Sorry I've long since taken my turn in that game. I'll find another one soon enough but you should be able to reproduce on a map if you create a 1-1 test game. Just put 1 unit on a swamp/hills/forest and then attack with a ground unit + bat in a stack where the bat has 2 moves and the ground unit enough to move onto the enemy terrain.
Movecost of 1 for fliers grouped with ships is not a bug, it is intended, as the fliers can land and rest on the ships while they are traveling
This *might* make sense in Beta3 and might make sense for a bat. But it doesn't make sense in Beta4 when you have smaller ships like barges and large flying creatures like a Dragon. There is no way a 50 or 60 ft long flying dragon could land and ride on such a boat. I doubt even a Pegasi or Gryffon could land on the barge/junk boat either.
Also this *trick* isn't remotely clear to 90% of the players. I VERY rarely (<10% of players) see my opponents grouping a boat with their fliers to speed up their hero stacks. So from a 'easy to learn' concept this fails the test and falls into the 'need to be an experienced player to know this' category.
LPhillips,
Logically, fliers should get 1-cost movement on all terrain.
Why 1? They should get 2, same as ground units in the open. On a completely featureless map (all open terrain) it would make flying/walking units 100% equal (other than fliers have more base movement).
That's basically it. We have to be very careful of features such as "levitate/fly stack" as well, or we'll see people easily moving their armies onto inaccessible terrain so that they're invulnerable during off turns.
Agreed. This is a delicate issue for sure. Some maps that are loaded with heavy terrain such as Woodslandia so reward fliers that it's almost pointless to make anything else. Other maps such as Bullrun or any that are mostly water like LandSea War take away most of the flying advantage due to having more open/water terrain.
The other thing that would help would be to let land units attack onto inaccessible terrain. DLR did this and I've asked for it here before. But basically you were allowed to attack into the next square even if you could not legally move there (land-water, into mountains). The battle would take place but you would be returned to your original square instead of occupying the defenders square. This at least prevents fliers lurking at the edge of such terrain.
Still I remain opposed to fliers getting road movement rate. That's a bonus they don't deserve or need as bats/dragons etc just evade land units even worse now because they can move 18-20 spaces on a long road then jump off at the very end of their movement on a forest/swamp/hill and land units still need 4-6 moves to attack even if they can somehow catch up. With no road movement then land units can outrun fliers on roads and get ahead of them to cut them off.
I'd be totally fine if they got NO extra moves and lost road/grouped with boats movement rate. But I figure many players would complain they were too slow then.
KGB