Subtle differences with Warlords 2/3

[KGB]

After playing 40+ games I've noticed the following subtle differences with the original Warlords 2/3.

1) Attacking from Water-to-City. It was possible in both Warlords 2/3 for boats to attack coastal cities. Since the combat took place in the city, the attackers were not penalized as 'boats' but fought as normal land units.

2) Attacking to impassible terrain. It was possible in both Warlords 3 (and I think 2) for land units to attack into impassible terrain (mountains). Even though the units could not normally move there they could attack flying units on those squares. If they won, they moved onto the square. Obviously they could not move further on that terrain but could move back to where they came from.

3) Attacking movement cost. In both Warlords 2/3 the cost to attack an enemy stack/city was either 1 movement point (road/city) or 2 movement points (all other terrain). It costs the regular amount of movement points to attack stacks which means often you don't have the 4-6 movement required to attack enemy stacks in forests/hills/swamp.

4) Attacking from Water-to-Land or Land-to-Water. It was possible in both Warlords 3 (and I think 2) for land based stacks to attack water based stacks and vice versa. If the attacker won the battle the attacking stack was transferred to water (if attacking from land) or land (if attacking from water).

Not sure if these are by design or accident. Either way I thought I'd mention them in order to find out.

KGB

[Itangast]

After playing 40+ games I've noticed the following subtle differences with the original Warlords 2/3.

1) Attacking from Water-to-City. It was possible in both Warlords 2/3 for boats to attack coastal cities. Since the combat took place in the city, the attackers were not penalized as 'boats' but fought as normal land units.

At the moment its well balanced. If sieging naval units could attack coastal cities from sea, they would have a too good advantage vs the defending units in a town.
However... If we would allow the coastal town units to convert to naval (like harbour) then they would have 0 movement to fight off the sieging naval units.
If naval units should be able to attack a coastal town, then cities should operate as harbours and a change to movement being nullified would be required
I dont think a change is needed to the current setup, as there is good balance atm.

2) Attacking to impassible terrain. It was possible in both Warlords 3 (and I think 2) for land units to attack into impassible terrain (mountains). Even though the units could not normally move there they could attack flying units on those squares. If they won, they moved onto the square. Obviously they could not move further on that terrain but could move back to where they came from.

Not needed in my opinion... It makes little sense with land units reaching high montains. Flying units would still be able to avoid land units by keeping the 2 tile distance...
What I do would like to see is "specific" mountain tiles (vulcanos?) not crossable by flying...

3) Attacking movement cost. In both Warlords 2/3 the cost to attack an enemy stack/city was either 1 movement point (road/city) or 2 movement points (all other terrain). It costs the regular amount of movement points to attack stacks which means often you don't have the 4-6 movement required to attack enemy stacks in forests/hills/swamp.

Current setup works better. Require 4 movement points to attack in eg woods makes certain terrains units more wantable, which is good. Its well balanced at the moment and all terrain units benefits some.

4) Attacking from Water-to-Land or Land-to-Water. It was possible in both Warlords 3 (and I think 2) for land based stacks to attack water based stacks and vice versa. If the attacker won the battle the attacking stack was transferred to water (if attacking from land) or land (if attacking from water).

Does not sound well designed. Harbours have their strategic geographical purposes, may be defended etc.
Again I think the current setup with only harbours allowing change from naval to land and vice versa is well balanced. The map creator may create additional harbours if required in order to maintain balance.

[KGB]

Itangast,

At the moment its well balanced. If sieging naval units could attack coastal cities from sea, they would have a too good advantage vs the defending units in a town.
However... If we would allow the coastal town units to convert to naval (like harbour) then they would have 0 movement to fight off the sieging naval units.
If naval units should be able to attack a coastal town, then cities should operate as harbours and a change to movement being nullified would be required
I dont think a change is needed to the current setup, as there is good balance atm.

I'm not sure I agree.

If you don't have a nearby port, it's sometimes very difficult to make landfall. Especially since a player can guard that port with several stacks if it's the only port around.

The other thing is it lets players leave coastal cities virtually empty knowing they can only be attacked by flight. So a couple of Elves provides all the defense you need. I liked the fact in Warlords 2/3 you could attack coastal towns. It meant that you had to decide whether to raze them to avoid naval units potentially making landfall or defend them well.

It's clearly not a game breaker obviously. But allowing these types of attacks just provides one more level of strategy in the game.

Not needed in my opinion... It makes little sense with land units reaching high montains. Flying units would still be able to avoid land units by keeping the 2 tile distance...

True. But it keeps them one space further back/away. Not a big deal to me one way or another if the attacking option is added.

What I do would like to see is "specific" mountain tiles (vulcanos?) not crossable by flying...

Agree. In fact I'd like to see all mountain squares cost 3 points for fliers due to them having to fly so high up to cross the mountains.

Current setup works better. Require 4 movement points to attack in eg woods makes certain terrains units more wantable, which is good. Its well balanced at the moment and all terrain units benefits some.

I think it's 'OK' but not necessarily better. Some units move so few squares (Dwarves/Pikemen) that they literally can't attack anywhere but the open/cities. That's why this requirement to have enough movement points seems awfully harsh because it overly penalizes slow moving units while faster moving units aren't penalized to the same degree. There is also a 'bug' in this method in that if you put in a flier with a stack of land units, the flier requires the same number of points to attack as the land units instead of their normal 2 movement. This bug has cost me the ability to attack a few times.

Plus units already have combat terrain bonus's which provides benefits in battle.

I'd like this to be a game option or at least require fewer points (say 3 points in terrain like swamp/hills/forest) to attack.

Does not sound well designed. Harbours have their strategic geographical purposes, may be defended etc.
Again I think the current setup with only harbours allowing change from naval to land and vice versa is well balanced. The map creator may create additional harbours if required in order to maintain balance.

Again not a game breaker to me. Merely one more thing a player would have to consider when moving naval units near shore or moving land units near shore.

In many ways, since this game has no AI component there is no reason it could not go back to Warlords I style navies where you built actual ships (which were units) and could embark/disembark where ever you wanted to.

KGB