Balancing issues - drain on Ghosts, poison and regeneration

[ShadowCry]

First post, friends. New to the Forums, but not to the game. Other than standard forum etiquette, I'm not yet settled in to the neighborhood, so let me know if this is a faux pas. In any case, I just came over to the latest version of Wesnoth from version 1.0, skipping 1.1 and 1.2 entirely, so my point of view might be a bit tainted, though I'm really impressed by how far the graphics have come. Regardless, I've a few opinions for you on the different races:

Undead.
I'm not a fan of undead in any game, for some reason, but I was immediately a fan of Wesnoth's because you can't bring the little buggers back to life once they die. That makes them much more fun to play and fight, as you can't give in to the 'lol zerg-rush' (if I may use the colloquialism) swarming as easily. I think the only problem lies in giving Drain to Ghosts. Drain itself isn't as much the problem as their inherent resistance to every weapon under the sun and their consistant defense. Playing as the Undead, I could pretty much whore these out and have a very good shot at winning. Backed up by a few melee skeletons to kill those pesky mages and orc bowmen, Ghosts can handle just about anything else, often healing more damage than they sustain. Playing against the Undead, it wasn't uncommon for one or two ghosts to hold off up to 6 or 8 units, if I couldn't get a fire or holy-damaging unit over there. One case in point was the ghost that held off 3 Troll Whelps, two Orcish Grunts, and a Warg Rider. I killed it only after it levelled into a Shadow, which made it quit healing itself. I don't think the Ghost needs to be tampered with, just remove Drain and leave it to Wraiths and Spectres. I do, however, like the Drain upgrade, where you heal half the damage you inflict. As I remember, in version 1.0 it was a set 3.

Northerners.
Not as glaring as the Undead's Ghosts, but I think Trolls could use a tweak. They're slow, painful and regenerate already, so I think their blade and pierce resistance is a bit much. Wose(s) have Regeneration along with formidable pierce and impact resistance, but (at least for me) their abysmal defense makes up for it, and they die often and easy enough that I don't use them near as much as other Elven players. Perhaps Trolls' defense could be lowered instead of their resistances taken away. Second, the Northerners have the luxury of the cheapest units in the game. Even a Goblin Spearman can ruin your day with a few lucky shots, and they're half the cost of most units. Even the Orcish Grunt, a formidable close combatant, is only 12 gold, making the act of churning out a Horde (pun intended) of these buggers relatively easy. I realize that the Northerners trade cost for their lack of range, but I still think that their unit prices could be raise marginally, perhaps only 1 or 2 gold a piece. The Northerners are a rough match-up when you're the Rebels, as their units cost signifigantly less than yours, but are more damaging pound-for-pound. You wind up fighting superior numbers of heavy hitting opponents, which elves can't stand up to. Then there's the Trolls, which are resistant to the two types of damage that are prevailant in the Rebel's ranks, with only Wose(s) and Magi able to damage them enough to overcome Regeneration. (yes, nitpickers, it's quite possible to swarm Trolls with archers or fighters, but taking 3-4 or your units to kill one of theirs is sure sign that this battle won't go well.) I think I'm rambling now, so enough of that.

Not really faction-related, but I wouldn't mind seeing Poison and maybe even Regeneration reduced to 4 instead of 8. In Regeneration's case, sometimes you just don't have the means to guarantee more than 8 damage per turn, so killing Trolls and Wose (Woses? Wosies? (Weese? I've always used 'Wose' as the plural form as well, like fish or sheep) can be a serious problem if you can't outright swarm them. I think that villages should heal 8, I'm not arguing that, but I think Regeneration should be a tactical advantage, not a "I don't need villages because I rock that hard" get-out-of-dying-free card. If 4 is a bit extreme, then I'd settle for 6.

In Poison's case, since there are no level 1 curing units, but two level 1 Poisoning units, I think this should be taken down to 4 or again at least 6. If I'm playing as the Undead or especially the Northerners, I can whore out poison and pretty much ensure victory, but this could just be me. if you balance a force of half Orcish Assassins with the other half split between Orcish Bowman and Grunts, (or Trolls alone) you can just poison everything that comes at you, use the Grunts or Trolls to soak up damage while the Poison does its work, and clean up the mess. Ghouls are much easier to kill than Assassins, so you can't do this as easy with Undead, but it's still a pretty easy way to slaughter any number of Heavy Infantry that're thrown your way.

Both of those last cases are just my preference, I don't play Northerners or Undead nearly as I do the other races, so I just might not have all the facts, so I'd be interested in hearing any counter-points on it.

Thanks for putting up with me.

[Ultimatum479]

Playing as the Undead, I could pretty much whore [ghosts] out and have a very good shot at winning. Backed up by a few melee skeletons to kill those pesky mages and orc bowmen, Ghosts can handle just about anything else, often healing more damage than they sustain.

Agreed. They're awesome units, Ghosts are. But that's why they cost 20 gold. Spamming ghosts isn't a viable option unless you're playing with too much starting gold.

[Trolls are] slow, painful and regenerate already, so I think their blade and pierce resistance is a bit much. Wose(s) have Regeneration along with formidable pierce and impact resistance, but (at least for me) their abysmal defense makes up for it, and they die often and easy enough that I don't use them near as much as other Elven players. Perhaps Trolls' defense could be lowered instead of their resistances taken away.

Trolls I'd agree should be tweaked. I used to think they didn't cost enough for how good they are, but Northerners are really supposed to be a low-cost spammable faction from what I've seen, so your suggestion of lowering their dodging chances probably works better and would make sense...they're trolls.

I realize that the Northerners trade cost for their lack of range, but I still think that their unit prices could be raise marginally, perhaps only 1 or 2 gold a piece. The Northerners are a rough match-up when you're the Rebels, as their units cost signifigantly less than yours, but are more damaging pound-for-pound.

I don't see them as a problem for Rebels specifically, any more than any other faction. Actually, they seem more annoying for Drakes. But in general, I don't think Northerners are too underpriced; goblins are hardly better than walking corpses, for two gold more.

I wouldn't mind seeing Poison and maybe even Regeneration reduced to 4 instead of 8....I think that villages should heal 8, I'm not arguing that, but I think Regeneration should be a tactical advantage, not a "I don't need villages because I rock that hard" get-out-of-dying-free card. If 4 is a bit extreme, then I'd settle for 6...In Poison's case, since there are no level 1 curing units, but two level 1 Poisoning units, I think this should be taken down to 4 or again at least 6.

Agreed. I've always hated both poison and regeneration for that reason. I think poison should be 4 and regeneration 6, personally, based on level 1 healing units and the amount villages heal. Related units can of course have their price lowered by a gold piece or two to compensate.

[Doc Paterson]

As you might have guessed, I think you're both dead wrong about all of these perceived imbalances. Remember the point of this thread though- The poster wants to prove you wrong, not talk about specifically why certain units are or are not "fair." Learning from a real in-game situation is much more educational than theoretical debates anyway, which often are, as in cases like this one, victims of reductionism/oversimplification.

Post up with the times you'll be on the server- I'm sure he'd love to play either of you.

If you don't want to schedule with Herduk, try go on the server and requesting a 1v1 game with any of these players:

Soliton
Becephalus
Pietro
Wintermute
Dragonking
Roman Loyalist
Mythological
JW
Kollle
IB
PhD
Tony Almeida

(This is off the top of my head and excludes good players who don't like 1v1s)

Ask them to play as whatever faction you think would lose to the perceived imbalance. Try to win. Save the replay, and study it.

[Thrawn]

Ask them to play as whatever faction you think is overpowered. Save the replay, and study it.

don't you mean play against whatever faction you think is overpowered? If the better people used the "over powered factions", it would further convince newbies that the faction is overpowered.

just a few comments, shadowcry:
*you list slowness with some of the trolls strengths, along with resistance and regen...isn't that a major weakness?

*If you want to change the heal/cure/regen/poison values, feel free to make your own mod of the game (I haven't tried in aahile, but I think its easy to get to where to change the values) and put it on the download server: if people like your changes, you can tell by seeing which version people play (I personally think that having more values that people can heal/poison would be interesting: like have lvl3 units with regen get more than just 8hp back...its too over powered to have a lvl1 unit get 8 sometimes, but nowhere near as useful when it is a lvl3 unit getting that 8hp...)

[ShadowCry]

Remember the point of this thread though- The poster wants to prove you wrong, not talk about specifically why certain units are or are not "fair."

Snap judgments are the bane of change and fresh ideas. Let's not brand me as a heretic just yet. A few matches with a 'good' player aren't going to reverse the opinions that I've developed over a year or so, so I'm not sure who's trying to prove who wrong, here. In any case, I'm more interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject matter than I want to know names of players that can play a good game.

Playing as the Undead, I could pretty much whore [ghosts] out and have a very good shot at winning. Backed up by a few melee skeletons to kill those pesky mages and orc bowmen, Ghosts can handle just about anything else, often healing more damage than they sustain.

Agreed. They're awesome units, Ghosts are. But that's why they cost 20 gold. Spamming ghosts isn't a viable option unless you're playing with too much starting gold.

I tried this 3 times, just to make sure I wasn't getting lucky. I started with the standard 100 gold and just made 5. They're slower than Vampire Bats, but the bats can't fight to save their lives, so the Ghosts were pretty good village grabbers. Not only that, but then they were able to tie up any opposing units that I ran into and hold them there until I could bring up Skeletons, Adepts, Ghouls, whatever the situation called for, and maybe a Ghost would level in the process, if I was lucky. No unit is the 'super-unit' but I think the Ghost has a heftier lead on most others. I didn't mind them until they got Drain.

As for making my own MOD, I don't have that kind of know-how. If most of the people posting here can do that, perhaps I'm a mortal among Titans.

[Sapient]

Remember the point of this thread though- The poster wants to prove you wrong, not talk about specifically why certain units are or are not "fair."

Snap judgments are the bane of change and fresh ideas. Let's not brand me as a heretic just yet. A few matches with a 'good' player aren't going to reverse the opinions that I've developed over a year or so, so I'm not sure who's trying to prove who wrong, here. In any case, I'm more interested in hearing your thoughts on the subject matter than I want to know names of players that can play a good game.

If that's your attitude (discuss instead of battle proof), then you picked the wrong thread to post this in. Also, why do you think it is "snap judgement"? Doc thinks about these issues far more than most players.

The 'good' players are part of the balance definition of Wesnoth. The game is balanced for highly skilled opponents on the official maps, with the official settings. So, observing some pros in action is relevant to a balance discussion, not just grand-standing or hubris.

[ShadowCry]

That did come off a bit harsh; I apologize.

Point was that I've dabbled in the game long enough to view poison and Regeneration as a bit strong and too easy to abuse. It's not like they're unstoppable, I've beaten poison and regen just fine, but that doesn't mean I don't think they could stand a tweak. Further, losing a game while I was using the race that I think is overpowered doesn't prove that they're not, it proves that I lost a game. I understand that 'good' players have a feel for balance and detail, but "Play a game with me and I'll show you where you err" is not the easiest way to change someone's opinion, unless their opinion is blatantly and obviously wrong. (I.E. Just spam Wose and you're invincible.)

[Velensk]

.............
I am going to try to put it this way,
Yes, regen and poision are nice, they are a feature of the unit that has them. However they are olny unbalanced if the unit that has them is unbalanced. A unit is olny unbalanced if it makes a faction vs faction battle unbalanced.

Factions are balanced against factions, and the balance is pretty good, when balancing they take into account that each unit that that faction has and all it's capabilities. Orcs would have an imposible time removing dwarves of mountains without poison, however assassins don't make knalgan vs northerner games unbalanced. They make it posible.

Everything comes down to battle testing, theory is all well and good but if it dose not accualy apply on a balanced map vs good players then it might as well not exist. If you realy think that poision or regen unbalance any faction vs faction battle then try it against someone who would know.

If you can't be convinsed by demonstration that then you won't be convinced by anything. If you don't beleive those who are better then you and can beat you dispite your complaint then you have a problem. Either you
acknolage that they are better than you and know what they are talking about, or you assume that you know better then them dispite them beating you, or you assume that the olny reason they beat you was the RNG.

Don't be the last catagory. If you think your ideas have merit prove it. If you say you arn't good enough to prove it then, why do you think you know better.

If I seem impolite I'm sorry, but I could not figure out a better way to put it.

[Doc Paterson]

If you can't be convinced by demonstration, then you won't be convinced by anything. If you don't believe those who are better than you and can beat you despite your complaint, then you have a problem. Either you
acknowledge that they are better than you and know what they are talking about, or you assume that you know better than them despite them beating you, or you assume that the only reason they beat you was the RNG.

Don't be the last category. If you think your ideas have merit, prove it. If you say you aren't good enough to prove it, then, why do you think you know better?

If I seem impolite, I'm sorry, but I could not figure out a better way to put it.

Post of the Month Award nominee. Please reread the section from his post that I quoted, ShadowCry, and respond to it.

And Thrawn yes, that was a typo, and is of course the other way around.
***(Fixing.)***

[ShadowCry]

I understand the sentiment, but for every strategy there is a counter strategy. Wesnoth is a very balanced, very enjoyable game, so there's not one way to beat every opponent. After trolling through the forums, just about every time that a suggestion or comment is made on the balance of a faction, the inevitable reply is "fight me and I'll prove you wrong." It seems rare that conversations or debates exist on these forums, which is why I thought forums existed.

The truth is that unless the strategy or unit in question is just plain wrong, (i.e. Ghosts are clearly invincible, and I can beat you by building nothing else) a few games with the challenger rarely prove anything. If I were to play you and win, perhaps I won because of poison. Perhaps you creamed all of my Assassins and I still manage to win with Grunts and Archers. If we play and you win, perhaps it's because I'm completely wrong, you can tank or run back to heal the poison damage, or slay the Troll with only a few units. Or maybe it's because you killed off the Grunts and Bowmen that were supposed to finish you off, leaving me with less-than-combat-worthy Assassins. There's too many variables for a few games on the server to make your case alone. Not to mention there's always that nasty probability factor. We all know we have good games and bad games. Wouldn't it be frustrating to have one of those bad games when you're trying to prove a point?

In all honesty, I've got college and a job; Wesnoth is a hobby, which is why I like the forums. I can post an opinion, leave, and come back at my leisure. If someone posts an opposing or agreeing opinion, great, a conversation might ensue. Velensk did just that and made a point that I hadn't thought of before, factions balanced against factions instead of unit vs. unit. I'm a long-time fan of Starcraft which is also balanced faction vs. faction, and because of that, I feel a little stupid for not seeing it that way to begin with. But aside from that, this isn't important enough to me to schedule times and games to prove that I'm right or that you're right.

I don't play the Official Servers much; I prefer to play with the group of friends that got me into the game. Most of the opinions you see here come from those games. Because of this, I'll probably never see anyone here online. If you absolutely must play me to satisfy yourself, then send me some times you're on and I'll check for you, but unless there's money on the game or something of that nature, there's little incentive for me to search you out.

As an afterthought, I've no idea how 'good' any of you fellows are. I'm confident in my own abilities as a long time RTS player, and in the friends I play with, so I post here with things that we've found that make us go "Ugh, tons of Assassins, this game's going to be lame," or whatever. I can't prove to you that I'm 'good' by just chatting on these boards, nor that they are, and I honestly hope that I don't need to in order to have a respected opinion.

I'm terrible at making all my points in a coherent fashion on written posts, but I think that covered all my bases.

EDIT: Almost. Concerning battle testing and experience, I wouldn't post here if it hadn't been battle-tested. As for people who know more than I, I'm sure they're here on these forums, but as a recently added member, I have no idea who's a Wesnoth savant, and who's a misguided poster (case in point, the fellow saying that Wose are amazing). If you know more than I, it should be easy enough to post an actual, informative reply and be done with it. It's too easy to win a game for a reason that has little to do with the strategy in question and then claim superiority.

[Raemon]

I'm not expert, but hey, we're discussing theory here. So I will suggest ways for you to deal with this or that and you can playtest it!

I think the only problem lies in giving Drain to Ghosts. Drain itself isn't as much the problem as their inherent resistance to every weapon under the sun and their consistant defense. Playing as the Undead, I could pretty much whore these out and have a very good shot at winning. Backed up by a few melee skeletons to kill those pesky mages and orc bowmen, Ghosts can handle just about anything else, often healing more damage than they sustain. Playing against the Undead, it wasn't uncommon for one or two ghosts to hold off up to 6 or 8 units, if I couldn't get a fire or holy-damaging unit over there. One case in point was the ghost that held off 3 Troll Whelps, two Orcish Grunts, and a Warg Rider. I killed it only after it levelled into a Shadow, which made it quit healing itself. I don't think the Ghost needs to be tampered with, just remove Drain and leave it to Wraiths and Spectres. I do, however, like the Drain upgrade, where you heal half the damage you inflict. As I remember, in version 1.0 it was a set 3.

Have you considered the possibility that, since you will have more units and ghosts are pretty weak in terms of killing power, you could try ignoring the ghosts and just steal the villages? If he puts the ghosts back onto villages (A really annoying situation . . .) then depending on your faction make a defensive line or retreat until a more favourable time of day. Also, ranged units are your friends. Also consider not attacking the ghost and letting your opponent decide whether to risk damage or not. If the attack comes out so that you haev a chance to kill it on your turn, then you can do that.

Northerners.
Not as glaring as the Undead's Ghosts, but I think Trolls could use a tweak. They're slow, painful and regenerate already, so I think their blade and pierce resistance is a bit much. Wose(s) have Regeneration along with formidable pierce and impact resistance, but (at least for me) their abysmal defense makes up for it, and they die often and easy enough that I don't use them near as much as other Elven players. Perhaps Trolls' defense could be lowered instead of their resistances taken away.

They aren't that strong except at night (8-2 isn't all that much) and they're rather slow. It should be easy to surround a badly-used one and take it apart. Every faction has one (maybe more than one) counter to it.

Second, the Northerners have the luxury of the cheapest units in the game. Even a Goblin Spearman can ruin your day with a few lucky shots, and they're half the cost of most units. Even the Orcish Grunt, a formidable close combatant, is only 12 gold, making the act of churning out a Horde (pun intended) of these buggers relatively easy. I realize that the Northerners trade cost for their lack of range, but I still think that their unit prices could be raise marginally, perhaps only 1 or 2 gold a piece. The Northerners are a rough match-up when you're the Rebels, as their units cost signifigantly less than yours, but are more damaging pound-for-pound. You wind up fighting superior numbers of heavy hitting opponents, which elves can't stand up to. Then there's the Trolls, which are resistant to the two types of damage that are prevailant in the Rebel's ranks, with only Wose(s) and Magi able to damage them enough to overcome Regeneration. (yes, nitpickers, it's quite possible to swarm Trolls with archers or fighters, but taking 3-4 or your units to kill one of theirs is sure sign that this battle won't go well.) I think I'm rambling now, so enough of that.

The ability to swarm an enemy is intentionally part of the Northener's make-up. Goblin Spearmen can be annoying, but they can be killed easily and even then, 4-3/5-3 is weak. You shouldn't be afraid of taking 8 damage (about average) - Once you are, that's the time you need to run away. Rebels have amazing defence in forests, so you should be looking to grab those tiles. Also, don't be afraid to gang up on units - The Northeners are cheap (as in gold cost) so they WILL be ganging up on you.

General strategies are hard to come up with because each faction is so different. If you really want to work out how to beat certain strategies, challenge others (maybe your group of friends) and use your unbalanced units. You will tend to find that the best strategy would be a good mix of units, I think.

[Velensk]

Somewhat off topic but as far as playing on the server, Many of the people there are not very good, lacking either experiance, understanding, or intelect. I tend to play these games out of politness.

Some people obviously have a good grasp of the game and basic flow, but lack the stratagy skills to win. I play these games for my amusment and for them to get experiance.

Some people play about my lvl, it is hard to find these ones and they make the funnest games. I play these games for enjoyment

A very few people play, that I have never yet beat (though I have not played them recently), they don't seem to happen much but when they do I try to learn from them.

The problem with playing on the server is that you can't tell what kind of match this will be in advance, unless you know someone of the forum.
I would play hot-seat more often except that the olny two people I've introduced who stuck to it are, my little brother who is one of the low end of the second cattagory, and a friend who moved away. It offers a mixed bag, but as long as one player is supperior and the other learns then at least one player benifittes, and if both players are about equal then both players have a good chance of having a good time.

[Doc Paterson]

Wouldn't it be frustrating to have one of those bad games when you're trying to prove a point?

That why we do best of 3 or best of 5.

In all honesty, I've got college and a job;

That's probably true for most of us. I myself have on average less than an hour a day (often less) to spend on Wesnoth. Would you want to spend your time explaining and re-explaining balance to every user who complained, with what little time for the game that you had? "Play better players and you'll understand" is simple and effective advice for many.

Velensk did just that and made a point that I hadn't thought of before, factions balanced against factions instead of unit vs. unit.

This tells me that while you claim to have looked through the forums (finding that "just about every time that a suggestion or comment is made on the balance of a faction, the inevitable reply is "fight me and I'll prove you wrong."), you can't have looked very long or closely, as "factions are balanced against factions, units are not balanced against units, etc." is one of the most common, most often repeated statements on these forums.

If you absolutely must play me to satisfy yourself, then send me some times you're on and I'll check for you, but unless there's money on the game or something of that nature, there's little incentive for me to search you out.

Is being shown the solutions to your problems not incentive? Do you really think that these things that you're talking about can be reduced to a few paragraphs? A lot of it comes down to unit positioning, reactive recruiting, fog-traps, attack radius positioning and the like, not general guidelines that someone on the forums is going to lay out for you. Theory is only going to take you so far- You need to put yourself in a real situation with a good opponent in order to begin impressing the proper responses to given strategies into your mind. If you don't want to take the time to come on the server and look for a good opponent, you shouldn't expect those same good players to engage you in a lengthy forum debate.

As an afterthought, I've no idea how 'good' any of you fellows are. I'm confident in my own abilities as a long time RTS player, and in the friends I play with, so I post here with things that we've found that make us go "Ugh, tons of Assassins, this game's going to be lame," or whatever.

If you really want to believe that being shown how to counter an assassin-heavy recruit is a waste of your time, by all means, stay in this realm where "assassins-make-the-game-lame." Is it fun for you that certain matchups are just "lame," by default? I'd think that developing your understanding of unit placement and movement (important for countering assassins; can't easily be put into written form because it is a subtle, learned response to the placement of the assassins) would be incentive enough to try abusing your assassin strategy on good players.

I can't prove to you that I'm 'good' by just chatting on these boards, nor that they are, and I honestly hope that I don't need to in order to have a respected opinion.

Concerning battle testing and experience, I wouldn't post here if it hadn't been battle-tested. As for people who know more than I, I'm sure they're here on these forums, but as a recently added member, I have no idea who's a Wesnoth savant, and who's a misguided poster (case in point, the fellow saying that Wose are amazing). If you know more than I, it should be easy enough to post an actual, informative reply and be done with it. It's too easy to win a game for a reason that has little to do with the strategy in question and then claim superiority.

To reiterate a little, you really seem to think that this game comes down to clear junctions; "do this or this, and you'll get this or this." Exceeding at this game goes much much deeper than that; a lot of it is felt, a lot of it comes down to an intuition that developes over the course of hundreds of games, and cannot be easily translated into generalised strategy.

Again and again we see new forum members posting this same thing- "I don't want to go through the learning process; I want to be told- I want you to prove to me that I'm wrong by explaining the whole thing to me, here on the forums. If you're actually right, it should be easy to lay out the points and prove that I'm wrong."

This has to be the last time that I type out something like this.

[Thrawn]

could a mod split shadowcry's discussion into another thread...It's getting kinda OT with the original purpose of the thread, and getting into the theory/a metadiscussion about playing online...which I belive merits its won thread.

Shadowcry: if you don't want to get better/believe people here, why bother posting. If you have been lurking, not only should you have realized that factions are balanced agiant factions (Velensk/Doc's post) but some idea as to who is good or not: look at the hall of eternal champions, or maybe one of the many discussions in this and the MP thread...it will give you some names.

also, just your attitude:
You remind me of myself when I began playing smash brothers competitively. I thought I was good in my circle of friends. Then I went to my first tournie, and got trashed. But I whined that what the other people were doing was unfair, and didn't except that there were simply things I had to learn in order to play at a higher level. Don't make excuses/ reasons not to play better or against other people. I have college and a job too (and am not that good at wesnoth) but I realize that it is how I'm playing, not what faction/strategy me opponent/I am using

--I could simply be wrong about your attitude, but that is how you come across. Sorry

[Ultimatum479]

I have a testing suggestion: have the computers play both sides, but take over for the purpose of recruitment. Recruit the "unbalanced" units for one side and let the other side choose what it wants -- or let an experienced observing player choose the other side's units -- and then let the computers duke it out. They should be equal skill level.

In fact, I'm going to do that later tonight. I'll try a lot of Assassins and Trolls for Northerners against some faction that has trouble against that tactic, like Drakes. But I hope someone else will try it, too, because I'm not good with Northerners.