Balancing for Beta 2

[Max Warlorder]

As for city costs, I play with bats = 200g, Scouts = 120, Light Infantry = 100 and it feels pretty balanced, maybe slightly cheap. Usually you already have light infantry so you're looking at 120 to 320g to upgrade.

[piranha]

A lot of good points.

We will change city defence so you buy city defence and its not connected with city production. We are thinking that cities might have STR +0, 1, 2, 3.
City wall will have more levels, for example 8 levels where
1,2 = STR 0 Price 50g per level
3,4 = STR 1 Price 200 g per level
5,6 = STR 2 Price 600 g per level
7,8 = STR 3
When a city is captured it will lose 1 city wall level.

Do you think this would be good?

We will introduce battering ram which is -1 and move 14, build time 3, cost 800
Catapult will be -2 move 10, cost 850

Dwarfs move at cost 1 in hills.

Scout pay 3 instead of 2 in hill/forest/swamp

New move speeds
Light inf 14 (-2)
Orc 14 (-2)
Minitaurs 14 (+2).
Heavy cav 20 (-4)
Light cav 22 (-2)
Gryphon 20 (-4)
Pegasi 22 (-2)
Giant 18 (-2)
Scout 18 (-2)
Elephant 14 (-2)
Unicorn 14 (-2)

Elephant will have STR 6, +2 stack on open terrain
Unicorn will cancel terrain based bonuses instead of negative stack.
Unit Medusa will be normal unit instead of ally. 7 STR, move 12, -1 stack, cost 1300, build 3

Ghost -1 stack instead of +1 stack
Dragon 8 STR (-1) move 24 (-4)

btw, Wolf move at 2 on hill and forest even if its not stated in the wiki. I will fix this.

I agree birds wont walk faster on roads then when they fly, but we have flying horses, not birds . If its still too good with the reduced speed and 1 extra turn we will change it,

I'm going to see if I can change archers +2 in forest to +2 vs fliers instead.

FOW wont be ready for Beta 2, but when we have it sight radius will be another thing that will come to balance units too.

[KGB]

Piranha,

We will change city defence so you buy city defence and its not connected with city production. We are thinking that cities might have STR +0, 1, 2, 3.
City wall will have more levels, for example 8 levels where
1,2 = STR 0 Price 50g per level
3,4 = STR 1 Price 200 g per level
5,6 = STR 2 Price 600 g per level
7,8 = STR 3
When a city is captured it will lose 1 city wall level.

Do you think this would be good?

I just took a look through my old Warlords I manual. I was hoping it had the upgrade costs in it for each level but it doesn't. But it did have the initial city wall level for all cities. Capitols started at 6 (not 7) and all other cities were between 3-5.

I seem to recall it was 50 gold per level at strength 0, 100 per level at strength 1, 200 per level at strength 2 and 400 per level at strength 3. Basically the cost to upgrade doubled at each strength of protection.

So I think your upper costs are a bit much. Also with L7/8 both giving +3 there is no reason to upgrade to L8. I suggest you make 5,6,7=+2 strength and 8=+3 strength. Then you can have capitols start at L6 and other cities start between 3-5 as you deem appropriate.

Example (based on your numbers, assuming you make 5-7=+2 strength): A L1 walled city costs 50 to upgrade to L2 walls. It then costs 100 to upgrade to L3, 100 more to upgrade to L4 then 200 more to L5, 200 more to L6, 200 more to L7 and 400 more to L8. Total cost to go from L1-L8=1250 gold. That seems right since most cities won't get to L8 and will end up somewhere in between.

Re-reading my old manual led me to see this original (and amusing) description of the original 8 sides in Warlords I. They don't write manuals like this anymore (I love the Storm Giant/Elvallie/Horse Lords)

The Sirians (white)
The Sirians are Knights of a one-time chivalrous order, dedicted to spreading the worship of their God to all of Illuria. Conversion by the sword is their favoured, (and some say their only), method of spreading the good word. Their capital city is Marthos, on the southern edge of Eastern Sulador.

The Storm Giants (yellow)
The Storm Giants are a race of powerful 12ft tall giants, whose capital city, Stormheim, is located on the peak of Storm Mountain, in Western Sulador. The Storm Giants despise all those shorter than themselves, and have vowed to purify Illuria of what they see as an infestation of minuscule pests.

The Grey Dwarves (Orange)
The Grey Dwarves are a hardy folk. living in the city of Kamar, which is found in the Nirnoth Mountains in central Lauredor. They desire to mine and exploit all the treasures of Illuria without let or hinderance. The surface dwelling races of Illuria are uniformally regarded as an obstacle to this grand ambition.

The Orcs of Kor (Red)
In the city of Kor, in far off Huinedor, live a degenerate race of Orcs, led by a vile creature known as the Great Orc. Years of being the object of both derision and discust to the other races has bred a terrible resolve. They will stop at nothing to spread their bloody-minded rule over all Illuria. The rest of Illuria regards term 'degenerate', when applied to Orcs as redundant.

Elvallie (green)
Elvallie is the name of a forest and a city and the people who dwell therein. It is the homeland of the light elves of Illuria, in Central Sulador. An arrogant race, they believe that only they are fit to live in harmony with the land. They consider the removal of all other sentient races from Illuria to be merely sound ecological practice.

The Selentines (dark blue)
The Selentines are a cruel empire of humans, whose capital is Enmouth, on the Western edge of Lauredor, by the Paramer Sea. They are a great naval force, and will miss no opportunity to spread their rule into new lands. They also regard all trees as ships that have yet to be constructed.

The Horse Lords (light blue)
The Horse Lords are a wild people, living on the plains in Eastern Lauredor, between the White and Nirnoth Mountains. Their capital city is Dunethel, where they can usually be found amassing great legions of cavalry. They covert all the lands of Illuria, and consider it the height of achievement to stable their horses in the ruins of other civilisations.

Lord Bane (black)
Lord Bane is an evil force, lurking in his citadelin the encircling mountains of Argundor. His legions include all sorts of warped races, such as Dark Elves, Men, Ogres and Orcs. Tradition and ambition both decree that he attempt to enslave all of Illuria.

We will introduce battering ram which is -1 and move 14, build time 3, cost 800
Catapult will be -2 move 10, cost 850

Dwarfs move at cost 1 in hills.

Will Dwarf move of 1 cost in the hills apply to all units in the stack or just the Dwarf? If it's all units, then the Dwarf becomes much more useful.

New move speeds
Light inf 14 (-2)
Orc 14 (-2)
Minitaurs 14 (+2).
Heavy cav 20 (-4)
Light cav 22 (-2)
Gryphon 20 (-4)
Pegasi 22 (-2)
Giant 18 (-2)
Scout 18 (-2)
Elephant 14 (-2)
Unicorn 14 (-2)

I agree 100% with these changes. All look good.

Unicorn will cancel terrain based bonuses instead of negative stack.

Interesting. This concept did not exist in Warlords 2. It's a very powerful skill so I hope the unicorns continue to take 4 turns to make.

Unit Medusa will be normal unit instead of ally. 7 STR, move 12, -1 stack, cost 1300, build 3
Ghost -1 stack instead of +1 stack

So a Ghost and Medusa are basically the same unit in terms of what they do (-1 stack). The difference is one is an ally (Ghost) and one is a unit you can build (Medusa). Just want to make sure I understood it correctly as I have no opinion one way or another on this.

I agree birds wont walk faster on roads then when they fly, but we have flying horses, not birds . If its still too good with the reduced speed and 1 extra turn we will change it,

I'm going to see if I can change archers +2 in forest to +2 vs fliers instead.

If you make this chance to archers then that plus the extra turn plus minor move reduction should be plenty to balance out the fliers.

KGB

[Max Warlorder]

KGB,

Those are really great side descriptions. I absolutely love how they use the faults of humanity as a reason for each side's ambition.

I was wondering what movespeed you prefer on War2 units? If you've already explained this in other topics, do you vaguely remember which one? If not maybe we should make it a new topic in the Warlorders forum.

[SnotlinG]

I seem to recall it was 50 gold per level at strength 0, 100 per level at strength 1, 200 per level at strength 2 and 400 per level at strength 3. Basically the cost to upgrade doubled at each strength of protection.

So I think your upper costs are a bit much. Also with L7/8 both giving +3 there is no reason to upgrade to L8. I suggest you make 5,6,7=+2 strength and 8=+3 strength. Then you can have capitols start at L6 and other cities start between 3-5 as you deem appropriate.

Example (based on your numbers, assuming you make 5-7=+2 strength): A L1 walled city costs 50 to upgrade to L2 walls. It then costs 100 to upgrade to L3, 100 more to upgrade to L4 then 200 more to L5, 200 more to L6, 200 more to L7 and 400 more to L8. Total cost to go from L1-L8=1250 gold. That seems right since most cities won't get to L8 and will end up somewhere in between.

Something like this looks good. I´ll get back with the exact details when Im done with the code

Will Dwarf move of 1 cost in the hills apply to all units in the stack or just the Dwarf? If it's all units, then the Dwarf becomes much more useful.

We discussed this a bit, and we will keep it affecting all in the stack with the Dwarf. Mainly for simplicity reasons, it could get a bit confusing with 1 unit who had terrain-moving abilities without affecting the others in the stack. So dwarfs in mountains should get quite good.

Interesting. This concept did not exist in Warlords 2. It's a very powerful skill so I hope the unicorns continue to take 4 turns to make.

Yes it will still take 4 turns to build. Its a very powerful skill, but we think it should be a bit less powerful than -2 in stack.

So a Ghost and Medusa are basically the same unit in terms of what they do (-1 stack). The difference is one is an ally (Ghost) and one is a unit you can build (Medusa). Just want to make sure I understood it correctly as I have no opinion one way or another on this.

yes, the difference is (at the moment) move=12 for medusa and move=18 for ghost

[Max Warlorder]

Its a very powerful skill, but we think it should be a bit less powerful than -2 in stack.

I agree. Cancelling terrain-based individual str bonuses is an interesting idea, also.

Here is my opinion on how abilities compare, taken from my excel sheet.
(Lower = Better, & if on same row, then the more rightside = better also)

+1,2,3 forest/hills
+1,2,3 open
+1 group open
+1 city
+2 City
+2 group open
+3 group open
+3 city
+1 grp city
Seige
+1 to all -1 to all
Fortified
+2 grp city
+3 grp city
+2 to all -2 to all
+3 to all -3 to all
+1 all & Cancel Hero
+1 all & Cancel Non-Hero

[KGB]

SnotlingG,

I was thinking a bit more about the city wall levels and I think it may be better to change it slightly to:

1-2=+0
3-5=+1
6-7=+2
8=+3

The idea being that cities should spend the most time at L1 walls rather than L2 walls. You could then start capitols at L7 and all other cities at L3-6 based on their importance (production and strategic wise).

One other thing on this for you to add (not in time for Beta 2 I don't think). In Warlords 3 & 4 cities have different portraits based on the level of walls. So a L1 walled city looks like a stockade (wooden walls). Level 2 has stone walls and L3 looks like a strong stone fortress. I'd suggest implementing the same thing so that players can easily see from the portrait how strong a city is. I have the Warlords 3 cities which I can send if you want some ideas or things to copy until your graphic design guy can do custom ones.

Max Warlorder,

I mentioned my preferences for movement a few posts ago. But I'll create a new topic in this forum to discuss it with you and others in a separate thread so as not to clutter this one which is meant for Beta 2.

I agree with your ranking of abilities (need to add any swamp bonus to the forest/hills).

The new 'cancel' terrain bonus skill would rank 2nd highest, between Cancel Hero and Cancel Non-Hero.

Two other skills that aren't on any unit but are on items (flight and doubled move) would rank as the best 2 skills of all (doubled movement being #1 and Flight being #2). The extra gold per city is harder to rank because it depends on the amount of gold and amount of cities one has.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

SnotlingG,

I was thinking a bit more about the city wall levels and I think it may be better to change it slightly to:

1-2=+0
3-5=+1
6-7=+2
8=+3

This is the citywall levels Im using right now when setting this up. It looks like good starting values.

Im also thinking of adding buildtime of 1 turn for each citywall level, any feedback on this?

Do you think there is any special reason why the starting cities should not start with a citywall level 8?

As for the portraits, thats a nice idea and I´ll see what we can do We are planning to add something similiar to the battle-popup also, which will show what kind of terrain the battle is taking place at.

/SnotlinG

[piranha]

About the battle calculations.

I will take a new look at them when I make the sea battle functions to make sure they are correct. But the results is quite similar to what we experience in warlords 2 DLX. We have been playing it for 10 months or so now and I've complained many times about the randomness that happens there. Its very common that a powerful 8 stack army vs another 8 stack army can win with almost no loss or get stomped. This is the reason why we wanted to introduce hit points in our version.

For the next beta we will try with a change. All units will have3 hits instead of 2. This should make a huge impact. Good armies will be much better and lousy armies lousier.
To compensate the fact that it will be much harder to kill a good army we will try with hit points heal after the turn. If you attack a army and manage to take out 1 or 2 hit points on a unit you can attack that army again to complete the kill if you do it within the same turn.

[Max Warlorder]

Snotling, I think capital cities shouldn't start at level 8 simply because that leaves no room for improvement. Already starting at the top is boring to me because I like having to choose how to develop. Whether someone spends the money/time on their home defense is just one more thing that players could weigh during war.
-And I do like the idea that it costs time as well as money to improve defense.

Piranha, 3 hits instead of 2 is something I'm game to try. It'll be interesting to see how it affects the game. The healing after one turn is cool too, although I can see a reason for no healing, and it might be a good idea to try healing over a medium term (4-5 turns?) instead of all in 1 turn.

I'm real pumped about all the work you guys are doing. It's super exciting as a warlords fan.