Balancing changes in 1.13 cycle?

[Elder2]

Full dwarf knalga vs mass (10 or 11) HI loyals on freelands. It seems like an ideal situation for HI, I even purposefully chose lvl 2 HI leader to test it because I knew my opponent would pick knalga and go full dwarf xD

I thought that why HI didn't work for other players trying HI in this matchup (I have seen some games where like 3 or so HI loyal got destroyed by full dwarf when it attacked) was because they didn't wait long enough to get enough HI and got too many of other units overall, so I waited until I got 11 HI and then I attacked the dwarf line.

I also had 3 mages to hopefully deal with village units so lack of mages was not a problem, I hoped to wear dwarf down and actually as individual units HI seemed to fare pretty well vs dwarf at first and I thought I may have a chance of doing some damage, but it turns out that unlike spears HI will take quite significant damage from attacking dwarf fighters in mele since it doesn't have ranged like spears do and it doesn't really do more damage than spears would do to these dwarves, it was suprisingly easy for dwarf to kill my wounded HI and I felt like they were very much killable and not a dwarf bully like I thought they were.

Then dwarf started recruiting footpads and and because my HI was so slow I had no chance of retreating, that I think is the biggest problem of HI, the lack of mobility, when defending near the hills my HI couldn't even get up the hill. Also, footpads are a very cost-effective tool to deal with HI especially combined with unpenetrable dwarf line so they can wait until the night to attack, I would even say that HI felt like it was actually more vulnerable to footies than ud skelletons since skelletons can still destroy footies at night because of the damage, can retreat, and take roughly the same stone damage (7 vs skelly on 40% vs 6 vs HI on 30%), with HI you can not run so dwarf can just wait for the night to use footies.

Also from that dwarf engangement near the hills you can see that HI can win vs dwarves on flat, spears probably wouldn't be able to do that and it looked like HI was dealing a bit more damage to these dwarves on flat than the dwarves were dealing to HI, but HI is 19g while dwarf fighter is 16 so 1 to 1 trade is still favorable to dwarf.

So as a summary HI does in fact have a bit better combar capabilities vs dwarf than spear but compared to its cost, the nature of dwarf vs loyal matchup (campy dwarf line) and its slowness it is definitely not worth it, the advantage of HI over spearmen in combating dwarves is not worth it when HI costs 5 g more, is vulnerable to footpads and is very slow, and the advantage is not even that big.

Heavy infs dont work vs dwarf fighters. Why would they? They have 0 impact res, worse terrain defence and less hp. Why would anyone recruit heavy inf vs fighters? Some players tend to think you recruit units vs factions, instead of recruiting vs units that are on the map. Every faction will find counter to full heavy inf spam as it would vs full skeleton or spear spam. In this case heavy infs dont work vs dwarf fighters but are very good vs thunderers (HI have both pierce and blade res) which some players tend to overrecruit. I won a game like that when my opponent was expecting many horses and i barely recruited any. Heavy infs losing v dwarf fighters is the case of choosing bad recruits not bad balancing.

And I would like to say this again: Nerfing woses arcane ressistance would pretty much affect adepts and ghosts only. Elvish sorceress doesn't matter as this is mirror and one more unit that would benefit would be white mage. This would make undead v elfs more competetive.

You are wrong about a few things.
First, HI has 10% impact res, second they have exactly the same hp as fighters that is 38, which is an above average hp (as average I consider spear's 36) and are the highest hp loyalist units. And third, on flat they have the same terrain defence as fighters so saying that "they have worse terrain defence" is too much of an oversimplification. And well, why would they work? Maybe because dwarf has no magic which HI is vulnerable to? And their impact units that is footpads do any real damage only at night, fighters' hammer is not that good either, I think I broke down it somewhere how much damage they should take from fighters and indeed, it is less than a spear should take but I am pretty sure I explained in the post you quote why they do not work, I think I also touched on why they are in a way actually good as expected, yet not good enough.

I think I exhausted the topic of current HI vs dwarf in my post, yes, you are right, apparently HI vs dwarf is not OP like I stated in my post, but I think that actually HI still should do better vs fighters and be stronger than it is now, even if you significantly buffed HI that wouldn't mean there would be no counterstrategy for dwarf vs HI, even if it received significant stat buffs since that would just mean dwarf would have no chance to go out of the defensive positions vs mass HI, yes, it would make the matchup more campty but HI still wouldn't be op, dwarves defense on hills and guards camping potential just makes HI charges not viable as a breakthrough strategy, if HI received stat buffs that would have an effect vs dwarves it would just mean that it would be harder or impossible for mass HI to start dying attacking the dwarves (like shown on my replay) not that it would succeed in breaking the dwarf line which i still think it wouldn't, but it would make the trade after atatcking the dwarf not as one sided as it is now, since HI wouldn't take so much damage if it got eg res buffs. I hope you get what I mean. I think that slight impact resistance buff to HI would make mass HI viable strat vs dwarf, but still, my points about HI immobility still stand so I am not sure.
Edit: I will clarify, because of the non cost-effectiveness of Hi vs dwarf and its terrible mobility I think that HI spam is worse tactics than casual eg spear + mages tactics is, I don't think HI should be underpowered vs dwarf and I think HI spam should be viable however silly it would be, there is always an counterstrategy because of how slow Hi is, Hi doesn't have any better uses anyway so making spamming it decent at least vs one faction would be nice imo. Well, ok, HI can be decent vs undead but I only one matchup where it is useful is not enough imo, and even its usefulness vs ud can be questrionable at times, I don't want Hi vs dwarf OP, just viable, a bit like it is vs ud now.

[Elder2]

What I'd like to see:

Lower arcane res on Wose, to make them more vulnerable to Adepts.
Footies get pierce (or blade perhaps?) melee - gives skellies a chance v them.
Dwarves get hardy (only take 6dmg from poision, no other heal buff) as a racial trait, along with two regular traits - mainly to increase their mobility again.
Ulf blade res gets reduced, helps elves in that matchup.
Lieut gets slow trait, for obvious reasons, as does marksman.

That should do to begin with, see how that beds in.


Caritas - spot on. Units like HI are never meant for spamming, I think if HI spam did work it would be a sign balance was broken.

ElderofZion - I'll take up that bet Against decent play you should get nowhere near 60-80%. I think you might be underestimating the ways UD can attack a sluggish defence. Also, why so certain it would be a skelly on the vil? Not to mention the wisdom of a banking war v UD...

If it was picked dwarf vs picked ud then I think I would do well, since I would know my enemy from the start, ok, there may be a ghost on the village, but assuming it would be an village on my side, really, no matter what would it be even without ulfs it would get destroyed at day by my clad, even ghosts can die at day to fighters and clad, though ok, it would be a bit chancy with like a clad and 2 fighters on flat, but I do not really account for the possibility of ud breaking my lines, I would put enough fighters around the village ud wouldn't be able to attack with more than 2 units xD
About the banking war, well I am pretty sure that no matter how much you bank, no matter if you get 200, 500 or 1000 gold banked, you will never be able to break through late game dwarf defences as ud, dwarf just scales too well and fighters are superior stat-wise compared to ud units, not to mention that dwarf will bank too, maybe I wouldn't be able to attack with mass fighters but that doesn't mean I would lose. I have tried banking in that matchup, I am not sure if you have seen that game, it was a 100 turn game where solymos banked like 700 gold as dwarf and I build a zombie swastika on the map, its on my ladder somewhere, it was pretty fun but I wouldn't repeat it xD

Maybe I am underestimating the ways ud can attack, maybe on an open map it would have a chance to attack, but if you play it smart you can always have the clad support at the side ud is attacking and enough fighters to make the fight one sided.

And I take my knowledge about this matchup from my picked ud vs picked steelclad dwarf with mass fighters games vs Solymos, really, if she hadn't come out of her defensive lines one game I would never have a chance of attacking her without suiciding, clad and a few fighters alone is enough to stop any ud rush, I think I mentioned that, clad is just too strong and it shreds and undead units since they have low health, and because of the resistances you can't kill him. Also I have witnessed myself how one sided game it can be, it is not just a theory, I was playing a few clad with mass fighter vs undead (I had enough fighters though I didn't know I was against ud) games and at least one game I got attacked by ud, it was a proper attack with adepts, and other units, even ghost, granted, the player might not have been one of the best but that doesn't really matter much when you decide to rush. And it was completely one sided, I killed like 5 or more units to maybe 1 fighter lost, its just that ud can't really reliably kill fighters and fighters can rather easily kill ud units, and with clad support it becomes one sided.

As to HI, its about HI really not being useful in any matchup except maybe vs undead, it is not meant to be spammed now and nobody does it because it is just weak, if you make it you weaken your army, and I think that actually units like HI are meant to be spammed in a way xD, why? Since HI is so slow it will slow down your army, so if like 2 HI will already slow down your army why not just spam them? It seems reasonable. Also I have already broken down the HI issue in my post.


Btw If anybody doesn't think fighters are that unbalanced vs ud, I can try to dig out some replays of dwarf mass fighter vs ud, I think I have some of these on the ladder, you can just search for them amony my solymos games (none of these new), If there are some unbelievers then I understand that, I haven't seen ANYBODY except Solymos use mass fighters vs my picked ud, I don't think I have seen anybody ever use it in any replay, well, except me after I learned about fighters' unbalance, what do you know. Literally everybody I have seen uses mass footpads + ulfs or footpads + ulfs + some fighters mixed, and maybe some other units in the mix, no pure or amost pure fighter + ulf, and hodor builds are not good enough to scare me, only mass fighter is something that scares me whan I am ud.

[The_Gnat]

Hello forPeace, this is a very interesting topic! I have recently created a new balance mod, in it are now 17gp Heavy Infantrymen. If you would be okay i will add all the rest of these modifications to my add-on, The Balance Mod. If you say yes i will also make them available in campaign through The Balance Mod Campaign.

(EDIT: i will consider other ideas also to add to the balance mod so please post them at viewtopic.php?f=15&t=44859)

[Caritas]

Heavy inf can be used against:
- saurian rush
- ud
- thunderers, thiefs, poachers
- elf fighters
- spears in mirror match up
- grunts
Which means they are usefull against all factions. Still every faction have counter units to heavy inf. Doesnt mean they are useless it just means if you overrecruit them you will get smashed.

Elder you lost to Solymos when you were spamming for 100 rounds mass zombies and he recruited mass dwarves in round 100 . You got outplayed thats it. If you had different units mass dwarfs would not work so effectively. Hown many ghost have you recruited throughout the game? 1? Your game doesnt mean dwarfs are op, it means you got outplayed.

Other thing is: yes its true dwarfs have 30% def at flat like HI but why would you want to fight them from flat if they get 70% on mountains and you can use lots of hills around the map and footies to support. Fishes also have 30% on flat, doesnt mean they suck, just they are not supposed to fight from flat.

[ForPeace]

Hello forPeace, this is a very interesting topic! I have recently created a new balance mod, in it are now 17gp Heavy Infantrymen. If you would be okay i will add all the rest of these modifications to my add-on, The Balance Mod. If you say yes i will also make them available in campaign through The Balance Mod Campaign.

(EDIT: i will consider other ideas also to add to the balance mod so please post them at viewtopic.php?f=15&t=44859)

Thanks, these are not all my ideas, so I don't mind. If you want to use them, do it.

[Krogen]

I dont't think making HI more effective vs Knalgans would be a good idea. Simply because Loyal vs Knalga is already one of the worst matchups, if not the worst, where loys have a decisive advantage. HI's use may be limited, it's not the best unit in Default, I agree with that. But making it more effective vs Knalgans would just make it worse for the Knalgans, and it's bad enough already. And in my view: faction balance > unit balance.
Personally I prefer 1-2 HI's vs Knalgans, but it's map dependant too.

[The_Gnat]

I dont't think making HI more effective vs Knalgans would be a good idea. Simply because Loyal vs Knalga is already one of the worst matchups, if not the worst, where loys have a decisive advantage. HI's use may be limited, it's not the best unit in Default, I agree with that. But making it more effective vs Knalgans would just make it worse for the Knalgans, and it's bad enough already. And in my view: faction balance > unit balance.
Personally I prefer 1-2 HI's vs Knalgans, but it's map dependant too.

I agree, that Loyal vs. knalgan is not even, however, the HI is over costly and therefore in general a under rated unit. Changes should be made to the knalgan, however the knalgan's disadvantage should not limit the HI.

What changes do you think should be made to the knalgan? (if you have game play evidence or calculations behind your ideas they would be appreciated also)

[Elder2]

Heavy inf can be used against:
- saurian rush
- ud
- thunderers, thiefs, poachers
- elf fighters
- spears in mirror match up
- grunts
Which means they are usefull against all factions. Still every faction have counter units to heavy inf. Doesnt mean they are useless it just means if you overrecruit them you will get smashed.

Elder you lost to Solymos when you were spamming for 100 rounds mass zombies and he recruited mass dwarves in round 100 . You got outplayed thats it. If you had different units mass dwarfs would not work so effectively. Hown many ghost have you recruited throughout the game? 1? Your game doesnt mean dwarfs are op, it means you got outplayed.

Other thing is: yes its true dwarfs have 30% def at flat like HI but why would you want to fight them from flat if they get 70% on mountains and you can use lots of hills around the map and footies to support. Fishes also have 30% on flat, doesnt mean they suck, just they are not supposed to fight from flat.

Poachers and thunderers is just theory, orcs the same, HI will get poisoned and overwhelmed or smashed by trolls or burned down by archers, while due to its high cost you will have less units so you will be overwhelmed by orcs more easily, mirror matchup is kinda irrelevant. And the rest, well, I did say they are not cost effective, what is there to not understand, sure, they do work but that doesn't mean they are nearly as cost effective as other units. They can work late or middle game when you have enough units but still, even if you recruit them I don't think they would be the best choice since they slow your army down and their performance does not justify the cost. You do not need to overrecruit them to get smashed, if you recruit 1 or 2 early game you will most likely get smashed anyway because they are just inferior to the otehr units in terms of cost-effectiveness, I will repeat it again, if you make HI you weaken your army. So in short: HI is not cost effective maybe except in ud matchup.

Ah, the salty Caritas returns, now talking about my Solymos games, how I was outplayed and that I could have won eg with ghost spam or something, sure, ghost spam is the most smarty and uncounterable tactics vs mass dwarf and if I spammed ghosts I could just rush at the dwarf lines and kill everything with ghosts since they are unkillable, yes? I bet you also think that footpad spam is the best tactics vs ud. This actually amuses me, you were talking how HI shouldn't be spammable and now you suggested spamming one type of unit - ghost.

First, be more precise, show me an actual plan of how I could have attacked the mass fighters, you are not the first one to suggest recruiting ghosts, but just like the first guy - craken, that is all you have to say about that, you do not say how could I have used them to attack, or how vulnerable they are to gryphons and generally units at day, or how expensive they are. Also, just recruit more lvl 1s and then I would be able to attack, right? It is not that simple, and no matter how many more units I would throw at dwarf he would not run out of hp before all my units were dead, no matter if these were lvl 1s or 0s, if dwarf smashed all my lvl1s in the open in the span of 3 turns, during night charging out of his defensive positions and slaughtering all my units - then I do not think that throwing more units at day would have a chance of doing any real damage to dwarf, I wouldn't be able to kill anything and my adepts would just get ulfed speeding up the dwarf lvl ups. The mass corpse, sure, it did die but at least it did not give the dwarf as much xp as it would get if I exchanged the corpses for lvl 1s, dwarf would be able to slaughter its way through all my units like shown in the 3 turns when I lost all my lvl 1s. Also the mass corpse did somehow managed to wear the dwarf down, and I think that killing all these corpses took dwarf more time than if these were lvl 1s.

So like I said, some more constructive criticism please since now you are just throwing catchwords like spam more ghosts, I have said and proven it multiple times how ghosts can die to dwarves, yet some still claim they are uncounterable, also my point about not being able to attack the dwarf still stands, I don't think ghosts can quite take out high defense fighters wall. And I am sure dwarf spam would be just as effective if I recruited different units, however if you disagree - prove it, either by calculations or show a game similiar to my picked ud games vs solymos, however I am afraid you may have a problem with that since I am pretty sure Solymos is the only player who recruits mass fighter vs ud and I havent seen any other mass fighter games vs ud except my ones.

"Other thing is: yes its true dwarfs have 30% def at flat like HI but why would you want to fight them from flat if they get 70% on mountains and you can use lots of hills around the map and footies to support. Fishes also have 30% on flat, doesnt mean they suck, just they are not supposed to fight from flat."

You completely missed my point. Whatever, it doesn't really matter now.

[Elder2]

I dont't think making HI more effective vs Knalgans would be a good idea. Simply because Loyal vs Knalga is already one of the worst matchups, if not the worst, where loys have a decisive advantage. HI's use may be limited, it's not the best unit in Default, I agree with that. But making it more effective vs Knalgans would just make it worse for the Knalgans, and it's bad enough already. And in my view: faction balance > unit balance.
Personally I prefer 1-2 HI's vs Knalgans, but it's map dependant too.

Thats actually a good point, recently I have found out myself how much of an advantage loyalists have, I did not really realize it at the time I was proposing HI buff. Though I am not sure if Buffing HI's cost would make that much of a difference in the matchup, anyway there are better units to buff first than the HI.

[The_Gnat]

I have released in The Balance Mod, modifications to set the Ghost to be only 19 gold and to reduced the Wose's cold resistance to 0% more modifications will be added later.

Download the Addon and The Balance Mod Campaign in order to play these modifications in campaigns also!

Comments are welcome on this thread. Hopefully if enough support is gained for some of these ideas they will go mainline, so tell people!

Also if you are interested in posting other balance ideas that would be great!

[Caritas]

Poachers and thunderers is just theory, orcs the same, HI will get poisoned and overwhelmed or smashed by trolls or burned down by archers, while due to its high cost you will have less units so you will be overwhelmed by orcs more easily, mirror matchup is kinda irrelevant. And the rest, well, I did say they are not cost effective, what is there to not understand, sure, they do work but that doesn't mean they are nearly as cost effective as other units. They can work late or middle game when you have enough units but still, even if you recruit them I don't think they would be the best choice since they slow your army down and their performance does not justify the cost. You do not need to overrecruit them to get smashed, if you recruit 1 or 2 early game you will most likely get smashed anyway because they are just inferior to the otehr units in terms of cost-effectiveness, I will repeat it again, if you make HI you weaken your army. So in short: HI is not cost effective maybe except in ud matchup.

So you agree that they counter grunts, good.

Ah, the salty Caritas returns, now talking about my Solymos games, how I was outplayed and that I could have won eg with ghost spam or something, sure, ghost spam is the most smarty and uncounterable tactics vs mass dwarf and if I spammed ghosts I could just rush at the dwarf lines and kill everything with ghosts since they are unkillable, yes? I bet you also think that footpad spam is the best tactics vs ud. This actually amuses me, you were talking how HI shouldn't be spammable and now you suggested spamming one type of unit - ghost.

You cant rush with ghosts but you can protect your adepts with ghosts.

So like I said, some more constructive criticism please since now you are just throwing catchwords like spam more ghosts

spamming more ghosts is constructive criticism

I have said and proven it multiple times how ghosts can die to dwarves, yet some still claim they are uncounterable

who claims that?

And I am sure dwarf spam would be just as effective if I recruited different units, however if you disagree - prove it, either by calculations or show a game similiar to my picked ud games vs solymos, however I am afraid you may have a problem with that since I am pretty sure Solymos is the only player who recruits mass fighter vs ud and I havent seen any other mass fighter games vs ud except my ones.

He never played full dwarfs vs me cause i was forcing him with ghosts to buy poachers or thiefs.



Other idea for balance change could be nerfing spearmans range dmg by 1 point.

[Oook]

Heh, watched the replay - that wins a prize for most boring Silverhead game I've ever seen

A few thoughts on it:

As you've observed, skellies are not a great counter to dwarf fighters. So when you saw Solymos was recruiting a lot of fighters, why did you recruit mostly skellies? In particular, you had very few adepts early on, which made it very hard for you to put any real pressure on first night. This let the dwarves set up as they wanted - that's one reason first night pressure is important, to cramp your opponent / help dictate their recruits.

I'd certainly have gone for at least a couple of ghosts early on, and more adepts. Ghosts can screen adepts well, and also have some mobility to threaten vills / catch fat dwarves out of position if they're not careful. So I'd have swapped several early skellies for adepts / a ghost or two. Or possibly another ghoul - against massed fighters, a ghoul is a better defender than a skelly. Skellies are not your attacking unit here - that's adepts, with support to keep them alive.

Another problem was the way the gryph pair dominated the centre of the map. Ghosts / possibly skellies could have helped reclaim this space, or at least neutralise the gryphs. (For the record, I don't think ghosts are that vulnerable to gryphs. It would take over 3 rounds of gryph attacks to kill a ghost on average, hardly fragile.) Part of your problem seems to be map based here - it's one of the easier maps to clog up lines of movement (though there are enough that early on you should be able to stretch them thin!), and the way the gryphs dominated the middle meant that knalgans had the mobility advantage, which you can't allow. That's where more ghosts / ghouls and adepts to actually threaten attacks are useful.

Once the banking began, you just recruited corpses and sat there. How about some bats, to limit knalgans mobility? Or if you're recruiting corpses, push forward with them, and make the opponent recruit. The aim would be for them to recruit enough that they have higher upkeep, so they have to attack or concede an advantage.

Do you have any other replays of this matchup with fighter spam? If it's really unstoppably strong, it will soon become apparent. It's interesting to have this flagged up, and I'd be happy to test further with you, but until other strategies than skelly + zombie are tried against it, it's far too early to say it's op.

As for HI - it's not the most useful unit, but that's not a problem. Not all units will be recruited equally, some are core units, others specialists. HI is useful against specific units, and for holding terrain in specific places. In your examples, if it causes knalgans to recruit more footies / fighters, that's great for loys. If orcs recruit trolls, again, that takes the pressure of the rush off - job done. Having one or two of a specialist unit can force your opponent to recruit units that are weak to the rest of your army, hence justifying the cost of your specialist.

[Elder2]

Poachers and thunderers is just theory, orcs the same, HI will get poisoned and overwhelmed or smashed by trolls or burned down by archers, while due to its high cost you will have less units so you will be overwhelmed by orcs more easily, mirror matchup is kinda irrelevant. And the rest, well, I did say they are not cost effective, what is there to not understand, sure, they do work but that doesn't mean they are nearly as cost effective as other units. They can work late or middle game when you have enough units but still, even if you recruit them I don't think they would be the best choice since they slow your army down and their performance does not justify the cost. You do not need to overrecruit them to get smashed, if you recruit 1 or 2 early game you will most likely get smashed anyway because they are just inferior to the otehr units in terms of cost-effectiveness, I will repeat it again, if you make HI you weaken your army. So in short: HI is not cost effective maybe except in ud matchup.

So you agree that they counter grunts, good.

Ah, the salty Caritas returns, now talking about my Solymos games, how I was outplayed and that I could have won eg with ghost spam or something, sure, ghost spam is the most smarty and uncounterable tactics vs mass dwarf and if I spammed ghosts I could just rush at the dwarf lines and kill everything with ghosts since they are unkillable, yes? I bet you also think that footpad spam is the best tactics vs ud. This actually amuses me, you were talking how HI shouldn't be spammable and now you suggested spamming one type of unit - ghost.

You cant rush with ghosts but you can protect your adepts with ghosts.

So like I said, some more constructive criticism please since now you are just throwing catchwords like spam more ghosts

spamming more ghosts is constructive criticism

I have said and proven it multiple times how ghosts can die to dwarves, yet some still claim they are uncounterable

who claims that?

And I am sure dwarf spam would be just as effective if I recruited different units, however if you disagree - prove it, either by calculations or show a game similiar to my picked ud games vs solymos, however I am afraid you may have a problem with that since I am pretty sure Solymos is the only player who recruits mass fighter vs ud and I havent seen any other mass fighter games vs ud except my ones.

He never played full dwarfs vs me cause i was forcing him with ghosts to buy poachers or thiefs.



Other idea for balance change could be nerfing spearmans range dmg by 1 point.

Eh, you still do not understand my point about HI, do you? Whatever, I will drop that, there is no point discussing that anymore.

Ehm, how can I protect my adepts with ghost when I attack dwarf wall? or fail to attack? And do you think that is really feasible with how much they costs, gryphs etc?

No, it is not.

I do not think I should or need to answer that question.

[Elder2]

Heh, watched the replay - that wins a prize for most boring Silverhead game I've ever seen

A few thoughts on it:

As you've observed, skellies are not a great counter to dwarf fighters. So when you saw Solymos was recruiting a lot of fighters, why did you recruit mostly skellies? In particular, you had very few adepts early on, which made it very hard for you to put any real pressure on first night. This let the dwarves set up as they wanted - that's one reason first night pressure is important, to cramp your opponent / help dictate their recruits.

I'd certainly have gone for at least a couple of ghosts early on, and more adepts. Ghosts can screen adepts well, and also have some mobility to threaten vills / catch fat dwarves out of position if they're not careful. So I'd have swapped several early skellies for adepts / a ghost or two. Or possibly another ghoul - against massed fighters, a ghoul is a better defender than a skelly. Skellies are not your attacking unit here - that's adepts, with support to keep them alive.

Another problem was the way the gryph pair dominated the centre of the map. Ghosts / possibly skellies could have helped reclaim this space, or at least neutralise the gryphs. (For the record, I don't think ghosts are that vulnerable to gryphs. It would take over 3 rounds of gryph attacks to kill a ghost on average, hardly fragile.) Part of your problem seems to be map based here - it's one of the easier maps to clog up lines of movement (though there are enough that early on you should be able to stretch them thin!), and the way the gryphs dominated the middle meant that knalgans had the mobility advantage, which you can't allow. That's where more ghosts / ghouls and adepts to actually threaten attacks are useful.

Once the banking began, you just recruited corpses and sat there. How about some bats, to limit knalgans mobility? Or if you're recruiting corpses, push forward with them, and make the opponent recruit. The aim would be for them to recruit enough that they have higher upkeep, so they have to attack or concede an advantage.

Do you have any other replays of this matchup with fighter spam? If it's really unstoppably strong, it will soon become apparent. It's interesting to have this flagged up, and I'd be happy to test further with you, but until other strategies than skelly + zombie are tried against it, it's far too early to say it's op.

As for HI - it's not the most useful unit, but that's not a problem. Not all units will be recruited equally, some are core units, others specialists. HI is useful against specific units, and for holding terrain in specific places. In your examples, if it causes knalgans to recruit more footies / fighters, that's great for loys. If orcs recruit trolls, again, that takes the pressure of the rush off - job done. Having one or two of a specialist unit can force your opponent to recruit units that are weak to the rest of your army, hence justifying the cost of your specialist.

Ehm, because skellies are the only unit that makes it possible for me to hold villages when dwarf blob with ulfs comes to attack them. Also, I do not think they are a bad counter to fighters, they are decent and in many ways perform better than ghosts, but still, fighters are superior.

I think I had 2 adepts early, I do not even need 3 adepts early on, 2 is enough to rush, yet it is not possible to rush vs like 4 fighters and leader without losing a lot of units. And I did try to put pressure, but zou think dwarf cares about that? It camps anyway.

I know what first night pressure is, but does that mean rushing vs fighters and leader? Also, I am pretty sure as soon as I came close to these mass fighters and leader they would attack me since that is how Sol plays and how you can and should play in this matchup as mass fighter, you see, in these 3 turns at the end of the game when I lost my units I did not even attacked the dwarf line, in case you haven't noticed dwarf just took a walk out of his defensive lines, attacked me during second night on flat AND STILL WON DECISIVELY, now, doesn't that prove something? I feel like that if I came near the dwarf line I would get rushed down because fighters don't care about your units as ud. Once when I played on silverhead crossing vs Horus in that exactly same matchup, I could just rush him as soon as he came near my lines and into my footpads and fighters range, and there wasn othing he could do.

If I got ghosts I probably would get actually less cover for my adepts as they are significantly more expensive, and sure, they do work at night but at day they are vulnerable to ulfs, you see, I expected mass fighters from her and so I knew I would have little chance of attacking, to kill a fighter I would need 4/4 from the 2 adepts (2 adepts are pretty much expected to deal 33 dmg to a dwarf, that isn ot enough to kill any dwarf fighter) and if it is healthy and resilient even that wouldn't suffice, and if I got 3 adepts I wouldnt have enough cover and even assuming that she wouldn't have guard in the village and I would be able to attack then all my adepts would die shortly after, there was no chance to rush. So since there was no chance to rush I knew ghosts wouldn't be able to hold villages at day so recruiting them was just too risky, skelletons are just superior cover for adepts compared to ghosts, they deal more damage, cost less, are more resilient, ghosts' drain on the other hand doesn't work vs dwarves during day (1 hp drain is nothing) and so they are rather useless for their cost.

Also, ghosts die to gryphons, sure, it may take a few turns for them to kill ghosts, but ghosts certainly wouldn't be able to kill gryphons faster than gryphs would be able to kill them, and I think that the main problem with trying to reclaim middle with ghosts is that they would easily get surrounded on water and die, doing nothing, isn't that true? ghost generally is not a unit that can solo fight other units, especially gryphons with their defense and that 7 dmg vs ghosts when strong.

And I think I have touched on the matter of overwhelming or outmaneuvering dwarf before, with ud, probably the second slowest faction in the game you can not do that, you are not orc who has number advantage, ud units cost just as much or more than dwarf fighters, and if dwarf is not stupid, why would he move out of his lines and attack too early before he will form an invincible blob like sol did (actually pretty quickly)

Yes, I think map was an issue but from my experience - really, dwarf fighter spam can work on any map vs ud, ud just doesn't have the speed to exploit dwarf immobility and doesn't have the numbers to overwhelm it, and its units are too fragile and easy to kill on their own. Also rushing ghosts is not an option since they are slower than dwarf scouts and expensive, all it takes to neutralise them is to isolate them and kill (I remember one game on cansuan when I tried ghost rush as ud vs dwarf, it ended horribly, I think ud just has no chance on that map)

Bats are just pointless, gryphs would slaughter anything I would send over water, ghosts, bats, no matter, also it is not like I could even have a chance to spam enough ghosts to try to retake middle, if I did dwarf would roll over me on the flank.

Spamming zombies might have not been the best option but what could I do if dwarf slaughters anything on flat, just its that ud has no unit that would be able to outperform or stand against mass fighters + ulfs, really, ghost dies at day to ulfs or at night to poachers, skellies will eventually die to fighters and adepts just underperform, they have a really hard time killing fighters.

At the end sol recruited so many she had negative upkeep, sure, I could have waited like 50 turns more and then maybe with an army twice or thrice as big as hers I would have a chance to wear dwarf down and break through, but even that is questionable seeing how fighters didn't even need any good defence to slaughter my units. But At that point I dodn't want to wait another 50 turns, it is just something that shouldn't happen, I don't think that is how wesnoth games should look, waiting 150 turns for one faction to have a chance of winning, it is just too crazy. And honestly, if I was sol I would just force through my village defences, sacrifice like 1 or more ulfs to take my villages, then I would have no chance of taking them back, actually she could have continued attacking and just completely take one side, I am not sure why she did not do that (maybe she would if I haven't atatckes shortly after she unbanked), I would, its an easy win even though at first you will lose an unit.

It reminds me of one of my early games, it was also vs Sol but at that time I wasn't picking ud yet, it was ud vs mass wose elf, I had no idea how to counter woses at that time so I went for the long game and had like 10 adepts and 20+ zombies on den of onis, every time she came for my villages I just send zombies forth to try to force an prolonged engangement so I would wait till night to have a chance of killing the woses. But she just played too smart, she was killing my corpses for like 1 turn and then retreated, even though I had economy advantage I had no chance of winning that, I think a similiar would have a chance of happening in that 100 turn game if I waited some more. I think that with big enough enemy blob ud zombies economy advantage isn't just strong enough to win you the game.

About the replays, I will look for some.

[Elder2]

I will include the replays in the separate post (I hope mods don't mind)

The picked ud games vs Sol picked dwarf clad games I lost:

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A56%3A32

This is the 100 turn game we were talking about. I put it here so it is easier to find.

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A12%3A43

This one kind of doesn't count as I got very unlucky and a bit outplayed since I didn't really know how to play on Hornshark as ud, but still, it shows how hard dwarves can destroy ud.

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A16%3A58

This is a good example, a long game, I think it was pretty close though I felt like it was so hard to play vs mass dwarf and that fighters were unbalanced, one mistake would doom me in that game and it did, I got unlucky and leaderkilled though I think I would have a good chance of winning that one if I didn't. That game convinced me of deathblade fragility and hence lack of usefulness, and it was when I decided to switch my leader to dark sorcerer, DS is much less fragile andm ore useful because of its ranged magical attack though it has 5 mp, it is the most tanky lvl 2 mage in the game with its 48 hp. Now I think it is the best ud leader contrary to the popular opinion that deathblade is.

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A49%3A41

This one was close, I would win it if I hadn't panicked and send too many units to the left side and leave the right side undefended, If I got unlucky on the left then the additional units would have helped but I didn't. You see, I need so many units to defend compared to what dwarf needs to attack me and its chance, if I get unlucky and lose villages I am dead. Also dwarf has better mobility than I do, ghosts would weaken my defensive capabilities because of how expensive they are and at day they are just too weak.

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A07%3A00

This is the last one (actually I think the first one I played and lost, I put them here in inversed order). Dwarves just slaughter all my units on flat on ruined passage, and clad proves to be unkillable and prob won dwarves the game with that flat skelleton kill. I attacked at second watch because I felt like If I didn't clad would wipe me out anyway, with its 17-2 attack my village skelletons, though resistant to ulfs and fighters would be easily destroyed. And If I game ground, well I couldn't really give ground, dwarf would then prob be able to even take the castle next to me and threaten my rear, also I do not think I would be able to retake these villages vs such dwarf blob.

Now for the won ones, there is only one here, this one:

http://wesnoth.gamingladder.info/gamede ... %3A31%3A09

Sol made a mistake here so I was able to outplay her, she went too agressive, also she had too much hodor which dies easily and has low damage compared to unkillable dwarves doing tons of damage.