[suggestion] Dogs

[Danubian]

Could you please improve dogs in some way?

1.) Ideally make dogs like characters with stats and skills that could improved and additional items that could be added.

2.) Make dogs that get killed respawned after battle?

The problem is, right now dogs are really utterly useless. I can literally only see them being useful once youre basically completely done with the game and have just a few extremely powerful locations to defeat, so you drop dogs against really most powerful enemies in order to extend your HP pool (have enemies kill dogs instead of your brothers for a couple of turns).

And thats really a shame.

The biggest problem with dogs is that they are not very strong. So for example of one cliche suggestions youll get on this forum and steam is “use dogs against goblins” and this is only partly true. Sure releasing a dog means you can catch up to a goblin ambusher, but since dogs are so weak it also mean that a single goblin ambusher will kill the dog in melee fight in about 2 or 3 rounds. So if you are further away than 2 rounds, releasing a dog is useless as it will likely die. And even if youre just 1 round away, the dog still has a good chance to die because by the time you get there, and by the time you can actually deal damage to ambusher, it will have had a very good chance of killing your dog. So essentially you just wasted 260 gold to get very little experience and some items (not even 10% of the dog worth). Ah yes your characters also suffer initiative and fatigue penalties…

There are also 2 other problems:

a.) Dogs dont extend your field of view (which means you have no idea whats going on when they run off ahead of you)

b.) Dogs arent exactly intelligent, instead of chasing after archers and harassing them, they have a tendency to find the closest (and usually strongest *facepalm*) enemy that they can and simply charge it. Leading to even the best type of dogs dying in a turn or 2 (since enemies are evil and will focus on easiest enemy they can beat – your dog).

Unless c.) dogs are made more economically valuable or d.) put under player’s direct control (or at least let us guide them somehow, tell them what to do?) they really have very limited use (mostly to extend your HP pool or harass someone for a round or two).

[Meeky]

I wouldn’t mind seeing some expensive, very strong breeds of dogs, but I don’t think they should be the norm. Having one really amazing dog in your army would be nice, though, and maybe they should get better the more they kill things. Not sure.

Concerning goblins: I use them as distractions against goblins to keep them attacking the dogs instead of my troops, OR to keep them from running away so my troops can reach them. Simply put, if a goblin ambusher is attacking a dog, he’s not shooting your men, and he’s not running away. That means he’s easier to engage with and make a non-threat I.E. a corpse.

I tend to be a little stingy and careful with armored dogs, but I’m more than happy to waste the lives of non-armored hounds just to be certain that my Battle Brothers themselves survive. They’re also useful to fill in gaps and totally encircle dangerous enemies, giving your Battle Brothers a to-hit bonus against them.

That said, I don’t use dogs all that often right now, at least not in the early and mid game, though I keep a few in my inventory and pull them out when fighting goblins. The strain on my Brothers’ fatigue and initiative is really the most detrimental thing about using them. I think they’d be better if the fatigue/initiative loss wasn’t as huge.

[Danubian]

I would rather let a goblin ambusher get away than risk losing either ~100 worth or ~260 worth dog. I dont have a problem with ambushers that decide to stick around and shoot. Those i catch and murder. Its those that are more than 10 tiles away that start running away. I rarely release dogs on those because they frequently simply kill them by the time i get there (remember it takes turns to reach them, and then it takes turns to be able to actually fight them, and even then you might miss them, and meanwhile they have 2 attacks per turn and they frequently hit dogs (armored dogs are like 3-4 hits killed?)).

[Meeky]

I guess it’s a debate between costs and rewards. I’m willing to shell out the 100-300 gold for a dead dog in return for the extra XP on a Battle Brother once I get to the mid-game. Late-game… It feels like a no-brainer. If a battle brother isn’t max level, I’m gonna throw a dog out there and keep it distracted until he gets there to kill it.

But you are right. Ambushers have a high melee attack rating, I think, and they stab dogs to death.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think the dogs need to get more HP as much as more melee and ranged defense. More HP would likely mean that an Orc Warrior couldn’t one shot the dog which I believe should be able to happen, both balance wise and thematically. But also crucial to balance and theme is the idea of attack dogs which hold down the prey until the hunters arrive. And I believe this would be better served with better defense stats which would provide survivability while still keeping the dogs squishy squishy.

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