Allies

[KGB]

So it's turn 8 in a MP team game and I open my turn and find that a Hero + Dragon + Giant have swept in and taken my capitol killing the 4 defenders there.

The Giant/Dragon/Hero are blessed and the nearest bless site is more than 1 turn away from me. In fact for the hero + dragon and giant to have reached me after blessing the dragon would have had to have entered the game at least 3 turns ago (turn 5) and much more likely it was before that.

The total bonus made the Giant 52 (30 with bless, +12 morale + 10 from walls) and Dragon a mind boggling 67 (45 with bless + 12 morale + 10 from walls) and even with my own Paladin and +2 command ring + Crusader + 6 armies (Hv Infantry/Lt Calv) I was slaughtered (8% chance to win) even with my own +9 bonus (good thing the enemy hero was a Valkyrie or it would have been even worse). I sent my gold to my teammates and resigned (and I am sure another one will resign in another turn or two when he suffers the same fate). Even if I could have brought all 20 of my armies I had on turn 8 into one giant battle I am not sure I could have won unless I got extremely lucky.

I suggested for Beta4 that the Allies given out get a serious revamp. Handing out Dragons as an ally before turn 15 in any game is a very bad thing balance wise. Its pure luck to get one and when you do you are so unstoppable early on that it's not remotely fair for the other players especially large team games/smaller maps where you start close to each other (3-5 turns away).

My suggestion once again is:

Before turn 4 - No Ally of any type possible (so if you want a 2nd hero early it will be with no allies)
Dragons - Not before turn 15
Devils/Archons/Demons - Not before turn 10

Wizards/Elementals/Medusa are fine on any turn started at 4. Not sure what else qualifies as an ally now so I can't comment on the rest.

KGB

P.S. How is new hero cost calculated? I've been offered a hero for as little as 300 gold while at other times it's been 1200. In both extremes that hero has come with no allies with the average cost being in the 700-800 range with no allies. Other times I get 1-2 allies for 1100-1200 range. Just trying to understand what it costs to get a hero and whether allies factor into that cost (they should and the value of the ally should determine how much more and how many).

[LichKing]

Hey KGB, I'm the owner of that Dragon . I produced it, it wasn't an ally. You can blame the mapmaker in this occasion, because I knew there is a town there with demon/spiders production, I plundered it for an insane amount of gold even at 50% (orc). If I plundered the town directly on the north, I would still have made a good deal of money. I had dragon production at turn 2, ready at turn 7, killed blue hero, blessed it, and was already at 1 turn from your capital.

[KGB]

LichKing,

Wow, that's a serious map problem then. However many random maps may end up with the same issue due to pure luck of what gets placed in a nearby city.

The dragon cost of 2000+ gold seems fine. But then there is either too much gold being awarded from Plunder or too much gold given on turn 1 so that players are saving 800-1000 for Dragon production.

In any case, something has to be done about Dragons being able to be purchased on turn 2, 3, 4 etc. Maybe the real solution is not to allow buying of Dragon/Devil/Archon production before turn 10.

KGB

[LichKing]

It's not a question of luck, in the sense that this town (and many others on the map) has a defined production, not random, so I knew what I was going to get by plundering it. Especially Mordor has a very powerful starting position, this problem could be solved if the mapmaker changed the production on those cities. Maybe he did already, since this is the old version of the map.

In the town in question there were 4 units on production, among them demons and spider, and another strong unit, that was around 1400 gold after pillaging, if I remember well. If it had only one strong creature I would have not plundered it, probably.

[Jeremy]

I made and maintain the Middle Earth map. Unit placement is partially related to balance, but is dominated by the story -- I've tried to keep as true to Tolkien's world as I can, while still making every side fun to play (although intentionally very DIFFERENT to play.) Every single city on the map has specified production -- from the crappy hobbit towns that only produce hobbit scouts to some intentionally truly awesome cities.

But I hadn't considered the issue of plundering, and I will now. I'll go through all the cities and see if I need to produce fewer units in them, because of the plundering issue. I'm constantly tweaking the map, so that's no problem.

The city in question must be Minas Morgul. It gets Demons to represent the Nazgul -- they come from Minas Morgul. Spiders, to represent Shelob's kin, also from right there. And Goblins, because Orcs are the fodder troops of Mordor. I'll likely pull the Spiders. Demons kind of need to stay, as Tolkien affictionados know that Nazgul come from Minas Morgul.

Anyway, sorry about that -- hadn't considered the profits of plundering.

[Jeremy]

Wish there was a map-maker option to turn off plundering. Although I know some players use it extensively, it's more atmospheric to have certain units only come from certain areas. (Elephants only come from Harad in the south, for example.)

[KGB]

Jeremy,

There is another thing you can do. Leave the production as is but place extra defenders in the city. In other words just make the Walls L6 for a +10 Wall bonus then put a couple of Spiders in the city. That way no one will be plundering the city on turn 2 or turn 10 for that matter since there would be 2 spiders and a demon in there.

If strong allies could not be bought until later in the game (turn 10) this would solve problems of map makers trying to do thematic maps and having to worry about players plundering known cities for gold and building super units in the early turns.

KGB

[LichKing]

Another solution for maps with a theme (and all others for balance reasons) would be, in the map editing, to allow the mapmaker to forbid a certain production in a certain town (it is already done automatically for sea creatures). So a mapmaker could decide what in a town could be ever be bought as production, so even if one plunders a town, could find out that he can buy only crappy things in that town, or the units he just plundered. Or the mapmaker could disallow dragon/devil/etc production on some or most towns on the map, it would be up to him/her.

[KGB]

LichKing,

There was a 'no allies' option in Beta3 that has been dropped in Beta4. That option prevented buying Dragons/Archons/Devils as production. Of course then you are at the mercy of getting one as part of a hero offer which can be maddening when you don't get one.

A restricted list of units would be nice but very painful for mapmakers to do on a city by city basis. I'd much rather have a 'no pillage' option for a game to prevent any pillaging and force players to either raze a city or occupy. This would be much better for theme maps (Illuria, Middle Earth etc). You wouldn't turn this game option on a lot but it would be something different when it's on.

I still think the best 'general' solution is not to allow purchasing of Dragons/Devils/Archons before turn 10. There isn't a need for those units to be in the game that early. Along with changing the costs of those units (2400 for a Dragon, 2000 for Devil/Grand Archon) it would make them much less likely to be purchased anyway.

KGB

[LichKing]

I know it would be complicated for the mapmaker to adjust every town, but he wouldn't be obliged to do so (a no plunder option would be also nice). I started making a map where some regions have dwarves, others elves, other animals etc, but if one can plunder and decide what to produce in every town, the 'theme' is gone. In the end a map is created only once and these things would be optional, or limited to certain towns.