Imperial Multiplayer Era - version 0.17 released

[Wolfox]

Hi,

couldn`t read all of the thread, so sorry, if i say something second time.

I loaded the "All factions ERA" and i like to play the Lavinian Legion.
But i had some terrible experience ...

I play three times, one times vs a elf, a desert elf and humans.

And all three times i were beaten ...

In the game vs the elfs, i lost because my enemie could produce a lot of elf fighters, i tryed to counter with a combination of aux and legs ... but i had no chance.

A elf fighter costs 14 Gold.
A Aux 13 Gold and a leg 19 Gold.

So my enemies produces more elf fighters, than i romans and every fighter of him was stronger than my units, because he has range and melee attack with higher damage.
I lost unit after unit and were overruned by elf fighter and couldn`t do something.

So i ask, if it is possible to reduce the costs for aux or legs, they are to expensive, i think.

and my second problem: Why my Legs defend with the one shield attack instead of their gladius ? o0

[unsung]

Using the legion is hard, I'll admit.


The shield does more damage than the gladius overall, since it has one attack- compared to the three of the gladius. sure, if all of them hit, it does more, but if less hit, then the shield would've done more.



I can't write much about using them-The AI is the only person I can rely on to have it installed- but generally, using formations actually is usefull. decurions should stick with legionares and auxilaries, and the signifier should stay around levelled up units, with legionares in front. if you have propugnators or praetoriens, put them in front, and don't attack with them unless it's day.



I had a screenshot of them in a formation somewhere....

Overall, you'll be much more effective on the defensive with most enemies. This might not apll y to elves with their ranged attacks though... and stay on the plains. Avoid any terrain where they get a defensive advantage, like the forest or castles.

[Wolfox]

The mainproblem is, that you have to get this level 2 units fisrt.
And thats really hard, because they are expensive and damage is not really good.

Even if you have a defense tactic, you will be overwhelmed by a hords of elffighters.

Example: Starting Gold = 100

Legion can recruite ruthly 5 Legions ...
The elf can recruite ruthly 7 elffighters ...

The elffighters are two guys more and have higher damage. Hitpoints are ruthly the same.

You need a lot of luck to hold against such a "horde" and in 9 of 10 situations you will lose against them.

[Cuyo Quiz]

I think the shield does that damage so it WILL be used for defense. Wasn't there some code patch that alowed to set the preference for an attack on defense?.

But yeah, with Legions being so costly, putting them in the right places and slowing the right units is a heavy task. But hey, Legions shouldn't kick at the skirmish level of Wesnoth.

[Wolfox]

It would be enough to reduce the cost at least of 1 or 2.
Or increase the sword damage 1 or 2.

[turin]

I'm open to increasing the gladius damage 1-2, but the cost needs to remain high to keep with the faction's character.

A Siege Archer unit will be added next version. It will have low attack, but steadfast, and relatively high health. It will probably cost around 17 gold. Any stats suggestions about it are welcome.

[Wolfox]

Hmm .. okay, i would think that should be solve this problem.

Siege Archer:

Good defense vs range attacks from other archers
Bad defense against rest.

Attack like a normal archer from the humas ?

[Cuyo Quiz]

The idea for the ability that gives extra defense vs ranged or melee is there... and it would be oh so fitting.

[unsung]

0.7.2: Kedari now get names.

How about Marauders and Gentes Orcorum (aka, Arena Orcs) destroy them both?

I like this idea( as much as I can when it relates to the empires fall ) but if this was the explanation, you may want something about them descedning into bloody innfighting over captured land or something, unles youw ant the factions to become full blown empires themselves.

[Chris Byler]

My impressions as of 0.7.2:

Legionnaire: Great. I love the way these guys work together and their branched upgrades. Combination of resistance and slow makes them a lot tougher than they look - in particular, they slow archers/mages on counterattack pretty often. I don't think they need any improvement, even at a high cost.

Auxiliary: Not much stronger than other level 0s (except WC), so why is he so expensive (as much as a thief, which has the same attack with backstab and elusivefoot defenses)? The level ups are good, but I'd lower him to about 11 gold. (Can he fight two WCs alone? I doubt it) You have to pay experience for the level ups, so you should get a break on the gold. Having him and the WC give the same experience is rather unfair, but that's the granularity of the level system.

Nemidian: Has no name or traits, I assume that's a bug. Aside from that, his ranged attack is very weak, and charge is much weaker when it's a larger number of smaller strikes and the unit is neutral (both of which make it harder to kill a unit before it can hit back, which is the only way Horsemen survive). As it stands it's inferior to the elvish scout in practically every way. Cheaper or stronger. I know he's not meant to be the main strength of the faction, but they're going to need him on big maps - needs to be able to fight gryphons etc., if not man-for-man, at least gold-for-gold, or they're going to be at a crushing disadvantage before the legionnaires can even reach the enemy.


Aragwaith: Haven't played enough of them to be sure that their HP are really low enough to balance such strong attacks on such cheap units. They have a couple graphics bugs, the scout teleports when he moves and several units disappear when they are being attacked. If you think that Wesnoth is too luck dependent with too fragile, high damage units already, you'll hate the Aragwaith, both to use and to fight against. Aragwaith vs anyone is a bloodbath, Aragwaith vs Aragwaith would be insane.


Marauders: The scout is useless. His attack is a full 25% weaker than the warrior *and* less hp for only one movement point, so why does he cost the same? He'd be decent at 14, maybe (that's the same cost as an elvish fighter which does 20/9 damage compared to the scout's 18/0). As it is I'd prefer to recruit a bunch of warriors and just scout with the quick ones. They're stronger, tougher and just as fast. In a faction where the foot moves faster than average, a scout that's slower than other factions' scouts (and barely faster than its own main-line fighters) just doesn't make sense. More cost differentiation between him and warrior (which should probably come at both ends) might promote him as a flanker, village grabber etc.

Axeman is a different alignment, is that intentional? There doesn't seem to be any reason for it unlike some other different-alignment units in the era - he certainly looks like the same race as the others. Having a different-alignment unit is fine, but only if it makes sense; not every faction should have them. Stats seem ok.

Warrior probably needs to be more expensive. 24 damage (28 strong!) is a lot for L1 even with no secondary attack and he seems to have good survivability too. Compare the grunt, the cost difference seems too small for the performance difference (both are from factions that are supposed to have melee as their strength). Might consider changing him to 8-3 to reduce the impact of strong (and differentiate him more from the Aragwaith Swordman and every other 4-swing swordsman in the game).

Can't say much about the berserk guy (mauler?). Like the ulf he is expensive and vulnerable to most melee units, but that's a necessary balance factor for the strength of berserk.


Kedari: Interesting ideas, and the only faction in the era that isn't melee specialists, but I think they need some work. They're a bit of a hodgepodge and some units aren't appropriate cost/stats either. In the course of writing a longer list of detailed comments, I came up with an idea that made a lot of them irrelevant:

I think the Kedari really should be two factions: one of nomadic tribesmen (ifrit, camel, sufi, maybe some kind of tribesman/hunter type on foot - if the Ragel is kept, possibly the new mainline advancement, with the Sufi staying a branch; all lawful but the ifrit) and one sultans and empires faction (footman, hashishin, raider, maybe eunuch although eunuchs in the military with firebombs don't make sense). There's just too much stuff crammed together. A lot of the faction's problems (2 cavalry, 2 fire attackers, all alignments at once, Ragel gluing together unrelated trees to avoid "too many" L1s) go away if you split them. You could potentially even add another unit or two (janissary as a L0 for the sultans?) if you were working with two factions. The middle east is too big and offers too much inspiration to squeeze it all into one faction.


Overall the era gives the strong impression that each faction was designed by a different person (or in the case of the Kedari, perhaps several people) with different philosophies on unit cost. The factions feel different but they don't feel balanced, primarily because of the cost issues. I think a point-by-point comparison to a few benchmark units (like the standard ones) would help get the costs more in line. Definitely has good potential though.

[Wolfox]

Good post.


But one thing is funny.

With the Lavina legion, i losed maybe every second match.

But against Aragwaith, AI or human, i won all the time.
I would say, that they are ok, because they have to recruit diffrent units for diffrent actions.
Most other factions have units with range and melee ... the Aragwaith (mostly) not.

[JW]

Chris, I pretty much had the same feelings as everything you said. I haven't played the Kedari but once however, so I'm not so familiar with them as you seem to be.

Good assesment. Especially the fact that the auxilliary is quite overpriced.

[turin]

Thanks for the feedback. That's the kind of balancing suggestions we want... almost all of them I implemented.

I'm going to release v. 0.8 of the imperial era soon, today hopefully.

[specops]

I think that the Aragwaith actually have too low HP—they are incredibly hard to keep alive. I realize that that's the point of the faction—but I'd reccommend increasing their HP by about 3 points each. It's also sort of weird that a strong Archer is better with its knife attack than its bow, but I get that that's what makes the Aragwaith.

With Kedari, I think the Ifrit is overpowering—6-3 magical fire attack? That's nearly as good as the mage, except when you factor in the resistances, movement, and better melee attack—all these mean that he's ridiculously strong. That and a 8(?)-4 melee attack on level 3 is too strong. And I don't know why, but the Kedari AI often refuses to recruit any units.

[Chris Byler]

The Aragwaith *are* hard to keep alive, but so is anyone else on the same battlefield with them. 6-4 for 14 gold? This is a MP era, you can accept a higher level of casualties than a campaign as long as you are doing enough damage. (Playing a campaign as *or* against the Aragwaith would be very challenging.)

The Ifrit is very strong, but also one of the most interesting units around. Like all units that rely on resistance, poison is very effective against it; leadership and a favorable time of day also help a lot (although it's hard to get a favorable time of day against a fast flyer).

I should perhaps clarify that I didn't examine all the level-ups in detail, my comments are mostly about the recruitable-level units except where specifically mentioned. The power progression from level to level might still need additional examination.

And the idea of splitting the Kedari doesn't mean I think nothing else is wrong with them, but rather, that if they are going to be split at all they should be split first and balanced after, because it might affect which direction to tweak them in. (e.g. if the Ifrit is too strong, should it be more expensive, less damaging or more vulnerable? Any of those could balance the unit against others, but they would feel quite different.)

But I don't want to get into detailed modifications if someone else is still working on/maintaining them - offering general suggestions is one thing and meddling in their work is quite another. I just think they're overlarge as a faction, lack thematic and gameplay consistency, and would be more interesting as two separate and more individually focused factions.

Looking forward to trying out the next version of the era.