The nerfed Heavy Infantryman case.

[Yomar]

I noticed that various players have trouble when they have Loyals anf face an Undead player that spams skeleton archers, cause they are cheaper.
now considering that time ago the archer was nerfed and his cost reduced by one GP, why not doing the same with the HI and reduce also his recruiting cost by 1 Gp, after all time ago he too was nerfed by reducing his impact resistance by 20%.
I mean he costs almost like a Wose, but you can't crtainly compare him with them, they have much more HP, do more dammage, has regeneration and a lot of resitances and also have access to terrains forbidden to HI.
I don't say that this would stop cheaper unit spam by undeads (Adepts, Skeletons, Zombies, Bats, Gouls), but maybee it could help a bit, and ballance out the overall recruiting costs, when you look at units characteristics and their cost.
just a tought, after all an HI that costs 18 GP, don't soind so bad.

[Lord-Knightmare]

To make a valid argument, you are supposed to bring more supporting evidence other than your opinion. Make a custom HI unit, try it out in a custom Loyalist faction and post some replays. You should indicate where on the replays this new nerf would introduce a form of "balance".

[Ben24626]

To make a valid argument, you are supposed to bring more supporting evidence other than your opinion. Make a custom HI unit, try it out in a custom Loyalist faction and post some replays. You should indicate where on the replays this new nerf would introduce a form of "balance".

As someone with a reasonable knowledge of wesnoth 1v1 balance this long used approach to proving balance improvements/imbalances seems... so poor. For one, no one can be bothered to gather the replays. Two, for a realistic replay you have to randomly receive the correct factions so it may take time to get the replays. Three, even with multiple replays people can argue that factors such as luck/skill/map/etc were the real reason that side A won/a particular unit had success. Four, this approach has been used for years and it (and the fact no one can agree in wesnoth on anything except the most obvious things) leads to stagnation/no progress in balance improvement.

In terms of the OP, clearly the HI needs a boost, any top ladder player will tell you so. 4mp combined with high mp costs means its barely usable unless loyal is fighting near it's own keep, which means it's night and loyal doesnt want to fight or loyal is losing.

[Yomar]

Lord-Knightmare or you did not read well my post or I was not enough clear.
I don't want to nerf anything, I proposed to reduce the recrutment cost of the HI, It's a lot that I play and I prefer to recruit Mages and even Fencers, rather than HI even against undeads.
And there are already enought replays arround to show that HI would be more usable with a small cost reduction or alternatively increasing a little bit his HP or resistances, like the pierce one and maybe blade, but pierce would help against mass skeleton archer and some others too.
But cost reduction is an approach that would not unballance the game, I think, for this I proposed to reduce it by 1 or 2 GP, to begin with.
Testing it with a develepoment version, after all it was allready done "recently" with the Footpad nerfing his attacks and then increasing them again , but only the ranged ones.
So why not trying a small cost change for the HI ?

[The_Gnat]

Hello, I agree with yomar and ben. The heavy infantryman's cost should be reduced by 1 or 2 gold. And this is something many who plays the loyalist faction will agree on because most maps make 4mp units incredibly disadvantaged and the loyalists have no other satisfactory impact hnit to fight the skeletons. Compared to the knalgans who half their units have impact and the drakes who almost all have fire the loyalists have a serious disadvantage against undead because their only impact unit moves so slowly and costs too much. I do not think his movement should be changed but his cost Definitely should be

Thanks

[The_Gnat]

Hi, since only 3 people have expressed interest in this gameplay change i figure that it will not reach mainline. So i am going to create a multiplayer modification add-on (probably to be released tomorrow after testing) If you think this idea is good, download it! If we get enough downloads and support i am sure we can get it mainlined!!

[Wesnother]

Downloaded and testing.

[The_Gnat]

Downloaded and testing.

Sorry its still not fully functional i will have it working by the end of today though!

[The_Gnat]

I am glad to announce The Balanced Mod is now complete, and stable!

It currently includes the Heavy Infantryman reduced cost modification (now 17gp).

If you think this is a good change download the addon and spread the word! If you have any suggestions for improving this add-on or other modifications you would like to be added to this mod, please post here!

Comments are much appreciated!

EDIT : Also go post what you think on the poll

[draghen]

Come on, there are many campaigns or scenarios with castle hexes where heavy infantries just work great!
About 1vs1 maps: no one builds an army of HI, spearmen are the backbone of a loyalists army, infantries are tactical units like ghosts or ulfs in my opinion.
For open fields they have the best cavalry, for water they have fishes... Loyalists is already the faction with the best stats, no?
A wose is slow, and weak outside forests, and don't forget the fearless trait for the hi!
Vs undead you will fight close to your keep in many maps, no matter what: but try to summon 2 fearless HI with leadership during the second night. As I said it's a tactical unit: recruit some HI in the opponent's keep... xD
A 18 gp cost could be fine, but also an increased pierce res maybe...

[The_Gnat]

Thanks for your comments! Rather than changing it to 18gp, i think i will leave it at 17gp for now to test. I don't expect everyone to agree with this idea but that is why it as a modification is good so it is an option.

[ForPeace]

17 gold HI has already been discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=44782.

The problem with HIs is not only their weakness but mostly silly players who think everything they need to counter undead are mass HIs and lose spectacularly to mass adepts. I agree HIs are underpowered and I proposed their buff. Low functionality in countering skeleton archer is imo caused by very low mobility and cold vulnerability. Interestingly, undead need only two adepts to kill a HI at night and often only 3/4 is necessary. So if you don't want to risk your great and costly damage dealers who are HIs you retreat deeply but 4mp means that you won't be able to attack during the day.

That's why I prefer spearmen + mages or even cavalry units to outmanouevre undead.

Of course, on smaller maps, especially Isar's Cross HIs are way more effective so maybe too big buff isn't a good idea.

@The_Gnat It's good that you created a mod but afaik Horus is going to release a big balancing mod soon.

[The_Gnat]

17 gold HI has already been discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=44782.

@The_Gnat It's good that you created a mod but afaik Horus is going to release a big balancing mod soon.

Thanks for your response, and more addoms aren't a bad thing so I look forward to Horus' s mod!