The spell 'Slow Down' is useless. Its range is 3 hexes. So here I come to slow you down! ha ha! Oh, you till have at least two movement left. Doh! My spell casting unit is attacked. Or you have to get too close to a unit with 2 or less movement that your unit with 'Slow Down' gets decimated by the other enemy units. The range of 'Slow Down' needs to be increased to at least 4, or no point in having it in the game at all. Really it should be 6.



Secondly, can you guys do something about the search for the forums? I tried to search for 'Slow Down' in the forums and I was getting posts and replies Endless Space and Endless dungeon. Not to mention there were a ton of posts. I did use "Slow Down" instead of Slow Down. Please help us to narrow our searches. Or if I completely missed it, apologies and how can I narrow my search to specific forums?

TheBossInTheWall wrote:
The spell 'Slow Down' is useless. Its range is 3 hexes. So here I come to slow you down! ha ha! Oh, you till have at least two movement left. Doh! My spell casting unit is attacked. Or you have to get too close to a unit with 2 or less movement that your unit with 'Slow Down' gets decimated by the other enemy units. The range of 'Slow Down' needs to be increased to at least 4, or no point in having it in the game at all. Really it should be 6.

Cliffs and lakes are where this ability shines.



For example, imagine a map like this:



[CODE]OOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOO

OO#OOOOO

OO#OOOOO

OA#BOOOO

OO#OOOOO



O = open terrain

# = obstacle (cliff/lake)

A = your unit

B = enemy unit

[/CODE]



If A has "Slow Down", it can greatly hampers B ability to get into melee range.

Ellye wrote:
Cliffs and lakes are where this ability shines.



For example, imagine a map like this:



[CODE]OOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOO

OO#OOOOO

OO#OOOOO

OA#BOOOO

OO#OOOOO



O = open terrain

# = obstacle (cliff/lake)

A = your unit

B = enemy unit

[/CODE]



If A has "Slow Down", it can greatly hampers B ability to get into melee range.

You do realize a spells usefulness based on a rarely occurring scenario does not make a spell useful. Most of the time your battle field has maybe 1-2 blocked off areas. There's rarely the chance your shaman can slow an enemy down before its in combat or ready to charge your shaman.

It's not a rarely occurring scenario.



Also, instead of terrian obstacles, you might simply have a line of beefier troops protecting your more fragile troops at the back. A slowed down enemy won't be able to properly circumvent these troops in the front.

Ellye wrote:
It's not a rarely occurring scenario.



Also, instead of terrian obstacles, you might simply have a line of beefier troops protecting your more fragile troops at the back. A slowed down enemy won't be able to properly circumvent these troops in the front.

But again there's no point to the spell if the front line is within range of of a slowed melee unit. Sure they might not be able to go around your beefier guys, but that's irrelevant. They just wail on the beefy guys. Its not likely they were going to get around them in the first place, and even if they do that means that have a lot of movement. So cutting it in half doesn't matter because your caster still has to be close enough to cast it which means since they can get around the beefy guys they can get to the caster.



As for battles with a caster behind cliffs or water, in every battle I've played it does not work out 'perfectly.' Either the caster has to be on the edge of the line of impassable terrain to be close enough to target the enemy which means the enemy can get to them easily. If its a cliff the enemy just needs to get to the adjacent hex to attack, they don't have to go around it. And there are rarely lakes perfect for hiding behind. Its not like the enemy goes straight to the lake and then turns right or left so they take more time to get to the caster. They go from their starting point at a diagonal, the AI chooses the fastest route.

What you want wouldn't make the spell stronger, it would make it way too good. It's not meant to be a full crowd control that renders melee opponents irrelevants (like Slow spells tend to be in games like King's Bounty).



Because it's something that will be applied on every single attack of your unit, so it must be tame. Compare it to the other options you have for weapons and you'll notice that what you're requesting is much more than a small buff - it would make this ability way stronger than anything else avaliable for common ranged weapons.

Ellye wrote:
It's not a rarely occurring scenario.



Also, instead of terrian obstacles, you might simply have a line of beefier troops protecting your more fragile troops at the back. A slowed down enemy won't be able to properly circumvent these troops in the front.

I don't know about that... To have an effective line of beefier troops is not that easy... We are limited to 4 units at the start of the game, and we only have 6 turns worth of combat... And due to the combat limitations, we would have to force the melee units to stand ground, or else risk breaking rank. And stand ground is completely useless for melee, because if there are no units in range the attack is lost, unless the melee units initiative is purposedly kept low...



If the support units were something that only appeared later, like on era 3, maybe this could be true...

Ellye wrote:
What you want wouldn't make the spell stronger, it would make it way too good. It's not meant to be a full crowd control that renders melee opponents irrelevants (like Slow spells tend to be in games like King's Bounty).



Because it's something that will be applied on every single attack of your unit, so it must be tame. Compare it to the other options you have for weapons and you'll notice that what you're requesting is much more than a small buff - it would make this ability way stronger than anything else avaliable for common ranged weapons.

Not at all. Cast slow every time in a battle, but never an armor buff and/or a health buff or debuff you could be hurting bad. I mean if yr against a roaming army you'll crush them with it(if the spell had a further range), sure, but those are just the roaming armies. They're supposed to be taken down with a slight difficulty at most. On harder levels maybe not, but of course those are harder levels. Against the larger groups of the AI who will have relatively fast moving units, their own casters, and range if you just spam Slow Down you're at a big disadvantage. One because the caster has to get close in which makes them a target for range and calvary units as well as fast melee units. Say you have 3 casters in an army of six and they have the same. While you're trying to get in close enough to cast Slow Down on a unit their melee units are rushing your army, their range are moving into firing range, and their casters are debuffing or buffing their own guys. As well by the time you caster moves close enough to cast Slow Down there isn't any point, the melee will have already gotten close enough to start fighting. If your melee just stand waiting for their calvary/infantry to reach your front line there kingdom AI's range units can just fire and fire on them, even if its a caster's debuff that does damage.

I find slow down quite useful against Flying units, especially if they have around 3 battle movement points.



By decreasing their movements, it would make it more difficult for them to fly over your front line troops when they are 1 hex away from them. In all other situations, it is mostly used to prevent fast moving units from outflanking your melee and attacking your support/ranged troops from the side.



I don't think it was supposed to make kiting maneuvers easier. It's just anti-flanking