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25th Anniversary Project
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TOPIC: 25th Anniversary Project
Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3840
Most powerful units are flying, so trample isn't as good as it seems.
Also golems are too slow. Perhaps when you plan larger unit changes that will change. Anyway mobility will continue to be extremely important. Manslayer idea is very good. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3841
Thanks for the feedback, both of you.
Ironically, elephants are the one unit I've considered to take off the Manslayer list. Hex-editing is a step too far for now, but tinkering with that and readjusting slayable units is something I may return to. For now, reducing the slayable units to four types is what I'm going to go with, and see how it works in practice. If I do take a shot at it, Beastslayer, Monsterslayer and Constructslayer (Saboteur?) are all templates I think could work. Elven Infantry has given me a bit of trouble. It's obvious they were given Dwarfslayer to have a soft-counter against Dwarf Runners in Elf army sets that rely a lot on archers. I suspect it didn't really work out that well in practice. But generally, I like the idea of Elves being glass cannons. If I give Elven Infantry the new omni-Manslayer ability, I'm worried they'd be so generally useful that they become an obvious must-have for your 1 turn cannon fodder slot. I think KGB's idea of giving them Warding instead isn't bad, but that doesn't fit the glass cannon theme. In Warlords lore, the elves have been holding the passes to Lord Bane's Lands of Death for centuries, so Deathslayer might be thematically appropriate. It's just a question of pricing them accordingly. One rather impactful change is that I want to switch Demonslayer and +2 Morale between Elven Cavalry and Lords (and give Cavalry strength 6). Lords would basically become a cheaper version of Unicorns, and I'd have to tinker with the stats a bit to make the units more distinct otherwise. There'd no longer be a 2 turn Morale +2 unit, but the other 3 turn Morale units, Eagles and Griffons, would also get bumped to +2. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3842
In my opinion, it's important that you remember that only lord armies count in a serious fight.
So it isn't very important what trait the 1-turn units will have. The exception would be one of the three most and only important slayings (demon/dragon/undead). I think that KGB idea is the best. You should keep d/d//u slayings and unify the last to man slaying. And that's all. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3843
I agree with Anomander Rake, it doesn't matter what slayer skills the 1 turn units have. That's because they will really only get a hit against another 1 turn unit and not against the 4 and 5 turn units unless you have a city full of 32 such units and get lucky. So don't worry about putting Deathslayer on Elf Infantry or Cavalry etc.
A 3 turn unit with +2 morale isn't going to get chosen very often unless (A) its very cheap ( Has good strength/hits (C) good move. Otherwise, everyone is going to go with the Unicorn which has +3 morale and exceptional movement. +3 is a very important number because there are a lot of morale spells that get a +3 unit to +5 at L6 or with a +1 morale item get you there at L2-5 spell wise. I think you need +2 bonus on 2 turn units, +3 on 3 turn units and +4 on 4 & 5 turn units. Units which don't have those numbers will be DOA unless they have very high move/strength/hits to compensate. KGB P.S. Golems have plenty of uses. They move the same as siege units and work nicely in Ally 2/3 or Merc 3 slots. They don't help vs fliers but they eat up ground units and conquer cities without you needing to risk your hero. In the early game getting some can let you conquer a ton of neutrals very fast. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3844
Well, you only need one slayer unit in the stack to provide the bonus - hero stacks won't have the space, but you can spread them across the cities you want to defend, and the harder-hitting defenders will still benefit. But it's reassuring that you don't see much cause for concern.
Your point about Morale 3 is interesting. I was under the assumption higher morale units often get skipped in favor of Elven Cavalry. Or you simply bring a Priest to summon Archons. I did notice that Unicorns are another outlier in turn cost and efficiency. Even if it doesn't turn out to be enough in practice, buffing the Morale of Eagles and Griffons is a logical first step. There clearly needs to be an adjustment in cost, though it's a question of whether to just make them cheaper, Unicorns more expensive, or a bit of both. I assume you're talking strictly about Morale, not the negative bonuses? There's a whole bunch of 3-turn Chaos 2 units for example. Then again, Dark Pegasi, Wraiths, Liches, Slayer Knights, Undead Beasts, Red & Green Dragons all follow your template. When it comes to unit cost, I'm generally in favor of forcing difficult choices when creating an army list, so you can't simply pick the best of everything. But I'm still struggling at determining which units are good examples for being priced just right. It's easy to see that some units like ECs are just underpriced, because they got buffed by the patches but never had their cost adjusted. Or to see how both Giants and Minotaurs got buffed in different ways, while Dwarf Mutants got left behind on the power curve. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3845
I agree with KGB Maybe except golems issue. Golems aren't dangerous against Lords armies so they aren't very important. We gave up the use of golems and one of them even became a meme.
EC is useful temporary unit or maybe support for an army without a lord but there really aren't enough free slots to take her into the army. The same goes for any not-so-good support unit. The main problem for making units usable is the lack of free slots. Even if you make the units valuable, the army set will still primarily contain those that will be in the lord's army. In addition, when you face the problem of buying a dragon or two weaker support units in cities, you will buy a dragon. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3846
Everyone puts Elf Calv in their regular units (The only exception is on the 1 map that has Unicorns in the neutrals and on that map you can switch to Unicorns because there are so many free ones in the neutrals) because they are so cheap and move so fast they help conquer the map with 1 turn units. So you are right about that.
Archons/Silver/Gold Dragons tend to go in Ally 4 slot since you only need a couple of them with hero stacks and you can get via hero offer, Grade A ruins or summon via Priest. Of course many players don't bother at all with a +3 morale unit and just get +3 morale from hero skills (Monk, Barbarian, Priest etc) to go with spell/items to reach +5. Personally I think Morale on Gryffons is a mistake. They should return to being the city bonus units they were in War2 and instead get +2 vs city so that at 8/3 they'd be viable against cities and be worthy of using. If you do that it makes it easier to figure out what you want to do with all the Morale units in the game because there are a lot that you'll need to plan out for in the 2 and 3 turns units category. Negative bonus's are entirely different because they are capped at -1. Chaos is especially interesting because +1 Chaos gives a -1 in any battle other than a hero battle and even in battles with many heros that don't build leadership it cancels out their default +1 bonus. So those +2 Chaos units have value against many hero stacks too. You just need to cost them better based on move/hits/strength and any terrain bonus. When building army sets the slots that matter are 7/8 in regulars, 2/3 in allies (4 comes so rarely it only matters if you want to put something there like the Archon so you can summon and place in fight order) and 3 in mercs. That's where the hero stack meat units or high bonus units go. One thing to understand is that unit cost affects how easy it is to put in your army set. Elf Calv costing very little makes it easy to get into your army set. When the price rises its much harder to get into the army set. This is why 1 turn units like Ghouls which would be perfect for city defense with their disease are never seen because of the 300 cost makes it expensive to put into the slots. If the cost drops to a more reasonable 100 (or whatever my spreadsheet worked it out to be) then they'd be easier to use and appear more frequently. This is also why peasants are so popular because they don't cost much to put in an army set (or to build). It's worth changing some costs and seeing the effect on army set building because that will help you when you want to make players make difficult choices. KGB |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3847
I'll mull over that, and let it simmer for a while, see if inspiration hits me.
There's some things in your post that I want to go into detail on: First, Morale on heroes. My assumption is, Morale on heroes only matters if it's either a spell, or you can buy it for 1 AP. With AP being very limited, I just can't see it being worth it to buy 1 Morale for 2 AP, when it's so common among units. On heroes where it costs 2 AP, I assume it's purely cosmetic in practice. Leadership, I assume, is worth the 2 AP, since there's no alternative way to get it. Or is it still only picked when you can get it for cheap? One change I've made is that all heroes can pick it, even Necromancers and Shamans. It may not be competitive to buy it for 3 AP, but it still makes thematic sense that all heroes can improve it at least in theory (and campaign games.) Fortify is trickier. There, part of the question is how frequently you pay for upgrading cities in competitive games. Only to get access to medium quests, or also for the extra fortify? Is the third level too expensive to be practical? I think you said games are usually played with City Damage on, that seems to make it very expensive to keep rebuilding defenses. How much priority does picking Engineering have, if you have a hero with it? I like the idea of Iceguard having exclusive access to Fortify among the units, but they're probably overpriced. Without SH units, I'd put the value of their Fortify 1 at about 2.5 Morale. If you play with Iceguard, I assume you'd spread them out defensively, and stack them with a Morale unit. Another subject I'd like some extra orientation on are the PPDC units. Those are interesting, because in theory, you can attack a city or hero stack with several waves, first Curse to strip Blessings, then stacks with 100% Poison and Disease, and only then mop up with your own hero. So these are units where their individual combat stats matter less than their ability, if they're used in this expendable fashion. Curse on its own has some niche uses to counter Berserk, but it's really primarily the enabler for the other ones. There, are Poison and Disease considered equal, or is one considered more powerful than the other? Reducing enemy strength by 2 with Poison is universally useful. Disease, on the other hand, seems essential to enable missile kills on 4 hp units, but with Trample, it may either do nothing, or it can set up units for a one-hit kill. It's more swingy, but it's definitely useful too. Paralyze, on the other hand, only ever comes into play if you lose the combat to begin with. That means whichever units have it need to be expendable to begin with, and to give it some utility for harassment, that should also be fairly fast. My takeaway is that both the Cockatrice and Medusae need to be 2 turn units. There's already a precedent for a 6/2 2 turn unit with the Reavers, so there's no real balance concern. The Cockatrice needs a movement nerf, but I haven't figured out how exactly the bug with replenishing movement by embarking/disembarking works, and what the movement threshold is where it no longer triggers, but I'd give them the same movement as the other fastest land units. One last question: was there a practical reason why you removed Paralyze from the KEvil Eye spell entirely? Even if it's only relevant when you lose, it still makes for a nice consolation prize for losing your hero. |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3848
The goal for heroes obviously is to get to +5 in as many categories as possible. Usually 1 hero will go for +5 leadership and another for +5 morale so that when teamed together you get +5 in 2 categories. Since some heroes did not have Leadership at all or it cost 3 AP then taking Morale for 2 AP makes sense. Also some heroes like the Monk have a TON of AP points to spend so it's easy to justify spending 6 of them for +3 Morale.
So when you are putting Leadership on all heroes as part of your update and making it cost 3 AP, no one is ever going to bother taking it. It's essentially a wasted skill since you need to take it a bunch of times to get it high enough to matter. That doesn't mean you should remove it, but just understand no one is going to take it. Personally I only upgrade cities to get medium quests OR if it's a city on the front line that might get attacked. All the rest stay where they are since everyone has at least a Battering Ram (+3 Siege) in their set. I never use Engineering and as far as I know, no one else does either since the best heroes don't have that skill and you can't build a good set around Engineering. So unless you put Engineering on one of the top 6 heroes its not going to get used. I've never seen anyone use Ice Guards or the Frost Dragon. Only a few times have I even seen the Royal Guards. I think the reason is that you can't win the game by defending so their Fortify skill doesn't matter that much. If you want only a single unit to have Fortify, then it has to be a 2 turn unit to have any hope of ever being used (Iceguards at 2 turns, 6/2 for 500 gold might get used). PPDC is most useful on defense where you can load a city with 32 units so you can guarantee you poison/disease the enemy. Pretty much the only PPDC units that go in a hero stack are Lamia because they have the 4 hits. On occasion I've seen a few others (Wyvern, Undead Dragon, Spectre etc) get used but those require special circumstances (the map with all the Undead Dragons, games with no Telport so the Priest hero gets used with Mighty Feast etc). Ranking the 4 skills goes like this 1) Curse - The best one because it removes any blessing which then allows Disease/Poison to work. Also removes Medals 2) Poison - Slightly better than Disease especially in hero battles 3) Disease - Handy if you have a heavy archery set on defense and need to ensure your archers can get a kill. 4) Paralysis - Totally useless since no one cares if you paralyze 1 turn defenders and all Hero stacks end up Blessed. It's only use is VERY early in the game before players explore and get access to bless sites. The neutral map that has Medusa in it with Paralysis is very annoying to play on because of this. It's best suited to going in neutral army sets. Paralysis was only removed from Evil Eye to balance out the extra curse. You can put it back in if you want but if you lose your hero it's often game over anyway so it doesn't matter if paralysis worked. Incidentally, Evil Eye is a VERY powerful spell at L6 when everything doubles. It's essentially as good as +1 Medals (Medal of Valor or Berzerk at L1-5) esp if the enemy has been stripped of blessing (banshee suicide attack or you have a strong Curse unit in your hero stack). The Basilisk replaced the Cockatrice. But if you plan on not using StormHeim, then you need to get the Cockatrice down to 30 or fewer moves. The bug involved changing from land form into ship form and back again and doing it repeatedly. The game gives back movement (all units not just the cock but most only get 1-2 moves, not 30 or 40) and since the cock was moving faster than the boats it was getting back a ton of extra moves. No one is really going to take a 3 turn Cock with 30 moves so you really need to turn it into the Basilisk and no one even took that either since Paralysis is mostly useless. KGB |
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Re: 25th Anniversary Project 1 year, 5 months ago #3849
One thing I like about PPDC is that you can inject some theme in low-level units without upsetting the power balance much, at 4% per point.
Zombies get Disease 1 instead of Fear. Low level undead aren't that frightening in a RPG fantasy world, and skeletons already lost Fear. This makes zombies better as bulk garrisons. I'm not sure if I'm going to reintroduce the Necromancer's Reanimate spell, but if I do, I'd change it to Zombies to have less overlap with Necromancy. I'm also giving Bats Disease 1; even before Covid, bats and other flying mammals have been notorious for transmitting diseases. I know Bats already see some use, but I want to give the dedicated scouting units a bit of a multi-role. Bats and Scouts are carry-overs from Warlords 2, but they are a bit too niche for 3's limited army sets. Scouts, incidentally, I want to buff by giving them Group Warding 1. Group Warding works fine thematically as representing alertness and ambush protection, which fits them. Orc Mobs get Poison 1, which fits both original LotR lore, as well as their description in Warlords Battlecry. And continuing from there Goblins get Paralyze 1 to represent weaker, paralytic poisons. At 4% it's not going to have much impact, but I like the idea that Goblins can occasionally screw over other scouting units in skirmishes, even when they lose. I want to have standardized view range across scouting units. Since it's capped at 7, I think either 4 or 5 make sense. Ranger towers give +2 View, and I don't want them to be obsolete right away. I'm going to start with 4 to begin with. That way, you'd have to combine a tower bonus with spells or items to reach the cap. 5 might trivialize scouting a bit too much. |
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