Something has occured to me...

[Atma]

Remember when you were trying to deal with the trading issue? Of how players would offer Spells or Buildings in exchange for high powered creatures stationed at great temples? At one point, you had a "Mercenary Artifact" to prevent trades of certain types of units.

Well, I've discovered a few things that really throws the whole issue out the window... even though you have since found a solution (removing the garrisons entirely), it turns out nothing was really necessary to fix the problem.

1. Mercenaries cannot be traded. No way, no how. They simply aren't available in your unit trade list, ever. So ordering up 60 Merc Mages in an attempt to get some easy trade fodder will end in failure.

2. Units inside of a building cannot be traded, nor asked to be traded. I guess this makes sense, because it would cause issues of who controls the building. Because of this rule, you can't ever swindle an AI, active or not, out of their garrison units.

3. Units a part of a Lord's army will never be traded. You can try, but the Lord will ALWAYS decline, no matter how awesome the deal, no matter how crappy the unit you ask for. I guess they aren't idiots who'd leave themselves defenseless after all.


I discovered all of this stuff when I went to try out a strategy someone once suggested... which was to trade buildings and spells for all of the AI's stuff just before taking them over, which of course costs you nothing. To my slight disappointment, this didn't work... but I was also glad to discover that the AI wasn't so gullible after all.


I'm not sure of the whole story behind you deleting the garrisons, if there were any other reasons why you did it, but I thought I'd bring this up just in case it was only because of that problem.

[Boaster]

The problem with the "mercenary artifact" that I created, which would turn the normal units into Mercenaries is that the AI players would disband this garrisons as if they were Mercenaries as soon as their turn began, or at some point in time.

Spells and Buildings for the AI player will only work if in "trade" if they are of the same "barter value." However, if you constantly keep GIVING and GIVING and GIVING to the player you want to take over it will work ONLY if the player has not already had its temple rescued. In other words, if the AI player does NOT already start with his temple, then he can be sworn to your allegiance.

I recently re-added the Garrisons to the Temple since I am constantly expanding my own knowledge of the game. As you can see, I'm trying to write a new guide. I re-added the Garrisons with a stipulation where they will not show up in Multiplayer games. In multiplayer games, Garrisons were the real issue. In single player games, not so much.

Other players would send a flying scout off to Death, or some other faith, and barter with a Neutral feeling inactive AI (all inactive AI's are neutral in multiplayer).

The Garrisons are one group (a champion and 3 military/creatures) to the Temple and Capital. You should not be too worried about the strength of these new garrisons because if you play my mod on Hard mode, almost all AI Lords/Ladies will start at about Level 11 or 12. These same Lords will train units in their respective buildings and later hire them as Escorts for their own army.


However, I still want to work on making "Volunteer" flagged units to be untradable. So I'll keep working with all of that stuff. All in time. Nice to see you again, Atma.