A few thoughts

[LichKing]

Firstly my compliments to the developers, almost perfect recreation of Warlords and great graphics.
Probably I won't play anymore since I've limited bandwidth and browser games are such, that a "nothing to download" translates instead in "download everything every time", and if the client lost connections (it happens oft in my PC) everything is downloaded again. I would really prefer it and keep playing it if it were "downloadable client-based". Apart from this, I've noticed a couple of things, maybe I'm wrong but that's what I understood of it:

1. Medusa's negative stack didn't work in my game as I thought it should have done. In original Warlords II, negative stack affects enemy not just negating or reducing a stack bonus (as the one given by Pegasi or Dragons), but it *always* worked, always reducing for example heavy infantry to STR 2 from STR 3. If it isn't so, then Medusa is useless, because Devils, that cost slightly more, negate all stack bonus, give +1 stack and are faster.

2. Hitpoints: as far as I understood, this feature is intended to make fights more balanced, giving a better chance for smaller units to kill more powerful ones. But are you sure it really works that way? I mean, if for example a crow is fighting a dragon, if both have 2 HP, it would be as if the fight would take place between 2 crows and 2 dragons, this is not making things easier for the crows.. at all! At least, this is what I understood of this mechanic. Things would be different if, for example, a wounded unit (1/2 HP) would fight at reduced strength (for example 75% of original STR), then in a big fight weaker units could have a chance against powerful wounded units. Also, are hitpoints regenerated between battles and/or between turns?

3. Heroes don't seem very balanced to me. To my experience, everybody chooses the Dark Hero (+1 stack attack), and I always chose that (unless I did a mistake). Also, in the original Warlords II, if two heroes were in a stack, command bonuses stacked (always capped at +5 for all stack bonuses)

[LPhillips]

Medusa always gives the -1 stack unless it is negated by another unit's bonus. One thing is that the battle does not show the enemy's adjusted HP (ever). You have to look at the bonuses, know the units, and think it through for yourself. An unnecessary exercise in my opinion, so maybe they'll fix that.

Yeah, the graphics are awesome. A downloadable client would make it *much* easier for the small minority of players with a slow connection to play, and a little easier for the rest of us as info wouldn't be lost when we lose connection. However, that's probably a lot of programming for a relatively small reward.

Hitpoints always regenerate between battles. That might change if some features like Disease are implemented.

Heroes don't stack. Maybe they should, but currently you can easily have a dozen heroes and rewarding stacking would mess with the current system of hero leveling. Choosing the Dreadlord is often a nice choice, but the Paladin can be much better for his quick learning rate. I personally use Valkerie quite often when I get something like Archons or Dragons and I need the whole stack to move quickly. Dreadlord's stack bonus does not stack with some units' stack bonuses. So you'll find a Valkerie with a Dragon and 5 extra movement points to be much better than a Dreadlord with a Dragon. And a Paladin will reach level 5 at the time others reach level 4, allowing an extra command bonus that much earlier.
They're not finely balanced. But this is a beta.

[piranha]

LPhilips answered most of your points but I'd like to answer one point.

You are right that a browser game and it still require downloading but browsers normally cache content such as images and also some files so it should be faster after the first time. This is probably an area where we can put work in making sure that as much as possible is cached to speed it up. We are spoiled with good internet, but I just spent time skiing in the alps and did my turns on a slow connection there so I had timeouts now and then.

Its good that you told us of this because we need to take things like that into account. This might be one of the big improvement points for beta5 to trim as much as we can and to read on how to optimize files for caching.

May I ask what internet connection you have and where you play from?

[KGB]

LichKing,

A couple of quick answers:

2. Hitpoints: - These work exactly the same as they did in Warlords 2. Nothing different here and there is nothing meant to balance fights to give weaker units more chance to kill stronger ones. If you want that to occur you have to chance the dice from 20 to 25 or 30 if you want to increase the value of weaker units.

3. Also, in the original Warlords II, if two heroes were in a stack, command bonuses stacked (always capped at +5 for all stack bonuses) - Nope, they didn't stack. Bonus's have never stacked in Warlords. Now items stack with heroes so maybe that's what you remember but 2 heroes don't stack nor do 2 pegasi stack.

KGB

[LichKing]

The problem isn't actually that I have a slow connection, because it's pretty fast, but I connect with a laptop through an USB stick, and I have limited bandwidth per month. I don't know how many kB are downloaded every time, but I try to be careful, so this is the only problem, because 2-3 times each turn the client loses connection and reloads everything. I'm playing from Germany (but I'm italian) and I'm using Opera if this can be a problem. I wonder if there's a way to cache graphical resources permanently in the hard drive? Thanks for the answers

By the way I checked in the cache the size of the graphical elements and they're not so big, it's a very relative problem after all

@KGB: in Warlords II, as far as I remember, there weren't hitpoints, that was the reason of my observation.

[KGB]

LichKing,

@KGB: in Warlords II, as far as I remember, there weren't hitpoints, that was the reason of my observation.

Ah, I see what you mean now as I just played a turn in Warlords II . The combat screen just shows the units, not the HP. But in reality, each unit in Warlords II had 2 hit points, you just didn't see them. The units were destroyed after what looks like 1 hit but in reality was 2 hits. This site http://www.heeter.net/warlords/ has lots of great info on Warlords II and was used as a basis for Warbarons.

KGB

[LichKing]

Thanks for the explanation, it's clear now, I didn't know it worked this way.

[kenc80]

Lich - One more thing...yes I agree...Devils are far better than medusas. What you didnt mention is that medusas are also only 12 move which sucks.

[Pillager]

Don't hate on the medusa. Its a very strong unit. Sure it may not be quite on par with the devil...but you are comparing a 3 turn unit to a 5 turner.

If your opponent isn't getting a stack bonus the medusa's power is actually superior to the devil's.

By why choose? Best to have both.

[LPhillips]

Actually, the usefulness of stack+1 vs. stack-1 arguably depends on the size of the armies. Statistically you'd benefit more from stack-1 when attacking an army larger than yours. But if the enemy's stack bonuses exceed +5 then Medusas are useless. Then again, stack bonus units are overly common and they all move approximately as quickly or more quickly than Devils. Two of them fly. Thus Devils' only really notable feature is its cancel stack bonus.

Medusas are generally only useful as allies to Dreadlords because of their movement, while Devils can keep up with Valkeria. So with planning, you might choose to buy Negative Stack with your Valkerie or Paladin and skip it for your Dreadlord.