Missing units

[KGB]

LPhillips,

But it would be nice to be able to balance themed maps better. I played a map divided into four themed territories, and the player on Hills had a gigantic advantage because his one-turn units were strength four.

Unfortunately thematically based maps where each person is from a different terrain type is very difficult to do if not impossible. That's because the Dwarf (and Pikemen) are 1 turn, 4 strength units while other 1 turn units are far weaker.

It's really on the map maker to fix this issue. For example, Dwarves/Pikemen are 400 gold units. Your Orcs are 175. So in reality you should be getting compensated for the gold difference with extra ruins and/or more cities and/or bless temples or his cities should have FAR fewer Dwarves and more cannon fodder like scouts so he has to spend 400 gold to buy those Dwarves so that you have an equal chance to compete in such a game.

The player in the Swamp (me) was screwed by his thematic strength two units, because most battles are fought in Cities.

I think you meant to say 'not fought in cities' since in cities the Dwarves get no special bonus from terrain.

KGB

[LPhillips]

You're right; it is currently up to the mapmaker. I made suggestions on how to help him balance his map.

Mountains are 6-move territory, causing it to be easier to catch enemies trying to invade the mountain player's territory. I think that's where your thoughts are going concerning the battles, but I meant to say exactly what I said: The swamp player is at a disadvantage to the mountain player because most battles are fought in City terrain. Thus, no player gets a bonus and the mountain player's basic units are 2x stronger.

[SnotlinG]

Invisible units are not likely for now.
The man reasons are mostly technical, but also, what should happen if you try to move on a spot where there is an invisible unit? Or move through that spot...

One solution I guess is if the invisble unit is slightly visible to the player - i.e. blurred or something - so you see something is standing there, but it is impossible for you to attack, unless you bring some special troop (scout?) or spell or something.

But anyway, curently invisible units will not be in beta4 or beta5.

[KGB]

SnotlinG,

In DLR if you tried to move over/onto an invisible unit/stack you entered combat with them. So it functioned like an ambush.

You could also *detect* invisible stacks by an undocumented method in DLR called the boot check. The boot check involved moving the game cursor over squares and waiting for it to change because squares you could legitimately move to used one cursor style while ones you could not (say mountains for land units) used another. The boot check was purposefully there to detect invisible stacks, it was just an artifact of the way the game used different cursors.

What I'd suggest for invisible stacks is that if you moved right next to them and stopped there that you would be able to spot them. But if all you did was pass by as part of a movement path move then you wouldn't spot the invisible stack. Game wise that can be explained by the fact that invisible doesn't mean undetectable (ie unit/stack would still make noise, leave trails etc), it just means not seen at a casual glance.

KGB

[Pillager]

If you move onto, or through, an invisible unit it would initiate a battle (just like moving onto any other enemy unit).

The 'boot check' was a flaw that shouldn't be copied. The cursor should treat a square containing only invisible enemy units as an empty one.

Having players able to see a blurry image seems fairly pointless...especially if there aren't many invisible unit types.

Allowing invisible units to be visible to adjacent enemies would encourage players to move one space at a time... which seems very tedious and would ultimately defeat the purpose of invisibility.

You should be able to see your own invisible units (and those of your teammates) normally.

Units and heroes with the 'true sight' ability could reveal invisible units within their view range.

[KGB]

Pillager,

Invisible is too powerful if you require a special unit/hero to find such stacks. Invisible heroes would be out of control.

I still maintain invisible != undetectable. Invisible armies would still make lots of noise, leave tracks etc all of which would make them detectable from close range (adjacent square).

If players want to move 1 square at a time to be sure of finding invisible units, God Bless em. I personally doubt players will end up doing that exactly because it's too tedious and time consuming.

The game can still have a true sight skill that allows showing invisible units from a distance in addition to normal units finding them from the adjacent square. That way there are multiple ways to detect invisible units.

KGB

[Pillager]

KGB,

I strongly disagree...

Tedious micromanagement of individual unit movement should not be rewarded or encouraged, period.

I was talking about a yeti having personal invisibility in a specific terrain. The yeti wouldn't grant invisibility to units stacked with it.

A hero granting invisibility to units stacked with it is another matter. This could be limited in a number of ways....by terrain (IE the cloak of the woodlands giving invisibility in forest)....by unit number (invisibility +3 might allow a hero to grant invisibility to himself plus three units)....and by making most invisibility personal (IE hero only).

It would only get really out of control when a hero +7 units are all invisible in any terrain..so just don't let this happen.

[KGB]

Pillager,

Tedious micromanagement of individual unit movement should not be rewarded or encouraged, period.

Why not? To me players who want to put in extra time should be rewarded.

For example what about players who micromanage combat by running a simulator to calculate battle odds (something I wrote in my spare time) and then using it before committing to a large battle? Is that OK even though it's micromanagement?

What about players who group-ungroup units to squeeze out a couple of extra moves when there are slower units grouped with faster ones so they end up moving 2x as many stacks to maximize all their movement? Is this OK?

What about players who manage their vectoring every turn so they always get 4 units arriving. For example say I had 8 spider cities such that 4 produced a unit this turn and 4 next and I set/unset my vectors so that I always get 4 spiders a turn arriving at a city? Is this OK?

Personally I *doubt* anyone is going to micromanage individual movement looking for invisible units UNLESS they believe such units are out there. For example if I am attacked by an invisible unit/stack (something combat would need to show, if the attacker was invisible) and lose, you can bet I am going to look VERY closely for the survivors next turn. Otherwise, I doubt I am going to look at all. So the the amount of extra management is going to be very little unless there are a lot of invisible units/stacks.

I was talking about a yeti having personal invisibility in a specific terrain. The yeti wouldn't grant invisibility to units stacked with it.

Understood. So then this means one only needs to micromanage on snow terrain. That seems reasonable to look for a potential invisible Yeti. I don't see the downside to allowing players to do this. Otherwise we need another unit/ability just to counter the Yeti's special terrain skill. Allowing players to hunt if they want means that you don't need to ability/skill or the unit that might have it.

KGB

[Pillager]

KGB,

If you find a way to fiddle and micromanage an advantage from an existing mechanic that's fine by me. However, designing a new mechanic that foresees and specifically rewards micro management is simply bad design. If tedium can be avoided by intelligent design, then it should be.

Why should there be a way to counter the yeti's ability without needing a special unit or hero skill? Countering other unit powers requires the use of specialized units, why not invisibility?

If what you suggest was implemented, I would simply move one square at a time when traversing snow. Why not? I already move stacks carefully (due to various path finding issues). This tactic would make the yeti's proposed ability fairly useless, and certainly not worth adding to the game.

[KGB]

Pillager,

But I'll counter that with the fact that moving onto a square that contains an invisible unit forces a combat.

So then if I even *remotely* suspect my opponent is making Yeti on the snow I'll start separating my stack into groups of 1 man. Then send 1 man walking looking for invisible Yeti. If I find one the rest of the stack swoops in and pounces. If not, I send the next man on a slightly different path and so on. If I don't find anything then at the end of my movement I'll regroup the stack on a central square they can all reach (the DLR method for finding invisible stacks).

So I am still micromanaging movement by moving over a bunch of different paths one square at a time looking for invisible units. This is where expendable bats really shine due to high movement and no terrain penalty.

This is of course even MORE tedious than my suggestion that at least lets you look 1 square around the unit.

The other thing about a special skill to locate invisible units is that you need it *now*, not 2 turns from now when you might build such a unit or even more turns by the time it arrives from some city to where you are looking. By that time the invisible unit is gone. So it's a complete waste of a skill unless it goes on a VERY common 1 turn unit like the bat because it serves no other purpose in terms of combat or bonuses etc.

KGB