Battle resolution

[Dirkules]

Being a Warlods II veteran, I was very excited to find this game a short while ago. With full motivation and expectations I started several games. Now I find myself quite disappointed.
Claming to be a highly strategic game, it clearly fulfills the expectations regarding the city, army and map move aspects. Overall a great adaption of warlords with significant improvements. It would be the ultimately fantastic strategy game experience, if there wouldn't be the battle resolution. To be frank, that part of the game is pure crap. I am sure there is a lot of thinking and theory about it. But sometimes that doesn't make things better and the big picture gets lost. And that is what happened here.
I suggest you have a look at the random number gerenator for battle resolution of DOMINIONS. While poor units can still beat much stronger ones, it is much more balanced and will not happen on such a regular basis, that strategic acting is hardly possible in the long run.

Besides the battle resolution, this game is a beautiful jewel. But as for me that part alone undermines the foundation for a solid strategy game. If it will be fixed, I am happy to help bring more players in. But as it is now, I will not continue playing. There is too much more balanced and thus more rewarding gaming experience out there.

[KGB]

Dirkules,

It must be a long time since you played Warlords II. The battle resolution here is exactly the same was it was there in terms of random numbers other than there are plenty of new skills and powers much of which was introduced in Warlords III and Warlords IV.

The biggest problem here is there are still way too few units in the game (starting units are low and gold income restricts how much you can make). That makes even a single unlucky outcome in the early turns weigh very heavily on who wins and loses. This was mostly overcome in Warlords III and IV but has not made it into Warbarons unfortunately.

KGB

[Dirkules]

KGB,

Yeah, it's really a shame. It would be so simple to fix it. It wouldn't take more than a day to design and implement a more balanced battle resolution and would turn this into a really outstanding strategy game.
I still play Warlords II deluxe frequently and the battle resolution is rarely crucial there, while here it frequently did blow up seemingly save attacks within my first week already. Several 89% attacks of heroes with army failed. No point wasting more time on this lottery

Really a pity...

[KGB]

You should stick around and keep playing. The game owes you some luck where you win some 11% battles I've also mentioned that showing the battle odds is one of the worst things they've done because it angers players when they lose battles like the ones you describe. Better to just not show the numbers so players don't realize how unlucky they got.

In truth this is the only real place to play multiplayer Warlords unless you are lucky enough to have friends over for hot seat games.

KGB

[Igor]

Numbers of probability help to count was it worth to attack with these units or not, and to consider the same cases in future.
To be sure in the win just enough to wait 1 more turn to add units and attack with 90%+ probability for guaranteed win.

p.s. A crybaby should buy a handkerchief and wipe away the tears

[Dirkules]

Thanks for your efforts, KGB. You are a really nice guy and stick to the point, which is quite rare nowadays. Too often online behavior is just trying to insult and quickly off topic. I got your point. But that is not what I am looking for. Actually no influence by luck at all would be rather ok for me.
And I am so lucky to have a warlords 2 hotseat session with my best friend almost every week

[KGB]

Thanks for your efforts, KGB. You are a really nice guy and stick to the point, which is quite rare nowadays. Too often online behavior is just trying to insult and quickly off topic.

Trying to grow the community. We always need more players for larger free for all games and team games.

And I am so lucky to have a warlords 2 hotseat session with my best friend almost every week

Do you play 'no questing'? When I played War2 we always had to agree to that for the human players because the rewards were so badly skewed that getting a 2x move item ruined the game (so could a hoard of Archons and on smaller maps a flight item).

KGB

[Dirkules]

We play with quests on, but fog of war and diplomacy off. Medium to large maps. We usually create a few maps until we get one that we like.
Double movement items are nice, but rarely deciding a game between us. We mostly go for allies. Warlords 2 has the nice feature, that the number and strength of allies depends on the overall situation: the more you are behind, the more and better allies you will get.

[KGB]

I don't recall reading that in the manual or seeing it on any of the fan websites anywhere. Are you sure you are not just imagining this? It would be the anti-thesis of strategy to reward the player who is behind with extra/better stuff just because they are behind especially since the game can't reliably determine what's ahead/behind really means.

I also don't recall quests giving you a choice in reward. You just get what they give you. Some ruins on the other hand did offer choices like allies or gold.

Double movement is FAR superior to anything else. You aren't using it right or taking full advantage of what it brings if you don't recognize that. It allows you to complete future quests at 2x the speed your opponents do (which brings yet more allies/gold/items etc). It also allows you to raid deep into enemy lands and just raze everything because your hero stack can't be caught.

KGB

[Dirkules]

Actually the game updates the leaderboard every turn with concrete points for each player. I do not have proof for the "more allies for weaker players" theory, but it is a feeling from hundreds of games. And yes, often there is a choice when double movement items are rewarded by sages giving choice between specific items, allies and gold.

If the game is early on and I have time to leverage it, then I would also choose the double movement. But if it is towards the final decision, I may prefer 6-8 archons or dragons.

Well, the only way to resolve this question of superior strategy is that we are having a match together