Beta4 Bonus System Question

[KGB]

Piranha,

Too much carry over negative bonuses causes other reducing bonuses (siege, negate terrain) to lose value.
Too little carry over negative bonuses causes heavily defended cities to be hard to capture.

I think that the system should be as flexible as it can. I want to allow for as high values without cap as possible while still making sure that there is a good counter.

Correct. It's a serious dilemma.

I definitely agree the system needs to be as flexible as possible. You want to be able to introduce new units and not automatically invalidate existing ones or new bonus's that don't automatically invalidate existing bonus's. All while making sure not to overpower cities/stacks (in reality, cities are the worst case because of portaling/32 units, stacks can be worn down easier).

We have ambush which is rarely used much (at least not in the games I played), I guess one reason why people dont use it as much is because its only great cost wise on taking down a super army, but when you battle normal armies its better to have your own super army instead.

True. But the fact that its wasted on normal armies is what keeps it in check. Otherwise all you'd make would be those units. It's possible players don't understand the value of this skill since many games are decided before its needed against super stacks.

Its also true that negative bonuses works better on ships. If negative powers should be allowed to roam free there need to be something to counter it and preferably something that doesn't counter morale/leadership as much.

I liked what you had done in Beta2 where land units on ships didn't could not use their bonus (Fear, Morale, Negate). I'd be all for going back to that model again and only letting flying units (including flying heroes) provide bonus's to boats to allow them to exceed the boat cap. Currently that's only Pegasi/Dragons/Archons but who knows what it might be in the future.

How about orc and wolf rider gets increased ambush.
Ghost gets attack +10, and negate fear +4.

I was kidding about the Orc - 20 and Wolfrider - 30. But 10 for the Orc and 20 for the Wolfrider would be nice. Please don't take the group ambush off the Ghost unless it's going to another unit. That group ambush really helps increase the value of Orc/Wolfrider stacks and masses of units in cities when trying to build ambush stacks and the Elemental already has +15 attack. Now with the +3 Undead Lore addition and the Ghost being able to fly (great additions) it means they are great to have along when searching L3 ruins when the dice go up to 33.

A unit that can Negate Fear only should be one that inspires armies like a Pegasi/Crusader/Unicorn.

KGB

[LichKing]

About boats, it's not true that negative stack could not be countered. If the boat cap comes last, F/Ch/M/Ls have all the time to negate themselves. If you bring a single devil with an important army on sea, you'll cancel all risk from Kraken or Fear units, if you bring a Pegasus you'll cancel (possibly) a DK. Then all resulting bonus will be capped by the boat strength (45 isn't bad at all, maybe it's too much already).

And as far as a negative bonus of more than -5 goes, I'd LOVE a 4 turn, 10 or 12 Fear unit to cancel the Dragon Morale. I just don't want that Fear to carry over against Walls/Leadership/Terrain Bonus etc. The 10 or 12 Fear would just cancel out the Morale so it would be limited by the -5 carry over.

The devil does already that, not only, it cancels a Dragon, gives 2 Fear to the enemy and cancels possible Fear in enemy units. It does already much more than you'd ask from such a unit.

There is powerful and then there is ridiculous. +40 is ridiculous as that's as big a bonus as a Dragons native strength.

As somebody remarked in a precedent discussion about impossible-to-take towns, you can simply avoid them and attack less well defended towns, if you don't feel strong enough to conquer them. If I spend nearly 1000 to upgrade a wall up to 15, then I'd like that this gives me some benefit over having a paladin and a dragon in it. If Chaos cap were -10 (or -15), you'd have one more weapon.

I've made a spreadsheet (OpenOffice format) with a new system I tried to make. Explanations of the calculations are in the spreadsheet.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/9ll4nuufxu2zj06/Stack%20Bonus%20Calculation.ods
____________________________________________________________________________________

From this system you can expect the following:

1. Fear is capped to -5 total negative bonus. Fear > 5 can block Morale > 5, and Leadership up to 5. Fear 10 can block 5 Morale and 5 Leadership, but not 10 Leadership (only 5).

2. Chaos and Fear stack up to a maximum of -5 (IF Chaos <= 5). Yeti+DK = -5, Medusa+DK=-5, but Medusa+DK vs. Crusader, still -5.

3. Only Chaos can give a negative bonus bigger than -5 (in my spreadsheet is capped to -15).
____________________________________________________________________________________

Examples:

Fear 10 vs. nothing -----------------------------> -5
Fear 2 + Chaos 4 vs nothing -------------------> -5 (capped at -5 for Chaos <=5)
Fear 10 + Chaos 4 vs Lead. 4 ------------------> -5 (Fear capped at -5)
Fear 5 + Chaos 10 vs Lead. 4 ------------------> -10 (Fear negates Lead., Chaos bring full bonus)
Fear 10 vs Lead. 4 ------------------------------> -5 (Fear capped at -5)
Chaos 10 vs. Lead. 4 ---------------------------> -6 (Chaos isn't capped)
Fear 10 + Chaos 10 vs Morale 5 + Lead. 5 ---> -10 (Fear negates 5 Morale and 5 Lead., Chaos adds full bonus)

You can try other combinations if you have OpenOffice and try the spreadsheet .
This is a way to have negative bonus capped to -5 for Fear units and low level DKs (especially at the beginning of the game), but as your DK gains level it will become more powerful and its bonus won't be capped. Fear is always useful to negate Morale (as far as it can) and Leadership (up to 5 points).
If you think -15 is too much, consider that Terrain/Swarm/Anti-air would be calculated after that, so an orc in swamp would still have 15 STR minimum (even with a -15 Chaos bonus).

I didn't consider Negate Aura and Heroism. They should applied, by the way, before all calculation are done (preliminary step).

My previous list would become:


1. Base strength (blessing included)
2. Negate Aura and Heroism (reduce F/M/Ch/Lead. accordingly)
3. Stack Bonus with caps(all this you find in the spreadsheet), added to base strength
4. apply min/max unit strength cap (5,75)
5. add wall bonus
6. add swarm/terrain/anti-air
7. apply min/max unit strength cap (5,75) again.
8. apply boat cap, if on boat

Hope you like it

[LichKing]

There was a small mistake in the first spreadsheet I posted, now it should be correct.

[KGB]

LichKing,

About boats, it's not true that negative stack could not be countered. If the boat cap comes last, F/Ch/M/Ls have all the time to negate themselves. If you bring a single devil with an important army on sea, you'll cancel all risk from Kraken or Fear units, if you bring a Pegasus you'll cancel (possibly) a DK. Then all resulting bonus will be capped by the boat strength (45 isn't bad at all, maybe it's too much already).

But how many people actually have Devils to spare for moving with boats to cancel negative bonus's?

I'd rather go back to the Beta2 (Beta3?) system where land based units on boats were not able to use their bonus's and then allow bonus's to be in play with boats.

The devil does already that, not only, it cancels a Dragon, gives 2 Fear to the enemy and cancels possible Fear in enemy units. It does already much more than you'd ask from such a unit.

Again, I rarely have spare Devils lying around. I'm looking for a unit that's less powerful/costly than the Devil but carries a large Fear bonus.

As somebody remarked in a precedent discussion about impossible-to-take towns, you can simply avoid them and attack less well defended towns, if you don't feel strong enough to conquer them. If I spend nearly 1000 to upgrade a wall up to 15, then I'd like that this gives me some benefit over having a paladin and a dragon in it. If Chaos cap were -10 (or -15), you'd have one more weapon.

With a cap it will still give benefit if your opponent brings an Archon or Devil to remove your Leadership/Morale since the Walls would then come into play.

And it's true you can mostly go around such cities. Mostly.

Quite a few maps now feature some choke points where one city controls access to multiple cities behind it and such a city would allow a hero to sally forth and destroy anything that tries to go around.

Then there is the issue that in Beta4 we can change the win parameter to 100% meaning sooner or later you *have* to conquer this city (esp on smaller maps with 10-15 cities). I don't relish waiting 40-50 turns to amass 200+ Orcs/Wolfriders/Ghosts to do such a job.

Plus in team games you can vector to your teammates city. So in theory you can be getting 8 or 12 or 16 men a turn there depending on your number of allies. Something that may need to get looked at.

Fear 5 + Chaos 10 vs Lead. 4 ------------------> -10 (Fear negates Lead., Chaos bring full bonus)
Chaos 10 vs. Lead. 4 ---------------------------> -6 (Chaos isn't capped)
Fear 10 + Chaos 10 vs Morale 5 + Lead. 5 ---> -10 (Fear negates 5 Morale and 5 Lead., Chaos adds full bonus)

I thought we were capping a -5 max

Fear 10 vs Lead. 4 ------------------------------> -5 (Fear capped at -5)

Shouldn't this be -1 (Fear gets capped at -5, then applies -5 to the +4 Leadership)

KGB

[LichKing]

But how many people actually have Devils to spare for moving with boats to cancel negative bonus's?

I'd rather go back to the Beta2 (Beta3?) system where land based units on boats were not able to use their bonus's and then allow bonus's to be in play with boats.

I don't know how it was, I like it as it is now btw, but it's my opinion.

Again, I rarely have spare Devils lying around. I'm looking for a unit that's less powerful/costly than the Devil but carries a large Fear bonus.

You'd like a cheap unit that can cancel a Dragon? Devils are already cheaper than dragons and are built in 1 turn less, if you make something even cheaper and/or faster to build, then what's the point in having Dragons.

With a cap it will still give benefit if your opponent brings an Archon or Devil to remove your Leadership/Morale since the Walls would then come into play.

Quite a few maps now feature some choke points where one city controls access to multiple cities behind it and such a city would allow a hero to sally forth and destroy anything that tries to go around.

Ok, this can be easily changed by the way, there would be a difference only in really extreme cases (like Dragon+Paladin with high leadership).

Then there is the issue that in Beta4 we can change the win parameter to 100% meaning sooner or later you *have* to conquer this city (esp on smaller maps with 10-15 cities). I don't relish waiting 40-50 turns to amass 200+ Orcs/Wolfriders/Ghosts to do such a job.

I wouldn't really like that, it would take ages to finish those games...

I thought we were capping a -5 max

I made that system in a way that Fear would give max -5, and Chaos would be the limiter for negative stack, so you can reach -15 if Chaos is -15. That is, a higher negative bonus exclusive for DKs (you can still cancel them with Archons anyway). I think it's more fun to have a hero that can reach very negative stack bonus. My view, anyway.

Fear 10 vs Lead. 4 ------------------------------> -5 (Fear capped at -5)

Shouldn't this be -1 (Fear gets capped at -5, then applies -5 to the +4 Leadership)

KGB

I screwed it There was a mistake in the formula, I rewrote it, now it seems ok (I hope).

It should be something like this:



In the image the red numbers would mean:

1. Morale-Fear, capped at -5. Then is added Leadership (so Fear could cancel up to 5 Leadership, or 5 Morale + 5 Leadership). Then Chaos is subtracted from this value. If this is ≥ -5 (more positive), it is within Fear cap and wouldn’t be changed.

DK (C 4) + Medusa (F 5) vs Paladin (L 7) –-> -5 +7 -4 = -2 < 5 –-> -2

If this value is < -5 (more negative), then:

2. If Chaos ≤ 5, this value would be capped at -5, because only Chaos should allow more negative bonus than -5.

DK (C 4) + Medusa (F 5) vs Crusader (M 3) –-> -5 +3 -4 = -6 –-> capped at -5

3. If Morale-Fear (capped at -5), plus Leadership, returns a negative value, and Chaos ≥ 5, then negative bonus would be determined by Chaos only.

DK (C 10) + Medusa (F 5) vs Crusader (M 3) –-> -5 +3 = -2 < 0, -10 = -12 –-> -10

4. If Morale-Fear (capped at -5), plus Leadership, returns a positive value, then Chaos is subtracted and this represents the final negative bonus (if present).

DK (C 15) + Yeti (F 2) vs Paladin (L 10) –-> -2 +10 = 8 > 0, -15 = -7



I changed the spreadsheet too.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/igdz4d1u82badxg/Stack%20Bonus%20Calculation.ods

That's my idea about it, at least, I'd like a cap of -5 for Fear but an higher cap for Chaos.

[KGB]

LichKing,

You'd like a cheap unit that can cancel a Dragon? Devils are already cheaper than dragons and are built in 1 turn less, if you make something even cheaper and/or faster to build, then what's the point in having Dragons.

I didn't realize Devils were now 4 turn units. Haven't found one in a neutral nor purchased one yet since Dragons are a much better buy than Devils (Dragons should probably cost 2400).

So maybe when what's needed is what KenC and I have been talking about. To split the Devil into 2 units like the Archon was. A 3 turn Devil with identical stats/cost to the 3 turn Archon (5 strength, Negate 8 only). Then a 5 turn Arch-Devil with the Negate 10 and Fear 2.

Ok, this can be easily changed by the way, there would be a difference only in really extreme cases (like Dragon+Paladin with high leadership).

Actually even now, Dragon + 15 Wall bonus exceeds the 25 bonus cap. Which is hard to counter even on it's own since you require a Devil + Catapult and you still won't get rid of the entire bonus.

I think it's probably best if the Walls are included in the -5,25 range of bonus's to prevent player frustration with capturing harder cities.


Your examples all seem reasonable to me. The -5 cap will be in place most battles until the DK gets a really high Chaos value which takes time and gives players a chance to counter with an Archon or Paladin or Dragon.

KGB

[LichKing]

Dragons should probably cost 2400

I agree.

So maybe when what's needed is what KenC and I have been talking about. To split the Devil into 2 units like the Archon was. A 3 turn Devil with identical stats/cost to the 3 turn Archon (5 strength, Negate 8 only).

Negate 8 would cancel 2/3 of a Dragon and *everything* else (Yeti, crusader, Medusa, Pegasus..). You cannot make a 'cheap' unit like that, you wouldn't see bonuses anymore. Negate 3 sould be the max for such a unit (so it cancels Yeti, Crusader, half Pegasus, brings Medusa to -2 and weakens Dragon). But I see it as a rather unnecessary complication, as I already see the 2 Archons (I'd never go for the small one now).

Then a 5 turn Arch-Devil with the Negate 10 and Fear 2.

A Lich then

[KGB]

LichKing,

Negate 8 would cancel 2/3 of a Dragon and *everything* else (Yeti, crusader, Medusa, Pegasus..). You cannot make a 'cheap' unit like that, you wouldn't see bonuses anymore. Negate 3 sould be the max for such a unit (so it cancels Yeti, Crusader, half Pegasus, brings Medusa to -2 and weakens Dragon).

Now you know why I am not really a fan of the Negate concept at all because it's so restrictive on what you can do with it because it's too powerful. A Negate 3 unit is pointless too because it doesn't do enough to justify it unless it's a 2 turn unit like the Crusader/Yeti.

It would be much better to have a Fear 10 unit to reduce high morale only and provide a max -5 Fear bonus on the capped carry over. But we can't have that either since Piranha does not seem in favor of a capped bonus system. That's the whole reason I started this thread because the bonus system now isn't very flexible at all and why I wanted to dump the whole Negate concept and get away from a bastardization of War2/DLR.

But I see it as a rather unnecessary complication, as I already see the 2 Archons (I'd never go for the small one now).

Actually I find the lower level Archon to be totally acceptable and useful. Very few heroes exceed 8 Chaos/Leadership at least until the very late game (by which time I can usually get 1 Grand Archon from a hero offer) so it's handy to have several of these to stop the 4-5 other low level heroes players have running around so producing them in 3 turns for a reasonable cost is great.

KGB

[LichKing]

Now you know why I am not really a fan of the Negate concept at all because it's so restrictive on what you can do with it because it's too powerful. A Negate 3 unit is pointless too because it doesn't do enough to justify it unless it's a 2 turn unit like the Crusader/Yeti.

I still like Negate, mainly because of Archons, and it applies to Devil too. Units that are weak if they fight strong units with no bonus. I wouldn't like an Archon with high Chaos (or Fear) that is very strong in all situations. Maybe they should be more expensive than the units they negate. Archons are already the most expensive unit, devils should cost more than dragons. By the way I'll take a pause from this discussion, big novelties apart, I think I explained more or less my views . Probably Piranha and SnotlinG don't want to make big changes in this for now, and basically I like the current system. Now that devils have been weakened there isn't a game-breaking unit anymore, so it's better, and all this is relative for me. Only things that maybe could be better are:

1. it's rather easy to have strong negative bonus, much less easy to have a big positive bonus, and I proposed my cap system.
2. maybe cost adjustments for certain units, considering also that there's more money available now. Red Dragons aren't too much overpriced, imo, they take 5 turns to build and it's a lot, almost double than Pegasi, that I often prefer, and I'd buy devils instead. Devils could cost more, and Grand Archons a bit more.

[KGB]

2. maybe cost adjustments for certain units, considering also that there's more money available now. Red Dragons aren't too much overpriced, imo, they take 5 turns to build and it's a lot, almost double than Pegasi, that I often prefer, and I'd buy devils instead. Devils could cost more, and Grand Archons a bit more.

Definitely many units aren't priced correctly. But that's partly because the game changes so much from Beta to Beta and even within Betas units are being adjusted.

But I don't think we even agree on what units are priced right

1. Not sure what you mean about Red Dragons. Are you saying they cost too little or too much? To me, they cost WAY too little and need to go up to about 2400 gold since they are by far the most valuable unit you can buy.
2. The Grand Archon is probably overpriced now given what it does (only negate +9 or better since the lesser Archon handles 8 and under). But then I never buy one so I don't really care since the lesser Archon does all I need and I usually get 1 Grand Archon with a hero offer someplace during a game.
3. The Devil seems fine at 1800 but could go to 2000 if the Dragon goes to 2400.
4. The 1 turn units in general are over priced for the most part especially now since it's so trivial to get a -5 stack bonus from Yeti+DK or Medusa making all 10 strength units basically fight at 5 (equivalent to a scout/crow). So units like Orcs/Elves/Hv Infantry/Lt Calv all cost too much relative to what they do since all you get from them compared to a Lt Infantry are movement bonus's. They all eventually need to get cheaper in cost, somewhere between 25-100 gold each.

KGB