Balancing the Lvl 1 units

[zorro]

I think hitpoints need to be involved so you can have a 4/1 elf but a 2/3 dwarf or a 1/4 heavy infantry, 3/2 light cav, 2/1 scout etc.

I made a table how I would actually try to balance units out. It shows the current units first, the second half shows changed values.

Hitpoints rock

WarbaronsBeta3Units.png (157.67 KiB) Viewed 4023 times

[KGB]

Pillager,

You definitely build a lot more Dwarves than I do. I guess I just live with Giants or tough it out on hills using scouts. They are nice in water of course but I find I can make do with Hv Infantry for that at 1 less strength but 1/2 the cost to purchase letting me buy more heroes.

I agree that I'd rather have +8 moves and the occasional open bonus instead of +1 strength at all times. But that's just me and I wasn't sure how others felt since many players like getting the +1 strength at all times. Part of the reason I suggested 225 was because it was more than Hv Infantry reflecting they are better and because upkeep is 3. I'm OK with that upkeep because they are attacking units meant to be moving/attacking and thus dying in great numbers. If they were city guards then I'd want the upkeep reduced but anyone using them for that is using them wrong. On the other hand if Elves are 250 (as I suggest below) then 250 for Lt Calv is probably OK to try for Beta4.

Elves should be 250 tops. They are light infantry with woods movement/combat and anti-air bonus. IMHO, not quite as good/useful as Lt Calv. Not sure whether that will be more or less needed in Beta4 with the Eagle having the same skill and being a better hunter of flying units but I can live with 250 for Beta4 to evaluate how useful the anti-air remains for them.

Zorro,

I doubt Beta4 is going to include changes to the units HP's since it's so far along in development and would be such a big change in addition to all the other big changes in Beta4. It makes more sense to introduce something that major in Beta5/6 when there would be time to work out the HP's for the units.

KGB

[LPhillips]

We all have a lot of different ideas, but I'd like to sum up the general consensus so far:

a) Dwarfs are slightly overpowered for a 1-turn unit. Ideas on correcting this are conflicted.

b) Most people don't like Pikemen. They're high upkeep, slow, and only situationally useful. Ideas on changing this vary, but nothing has been suggested other than turning them into a more average, rounded 1-turn unit.

c) Elves don't come anywhere close to deserving a cost above 300. They're just woods+ light infantry who occasionally get to utilize their anti-air bonus. No one seems to object to ~250 cost for them.

d) Light Cavalry need to be reduced in cost to ~225. Zorro, I think adding more movement to them is just over the top.

e) One-turners are relatively too good. Some people would like to see one-turn units' move bonus adjusted, so that they don't help stacks so very much. This might be all the balance needed in reducing one-turners' overall utility.

The general suggestions seem to be to reduce the units' uniqueness and make them more uniform. Reduce terrain bonuses, equalize movement (or rather just speed up slow units), etc. I don't like that trend at all. It seems many people want most units to be useful for nearly all purposes. To me, that would just destroy their flavor and remove a lot of the strategy and cunning of the game.

I understand the drive behind it: players want to see games more balanced, and they're irritated by getting cities of Light Infantry and Pikemen while their enemies happen to get Light Cavalry and Dwarfs. I think equalizing the units is the opposite direction from where we want to go; instead the way city production is randomly generated needs a huge overhaul. KGB's suggestion was a start, but we might come up with something better.

I do like Zorro's idea that ghosts should fly. I think they should. But that's maybe a bit off-topic.

[piranha]

I agree with your sum up LPhilips.

Some units needs tweaking, like the elf price. But when reading some of the adjustments it seems people have different opinion about the same units so they may not be that unbalanced.

Its okay that some units are only useful in some occasions, like a hill specialist is good to produce in hill areas but not good on a open map.

I also think the problem is that what you produce is largely decided what you get when capturing cities.

To suggest another way of how production could be decided. Lets say cities are categorized in 4 levels. The level decide how much income the city generates, which unit is guarding the city (Units would be place in a level depending on their STR).
When you capture a neutral city you receive a lump of money depending on the city level and you have to decide what you want to produce in the city. After we limit the hero offers as suggested in other threads I don't think the ultimate way is to just sit and wait for heroes.
The base idea here is that players build their own production instead of it being randomized for them. It doesn't have to happen exactly like I described.

In fact the randomize problem will still remain to some extent since someone might only get level 3s and someone else level 1s.

If we want to limit the random effect even more I think cities should start at a low base. Lets say income 5, wall 3, no production. Then you have to spend money on upgrading the city income / wall / production as you want.
Any opinions about that?

[Pillager]

Piranha,

I think it would be going a bit too far. If every city's production was decided by the player capturing it, I suspect we would end up with less varied armies. Cities would also be less varied (only differentiated by income level). I think this would leech a fair bit of color out of the game.

Lphillips,

I agree with most of your points, but....

b) I actually find that I fight a fair number of pikemen, so some people must like them.

d) If light cav are reduced to 225, they need to have their open bonus reduced to +1.

e) I don't think move bonuses are the way to limit the power of one turn units (since that would only encourage players to have one scout or level 2 unit in a stack). Instead, the more versatile/powerful 1 turn units should be slightly nerfed in terms of strength or terrain bonuses.

Consider the light inf to be the base lvl 1 unit. Right now it is nearly useless because slightly more expensive units are far stronger or faster. The heavy inf is not only a point stronger, but it also gets an open bonus. The light cav is not only much faster than the light inf, it also gets an open bonus of +2. Remove the open bonus from the heavy inf and reduce the open bonus of the light cav by one, and we get more of a curve, and less of a sudden jump in power.

This would also help increase the gap in power between the 1 turn and 2 turn units...which really should be a little wider.

Responding to Lphillip's comment that the proposed changes would make the lvl 1 units too similar, I disagree. I admit that some would be a little less extreme, but overall they would be better balanced and still significantly different.

And Zorro,

I would also like to see some hp variations some day....but 4 wounds for a heavy inf? Really? That just seems wacky to me.

[zorro]

Yeah, that can be a 2/3 or whatever, just so sweet to dream of variable hit points

But seriously, what I think that really needs tweaking is the viewing range of most units, everyone and his dog is a scout, most units that dont fly or scout, are huge or have magical ways should have 1 or 2 view.