Beta4 Bonus System Question

[KGB]

I still haven't gotten that deep into Beta4 games but I've gone far enough to have some questions about the bonus system.

In Beta3 and earlier the bonus system consisted of:
1) City Walls - Siege
2) Stack (positive/negative) - Negate Stack (Devil)
3) Command - Negate Command (Archon)

Now in Beta4 I see the following bonus's
1) City Walls - Siege (this is unchanged)
2) Morale, Fear, Negate Morale/Fear (Devil)
3) Command, Chaos, Negate Command/Chaos (Archon)

Is this right? That #3 added an extra component called Chaos?

It appears from my game observations that Fear and Chaos are basically one and the same bonus. They are just called Fear on some units (Devil,Medusa,Yeti etc) and Chaos on others (DreadKnight). The minor difference being which Negate power stops them.

The reason I say they are one and the same is that you can use Morale to offset Chaos and use Command to offset Fear. So the result is you have an overly complex bonus system right now because you need 3 different powers for #2 and #3.

KGB

[magian]

Well, I think having fear and chaos is fine, because they stack together just like morale and command (at least I think they stack). The current system is a strange mix of warlords 2 and 3 though. And more complex than either 2 or 3 (probably not a great thing).

If it was up to me. I would ditch the negates, give the dragon a hefty dose of fear, give the archon lots of morale, and give the devil a sizeable helping of chaos. But, I'm very biased in favor of warlords 3.

[KGB]

Magican,

I think having 2 bonus's is fine and like you, I like the DLR system.

But how they are in Beta4 is extra confusing to me (and I imagine to a lot of players) because instead of just Morale/Fear and Leadership/Chaos you have a 3rd component to each of those which is the Negate.

For example a Devil has Negate Morale/Fear +8 and Fear +6.

If the Devil faces a Lt Infantry, the Negate +8 does nothing and the Fear +6 means the Lt Infantry fights at -6. So in this case the total bonus applied is 6.
If the Devil faces a Dragon, the Negate +8 removes 8 Morale and the Fear +6 means the Dragon fights at -4 (12-8-6). So in this case the total bonus applied is 14.

That seems very confusing.

It would be much simpler if the Devil (and Archons) simply had one large bonus. In the Devil case it would be 14 and in the Archon case it would be 8 and 16 for the Archon and Grand Archon. With the difference being that the limit of how far in negative you could go would be set to something reasonable (say -5) so that a Devil vs a Lt Infantry would be capped at -5, not -14. This is how DLR did it and makes things much simpler than having the 3rd state.

The negative cap also allows the bonus's (Morale/Fear, Leadership/Chaos) to be distinct. The reason is that if you are capped at a number (say -5 or -3 or whatever is decided), no more bonus can be applied in that category. So if a Hero has say +6 Leadership and it fights a Devil, right now the +6 from the Hero is canceled by the Devils -6 making the 2 bonus's basically interchangeable. However with a cap of say -5, then the +6 from the hero and the -5 from the Devil would mean the hero would still have a +1.

KGB

[LichKing]

I never played DLR, but In Warlords 2 you had negative stack bonus, as it was in beta3. Now there's chaos, I don't know why you think it's confusing. Chaos stacks with fear, and leadership stacks with morale. They aren't equivalent, because negative bonus is stronger than positive, if it isn't canceled in some way.

KGB: If the Devil faces a Dragon, the Negate +8 removes 8 Morale and the Fear +6 means the Dragon fights at -4 (12-8-6). So in this case the total bonus applied is 14.

Devil's Negate is 10, not 8, Dragon's morale is 12 so the dragon would have 35+12-10-6=31, against 35 of the Devil.

KGB: It would be much simpler if the Devil (and Archons) simply had one large bonus. In the Devil case it would be 14 and in the Archon case it would be 8 and 16 for the Archon and Grand Archon. With the difference being that the limit of how far in negative you could go would be set to something reasonable (say -5) so that a Devil vs a Lt Infantry would be capped at -5, not -14.

This is confusing for me much more than the current rules.
A devil against LiInf applies a malus of -6, not -14, because Negate works only if there's something to negate. A cap of -5? Then you can set Devil's negative bonus to -5, no? But it doesn't matter much, because -6 is the maximum negative bonus you can have (unless it is stacked with Chaos). For me current rules are fine, the only problem is that the Devil is too strong, because Negate + Negative Stack is a too strong combination. The Devil should have only Negate imho, and leave negative bonus to Medusa and Yeti. Also with only Negate, Devils would be valuable, because they would cancel Dragons/Pegasi etc. The strongest negative stack bonus of all units is overkill. If this is corrected, the current system is very flexible, I think, much more than a system with huge bonuses of only one kind. And I don't find this system confusing at all, it's just as before, with added Chaos, and I think it's been a very good idea!

[magian]

I don't find either the Warlords 3 DLR or the beta4 system particularly confusing. But I do think the beta4 system might be confusing to some. The beta4 system is also more cumbersome than the DLR system, and doesn't have any real advantage over its DLR counterpart to justify this increased complexity.

LichKing, in DLR chaos negates leadership and fear negates morale. If a unit with chaos faces an army with no leadership bonus (or a leadership bonus lower than the unit's chaos value) then the strength of the opposing army is reduced by 1 (translates to 5 in beta4) strength. Fear and morale have the same relationship.

[KGB]

LichKing,

Chaos stacks with fear, and leadership stacks with morale. They aren't equivalent, because negative bonus is stronger than positive, if it isn't canceled in some way.

Hence the need to cap the negative bonus's to a reasonable limit like -5. And yes, I understand the relationship between the 2 different bonus's.

Devil's Negate is 10, not 8, Dragon's morale is 12 so the dragon would have 35+12-10-6=31, against 35 of the Devil.

Typo on the Devils Negate. I'm only interested in the bonus's not the final strength numbers of individual units. So in effect the Devil vs Dragon is 12-10-6 = -4. Where Devil vs Lt Infantry is 0-6=-6. Thus in the case of the Dragon the total Devil bonus applied is 16 where it's only 6 in the Lt Infantry case.

This is confusing for me much more than the current rules.
A devil against LiInf applies a malus of -6, not -14, because Negate works only if there's something to negate. A cap of -5? Then you can set Devil's negative bonus to -5, no?

No, you still want to have numbers larger than -5. That's how you reduce stronger Morale bonus's. So a having 14 (or some other number) for the Devil means it can fully reduce the Dragon's Morale.

What I find fully confusing is having 3 skills (positive, negative, negate) for one bonus when you need only 2 skills (positive and negative). That's where DLR excelled over War2 because the system was simplified.

The Devil should have only Negate imho, and leave negative bonus to Medusa and Yeti. Also with only Negate, Devils would be valuable, because they would cancel Dragons/Pegasi etc. The strongest negative stack bonus of all units is overkill. If this is corrected, the current system is very flexible, I think, much more than a system with huge bonuses of only one kind. And I don't find this system confusing at all, it's just as before, with added Chaos, and I think it's been a very good idea!

The other thing you are missing is that one bonus substitutes for another one in the current system.

For example, take a high level Chaos value on a DreadKnight hero (say -12). Right now that's not capped. So the -12 can basically render L2 city walls (+10) useless or a Dragon (+12) useless. So the Chaos is effectively also a Fear bonus or a Siege bonus since it can *fully* reduce those bonus's. With a capped system of -5, the maximum Chaos would be -5 and now the L2 City Walls or Dragon bonus can't be fully removed unless you bring the appropriate counter (Siege, Fear). This is where the DLR system excelled.

Basically each of the bonus's should work like City Walls/Siege does. There is no Negate wall skill like the Devil/Archon has. Furthermore the Siege bonus can't be used against Morale/Leadership it's only useful against it's own counter bonus. Now I'd like to allow some use for Fear/Chaos (up to -5) against other bonus's but no more than that so they the are in fact distinct and can't be freely substituted for each other.

KGB

[LichKing]

KGB: Hence the need to cap the negative bonus's to a reasonable limit like -5. And yes, I understand the relationship between the 2 different bonus's.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you, I know you know perfectly how bonuses work.

Anyway, I like how it is now. Just a couple of things:

1. If you cap chaos to -5, DreadKnight becomes weak compared to other heroes. If you cap fear+chaos to -5, even more so (if you meant that).

KGB: What I find fully confusing is having 3 skills (positive, negative, negate) for one bonus when you need only 2 skills (positive and negative). That's where DLR excelled over War2 because the system was simplified.

2. True that 2 kinds of bonuses (positive and negative) would do everything as well, but if you have archons to negate hero's bonus, it makes sense to me to have a unit that negates fear and morale. A single devil (unless I'm mistaken) can block -6 from another devil and +10 from a dragon in an enemy stack, and an archon can block both chaos and leadership at the same time. That is, if for heroes' bonuses you have a unit who blocks them all, it seems ok for me if there's a unit that blocks both morale and fear at the same time. Otherwise you would need units with both negative and positive bonus in your stack, to negate an enemy stack with both bonuses. This makes things simpler: with a devil and an archon, you can be sure you block everything and feel safe.

KGB: The other thing you are missing is that one bonus substitutes for another one in the current system.

So, if I understood well, you think chaos bonus is too strong, above all when combined with fear, because it makes siege bonus pale in comparison and often superfluous, and needs a cap? Walls bonus still applies anyway, and if you have a siege unit the negative bonus increases further, so the problem is that negative bonus is too strong and too easy to obtain (devils). Chaos could be reduced, and devil's negative bonus dumped.

To me, reasonable caps would be:

-5 for negative (Medusa)
-15 for chaos (with progressively increasing cost, as it was in beta3)
Maximum negative bonus of -15 (fear and chaos combined, or maybe they couldn't stack at all).
If you make max combined negative bonus, e.g. -10, DreadKnights would be too weak compared to other heroes, imho. But maybe it's still reasonable.

+10 (or +12 as it is now) for morale
+20 for leadership
Maximum positive bonus (combined) of 25 (that was the +5 in Warlords 2)

I still think that what damages the current system are devils: they can block a total of 15 (-5 from a Medusa and +10 from a Dragon) and give a -6 penalty, so 21, and they are ready in 4 turns. Archons can block heroes, but they don't give extra bonuses, so I think devils shouldn't either.

[KGB]

LichKing,

You are right about the Devil. It does *so* much now that its really an uber unit.

The other problem I didn't even talk about is that because Chaos/Fear stack (and I am fine with that) there has been a huge unintended consequence of changing the Crow strength (something I have strongly argued against). Before the minimum strength was 5. So a 10 strength unit (most of the 1 turn units) could at most get reduced to 5 strength regardless of Fear/Chaos stacking. Now though they can get reduced to 3 with a DreadKnight/Yeti/Medusa/Devil combo. The result is that instead of being 2x as strong (10v5) you are now more than 3x as strong (10v3). The equivalent positive bonus would need to be +20 (10v30) in the other direction. Literally you can slaughter 8 units with the loss of only 1 Lt infantry if you have a DreadKnight/Yeti/Medusa/Devil combo.

As far as the bonus system goes I think it either needs to go one of two ways:

1) Scrap the entire Morale/Fear/Command/Chaos bonus entirely (leave walls/siege as is) and just go with one bonus (lets call it positive battle and negative battle). So that you can get some stacking, I'd suggest that duplicate units can't stack (2 Pegasi only give +5, 2 Yeti give -2 to enemy) but non-duplicate units CAN stack (Pegasi+Crusader=+8, Yeti+Medusa=-7 to enemy). This is effectively what's going on now with how Morale/Fear/Command/Chaos are interchangeable. The difference is you only have 1 bonus and it's far simpler for players to grasp the concept that you need different units to stack bonus numbers.

2) Leave things as they are now but do away entirely with the Negate concept. Just let Archons/Devils (and any other units you pick) have larger negative values to cancel larger bonus like high level heroes, dragons etc. Now the Devil would either give a large positive bonus or a large negative one, not both. If you need to overcome large fear against you, you need a Dragon in your stack and if you need to give large Fear to the enemy you need a Devil but 1 unit can't do both. Similarly, the Archon should only provide a Chaos value of 8 and 16.

Now, regardless of which idea (1 or 2) gets used, you have to cap the negative value to keep from making negative be too good. I'd suggest the negative cap be -5, regardless of how big a negative you can reach. In idea 1, it's straight forward because you have only 1 bonus now. In idea 2, I'd split it up so that it's -2 from Fear and -3 from Chaos at worst in those bonus's so that you can only reach -5 if you have both in the stack. This now prevents Chaos from being used as Fear (and Fear as Chaos) since an Archon could only provide -3 to a stack at most so that a Pegasi stack vs an Archon stack would be 5-3=2. In the same vein a Devil with -10 Fear could only give -2 to a hero stack so that a Devil vs a Hero with +4 command would be 4-2=2 or an Archon vs a city with +5 wall bonus would still have 5-3=2 wall bonus or a Devil vs a city with +5 Wall bonus would be 5-2=3. This means players need to bring the right units to battle.

Now as for the Dreadknight (and the other 2 heroes). I think all heroes should be able to build all bonus's as that lets players plan for what they need rather than be forced to get only 1 bonus per hero. However, different heroes should pay different amounts. So the Dreadknight for example can start with -3 Chaos and add -3 chaos for 10 points and add +3 command for say 25 points. The Paladin can remain at 4/4 and add -3 chaos for 25 points and add +3 command for 20 points. The Valkyrie could remain at +6 when attacking and then add -3 chaos for 20 points and +4 when attacking for 15 points. This lets all 3 heroes build bonus's of both types for different costs and they start out different.

KGB

[LichKing]

KGB,

Since I never played DLR I don't know what is better, I only know that I like the current system, so I won't argue. I think that most changes you'd like could be obtainable simply by setting caps. So, you'd like that negative stack (even greater than -5) would be still used in full to negate positive bonus in the enemy stack, but couldn't be able to drop the original strength to less than -5, if I understood well. I still think that the DreadKnight would be overly penalized with the current system (but you'd like a rework of heroes' bonuses). Personally I like how heroes are set up now. To me, a cap of -5 for fear and -10 for chaos (if applied to the original strength, allowing for greater reductions if the enemy unit has morale/leadership bonus, and with chaos/fear non-stackable) would be better, keeping the current system (with negate stack/hero, that I like).
This way, DreadKnight's Chaos would act as a negative stack up to -10, and if high level (19 chaos), the 9 point left would act as an innate negate.
______________________________________________________________________________________

DK (chaos 19) vs Giant -> 45 vs 25-10 (cap -10)
DK vs Dragon -> 45 vs 35+12-19
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You could do that simply setting the minimum strength to (original unit's strength -10), with a minimum strength of 5. So a Giant could never drop below STR 15, and a Dragon below STR 25.

I like the Negate ability for the reason I said, that Negate affects both positive and negative bonus. So, if an Archon had Chaos (or fear, since Chaos is for DKs), could negate leadership, but not Chaos itself.

Mines are all personal considerations, I'll use italic and bold just for readability.
Examples with your proposed system (as I understood it, with fictitious values) and current one:
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Archon (Chaos 8) + vs. DK (Chaos 10) + Paladin (Lead. 10) (cap to -5)
Attacker's Bonus = -5
Defender's Bonus = 10-8 = +2

Now:Archon (Negate Hero 8) vs. DK (Chaos 10) + Paladin (Lead. 10) (without cap)
Attacker's Bonus = -10+8 = -2
Defender's Bonus = 10-8 = +2
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Differences aren't big, but what matters is that the player would need making a lot of calculations. Now, you know that an archon is effective against heroes, and that they're a good weapon against them.

Moreover, Archons now have an effect only if in the enemy stack there's an hero, if you give them Chaos they would always have an effect. Same for devils. I like that certain units are a counter for other units, but don't have an universal value, good for every situation.
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Archon (Chaos 8) + vs. Devil (Fear 10) (cap to -5)
Attacker's Bonus = -5
Defender's Bonus = -5

Now:Archon (Negate Hero 8) vs. Devil (Negate 10, -6 Negative) (without cap)
Attacker's Bonus = -6
Defender's Bonus = 0

Currently the Archon is totally ineffective against an (overpowered) devil.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Devil (F 10) + Archon (C 8) vs. DK (C 10) + Paladin ( 10) + Dragon (M 10)
Attacker's Bonus = -5
Defender's Bonus = 10+10-10-8 = +2

Now:Devil (N 10, F 6) + Archon (NH 8) vs. DK (C 10) + Paladin (L 10) + Dragon (M 10)
Attacker's Bonus = -10+8 = -2
Defender's Bonus = 10+10-10-8-6 = -4

Here the situation would be switched: Devil and Archon couldn't counter heroes and Dragon anymore.
______________________________________________________________________________________

With modified Devils:

Devil (F 10) + Archon (C 8) vs. DK (C 10) + Paladin (L 10) + Dragon (M 10)
Attacker's Bonus = -5
Defender's Bonus = 10+10-10-8 = +2

Now:Devil (N 10) + Archon (NH 8) vs. DK (C 10) + Paladin (L 10) + Dragon (M 10)
Attacker's Bonus = -10+8 = -2
Defender's Bonus = 10+10-10-8 = +2

With modified Devils, and Medusa (assuming fear and chaos stack with each other):

Devil (F 10) + Medusa (F 5) + Archon (C 8) vs. DK (C 10) + Paladin (L 10) + Dragon (M 10)
Attacker's Bonus = -5
Defender's Bonus = (10+10)-10-8 = 2

Now:Devil (N 10) + Medusa (F 5) + Archon (NH 8) vs. DK (C 10) + Paladin (L 10) + Dragon (M 10)
Attacker's Bonus = -10+8 = -2
Defender's Bonus = (10+10)-10-5-8 = -3
______________________________________________________________________________________

If you make fear of different kind of units stackable, the result would be the same, but then chaos and fear, leadership and morale would do the same, without any difference at all.

Overall, in a system with only positive and negative bonus, you make units interchangeable, good or bad in any situation. They would be less able to counter specific units, while being more effective (Archons with Chaos, for example) against normal ones.

I understood this was exactly your point, that bonuses are now interchangeable, but the only solution to this, in my opinion, is to set a cap for negative bonus (when applied on the unit's base strength), as I said at the beginning of the post, not to dump Negate Bonus or Hero, and make all bonuses either positive or negative, this would make things worse, imho.
To keep Chaos and Fear distinguished is useful, just as Command and stack bonus were, because Archons can negate Chaos but not fear, and Devils negate fear but not Chaos. Sure, if you simplify the system and eliminate the Negate attribute, this wouldn't make sense anymore. Personally I like it as it is.
______________________________________________________________________________________

As for crows and 3-STR units, I totally agree with you (I saw it on crows, not on other units, so I'm not sure about that). I'd be fine with crows at STR 5.

[KGB]

LichKing,

A quick glaces of your examples looks correct in that you understood what I proposed and you understand the current system.

I agree we need a cap on the negative values of the current bonus's to distinguish them. However that cap has to be applied 'to the bonus first' and then 'to the stack' second.

By that I mean if you decide the negative cap value is -5 for a bonus you can't pass on more than -5 from your bonus category. In the same way the positive cap should be 25 from a single category (tho nothing can reach that now obviously).

Currently: DK (12 Chaos) vs Dragon (12 Morale) is 12-12=0.
Capped at -5: DK (12 Chaos) vs Dragon (12 Morale) is 12-5 (capped at -5) = 7.

Further the stack would be capped at -5 at worst (I think -10 is a bit too big of a negative value as the range of -5 to +25 seems more than fine).

So what needs to happen is

CityWall-Siege (cap at -5. Of course this is capped at 0 anyway) = X
Morale-Fear (cap at -5) = Y
Command-Chaos (cap at -5) = Z

Then X+Y+Z (cap at range -5 to +25)

Example 1:
DreadKnight ( 12 Chaos) vs Lt Infantry in a City with +10 walls)
10 wall - 0 siege = 10
0 morale - 0 fear = 0
0 command - 12 chaos = -5 (capped at 5)
Total bonus is 10+0+-5 = +5 for Lt Infantry (on the other side, the DK bonus is all 0's)

Example 2:
DreadKnight + Medusa vs Lt Infantry in a City with +10 walls)
10 wall - 0 siege = 10
0 morale - 5 fear = -5
0 command - 12 chaos = -5 (capped at 5)
Total bonus is 10+-5+-5 = +0 for Lt Infantry (on the other side, the DK_Medusa bonus is all 0's)

Example 3:
DreadKnight + Medusa vs Lt Infantry in the open
0 wall - 0 siege = 0
0 morale - 5 fear = -5
0 command - 12 chaos = -5 (capped at 5)
Total bonus is 0+-5+-5 = +-5 (overall cap of -5 at stack) for Lt Infantry (on the other side, the DK_Medusa bonus is all 0's)

This is how DLR handled mixing the bonus's to uniquely distinguish them and to prevent one bonus from becoming over powering.

Incidentally, I still see no reason to have a Negate Power such as Devils and Archons have. The Chaos that the Dreadlord has was meant to be the counter to the Command that the Paladin/Valkrie have. That's why there is Morale/Fear and Leadership/Chaos so that there are opposites to each bonus. The 'Negate either' doesn't really need to be there with Caps in place.

KGB