Test games played

[Seravy]

I don't really understand the above. Buff stacking isn't the issue, it's the intended and less efficient use of the realm (for early turns). The problem is being able to not stack buffs and still get away with not losing units in battle as if those partially buffed, much cheaper units were fully buffed doomstack material. If that doesn't actually happen, we have no problem to speak of. (unless, no garrisons is still a thing. Only time will tell. But that again isn't related to Life realm directly. Your strategy isn't a "life is OP" problem, it's a "no garrisoning" one, as far as I understand.)
Summons are well balanced against Life already. If not stacking buffs, the cost of a buff is as much as a common creature but the benefit is generally less (sure you get +2/+2 on your unit but the other realms get an entire unit instead.). If stacking buffs, you're paying the price of a higher end uncommon creature, for something that actually behaves exactly like a higher end uncommon creature - nearly unstoppable for commons, but so expensive you can only have a very limited amount of them. The only major difference I see here is not having to research said uncommon creature - but in exchange you do need to research multiple other spells, are vulnerable to dispel, and need to have some sort of a decent base unit to buff.

Note I'm talking about the early game only - mid and late game aren't relevant to Sapher's 1406 wins, nor the common life spells being discussed. Separately discussing mid/late game might be worth it, but it's not our current topic and is of lower priority. We should worry about that once we managed to ensure there is a mid/late game in most games.

[Nelphine]

Right, in saphers case, the buff stacking is warlord + large shield + holy armor + heroism + a much above average base armor unit.

Note that buff stacking does not directly have anything to do with life or any realm. Life just happens to be able to add to it with common spells, but as you say, generally at a decent price.


So my argument is to make level 1 only add to attack power (melee and ranged), level 2 only add to armor.

You could leave level 1 with +1 resist as well, if you don't think lizardmen would ever build a barracks otherwise.

I know I personally never build a barracks today, until I can buy a war college the turn after. An extra unit is almost always more important.


In addition, drop gladiators by 1 armor, and have endurance lose the armor portion.

Between that, gladiators would be 2 less armor than sapher had.

But I think you'll start getting into the healing problem then. Healing acts as effective regeneration, and units like gladiators are exactly the type of unit to take advantage of that.

[Seravy]

Right, in saphers case, the buff stacking is warlord + large shield + holy armor + heroism + a much above average base armor unit.

That's not buff stacking, that qualifies for

The problem is being able to not stack buffs and still get away with not losing units in battle as if those partially buffed, much cheaper units were fully buffed doomstack material.

instead, if its OPness becomes proven. (So far I see this being one of Sapher's slower and less OP games, and the dispel and early monster changes should further slow it down. Which does not mean it won't be still too good, but we can't be sure in advance. One major contributing factor to not having to stack buffs is the ability to dispel curses, so Bless/True Sight is not required. Speaking of which, Life should be using True Sight to counter Confusion, not Dispel Magic. Maybe Dispel Magic should be more expensive to research? idk. It isn't that great if the AI researches it too late, but there are existing better counters to "real" buff stacking already in place so maybe we can get away with some increase in price.)

How we address this issue is, if it becomes proven it exists...we already agreed warlord is fine as is. So either we nerf Large Shield (probably shouldn't, it was really useless at +2), Holy Armor, Heroism, or the stats on gladiators. If, and only if, the problem is specific to gladiators and doesn't happen with any other unit available at this phase of the game, then we should nerf gladiators. If other units are also too effective, then we need to nerf one of the two life spells.
...Gladiators are new, but other units are not. If they are too powerful with these two buffs, we'd already know by now, or not? So unless someone shows me there is problem with life buffs on other units, it's the gladiators. Then again, if Gladiators are too weak for non-Life wizards that's also a problem. If neither life spells nor gladiators are too powerful on their own, I have no good idea what can be done to specifically only nerf life gladiators without affecting life, or gladiators when played without the other.

[Bahgtru]

Gladiators are a particularly egregious example of this problem due to their incredibly high stats that compound with life OPness. How about raising their to-def and removing 3-4 armor? And maybe the same process with attack? To make them less buff-optimised, and increase the difference with berserkers.

I also support endurance being movement only, and also making it not work on ships.

Anyway, if monsters are meant to deal with no garrisons, and life garrisons through buffs, then life buffs should NOT be available in tactc combat - otherwise the monsters are a nerf to everybody but life. So this is another reason for removing the in-combat casting of least the life damage commons: heroism, holy weapon... I'd include holy armor too. Obviously not prayer.

[Seravy]

That logic is wrong. Combat casting is a thing, for all realms. Where other realms summon things, Life buffs. Holy Armor in combat is not the replacement of using Gargoyles, it's the replacement of summoning a Fire Elemental or Phantom Beast. Holy Weapon is not a replacement of Hell Hounds, it's the replacement of Fire Bolt.
Now, if the buffs are more powerful and cost effective than the other options in the tier (Fire Bolt, Confusion, Black Sleep, Phantom Warriors, etc) then we have a reason to disabling their combat use but I don't think that's the case.
Furthermore, buffs are more effective on better units - that Spearmen won't do much even if you buff it. A swordsmen might, or might not, but a halbderier or gladiator definitely will. Which means, having life actually encourages using garrisons more than other realms who can just rely on their phantom warriors or fire bolts.
So, the point of the monster change is to ensure, there are enough monsters coming that you can't kill them all using only combat spells - monster budget is high enough that typical casting skill for that phase of the game can at most deal with half of them. I don't really think Life does better in "monsters killed/mana spent" than anyone else, unless the unit you're buffing is already on par with the monsters or stronger than them, in which case we achieved the goal.
By the way, even at the "buffing" tactic, if it's combat city defense, LIfe is low tier. We intentionally avoided giving them such spells, despite it being a good flavor match for the realm.
Sure, Life has heroism and holy armor, they are good. But Chaos has walls of fire which outright burn away all the monsters before they can damage your unit. Death has Cloak of Fear which makes the enemy fail at least half their attacks. Against ranged, it has Wall of Shadows and Mana Leak. Sorcery, well, it can usually find a buff that gives immunity to the monsters. Guardian Wind, Flight, or Resist Magic. It doesn't cover every possible monster, but for the rest there are phantom summons. Nature is the only one worse than life for combat buffing - they have close to none of it available. Unless we consider Earth To Mud a buff to archers in which case...

That said, Holy Armor might actually be that "too cost effective" spell. It isn't such a big deal by itself, however city walls add 3 defense. +To Def applies to it. So on a unit that has 6 defense already which isn't all that unusual, that unit is 9 defense behind walls, and +To Def makes this 9 defense be as good as if it was 12 instead. That's a big deal. When we changed the spell we also knew being able to cast this in combat for heroes is making them better. So I'm willing to consider making Holy Armor overland only. That is a very big nerf to Life however - it means until Invulnerability, it won't have the ability to raise the defense of units at all. (and btw no other realms can do it either, Life was the only one. Maybe buffing defense in combat below rare tier is simply too powerful? And yes heroism adds defense but it's a big package so it's far more diluted than a simple defense buff and it doesn't work on units that already have levels.)

[Nelphine]

Sapher, can you replicate you're results with klackon swordsmen?

We're having all these discussions, and there's an alternate unit that has almost identical armor that's been around for ages.

[Sapher]

Sapher, can you replicate you're results with klackon swordsmen?

Probably no. Klackons can not hit flying units. Gladiators could kill gargoyles, shadow demons. Klackon swordsmen could work the same way as my lizard swordsmen. So they would work better with support of death magic and still their use would be limited to conquering early cities until werewolves/shadow demons/heroes were researched and mass produced. Gladiators can be effective for much longer period of time.

[Seravy]

Other than hitting flying units, Klackon Swordsmen also have 1/3 total hp, 2/3 with heroism, 1 less armor and 2 lower resistance. They are way less durable.
Orc Horde would be the most similar but we can't build those early anymore.
The only other 6 armor unit I found is Klackon Halberdier, and at 5 armor we have Knights and Saints. None of these have Large Shield though.

[Nelphine]

Right but it means it IS gladiators, and in particular, having the shield and the above average base armor, and decent stats.

Without that combination, holy armor doesn't have the same problem.

(Note your discussion on things like city walls - that's defense. Defense is mostly fine - if someone plays something like klackon, they may get away with smaller garrisons, but at the cost of not being able to attack with a success level that's problematic, so the resources saved from smaller garrisons don't translate into overly early wins, instead just allowing for alternate gamestyles which is what we want.)

[merlinp]

Can't the barbarian swordman fulfill the intended role of gladiator, to combat against ranged units? I think it had also thrown to attack sprites and other flying units.