Any units or combos too strong / too weak?

[unmerged(493819)]

Hi,

I thought it would be helpful to the devs to list any units or spell combos that are too strong or too weak. The game is really fun as is, but there's always room for improvement.

Just to give an example of what I mean, here is my UNDEAD FERVUS BEAR ZERG RUSH OF DOOM !



This combo is based on the following four facts:
1. Undead cities don't lose growth with starvation. I can have -20 food income and my cities will still grow normally.
2. Fervus bears only have a food based upkeep. That means that for undead, their upkeep is meaningless.
3. When choosing Favor of Fervus as a starting trait, one gets the "Summon Bears" spell as a starting spell.
4. After attaining a mana income of 15 (very easy as undead), and starting with the Favor of Fervus trait, I can summon one Fervus bear per turn. This quickly stacks up to an unstoppable horde of bears.

The Impossible AI as seen in the picture was totally helpless against this strat. Even the new capitol defenses didn't help. In multiplayer, I can't imagine what I would do to counter this except use the same strat. This would also work with Favor of Grum-God and Summon Strong Rats. To fix this, I would suggest increasing the cost of the summon spell slightly. This would delay the rush greatly, making counters possible.

Any thoughts? Please also specify and give examples to prove that something is too strong/weak. If possible, please also give us an idea for how to fix any problem you encounter.

 

[FlyingDutchman]

I would suggest that a -2 mana/turn cost for the bears would slow it down better.

Do not understand how any summons would not have a mana/turn cost.

 

[Gort11]

I like how you posted what's basically an exploit allowing you to avoid upkeep on a unit and then decided that the way to fix the exploit is to make it slightly harder to do.

The obvious fix is to make the bears cost mana, like FlyingDutchman says. That way you can't have infinity bears just by playing as undead.

Alternatively you could make units begin to die if they don't have enough food or mana (for undead). A chunk of HP each turn you're without food/mana would mean your weaker units would generally die first until your deficit is gone.

 

[unmerged(493819)]

Yeah you guys may be right. I considered that as a solution, but what stopped me was this:

1. The same problem also applies to Strong Rats and Favor of Grum-Gog. Adding a mana cost to Strong Rats would seem unreasonable thought, because they are a Monster regular unit.

2. Mana upkeep for Strong Rats and Bears would make using them difficult for humans and monsters. Undead have better mana income.

3. I wanted to propose the smallest change which I thought would help, because I think small balance changes are generally the best. Making really big changes can make the spell useless. If there's a mana upkeep, make it -1 rather than -2.

- But I guess we could change the units created by the Strong Rats summon spell and the Summon Bear spell to have a mana upkeep, and leave the regular town-built units as is. Or we could just make change the units summoned by the undead to have a different upkeep cost from summons used by Monsters and Humans in recognition of the difference between the factions in resources used. So undead summons could have a mana cost, while orcs could still summon a bunch of Strong Rats and pay for it in food as now.

 

[The Apprentice]

:blink:

Yep, I'd say that qualifies as broken/unintended. I expect the food thing will be fixed in a patch- if you have negative food income and no cities to starve, your units should disband or be at half-strength or some such. Given the way the game treats starvation, I'd think a global half-strength debuff would be the easiest to implement. I like how some summons cost mana upkeep, and some don't- once in Ardania, they've been summoned. Its not ongoing. It's what enables Strong Rats to be such useful scouts in the early game- you don't have to worry about a massive mana upkeep.

As for similar things... I haven't come across anything like that. I have noticed that with Adepts of Lunord, they can attack twice a turn (once with their normal attack, and once with their poison death ability). If Vampiric, they can cleave through units very quickly.

 

[unmerged(493174)]

Yeah, wouldn't this extend to all units that primarily cost food, as well? You could spam out bats, capture a monster city and just deal with the reduced growth, and so on?

 

[The Apprentice]

Or treat it so it checks for food availability before you can build/summon the unit. Then the main way starvation would occur would be city growth for humans and monsters. That might undermine the whole starvation mechanic though...

 

[Corran109]

Or just have an easy to get de-summon spell.

 

[Space Hopper]

All perks on a Fire Elemental makes it an unkillable killing machine.

 

[Bored Peon]

Or just have an easy to get de-summon spell.

There is one, they call it "Disband Unit."

 

[CaptainKen]

Just one criticism - The fire elementals are WAY too strong. I don't see how a person is able to kill one. If anyone has thoughts, I'd appreciate them. Thank You.

 

[unmerged(485924)]

I thought the bear summon took 2 turns?

 

[The Apprentice]

Just one criticism - The fire elementals are WAY too strong. I don't see how a person is able to kill one. If anyone has thoughts, I'd appreciate them. Thank You.

You can see a unit's resistances when you right click on them. Fire Elementals are weak to elemental damage and spirit damage. Humans can use Mages (or Healers less optimally). An easy way to get fighter or ranged units elemental damage is to build an enchanter's workshop on a magic node tile. There are also to spells you can research that add elemental damage to any unit you cast the spell on.

 

[unmerged(493174)]

All perks on a Fire Elemental makes it an unkillable killing machine.

All perks on anything makes it basically unkillable. Which is also how I'd boil down how you're supposed to deal with the greater fire elementals.

My main complaint, I guess, is that some units of a certain tier just seem stronger than others? Sisters of Krypta being a stronger and cheaper version of Elder Vampires (which are already extremely strong), for example. I'd also single out the Paladins of Duros, Archers of Helia, and Old Trolls as being exceptionally powerful.

EDIT: Also, the undead's flying ship line seems, to me, to be much weaker than their equivalents in the other races. Also, I dislike how convoluted the undead's res farming tree is compared to the other races'.

 

[unmerged(490390)]

Actually, I personally believe nothing is more broken than Black Minotaurs with all buffs.

Not even a Gold Dragon.

The reason is because Black Minotaurs are cheap to produce, only 600 gold, have high damage, and essentially have 2 attacks, 1 AOE and 1 normal every 2 turns.

Not to mention, Black Minotaurs are able to attack and retreat if they kill off any unit.

 

[Corran109]

There is one, they call it "Disband Unit."

I more meant something to use on enemy summons.

 

[unmerged(493819)]

Thanks for all the replies so far! Some comments:

:blink:

Yep, I'd say that qualifies as broken/unintended. I expect the food thing will be fixed in a patch- if you have negative food income and no cities to starve, your units should disband or be at half-strength or some such. Given the way the game treats starvation, I'd think a global half-strength debuff would be the easiest to implement. I like how some summons cost mana upkeep, and some don't- once in Ardania, they've been summoned. Its not ongoing. It's what enables Strong Rats to be such useful scouts in the early game- you don't have to worry about a massive mana upkeep.

I really like your global debuff idea, it sounds much better than the mana upkeep cost idea. Maybe there could be several starvation thresholds for weakening units - e.g. -10 % at basic starvation, -25 % at -10 food and -50 % at -20 food.

Yeah, wouldn't this extend to all units that primarily cost food, as well? You could spam out bats, capture a monster city and just deal with the reduced growth, and so on?

Yeah, good catch!

Just one criticism - The fire elementals are WAY too strong. I don't see how a person is able to kill one. If anyone has thoughts, I'd appreciate them. Thank You.

I have to disagree with this. It's good that they slow up taking Holy Grounds at least a little bit. They are pretty easy to overwhelm with numbers or strong units. For humans, two mages plus one or two cheap units to soak up the damage will help. Four rangers also worked for me. For orcs, try one troll and one shaman. Undead have most trouble because vampires do no damage to fire elementals. For them try a zombie to soak up damage and mass skeleton snipers maybe? Summons will also help: imps, Fervus bears and strong rats will all die against elementals, but at least they will soak damage. Oh, and like SolaceAvatar said, put elemental/spirit damage buffs on your archers/mages, that will help.

All perks on anything makes it basically unkillable.

The strenght of super buffed up units would be my second balance complaint after the FERVUS BEAR ZERG RUSH OF DOOM. Or maybe its not a balance complaint, as it wouldn't be as big of a problem in a game with humans. But the AI has a lot of trouble with these, so weakening buffs / making strong dispel spells more easily available and more utilized by the AI would be help. Buffed up temple + other super units also make tier 2 units too useless for my taste.

Certain specific buffs like the super cheap super good super early elemental resistance and arrow resistance that Fervus gives could also be toned down. They are very, very good for their cost.

 

[unmerged(492702)]

I was hoping this would go unnoticed by the time multiplayer came out -_-
Oh well, time to find me another broken strategy.

 

[xrm1]

The ranged resistance one, Protection of Night, is a Lunord spell. Selecting either favor of Fervus or Lunord ar the start gets you access to both that and Shield of Chaos though.
Playing undead it's not too hard to have enough mana to cast both and haste on everything.

 

[unmerged(281782)]

Actually, I personally believe nothing is more broken than Black Minotaurs with all buffs.

Not even a Gold Dragon.

The reason is because Black Minotaurs are cheap to produce, only 600 gold, have high damage, and essentially have 2 attacks, 1 AOE and 1 normal every 2 turns.

Not to mention, Black Minotaurs are able to attack and retreat if they kill off any unit.

To be precise, with all buffs they cost way more than 600 gold. And against AI, anything with enough buffs is broken.