Perhaps make ravens 2 str, 2 hp with +1 in fields and banding +1 and maybe 22 movement in combination with increased price. They are big and intelligent birds for sure and that would make them worthwhile. Obviously the shaman spell summon ravens would have to cost a little more to cast as well.

Batz,

I had no idea the winning team would be annoyed because they won so fast

Sometimes it just doesn't work out. It's like when I play chess and either I or my opponent blunders a Bishop or Knight early in the game. Either you point it out and give the player a re-do (not possible in Warlords) or they resign. There isn't a lot of point in playing another 20-30 turns to convert a win between players of roughly equal skill. And I know from several other games that Bill isn't a newbie Warlord likely to blunder away his position or allow me time to recover.

I have not played Sun King or Sand Maggots before on Myth. I didn't realize Sand Maggots had so many fliers and that they could reach each others capitols so quickly (Dk Elves, Moon King, Lich King don't have this problem). This is unique to these 2 sides because there is no natural mountain/river/swamp barrier between them or great distance between the capitols. These 2 sides come to blows *very early* in a game because the Sand Maggots are in a corner spot with few expansion options.

Your comment about me sending out my armies doesn't make any sense. We all only get 10 men to start. Every neutral around me has 4+ Barbarians in it (other than the one Arvid messed up). So I need to send *at least* 5 men to any neutral if not more since they are 5/2 or 6/2 defenders. I split my initial armies into 2 groups, 6 and 5. I imagine just about everyone else did the same minus you sending those flyers out alone (which I would have done as well). So my point is there isn't any way leave defenders in cities on turns 1-4 if you plan to conquer any neutrals unless Arvid is going to increase the starting armies beyond 10.

As far as the Swamp goes, having your Kingdom cut in half is not a good thing. No other side suffers this problem now that White has a personal passageway through the mountains. It dramatically slows your expansion and your neighbors don't suffer that problem. If there was no swamp there, I'd have *easily* taken the city above my capitol AND been back to defend my capitol and other city from Bill. As it is, it took 4 of the 6 game turns to walk 1 way to take that city. It's now going to take 4 more to walk back to defend it. About 3 too late it seems


Lord Snow,

I apologize to you and Peter for blowing the game. If you want to look at my turn, feel free to open it up. Password is thekgb. Position is basically hopeless. Ian right above me, Bill about to raze the empty capitol that even if he doesn't (and merely razes all the sites), it will take time to get armies there into allowing his own hero (he has 2) to simply march up and capture it. There is no place to easily expand beyond another city or so thus the side is stuck at 4-5 cities until squeezed to death by Green/Red in the next 10 turns.


As Onslaught noted, I am more than happy to start another game. Personally I prefer someone resigns early rather than mid/late game because its not a lot of time invested. But that's just me.


Onslaught,

Ravens are useless at 1/1 with their low curse. Their movement is fine too at 20. They just need more capability as fighters. Either 2/2 with their curse or 2/1 with banding +2 (leave the +1 field as is). Personally I'd prefer to retain the curse as it's the only unit that has it for Sun King and you might need it at some point against White or other sides that bless. Then change the Summon Ravens spell to cost 6 instead of 4.

My problem with the Half Elves is they cost so much (400). The Dark Elves pay the same for their Dark Archer that comes with 1 more archery shot and only takes 1 turn to make. The Moon King's Elf Archers only cost 350 for 2 more archery shots and 1 turn to make. So they are a bad deal except in a city with a production site (which there is exactly 1). The only way you'd ever buy these in any city besides that production city is if they were 1 turn units, they cost less or had better stats (5 strength, +2 woods bonus). My suggestion was make them 1 turn but if you want them to be 2 turn units then they need to cost a lot less (250 range for me to even think about them) or be 5/2 +2 woods bonus so they are true masters of the Woods.

Flying Hags would be sweet. That would reduce the dependence on the Ravens for flight (though they fly at 14 moves only so it will be slow flight). Since Hags are back line units they rarely need to worry about archery.

KGB

If I give Hags flight, 16 movement , +2 in swamp, and keep disease at +12, should I up the price of the unit? It's currently at 1000 gold with 3 turns production time. Making it a 4 turn unit is probably not a good idea. 4 turn units should be faster than 16 movement imo.

As for Half-Elves, how about making them 5/2 units with +1 in woods? I don't want the woods bonus too accentuated seeing as they are half-elves and not full blood elves.

Ravens at 2/2 with +1 in field and curse +1 is doable. Price is currently 50 gold. The new unit should be a great deal more expensive than that. How about 85 gold?

It would be good if everyone could take a look at the unit spreadsheet and see if anything else is awry.

spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=taElCzmuWxOM49O2zhqq9Lw#gid=0

This is what Bill said in an email:



Bill,

I agree we should not make any dramatic changes. Anyhow, I think Dust Worms and Siege Engines are too powerful for any side to start out with. They will easily let you take all cities in the vicinity. The start of the game should ideally not be straight forward. It should be about making the right decisions with the hero and then as time goes by and your number of controlled cities grow, the game will naturally shift towards building non hero stacks capabable of expanding your domain.

Never did I think my trying to burn a gold site of Tim's was going to cause all these problems, I only attacked his city in the hope it was lightly defended when Batz had told me Tim had 4 units attacking Farmers Hill and I had previsous seen another 4-5 of his units way down south I had figured he must be lightly defended in his cities, so I took a chance after I razed the gold site.



Now I can see both side of the story here I know as all of you know Arvid has put a lot of time and effort and play testing into this map to get it balanced, I know what ever changes we make will some how make it unbalanced in another way, so I really think there will never be an end to it., however swamps are a major pain as I have had to deal with them in previous games on this map.

.

Now being the monday night quarter back here and I guess we will need to hear from Tim, it appears from reading the thread Tim got a quest early and went south and then north, from what I have seen when I attacked a group of Tim's units in the hills he received Frost Giants as a reward and he moved them all or some of them (at least 3) south when he rasied Olden Hill on turn 4 or 5. I guess in hindsight they should have been left in the home land to defend (again monday night QB here).



I think this is a very interestimg game as Batz said sometime folks will gamble early to see if they can gain a large advantage, Batz knew that Farmers Hill was empty and he wanted to keep pressue on Tim as I did mby sending a flyer north.



I have no porblems with creating a few non swamp hexes in the Sun King area, but I am not sure about all the other changes as Sun king can build 1 turn flyers and have a unit ready on turn 2, also pout of the 6 sides Sand Maggots and Wizard are the only 2 side that do not get there respective best build unit to start with, I was quite annoyed that I had to wait 4 turns before I get a Dust Wyrms, if we are make changes then I would suggest I get a Dust worm to start and the Wizards get a Siege Engine.

Well lets get it sorted out and restart the game.



Bill

Onslaught,

Honestly I'd make Hags now much less Hags with flight, more move and swamp combat bonus. 2 of them give 96% disease chance which is very nice to have. So I could care less whether they get a swamp combat bonus or move 16. Flight would be nice for them to have and for that you can make the cost 1100. Definitely I would not want them to become 4 turn units.

Half-Elves at 5/2 +1 woods combat are still inferior units to Dark Elves and Elf Archers (2 Dark Elves or 2 Elf Archers would beat 1 Half Elf more than 50% of the time). So they have to cost less money. Say 300. Even then, they aren't getting made much because the 1 turn Reaver (5/1, +1 trample) is a much more attractive option to spend your gold on. But at least they'd be better than they are now.

85 gold for Ravens is OK given their new stats. They'll only get made in 1 city anyway just to fly a hero around since Barbarians are a much better 1 turn unit. But at least the summoned ones will have value.

Bill,

The reasons for the fast end to the game are:

1) The Swamp dramatically slowed me down. By the time I realized how bad it was, I was already part way in and committed with my armies. Knowing what I know now, I have to leave a couple behind. But in reality there is too much swamp there and a bit less will help that problem because it really sucks to slog through that while others sides don't have to.
2) You and I played the 2 most likely sides to get into an early war due to starting positions on the map and lack of natural barriers. Combine that with our aggressiveness and you get 2 players pushing into each others territory on turns 4-6. I am 99% sure if we asked the other players no one has done anything else remotely like what we did.
3) Random draw of the quests/quest rewards. If we don't get those quests / rewards we would have gone in different directions.

KGB

Ok so hags end up with flight, move 15 and disease +12 at 1100 gold and 3 turns.

Ravens as 2/2 field +1, curse +1 at 85 gold and 1 turn.

As for Half Elves, the unit I like to see them compared to is the marksmen of the white order. Those are the ones I tried to balance them against. Perhaps the marksmen are not worth their money either.

If I were to make half elves into 1 turn units I would very much like a 2 turn unit added for Sun King. The 2-turn unit could be a unit with water bonus seeing as the barracks city of Sun Dragon is adjacent to water and there is quite a lot of fighting in that water in my experience. Perhaps the reaver would be a reasonable candidate for a two turn unit with water bonus. Just add 1-2 hit points to it. Sun King is after all inspired by nordic mythology and vikings.

I thought I should point out that throughout the years I have intentionally assigned KGB to sides he has not played before in order to get proper feedback. So it's not a fluke that Sun King is up for some changes. Sun King, White Order and Khuzan are the least polished sides imo.

Btw, I will strip woods move bonus from Sand Maggots. I have decided they have no business moving fast through the woods. They will have to fly or rely on a thief hero with move bonus to move fast through the woods. That should accentuate their niche as crawling things.

As for my strange online hours, it is all due to me living in New Zealand these days. I moved from Sweden almost 4 years ago.

A couple of points.

KGB, I agree you needed to send all your unit out to grab the early Neutrals but you didn't need to go across the swamp to do this. There are several in or on the edge of your southern woods. You also had the option to build some 1 turn units if you could see your enemies closing in on you.

Sand Maggots are being seriously over-rated here. I have played them in Forlorn and they are not as hot as might appear from this game (Circle). Let's examine their 'flying rush' ability. They have 3 flyers (and possibility to Summon Imps). Let's discount the Dragon so that leaves:

Merc 1 - Gargoyles 3/3 20mv +3 vs Cities & Trample +1
Merc 2 - Succubus 4/2 22mv Curse +4

The Gargoyles are not so bad as city attackers but the Succubi are pretty hopeless. I kept getting them for quests in Forlorn and they are just cannon fodder. They have no benefit in a hero stack and they fall like flies to archers.

Imps are 1/3 22mv Lightning +2 Woods +1

Of course you have to be lucky and get a Summoner before you get these. Even when you do they are little more than scouts. With 1 strenth they are also cannon fodder.

So let's look a prodution for Maggots.

Goblins at 60gp are your normal build

Wolfriders at 400gp are rather expensive but +2 Assassin is required later in the game for taking out hero stacks.

Havoc Squad at 500gp are expensive and they are not good if you can afford them, but only 17 move so their +2 versus Cities doesn't come in to play in attack only defence. Very expensive if you are only ever going to defend.

Black Riders at 600gp - pathetic, I can never see me buying these.

Cave Wyrms at 700gp - their only useful attribute is 4hp, good against archers

Bladck Mages 800gp 6/2 18mv Group Acid +1, these could be useful but look at the price *and* they cost 10gp a turn in upkeep!!!

Dust Wyrms 1000gp 6/3 17mv Siege +3. Again upkeep 10gp. These are useful but you can rarely afford to build them so that means waiting an age for them to get in to the action from the Capital.

Sand Maggots have a serious gold issue. I am always on the breadline in Forlorn. You have such a lot of high upkeep troops you simply can't afford to buy production!

In Forlorn I built around 75% Goblins, 10% Havoc Squad and 10% Wolfriders with another unit when I finally took Dark Haven with it's -3 production site!

So basically your army is a bunch of Gobbos. If you happen to have to fight Sun King and Khuzan you are dead in a few turns.

I can't comment on the other sides because I haven't the time to review them all in detail. One way to quickly rectify this might be to set up a series of games where we all play multiple sides so we get used to them. For example 2vs2 with (say)

(Elves & Maggots) + (Lich & Moon) vs (Wizards & Sun) vs (White & Khuzan)

Ian

Ian, +2 city combat bonus also applies when defending.

It is true about Sand Maggots lacking gold. As a substitute player in Embers I also feel like I'm struggling to balance my finances - to the point where I am considering to halt productions. Sending a bunch of units out into battle would be an even greater drain on my finances.

Your idea of each player having two sides doesn't appeal to me. It might make sense for balancing purposes, but I would prefer to keep it to one side per player.

Concerning "Event Reports". Peter and I have always played with a gentleman's agreement not to look at the "Event Reports", and ideally we would both prefer if this could be the same in multiplayer games. I never look at the events in multiplayer games - both out of fear that the game will crash, but also because it is more interesting when you have to gather information yourself. As Peter just mentioned in an email to me, it makes a team game even more interesting in that the sharing of information becomes even more important than it would otherwise be.

KGB and Arvid, at this point I think that you are really the only ones with a good enough overall picture to be able to balance everything out. As we all become more familiar with the different sides, we will probably be able to contribute more to balancing. At least for me it seems like too complex a puzzle to try to take into consideration all the strengths and weaknesses of all the different sides. I think that all the sides are good enough that they are all fun to play. Whether they are a 100% evenly matched in terms of strength is not important to me. As it is now, I would rather play Sun King that Sand Maggots or Lich King.

Playing the Wizards for only 6 turns didn't really give me a feel for how they would actually fare against other sides, so I would be perfectly happy to play the scenario as it is. However, I don't at all object to small adjustments, but it might be best that Arvid and KGB agrees on some changes for now, or else we could end up in an endless discussion between all of us.

KGB, I am probably too cautious in my playing style, but I did not split up my initial units. I prefer to attack in force and with the certainty that I will be able to hold the cities I have taken. Players who know my style will also be less likely to try some surprise attack in the hope of finding a city undefended. I know that it is a huge advantage if you can expand quickly from the beginning, but it is also at the beginning that there is the greatest risk of throwing everything away by splitting up your forces too much. In a game with two team mates I think it makes sense to play it a little more safe than in a 1v1 game.

You compare Warlords to chess and give an example of a situation in which it would make most sense for you to call it quits. Just as in Warlords, I would play out the chess game to the very end, but I also think that it would be perfectly alright for someone to give up in the face of overwhelming odds. In a team game I think that you should at least discuss the situation with your team mates before you make a decision to quit.

I have a suggestion that I don't really expect you all to go along with. How about we start a team game in which resignation is not an option? To me, 'Last Warlord Standing' implies a fight to the death - how about we make it that?

Lord Snow