new units

[KGB]

Kenc80,

A lot of valid points in this post.

If I was a noob at this game, I'm going to get absolutely slaughtered in an FFA and be bewildered when I am. my boats cant attack, how did his stack just do that? I thought those were strength 2 but wait, his flying hero just attacked my city with flying mammoths with the entire stack at +12 strength?! holy shit what just happened!?

Noob's are supposed to get slaughtered. That's their lot in life.

All kidding aside, noobs get slaughtered in checkers and chess too and those games aren't really complex in terms of rules/powers etc. It's not complexity of rules that causes noob's to get slaughtered.

I love the complexity but I think we need to be a bit careful. one reason I never really progressed along to DLR and some of the later iterations of Warlords was because of the complexity. I liked being able to come in and play. In beta 3 and especially beta 2 I felt like it was very easy for players to come in and get a hang of the game and fight.

A good point. Warlords 2 = Risk. DLR = Axis and Allies.

You can sit down in 10 minutes and learn Risk and play decently but not great in a couple of hours. It takes an hour or more to learn the rules of Axis and Allies and takes a fair number of hours to play decently due to the nature of learning every side's position + unit powers etc.

What's really needed is a guide for new players. Unfortunately that falls on Piranha/SnotlinG or someone else with admin access on the site. A guide would start with:

1) A play through of the single player map that's already there. That's a perfect starting place. Ideally it would have an additional tutorial text like DLR had to explain how ruins worked, how combat worked, production worked, vectoring worked etc.
2) A game on beginner settings. In the game setup screen we need Beginner/Intermediate/Advanced settings buttons for new players to know what rules they should be using. A Beginner game would have Fog of War OFF, 100% ruin success (in Beta4 and beyond), cities can produce allies OFF.
3) A game on intermediate settings. Fog of war OFF, normal chance to die in ruins, cities can produce allies ON.
4) a game on advanced settings Fog of war ON.

This way new players can work their way up through the settings until they feel comfortable.

A beginner game should also always take place on one of the small maps in 2 player only mode so they aren't overwhelmed in a large FFA game and don't have to worry about vectoring units around and large empire management that comes with large maps. Even better if that map includes limited terrain types.

If I'm a new player holding my own and all of a sudden a flying hero comes out of nowhere and absolutely massacres four of my back castles I'm going to be seriously discouraged. Maybe thats part of the game. Maybe most of the players are beginners.

Noobs should also ask questions. Not just on the forum but in games themselves. If they are in beginner games (marked on the join game screen as beginner games so it's easy to identify them) it makes it easier to help them.

I'm always more than willing to provide advice for new players and tutor their advancement. Several have asked and I have provided. Sometimes I offer even if not asked because I am not sure if a player needs the help or not.

Once team games become available it will also help to team up newbies and veterans on teams so newbies can see how it's done.

I dont want to lose potential players. Now dont get me wrong, its fun to play against the best players out there...but I just dont want to lose noobs over too much complexity...maybe thats an unfounded concern. maybe beginners will be attracted to that stuff.

I suspect that anyone who comes here has played at least one version of Warlords (or similar game) in the past and has some idea what they are getting themselves into.

That's why the beginner/intermediate/advanced game buttons will help players realize what kind of game they are entering.

KGB

[piranha]

We are aware that complexity can be difficult to newbies and with each beta we have learned things from watching friends try the game. There are things that you take for granted just because you played warlords back in the day that are not so obvious. The flag change was one such thing, there are a couple of more similar changes that we plan to make where things doesn't seem to follow the logic that people are used to from todays games.

Warpedia should be improved for beta4 and we are planing a couple of tutorials. Not sure if they will be in when we launch beta4 or if we will create them as soon as beta4 is launched.

But its a good point. I want to be really careful with things like teleport, fly the entire army or move long distances.

But I also think that people can learn quite difficult game mechanics with some time given.
If I go back to a game like starcraft which I played a lot they introduced a invisible unit that is super strong (dark templar) and if you didn't have a detector when your enemy sent one such unit to your base you died from just 1 unit. In the beginning people would rush to build one of them and win the game. But people learn and after some time it didn't work any longer. But obviously there is a limit.

[kenc80]

sounds good. It wasnt my intent to hijack this thread with that tangent, I probably should have posted a new topic. I apologize. Piranha, what youre doing sounds good. I think you make a good point about super move bonuses. I'm glad to see you have these concerns as well.

Having said that, I'm anxiously awaiting my 25move flying mammoth stack

[KGB]

Having said that, I'm anxiously awaiting my 25move flying mammoth stack

So is my 32 moving Wizard stack

[LPhillips]

Looks like that tangent was well-covered, so I'll move back to the unit ability discussion.

I can see the need to limit an offense-boosted unit's movement speed. I was thinking about that on the way home. 10 or 12 was my thought, but 10 would be fine. You have to remember that offensive units are only cost-effective for offense. The point is to add a layer of opportunity for strategy, and I don't see it as potentially unbalancing (as currently proposed). If someone sends a stack at you with crusaders, you're compelled to meet it partway and disarm the threat. If you wait for it to hit, the damage will be severe. If you attack it first, you're in the gold. We're talking about something that has (compared with the strongest 1-turners) ONE extra strength on attack, and TWO less on defense, with a tiny bit of extra move tacked on. Conquering neutrals is a possible use, but that was not the point of the idea.

I would like to see a 0-strength scouting unit that is produced two at a time. Something that will always be defeated when alone, so that you can rid the map of them rather easily with crows and the like. Limit their maximum strength to 2, so they never become a balance issue (a 0-str unit that produces two at a time is two 4-str units with the right hero). It would make it more practical to scout enemy stacks and the map when production centers are scarce. As units and their abilities diversify, scouting will become absolutely essential. However, it should be possible to disable their use in the game rules or map creation.

[Pillager]

I think that this 1 turn +3 attack 10 movement crusader could work, and would be fairly different than the 1 turners currently available. It would be a very tactical unit..needing to attack to be fully effective. I'm not sure if that is a good or a bad thing. I have been in a 'dreadknight dogfight' before where neither stack could afford to be the defender... it was fun as a one time thing...but felt very different than the normal warlords experience..much more chessy (for lack of a better term).

The 2 scouts at a time idea might be too good (unless they were slowish) . Why build one pathetic combatant (crow or scout) when you could build two? To be honest I never build scouts now..well almost never. I find that the scout's stack terrain bonus of 3 is still too slow. Maybe if the scout had higher personal movement, I would consider building it over the crow. Or perhaps the scout could have the new stack movement +1 or +2?

Perhaps 2 for 1 Orcs? Not sure how this would be balanced, but it does seem thematic.

[Moonknight]

Question, when, if ever, will there be any editing to the number of hit points to all the units? This would significantly increase the options to distinguish units.

It would also allow for a third 'temple', so there would be one for an increase of strength, movement, and hit points (+1, max 4).

[KGB]

LPhillips,

I agree with Pillager. At 1 turn, 10 moves, +3 attack it would be fine. The 10 moves are the key factor here because it means that Lt Infantry/Hv Infantry can both attack before being attacked. Those are the 2 units that must be able to reach the Crusader without being reached themselves in order to avoid being slaughtered. The cost should be in the 300-350 range for this unit.

And I also agree with Pillager about the DreadKnight experience and how it (and Elementals) are pure tactical units due to the fact their bonus/skill is in play only 1/2 the time. This is something that the game in truth doesn't need more of.

MoonKnight,

I haven't read any serious discussion about increasing the number of hits on units. I agree that having more hits like DLR differentiates units better. It also makes it harder to get everything balanced too so that's probably one reason why it hasn't had serious discussion.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

For Beta4 scout will get following changes:
Move increased to 20 (from 18)
Movecost in Ice and Desert will be 2 for units grouped with the Scout.
Forest, Swamp and Hills will be 3 for units grouped with the Scout.

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

Can we also get the scouts view radius increased to 5.

That is it's primary function so it should have a much better view radius than a bat (3) to make it worthy of consideration.

KGB