My original proposal of 7 turn, but expect practical use of less than 7 turns . With some risk would balance it.
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Spellweaver
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The retort has to help AI in some way. Let's say we continue discussing a retreat-style retort. It may help AI if instead the retort gives:
*your units have +2 movement in fleeing calculations (increased chance of fleeing … and AI can sometimes flee against human) and *your regenerating units regenerate in fleeing situations and/or '25 turns, units exhausted' Then maybe it 'might' help the AI somewhat, at least when battling you. On that note, is it possible if a retort gives a human an ability, but an AI a different ability? If not, something that helps both combat and automatic combat calculations. *Neutral units and lair protectors become original MoM dumb (no fleeing out of danger, ranged units attacking after shots exhausted, etc) *Automated combat against neutrals give you an X% boost in combat calculations (to help AI) This retort might help players who rely on strength as opposed to pure speed for conquering a few more lairs. (August 24th, 2018, 15:30)zitro1987 Wrote: The retort has to help AI in some way. Let's say we continue discussing a retreat-style retort. It may help AI if instead the retort gives: I like the idea of +2movement calculation. Could we add +4 for hero, or 100% for high movement units (discuss: 4, 5, or 6 move as high movement) plus teleport/merging? Invisible unit?
Right, so what leads to a situation where you want to flee, and you've got a unit (say an invisible unit) who can survive 7 turns (and not somehow 25)? I just don't see it. Except for abuse 'attack with quick casting hero stack, cast 3 or 4 flame strikes on turn 1, flee because all the heroes are move 8+, repeat'. I mean obviously that's the extreme version of the 'attack with 1 spearmen' but still.
Worse is 'put a spearmen on every chokepoint around your cities. to get to you ai needs to attack the spearmen. you cast 1 spell, then flee'. Right now, you have a very high chance of losing that spearmen; with this retort, unless you make it completely do nothing in the first few turns, your spearmen suddenly has a much higher chance of fleeing. (Gnoll spearmen with endurance so they're speed 4? could even just use cavalry, speed 5 right off the bat) So now you can cast your one flame strike with 1 cavalry, retreat because he's high speed; by retreating and not dying, the AI has to attack the cavalry again next round before he can get closer to your city. Depending on the shape of the continent, you might do this 2,3,4,5, maybe 8+ times with 1 cavalry. So now we assume that the retort doesn't affect round 1 retreat chances. But, life have no way of killing a cavalry at range in many cases; so, that means you can do the same thing on turn 2. So the retort can't affect turn 2. What about an invisible unit? Now you can push it to not having any affect until turn 7. Put nightblades around your empire, or even spearmen with invisibiliy, and keep repeating this, AI attacking, getting hit with nasty combat spells, and literally never getting to cast anything in return, and you never losing units. The abuse factor is HIGH, but much worse than that, it ENCOURAGES people to play strange variant playstyles to take advantage of it. So there needs to be an actual common regular situation where this retort encourages 'standard' gameplay, or helps with quality of life immensely in order to be more important than that. So saying 'invisible units might get caught' isn't good enough. What actually situations, that come up in the majority of games (since the abuse could be used in the majority of games), would this actually promote healthy gameplay that is more important than that potential abuse?
I don't view it as abuse. Hit and run is one of the very basic tactics among all war type games. Proper limitations on numbers (turns, probabilities, etc) may make it a viable nonabuse option. And remember it costs a pick or two.
Extremely speaking, every tactic is an abuse, if it is too strong. If artificier save 7/8 casting cost , it's abuse. Hit and run, brute force are both viable strategies. I think hit and run cannot be healthy enough. Unless someone can prove that it's no way to balance it. Perhaps retreater suffers -0.5 hit per unit, due to lack of courage.. We are still in discussion, I believe. (August 24th, 2018, 20:41)Nelphine Wrote: Right, so what leads to a situation where you want to flee, and you've got a unit (say an invisible unit) who can survive 7 turns (and not somehow 25)? I just don't see it. Except for abuse 'attack with quick casting hero stack, cast 3 or 4 flame strikes on turn 1, flee because all the heroes are move 8+, repeat'. I mean obviously that's the extreme version of the 'attack with 1 spearmen' but still. It's easy to break through layers of spearmen. Just arrange army in waves. Break thru it in one turn
August 24th, 2018, 23:08
(This post was last modified: August 24th, 2018, 23:10 by robinh3123.)
In fact, I don't care about spearsmen' death or not. Hit and run , or hit but die,. It's just a matter of how many spearmen are prepared. The retreater just make it easier to implement the tactics. But compared to other useful retorts, the value can be just equal, if well-balanced.
Retreat of valuable units would be more important. |