Re-balancing the horse unit to increase survivability

[anakayub]

I think it's realistic enough to make a balanced play. Lance-using units are very offensive and rule against non-melee units, and rule enough against melee units (there's the greater retaliation issue). Lance-using horse units don't really "hold" the ground in battle, unless if they're using swords (and some would argue maces); they use shock methods and is illustrated by the charge ability. Knights, cavalrymen are units that generally use more "slow" offensive moves to attack/hold the ground in this game and suits the theme well enough. Thematically, horse units for Loyalists are good enough in my opinion.

The main problem I see with making lance-using units any stronger is pretty much gameplay: Other factions have a disadvantage at using melee to discourage lances that are stronger than they are now. Knalgans have a relatively expensive guardsman, a drake clasher exposed at day will be decimated by arrows already, making any more stronger lance units more powerful against exposed drakes. It also makes the saurian pierce resistance moot, from the greater damage of the lance; contradicting the theme of the matchup. Rebels' best bet is an expensive wose, as 40% cth is reasonable against elvish fighters in forest, and imagine if the 1 hit charge is stronger than it is now. There's a lower cth against archers, but of course they have a lower hp. Northeners have gobbos which are considerably weakened at day and have no zoc (meaning that it's possible to just ignore them). Undead do not have any units with enough retaliation, especially considering their lack of melee pierce. Add with this the fact that mages are already very powerful at day, and the fact that horsemen are resistant to non-pierce melee (there's no cold/fire melee in default). That makes Loyalists extremely powerful to penetrate at day more than how they are now (which is of course very good).

There might be some wrong details here and there but I think the general idea of my argument should be clear enough.

[AI]

Add with this the fact that mages are already very powerful at day, and the fact that horsemen are resistant to non-pierce melee (there's no cold/fire melee in default).

Pillagers. They are, L2 of course and I completely agree with the rest.

[anakayub]

As I said:

There might be some wrong details here and there...

I knew there was something missing, but I couldn't remember then. Thanks.

[Thrawn]

Pretty much game balance means that this won't happen (as other people stated).

Of course, there are some units in non-default era's that have better armored horses. Anyways...is anyone still saying we need to rebalance horsemen, or should this topic be left to die?

[TheArchitect]

Knalgans have a relatively expensive guardsman, a drake clasher exposed at day will be decimated by arrows already, making any more stronger lance units more powerful against exposed drakes. It also makes the saurian pierce resistance moot, from the greater damage of the lance; contradicting the theme of the matchup. Rebels' best bet is an expensive wose, as 40% cth is reasonable against elvish fighters in forest, and imagine if the 1 hit charge is stronger than it is now. There's a lower cth against archers, but of course they have a lower hp.

anakayub: correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems you assume I want to increase horsemen damage as well as defense. That simply isn't true. If you'll look back at islandranger's original suggestion, non-pierce units would only do less damage when retaliating from a charge attack. If a charging horseman kills an enemy unit, a grunt for example, the orc player will be able to use non pierce units to attack the horseman. On the attack, all the non-pierce units would do just as much damage as they do now. In addition, the pierce units like archers and spearmen would be far more effective than normal in cleaning up after an enemy charge. The suggested change would only protect unlucky horsemen from ridiculous retaliation damage caused by the charge ability.
In many ways, horsemen would be even easier to kill then they are now. They simply wouldn't be heavily damaged by a lucky grunt that happens to hit twice with double damage.

[TheArchitect]

sorry Thrawn, I didn't see your message before I posted that last one. if you want to kill the post, its ok with me. I guess I just like to argue.

[TrashMan]

If anything the horseman/knights/lancers with their charge ability are too powerful.

I'm now playing HTTT campaign and my high lvl units are getting slaughtered by enemy knights and lancers.
IMHO this isn't good... it's too much of a dice game right now - enemy hits, your loyal lvl 3 (or5) unit that at full health - dead. Reload and try again...repeat until most enemies miss their attacks.

In a game units should have more health so that the player can intervene. In fact, no single units insta-kills should be possible unless we are talking a lvl3 (or 5) with artifact attacks a lvl1. Just my 2 cents on the matter.

[irrevenant]

Of course, there are some units in non-default era's that have better armored horses. Anyways...is anyone still saying we need to rebalance horsemen, or should this topic be left to die?

To clarify: Noone said that horsemen needed rebalancing. The argument was always as to the (non-)intuitiveness of how the current stats require horsemen to be used. AFAIK, that issue still hasn't been resolved.

The start of a new Dev version is probably the best point to raise the possibility of changing a core unit for non-balance reasons.

I'm now playing HTTT campaign and my high lvl units are getting slaughtered by enemy knights and lancers.
IMHO this isn't good... it's too much of a dice game right now - enemy hits, your loyal lvl 3 (or5) unit that at full health - dead. Reload and try again...repeat until most enemies miss their attacks.

A lot of this probably comes down to your playstyle. For detailed advice, post a replay to the Strategy forum, but off the top of my head:
(a) Don't engage knights/lancers at daytime if you can avoid it.
(b) Keep your key units on high defence terrain.
(c) If your key units are at significant risk of knight/lancer death, interpose a Level 1 unit between your key units and the enemy knight/lancer. (A common mistake in campaigns is to rely too heavily on a cadre of high-level units and not keep enough low level units around to act as a 'meat shield').

[TrashMan]

Oh, I have 6 Elven Scouts as meat shields and my most precious units are on hills or in a village/castle.

But they get trough the defense or jsut ignore the meat shields and go for juicier targets...

[anakayub]

This is really confusing.

First comes wishes to increase the survivability of horsemen.

Then comes wishes to decrease them.


TheArchitect:
Reduce non-pierce damage e.g. no doubling of non-pierce damage --> Having horsemen kill more easily (from no doubling of non-pierce damage) means that horsemen are not going to be killed easily at all, even when you decrease pierce resistance. I'm not willing to explain why; it's so logical. When I think about it, it'd be outright overpowered. The only hint I'm giving is that the attacker's initiative means that the aggressor chooses what units the defender can attack and what units himself can use to do so on the next turn.

[Wintermute]

This is really confusing.

First comes wishes to increase the survivability of horsemen.

Then comes wishes to decrease them.

Clearly, horsemen are so unbalanced that they are both underpowered and overpowered at the same time. A true feat of game engineering. I don't know what irony is, but that has got to be irony.

[TheArchitect]

anakayub: I can see how you're confused, and I am too I think the problem is that I never really said anything about the subject of this whole post (horse survivability). I just liked islandranger's idea about changing the charge ability. In fact, you will probably be able to tell after reading this that I don't care about horseman survivability.

Somehow we both have very different logics

The way I see it, this change would decrease a horseman's chance of getting damaged or killed during its own attack (due to double damage) but increase its chance of getting killed during the opponent's next turn. I don't know what that does to survivability, but I think it balances out so the horse is not overpowered.
Think about it: Its your turn and you have two options- attack the exposed mage or attack the exposed horseman (mixed army of all damage types). Mage has better terrain defense and no jumbo weakness. Horseman is a sitting duck to archers and spearmen. Swordsmen aren't great but they'll get the job done. As far as I can tell, this new horseman would be one of the most vulnerable units in the game when defending. Kind of like a HI without all the resistances. How can you consider something so easy to kill overpowered?

[TrashMan]

Clearly, horsemen are so unbalanced that they are both underpowered and overpowered at the same time. A true feat of game engineering. I don't know what irony is, but that has got to be irony.

Hm... I wouldn't exactly say that it's the problem with the horsemen specificly.
When a lvl2 unit kills a lvl3 outright, before you can intervene and have to start the whole turn from scratch...repeat several times...ugh.
There's a reason RTS/TBS/RPG games usually have unis with lots of HP's - diminishing HP are a indication of the fight not going well. One it's start dropping fact you have to do something. If it all drops instantly at once there is no time to intervene, to change tactics..only reload. More HP means a battle lasts a bit longer, both for you and the enemy.
Of course, there can be too many HP when a battle takes friggin forever (War3 anyone?)

Just doubling the HP of all units might not be a solution. Then again, the problem might only exist in my head.

[irrevenant]

I've split out the stuff that's purely strategy on how to use horsemen (as best I could - some posts contained both) - including at least one of my own posts. Let's keep discussion here focussed on the original idea.

Thanks.

[TrashMan]

Here's an idea- change the CHARGE ability to work only on the FIRST strike. Makes sense, since you charge one and then you're in the thick of fighting..it's not like you can take your time to get some distance and make another run.

So, first time the unit attacks it will deal double damage, the second attack will deal normal damage. The unit recieves normal damage in both cases. the next turn the charge can be used again.