhere near as bad as what you are going on about time and again.

Now you like to reference Age of Wonders. I will, too. How so? Like this.

In the first Age of Wonders - the main game, pre Wizard's Throne - there were spells to teleport. City Portal, for one. The random teleport for another. The difference here is that a teleport in Elemental is an instant thing, for one. That is, if I use it, it's instant, the mana is gone, and I go from there. In Age of Wonders, I can 'store' a spell. Prepare it, and after a turn or two, cast it. The end result is that the spell is cast, and I can go anywhere, and then pop in with a full mana bar and all of my magic ready to unleash absolute hell.

Thus, a difference: in Age of Wonders, intelligent teleporting would not hinder me in any way and would, in fact, be a wonderful boon. In Elemental, if I just teleport armies all willy-nilly, it'll drain my mana (global, as of 1.1) and lay the smackdown on my effectiveness. Furthermore, teleporting an army in to counter another army isn't as steadfast in its power as in Age of Wonders. In AoW, a high-levelled army would more easily defeat even a slew of low-levelled armies. In Elemental, soldiers are much stronger (pet peeve of mine) and armies can square off and, regardless of size, one may win and another lose based solely on tactics. Units mattered far more in AoW individually than in Elemental.

As to replayability: keeping teleport in will do absolutely nothing. It's something you have to plan for, and is a strategic matter. The only person who is going to go off and believe that it is overpowered is the one who isn't prepared for it to happen to them. You have to understand that in a world of magic, magic is going to often blurr the lines of strategy and reality, as well as sometimes trumping them.

If someone decides to teleport to defend, then they lose an army somewhere else doing something else. That is, my exploration army can't explore when it's defending a city. My defensive army can't defend if I teleport it out to smite a city somewhere. It is a sacrifice to use, and it may be a boon to some degree when used properly. Like any other tool in our arsenal, we have to use it correctly in order to win.

The key? Learning how to counter it. That's part of the strategy. And if you can't learn how to counter it, then remove it from your game, or create a mod that does that, or enforce the rules of no teleportation. But I, for one, relish the challenge of taking this one double-edged sword and learning how to use it effectively, and how to counter it.

-Nathikal

I definatly agree with you that it should be optional.

I just think that very large single player games could get pretty annoying if your units are forced to crawl around a few blocks at a time.  If you have no teleport you need something else so that you don't spend 100 turns just moving your units from one end of the empire to the other. 

Not having a teleport won't solve the superstack problem.  It will only make it so that super stacks can't teleport.  If you don't have teleport spell and the AI attacks you from a direction that isn't strongly defended.... your units have to crawl to that part of you empire to defend it.  The end result is the same, you are surprised by the AI super stack.  If you had teleport, you could teleport to that area and respond to the super stack. 

Since you can only teleport into your own territory in EWoM....(at least it was that way lats time I played) Its not like you can teleport next to the enemy capital, and capture it in one turn.  The teleport is primarly there as a defense against super stacks.

So superstacks, and teleportation are two different problems I think.

If teleport is limited to your area - I haven't played in awhile, and I don't use it, so forgive my ignorance - then there is really no issue here

o.o

at present you( your caster(s) & their army) can only teleport INTO and within your territory, you CAN NOT even teleport into allied territory or neutral or enemy territory.

harpo

Many wonderful ideas here.  Whatever is done with teleporting, make it optional, so players who want it can have it. Everyone can agree with that. 

Portals, good idea.

Create a "take me home' Spell:  It 'sets' a home tile, one tile that you and your 'friends' can teleport back to.

Naval movement, transport, YES!

What about forced marches, army moves faster but is "tired."  William the Conqueror defeated the defending English king, ONLY because that English King had just force marched his army from Scotland to the channel. 

Better control over where roads are built.  Fix the dirt tracks that wander all over the place - usually in crazy directions.

Invest in better roads that speed travel even more than the x2 in the current ver 1.09e.

1 You assume that after teleporting a player will necessarily engage the hero who cast the spell, but that is not necessarily true. One could just use the hero to teleport and then attack with the huge army that was with him, while the hero waits outside the battle.

2 Not sure what you are saying here, but one can have many heroes who just teleport. Teleport would become such an overwhelming game breaker that it would be silly to waste mana on anything else. Heroes would do only that.

3 The problem is that there could ba a stack ANYWHERE ready to teleport so you would just advance in enemy territory HOPING that the enemy is unready. No strategy only luck if he is ready (wherever he is) he will destroy you otherwise you'll win.

Regardingthe things you say about Age of Wonders, I am not talking about gates, because I wuld just make a map where gates are not present and solve the problem like that. What I saw as a game breaker was a particular spell ONLY present in AOW1 (they removed it in the sequel!!) which was very somilar to what we have here. It woulld allow spellcaasters to jump around and became the one and only possible strategy to win (I saw it and all the expert AOW players did too, that's why we are freaking out about teleport I am not crazy, guys)

But I don't think that the AI shouldn't have one superstack to attack your land, in fact it is normal that if you decide to invade your enemy you do that with a decent army. What I am saying is that the game should encourage to distribute your forces around to have many things going on at the same time in different parts of the empire. That is tipically something all wargame designers struggle to achieve . The problem is that by introducing a teleporting capability you just make that completely unnecessary.

I agree with all that (except the teleports\portals off course) Units should go a bit faster, boats should become useful and the AI should learn how to use them (so finally we'll have islands). The "take me home" spell is OK if moves just one units, although again players will use it while the AI will lose their heroes.

In general technologies to move faster should be the solution to our frustration about movement: fast horses, a navigation tech tree that speeds up boats, a road development tech tree... anything that requires strategy and planning instead than instantly move armies around. (com'on teleporting armies is something never seen in any fantasy book, who suypports that is just frustrated about the slow pace this game as at the moment!)

You take a risk every time you enter enemy territory that they'll have some huge army ready to pounce on you. I've set numerous traps for the AI in numerous games by simply being a clever player, hiding troops where they are least likely to be seen and then striking.

Take into account, also, that there is going to be a universal mana pool. Heroes who teleport weaken the casting abilities of ALL your magic-users. Even if you have a hundred casters, it would be immensely counter productive to use them solely for teleportation. Magic buffs, such as haste, can effortlessly cause a weaker army to become superior when used properly.

Next, if I teleport an army and fight without my hero, realize that the army is thus weaker than my own in some capacity. If I have a caster with my army, I have buffs and damage available. Furthermore, if I win the battle tactically (which is something you should be able to do) I have the option to let my soldiers rip their solo, unprotected caster apart come my turn unless he can get far enough away. Even then, my enemy would have lost a powerful army.

BK, your arguments constantly boil down to the same thing - my enemy will be able to send their army anywhere in their territory. In all realities, they can do that now by walking. Really, if my enemy sends his armies against me, I expect to be able to defeat them with my own armies. That's the point of pressing into enemy territory. If I am not secure in my belief that my armies can win, I have no business in his territory, where I'd face all of his troops at some point or another.

Please take into account...

• The enemy still has to build the armies, which are going to be, logically, focused on their weakest points. Thus, expect enemy armies as soon as you encroach upon their territory, not to mention at any location that you might attack from anyway.
• The enemy still has to SUPPORT the armies. That means that if you have one army for teleport defense and another for whatever, you have two armies to support monetarily. If they can support two armies, they can go for it.
• Mass teleportation each turn will devastate the mana pool.
• If you want to beat a teleporter army, simply out-maneuver them. Send two armies at once, one to strike at one location and another at a secondary location. Lure the enemy out, and crush them. 'Tis called strategy, and the division of armies has been a necessary tactic for millenia.
• Teleportation in and of itself isn't powerful. It doesn't matter how you teleport your units if they can't defeat the opposing army. Really, now, if I teleport my strongest army to counter an attacker, it doesn't mean that I instantly am going to win. I still need to defeat the enemy in combat.
• Given that it takes several turns to produce units, it is illogical to expect the enemy to hurl massive armies against you frequently in their territory. I agree that it may make things harder initially, until you've battered down the enemy's forces. But by the time the enemy is prepared to send a second massive army (or third or what have you) your own forces will have easily made a ton of headway.

What strikes me as immensely ironic is how often you refer to the 'wargame experience' in a game that includes dragons and the like. Furthermore, your answer to one factor of the 'wargame' itself, that of teleportation, is to remove it. Humorous that instead of trying to find a strategic counter you simply opt to remove it.

Ever heard about the word "scouts", clever player?

eheh

Scouts precede armies, they see if there is a problem so that an army doesn't fall int a trap.

That is really basic, of course if you play by advancing blindly I agree that you may as well not care about enemy teleporting. You just hope for luck every time.

I saw the thread title and I just knew if was written by BK:) I don't have an opinion on the subject but I wish you good luck in your teleport crusade. And this kind of dedication while pursuing certain goals in the real life

Well, it's sure that making it optional would defenitly settle this . But I agree with Nathikal: teleporting a superstack army doesn't mean that he will win. If you move your superstack army against his, even if he doesn't teleport, you'll end up encountering him sooner or later. There is always the "flee" option too if you're not confident but dont forget, the caster will have 15 mana less then your caster and that can make a huge diffenrence between victory and loosing. But like I said, make it optionnal should end the problem.

And I frequently DO use scouts. I respond to your sarcasm thusly.

Ever set traps, Black Knight?

Again, I maintain the following...

• Universal mana makes teleportation a weakening factor and something that cannot be abused.
• Armies need to still fight.
• It's a gamble - you teleport and lose the army, you are going to either lose your hero (if he was part of the army, or killed separately for not being far enough away) or blow another X mana to get him back to safety, and then another X mana to come back with an army.

Your arguments are based solely on the belief that an AI army will be able to destroy any attacking force with teleport, and that players will do the same thing. I honestly have to disagree. Teleportation is not overpowered, because even if it's used with a superstack, the joint mana features are going to make using it frequently a hazard.

Not to mention that, with the army size limits (assuming those are in place) you are going to be fighting the enemy army with, at most, one less than the maximum number of units. So you'll be sending an army that is smaller to face a force that is, more than likely, ready to roflstomp anything you send against it.

Furthermore, because of the mana cost, it's going to be extremely difficult to use it in any meaningfully advantageous way. Sending an army against another via teleport is going to basically stab the casting power of your heroes. Thus, it logically cannot be exploited, except as a last-ditch all-or-nothing move, without weakening your entire side.

Next counter argument, please. I get to spar so rarely.

Sarcasm was not meant in a mean way, I hope you realize that.

I was only trying to address the fact that defining oneself "clever" for tricking this AI was a bit of a stretch

Anyway I don't feel these arguments are very strong, for several reasons. First of all teleport would probably be an advanced spell, one that you will end up casting regularly only in larger maps, but since I personally only play huge maps it definitely ends up being something that affects all my games a lot, and the games of people like me who are more interested in the epic aspect of the game, rather than in a quicker magic duel.

1) In large maps after many turns the mana pool will be extremely rich, so the cost of casting spells I doubt will be a limiting issue.

2) Armies "need to still fight" but the attacker can decide where and when, so by being able to jump around a player deciding to abuse teleport will be always in a winning position and all the strategic subtleties of terrain and movement become useless. I just don't see how that point could be dismissed by just simply saying "armies still need to fight".

3) It's NOT "a gamble" at all compared to the gamble of advancing in enemy territory, knowning that wherever the enemy is it can probably be ready to attack you whatever your clever (oops sarcasm :p) plan was!

4) Besides since one teleports into his territory to defend one of huis own cities, even if the hero who used teleport becomes useless because he spent all his mana his army will probably still be able to find a replacement in that area (it's their land). So even assuming that attacking a 11 unit army with your 10 unit army were a big disadvantage (which by the way I don't agree on) that still wouldn't happen.

5) mana cost in my opinion is not an issue anymore in epic games, at least that is my experience with Age of Wonders, but that depends on the game balance.

I have really seen teleport applyied in every possible way in my life and while it becomes irrelevant in single player because usually by the time you get it you have already won a game, in multiplayer it is always a terrible thing. What it's worse is that it tends to affect the best games, those that manage to get to a realistic balance between players after a long extenuating war. When you finally get to the point where you feel you have a real empire and a real war going on full of strategic options... there comes Mario Bros jumping around with his superstack and the game becomes an arcade!

While I agree with you in principle, I disagree with a lot you say. =P

I agree, for instance, that mana cost is not a smart way to balance Teleport. The Teleport "nerf" of 15 mana only set it to the cost of Group Teleport because the single teleport was bugged and functioned like group teleport.
4X games are also very unsuited to scaling a feature of immense strategical value to any kind of  "cost" because  4X games are all about growing the empire and taking the resulting income to entirely new magnitudes, eventually making any such cost inconsequential.

If something was to be changed about Teleport, then this would have to be the implementation. Not just the cost.

I already listed quite a few possibilities here...