Barbarian balance

[magian]

First, let me say that I really like the idea of the Barbarian. What isn't to like about a combat beast hero.

However, after playing an FFA game on a smaller map (rivalry), and having all my cities burnt to the ground by a lone Barbarian riding an eagle.. well I am starting to think the barbarian should be a little less extreme.

One issue to consider is that, at level 2, the barbarian is the best front-line unit in the game. 44 strength and 3 wounds can do some serious damage. Let's say that a level 2 barbarian is about equivalent to a green dragon, the barbarian is stronger, but the dragon is faster. How long does it take a paladin to reach red dragon level of stack boosting and strength? He won't be there at level 2, that much I know. It is true that the red dragon is a level 5 unit, so it isn't a totally fair comparison. However, the paladin will need to wait unit level 3 to reach the stack boosting power of the pegasi.

I like the barbarian being able to attain his upper limits of strength. But it seems like a case of too much too fast.

[KGB]

Magican,

As a heavy Barbarian user I can say that all he brings is his individual strength. If you weaken that then he has nothing to offer at all especially since at higher levels (L5+) he's really inferior to the other heroes. The Paladin and all other heroes bring some stack skills immediately at L1 and those only get better. So that a L2 Paladin stack will beat a L2 Barbarian stack (8 equal units other than the 2 heroes) by virtue of the +4 bonus.

If you suspect your opponent is using a Barbarian then you *have* to buy Orc defenders (or Wolfriders). They at least give you a shot at killing the Barbarian/Eagle combination (4 Orcs already give a 22% chance to kill by Ambush alone).

KGB

[magian]

I like the barbarian too. In fact, I had one in that game. But when 2 units (a barbarian riding an eagle in this case) burn 7 of your cities in as many turns, It makes you sit up and take notice. I'm not talking about a barbarian playing the paladin's game, with a full stack and so on. I'm talking about a very powerful, very mobile force that I couldn't catch with any sort of army that could harm it. Plus all those units the paladin would need to be anything like an equal threat can be out performing other duties.

I'm not complaining. Like i said I really like the barbarian, and having one raiding around burning cities is about as barbaric as you can get. However, I think there is potentially a balance issue here on small maps.

[smursh]

The barbarian is very powerful early, but he is poor for exploring ruins, and his power at high levels is weaker than other heroes. He is also very vulnerable to ambush. Even an orc has a chance to kill him since he is useless hiding behind other units. Used ghosts or assassins to take them down.

[KGB]

Magican,

Sometimes the Barbarian is going to do exactly what happened to you because I too use Barbarian/Eagle to capture cities and raid enemy lands. It's especially bad on smaller maps where the distances between cities is small and the Barbarian can reach a lot of cities in a short time. But that kind of thing very rarely happens on the larger maps (it's one of the reasons I never play 50x maps). If you make changes that weaken him on smaller maps then he'll be ruined on larger maps.

KGB

[magian]

I'm not a big fan of small maps either, victory often seems to come down to one battle (a little too eggs in a basket for me).

Rivalry is pretty tight quarters for 4 player FFA, setting the stage for early skirmishes with smaller groups of low-level units. Pretty much the perfect setting for the barbarian's skill set.

I can also see the difficulty of balancing units/heroes for every game type and map size. Never mind details like city density and terrain composition on specific maps. But even if perfect balance is impossible, the attempt still needs to be made.

However, it seems to me that the barbarian is rather extreme. Remember the DLR barbarian? That was a hero that could go the 'melee monster' route (although not quite so well as this warbarons barbarian), but the DLR Barb had a small starting stack bonus which could be improved. The DLR Barbarian could also buy speed (a crazy stack movement boost). All-in-all, a much more well-rounded hero. Well rounded things tend to cause less balance issues than extreme ones.

Why not give the barbarian a small starting stack boost (say a bit of chaos/morale when attacking) and let him improve that for a slightly high price per point. Give him a higher max group move bonus. Then reduce his strength increase to 5 for 5 points.

[Experix]

Last time, quite a lot of my games on middle-sized maps which are otherwise about equal, are decided by one and the same thing: Who is able to stop his opponent's barbarian.
In cca turn 8-9, this beast with 3 lifes and 58 strength just appears in front of your cities. You could hardly know earlier than two turns before where he is heading. You can of course buy some orcs and wolfriders. But you can't have them everywhere. And if you don't have plenty of them (which is, somehow, in contrary to other strategies than just to stop enemy's barbarian), it's only a very weak hope for a good luck. And if your assassin is too far away, the game is usually over, no matter how strong you are elsewhere.

I find that the first hero = barbarian and the second one = assassin (in hope that opponent's barbarian may choose the direction such that they would meet), starts to be too usual scenario... I'd like to use more different strategies, but since paladin was made unsuitable for longer games (why he could have such a high intelligence, if he has so little he can learn?), I find this one quite superior. It seems to be universal, suitable for me if my opponent happens to be next to me as well as if he starts in the opposite corner of the map.

I play very few of games on small maps too. But the "barbarian problem" appeares in my games on cca 100x100 (for example 4 lords, pitfall, high sea's combat) maps more often that I would like. I mention these maps because I think that no starts for 1:1 there are very close to each other).
I think fixed start positions can help this a lot (i.e. if you know from beginning that your opponent isn't starting from the corner west nor south of you but from the opposite one, for example), but I really like that you have to find him and adjust your strategy to all the variants before you know. I prefer maps with multiple starts a lot (the second reason is the replayability).

I don't know whether it could help a little, but I'd like to see some weak one-turner with high (15-18?) individual ambush... Even 8 orcs have only 39% probability kill barbarian (as a stand alone unit) by ambush... And it is not much a problem to hide him on places where they can't reach or hide him behind some one-turners to protect him against ambushing attack and than attack yourself...

[KGB]

Magican,

Actually the DLR Monk is the equivalent to the Warbarons Barbarian. His spell that gives him extra strength/hits/move along with +4 move upgrades lets him reach 30+ movement and 9/4 stats or better really quickly allowing him to run around searching ruins/capturing cities on his own. Plus he had other handy spells for boosting fear/morale bonus etc.

Reducing the Barb strength boost to +5 for 5 points makes him 50 Str at L3. Still more than enough to crush a couple of 1 turn defenders. It would also mean the other heroes would need to get less strength for their own strength upgrades (say 3 instead of 5) since they get other stack goodies. I'm think that would make those upgrades a bit too useless on those other heroes.

Experix,

I've been using that hero selection (Barb 1st, Assassin 2nd) since 0.8. Now that the Paladin is weaker I almost never take him at all any more as a Ranger searches ruins and a DK is better long term. I too wish the Paladin could reach +13 Leadership instead of +10 and could get more than +2 group move.

I also play many of those same maps myself. And I agree with you that the Barbarian comes out of no where really quickly (either mine or theirs). Moving the Orc's back to 8% would help as 8 Orcs would then jump to 49% on ambush alone.

Fixed position map starts definitely helps and I really prefer games like that. Otherwise too often someone starts in a position to cut the other player off allowing them 2/3 of the map simply because they started in a better position.

Another possibility would be to add a game option that removes 'razing'. The Barbarian could then raid and pillage but not raze. Since he would be unable to hold multiple cities on his own he'd still have lots of value as a expansion hero to capture cities and plunder them but would not be able to end someone's game really early by razing them out.


Otherwise the only other viable option I see is what Magican suggested which is giving him a stack bonus and turning him into a clone of every other hero. The problem is there isn't a stack skill to give him that isn't already covered.

KGB

[Argammon]

Hmm... I don't see the point:

Without calculating:

Assassin > Barbarian > Death Knight / old Paladin / Valkyrie > Assassin ... ?

The only thing I slightly dislike is not that the barbarian is to strong, but that it is to much of a guess game.

[magian]

Well, the DLR monk wasn't much of an early game hero (as I recall). You needed a gob of mana crystals to get the monk-fu in full effect. Besides, even the monk had some stack bonuses (manslayer, fear, morale, wrath of kali insanity).

For the record, I am not advocating for the barbarian to become a paladin clone.