Spiders and snakes have unusually low strength for their size

[Demonsthenes]

Maybe this is intentional, but the relationship between strength and size is strange for the spider and snake units, and for the Machaka spider mounts is quite different from Dominions 5. Combined with Venomous Fangs attacks having a -2 damage modifier, they can really struggle to pierce even basic armor, so this oddity is mechanically quite significant.

For example, the Machaka Great Spiders (mounts for Spider Knights) are a size 7 unit with only 11 strength -- comparable to elite humans despite the titanic size -- resulting in a 9 piercing damage attack that seems almost harmless against humans (And very much in contrast with the 14 damage on those fangs on the Spider Knight in Dominions 5 -- which exceeded that for Dominions 6 hoof attacks from smaller horses). The strength also makes them quite vulnerable to strength-negates effects like entanglement.

They also have awful siege strength as a result, despite web spinners being a unit type that I'd expect to be pretty handy in a siege, though maybe that's best handled with a different trait anyway.

The Black Hunters are similarly quite weak; a size 9 with HP appropriate for an enormous creature, but only 16 strength, less than many size 5-6 humanoids.

I know the spiders have a lot of space that's legs, but thinking thematically, spiders are really strong creatures for their body size, and I'd expect them to be quite capable at siege work, which is also affected by their strength score.

Snakes are somewhat similar -- horned serpents (13 strength), black serpents/lamias (12 strength) are quite weak for size 4 animals, and that results in their fang attacks ending up at 10-11 piercing damage -- low enough that they'll usually fail to deliver poison through medium armor, and very rarely will with buffs applied. Even the massive size 9 Sea Serpents, at 18 strength, are on the weak side..

The end result is that the size 1 Giant Scorpion swarm bug (5 base damage, but fully armor piercing, and immune to repel, which is quite important for all the low defense snakes) has a considerably better chance to actually deliver poison damage through protection to its target, especially if buffed with Strength of Giants or similar, than these giant snake units.

[anaris]

Sea Serpents currently struggle to beat the default 1 province defence of underwater nations, so I'm kind of inclined to agree there might be a problem

[Sombre]

I agree they should have higher strength.

[Legowarrior]

I feel like Size only cares about the 2 dimension foot print of a creature. A Size 7 Spider seems big (and it is) but a Size 7 Human would be so much bigger.

If we take for example a Medium Sized Dog. It's 2 Dimension Foot Print is a bit large then a Human owner. But Human in decent shape would be stronger then a medium dog and be able to lift it (and use leverage against it more effectively).

A leopard weighs about as much as human, is much stronger, but would take up more space in a formation then a human.

That all being said, Spiders should be stronger then human in general. Most animals seem to be. A chimp, which is smaller then a human, is several times stronger then us.

So, I'm in camp Make Spiders Stronger.

[Pnz]

Spiders have spiracles (book lungs) Maybe they lack the oxygen LOL. Game wise i agree they should be stronger

[Demonsthenes]

I think their superhuman HP suggests they're probably bigger than humans, maybe that's a clearer signal than size given the upright vs not distinction.

[freek_o_nature]

I dunno, I think there's something to this: in nature, spiders are phenomenally strong relative to their size, as most arthropods are. Many species of spider can move, lift, and/or carry more than 200 times their own body weight as a function of both their small size and their exoskeletal musculature (so their muscles don't have much body weight to carry, like ours do, and they don't need to be wrapped around internal bones, like ours do). While there's plenty of physics fudging to be done for a spider that's the size of an elephant, I do agree that most spiders have a somewhat lower Strength than seems reasonable to me.

Obviously, Dominions isn't a perfect analogue to real life, and a unit's Size isn't a perfect analogue to an actual organism's size, but for the sake of argument, real-life elephants tend to measure up at between 2.5 and 4 metres tall (about 8 to 13 feet) and to weigh in at between 2 and 7 American tons (4,000 to 14,000 lbs, or about 1,800 to 6,350 kg). They're also extremely strong, routinely carrying 1,000 lbs or more on their backs—the mass of four or five people plus equipment—and can often lift 500 lbs or more with their trunks alone. To reflect this in the game, elephants (and mammoths) are Size 9 and have Strength scores of 20.

Hunter Spiders are also Size 9, but they have a Strength score of 16, which is tied with Hydras for lowest in their category as Size-9 Animals. Similarly, Great Spiders are Size 7 with Strength 11, and are also the lowest-Strength Size-7 Animals; in point of fact, the next-strongest Size-7 Unit of any type is a tree—the Tree of Tainted Fruits (Strength 12)—and after that is the Size-7 Air Elemental (Strength 13).

For comparison, most Lions in the game (including Summer, Strange Color, Leogryphs, etc.) are Size 4 and have Strength scores of 15 (War) to 18 (Kithaironic). Some types of Horses (Destriers, Unicorns, various Steeds, etc.) sport Strength scores of 16 by Size 5; other Size-5 Horses have Strength scores ranging from 13 (Riding) to as high as 17 (Nisean War). Animals with a human-like Strength score of 10 or more start showing up at Size 3, such as Jaguars (Strength 15), Lobsters (Strength 14), and several types of large canine (Sea Dogs at 10, Black Dogs at 13, White Wolves at 15). By Size 7, Jotun Wolves enjoy 23 Strength while other invertebrates (Cave Grubs, Sacred Scorpions, and Omukade) have 17–18 Strength. By Size 9, Strength 18–20 becomes the baseline for non-arachnid, non-serpentine Animals: Chimeras and Great Eagles at 18, Kraken Kings at 19, various pachyderms and Draco Lions (leodrakes?) at 20.

This means that large-sized spiders have a much lower Size-to-Strength ratio than most other Animal units in the game. For example:
Unit___________Size___Strength____Ratio
Giant Scorpion_____2______5_______2.5
Goat ___________2______6_______3
War Dog________2_______7______3.5
Wolf___________3_______9______3
Jaguar__________3______15______5
Great Hawk_______4______11______2.75
Great Lion________4______15______3.75
Riding Horse______5______13______2.6
War Horse_______5______14______2.8
Flame Jelly_______6______7_______1.7
Moose__________6_____16_______2.7
Great Spider______7______11______1.6
Sacred Scorpion____7_____17_______2.4
Jotun Wolf_______7______23______3.3
Gryphon_________8_____16_______2
Shark___________8_____20______2.5
Hunter Spider_____9______16______1.8
Great Eagle______9______18______2
Elephant________9______20______2.2
Sea Serpent_____10______18______1.8
Asp Turtle______10______25______2.5

This certainly isn't a comprehensive list, but I think it demonstrates the relatively low Strength scores of spiders compared to other Animals in their Size category. Granted, there are other Animals that have comparable or lower Strength scores, but these often have what I consider to be more effective rationale: birds, for example, often have slightly lower Strength scores compared to other Animals of the same Size, but being able to fly (without magic) tends to necessitate lower body masses and opens up lots of mobility potential. Flame jellies are notably low on Strength but are dangerous to attack and even approach because of their Fire Shield and Heat Aura. Even similarly bodied Animals like scorpions tend to have better Size-to-Strength ratios than spiders do.

In terms of their combat and killing potential, note that many species of spider that would be Size-1 Units in the game, such as tarantulas, can have fangs (cheliceræ) that are 2–4 cm (0.75–1.5 in) long! If these were scaled up to roughly elephant size—let's assume a factor of 250x—then a spider that's normally around 7.5–12 cm (3–5 inches) long and/or tall would be closer to 3 metres long/tall and would have fangs that are one-half to a whole metre long!!

While I don't think a massive overhaul to spiders for the sake of pseudo-realism is necessary, I do think a small buff to their Strength is a reasonable request; as it stands, a human Militia (Strength 10) with a metre-long Spear (Damage 3, total 13) is almost as dangerous as an elephant-sized tarantula (Strength 16) with metre-long Venomous Fangs (Damage -2, total 14). It may not be a major game issue, but it certainly seems reasonable to me.

[anaris]

technically the larger a spider gets the weaker it would get proportionally, because of the square cube law. So let's not talk realism hahah.

[freek_o_nature]

Publicado originalmente por anaris:

technically the larger a spider gets the weaker it would get proportionally, because of the square cube law. So let's not talk realism hahah.

Quite right, good sir:

Publicado originalmente por freek_o_nature:

While there's plenty of physics fudging to be done for a spider that's the size of an elephant,

Publicado originalmente por freek_o_nature:

Obviously, Dominions isn't a perfect analogue to real life, and a unit's Size isn't a perfect analogue to an actual organism's size,

Publicado originalmente por freek_o_nature:

While I don't think a massive overhaul to spiders for the sake of pseudo-realism is necessary,

Tally ho!

[anaris]

Yeah not disagreeing - agreeing that "spiders struggle to damage relevant targets" is a more important line of argument here than the physics

[boozermonkey]

Spiders in this game are very mistranslated from actual spider traits. These animals IRL are mostly very fast and very defensive.

Strength is not really the important trait for them. It’s all about speed, agility, and accuracy. They rely on their ability to run down prey and then pierce it with those huge razor sharp fangs to deliver a lethal dose of toxins designed to liquify flesh so they can then suck up the soup created from that.

They have lightning fast and highly accurate barb hairs they can fling at enemies that can cause serious eye and respiratory distress in humans, and we are just talking about new world tarantula here, which the black spiders seem to imitate. Spiders of that size will definitely throw clouds of those barbs which again at that size will definitely cause a lot of wreckage to a human frame.

If they are imitating old world tarantula then they don’t have the barb hairs but those are much more aggressive in nature and their poison tends to be way more lethal. Their fangs are larger and more capable of piercing thick armor at dominions sizes.

None of those spiders throw webs at things. Some do leave web trails for defense but not when moving at high speeds.

In general, spiders have a bad reputation not because they are actually dangerous, but because of myth and because they look damn scary. I do think this warrants a fear aura for sure. Who would not run from a mammoth sized giant spider rushing you with huge fangs dripping poison?

The issue with dominions spiders is that by nature, people wouldn’t be on their menu normally, and how do you train an arachnid to act like a war mount without some kind of magical influence at work?

Enter the spider clan sorcerer. These guys need to play a much larger role in the mount creation process and should be the controller as well as the riders. I do think in this case it makes sense for them to be able to cast while mounted as well, making for a mounted spider mage flinging combat magic off the back of their spiders while they are running down hapless troops.

[Zonk]

I agree that spiders have oddly low strength scores that could perhaps be buffed, they do seem too weak even taking into account that they are more associated with stealth and cunning than pure physical power.

However, I feel it's worth noting that they do benefit from having very high protection.
Great spiders have prot 14, Hunter Spiders 16, and the God Spider pretender has prot 19 (and woundfend 2).

Spiders do have exoskeletons which protect their vital organs, but these values are still surprisingly high considering how exposed their limbs are and how they don't have the thick, armor-like plates you expect on something like a scorpion or crab.

[Demonsthenes]

Reflecting on this a bit more, I think it's possible that the strength for these units should be increased to give them appropriate siege strength and resistance for strength checks, but at the same time, either the damage modifiers for Venomous Fangs attacks to be reduced further or more units with fangs to something closer to the 15 AN "strong poison" damage rather than the 35AN "death poison". Given that it's hard to buff poison resistance by more than 10 except using items, "death poison" would be quite fatal to humans even at 25AN damage, for example.

BTW I did notice that the Mussushu has a -10 damage modifier on its fangs, vs. the -2 modifier on most of these other units, so there is some precedent for a lower damage modifier for units whose strength is set based in part on other attacks.

[Zonk]

Publicado originalmente por Demonsthenes:

BTW I did notice that the Mussushu has a -10 damage modifier on its fangs, vs. the -2 modifier on most of these other units, so there is some precedent for a lower damage modifier for units whose strength is set based in part on other attacks.

The Mushussu as a whole is huge and strong (size 8, strength 20), but its serpent tail is relatively small and not super-strong for its size, and the -10 can represent that as it means 20-10=10 damage, lower than Fire Snakes and Horned Serpents' 11 damage (strength 13, -2 fang damage).

[TheMeInTeam]

Sharpness buff is questionable on animals like this but it does let their bites actually work. I'm on board with more strength + similar-to-less damage on the attacks.

[GodHead]

If Spider-Man were in Dominions, he would be weaker than an ordinary human.