Game balance

[Seravy]

Can tactician then be even more hero-oriented but lose the +1 armor? Besides giving heroes +2 armor/attack/resistance, it can also give +1 movement and/or +4hp and/or more caster points and/or 'super' abilities being 2X instead of 1.5X and/or heroes having 1 more random ability and/or +1 to hit

Heroes are already overpowered enough so a higher bonus would be bad, also there are too many "hero" retorts to have them not do something else as well and useful in nonhero gameplay. (Artificer, Famous and Tactician)
Also, hero strategies are inherently meant to be powerful but risky - the player is expected to have some sort of a backup plan against enemies that can counter their hero strategy through whichever spells or units, so a retort that does nothing aside from helping heroes would be bad.

Also, I do like having a cheaper, 1 pick cost alternative to Warlord. Except, "alternative" means you can pick it instead, not together with, Warlord.

@Nelphine
Not sure why you want Warlord for hero strategies. 1 level extra is decent but not that big of a deal. I'd rather have famous to have my heroes start on a higher level, or artificer to give them better equipment (which is worth far more than levels in most cases).
The only advantage of it I see it the good synergy with Life magic in general, providing you with a backup plan of "military victory" is heroes fail and a somewhat stronger position until the first hero shows up.

[Nelphine]

Tacticuan is for stats, to give your heroes raw power. Warlord is for abilities - anything level based, and especially those that don't happen every level, warlord let's you get earlier. Soul linker a level earlier? Huge. Casting haste or animate dead a level earlier? Huge. Getting an extra +to hit? Huge. An extra bonus from divine barrier or guiding beacon? Huge.

The earlier you get these, the more likely you are to survive, the higher level you get. Warlord makes attaining demigod much easier, and if I'm playing a hero strategy, I want demigods.

Also famous is only helpful if you get multiple champion offers before you can just summon them anyway.

In my current game (recall on easy, so my fame is.. High..) I've had precisely one hero offer (not a champion) and I've already summoned the chosen, and 2 champions, and resurrected jaer (who I found as a prisoner).

Famous is still too luck based - going out and getting enough power to just summon the champions is far more effective.

[Seravy]

While you are right for most of them, these two you can get from items (Spell Skill items or To Hit items) :

Casting haste or animate dead a level earlier? Huge. Getting an extra +to hit?

Meanwhile I realized we probably need to conduct a very important experiment.

We should let the AI play a game (one opponent), see how far they get, then give that same AI various starting ores and do it again. The player getting random advantage is one thing, but if the AI snowballs from that starting adamantium into being 3 times as powerful as usual through getting treasure and nodes and whatnot, that's a major problem.

I hope the tweaker can add ores, I haven't done that before.

[Nelphine]

Sure you can get them from items. They still stack. If you need the extra level to cast animate dead despite your items its still relevant. If having +1 to hit means you kill the enemy before they attack, its still relevant.

Why do we care if the AI snowballs? If we accept we want random starts, we don't mind fluctuation in AI power.

Some realms and retorts help the AI a lot. Some don't. We don't prevent them from using them because we want game variety.

[Seravy]

Why do we care if the AI snowballs? If we accept we want random starts, we don't mind fluctuation in AI power.

Because it defeats the purpose of difficulty levels if an Advanced AI with adamantium is good as a Master AI.
Difficulty is mainly resource advantage - if the AI can snowball into twice the size, it's no different from the difficulty level being twice as high.

If it's just a bit of a difference fine. If it's huge, not fine. Which is what we need to figure out. Considering the effect is huge on the human, we can't automatically assume it's acceptable for the AI.

So, first game.

No ores AI stats : 123,114,141,74
Adamantium AI stats : 153,126,201,84

...Well, that's quite a lot from a single ore tile. Military went up 40% or more (201 is the cap on this stat) Power income 25%. Research/skill not by much. I think this much variance is acceptable as they didn't get ahead in population, spell and research too much. Military power is expected from having their main production center with adamant.

Let's see gold...

3x Gold AI stats : 133,141,174,81
A surprisingly large advantage on spell power (research and skill) this time, but again, this amount is probably acceptable?

[Catwalk]

I'm also against retort exclusiveness. It's an ugly patch to make up for poor balancing. I think it's important to streamline rules and avoid glaring exceptions to the norm. Special rules for AG would also be terrible.

This topic is important, but this thread is turning into a mess.

[Seravy]

It seems everyone said no to the armorer's guild then. I didn't like that solution much either. This also means the dwarf race is beyond repair unfortunately.
I'll wait for more opinions before deciding on the other two, they are that urgent.

[Catwalk]

I suggest setting up separate threads for separate topics and keeping this one for one purpose: Deciding on a shared overall vision for game balance.

[Catwalk]

Suggestion:
1 thread for discussing current hero balance (Tactician, Warlord AND Heroism)
1 thread for discussing dwarves (Golems and mineral bonus)
1 thread for discussing what role luck should play (starting minerals, ???)
1 thread for discussing buff strategies vs summon strategies

[Seravy]

Tactician+Warlord is a question for purely nonhero purposes. Don't drag heroism into it. Do we want players to be able to spend 3 picks on all their normal units getting +2 armor (and other stats) or not? This is what I want to know. I think that's a too powerful choice as armor has increasing returns. Not picking tactician after warlord is simply an inferior choice 90% of the time.


Dwarves are unfixable without an armorer's guild nerf and that was rejected 5 to 0 so no point in a dwarf thread at this point. Even if we nerf dwarves to 0% bonus in all areas, and make golems require the armorer's guild, people can still get golems and hammerhands too early as we didn't fix the AG problem. So here the only thing to discuss is, how much we nerf golems, because they are a problem independent of the early game AG issue - a magic immunity unit can still conquer most AI cities alone in the mid or late game because the AI prefers magicians as defenders in most cases.
...unless you are trying to imply the Dwarf race bonus is too high even if not used for early game unfair wins through accelerated high end units?

I'm also unwilling to start over and discuss the role of buffs again, we just recently did that when updating Dispelling Wave, besides it's not even related. (an Armorer's Guild unit in the early game is a problem even if not buffed, and buffs don't work vs Poison, we made sure of that in the upcoming 5.03 update. So buffing is already taken care of. (unless you are worried buffing is underpowered now?))


A "luck" thread is too generic and gives me no real answers on any particular specific issue we still have open. Also, we already know the "answer". Luck plays a large, huge, role in this game, inherently. Your spells, generation of AI wizards, diplomacy rolls, treasure, many of these are complete game changers on their own. Reducing the luck factor on most of these is not even possible. Discussing specific issues where reducing (doubt anyone wants to increase it?) the luck factor is possible would be meaningful instead. (If you have any besides starting minerals, feel free to open threads for them)

In short I'm ok with a "warlord+tactician" and a "how to nerf golems" thread, the rest feels unnecessary unless you have specific new problems to discuss in those categories.
(also, I'm definitely not happy with putting the Dwarf race into the "unfixable" category but we exhausted all options. In fact we only ever had one, nerfing the armorer's guild. As long as every race suffers from the same problem, fixing it exclusively on the race that gets an advantage in that category is impossible.)

Edit : made the two new threads.