Factions imbalanced ?

[unmerged(168615)]

Hello players,
after testing all 3 factions now I come to the conclusion that they are not good balanced.
Especially in regards to MP planned to be implemented, I fear that it could get worse.

Let´s see:
Humans: their starting troops are quite capable, especially the infantry and archers while thieves are mainly good for exploring due to their movement points. Primarily their troops are quite tough but lack of speed.

Monsters: quite the opposite of the human faction: fragile, fast units. You need alot of them to get a hole in the defense of your opponent and I find it the most difficult faction to play

Undead: Here comes the "uber" faction: besides Skeletons, which are average in any aspect, every further units are tough: zombies have mass of HP, vampires are range and can easily heal, making them hard to kill. And ghosts......yes, ghosts are a pain for every opponent since nearly anything of regular troops can harm them!
Easy, beginner faction and surely hard to beat in MP!

What are your thoughts ?

 

[Hulbur]

Funny, I a completely different view. Mid - Late game, the monster faction seems really really strong. Werewolves are fast, regenerating and hard hitting. Trolls absolutely demolish cities, and oh, regenerating. And Shamans just seem better then clerics, i think its the inate "Thick hide" that makes them survive just a bit longer.
I don't have much experience with late game vampires, but midgame, regeneration seems better then lifeleech. The ability to heal while moving to the next city is very strong. No need to stop your rampage.

 

[Astasia]

I think they are definitely different, but I don't think they are imbalanced overall.

Undead have a lot of trouble with death damage immune units, especially greater elementals which guard all the good stuff. They have an easier time in the lower levels, but then they struggle against the stronger units, or against other undead.

Monsters and humans are less different, monsters are more mobile while humans have more emphasis on range I find.

Doesn't really matter though because you're not only not limited to your starting faction, but it seems like the game encourages you to mix and match. I actually have to spend extra effort trying to stay "pure." Destroying and rebuilding many cities just because I'm a "theme player" and mixing it up seems too min-maxie for me. Also the most powerful units are neutral anyway.

 

[unmerged(241678)]

You might be right that they are not perfectly ballanced even though you forget to mention that the trade off for zombies and vampires is that the are no undead healers and undead units cant cant be healed through spells either but what does it matter?

1. Nothing stops you from building units/cities of other races (yes you have -20% gold/food/(mana?) penelty in these cities so dont build them for resorces but having a few for recruitment is no problem).
2. Resorce-based troops (elves, minotaurs, dragons, ect) are generally way better than race-based troops anyway and also available for everyone (easier or harder depending on random starting position).

Imho the more important thing to consider when choosing a race is the resource you want to "spezialize" in. I havent played each race yet (but had cities of all) and while humans can earn more gold, undead get more mana and monsters more food.

 

[unmerged(168615)]

You might be right that they are not perfectly ballanced even though you forget to mention that the trade off for zombies and vampires is that the are no undead healers and undead units cant cant be healed through spells either but what does it matter?

In fact they can be healed by magic but with a different spell ..... :happy:

 

[unmerged(485046)]

Just to clarify that undead can be healed by spells, just not through the regular heal spells. Reconstruction and regeneration spells work just fine on them.

 

[aqvamare]

Undead dragon is best dragon in game, his attack attacks three fields, red dragon two and gold only one field.... and you can build so many dragons from the undead as you want.

 

[Traks]

I would rate AI - undead first, humans second and rats third. Monsters just lack staying power.
For player, I have not played all 3 factions yet I'd probably still rate undead as first.

 

[unmerged(241678)]

Just to clarify that undead can be healed by spells, just not through the regular heal spells. Reconstruction and regeneration spells work just fine on them.

Ah, ok, mymistake... but I would have thought, reconstruction is for cities, ships and war machinery (like balistas) not "living" (as in non-mecanical) undead units and regeneration is a buff not a direct heal, right?

 

[Arilou]

Note that while Undead has an easier time producing mana, just about all their troops cost mana in upkeep. The only time I've ever actually been running low on mana was with undead.

 

[North_Wolf]

There is a heal undead spell, it comes out late and is possibly less mana efficent then regular heal.

Undead lack elemental damage (this was pointed out to me in a diffrent thread), that is a very big deal against some units.

With summons and none race specific units being around, then you can fine tune each of the factions so balance may not be that bad (I have not played the humans yet though).

Cant wait for multiplayer.

 

[Astasia]

There's a whole line of heal undead spells linked to krypta's religion. You can start the game with the weak one (8 points) if you pick her perk, you'll probably get summon skeleton pretty early that way too.

BTW grabbing a single undead city as a human or monster player and going through the mana buildings pretty much sets you up for the rest of the game in terms of mana generation. I wasn't even aware there was a 20% penalty, it's not noticeable.

PS on my 5th game I'm still discovering new units, like the giant trees with 70 health and a 10 hp regeneration aura. Ultimate healers right there.

 

[Nefaro]

I've found the basic monster units to buckle like a belt, sure. But their better units are pretty mean. As mentioned, werewolves and Trolls are some nice units. It also seems to have higher quantity food-producing buildings so the potential for having more unit capacity may be there in the long run, too.

 

[Asymmetric]

I've found the basic monster spearmen get pretty dang efficient at dealing with all physical troops later in the game given there cheap cost, if you upgrade them with the various perks and veteran abilities. It's the fact they come with thick hide and armour as standard making there melee physical defences really high. My ranks of veteraned seasoned spearmen are still at forefront of my assault beating back things like black minotaurs, ogres and earth elementals, while grinding down cities. Goblin archers are a bit "meh" though.

Late-game Old Trolls get insane. 90hitpoints. 20 regen. Large defences. Can get the flasks/potions and armour perks. I gave one of mine the vamparism weapon enchant and left it on the otherside of a portal fillled with dragons, demons, fire elementals and earth elementals. He's utterly surrounded by about 15 enemies just now and under constant assault but hes still smashing faces and regening his way through the loses. They do massive damage to cities as well, I've seen 100+ damaging strikes.

 

[Sifer2]

It's definitely impressive just how many units there are. No way it can be balanced. And we really can't say for sure what's too strong when it hasn't been out a full week yet. Hopefully by the time multiplayer comes along though it will be good. And yeah that's a good point that basically all you have to do is capture a neutral city and all those units are now yours. There seems no penalty to using other race units an perhaps there should be. Like a morale debuff or something.

 

[unmerged(485924)]

It will take multiplayer to see for sure what the balance is. Also, it likely depends upon the map size. The beast and undead have an advantage early being able to build both base melee and archer units from the same initial starting building, while the humans have to build a second building to get their archers. There is also a certain rock-paper-scissors aspect since beast units tend to be vulnerable to missiles while undead are resistant to it.

Speaking of multiplayer there will need to be an option to normalize (i.e. spread evenly) the resources and monster loots. I just had a super quick 1v1 on challenging difficulty and it was a complete cake-walk; my starting city had both pumpkins and silver, the first monster loot I uncovered gave me a unit of advanced werewolves, my first built city gave me donkeys (and there was a second donkeys available once I got to pop 5 but I won b4 that happened). My opponent's initial city started with squat.

 

[Featauril]

The races are only slightly different. For instance, undead are the best at producing mana (which they need) and monsters the best at producing food (they have a great granary that is +100% food stackable with the rest). As for gold, I'm not sure who is the best.

 

[UmbralAngel]

In the early game I think Humans are strongest. Undead don't need much food so that is a nice advantage, but skeletons are pretty bad. Against elementals you will have a really hard time with undead. The monster race is okay, trolls and werewolves are pretty good, shamans are decent ranged attackers.

Generally my best units come from special resources or shrines to gods anyways... so its not a big deal. My first game I used all 3 races and a bunch of different units... I don't really think they are different enough to dramatically change your strategy.

Also, Humans are the best at producing gold.

Monsters get a Dragon farm thats +40 Food, -10 gold, Humans get one thats just +40 gold... I haven't tried undead but I assume +40 mana, -10 gold.

 

[Gaizokubanou]

Another minor difference I spotted was with pumpkin farm. Beast race can build this upgrade that gives your units 3 HP regen per turn, undead has access to ghost armor, and nothing for humans I think...?

 

[Featauril]

Another minor difference I spotted was with pumpkin farm. Beast race can build this upgrade that gives your units 3 HP regen per turn, undead has access to ghost armor, and nothing for humans I think...?

Nothing other than the pumpkin farm - +4 food, +4 mana. Not bad. Better than iron (useless after the first one) or pigs (+6 food for everyone). Too bad no pig cavalry.

Monsters will eat the donkeys, +10 food or something. The magic node can also be built as the great cheese (+12 food) for monsters. They produce so much food it's ridiculous.