Dem Assassins

[hatchfactory]

I think the caps a great Idea and I agree with all you've said except that of warding being useless. The problem is in reining in the assassin to a point that it is no longer THE super stack he would be boring and useless and wouldn't do his job taking out super stacks.

Questions are -Which should be stronger 8 on 8 an Assassin stack or a super stack with ALL other bonuses?
Has ambush become mandatory as part of a super stack?
Why should I even build 4 or 5 turn units if they won't last?

Has it all it come down to in super stack battles is who's got the highest ambush numbers and who rolls first- that sounds incredibly dull. Wheres the strategy?

Some of the more clever players I've played have at the right times utilized what I considered a relatively useless skill or an unconventional strategy and taught me harsh lessons, and I'm glad they have the options for creativity. I think a warding amulet or some such Item in a lv 3 ruin would be a sweet find myself. I don't think it should come down to a guess what I'm building scenario, but having an option to level up warding on your 2nd hero after your first had a nasty meeting with a high level assassin would be a nice option, far from useless. I know many people have particular preferences about map size etc and the "overwhelm with numbers" strategy isn't going to play out the same on all maps such as those with less cities/smaller maps. And even with the cap at 70 people will just use slightly tougher fodder, or pair one up with a dragon, and they'll still be overwhelming. not a complete solution.
So.. if that is all dismissed in the name of simplicity and you wanted to keep to one skill I still think ambush could successfully be used to cancel itself out just like all the other skills currently do. If two opposing stacks with a Pegasi cancel each other out etc. etc. Two equal assassins should cancel each other out too leaving no ambush, as they are both equally quick and sneaky, ambush should be calculated on the difference.

I've taken or lost too many costly investments of planning, time and money that poof into thin air because my/their high level assassin with crows comes along, but I would hate too see another unit nerfed to become undesirable. I think Steve or whoever knew what they were doing when they add warding, keeping an exciting and usefull skill and yet providing a way to keep it under control. I would be so in favor of the cap AND of some kind of insurance, and I'm not alone as it has been brought up a number of times. If that happened, we might rejuvenate demon usage, who knows?

[Chazar]

I think the caps a great Idea and I agree with all you've said except that of warding being useless. The problem is in reining in the assassin to a point that it is no longer THE super stack he would be boring and useless and wouldn't do his job taking out super stacks.

That is simply not true: an assassin stack is a use-once thing, especially with the 70% cap on group ambush, whereas a super-stack can kill continuously.

Let's pitch a crow, 2 orcs, 3 wolfriders, a ghost and an assassin with 70 group-ambush against 4 demons, a devil, a blue archon, a red dragon and a paladin with just 10 leadership:

If I compute right, then due to the 90% rule, all attackers are always killed, except for the assassin itself, which has a survival chances of just 37%.

The defenders are similarly devastated: all die, except for the reddragon with a survival chance of 27% and the paladin with a survival chance of 63% (subsuming the 27% of the dragon in front of him already).

I think this is how it should be: the assassin has a chance to kill ONE super stack, but it likely destroyed in the process.

PS: in the end, the crow had 70% ambush, the orcs 76%, the wolfs 86%, the ghost 95% and the assassin 90%, i.e. I applied the 70 cap only to the overall group ambush of the stack, and added in individual ambush afterwards.

[hatchfactory]

I fail to see the point your trying to make, i want to have an open mind, but your example just helps prove my point. You post an example of a relatively cheap assassin stack taking out a buff stack built of some of the best units.... So what? I agree with the cap, and your just proving that 12 turns worth of units can take out a 20 some turn investment, and poof, gone. Thats not strategy, nor was it earned.

Where you might build your Assassins and ambush stacks to die a glorious death taking out a full dragon stack, most people including myself are using crows, scouts or other 1 turners as fodder to take out smaller stacks of barbarians, dragons and Griffons regardless of wall, strength or bonus and their hero having a better percentage of survival to fight and fight again, therefore dominating a map. It is now far more dangerous to travel in stacks less than 8.

Again, I agree with the cap, as all other stats now have caps too but I don't think it's enough because ambush overrides everything (as it should) and a player should have an option to counter it without having to resort to fodder farming.

If simplicity is still an argument and people were really overwhelmed by the idea of another skill to track I'd argue that the ability to negate the randomness of ambush would be far more important in reserving fair and fun gameplay than the negation of leadership or chaos (as they are really self-regulatory) , so give that job to the archons then as they've lost their usefulness, and let the hero abilities be un-cancelable and at the top of the food chain.

[Chazar]

You post an example of a relatively cheap assassin stack taking out a buff stack built of some of the best units.... So what?

Production time is not the only investment: How much XP did it require to bring the assassin up to 62% group ambush? How much XP did the Paladin require?

We are comparing a Level 8 Hero with cheap unit versus a Level 5 Hero with expensive units! 3 high levels is quite an investment for something that is useful only once, whereas the latter is much less of an investment! At least in my games, I have several Level 3-5 heroes, but only 1-2 at Level 8 and beyond - but that might be just me.

Furthermore, once the hero is dead, production of wolfes and orcs is rendered useless, while the dragons are always useful.

[hatchfactory]

I agree that production time isn't the only investment and in your example most of the ambush coming from the hero does require much investment. Yet back to LPhillips original point, the stacking ability of ambush is quite powerful (which I personally think is cool ) and the 70 group ambush cap can be achieved much easier with multiple lower level heroes and ghosties. If Assassins are truly getting to level 8 that alone proves that they are not disposable and have been ambushing powerful units like crazy all along the way.

You know that non-assasin heroes still can get a group ambush. Put a dreadnight, paladin, barbarian stack together with a single ghost and you could get a 38% group ambush. If that is combined with a cap of 70% your super stack could counter the assasin nicely. Of course you mayl have neglected your other skills to get this, but the possibility is there. No real need for an anti-ambush skill.

But that is not really a counter is it, it just becomes an ambush-fest as ambush treats all units equally, everybody dies. Those nice elementals and green dragons you were attacking with got taken out by a light infantry, why bother with the big guns?

[LPhillips]

No, Hatch, it doesn't just become an ambush fest with all units treated equally. I don't even understand where you're coming from, except that maybe you don't know how Ambush works.

1) Each unit gets an Ambush roll, to which their chances are compared.

2) If one unit hits and the other does not, the hitter instantly kills the opponent. If both hit or none hit, no one dies.

So over 50% of the time Ambush would play no role in the hypothetical battle, making the strength of the units the deciding factor. The strong units would prove themselves extremely valuable then, although the value of Ambush would not be undercut as the Assassin is still effectively countering the high HP units' advantage. Anyway, glad to see a cap instituted! I don't think we will have any further complaints from now on.

Also, 100% ambush stacks are an instant killer to any and all opponent stacks, no matter what their outcome. The only possible exception is that the opposing stack also possesses Ambush and gets at least one successful roll (countering the enemy Ambush similarly to Warding, only it's actually useful all of the time and not just against one strategy).

[hatchfactory]

1) Each unit gets an Ambush roll, to which their chances are compared.

2) If one unit hits and the other does not, the hitter instantly kills the opponent. If both hit or none hit, no one dies.

If this is the case and it does cancel itself out then you are right, I did not understand , must have missed that somewhere and I am satisfied with just the cap. That does make me feel much better about things, and smursh does have a point that raising a heroes own ambush could be their own warding skill in a way. (I've been convinced-change my vote to no on warding)

[Chazar]

1) Each unit gets an Ambush roll, to which their chances are compared.

2) If one unit hits and the other does not, the hitter instantly kills the opponent. If both hit or none hit, no one dies.

Are you sure about this? The detailed battle info seems to indicate otherwise, last time I checked.

Only on the very first round of a battle, ambush is an opposed roll. During a battle, only the unit that enters battle gets an ambush roll. Since only one unit dies each battle round, opposed ambush rolls cannot occur from the second round onwards.

[LPhillips]

Only on the very first round of a battle, ambush is an opposed roll. During a battle, only the unit that enters battle gets an ambush roll. Since only one unit dies each battle round, opposed ambush rolls cannot occur from the second round onwards.

Yes, that's correct. It is covered in the cap topic.