Race changes: Units

[Catwalk]

Well, I'm never ever going to implement that one for you. Perhaps you should ask Kyrub? :neenernee

:neenernee right back at you, see kyrub's response

Edit: Actually that might be fun, but only if you make the Dark Elves so ridiculously weak, you need to boost them completely with spells to make them playable.

I actually think it can be balanced properly with cost alone, especially with increased costs for basic units. I'll bump them up to 300% and raise the costs of some of the other ones as well. And as with everything else, things can be changed after testing.

Edit: Oh, and I believe Magic Immunity should be stripped from Paladins (KM Dale did). Only Torin may keep it - for the times someone wants to play with a "real" Demi-God (sometimes I do). :P--ILSe

I'm undecided about this one. On the other hand, it would allow us to explore the holy bonus concept a bit more as there'd be less risk of paladins being overpowered.

[Catwalk]

Gave Dark Elves -1 figure, another effective way to balance their powers.

[Vagabond]

Gave Dark Elves -1 figure, another effective way to balance their powers.

But Dark Elves aren't overpowered. Their either overpowered or underpowered. Take away their immunity and they're comparable to various other races. Add it in, and they are either a) way overpaying for comparable troops or b) walking over the opposition.

A common design element throughout strategy games is the rock/paper/scissors balance. Your cavalry is strong against bowmen, but weak against pikemen. So, immunities can be good, using the RPS paradigm. Example: An enemy is producing hell hounds, build your fire immune unit. RPS as it is meant to be. But if all of your units are immune to X then you're always picking rock. And that means fights against scissors are trivial and fights against paper are frustrating. Only fights against other rocks are good, and 1 in 3 is not a good ratio.

[Catwalk]

But Dark Elves aren't overpowered. Their either overpowered or underpowered. Take away their immunity and they're comparable to various other races. Add it in, and they are either a) way overpaying for comparable troops or b) walking over the opposition.

If you mean that the proposed changes makes them really strong under certain conditions (nodes with strong magical ranged attacks or wizards loaded with dangerous spells) and somewhat weak under other conditions (none of the above two being present), then I agree with you. I don't see a problem in that.

A common design element throughout strategy games is the rock/paper/scissors balance. Your cavalry is strong against bowmen, but weak against pikemen. So, immunities can be good, using the RPS paradigm. Example: An enemy is producing hell hounds, build your fire immune unit. RPS as it is meant to be. But if all of your units are immune to X then you're always picking rock. And that means fights against scissors are trivial and fights against paper are frustrating. Only fights against other rocks are good, and 1 in 3 is not a good ratio.

I think the RPS concepts would still work. If you're fighting a wizard with dark elf cities, focus on strong melee and normal ranged attacks. Lower your production of units with magical ranged attacks, and move existing units to other duties (neutral cities, lairs, other wizards). If you have dark elves yourself, you have a strong advantage against wizards relying on destructive spells but will probably be at a disadvantage against life wizards with strong and sturdy units (dwarves and lizardmen in particular).

[Vagabond]

I think the RPS concepts would still work. If you're fighting a wizard with dark elf cities, focus on strong melee and normal ranged attacks. Lower your production of units with magical ranged attacks, and move existing units to other duties (neutral cities, lairs, other wizards). If you have dark elves yourself, you have a strong advantage against wizards relying on destructive spells but will probably be at a disadvantage against life wizards with strong and sturdy units (dwarves and lizardmen in particular).

But that's the point I was trying to make. Dark Elves are always Rock. Against Scissors (damage/debuff wizards) they are strong, against Paper (buff/summon wizards) they are weak. The important part of RPS in strategy is being able to change your choice based on what you think/know the opponent will do. Ideally, the opponent will be doing the same thing and you get into Vizzini/Man in Black levels of convoluted logic. True, that won't happen in MoM due to AI limitations, but there can still be some RPS-based changes in strategy.

And just to be clear, I'm not talking exclusively about Dark Elves here. I see similar problems with Illusion and Fire immunity too. They won't be as extensive a problem. To further abuse my RPS analogy instead of always being Rock, they just can't pick Scissors.

[Catwalk]

Is your objection then primarily from the perspective of using dark elf troops, because you have no alternative to using your somewhat inferior magic immune troops?

[Vagabond]

Is your objection then primarily from the perspective of using dark elf troops, because you have no alternative to using your somewhat inferior magic immune troops?

My objection is the always paying for an ability that could be worthless. If I buy Pikemen and never fight cavalry I paid extra for a special ability I never used. But I could have chosen to get a swordsmen or cavalry of my own, so that's on my head. I can't make that choice for DE, no matter what I'm paying for a special ability that I may or may not use.

To an extent, all races have that. If I play halflings, I'm getting Lucky no matter what. But most race abilities you set up are universally applicable. Lizardmen +2 hearts, or Gnoll +2 attack and +1 move are going to be useful in almost every fight. Immunities on the other hand are on/off toggles that do a huge amount or nothing. That's really why I keep harping on this. I like so much of the work done for the races that the parts I think are balance issues really stand out.

[I like Serena]

I kind of dislike the way Dwarves and High Men are overpowered.
They are the 2 races that make it possible to roll over any opposition with only a single unit that you can build with them, which I consider imbalanced.

Dwarves are at the beginning already very hardy and have special bonuses.
In the late game they have Adamantium Hammerhands. With stacks of only this unit you can roll over any opposition. Only something like High Prayer will save your opponent.

High Men are a challenge to get through the early game.
But once they have Paladins they are ready. Stacks of them roll over any opposition.

I say: take away the Magic Immunity of the Paladins (and perhaps name them "Knights").
And perhaps take away a heart of the Hammerhands.

[Catwalk]

My objection is the always paying for an ability that could be worthless. If I buy Pikemen and never fight cavalry I paid extra for a special ability I never used. But I could have chosen to get a swordsmen or cavalry of my own, so that's on my head. I can't make that choice for DE, no matter what I'm paying for a special ability that I may or may not use.

Alright, I do understand that argument. Still, I don't think this is exclusively a bad thing. If overdone, yes. If done on a single race, it's variety. And you do have options, even if it's a different type of options. Specifically, you can choose who to go after. And Magic Immunity is actually highly applicable, as it's really strong against most enemy wizards.

Let's see how it works out in playtesting and then resume harping :P

I kind of dislike the way Dwarves and High Men are overpowered.
They are the 2 races that make it possible to roll over any opposition with only a single unit that you can build with them, which I consider imbalanced.

Dwarves are at the beginning already very hardy and have special bonuses.
In the late game they have Adamantium Hammerhands. With stacks of only this unit you can roll over any opposition. Only something like High Prayer will save your opponent.

I agree, but how to make hammerhands interesting without making them overpowered? Melee is all dwarves have, and I don't really see a way to cast hammerhands into a special role.

I say: take away the Magic Immunity of the Paladins (and perhaps name them "Knights").
And perhaps take away a heart of the Hammerhands.

This thread is not about racial units I agree with removing magic immunity from paladins, I'll keep the name because they still do have holy bonus. If you have any stat suggestions for hammerhands and paladins, please put them in the racial units thread. What do you think about the stats for their basic units?

[kyrub]

A note: we have a whole type of movement free for use. The so called "Cavalry" type of movement was written in the game files, the tag was given to mounted units, the game checks for it, but it finally gives it the normal type of movement.

I thought it would be probably very interesting to make it a special racial type of movement, that is in effect only when all moving units are from the same race ( = current function of the code). Some sort of group movement, "Hive" or "Swarm" for Klackons? - this seems to fit well the whole Klackon story. Or something else? Well, just an idea...

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Hmm... and swimming could be mvt=2 when swimming along the coasts...? Nah, don't know. (AI is desperate when trying to swim to the other corner of the world.)
That said, did you know that mountaineer + forrester + swimming give you pathfinding on the water?