Sprites are still overpowered

[Catwalk]

Would it be fair to say that you often tend to be very fond of the long-term perspective? I often see you playing long games, and somewhere I think you mentioned 1415-1420 being a typical game length for you.

Yes, probably. 1415-20 is where the game starts - rares and very rares appear, etc. Anything before that is the build-up. (for Extreme and Hard, anyway, I haven't played much on impossible until we started these tests.)

"rush" strategies are a different story, those aim to win before the enemy gets to actually play the game, that's the whole point. I'm not a fan of these, but I admit they should be part of the game - as long as they are not overpowered and unstoppable. But they should be a marginal tactic played by specific realms and races, and not the core game. These should be winning before 1415, but any less than 1410 on impossible is probably signaling it's overpowered.

I think this is your problem. You have a preferred playing style, and you use that preference to assess game balance. I don't have a preference, I just want to find the most consistent way of winning. If playing slower gave me a higher percentage of wins, I'd go for that. Rush strategies should be a gamble, and they should be uncertain. It's quite the opposite. Rush strategies give you a much higher percentage of wins, because you gain game control at an early stage. Incidentally, early War Bears are a gamble because you lose them so easily. Sprites are a perfectly calculated gambit that give you guaranteed returns in every single game. I've played 6 games now and it hasn't failed a single time. This is not a rush strategy, this is just good strategy.

Personally, I think it's a problem that rush strategies are so overpowered. You should not be able to win Impossible this easily. Also, I actually don't think they're the most interesting to play. But right now I'm playing as a tester, trying to find out if your mod is balanced. It's extremely unbalanced, and the more I play it the more obvious it becomes. That's why I want to find out what your vision for the mod is. I'm not sure how important game balance is to you, personal preference seems to creep in everywhere. And with all due respect, I don't have the impression that you're a strong player. It worries me that you so quickly dismiss opinions of players who are demonstrably stronger at the game than yourself. I would hope that you would welcome this input instead.

I think I have to admit sprites are better than bears - and I don't really mind that, since they are less versatile, more luck dependent, and require a lot more skill and knowledge of the game to use effectively. (Yes, the last two doesn't matter much for us, but matters for others)

Nonono! Sprites are not luck dependent. I can use this strategy to dominate every single game. At least the last 6 in a row so far, that's a very high percentage. They're not even all that skill dependent, you just need to cast Earth Lore and look at where to go. Have you tried this strategy in depth? I'm not sure you understand how it works, with your comments above about nodes and lairs not being important. They're a huuuuge source of early resources, and that snowballs your development into a dominant position.

One more thing about sprites, they are supposed to be ineffective against wizards. If they aren't and work as a rush tactic, that's a problem, but I don't think it's the case, I believe it's more along the lines of "too much treasure buys too much stuff that wins the game".

They're very efficient. An early stack of 9 Sprites will take out the AI until 1405 or so. If he also has Sprites, you quickly put Resist Elements on the whole stack and take him to town. And with all the nodes and lairs I'm able to take out, it's trivial to have a stack of 9 Sprites at his fortress by 1405. That said, taking out other wizards early should only be done out of necessity. It's not very profitable, much better to use them on lairs. If he's very close by and blocking your expansion, it can be necessary. And I agree that War Bears work fine for that too.

The real problem with spamming early spells is that you get spells for free. This was poor design from the start (in the original game), and it should be fixed.

This is a train of thought that I often ride on...only to get slapped in the face by reality. The AI needs the starting commons and would completely fail without them. The main reason why they don't get stuck on islands is the starting spells, for one. And honestly, the ability to pick two books for a starting common makes the game more varied and interesting - losing this feature would be sad. Commons spells have a high availability - even if you don't get them at start you'll most likely get all 10 of them with as few as 1 book - by trading, looting wizards, and finding them in lairs. So a spell being 'guaranteed' doesn't have a lasting impact. In fact, 6 books are enough to make sure you have all 10 spells.

I disagree completely, you can fix all those concerns easily. Since you say that you often ride that train of thought, are you interested in changing the system? The ability to pick two books for a starting common doesn't make the game more varied and interesting. It's a big part of what makes high book strategies useless. There should be a tangible reward to having a high number of books in a realm, guaranteed and starting spells are exactly how to create that advantage.

[Seravy]

Incidentally, early War Bears are a gamble because you lose them so easily. Sprites are a perfectly calculated gambit that give you guaranteed returns in every single game. I've played 6 games now and it hasn't failed a single time. This is not a rush strategy, this is just good strategy.

I think it's the opposite. War Bears give a consistent, predictable result, and losses are usually within the expected range. Sprites on the other hand are entirely random - the presence of good targets, the treasure obtained, and losses too - if the stack of sprites is attacked by an enemy stack, the stack dies - I had a fair share of losing stacks of 2-6 sprites to an enemy ship, or water walking hero. And if any enemy learns firestorm, they wipe a stack of 9 sprites in a single turn without needing to attack - I have had this happen in ~1405 in my first test game.

Personally, I think it's a problem that rush strategies are so overpowered. You should not be able to win Impossible this easily. Also, I actually don't think they're the most interesting to play.

Good, this is exactly what I think, too. So we have a common goal here.

And with all due respect, I don't have the impression that you're a strong player.

The game changes on almost a daily basis so...yes, that's probably true. As I can only fix problems I'm aware of, it means the strategies I use to win get less effective over time, as the AI learns to counter them, or the balance is improved. Meanwhile strategies I'm not aware of might stay unchanged.

They're not even all that skill dependent, you just need to cast Earth Lore and look at where to go. Have you tried this strategy in depth?

Well, I'm in the process of playing one game when I'm using sprites but I can't keep up with your speed. For me a game takes several days to complete, while you play 2 hours the drop it and start another. Earth Lore wasn't doing what it does now 2 weeks ago. Lairs used to have much more stronger monsters about 2 months ago. So this whole problem seems to be brand new - I did play sprites many times in the past, and while they didn't suck, they weren't enough for an easy win on Extreme.

...all this war bears testing got me sidetracked, I don't even remember where I was in the sprites game anymore. I better load it and check... Oh boy. Compared to that war bears game I'm doing horrible...1405 december, no wizards banished, and while I do have 2 nodes, I have less power overall even with those -  only 45. Fewer cities, less gold income, at war with 3 other wizards...meh.
So as far as the games I played is concerned, it's 1-0 for bears, I might as well drop this game with sprites, they didn't even get close. (Not a surprise though, this game did not have spellweaver and alchemy, the bears one did. Again we are back to retorts interfering too much.)
The previous games where I used the no longer existing retort combination do not count - we fixed it.

I'm not sure you understand how it works, with your comments above about nodes and lairs not being important. They're a huuuuge source of early resources, and that snowballs your development into a dominant position.

This is not my experience but I haven't done enough games to judge it - and most of those games were interfered with by retorts.

An idea : we want to test sprites, so let's eliminate every other factor. I'm going to use RVL and PWR on turn 1, summon 9 sprites, and give them all 15 movement then save. I will then send them into every lair and node I can reach with that many moves, clear the node, if successful, make a note of the treasure, reload and do the next. Do this, like, 10 times. Then we'll have an approximate idea of how much treasure this means in the early game on average. If the number is above X gold, then I'll admit sprites are overpowered - but we'll have to agree on the value of X.
...this will be ultra boring to do, though. I know better! Let's automate the process. We know which monsters can be killed by sprites. So I can write a tool that reads the map, counts the treasure, and outputs it into a file. It'll probably be done in less than 2 hours and saves another 100 hours of testing. Meanwhile suggest a value for X.

I disagree completely, you can fix all those concerns easily. Since you say that you often ride that train of thought, are you interested in changing the system? There should be a tangible reward to having a high number of books in a realm,

How exactly am I supposed to easily fix the AI not getting a spell it needs? Sorry but I don't see this happening and I have my hands full of the million other problems we face already. (Sprites, starting conditions, retort stacking, and the bugs on my list that need fixing for starters)

It's a big part of what makes high book strategies useless.

I believe the best answer to this is to get rid of all the unintended rush strategies - we seem to agree they are a problem, and based on our experience so far, they are rely on stacking retorts for an early advantage somehow, which results in low book counts. I don't think low book count late game strategies are going to be a major problem - the lack of rare and very rare spells makes these weak.

Back to the sprite testing tool. I believe this list of creatures should be included as "sprites compatible" :
Fire Elemental
Hell Hounds
Chaos Spawn
Skeletons
Werewolves
Zombies
Unicorns
Guardian Spirit
War Bears
Cockatrices (these are hard in large numbers but doable with web)
Earth Elemental
Great Wyrm
Phantom Beast
Phantom Warrior
Nagas
Sprites (need resist elements and probably will have losses anyway but can do - I don't think I ever did, though. I rather throw away my bowmen for this. Do we want to include it anyway?)

[zitro1987]

More thoughts on limiting typical rush strategies:

*We could try lowering starting picks from 12 to 11 (the original count), slightly making retort-stacking more difficult
*my previously mentioned idea to lower how much skill you get from the first 5 books (essentially having about 5 less skill ... that's what skill investment is for anyways)
*maybe something with archmage (lower initial points, stronger % bonus)

[Seravy]

The sprites treasure counter tool is complete so right now I'm waiting for

-opinions on how much treasure (in gold) should be considered overpowered
-opinions about adding a starting sawmill or raising the starting max pop, and the possible changes this step requires in the AI.

It would be nice if we could decide at least on the latter today.

(the tool counts gold and mana at equal value, items at the value you get if you turn them into mana (50%), and adds +500 for each node or tower as they have other relevant than treasure. Spells, books, retorts and heroes are not counted as they are too subjective.)

[GermanJoey]

Suiciding 12 bears into a node that I can take in a couple turns with Sprites (without casualties) is just crazy, and you hardly profit from it at all.

Assuming the node provides a modest 20 mana a turn, that in itself pays for the bears in ~15 turns and produces a profit afterwards. And then there is the treasure, which turns this profitable instantly - 600 mana from a node buys 20 bears! Don't forget we were talking about the hardest possible Sorcery node - if it was 3 beasts and 3 nagas, 9 bears could have cleared it without any of them dying. Sprites are of course better, I never said they are not - they should be because they are a lot less versatile.

Ok, lets say you start with 20 casting skill. 10 Nature Books + Specialist + Alchemy, which you've said is your preferred economy trait. The node is, I don't know, 7 tiles away from your capital. And then we'll say you hold the node produces 20 power per turn for for 15 turns. What's the profit of using war bears vs using a single sprite? 


War Bears method:
direct casting cost: 41 mana each times 12 = 492 mana
casting time: floor(492/20) = 24 turns to finish casting 12 bears
travel time: 3 turns
time until node capture: 24+3 = 27 turns
upkeep: since we are continuously summoning the bears, we can assume maintenance increases linearly until the node capture, and thus 27*12/2 = 162 mana. after that, we pay 3 mana a turn for 3 surviving bears = 45 mana
node treasure: 600 mana
node income: 20*15 = 300 mana
surviving units: lets say your last 3 bears survive, and thus 3*41 = 123 mana
total profit: 600 + 300 + 123 - (492 + 162 + 45) = 324 mana 



Sprites method:
direct casting cost: 59 mana for one sprite
casting time: floor(59/3) = 2 turns
travel time: 4 turns
time until node capture: 2+4+9 = 15 turns
upkeep: 2*40 = 80 mana
node treasure: 600 mana
node income: 20*(42-15) = 540 mana
surviving units: 1 sprite, worth 59 mana
total profit: (600+540+59) - (59 + 80) = 1060 mana

So the sprites method is over 3 times more profitable than the war bears method. And, of course, this assumes that the sprites don't immediately go off conquering something else after this. This comparison is also not very fair to the sprites, as the sprites wizard is only using his casting skill for 2 turns while the war bears one is using it for 22. Sprites are also capable of winning much more profitable nodes/lairs than this.

[RefSteel]

Obviously a complete newb question, but if early summons are overpowered and early sprites are especially overpowered, couldn't the problem be fixed by increasing the mana costs of common summons (and especially Sprites) while leaving the costs of other spells unchanged? Or is the problem less with the summons themselves than with a summoning strategy using certain retort combinations? Or what?

[EDIT: Okay, GermanJoey's analysis above demonstrates that at least in the case of Sprites there's a problem with their unit design itself when facing lairs, nodes, and neutrals. It's been a long time since I played MoM, but I thought all ranged units had limited ammo and fleeing involved a chance of losing one or more units. If both those things were true though, a single Sprite couldn't defeat a big lair. Was this a change in the mod or am I misremembering something...?]

[Seravy]

Obviously a complete newb question, but if early summons are overpowered and early sprites are especially overpowered, couldn't the problem be fixed by increasing the mana costs of common summons (and especially Sprites) while leaving the costs of other spells unchanged?  Or is the problem less with the summons themselves than with a summoning strategy using certain retort combinations?  Or what?

I think the problem is this, see the post on the previous page :

I believe there is a significant problem with early game balance in general.
Summoned units are designed to be more powerful and cost effective than normal units, because the capacity to produce them is a lot more limited.
The player only has a summoning capacity equal to their casting skill, while they can produce unlimited amount of normal units, as far as their cities and gold allows.
This system works out fine for the most of it...but it breaks the early game. The assumption of summoning capacity<production capacity is false for the early game - in fact the opposite is true.
While the player has a capital that generates a mere 4 hammers, they have a casting skill of 10-30, and a mana income of 10-20, several times larger. This unbalances early summoning strategies.

[Seravy]

[EDIT: Okay, GermanJoey's analysis above demonstrates that at least in the case of Sprites there's a problem with their unit design itself when facing lairs, nodes, and neutrals.  It's been a long time since I played MoM, but I thought all ranged units had limited ammo and fleeing involved a chance of losing one or more units.  If both those things were true though, a single Sprite couldn't defeat a big lair.  Was this a change in the mod or am I misremembering something...?]

They have limited ammo and fleeing still kills the unit. However you can pass until the battle ends and then you got away without having to flee. This only works if the enemy cannot hit flying units or moves slower than your units, otherwise you won't survive. So sprites can clear a big lair with some restrictions - you have to be able to at least kill one unit per battle (which is not trivial against wyrms, you'll need at least 5-6 sprites) ,and this doesn't work if the enemy can regenerate.

[RefSteel]

Thanks for explaining, Seravy.

The problem, looks like a tough one then. Even if every lair type and/or city had a chance of holding some creature that could hurt flying creatures, it's no big deal to risk one Sprite (or other scout) to find out if a given location is Sprite Food. And a large percentages of lairs and neutral cities will be. And they can be on any landmass since Sprites can fly over water.

Passing a billion turns for every strong lair doesn't sound like a lot of fun either, and it's not great when unfun tactics are the most effective. ... Is it possible to have short-term flying effects, so that a unit starts combat with flying (or has a one-shot-per-battle ability that gives it flying) but the effect wears off after some number of turns, after which it can be attacked normally?

[Seravy]

Passing a billion turns for every strong lair doesn't sound like a lot of fun either, and it's not great when unfun tactics are the most effective.  ...  Is it possible to have short-term flying effects, so that a unit starts combat with flying (or has a one-shot-per-battle ability that gives it flying) but the effect wears off after some number of turns, after which it can be attacked normally?

Might be possible....but I wouldn't want to play a game that has a mechanic like that.
Honestly this is only a problem against neutral targets - a wizard has a million ways to kill a flying unit using spells- which is what keeps flying a powerful, but not overpowered ability.