Unit balancing

[temptsfate]

Too bad, I have the feeling that all you\'re doing is making the strong units weaker. Anyway, KGB, air and sea units cannot board boats so far. Heroes cannot switch from boat to air/sea either, which is annoying if you want to attack a city with sea/air units and take a hero along who met them by boat. Makes little sense IMO.

[piranha]

Ok made some changes.

Kraken is now fear 2 on land, fear 4 on swamp and moves at 18.
Sea serpent lowered from 425 to 400 and speed from 20 to 22.
Unicorn negate morale/fear 3
Medusa is fear 5 again.

[Igor]

Medusa have become fear 45

[piranha]

Fixed now .

[LPhillips]

Hey, I was writing a post and got carried away. Realized it belongs here. My thoughts on many units now, how some are underutilized and how some are not worth using.

People don't use siege engines. I don't know what is not clicking, but most experienced players seem to see them as worthless. Even people whom I respect for their tact and thoughtfulness ignore them or plunder them. Now, as I said, these are players that I respect and yet I must say that their behavior is very foolish. Especially on gold-rich maps where an enemy can easily set up at uncomfortably close quarters with a +10 or +15 city, and then players find themselves powerless against it. Maybe we're all too familiar with War2 where a player's ranks would quickly be flush with useless, slow machines? In this game they can be vital.

Some units provided in the game are great specialists, and it would be nice to raise awareness of their pros and cons. Siege machines are only one example of the underutilized units left on the sidelines. Pikemen are cheap and readily available now. They sport a lower upkeep than their specialist competitors the Heavy Infantry, they are only 25% weaker on defense, they are 50% stronger on attack, and they're incredibly powerful in Open terrain (far more common on traditional maps than all other terrains combined). Would you rather have two Pikemen, two Light Cavalry, or one Heavy Cavalry for augmenting your stacks crossing open terrain in the face of enemy aggression? If it's a true slugfest and a battle of economy and production, the Pikemen take the cake. The increased mobility of their competitors is no doubt very nice, but Pikemen in the open will wear down any opponent short of true super-stacks. And again: they're cheap, and economically equal to Heavy Infantry for defense. So while your ranks are building for that push, you'll be safe and upkeep won't melt your funds too quickly. Of course for cramming more power into 8 units for special stacks, 2 turners are always preferable, but in pure numbers, power, and cost they're inferior to Pikemen.
Can the Wizard get some love? +2 UL, excellent movement speed, and powerful anti-air capability stacked on their 25 combat. They're a hero's best friend with all that speed, and the ultimate scout or scout hunter in fair terrain. Near-perfect raiders with equal strength to even a HI defending a +5 city. At 1050 and 2 turns, they're a bargain in their proper situations.
Heavy Cavalry are stupidly good in desert terrain. They shouldn't have that bonus, both for balance and historical accuracy (traditional western heavy cavalry always had a devilish time moving around sandy deserts). But while they do, they're like desert demigods. Throw in a sandworm and/or elephant for good measure, and things really get nasty.
Scouts. These units just rock. The +5 anti-air and the +1 UL have found Scouts suddenly very useful and in their niche. Thanks guys! Even on maps full of "poor" cities, you can count on the Scout to bolster your heroes' ranks until the real production comes along. High movement, good for helping others around, generally a fine unit. Many players are waking up to this.

Useless units:
Yeti. Seriously. 700 gold, can't lead others, only 15 base battle and only 30 in their native terrain. The comparable Heavy Cavalry are only 500 gold, and get +10 in Open AND Desert (to hammer in the point, this is still absurd), and +5 in Snow making them just as powerful as Yetis there. -2 fear? Patently useless. Honestly, if the whole map were snow, I wouldn't buy nor even keep these units. Why would you? 15 movement at cost one is OK, but for a unit which is still weak even when fighting on its home terrain you're not getting much out of them. And you need a scout or mammoth leading other units if you want to support your Yetis. Maybe, maybe, they'd be used if they had some banding bonus. But a two-turner with banding active on all terrain becomes a bigger problem. Is +banding only in snow possible? Confusing? I wouldn't really want it anyway. How to fix the yeti: 20 base attack, -5 fear on snow, Lead others at cost 2. Any combination of two of those would make them bearable. Without the -5 fear on snow, they're not worth over 550. Even with it they're only good on snow, much like the Sandworm on sand.
Devil. 5 turns for only 2 fear and 8 negate? And that on a non-flying unit with 16 moves that you can't really afford to slow a good hero stack down for? The game is over before you can get this guy to the action, and even then he can't fully negate a dragon, and he doesn't cause enough fear to take even 1/2 a combat point away from enemies. 2 fear? How about -10 negate and 4 turns, no fear? Even 5 turns, but at least buff the attributes please!
Mammoth. He's an expensive 3-turn unit with 35 combat only when he's being attacked, 15 at other times, and he only gives +5 stack even in his native terrain. Even if they were provided as free production on a snowy map, it's 3 turns of waiting for a unit that is only strong on defense, an in-between unit with no practical application. Too pricy and too long a production time for a front-liner, bonuses too weak for a true support unit. To be fair, at least give Mammoth +10 group on snow. Elephant has a crazy +12 on open AND sand. Snow isn't that common, and even on a fully snowy map I'd rather have cheaper Pegasi that will actually have a bonus when fighting in cities (where most battles take place).
Crusader. This one is not totally useless; they're fine units conceptually. But somehow they fail to find their niche right now. Players aren't using them. A 2-turn unit giving +3 morale and serving double duty as UL boosters could be a nice unit. But Scouts, with UL 1 and production time 1 just displace them very effectively. Maybe with UL 2 Crusaders would really come into their own. They're supposed to be hero helpers, but they have the lowest UL per production time of any unit. Every other unit with UL gives +1 per production turn, while Crusaders give half that amount. Ruins are sufficiently deadly; you'd still need 5 Crusaders to make a level 2 ruin safe for a Paladin with 12 UL. Right now Paladins are a "do I plunder that or not?" unit at best, and never a "good time to build those!" unit.

[magian]

Um... the devil really doesn't need any help.

You may not have noticed that the mammoth now has 4 wounds.

[KGB]

LPhillips,

Siege Units: I pillage them all the time. They are *late game* units only. There is no need for them in the early/mid game. You certainly do not need siege to capture a neutral city with only 1 (or maybe 2) armies in it. Even in early encounters with opponents they will many times only have 1-2 armies in a city. Siege only has real value in the late game when you need to knockout a heavily fortified city (+10 or better walls with 8-16 armies in it). AND that city has a Devil in it. Otherwise +5 Siege is no better than just bringing a Pegasi/Medusa and +10 Siege is no better than bringing a Red Dragon (or a high Chaos DK). Until such time as the bonus system stops allowing free substitution of bonus's (ie you can overcome +5 walls with +5 Fear/Morale/Leadership/Chaos) Siege will always be the red-headed stepchild because it can ONLY be used against city walls.

Pikemen: Nice units but I never buy them. I use what I find but otherwise find them to be too slow for real effective use. Also with the Unicorn now being cheaper and sporting a Negate Morale/Fear bonus I expect to see more of them in action and they make the Pikemen much less powerful (which they can't do to Hv Infantry because there is no counter for +X defense).

Yeti: They are 20 battle, +15 in snow. You must still have Beta5 games going. I also wish they could lead others for 2 in snow as there is no real snow unit now other than Mammoth which takes a while to build. That makes snow a devastating terrain right now as it takes 4 moves to go 1 square (3 with scout). The +2 Fear bonus isn't useless (it takes a 50/50 battle of 8 Elves vs 8 Elves to 67%). So it's a nice boost but I do wish it was increased to 3 like the Crusaders Morale bonus since they are 'opposite bonus' units. I always keep my Yeti for that +2 Fear as I consider that more valuable than a Battering Ram.

Devil: Used to be 10 Negate and 2 Fear. This guy is a killer since his bonus is potentially +16 since it affects both Fear and Morale (ie can counter a Medusa and Red Dragon at the same time). I love Devils. I think they are totally fine 'as is'. If the bonus system changes so that Negate comes after Morale/Fear gets applied (as I have suggested) then the Devils value will drop quite a bit and his Negate can go back to 10.

Mammoth: As Magican noted, this guy has 4 hits. Not only that but on defense he has +20 making him a 35 strength, 4 hit unit. That's virtually unkillable unless you have a monster stack yourself or a lot of Ghosts. I would never pillage one of these guys.

Crusaders: I use them/never pillage them. That +3 Morale bonus takes them up to 73% (the 8 Elves vs 8 Elves battle again). So it's well worth bringing one of these guys along in any battle. The UL is just an extra bonus since as you noted Scouts/Wizards/Ghosts provide much better UL. No one takes him for that reason.

KGB

[LPhillips]

I didn't realize the mammoth was 4 HP; I thought it was 3. That changes things quite a bit. I'd rather see a +10 morale in snow and 3 HP, for a true snow bonus unit. But I do see their purpose now; they're not an in-between unit as I thought but a full-powered frontline unit.

Siege is a "late-game" unit only in traditional War2 formatted games. It's not necessarily so in scenario games or well constructed Warbarons maps that include various unit groupings and city strengths. Like most units, its usefulness varies depending on geography and income. No one's going to try to drag them around on Four Lords, for example. But I do find it to be silly when players have 3 +10 walled cities nearby to tackle, or wealthy opponents at the 15+ turn mark, and they are still ignoring siege. Again, let me remind you that +5 or +10 morale to your own troops is not remotely equal to -5 or -10 from your opponents. A siege engine is far more valuable in taking down a well armored city than a dragon is, and cheap enough to sacrifice. The obvious exception is when your opponent has less than 8 defenders. All that said, I still ignore battering rams unless they're free, at game start. Catapults ftw.

Yeti are still meh even at 35. That makes them only marginally better than the cheaper Heavy Cavalry in their home territory. Is anything wrong with 5 fear in snow only, and lead units for 2? Maybe a very slight price increase, but at 700 right now they're so very average.

Devil's debate hinges on the broken ability to negate both fear and morale. To nitpick, even with 10 negate the maximum they can negate is generally 15, as it's hard to get more than 5 fear. (Again, malus to enemies is far more powerful than bonus to allies, and the admin recognize this.) But I had taken it for granted that Piranha was planning to fix that. If so, then at that time Devil becomes a poor bargain.

Crusaders are good for 2-turn units if you are on a relatively poor map. But I think they'd really come into their own if they had +2 UL. They were the first unit planned to use UL, even before its implementation, and yet they suck at it. I initially fell in love with the +3 on a 2-turn unit, but since have found myself never wanting them quite enough. They're not good enough at their job, and I don't attack much with stacks of 7 mediocre units and a Crusader. I just end up with too many Crusaders sitting around.

[KGB]

LPhillips,

Siege: The number of maps with high defended neutrals is VERY low. 95% of maps use the default 1 unit defender. Yes, in cases where neutral cities have 5+ defenders a case can be made for early siege. But those are so rare that it's more worth noting that as an exception rather than a rule of well balanced production including siege units.

As for Morale vs Siege, it's not near as bad as you think. If the city has +5 walls and is defended with the same unit strengths (10 strength defenders, 10 strength attackers) then adding +5 to your own stack making both sides strength 15 is the same as both sides at 10 with a Ram instead of Morale. If your attack strength is lower (ie Lt Infantry vs Hv Infantry defenders in the city) then it's even better for you to bring Morale since 10's vs 20's (siege countering the walls) yields 98% defense win with 4.7 men left while 15 vs 25's (Morale and walls) yields 96% defense with 4.0 men left. The only time it's better to bring siege is when your strengths as the attacker are higher than the defenders. So overall, a Dragon/Pegasi is a much better thing to bring than you think since more stacks consist of masses of 1 turn units and only a couple are high level hero stack deserving of siege.

Yeti: I fully agree they should lead others for a cost of 2. Not sure they need a fear factor as high as 5 since Mammoth already has that much. Maybe a 2 or 3 Fear factor tops.

Devil: If Piranha re-works the bonus system calculations then the Devil needs rework. However in Beta6 he most certainly does not. His biggest value right now is in mega stack vs mega stack (dragon and/or medusa present in both stacks) battles where 1 Devil just totally unbalances the combat so that one side slaughters the other.

Crusaders: I could care less if their UL went to 2. I'd never make them for UL when I can make a scout instead for 1/10 the cost. It's a nice extra bonus (like the Yeti getting a small Fear value in snow) but not a make/break to get them used more. They either get made for their Morale on small/poor maps or they don't get made at all.

KGB

[TheVic]

If I could chose one thing to change:
1) Make city better, i.e. defence 5-20 instead of 0-15. Especially if level decrease each time a city is counqured. Why a ruin otherwise have better defence then city is strange.
And then also increase each siege bonus, to say 8/15 perhapse.