Well like I was saying about the Duke in the first post. A noble that essentially does a similar role as a king but to a local extent, so as to create some counter play, You'd play him similar to a war hero.- I feel a prince might be a waste of a hire if its just to have insurance on a king (from my experience kings are not often on the frontlines, but hidden)

Without looking I believe the idea was
Duke(?)
Promotes from Hypnotist after a king is promoted
Type: Other
Combat Priotity: 10
Symbol: Shield with a Diagonal Stripe (many dukes seem to have a sash)

Local: +20 to local Shield charge (cancels out the kings -20 charge)
Local: for every 3 (or 2 maybe? 2.5?) owned locally after the specialist phase destroy 1 enemy driller.
Global: The closest duke becomes a new king if you are to lose your current king.

Again this is to nerf the global effect of the king without making an promoted hypnotist a complete waste of time.
Thoughts?

You already tend to see the King fortify himself alongside the Queen - thematically I like that, but it's a pain to try and break open. I'm not sure the extra +20 from the Duke getting put in the same place is a good idea, perhaps it should only apply when not sharing an outpost with any royalty? That way the Duke would thematically be "responsible" for a subdivided section of the empire.

granthor wrote:You already tend to see the King fortify himself alongside the Queen - thematically I like that, but it's a pain to try and break open. I'm not sure the extra +20 from the Duke getting put in the same place is a good idea, perhaps it should only apply when not sharing an outpost with any royalty? That way the Duke would thematically be "responsible" for a subdivided section of the empire.

It would be clearer to make the Duke only work when no other specialists are present. The "royalty" classification would spawn all sorts of questions, I'm sure.

granthor wrote:You already tend to see the King fortify himself alongside the Queen - thematically I like that, but it's a pain to try and break open. I'm not sure the extra +20 from the Duke getting put in the same place is a good idea, perhaps it should only apply when not sharing an outpost with any royalty? That way the Duke would thematically be "responsible" for a subdivided section of the empire.

The Duke gets +20 to wherever he is, whether he is with the king or not. Essentially it is to give an outpost its normal shields when he is around (Since a duke can only be hired after a king has been put in place)

I believe having his effects being local, and his ability to counter act the Kings -20 shield would influence players to use the duke on the front-lines. Generally when you hire a king, you do it for conquest and not to turtle. +20 shield to a fortification with a Queen and King (+60 shield +whatever the outpost has)
Keep in mind a second king would reward +40 shield and would probably be holed up with the other king and queen anyway.

As for negating his effects arround other specialists- That would hurt any synergies he could have with other specialists- Like the Thief.

I still would tend to disagree - although hiring a King is an aggressive move, fortifying him alongside the Queen tends to be pretty common in my experience as they both make each other safer. I think if you've made the decision to hire Kings, it makes a lot of sense to want to keep them safe and let your drillers/other specialists do the risky fighting. Although there is a good reason to send the Dukes you propose out to fight, I still think a lot of players will either never promote, or never send them out if your idea was installed.

How about only having the Duke's power apply up to a maximum of 20 total shield at that outpost? That provides a strong disincentive to put him in the same place as a King/Queen, but makes him a relatively powerful invading force.

How would you word that on the description? I guess I don't quite understand.

janitorialduties wrote:How would you word that on the description? I guess I don't quite understand.

"Adds +20 shield to the outpost he is stationed at (up to a maximum total of 20 shield)

granthor wrote:

janitorialduties wrote:How would you word that on the description? I guess I don't quite understand.

"Adds +20 shield to the outpost he is stationed at (up to a maximum total of 20 shield)

I feel that this is unnecessary. If anything it subtracts from how the duke can be used. The duke is already essentially a Nerfed king. Comparisons
King: Global Steroid +40 Local Shield -20 Global Shield
Duke:Local Steroid +20 Local Shield -Null
^Huge Nerf ^(since outposts only have 20 shield max naturally, why lower it further?)

I like this movement buff that Pandasecret posted- having a minor movement buff while moving towards enemy outposts.

pandasecret wrote:Maybe like when you get a new Queen she turns into a princess, a second King should turn into a prince.
A prince would automatically turn into a King if the current King dies, as well as provide a 0.5 Speed factor boost when targeting enemy outposts.

Might be a better alternative to encourage aggressive play style with the Duke rather than inhibiting his ability to be with a king or queen.
Thoughts?

I feel like this is just part of the variance built into the game. Part of the deck of possible hires dealing out three choices each time. variance, chance, the challenge of overcoming steep oposition through skillful play.

Spend less time whining and more thinking about how you could overcome.


Sometimes you have to play a bad hand. Sometimes you must face an enemy with better resources.

stumbles wrote:I feel like this is just part of the variance built into the game. Part of the deck of possible hires dealing out three choices each time. variance, chance, the challenge of overcoming steep oposition through skillful play.

Spend less time whining and more thinking about how you could overcome.


Sometimes you have to play a bad hand. Sometimes you must face an enemy with better resources.

Saying suck it up doesn't exactly add to the conversation. And yeah I feel ya- Stop whining, but im not trying to.
I'm saying that it felt like there was nothing that could be done- little counterplay. Like getting steamrolled. The game ended with a single player having 31 factories and being able to produce 212 Neptunium a day.

The two kings(and eventually three) allowed this guy to snowball out of anybodies combined ability to deal with him. I made this post because it seemed unbalanced and to discuss either counter play or solutions to this unbalance.