Picard
Member
posted 02-14-13 11:06 PM EDT (US)
I'm just curious what the devs' philosophy is on this.
Personally I prefer it when really powerful units are centerpieces of an army rather than the army itself. Don't like stacks of 8 titans, 8 reapers, 8 dragons, etc.
Even though AoW2/SM improved upon the original in this respect with limited retaliations and such I still felt t4 units made 90% of lower tier units obsolete.
I hope to see some limiting factors that would prevent high tier units from overpowering almost everything that's beneath them on the unit pyramid. Ideally these factors would be something that doesn't feel entirely artificial like "you can only have one t4 unit in a single stack".
It's a very tricky thing to balance. You can't simply make these units insanely expensive because if they're cost ineffective there's no use is making them.
One thing that comes to mind is the time resource. Make 'em take a really long time to train. If a t3 unit is twice as powerful than a t2 unit it should take 3 times as long to create and so on.
The idea is that focusing too much on high tier units makes your production really slow and you end up overrun. Instead you need to balance your gold and time resources to get the right mix of quantity and quality. Even so there'd probably be some critical mass of towns where train time ceases to be a factor and high tier units start dominating again.
This is why I liked limited town sizes in AoW1, it really added to the strategic importance of large cities.
In any case I was just wondering if any thoughts (and what kind) are being given to this.
Arnout
VIP
posted 02-15-13 09:26 AM
EDT (US)
4 / 27
In Age of Wonders III each unit belongs to an unit-type (for example: Infantry, Irregular, Pikeman, Archer, Caster, Machine, and Monster) which all have their merits & flaws. Each has tactical advantages and disadvantages, like:
* Pikeman are very good vs. Cavalry
* Infantry (good defense) vs. Archers
* Cavalry vs. Infantry and Archers
* Swarm high tier units with low tier units (# retaliate is limited in combat)
* etc..
We're going to support the game with DLC and patches allowing us to balance the game to perfection (with input from the community of course!)
you3
Member
posted 02-15-13 10:30 AM
EDT (US)
5 / 27
Sort of the classic rock paper scissors ? Didn't AOW2 have this but i guess in a less rigorous fashion ?
Draxynnic
Member
posted 02-15-13 10:31 PM
EDT (US)
10 / 27
Personally, I've always seen a large part of the problem being the way upkeep scales. The system in previous installments is that low-level units have cheap up-front costs but exorbitant upkeep for their power level, while top-level units are expensive to build but cheap to maintain. On average, though, it only takes about ten turns for a top-level unit to become cheaper than five level 1s... and I'd dare say a level four is worth more than five level 1s even before you consider that level 4s are less subject to various forms of attrition.
The end result is pretty much what we see - with the exception of some ranged units (since ranged attacks don't scale much) players are encouraged to regard low-level units as expendable stopgaps on the way to getting as many top-tier units as they can.
The best way to fix this, I think, is to rebalance purchase and upkeep costs so that they're roughly proportional to the value of the unit in each tier (so if, say, a tier 4 was regarded as eight times as valuable as a tier 1, it would have eight times the building and upkeep costs). There would still be benefits to teching up to stronger units (force concentration, attrition resistance, special abilities and/or movement modes not available at lower tiers) but in situations where having multiple weaker units might be more advantageous, you wouldn't be shooting yourself in the foot economically by doing so.
The_Stranger
Member
posted 02-16-13 03:10 AM
EDT (US)
11 / 27
One ability that might contribute to helping this scenario is the "heavy" one suggested in the abilities thread. If more expensive, bigger units are more difficult to transport, it would grant some advantage to small, lighter troops that can be ferried around with ease.
ArkhanTheBlack
Member
posted 02-16-13 04:34 AM
EDT (US)
12 / 27
@Draxynnic
Agreed! The upkeep scaling was just a joke. Low tier units should have very low upkeep costs while high tier units should really hurt your purse.
I think armies should look like a 'pyramid'. One or two high power units supported by few elites and lots of cannon fodder units.
vicbrother
Member
posted 02-16-13 05:47 AM
EDT (US)
13 / 27
If tier 4 and 5 units should have a magic resistance as a weakness, so you can upgrade tier 1-3 units easily with magic but not tier 4 and 5. The value of the tier 1-3 units would be increased greatly.
Acheron
Member
posted 02-16-13 10:19 AM
EDT (US)
14 / 27
@Draxynnic +1 Agreed. I wanted zombie armies, but zombie armies did not want me.
Low tier units are also made obsolete by the limitation of stack size. If you only have 8 slots in a stack (6 in AoW III) and only 7 hexes per combat, the only logical thing to do is fill these slots with the strongest units possible. To do otherwise can feed your enemy experience, cost you pivotal battles, and ultimately cost you the game.
I am in favor of weighting stacks according to unit tier. If one stack can contain 6 tier 4 units, another stack should allow 12(or more) tier 1 units. A stack with 3 tier 4 units should allow for and additional 6(or more) tier 1 units etc.
The flanking rules sound cool. But if you can only have 6 units of any tier in a stack, does it really do much to keep tier 4 units in check? Can you not flank a tier 4 with another tier 4?
If you want to swarm, you need to be able to bring your swarm with you.
ArkhanTheBlack
Member
posted 02-16-13 07:29 PM
EDT (US)
15 / 27
I'd like something like a leadership value for heroes leading stacks of troops. Heroes with high leadership would be able to command more high tier units than low leadership heroes. Maybe even something like mage heroes required for controlling summons and commander heroes for conventional elite troops.
Draxynnic
Member
posted 02-16-13 09:03 PM
EDT (US)
16 / 27
I've considered the approach of reducing the number of high-level units that could be in a stack, but my feeling is that force concentration is a fair benefit for climbing the tech tree. Using low-level units, by contrast, provides the ability for force dispersion - conducting a guerrilla war by striking in areas someone who concentrates on high-level units would be forced to leave undefended, or garrisoning cities and structures sufficiently to drive off such a campaign.
That said, this is a spot where the balance between upkeep costs and income might need to be adjusted - since in AoW2, income structures on the world map generally don't provide enough income to be worth garrisoning (when you're only getting ten from a structure, even a single level 1 guarding the structure means you're spending more than half the income from the structure in upkeep for the garrison). If such structures started being worth assigning a small protecting force, that provides incentive to build the units that would best serve as the protecting force.
Edgrant
Member
posted 02-17-13 08:54 AM
EDT (US)
18 / 27
The problem that leads to high-tier unit dominance is that combat strength od a party is very additive. That is, combat tends to consist of a lot of small battles between individual units. Just about the only way that multiple units of different types synergize together well is by getting one or two units to consume the retaliation strikes of an enemy, and then swarming it with everything else. This does make multi-tier stacks possible, but it also means that you have to have at least one units that is on par with the target.
In order to make multi-tier stacks more relevant, one needs to make formations (for lack of a better term) a mechanic. There needs to be more effects for units working together.
An example of how to do this would be if there were a mechanic where each unit got -1 from all stats for each surrounding enemy and +1 to all stats for each surrounding ally. Consider the example of a titan (15/12/15/12/32) against eight peasants (4/4/4/10/8). Under SM mechanics, the titan would destroy the peasants easily. Under the new mechanics, the peasants could easily surround the titan, reducing it to 9/6/9/6/32 and boosting themselves to 5/5/5/11/8, a much more even fight.
Another methods would be to severely the role of tiers, so the majority of the frontline units would be tier 1 and 2s, and the higher tiers would play a support role only.
Acheron
Member
posted 02-17-13 12:05 PM
EDT (US)
19 / 27
@Draxynnic : Understood. There are advantages to having more, cheap, mobile units. But low tier units would still be phased out of the more pivotal battles. Because of that I feel that we are missing out on some exciting elements of combat.
Regarding formations:
When the combat screenshots were first released I thought the Multi figure units were designed to deal with this very issue.
My assumption was:
-Each figure in a multi figure unit is a single tier 1 unit.
-they are produced individually in a similar fashion to AoWSM, possibly allowing for more than one individual to be produced per turn like in MP evolution.
-they combine to form a "sub stack" (or regiment) allowing up 3-8 units (depending on their tier) to occupy a single combat tile, as well as a single stack slot.
-when a unit dies in a regiment (sub-stack) it can be replaced by building another unit and adding it to a regiment.
-when you move a single unit onto a stack containing a regiment of the same type, you are given the option to add that unit to the regiment if there is still room.
If this were the case regiments would be a force to be reckoned with and would inevitably have a place in the late game.
The trade offs
-regiments would have to be built up individually
-they would be vulnerable to attrition and area-of-effect spells/abilities.
-regiment size could be limited by leader skills or city upgrades.
darkelvesrule
Member
posted 02-23-13 04:46 PM
EDT (US)
20 / 27
If leadership ability only applied to tier 1 and 2 units, that would help some, and it would encourage more diverse amries. And it makes sense too that infantry grunts would be more inspired by a leader than a dragon or titan would be.
Dmitrii1986
Member
posted 02-24-13 01:16 PM
EDT (US)
21 / 27
Acheron,great idea. I really hope that the developers will see it.
Draxynnic
Member
posted 02-24-13 05:46 PM
EDT (US)
22 / 27
Considering DER's idea:
A more elegant possibility would be for leadership to apply to creatures of lower level than the leader - so while a dragon may not listen to a halfling sheriff, say, it may listen to a mid-level hero, and a level 4 creature with leadership could inspire level 3s. A silver medal might boost a creature's level by 1 for this purpose, and a gold by 2.
Alternatively, it could be based on the level of Leadership. Leadership 1 might provide its benefits to level 1 and 2 creatures, and Leadership 2 providing full benefits to level 1-2 creatures, and the benefits of leadership 1 to level 3 creatures - then scaling up with further leadership until you are able to inspire the bigger creatures.
ffbj
Member
posted 03-13-13 06:05 PM
EDT (US)
23 / 27
Nice idea. Although does not leadership already do something along those lines?
Regarding flanking: Not all units should be able to flank.
Catapults for example. Maybe a skill like charge or first strike. So melee units would have it.
darkelvesrule
Member
posted 04-04-13 01:39 PM
EDT (US)
24 / 27
Thanks Draxynnic. I agree you could have leadership 1,2,3. That would fit in with the way other abilities work (at least did work in shadow magic), and would be given to monsters or heroes on a case by case basis with silver/gold medals or hero levels. I wouldn't want an entirely new system, that just complicates things. Simple is better.
Moosers
Member
posted 04-11-13 04:24 AM
EDT (US)
25 / 27
I've been playing AoW2SM again lately since it was on sale a couple weeks ago on GOG. I think one of the main problems with high tier dominance is it just isn't as fun. A stack of dragons is really powerful, and honestly seems to be better than anything else I can manage, at least on offense. However, when all the units are the same, there's just not much depth or interest. So perhaps part of the problem is that the highest tier for a race only has ONE unit, rather than a three or more units.
I don't like the idea of giving higher tier units arbitrary weaknessess or low tier units super special snowflake abilities just so that you'll use a larger variety of units. Only giving vision or the like to low tier units would be rather bizarre and unnatural.
I don't think leadership needs to be limited to only work on low tier units either. That also seems a bit arbitrary to me. Sure, a great leader might inspire a group of archers more than a dragon, but a little inspiration for the dragon goes a long way. Seems a static bonus works fine here.
I think something that should be avoided is any solution that might lead to a single best way of doing things.
I'd rather see some or all of the following:
Stack Size is Logistics Supply. Maybe limit this to 12 supply per square. Tier 1 units are two supply, 2 are three supply, 3 are four supply, and 4 are five supply. So you could have six tier 1 units in a stack, or four tier 2, and three tier 3, or two tier 5 plus a tier 1, or various combinations that add up to 12 supply total. This means that if you really focus on big units then you'll get flanked more easily, but with the right combination or circumstance it could be worth it.
Upgrades for low tier units. If you can research upgrades that make low level units better (and probably cost more to make), then the tier wouldn't be so big of a deal. If eventually all units could be similar in power and differing in what they are good at, that would encourage a lot of variety in troop builds.
Enchantment sharing. Someone suggested allowing high tier units to share enchantments with lower tier units. That is kind of like allowing upgrades for low tier units so it is another way to tackle this problem.
I do think the maintenance differences between different tier needs to make sense and be proportional to how good the unit is. Another thing that has caused problems is the fact a tier 3 unit costs twice as much to maintain as a tier 1 unit, but it is far more than twice as powerful (and it is cheaper to enchant than two tier 1s).
jwj442
Member
posted 04-11-13 07:08 AM
EDT (US)
26 / 27
Well, part of the problem was that most tier 1/2 units were pretty boring. So many races have the medium-light cavalry at level 2, swordsman and archer at level 1, polearm at level 0, etc. Sure they had racial abilities, but there was too much overlap. With some exceptions, the interesting units that really define how you'll play a race didn't come until level 3.
Dwigmod and Brave New World took different approaches to fixing this. Dwigmod made low-level units much more unique and distinctive, slowed city growth, and added building limits for small cities so you couldn't produce so many level 3/4s (only tier 1 buildings for the second-smallest city size, for example). Brave New World made most low-level units turn into much powerful units with gold medals.