Balancing for Beta 2

[KGB]

Piranha,

How do you think the ghost should be treated? Should there be a max Critical Strike percent. If you would have 20 ghosts in a city it would be quite expensive to capture it since you would more or less lose a couple of units for sure until you killed of some ghosts.

On the other hand, sitting with 20 or more ghosts in a city is like sitting there with 15 dragons in a city. I can't see it being a winning strategy in the game.

Leave it as it is. I don't think there is anything wrong with what you've done. Warlords 3 had 3 turn units with 40% and 50% assassin powers and they were in no way unbalancing. You'd need 9 Ghosts + Elves to reach that same 50% chance.

The idea of having high assassin powers is to allow a player to build a trap city for enemy heroes. You can put 10 Ghosts in behind 10 light infantry (assuming your battle screen doesn't show all units from a city but rather 8 at a time until those 8 are dead then the next 8 are displayed) and wait for an enemy hero to kill himself upon the walls. The other use is to pack a single city full of 32 units (10+ Ghosts + any other units) and use that as your last city and send out your heroes to conquer/raze the map because that single city will prevent you from being eliminated from the game while your own heroes go on a rampage. These are common strategies used in Warlords 3 by players.

As you noted, eventually you can wear down that city by using cannon fodder units to absorb the enemy units so it's not unbalancing.

The assassin concept is to make some low level units quite dangerous to the highest level units. So even the best stacks have to worry about facing some units.

Correct. Your best hope with the current low percentages is to kill 1 unit in an enemy hero stack so that your own hero stack of 8 units can then defeat his stack of 7 remaining units. Only a city full of Ghosts will do real damage.

What do you think about the following changes:
Wizard to move 36 and +3 vs flying units
Elf assassin 7%
Wolf assassin 16%
Minotaur: assassin 12%

Wizard - The reduced movement is good. 50 was always too much. 36 is much better, 30 would be even better than that. The +3 vs Fliers is a sort of wasted skill for the Wizard since I can't imagine it will fight much as an ally. But if you have the 'build them in cities' option on then yeah, it's a useful skill. So overall I think he's fine but he's not an ally I want to get.

Elf - I don't think the Elf needs more than 5% assassin skill unless it's becoming a Dark Elf If you want a 7% assassin unit, I think the Orc would be a better candidate since I think of Orcs as a race that would use that skill more.

Wolf - I'd make it 15% as a nice round number. Again because I think of the Wolf as really the Wolfrider (from Warlords 1,3 and 4) which means it's ridden by Orcs. So it fits especially if you give the Orc unit a 7% chance.

Minotaur - Not sure this unit needs any real help since it's already a decent unit at 6 strength in cities. If you want to increase the assassin only increase it to 7%. Otherwise it defeats the idea of having assassin skills of 7% on the Orc (or Elf).

Is giant underpowered?
Elemental?
Any other unit that comes to mind that noone want to buy?

Giant - Yes, very. No one will ever buy one. This was the reason I suggested the Giant get the -1 city bonus for hurling boulders instead of creating the Ram unit.
Elemental - Slightly. He has no real bonus to offer as an ally so I'd make him 8 strength (same as Dragon) and 4 turns so that at least he is a good combat unit. Since the Elemental can fly I assume it must be an air elemental and not an earth/fire/water elemental.
Scouts - Because the bat costs the same (100), flies and moves further the scout is basically useless. With city walls now determining the city bonus it's not important to make units cost a lot of money. So this unit can cost 50 gold (1/2 of light infantry). At the same time I'd increase the sight to 5 and lower the sight on the bat to 4 so that scouts might get used.

It would also be helpful to see the upkeep costs for units to know if some upkeep costs are too much/little. That can help balance out units or make one better than it looks (like if upkeep for Giants was much less than Spiders/Minotaurs it would help balance it out some).

KGB

[piranha]

We are changing to wolfrider from beta3, and here is what he will look like.



If giant get -1 group vs city. Seems like he will be too good.
Not sure if he could have some other interesting bonus. + vs flyers in city

Scouts should still be useful because they can walk through hard terrain with their group. Might lower price.

If we make it default that allies can be bought I think it will be used quite often so balancing the allies units should be important.

We will have to see how assassin skill and the ghost works in the game. Soon time for another beta .

[KGB]

Piranha,

I like the Wolfrider picture. It would be even cooler if the Orc would be holding up a weapon.

I don't think Giants need a bonus against fliers. You already have Elves and now Wizards for that.

Do you think if you changed the Giant to: Giant 2 turn, cost 850, STR 5, move 16, sight 3, assassin 1%, -1 city
it would be that good when the Ram is: Ram 2 turn, cost 850, STR 4, move 16, sight 3, assassin 0%, -1 city
The only difference is the Giant remains 1 strength higher.

The only other option is to leave the Giant as is but lower the cost to 400 gold since he has no real bonus/skill and is nothing more than 2 turn cannon fodder.

If the scout price drops to 50 gold it might get used. Otherwise I don't think it ever will regardless of how much it helps with terrain.

KGB

[piranha]

I'm posting the current stats with current upkeeps

Bat 1 turn, cost 80, STR 1, UPKEEP: 2, move 22, sight 5, assassin 0%, Flyer
Scout 1 turn, cost 50, STR 1, UPKEEP: 1, move 18, sight 4, assassin 0%, move in difficult terrain at 3
L. Inf 1 turn, cost 100, STR 2, UPKEEP: 1, move 14, sight 4, assassin 2%,
Orc 1 turn, cost 125, STR 2, UPKEEP: 2, move 14, sight 3, assassin 3%, move in swamp, +2 in swamp
H. Inf 1 turn, cost 200, STR 3, UPKEEP: 2, move 12, sight 3, assassin 3%, +1 in open
L. Cav 1 turn, cost 300, STR 3, UPKEEP: 3, move 22, sight 4, assassin 2%, +1 in open
Elf 1 turn, cost 350, STR 3, UPKEEP: 2, move 16, sight 4, assassin 5%, +2 vs flyers, move in forest
Dwarf 1 turn, cost 400, STR 4, UPKEEP: 2, move 8, sight 2, assassin 2%, +2 in hills, group move at 1 in hills
Pikeman 1 turn, cost 500, STR 4, UPKEEP: 2, move 8, sight 3, assassin 3%, +2 in open
Wolf 2 turn, cost 500, STR 4, UPKEEP: 2, move 16, sight 5, assassin 15%, move in hills and forest
H. Cav 2 turn, cost 750, STR 5, UPKEEP: 4, move 20, sight 4, assassin 1%, +2 open
Minotaur 2 turn, cost 800, STR 5, UPKEEP: 3, move 14, sight 4, assassin 5%, +1 city
Ram 2 turn, cost 850, STR 4, UPKEEP: 2, move 16, sight 3, assassin 0%, -1 city
Giant 2 turn, cost 1000, STR 5, UPKEEP: 3, move 18, sight 5, assassin 1%, -1 group when defending
Spider 2 turn, cost 1000, STR 5, UPKEEP: 4, move 12, sight 3, assassin 2%, +2 city
Pegasi 3 turn, cost 1050, STR 5, UPKEEP: 5, move 20, sight 5, assassin 2%, +1 group, Flyer
Griphon 3 turn, cost 1200, STR 6, UPKEEP: 6, move 18, sight 5, assassin 2%, +2 city, Flyer
Catapult 3 turn, cost 1250, STR 4, UPKEEP: 4, move 10, sight 3, assassin 0%, -2 city
(A) Elemental 3 turn, cost 1300, STR 6, UPKEEP: 5, move 14, sight 7, assassin 10% +3 when attacking
Medusa 3 turn, cost 1400, STR 7, UPKEEP: 5, move 14, sight 3, assassin 8%, -1 group
(A) Demon 3 turn, cost 1400, STR 7, UPKEEP: 6, move 18, sight 6, assassin 6%, +1 group, Flyer
(A) Wizard 2 turn, cost 1400, STR 5, UPKEEP: 3, move 34, sight 4, assassin 3%, +3 vs flyer
Elephant 3 turn, cost 1500, STR 6, UPKEEP: 6, move 14, sight 5, assassin 0%, +2 group in open
Unicorn 4 turn, cost 1500, STR 7, UPKEEP: 7, move 14, sight 4, assassin 2%, cancel terrain bonus
(A) Ghost 3 turn, cost 1600, STR 4, UPKEEP: 8, move 18, sight 0, assassin 10%, +5% assassin to group, cumulative
(A) Devil 5 turn, cost 2000, STR 7, UPKEEP: 12, move 18, sight 4, assassin 4%, +1 group, cancel non hero bonus
(A) Archon 5 turn, cost 2000, STR 7, UPKEEP: 14, move 16, sight 5, assassin 3%, cancel hero bonus, Flyer
(A) Dragon 5 turn, cost 2200, STR 8, UPKEEP: 10, move 24, sight 6, assassin 2%, +2 group, Flyer

Income per capital 35 - 45g
Income for other cities 15-25 g

We have lowered the income per cities compared to Beta 1. It may be too low now when some units are more expensive and there are more units with different abilities. Also in Beta 1 there was a bug for the first 20 turns or so that made everyone very rich.

What do you think about idea to have bonuses that applies when attacking, and some when defending. Have any other warlords game tried this?
It could make some units a bit interesting I think. I changed giant to -1 group when defending and elemental to +3 when attacking temporarily.

[steff]

I like the attacking/defending bonus. I think it will bring another kind of strategy to this game. Today defending is a little to good in most cases so an attacking bonus would be really good.

Regarding the units and bonuses I wouldn't mind to have more units without any bonuses at all. There will be enough bonuses out there anyway to find a purpose for non-bonus units if the price is right.

[KGB]

Piranha,

Income per capital 35 - 45g
Income for other cities 15-25 g

I'd make all capitols have the same amount of gold for fairness sake. I'd prefer it to be 50 or 75 gold so that a capitol is truly worth fighting for compared to other cities. When I did the patches for Warlords 4, I set the capitol income to be 100 gold and the rest of the cities were in the 15-40 range but the upkeep costs in Warlords 4 are more than yours are so that's why I suggested 50 or 75 gold for the capitol.

It may be too low now when some units are more expensive and there are more units with different abilities.

Well upkeep costs are halved in cities. I assume you have that in your game but maybe you didn't realize they were. The halved upkeep costs mean your 15-25 gold for non capitols should be fine.

What do you think about idea to have bonuses that applies when attacking, and some when defending. Have any other warlords game tried this?

None of the other versions has anything that applies only to attacking or defending.

For Warlords 5, I suggested that all units should instead have 2 strength numbers. One as an attacker number and one as a defender number to represent the fact that some units are better attackers and some better defenders and some are equally good at both. For example Cavalry units should have better attack strengths (say 5 when attacking and 4 when defending) while pikemen should have better defense strengths (say 2 when attacking and 4 when defending) and light infantry would be equal (2 when attacking/defending).

The separation of attack/defense numbers also applies to a lot of the terrain bonus's as well. For example a Spider getting +2 in the city makes sense when the spider is defending since it will have lots of webs laid but doesn't make much sense when the spider is attacking and doesn't have webs laid.

That's the kind of future feature that you could implement.

As you have it now, I think the Giant -1 group when defending is a bit too powerful. That makes Giants as good as Medusa when defending and so everyone will fill their cities with 1 giant for that very bonus. If you are going to give an attack/defense bonus then it should be to the individual unit only as you gave to the Elemental.

KGB