Congrats DM on post 900

Addressing the Undead, I feel like they are a pretty good race right now. Physical protection, Death Strike, and Resurgence on many of their units make them quite formidable. I suppose I'm a bit leary of making the mod too full of transports, unless a race is so short legged (like the Dwarves, Gobblins or Hobbits) that it really can't get around without them. I've considered taking off the Orc transport, as I don't see why they should get one and the Undead not...I'll think some more about this issue

Thanks for the comments, guys.

Good night...or morning

BJ

undead are extra slow, bonehorros 24 moves, reaper 28 moves and so on, and after it some ppl wonder why undead players too often use death knigts even vs neutral or evil opponents also need to mention that undead live in wastelands which will force them to migrate other cities to get crops, even if spell that allow to get crops will be available early it still not good choice because crops will disappear if anyone will drop from game, also we can add pure allignment to this and most common anarchist as wiz skill for them to not talk about possibility to get transoprts or everything else from other races, and also seems evil races just dont have anything with transport7 and at least 36 moves which is silly. btw what about lizard's turtle? it has 32 moves that isnt more than speed of most lizard units so whats the purpose to build it?

First level life unit purger's text says it gets holy bolts at silver, but it also starts out with holy bolts

So does the trait "life domain" mean "unit heals 5 health per turn"? If so, might the text be corrected to reflect this?

What does it mean for a unit to have the "holy light" trait?

[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 03-16-2006 @ 05:01 AM).]

If Bless gives death immunity, Dark Gift will quite possibly be the most useless spell against a Life wizard. Anyways, I don't think it will be implemented, so I will drop this discussion here.

TP, some of the units have enchantments assigned to them - like Holy Light, Life Domain, etc. These do the same effect as the spells but some of them like Life Domain are persistent. So, descriptions cannot be changed just to fit the ability as the description is for the spell.
Some of the unit descriptions have to be changed too (purger is an example) because the units were modified between beta and theta.

and purger without strike couldnt get silver medal :P

An arena, Air

The turtle can be used to: transport slower troops from other races. It swims and can transport slow stegadon riders (who don't swim). It's a nice siege unit as well. I really like it

lets see who will do post 1000, stranger

i disagree with the undead beeing an useful race, without transport. just many abilities on an unit without good base stats will not work though, in dwiggs its more common units have low res and def. So if undead would get a transport at least, i would consider to play them.

else, i will choose anything with more movement and better/average base stats.

turtle can be faster though

Quoted from timeloard:

If life domain on a unit worked the same as the spell, it would only heal when the unit was in your domain.

What does it mean for a unit to have the "holy light" trait? Saying it works the same as the spell doesn't quite answer that question.

Does it simply mean then units attack/damage shows up wrong in the recruitment window (and any excel files unless corrected) and that the unit is immune to the holy light effect? Why would you want to make a archon immune to holy light?

As far as the purger, I was just telling stranger of the discrepancy in the text is all.

TP it means unit get holy light bonus in every battle and if this spell will be casted it wont add anything i guess

So all it means is that the units att/dam is 12/8 but it shows in recruit as 10/7. And that the unit is immune to holy light. If you want to give avengers, 12/8, one can do so without making them immune to holy light

To give units of a race alot of the abilities of spells of the same sphere type as that race (stone skin on dwarven units, life sphere stuff on archons) devalues using those spheres with that race. At least when you give it to them at start up, and not at medals.

What do you guys think of this idea for dwarves-
A transport defender, this is a ranged machine that can float(in story it can't float) This way it will be able to defend a transport no matter what its above, but its also very slow (like ~10-14 mp) and the other dwarven machines except steam wagon lose mountain climbing. (but drills gain mountain climbing)

DarkMystery---

Well, yeah; the two you mention are usually credited with flying, too.

I don't have any issues with any flying unit's speed. Having spent some time in Naval aviation BITD, I'm fully conversant with stall speed; even in magical milieus, there has to be some logic.

Floating means a hover-type movement and can certainly be slower.

I feel that the majority of the Undead units (those that DON'T fly, or involve horses, corporeal or skeletal) should be slower.

I do not believe that every race should mirror/mimic every other one. Each race should be unique and offer a different challenge to play well.

"Fire bolts" is named plural and speaks of a volley of fire blasts, yet only gives one.

Sanctuary should give less happiness, maybe even non at all, the order shrine could likewise give a little less happiness, its too easy to pacify a town, even when your "pure"

In recent game I just noticed that titan is too strong and cheap it cost like all other lev4 but its much stronger. i know for archons isnt easy to get lev4 but not that much as they can be happy with their lev1 and lev2 for long time and fight vs more advanced armies. same with sphinx

I would hope that the preferred outcome of throwing troops of low level = X gold against a high level unit = X gold where none have weakness to the other is that it be a pretty even fight.

(but the guy with the low level units loses out in the long term because the upkeep would be so much more, and unit attrition would be more, more difficult to handle all the units, and some production is usually lost with smaller units but not as much with larger ones, higher level heal is wasted on smaller units, and so on)

Ok I did some testing, I made a group of 4 avengers and a crusader for a total gold cost of 450 against a titan with a tital cost of 460, then threw the 4 group against the titan over and over via autoresolve and reloading from save. Without any enchantments the titan won pretty regularly and by the same small amount of health. If I threw bless(on all) it seemed to win by a little less, EW (on all) as well, the 4 won more often- with 2 survivers. Not sure how much casting was done in autoresolve, not much afiak but these latter tests I moved the wizard out of town to make sure no spells were cast.

If I threw on stone skin as well as EW and bless (on all) it varied, sometimes the four would win with 3 survivers or so, one with decent health the others worse. Or the titan won with more then half health. Doing this a bunch, then doing it 14 times more and marking down the results, 7 times the 4 won, 7 times the titan won. Only a few times did the titan win only by a bit, all the rest of the time it was pretty clear victory one way or another as far as health/survivers.

The 4 had a upkeep of 42, the titan has a upkeep of 15. Plus the casting/upkeep cost of all those enchantments.

Via these tests, it seems these particular low and high levels of archons are well balanced to each other. People might be tempted to just use low level units in dwiggs but clearly theres still reason to build the bigger stuff.

But consider this, avengers start out with fire strike, titans don't get it till silver.(both are fire immune so this didn't come into play in these battles) Avengers can get range at medals,(two kinds) titans can't. Avengers start out with and upgrade at gold, turn undead. Avengers have death immunity, titans don't. I think avengers might be too ability heavy. Titans could use a gold ability, even if that means nerfing them in some way to do so.

Also maybe avengers shouldn't be holy light immune, besides that devaluing using life sphere with archons, that devalues the town defense racial structure.

[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 03-17-2006 @ 06:25 AM).]

Some things regarding the Archons (as they are my usual race while playing) -
- Titan can be made more expensive. Right now, he is in the same cost range as the other level 4s but packs a lot more defense. Maybe he should go back to the old 520gp cost.
- Avenger, contrary to what tests may say, are not as good in melee. With their low def (7), they can be easily killed. In sieges, they are very good but so are a lot of units with ranged attacks due to the low def and res in Dwiggs.
- Giving spell abilities to units is flavour, IMO. Archon Avengers with Holy Light makes sense to me. They are the bane of all things evil (atleast by abilities), though I prefer the Crusader.
- Archons are a bit ability heavy but they also have severe penalties in terms of gold and housing. They also do not have a transport, so moving them around is also difficult. Throw in their racial alignment and it makes it tough.

As for dwarves, I think all units and machines should have mountain climbing. Its their racial trait, just like all Archons have Holy Strike and Holy Immunity and Undead have Death Strike and Death Immunity, Halflings having mighty meek, etc.
Keeping a town pacified is not going to do anything if you cannot build any units (not even for defending!) in that town.

The other problem with testing small groups individually is that we ignore the effects of domain, targeting a single unit, etc. For example, if we had 6 avengers+2 crusaders against 2 Titans, I can target one Titan with 6 units and kill him more easily - thereby gaining an elite medal for one of my units who will become even more potent. In the end, in any battle, even if there is a decent difference in the quality of troops, quantity always triumphs due to this factor.
A stack of Holy Champion crusaders will win and lose evenly (win maybe a little more) against 10 or so Orc bruisers. Throw in 2 more stacks of each and the outcome will be a little more unpredictable. Have 4 Titans against 20 Bruisers (same cost), I expect the Bruisers to win many more times - they can overwhelm a Titan at a time while keeping the other busy with 1 or 2 bruisers each.

Numbers should not necessarily win, if the recruitment gold values are the same. But I get your point. I don't know when you posted that, but edited that post a number of times to put in more stuff.

Ok one vs one fourth level tests, an ent verses a titan. Both should be big slow bruisers. Ent costs 410gold, titan 460. I threw that ent up against the titan again and again, and the titan never ended up with a scratch! Ok, the ent is a little cheaper. So I threw in the crusader, which made the end side definitely more gold heavy (500 verses 460) The titan sometimes got injured, but rarely any less then say about 66%-75% health, plenty of times once again, not a scratch. This is hugely uneven. Granted the ent has some interesting abilities, but its also slightly slower and has TWO weaknesses.(neither of which came into play in this test, but would if the titan were silver)

Ents should maybe be slowed down to make them feel more ent like,(maybe 24, or even slower?) and become ALOT tougher. Perhaps even lose lightning weakness. Yes lightning damages trees that are tall, but it also damages tall metallic objects like a towering titan with a lightning rod in its hand it calls a club. Even if not changing weaknesses,obviously theres some inequity here.

Also, perhaps ents could have grassland concealment, they are trees thus wouldn't stand out much in the grassland. That would work well with path of life for surprise attack etc. (verses plain concealment, the human player always seems to manage to spot the unit when its moving between tree bunches)

Maybe they can start out with tangle strike and get round attack latter on (since they got lots of branches in which to attack) or visa versa? Maybe more resistance is as 8 isn't much for a slow ground level 4. I see how you made it the only low resist in the higher resist elves, like what they did with orcs and gluttons. Shouldn't shrublings share the same pattern though? Either way stats need to be improved, maybe more damage. Maybe protections to a few things like magic, and or holy or something so the physical protection comes into play more?

Also life domain on ents is pointless when they have regeneration.

As far as avengers and holy light, if you want to give them 12 attack and 8 damage, just do so directly, and allow them to benefit from being garrisoned in archon town with the racial building (which gives holy light) or when cast in the battle field, well unless that makes them too powerful. Either way, I see the flavor of it, but I care more about preserving the value of the racial building and holy light spell.

I still feel avengers have too much stuff. We don't want to pump up lower level units to the point where we simply don't need to bother with the higher level ones. Or have units that can serve just about every role. And avengers do good in direct combat, and not just when garrisoned. I speak from experience from having used them in tactical combat single player game a number of times.

I also learned that negas which are a evil level 2 unit that costs 300 to recruit are unholy terrors, my jaw drops at how good they do, I bet one gold one could take on several titans (I should test that some time, but not now, I need to go to bed) Plus they get seduce at silver (which isnt hard to get when they are level 2 that are that powerful) They can kill most anything at level 3 or less thats full health in one attack without suffering any damage. (since they get it back via drain life) Hell, I've often seen mine kill a full health level 3's with movement in the red zone!(with all the double and extra strike) These really should be a higher level unit, maybe more expensive too.

[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 03-17-2006 @ 07:34 AM).]

i also not sure increasing def and movement of titan from 4.5 was necessary. i cant understand why titan and sphinx must be strong as in normal aow and some other lev4 units like ent or great eagle so crappy almost all other lev4 units are nothing compared to them, i can understand that roc has speed advantage but for example ent have advantage of having low res, low speed, 2 weaknesses and so on :P i also think its little odd when timelord defending capitol with some heroes, shikari and slingers + some cavalry and infantry for blocking in total number like 22-24 killing 13 or 14 out of my 19 attacking karaghs and 1 of 2 dark angels when i use most common death sphere for goblins

One of the good things I like about dwiggs, is that building a race's lvl 4 is much less a best decision, not even considering building time/money to build sanctuary/champion's guild.
Because of the much better balance on all levels, I think you shouldn't compare lvl 4's to eachother. Their race doesn't depend purely on them (if they get build at all). While I haven't seen the ent in combat yet, I don't think it's a weak unit for a lvl 4.
It has a ton of hitpoints, combined with physical protection it's real good against anything non-magical attacks. Certainly it has its weaknesses, but you should be building them less if you are facing enemies that have strong stuff.
About the undead, I think they are strong enough at the moment. Probably I'm repeating myself, but I still like to think a transport does not fit the theme. What's rather odd about them, is that they do best against most evil races, such as goblins (poison imm on undead, low res on gobs) and orcs (no magical strike, low res on them). It's too bad the only real answer against archons is the 'anti-paladin'.. Archons seem to be played a lot, mostly with pure life.

I always imagined the undead causing fear to the good races, but now it feels more like the undead have to run from'm and hide . I wondered if we can give magic protection to a spell? How about giving 'magic protection' or even holy protection to unholy champion, or dark gift? This would really make those spectres/bone horrors a killer combo. Ofcourse casting cost/upkeep can be increased.

Is it just me, or do I see much less neutral races played in dwiggs?

since humans get penalties and lost mersenary, nomads lost azrac yes

btw, i wonder how you move 20 orc bruisers on the global map in online games, when someone has a 1-2 stacks of fast lvl3, lvl4 units.

quality is counts more in this game than numbers, if you want numbres you should try homm or dominions

Quote:

DM, to paraphrase you from a lot of your posts, care to try an online game of Dwiggs?
Most of the big battles I have seen are fought with lvl2, lvl1 and heroes - except in late game or when one player has been building uninterrupted. Moving three stacks together is not a problem at all. Fast lvl3 stacks? I am yet to see them, except from Air.

Lvl2 doesn't mean slow. And even with lvl3s with 40mp, the stacks will be forced to move slower due to heroes, support units, etc.

you are kidding? last dwiggs game i was coming with lots of knights and things were quite easy. i play always may style no matter what mod it is, like in 1.4 everyone builds up i still rush. and in dwiggs i willt take units with best stats for the price/production time. i won't build many lvl4 units, cause i consider them crap in dwiggs, maybe not if we play xl, though but i do not like xl.

lets see if i am online, i a busy with other stuff but maybe i can play today or tomorrow.

Quoted from ElJoepo:

So it will do ok against a handful of mid to low level guards/indies, by the time you get level 4's, What guards?! Or indies for that matter? And many units have some kind of element other then just physical to their attack, and players have 3 different spells that give units an element to their attack, EW being the most common. So 99% of the time other players will have no trouble with the ents physical protection, unless maybe they are pure earth and wish to stone it.

Quoted from ElJoepo:

Any 4 level slow ground bruiser with two weaknesses, but only one immunity. Should kick ass against most anything else thats faster with less weaknesses/more immunities that doesn't fall in with its weakness area. Did I mention it didnt manage to even SCRATCH the titan most of the time? It doesn't help that its got shit for resist and not much attack, its defense is better but not compared to a titans.

The only thing the ent seems to be good for is knocking in a wall, well when it does eventually reach the wall, if the archers, catapults etc don't get it first. A waste of 410 gold and the accompanying production time and required buildings.

Quote:

Thats a terrible idea IMO.

[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 03-17-2006 @ 03:28 PM).]

The ent should lose lightning immunity, and get a bit more res and should probably have more def than any other level 4, I can't think of anything that would be tougher DEF wise.

The Ent is definitely not weak! With 40hp, regeneration and physical protection, its certainly a tank.

The Elves are a much subtler race than the Archons and have great scouting capability. Every game doesn't come to a lvl4 showdown with the players all in the same development stage. The Elves also have, on average, one of the highest average attack stats - comparable to Orcs. Comparing lvl4s like they are the only units being produced does not make sense! And 28 mp is not very low either. Other than the flyers, only the Karagh and the Fenrir have higher mps in the lvl4 category.
...and while we are considering enchantments on attackers, we should keep in mind that the same can be done for the defenders (more common, IMO). The Ent with stone skin? or Static Shield maybe? or Enchant weaponed, blessed and martyred in combat?.

Each race has its own strengths and weaknesses, which is the beauty of the Dwiggs mod. Only through playing and adaptation, these will become more clear - not by looking at the stats.

Quoted from MitchK1989:

It has lightning weakness, not immunity. Is weakness what you meant to say?

@TL
28 is slow, maybe they could be slower, say 24 or so, with grass concealment. But it is slow.

"ent with this or that enchantment"
An ents no more strengthend by those enchantments then any other unit, with the exception of static shield which covers its lightning weakness and and martyr which is not an enchantment.

Titans have almost 3/4s of a ents health and 2 more defense. Yes a ent does 2 more damage then a titan, but with a lousy (for a level 4) 11 attack, only walls shiver in fear at that. Wildblades are level 1 and have 10 attack. Not specifically saying you should increase their attack, but their stats suck. 8 resist means it will be pray to countless status effects which further reduce stats.

Physical protection is nearly worthless by itself on a level 4 when playing against human players.

Regeneration doesnt matter that much late game, plenty of ways to heal by then. Especially for a slow unit that a priest could easily keep up with.

Oh did I mention they have TWO weaknesses! So lets see, you can slowly bring your ents over to the enemy line, but the enemy will likely see them coming as they move between tree bunchs, try to use them to bash down the wall, if they survive the trip (oh look an ents walking to my wall, I think ill just catapult it to death)

Or I suppose you could hide units behind them, yeah martyr works particularly well on a unit with such high HP, which means you will have something for your units to hide behind longer. *scuffs* oh yeah an obstacle to duck behind, take down a wall, and sacrifice in one battle is worth 410 and the long build time.

Quoted from Timelord:

Fine then, I threw two ivory sirens and a horseback (total gold value percisely the same as an ent, 410 and those three units are much faster too) against an ent over and over again. Most of the time the three won handly, with little health lost. The effects even more dramatic if you give them all EW (including the ent) since then even the rider can bypass the ents physical protection.

Grass concealment, maybe 24mp, 2 more damage and or 1 more attack?, start with entangle and entangle strike, gain round attack at gold. More defense and/or resist. Magic protection or immunity. Perhaps another protection/immunity and/or lose lightning weakness? Maybe then they would be more worth building.

Do we have anyone here who plays elves that builds any amount of ents?

[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 03-17-2006 @ 11:50 PM).]

I usually play pure life and archons initially but use all good races. The ents are just not cost-effective. I would much prefer to use my elven towns to build treemen, which are way cheaper and accomplish the same purposes.

EDIT: Does anyone else think the humans should get a gold bonus to compensate for the mana penalty?

[This message has been edited by MitchK1989 (edited 03-17-2006 @ 10:47 PM).]

There's been a lot of good discussion here for the past several days, and I've been pleased to note that most of it has seemed very courteous and constructive. I began writing a series of responses when, after about thirty minutes of typing, my computer mysteriously restarted and all was lost. So, I'll try again a bit later when I'm not so frustrated.

On another note, I'll be available to play tommorrow (sunday for me, saturday for most of you) from 8:30pm GMT onward. I hope to catch some of you to test out the things we're discussing in here.

Cheers,

bj

Stranger, I will come online though it might be a bit later than that...around 9.30 pm GMT, say. Can you wait for me before starting?