Heavy Infantry

[LPhillips]

2 upkeep would be manageable with +5 and lowered speed. If they're slow then they won't replace Light Infantry. But with +5 and 4 upkeep they're worse than useless; they're a curse.

[Igor]

I don't worry about money, I take them from ruins and as city income.

Heavy Infantry +10 in defense in city +5 is 25-strength 1-turn unit. Such a powerfull unit it is.
I would offer to cut him: to +5+7 in defense, movement to 10, cost to 150-175, upkeep to 2-3.
And also Pikeman: terrain bonus cut to +5+7, movement up to 10, cost cut to 200-225, upkeep save 3 (or 2).
Dwarf: cut cost to 250-275, movement up to 10, terrain bonus +5+7.

Such statistics looks more balanced, HI not such powerfull, Pikeman and Dwarf not such unwanted to buy.

[LPhillips]

You're just wrong, Igor. At least now we know what you have in mind, and your view of the game as you've demonstrated it really invalidates your argument against Heavy Infantry. You would like to make all the units basically the same, and then there would be no point in having all of them. Dwarves and Pikemen are not unwanted buys. Heavy Infantry are not overpowered. It's just that you are not using them in their various roles. Try playing maps with varied terrain. If all units were nerfed as you suggested, it would just be like we're choosing which form of Light Infantry it is best to buy. That is when those units would become unwanted. They're desirable now because of those high bonuses that make them useful in their proper situations.

[LPhillips]

Anyone who does not share Igor's point of view does not need to read the following textwall. Spare yourselves. The short paragraph above says it all succinctly.

Let us examine a specific example: Your enemy masses 12 Heavy Infantry in a city. Hell, just for kicks, let's say it's 32 of them in a +15 city. It's between your units and his other cities. You purchase Pikemen, and place 3 in each of the stacks you are going to move past his city full of Heavy Infantry. Meanwhile, you acquire more gold per turn than he does, because the net income is important and not the gross. It doesn't matter if your cities give you 800 per turn if you have 700 in upkeep, because a player getting 500 per turn with 250 upkeep has better funding than you do. So, you are accumulating more money per turn, which results in buying better production and having better hero offers than he has. Don't bring ruins into this; they're totally irrelevant to the discussion. You're beating him already. Now you take your stack of 3 Pikemen and 5 Light Infantry, you march right past his city as slowly as you please, because he can't do a damned thing about it. All his Heavy Infantry can do is die horrible deaths if they try to leave that city or attack anything. You keep marching and burn his other cities. It's that simple.
If his city is in/near hills, you use a dwarf to make your units zoom past his city at high speed, and he can't even march a few spaces to catch you. If he does attack, he'll be slaughtered by even a few Dwarf units.
Bottom line: You simply can't examine Heavy Infantry in some sort of best-situation vacuum where you only look at one aspect of them, especially when they have such strong balancing handicaps. You don't moan about Dwarfs' 30 strength when attacking on hills (far higher than any other 1-turner ever has alone, along with their other fine attributes including not being worthless for anything beyond sitting still and soaking up money).

See? Heavy Infantry aren't overpowered. You just need to use the units available to beat them, and not worry about someone stupidly stacking weak units in a city you don't even need to attack. If he can afford strong attack units in addition to those infantry, to prevent you from going around, and you don't have real, powerful units to attack him anyway, then you've lost. It's not about what units he loses, it's about his production being better than yours. He has more money and better production, and you've already lost the money battle. If he doesn't have more cities and net income than you, then you can let him build Heavy Infantry for 10 turns if you like while you build better units with less upkeep and you will have more money, allowing you to buy more heroes/allies and better production.

We've had this discussion in the forums before, so I'd like to put it to bed for good. Thankfully Piranha and Snotling already chose not to go the route of making all units basically the same and utterly boring. Truly, it would ruin the game.
The whole game is about money. Also, the strategy of it and the tactics employed hinge on the units being as different as they are. What you're suggesting is like this: You go into an Ice Cream store and see that plain scoops of Vanilla in a cone sell more than anything else. So you say, "to give the other flavors and treats a chance, we'll make everything more like vanilla and make sure it all comes in a cone." It might sound good, but it's not. With your suggestion, all we'd have left is "Do I want two scoops of vanilla for $2.00, three scoops for $2.50, or two and a half scoops for $2.10? Or I can have one and a half scoops of vanilla blended softly in a cone for $2.20." It would just be a matter of choosing the most mathematically sound version of the plain, homogenous footmen with negligible differences from each other. All we'd have left for tactics with 1-turners is hammering away at each other like one of those idiotic wave-summoning games online.

[magian]

I don't agree with Igor, I don't want all the units to be the same. But I also don't like unbalanced units with huge upkeeps.

I much prefer the old +5 def, upkp 2 heavy inf to the new version. However, neither incarnation really fits for heavy inf. Heavy inf should be good at attacking and defending cities, they should be decent in open, and less impressive in rough terrain (where the encumbrance and bulk of their heavy armor impedes mobility).

That is why I suggested +5 city/open. IMO it is still more balanced than +10 def. But yes, it might be too good. What about a straight up strength of 13, movement 11, upkp 2?

@ Lphillips, yes many strategy games focus on micromanaging your economy, but Warlords was much more forgiving in this regard (yes even DLR). This was (and is) a good thing, it allows players to focus on the fun aspects of the game (Battles, heroes, etc.) I don't want to be worrying about the economic ramifications of overproducing heavy inf. That just isn't fun or interesting to me (and I suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way).

[Igor]

Such a long text. About ice cream was funny ))
But whole... Naked theory only, just a speaking, heh. Theory ought to be connected with practice. But practice shows that almost everyone use HI much (if it is not, correct me pls), and almost nobody buys Pikeman and especially Dwarf because of their high cost and short movement (if someone usually buys them, tell here pls), they are only in use when they are in neutral cities.
Many 1-turn units must be the same only in one thing: to make a player want to buy and use them
My preferences are above. Anyone can tell his vision.
I think that Pikeman and Dwarf need to be more popular and HI less popular to get balance.

[LPhillips]

Igor, this is my last post directed toward you on this topic.

You're right; theory needs to be connected with practice. But you ignored my specific examples. So you can't say that. I gave clear examples. You don't try to lower everything to the weakest thinking and lowest denominator among players in a strategy game. You make room for many levels of play, and it's there.

Also, you're using the same worthless argument: you start on the premise that we want players to use all units equally (wtf?), step to the statement that some units are preferred above others, back it up with a statement about most of your opponents being too inexperienced or unintelligent to use different units, and end with the conclusion that making everything basically the same will even the playing field.

So let's skip that foolishness to address the issue:
#1 Heavy infantry are slow.
#2 Heavy infantry are weak on attack.
#3 Heavy infantry are expensive to keep.
#4 Heavy infantry do one thing pretty darn well, and you pay generously for it.

Now if you don't like this unit, as in Magian's case, that's one thing. It's a valid statement. But arguments about it being too powerful are just absurd. And if you make it a +5 on defense with 2 upkeep, you've just made a slightly different Light Infantry. That's fine if that is what you want, but there's really no point in having two versions of Infantry then.

My alternate solution (and last word or opinion on the subject) is to offer my opinion that $200 may be too cheap, and $225 or $250 would be perfectly acceptable. But they're not really worth it.

[ezras]

LPhillips, you need to check yourself and try to engage in a civil conversation even if you strongly disagree with someone. Hurling insults and demanding you have the last word is neither productive or very tactful. I remember a time when you left the game for a while because you were offending everyone you played with. The forum's were much more peaceful and polite during that time. Please try and remain civil and avoid ad homonym attacks and arguments in the future. Ultimately we are a community of players and a very small one at that. discouraging conversation with abrasiveness is not helping the playing environment or the conversation.

[LPhillips]

Thanks Ezras. You are correct that I need to chill.

I left because I'm far too competitive, and I didn't like the side of me that was bringing out. Thankfully it isn't entering into game conversation and behavior since returning, but it sure comes out when I'm arguing with a hard-headed individual. Because, you see, I'm hard-headed myself.

And in the end, text doesn't have emotion. I may state coolly and with no ill intent that an argument is foolish and illogical, and easily come off as being intentionally abrasive. Please believe that I'm not.

Igor, I'm sorry if I was offensive. It's a fault of mine, one that I'm not happy with.

[KGB]

Coming back to this after reading all the discussion here.

I didn't realize at the time the upkeep cost was 4 for Hv Inf. As LPhillips has stated that is steep. On many maps you are running a deficit in the city by the time you have 4 of them there (16 upkeep). On the other hand, I can't recall whether Warbarons is using the War2/DLR model where upkeep is halved in cities. If it is, then the 4 upkeep is less of an issue.

Personally I don't mind them with their current stats. Yes, many many players are using them but I expect that is by design. My typical use is to buy them in a front line city (I never buy them in initial cities I conquer as I don't need the defense there and they are too slow to expand with), make 2-3, move on to another city and then stop making them/switch to making another unit. Often to save upkeep I disband until I am down to 2 Hv Infantry (just enough to prevent a few blessed crows or a lone Pegasi/Demon/Gryffon from troubling me).

Also I've come to the conclusion that their cheap cost (200) and high defense (20) has the following effects:

1) Rush tactics are much less likely to succeed since rushes tend to occur with 1 turn units in the early game and other 1 turn units aren't terribly effective at killing Hv Infantry in cities. This helps smaller maps and/or maps with large FFA games where you typically meet an opponent on turn 5-7.
2) It has the effect of pushing players into the 2+ turn units. This occurs for 2 reasons. The first is since they are cheap to buy, you have more gold for better units (and in Beta5 those better units are cheaper now too). Also many of the 2+ turn units are now very effective killers of Hv Infantry, thanks to a 3rd hit (Elementals, Worms, Mammoths, Kraken etc) or high city bonus (Spiders, Gryffons) or the various stack bonus units (siege, morale, fear).

That said, I think Igor is right that the cost of the Dwarf/Pikemen/Lt Calv/Elves are too high (I felt that way even before the current beta). Cheaper 1 turn units encourages more variety of such units to be used for specific purposes and more investment in better unit production/city upgrades/heroes etc. My preference is that *no* 1 turn unit should cost more than 300 gold. So the Dwarf should drop to 300 and then the Pikemen/Elves/Lt Calv can be adjusted downwards slightly relative to that.

KGB