Opponent's Gold

[KGB]

When occupying a city from an human player you get: Gold/number of cities/2.
The player that lose gold lose: Gold/number of cities.
So half the gold is lost so to speak.

Quite the tax rate. Clearly a European model

Good to see the numbers though. I thought it seemed like <50% when plundering a city.

Incidentally this is one reason why there is so little production bought by players (something Piranha talked about in another thread when talking about how high level heroes are hard to kill).

1) <50% pillaged gold
2) High tax rate on looted gold
3) Unlimited heroes (instead of having a max 5 or 6)

So there is a huge incentive to just collect hero+allies and not buy production since so many units are over priced (Ghosts, Wizards being 2 prime examples)

KGB

[Pillager]

I really don't think that 50% for pillaging is too much.

Many neutral cities only produce one low level unit...so 50% of that is hardly worth mentioning.

Once a player has pillaged a neutral city, they (very) rarely buy new production for more than one unit type. So, pillaging these cities doesn't net much gold.

This all leads to lack of gold in the mid-late game...which is one of the reasons that no one buys production.

I'd like to see the amount of gold pillaged returned to 50% and production costs for low-mid level units decreased. This would reduce the amount of gold pillaged, while encouraging players to build the (low-mid level) units they feel they need. Things like minotaurs, heavy cavalry, battering rams, elves, and pikemen all seem quite overpriced.

[KGB]

Pillager,

I meant the 50% tax rate on gold you loot from your opponent's treasury. It's always been 100% in prior games.

I'm fine with 50% gold from pillaged production and would prefer that over 40% but maybe with an upcoming pillage skill for heroes 40% will be OK.

Not sure I agree all those units are over priced. Mino's/Hv Calv/Battering Rams etc all seem to be priced OK to me. Elves/Lt Calv are too expensive now by quite a bit along with Ghosts and Wizards. Pikemen and Dwarves are fine at 400 otherwise everyone would build these in masses making all other 1 turn units pointless.

It would just be nicer to get more gold into the game. Part of that gets solved if ruins can regenerate over time. Another part gets solved by quests yielding gold. Another part if upkeep gets halved in cities (I don't think it is now).

KGB

[Pillager]

Yes, the high strength 1 turn units are probably reasonably priced..although the pikemen and dwarves should be the same cost due the the dwarf's very useful hills movement.

How many players actually buy production for 2 turn units? The fact that they take 2 turns to build is a huge disadvantage over the 1 turners..and most 2 turn units are front line troops (as opposed to support troops) meaning that they have a fairly high rate of attrition. They are unreliable too...way too often my two turners are killed by an equal number of 1 turn units. All in all, they seem overpriced to me...or maybe they just need another wound to make to give them a little more solidity in combat.

I often build 2-turners if I capture a city that can produce them..but, paying far more gold for units that take twice as long to produce doesn't hold much appeal. I never buy 2 turn unit production anymore...waste of gold IMO.

[KGB]

Pillager,

I'm the same as you with the exception of buying a Battering Ram in at least one city if I don't find a city with Battering Rams/Siege Engines. In 1-1 games I'll buy Spiders mid-late game to do city assaults since no 1 turn unit can do that function well.

Otherwise 2 turn units have all the drawbacks you mention. Their real differentiator is more movement and/or better terrain bonus's than their 1 turn counterparts (Giants/Hv Calv run circles around Pikemen/Dwarves and Hv Calv slaughters Hv Infantry/Lt Calv). So if you are making them they must be stacked with bonus units like Medusa/Pegasi/Dragon/Devil/Battering Ram/Catapult/Hero to get good value from their longer production time.

KGB

[LPhillips]

Pillager has a point. Most of the two-turn units don't feature anything making them appealing. There are none of the banding bonuses, poison, disease, dragonslayer bonus, etc. that were featured in DLR and made some less-than-optimal units still useful. Spider with its +2 city bonus is an exception, since you can easily fortify a city with effectively 9-strength units.

Gold is far too scarce for the unit values. Capping heroes would help (the whole uncapped hero situation is way out of hand anyway), and then tweaking the mix of units that cities naturally produce might help too. The only cities a player is likely to buy production for right now are the ones producing crows and scouts. The game would be far more interesting with players choosing their own units and strategies (I find the units you get from neutrals often dictate strategy).

I have to agree with KGB that if we want to see unit production become more viable, we have to see a mid-to-late game gold surplus. One way to do that is to implement reduced upkeep for city defenders; another way is to go ahead and cap the heroes (maybe based on map size or a mapmaker setting) and make it less economically dominant to always buy hero+allies.

[wizardofcos]

see i think you guys are buying too many heroes. why buy a hero & say for example 2 demons for 1700 when you could buy a freaking dragon for 300 more?

but yeah i agree on the two turners...might as well buy pegasi at 1150 than a mino at 600.

[KGB]

WizardOfCos,

The reason you buy a hero + 2 demons instead of a dragon city is because of the 'here and now' factor. On mid size and smaller maps (mid size being Land/Sea War) or on large maps like Bullrun with more than 4 players getting a hero and 2 demons now is WAY more valuable than a Dragon city. The reason is simply time. You need 5 turns to get 1 dragon, 10 turns to make 2 dragons which is the equivalent of a hero + 2 demons and 15 turns to get to 3 dragons when the value of the Dragon city exceeds the value of the hero + 2 Demons. So unless you think the game is going to last 15 more turns it's pointless to buy the dragon city. Note: By last, I mean the part of the game where the winner isn't decided and you aren't just mopping up a few enemy cities or being mopped up yourself. On mid size/smaller maps almost all my 1-1 games are decided by turn 25-30. So you literally need to buy the dragon city by turn 10 to get value out of it on those maps and I rarely have 2K extra gold on turn 10 as I need a 2nd or 3rd hero for ruin searching/expansion more than a dragon city.

Then factor in that you have to *defend* your dragon city for those 15 turns where you don't have to defend any city in particular if you instead take the hero + 2 Demons.

So for me to even consider spending 2K on a dragon city I have to guess this is going to be a 40+ turn game before a clear winner is decided.

LPhillips,

If you are going to cap heroes, what number are you capping it at? A set number or a set number based on map size? For example DLR capped at 6 (5 until you reached a certain number of cities then you could get a 6th hero). So veteran players who had gold and wanted allies knew to cheat this system by keeping 4 heroes, buying a 5th simply for his allies, disbanding/suidicing the hero and then waiting for another hero with allies to appear. I like that I don't have to use this kind of nonsense in Warbarons because lets be honest, if I spend 2200-2400 gold for a hero and 3 Dragons/Devils/Archons the hero is a throw away. At the least it needs to be capped at 10 which is really high and unlikely to be reached (only done it in 2 1-1 games on VERY large maps) before you are at the mop-up stage.

My hope is that in Beta4:

1) Unit purchase price gets reduced where appropriate. (major)
2) Upkeep is halved in cities. (major)
3) Gold taken from enemy treasury is 100% instead of 50%. (minor)
4) The quest system allows easy quests for gold/minor items so players can generate 100-300 gold from easy quests. (major)
5) Ruins regenerate over time pumping more money/items back into the game. (minor)

Incidentally, all the 2 turn units in DLR were useless other than Elf Cavalry and the Gladiator (user created content). Absolutely none of the rest of them got made in MP games other than those 2 units. It was 1 turn or 3+ turn units only. It's exceptionally hard to make 2 turn units useful enough to buy *unless* you add the (production -1) city feature into Warbarons that DLR had where every unit in a city got made in 1 less turn so 2 turn units took 1 turn, 3 turn units took 2 turns etc.

KGB

[Moonknight]

Thanks for the clarification SnotlinG!

[LPhillips]

Your reasoning seems sound.

Judging by this discussion, the problem is the whole system of buying a hero+allies as it currently exists. I hope to see heroes become more important than just a throwaway. However, you've capably shown how capping the number would do just the opposite. Even if you disallowed disbanding of heroes, players could simply keep a neutral city to suicide useless heroes.

If you simply reduce the chances of hero+ally acquirement, you increase the factor of luck. So that's out. Could there be a radically different system for acquiring heroes? Otherwise, a greater surplus of gold simply means we'll use the same tactic: If you have ~800+ income per turn, you'll keep accepting hero offers every few turns and kill off the useless heroes to keep up the chance of getting an offer. After all, your inactive heroes are basically a Pegasus with option to possibly upgrade. Two Devils for 1500-1900 gold is a fine buy most of the time.

The only time I'd spend gold on powerful production in Beta3 is if I were upwards of 3000, with the cost of offers still rising and the value no longer increasing. How about a cap on the number of hero offers accepted? That makes heroes much more valuable and unique, and eliminates all of the balance problems in one swoop. It's very workable considering that heroes will become increasingly powerful and useful. In fact, reducing the total number of heroes on the battlefield will become highly desirable in future versions.