Additional Army/Ally Types

[KGB]

Piranha,

I think the idea that the heros may have slightly cheaper upgrades depending on which one you choose is pretty interesting. Could be hard to balance. The numbers we are playing with can't change very much or a unit will be unbalanced.

This was the DLR model. Upgrade cost depended on the hero. So leader types like Paladins upgrade command easier than non-traditional leaders heroes like say a Thief or a Valkrie. Those heroes instead had other skills they got cheaper.

What you say about balance is quite true. It literally took years to get the 15 DLR heroes correctly balanced with regards to skill costs. So if you go that route you have to be prepared to do balance tweaks. But the reward is that it makes each hero feel unique and different. If you keep the number of hero types down to say 4-6 range it won't be as bad as DLR to balance.

Me and Snotling have debated the idea to multiply all values. Lets say the dice have 100 sides (*5 compared to now) and all units and bonuses are *5 STR compared to now.
That would allow us to finetune balancing much more. It will give more room for more upgrades since each upgrade won't have to be as big. Just take the stack bonus for example, the pegasi would be +5 STR in this case. Another unit could be stack +2 STR. I find the current battle model a bit limited in many ways, by multiplaying it like that some of those limitations would open up.
I can understand that warlords 4 tried to do something like tactical combat to add more strategy to battles.

I can see quite a lot of benefit in multiplying all numbers like that, and I haven't been able to see any negative sides of doing it. Any thoughts? Any reason for not doing it?

Tradition?

That's really the biggest thing. From years of playing Warlords players have come to intimately know the easy to compare strength system of 1-9 for units. Multiplying by 5 will probably confuse traditional players to see a 25 strength spider with +10 against cities.

I also think it will be harder to balance if you can suddenly have units giving +2 strength and a Pegasi +5 (a +1 multiplied by 5). Just because now it's harder to tell if a 15 strength unit going to 17 instead of 20 is balanced compared to a 40 strength unit going to 42 instead of 45.

DLR solved this by instead of having absolute negate bonus's (like Devil/Archon/Catapult) to instead have units negate only a certain amount. Basically what you did with the Battering Ram/Catapult negating 1 and 2 levels of walls. There were units that negated +1 stack bonus while others negated +2 stack bonus, some negated +1 command, others +2, others +4 etc. That meant there were places for units that could negate +1 hero command or +1 stack bonus. It also meant you could have a unit like a Pegasi give +2 stack bonus with another gave +1 because you don't need a Devil to negate all of it, you can partially negate some of it.

What about a bonus that is ground unit based? some flying units with +STR when attacking ground units?

I didn't think fliers needed any more help that they have now. They are already the best thing to have because of flight.

Here is a list of possible new units. (Nothing too weird that most people don't recognize)
1. Flying unit (Eagle seems like a good choice?) rather light flying unit.

I'd rather see a fantasy based creature than an Eagle. But that's just me. There are lots of flying fantasy creatures that people would recognize quite easily.

2. Sea creture (Some kind of serpent?), (No 100% sea units since you produce it on land and it must be able to make it to sea). Can move between land and sea without changing but still move cost 1 on sea. +STR bonus on water (and possibly in swamp). This unit will be able to quickly move over large areas due to move 1 on sea and no conversation so it should not be very strong. (Should a hero be able to ride it?)

Personally I am *strongly* against a unit that can convert from sea-land anywhere. That's a game changer that renders a lot of maps and terrain features obsolete. Even if it was just 2 strength it's powerful due to adding flying bonus like Pegasi/Dragons and the fact most defenders in cities are only 2 strength themselves. If you are determined to have such a unit, it can't move 1 in the water like a boat because it's swimming which is slower (boats sail 24 hrs a day, swimming creatures must rest). So it would have to cost 2 to move on water all the time and I'd set it's speed to something slow like 10 so it can't move far especially on land.

I'd much rather see a change to allow boats to attack coastal cities as they could do in Warlords II/DLR. As the attacker you'd fight at ship strength (limited to 4) so you'd be limited in that regard. But at least you could raid coastal cities and not have to wait for a port. Right now there is really very little to do on water other than move quickly thanks to the 20 moves (water is just a large road). Note: I don't think you should get the Warlords II ability to move from city to boat, you can only do that at a port. Just the ability to attack to shore (which is what DLR allowed) and if you win, you occupy the city (but no more boats could land to re-enforce since they can't attack).

I still think a 2 turn Sea Serpent unit that doesn't covert to land anywhere works best with a base 4 strength and +2 on water making it a boat killer (or 3 turn, 6 strength, +2 on water). That kind of unit can have boat moves (1 move, 20 range) on the water and not be unbalanced.

3. Desert based unit: If we should have a scorpion which bonuses could he have?

DLR had the concept of poison/disease. Scorpions had poison. That power reduced strength of all units in a stack based on a cumulative percentage chance. So the Scorpion had +6 poison (which was 24% chance) chance to poison each and every enemy unit (you rolled for each unit individually, not once for the entire group). 4 Scorpions gave a 96% chance to poison all enemy units. Poison reduced strength by 2. It was permanent (you remained poisoned even if you survived) until you got blessed at a temple (or by a spell). Units that were already blessed were immune to poison (and disease) effects.

So you could add a similar skill. If you want to remove the permanent part (and the need to bless to cure it) it could just be a chance to reduce the enemy strength in this battle. Again making it cumulative with multiple scorpions. So adding a couple to a stack would do wonders for doing extra weakening of enemy units.

List of possible new bonuses (some may be to hard to program to be viable ideas, just come up with ideas and we will have to figure out if they can be made)
1 +STR on water
2 +STR vs ground
3 +STR on desert
3 Move between land and sea without conversation
4 move bonus on water
5 Perhaps a worm should be able to move underneath mountain if it has enough move to surface on the other side on the same turn?

4 - Not sure what move bonus on water is. You mean Str bonus I assume.
5 - Another game changer. Plus hard for players to know they can do this. And if you can pass under mountains, why not under enemy stacks blocking your way, or under rivers to get to the other side etc. Seems like it's more trouble than worth. Such a worm unit though would make an ideal unit to get a +STR on defense because it burrows away from enemies.

Other bonus's besides the poison/disease of DLR (disease reduced hits, something you can't do until you get more than a 2 hit model) would be banding (might be better to call 'Horde'). This bonus gave a +1 strength for having multiple units of the same type in the stack. The idea being a large horde of like units fights better than one by itself. The bonus was limited so it didn't reach a ridiculous +32 in a city. So each unit with the Horde bonus had it's max specified (Giant Rats where +6 Banding, Goblins were +2 Banding etc). That meant that for each additional unit beyond 1, all units got +1 strength. So a Giant Rat was 1 strength on it's own. 2 Rats together each had 2 strength. 7 Rats together had 7 Strength. 8+ Rats also had 7 Strength. A Goblin was 2 strength on it's own. 2 Goblins were 3 strength, 4 were 4 strength. More than 4 were 4 strength. This kind of bonus might be cool to give to something like the Demon if the SandWorm takes it's skill. Make the Demon a 3 turn 6 strength with +3 horde so that 4 Demons would be 9 strength.

I will take the chance to discuss another idea that me and Snotling have talked about which could also open up some for more strategy which is making most units have different STR when attacking / defending (This would however be easier to balance if we multiply everything by 5)

You already have this idea with the Elemental +3 when attacking skill. While I *love* the idea of an attack/defend strength for every unit (most units should have same numbers, you really need to justify why they should be different) it might stray too far for traditionalists. So that's why I think your +STR when attacking/defending bonus works well because you just give it out to those few units that need it/makes sense for.

KGB

[Pillager]

What about expanding the current elemental into 4?

Fire elemental (desert move, + in attack)
Air elemental (fast flier, + vs air units)
Water elemental (full strength in water, + in water)
earth elemental (hills move, +vs ground units)

Alternately these could be called elemental, eagle, serpent, golem.

I still think a 2 turn Sea Serpent unit that doesn't covert to land anywhere works best with a base 4 strength and +2 on water making it a boat killer (or 3 turn, 6 strength, +2 on water). That kind of unit can have boat moves (1 move, 20 range) on the water and not be unbalanced.

KGB may be right, perhaps a swimming unit should need to use a port. But I think 4 strength is quite weak for a 2 turn unit, and (in my experience) 6 strength is hardly a 'killer' vs 4 strength. If the 'boat killer' was 4 strength, I would pump its bonus in water to +3..otherwise 5 strength and water +2. This should allow a serpent to reliably kill a couple of boats. Also...'sea serpent' is a little bland...isn't !!!GIANT CRAB!!!! more fun? Besides, if you are adding a worm, do you really want to add a serpent too? I'm also a strong supporter of the kraken...but it would probably need to have very low land movement.

If you were going to mimic part of the warlords 3 battle system...I suggest nabbing the 'moral vs fear, chaos vs leadership, siege vs fortify' mechanic. It was a big improvement over the warlords I and II system...and isn't really that much of a stretch. You have (almost) implemented the fortify vs siege element already.

[Moonknight]

Couple of thoughts reading through the last few posts...I kind of like the Kraken idea, which we could provide a heavy penalty for moving and strength on land (like movement of 4 on land, 30 in water), but increase movement and stength in water (that would mean you'd only want to produce these creatures in castles nearby a port). It'd be somewhat logical that a Kraken could move just as fast, if not faster than a boat...

With the addition of snow, maybe we could incorporate a Yeti?? haha

For the additional flier, maybe it makes sense to remove the ability of a hero to fly on a Crow/Bat, but then introduce a lower cost flying unit (lower than a Pegasi)? Maybe around the 400-600 cost range? This makes it harder at the beginning of a game for a hero to immediately jump on a crow and fly to all the ruins (although once there are enemies in the ruins, I guess that will fix that problem as well).

I don't think sandworms would be able to borrough through a mountain...

I'd say continue down the 1-9 strength module, but focus on changing the hit point combinations and more uniquely defining (and adding) heros.

[KGB]

I like the Kraken too. I want to be able to say 'Release the Kraken" every time I put one into the water

Since I consider the Kraken to be a bigger more powerful unit than a Sea Serpent I'd say that a 3 turn, 6 strength +2 in water unit makes the most sense (assumes the Kraken can be specially designated as a water unit and not a boat that is limited to 4 strength). It shouldn't go slower than 8 or 10 moves on land. After all it may still have to walk several squares to get to a port even if it's made/vectored close to the water.

I agree with MoonKnight that heroes should not be flying on crows/bats etc. You should only be able to fly on a unit that could be physically mounted (Pegasi/Dragon/Gryffon) or a unit that could potentially use some kind of magical ability to fly the hero (Archon/Demon).

And yeah, if snow/ice is coming in Beta4 then definitely a snow/ice unit like a Polar Bear/Yeti/Frost Giant/White Dragon is needed. Shouldn't be too hard to come up with one.

KGB

[Moonknight]

Regarding the Hero being able to fly a Crow element, I might have found something that is not intended...If I can get into a game before my first turn starts, I can buy production already. I purchase the production of a Crow, and then on my first turn, the Crow is waiting for my hero to arrive and fly him to all the nearby ruins that would've otherwise taken an extra turn to do so

I feel like this is cheating somewhat, especially since whoever is the first player does not have the option to do this, but hey, maybe it's just strategery

[Pillager]

Release the Kraken, indeed!

I think KGB has it down. 3 t, 6 strength, +2 in water. Movement? If you ever tried to haul around the old catapult, you know how painful 10 speed is. 8 would mean that this puppy wouldn't stray far from the shoreline (which is fine). It has to be able to catch boats to be worthwhile, so it should move at boat speed (or slightly higher) in water.

I suspect the kraken would grow quite fat on a diet of passing ships... and those annoying bats that hover just off the coastline.

Yes, no bat mounted heroes, its cheesy, doesn't make sense, and I do it all the time.

[SnotlinG]

Moonknight, good thing you noticed.
Its been fixed now, so no more cheating

[Pillager]

I like the idea of a burrowing worm. What if the worm just treated every terrain (other than water) as movement 2....it would be like a flyer, except that water would be treated as normal. A burrowing worm should probably be quite slow, say 12 or 14 speed.

Moonknight had an idea about a water/swamp hybrid creature...more amphibious than aquatic. I like the idea of a kraken, but it is clearly a naval specialist. What about a second swimming creature? I think a 2 turn creature with swimming, swamp movement, and a bonus in both terrains might be fun. It could have better land movement than the kraken, but slower sea movement. I think a creature like this would be different enough that it wouldn't step on the kraken's toes...erm tentacles. If there is only room for one sea creature...then perhaps let the kraken move in swamps at a cost of 1.

I think that having hero types tied to different bonuses would be more interesting (and hard to balance). Right now the hero upgrade screen is a bit of a mess... just too many options there. Maybe just split up the bonuses, some (like command and movement increase) could be shared by all (perhaps at different costs). But, abilities like '-1 enemy stack' and some of the stack bonuses might only be available to certain heroes. For example, -1 enemy stack makes sense for the dread knight, but maybe learning is unavailable to him, and movement upgrades are expensive. I think that adopting this idea would reduce the clutter on the upgrade popup and would differentiate the various hero types.

[Pillager]

Also, I don't think a swimmer should treat a port the same way as a boat. Swimmers wouldn't need to go through the rigmarole of loading up ships, so I don't think they should have their movement reduced to 2 when they switch movement types.

[Moonknight]

Also, I don't think a swimmer should treat a port the same way as a boat. Swimmers wouldn't need to go through the rigmarole of loading up ships, so I don't think they should have their movement reduced to 2 when they switch movement types.

I agree with this, but the swimmer should still have to use a port to get into the water and their movement on land should be 10 max. With such a slow land movement, there will still be an effect shifting from water to land or vice versa.

If the swimmer has to use 6 movement to get onto the port, then it can only have a movement of 4 left in the water (which would mean four spaces with the water movement bonus). Moving from water to land will provide the bigger advantage in that if at least 10 movement is still available, the swimmer can move a few spaces on land in the same turn (maybe 8 movement on land makes more sense and would also count the port as a 2-movement space for the swimmer, so that would only leave 6 movement space on land).

Do any of the units have an attack bonus in the swamp land currently? I know there are movement bonus troops, didn't know about attack. If there isn't, I think there could still be the seperate water/swamp hybrid that gets movement bonus in swamp/water, and attack bonus in swamp. Would need to be more costly than a Wolfrider.

I agree with Pillager that the hero upgrade screen could use some cleaning up...movement and strength (and eventually hit points) should be standard for all heros, but then all the other options available should vary by hero type. Having less options to upgrade for each hero would make it look cleaner and make each hero more unique.