Leadership is overpowered!

[Elvish_Pillager]

The ability, leadership. It's way too powerful. You can take a level 3 leader, and fwoosh! Half your army is half again as powerful. If you have enough money for an army, recruiting a level 3 general can be worth well more than 100 gold, which is about twice as much as any other unit in the game.

In campaigns, you practically *need* to have leader units. If you don't, you aren't immediately screwed, but your play is crippled; you have to be stronger in other ways, but there's no way an Elvish Champion can make up for not having your first Elvish Marshal.

The key problem here is that the leaders multiply the army's power, instead of increasing it linearly, as all other units do. Even curers, who could only help 6 units at a time anyway, had to be balanced by putting a cap on the total healing they could give.

So does this mean that a leader should only lead a certain number of units per turn? No way! That's a confusing and anti-KISS solution[1], but I'm not sure what can be done.

At the very least, the absurd 50% bonus should be cut back on...


[1] as was, IMO, the healing/curing solution...

[Jose Luis]

Instead, in a campaign game, a unit with leadership is almost useless. After two or three scenarios, your units have the same level as the leader. Maybe a more balanced could be like:

+60% to more than two level diference units
+40% to 2 level diference units
+20% to 1 level diference units
+10% to same leavel units

I think on that way its worth to move the leader to the front, but it also worth that your units increased its level. In the original way, 1 level units could be much powerfull than 3 level ones!

[dtw]

Instead, in a campaign game, a unit with leadership is almost useless. After two or three scenarios, your units have the same level as the leader.

That's total crap - worth pointing out

[Yogibear]

So does this mean that a leader should only lead a certain number of units per turn? No way! That's a confusing and anti-KISS solution[1], but I'm not sure what can be done.

At first i had no idea, what can be done with a leader within on single turn:
- move to give leadership to two units
- move onto the keep and recruit new units
- move to give leadership to a third unit
- go and attack an enemy (if still movement left)

I had to watch others doing this to even think of it being possible. Why not couple leadership and movement, just like attack and movement? So every time leadership is given the leader loses all movement points. Seems a lot more balanced to me.

And yes, 50% bonus feels way too much. Maybe that should be reduced to 25% as well.

[Jose Luis]

So does this mean that a leader should only lead a certain number of units per turn? No way! That's a confusing and anti-KISS solution[1], but I'm not sure what can be done.

At first i had no idea, what can be done with a leader within on single turn:
- move to give leadership to two units
- move onto the keep and recruit new units
- move to give leadership to a third unit
- go and attack an enemy (if still movement left)

I had to watch others doing this to even think of it being possible. Why not couple leadership and movement, just like attack and movement? So every time leadership is given the leader loses all movement points. Seems a lot more balanced to me.

And yes, 50% bonus feels way too much. Maybe that should be reduced to 25% as well.

I think previous description is pure strategy. Why to limit imagination? (Note that the same could be said about Light Mage aura) About the bonus, I agree with you.

[scott]

I think it's fine. Leadership is hard enough for new players to use as an indirect benefit, and it is very localized as stated above - the unit's movement is a natural cap.

Having leadership cost 1 MP is an elegant way to put a tighter cap on it, but it doesn't account for leadership during defending.

Or, leadership could only work on offense.

However, I do not support my 2 ideas above since I think it's fine the way it is.


EDIT: I think this might be a forum first - I shoot down an idea that I proposed myself in the same post. Eat your heart out, Turin.

[Noyga]

We could make it work in the same way as healing : leadership would have a fixed amount of bonus that is distributed to units. With more units, the bonus would be less powerfull per unit.

[Darth Fool]

I think it's fine. Leadership is hard enough for new players to use as an indirect benefit, and it is very localized as stated above - the unit's movement is a natural cap.

Having leadership cost 1 MP is an elegant way to put a tighter cap on it, but it doesn't account for leadership during defending.

Or, leadership could only work on offense.

However, I do not support my 2 ideas above since I think it's fine the way it is.

I agree. I would point out that leadership on defending is not really overpowered, since you don't get to move the leader around, and the attacker gets to choose who to attack. In fact if leadership is overpowered, I would make it work only on defense, not on offense. But, I don't really think it is overpowered. Yeah, the first unit you want to level up is an elvish captain, and maybe even the second, but you don't need 10 of them, so i wouldn't change anything.

[turin]

I think it is true that leadership's damage-adding is a bit too much. A 4th level leading a 0th level should not give it +100%. (This situation can indeed occur).

IMHO, the best solution is for it to cost one movement point, and have it free on defense.

[Elvish_Pillager]

I think that no suggestion has been much decent so far.

Taking moves would be very nonintuitive. Abilities should not snatch movement points from units one square from the combat, and you could even want to manuver a leader out of the way to preserve his moves! It would cause even more micro-move-management than Leadership entails already, since you might actually NOT WANT a unit to be led.

Decreasing the bonus would just make them underpowered instead. It wouldn't solve the underlying problem.

Using the solution used for heals/cures is nonintuitive and anti-KISS, as it is for heals/cures itself. It's also even worse, since it again has the problem of wanting not to lead units sometimes...

Having leadership only on defense would completely change the ability (which is good), but it would also completely change the ability (which is bad). It would leave us in a better state than now, but it seems a bit disappointing solution...

[Beleth]

Perhaps leadership could provide +25% damage to units of a lower level no matter how much lower they are? A level 3 General would give +25% to a level 2 Pikeman and a level 0 Peasant just the same.

This wouldn't completely change leadership, would simplify its usage, and would cover the +50% or more abuses. And it's KISS compliant.

[Dave]

I'm dubious as to whether it's overpowered or an issue.

It was changed a long time ago -- I think over a year -- with lots of support. People have played with it without complaint since then, and all of a sudden someone thinks it's overpowered?

David

[Dragonking]

I don't think it is overpowered.
To use it, you often have to risk your leader. Also you cannot recruit when you are far from keep - and usually you ned 2-3+ turns to reach batlefield, so it is really short help, after which you need to quickly go back to keep to recruit (or enemy will have chance to outnumber you).

Yes, it's true that lvl3 makes lvl1 units 50% better if we talk about imflicting damage (well - it doesn't make this whole unit 50% better - hp, resistances and defence doesn't change).

The ability, leadership. It's way too powerful. You can take a level 3 leader, and fwoosh!

But you need to get first level 3 leader
In MP you can get it in AoH as leader - but still enemy has lvl3 leader too, which can have special abilites as well. You can recruit there units with leadership - but they are lvl2 - so only one level of diffrence between them and lvl1.
About campaigns... I see often advices like "You need to go back repeat previous scenarios to level XX units or you won't win" - I think that shows that high level unit will worke better than low level with leadership (and that is obvious). Of course - you said that those lvl3 (or 4) units with leadership can help a lot. But I don't see problem when there is 1) less diffrence in level between units in campaigns - quite important thing - it's not like unit with leadership would use his 50%> all the time and 2) campaigns are considered by many people as too hard - so why make it more difficult?

Also please tell me where recruiting lvl3 unit with leadership is possible? I assume in some campaigns..

I have really no problem with current leadership ability.

[Jetrel]

And besides the point, there's just something about leading a grand knight, during the day, in a charge against a drake burner, that I don't want to lose.


Having a high-level leadership unit is basically a choice - you can either get enough leader units such that you can lead all of your level-1 units in combat, making them better (and often, you can't use the level-3 leader when doing so, if the entire front line is taken up by level-1s), or, you can get level-3 units that are significantly better at combat. It's not a huge difference, but an elvish army composed of, say, 5 champions, will be at an advantage against an army composed of ... 3 champions and 2 marshals. The point is that it's not practical to get more than one or two leaders, yet at least one is extremely important.

I think the winning stroke for leadership is that it strongly encourages the use of low-level units, which is usually counterintuitive for players.

------

The real essence of leadership is as a racial strength. Because of the creature's nature, it is willing to put its ass on the line based simply on a superior's orders. Wise and/or well-reasoning races like humans, elves, drakes, (and dwarves) deserve leadership. Races that lead by fear and intimidation, are unintelligent, or which have little sense of selflessness (orcs, saurians, naga) are not capable of effective, on the spot tactical command.

Orc Lord Knafa says to his goblin underling "HOLD THE LINE!" Goblin thinks "I'm gonna die." Goblin runs.

Elf Lord Kenafel says to his troops "Aim for the drake's unarmored neck!" Drake collects arrows.


Races which lack leadership either have, or should have, other strengths to counter leadership.

------

This said, you may be suggesting that leadership makes high-level units too weak by comparison to led low-level units, even in "elf vs. elf" fights. Personally, as long as the level-3's still do more damage than a low level unit being led to an equivalent level (L1 led by L3 = "false L3" ), it's fine (keep in mind how much more powerful the level-3 is in other respects).

Sure, it means that level-1s get a lot of traffic on the battlefield, but that's a good thing. A characteristic of wesnoth combat is that the player, to be good, must hire a bunch of low level troops to complement his "heroes".


When it comes down to it, I think that leadership is a fundamentally important part of certain factions - it is powerful enough, and should be powerful enough, that a player must have it if he can.

It's like poison for orcs, or mages/horsemen for humans. Yeah, you could fight without them, but you'd really be handicapping yourself, and I think that it is good to have that as a game element.

[Elvish_Pillager]

I'm dubious as to whether it's overpowered or an issue.

It was changed a long time ago -- I think over a year -- with lots of support. People have played with it without complaint since then, and all of a sudden someone thinks it's overpowered?

David

Not all of a sudden. I've thought that Leadership was overpowered for a long time, but I figured that if I mentioned it before 1.0 came out, I would just be told "It's been established for too long, it would unbalance things to remove it."

Jetryl makes a good case for keeping Leadership, which isn't what I was against. It's just that the current way it works is so different from all other Wesnoth abilities.

In theory, a General can give +50% to the attacks of 25 units in one turn, even assuming that none of those units die. Realistically, a well handled general can lead almost your entire army. At about 8 additional damage per unit, it can cause about twice as much damage to the enemy as any other level 3 unit, and given that it takes less damage in doing so, it can go on to lead turn after turn. With no Elvish Marshals to begin with, three Champions for a Marshal would be a good trade in HttT.

On the other hand,

• The only other ability that can effect that many units - Cures - can heal six units for three damage each.
• The only other ability that has such an unprecedent effect - Teleport - can't turn the tide of a battle, and has many restrictions.
• The only other ability that can cause that much extra damage - Berserk - looks like it won't have that effect much longer.

Besides the impracticalities, what do you all think of Leadership allowing only 1 unit to be led per turn?