The Mighty Assassin & The New World Order

[LPhillips]

I'm using the Valkeria more and more lately. She's just too valuable short-term. You can accept a valk offer and have +6 stack unit ready to go, and that's always tempting. Then she hits +10 very quickly if there's anything for her to kill. Funny, since I didn't use her much before the update.

[smursh]

I find the assasin the most useful of the new heroes. He is a useful at allowing very weak monsters to become powerful - the main value of a hero. I sometimes get a barbarian early if I get a quick second hero since he can take weak neutrals without help. As for the horselord, he is only useful on open maps, I don't like that he is useless for taking or defending cities. Also artifacts with defense only, attack only, or anti-air are pretty much useless for him since they won't add to his leadership bonus.

[ptGamer]

Love the assassin very much (well, I am from Ninja Powers )
On maps with tightly packed cities, it's the perfect hero for quick early expansion, especially if I push the ambush all the way early on.

I like the HL as an escort unit. You can get 5 group move and +15 open bonus fairly quickly, so even in maps with limited open tiles scattered I'd say he still has great utility.

I tried barb in a game with AI, not particularly impressed/amused by it. Especially when an assassin with 100%+ ambush can take it for sure 1-on-1.

[LPhillips]

I keep waiting to see "the other thread" on hero balance but I don't see it anywhere.

That's because it is in the Russian forum.

Where, as it so happens, Igor continues to lobby for nerfing the Horse Lord. He also still insists that the game in which he never attacked me with a horse lord should prove his point
On topic, I don't disagree that the hero is overpowering in his territory, but I do maintain that it is intentional and nerfing him is counterproductive to the game development. But back to the real reason for this post...

Viewing the Russian Language forum briefly gave me some food for thought. There were a couple of questions there which I could have easily answered if they were posted here in the English forum, and a rather important discussion on the heroes which would have been better here as well. English is our common medium. Por su puesto, puedo usar un foro espanol, pero no seria mas bueno para la comunidad. Get my point? I'm not likely to take the time to translate and read the Russian forum very often, and the chance I'll sit down and compose a Ruski post is nil. So our community (la comunidad todamente) is fragmented by the "foreign" language forums.

If the date were 1612, I'd suggest francais. I can read it well enough, though not speak it. It would be good practice. However, the date is 2012, and I think it's best if we all communicate in the common lingua de los dias. That is, the language of our day. In short, I'm not a fan of the foreign language forums. It encourages a segmented community, and you'll notice (if you can read it) that the atmosphere there is already conspiratorial. That is, they're a clique ("us") and we non-speakers are the outsiders ("them"). I'm of the opinion that this is unhealthy in such a small community.

~~~~
By the way Star & friends, units which ignore walls do so at all times, on offense or defense. This means that neither the Sandworm nor its opponents are ever benefited by fortifications. That has always been the case, at least as far back as beta3. There are numerous display bugs and inconsistencies when it comes to the mouse-over strength when viewing units outside of battle. However, the battles themselves are quite consistent in using the correct stats. Questions like that, at least, are best placed in the main forums where everyone has the benefit of reading the answer (and there are more people who can answer it).

[kenc80]

Good points LP, all of them. I would concede though, that if this game were in Russian, I would beg for an English forum - a place where I could ask dumb questions quickly. Major points, like nerfing my beloved HL probably do belong in the main forum...