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Codyksp said:
You're missing the fact that this is about strategic map mobility and the huge advantage you get from clearing the map faster.
40% damage won't do anything if you're not even in combat, nor will it help it you are unable to reach the units before dying.

I suppose I should've prefaced this with the fact that you should play against human opponents to understand the power of mounts.
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I play vs hard neutrals, my troops become more wounded after each battle. Having weaker units means I will need to spend more time on healing. I don't care about MP where you set weak neutrals to be able to use autocombat, that's a different game with different combat, mounts are more powerful in such game indeed
 
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Sandman25DCSSS said:
I play vs hard neutrals, my troops become more wounded after each battle. Having weaker units means I will need to spend more time on healing.
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What are you talking about? These aren't "weaker" units. The units you use are both strong and mounted at the same time.
It's not like they suddenly became 2x weaker for picking a mount over Keen-Sighted or Strong. Those traits do almost nothing.

Do you know how much damage 10% is when you deal 12 per hit? A grand total of 3 more damage with full action points.
You don't need accuracy either when half the abilities always hit. 2 defense or resistance? Barely matters by comparison.
Every mount also gives +5 HP and an ability, on top of the already incredibly powerful strategic advantage of map movement.

I don't care about MP where you set weak neutrals to be able to use autocombat, that's a different game with different combat, mounts are more powerful in such game indeed
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LOL mounted traits are used in multiplayer on HIGH world threat. You really show a lack of understanding of game mechanics with this reply.
 
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Codyksp said:
What are you talking about? These aren't "weaker" units. The units you use are both strong and mounted at the same time.
It's not like they suddenly became 2x weaker for picking a mount over Keen-Sighted or Strong. Those traits do almost nothing.

Do you know how much damage 10% is when you deal 12 per hit? A grand total of 3 more damage with full action points.
You don't need accuracy either when half the abilities always hit. 2 defense or resistance? Barely matters by comparison.
Every mount also gives +5 HP and an ability, on top of the already incredibly powerful strategic advantage of map movement.



LOL mounted traits are used in multiplayer on HIGH world threat. You really show a lack of understanding of game mechanics with this reply.
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I play with 2 realm modifiers which give neutrals +10HP, extra retaliation and resurgence after first death. SP is about fighting neutrals so I am putting challenge into the fights, MP is about quick games to reach opponent so you treat neutrals just as resources, not main source of fun. My units have +3 armor and +1 resistance from racial perks, yours can have just +2 armor, that's another reason why your units will get more damage.
 
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The base game, as it is played by most people out of the box and what it is likely balanced around doesn't throw 2 or more modifiers on the independent units.
If your argument is "But I made everything stronger, so I need defensive traits" then that's an outlier and really something you are choosing to do to yourself.
The developers are obviously not going to balance the game around every single possible scenario that the game modifiers can throw at you.

But even then, I am willing to put money on the fact that mounts will be stronger than your defensive tactics and tough traits in that setup.
Effectively 2 defense is lost in return for 5 HP, a mount ability and higher world map movement to help with faster clearing and healing after battle.
If you want to play 200 turns of "fight the AI", that's up to you. But then you simply aren't playing the game as effectively as you could be doing.

EDIT: I will add that I personally play against 3 or more AI (as enemies), on Brutal with High World Threat and no special realm traits or settings.
T4/T5 units aren't part of your army until late game (turn ~60-80) and heroes can do plenty of healing with Restoration and Mass Rejuvenation.
 
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Codyksp said:
The base game, as it is played by most people out of the box and what it is likely balanced around doesn't throw 2 or more modifiers on the independent units.
If your argument is "But I made everything stronger, so I need defensive traits" then that's an outlier and really something you are choosing to do to yourself.
The developers are obviously not going to balance the game around every single possible scenario that the game modifiers can throw at you.

But even then, I am willing to put money on the fact that mounts will be stronger than your defensive tactics and tough traits in that setup.
Effectively 2 defense is lost in return for 5 HP, a mount ability and higher world map movement to help with faster clearing and healing after battle.
If you want to play 200 turns of "fight the AI", that's up to you. But then you simply aren't playing the game as effectively as you could be doing.
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Who is the expert here if you think 5 HP is more important than 2 defense??? I guess your games are over while you are still researching tier 2 tome. Try having 10 armor unit with +30 HP healing on cooldown and see how "fun" it is to kill the unit despite it does not have that 5 HP. As I described in my previous message you are playing a different game, neutrals are very weak before turn 61 even on the highest world threat. Yes, I play long games vs 8 AIs and all victory conditions are disabled because I want to use different units vs different opponents, not just win the match using the same 3 unit types every time.
 
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I also think it's a superficial analysis. First of all, you get the MP advantage already with a few mounted units, because you can make the attacking movement with just one unit while the rest uses the shortest possible route and uses the new rule of involving the three strongest stacks. That rule in itself and its correct use and execution will allow the player who knows how to use this enough movement advantage over anyone moving mechanically. In other words, you don't need a full stack of 48 mp units, you can just summon a few floaters, which will do fine as well in clearing things, although tracking back to regenerate will work better for faster units. Still, even that can be mitigated when you know what you are doing.
Second, the realms. Dead realm? No healing outside your own territory? Megacities with only one town allowed?
 
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Healing in own territory costs 38 gold, not a big deal. Also lack of support units really hurts, it is quite obvious during any siege when AI attacks you several times while your units don't regenerate permanent HP. Of course it does not matter that much in MP games which don't reach that stage and don't have an opponent with far superior forces.
 
I am saying that the mounted traits are also overwhelmingly strong in single player vs AI. This isn't about SP vs MP, you misunderstand Jordi.
Just because I also play MP doesn't mean I am speaking from that point of view. I merely said that human players can better use the power provided.
 
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Codyksp said:
I am saying that the mounted traits are also overwhelmingly strong in single player vs AI. This isn't about SP vs MP, you misunderstand Jordi.
Just because I also play MP doesn't mean I am speaking from that point of view. I merely said that human players can better use the power provided.
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Human players can use everything better than the AI, quite obviously.
 
It is true mount Traits right now completely break MP balance, but they are still cool as hell and should be cherished.

Honestly, the argument of calling them a bad idea just on the basis of they being hard to balance is weak, the game is too vast to be constraint on these notions, if you're talking about what need to change to achieve a balanced game we would go on a list bigger than the old cosmetic forms threads, and in their those guys were talking in circles for months on end.

In truth the best way to tackle such concerns it to identify the big offender of these, which are again heroes and the unicorns, but that is because the ability to phase in heroes with a stack of 48 mov is just that strong, even if tomorrow we delete those traits we just go down the list of the next big thing, so i say, the only true path is to keep shaping the game slowly to accommodate balance as much as possible.

Also in terms of the topic, i don't think a lot of those points are valid tbh, a lot of these concerns are pure nitpicking of random mechanics in the game that is taken seriously by 1 or 2 guys and that it, i still think this AoW 4 is the best in the franchise BY FAR, and i played all of them religiously, and this game will only get better simple by the fact of how it was build, the skeleton may look rough initially, but the potential is immense.
 
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Kitschy said:
That would be a dream come true thread, especially if peeps will bring in some spreadsheets and stuff. (not joking btw)
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That would certainly be a really cool thing, if we could put in together both perspectives of mp and sp for comparison we would easily see how wacky the balance difference is for each side, i would def like to chime in if that ever happened with a big part of the community
 
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These can be balanced by removing some of the speed of mounts and putting them like 40.

But I agree that mounts clearly change the game and are indeed strong.

Game needs a lot of balacing and bug removing.

Just the other day I noticed that "prolific swarmers" works on magic origin units aswell. (Should not work)
 
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When i think of the mounted trait (and the added optionnal mounted unit because of it) i wonder if it can be approach on a different way.
Instead of 'mount' trait it could be an cultural affinity. You don't transform unit in new mounted unit but everyone get something.

'Spider affinity' (mind trait)
You gain a province imporvement who unlock the production of spiders.
Mount unit get a spider mount with the web ability.
Archers inflict poison
Melee infantry (warrior, polearm, shield ...) are immune to your own web and gain resistance to other web ability
Battlemages when they kill an enemy unit spawn a spider hatchling from the corpse.

It's a random idea, i didn't balance it or anything but it give more sense than only give spidermount. It's more interesting imo, and if we rework all trait that way each choice become impactfull. But i have no idea if it is doable.

The nightmare could focus on moral loss for ennemy, unicorn on personal buff and wolf on pack tactic.
 
Seraven said:
When i think of the mounted trait (and the added optionnal mounted unit because of it) i wonder if it can be approach on a different way.
Instead of 'mount' trait it could be an cultural affinity. You don't transform unit in new mounted unit but everyone get something.

'Spider affinity' (mind trait)
You gain a province imporvement who unlock the production of spiders.
Mount unit get a spider mount with the web ability.
Archers inflict poison
Melee infantry (warrior, polearm, shield ...) are immune to your own web and gain resistance to other web ability
Battlemages when they kill an enemy unit spawn a spider hatchling from the corpse.

It's a random idea, i didn't balance it or anything but it give more sense than only give spidermount. It's more interesting imo, and if we rework all trait that way each choice become impactfull. But i have no idea if it is doable.

The nightmare could focus on moral loss for ennemy, unicorn on personal buff and wolf on pack tactic.
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Its a good idea that could easily fit a tome considering it has so many functionalities, which leads me to think that mounted trait indeed could easily become a tome by itself if you expand like you suggest, maybe it can help balance it a bit more considering you would pay cost-opportunity in tome choice the only bad i can see is the huge increase in tomes just to fit each unique mount, but hey in terms of tome the more the better
 
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