Khalifate gameplay thread (feedback on balance and bugs)

[DrakeKing]

From a drake standpoint I think Jundi getting -10% to cold is much much more important then the Hakim (not that I think its bad the Hakim has it its Just the Jundi is such a durable defensive unit that is impossible for drakes to attack) I think a small change like this would do wonders for the drakes!

*Edit* also to whomever it was who asked how to get Khalifate its on the add ons server just type "Khalifate" in the add on filter and the add on will pop up. If you have any further question as to how to get to the add on or are still having trouble finding it you can PM me.

[AlaskanAvenger]

Played vs Skrim as drakes with him as khalifate and then vice versa.. unfortunately I doubt either battle will be of too much use as they ended fairly quickly

2p_-_Weldyn_Channel_replay.gz

(13.33 KiB) Downloaded 177 times

2p_-_Den_of_Onis_replay.gz

(11.72 KiB) Downloaded 202 times

[Madlok]

Why are all the replays in this thread do not work (on 1.96)?

All replays posted so far are from the 1.8 addon, as it came out somewhat before 1.9.6. For the time being I think it will be more useful to play the addon for balancing because I can tweak it much faster. Hopefully we can get to the point where things are more balanced by the next development release.

But the addon doesn't include recent changes (especially footpad -1 impact damage).

[Scatha]

Given the continued 'falcons too strong' problem (to be fair I don't know if this still the case in 1.0 -- or shouldn't that be 0.10?) , here is a suggestion which might be of help in weakening them a little while also making them more distinct in character from bats:

Drop falcons to 7MP (as I believe they were originally), and give the movement point to the Rami instead (as I believe the faction needs an 8MP unit, and it would help make the Rami, which doesn't seem to be a particularly strong unit at present, feel less like "just another archer".

This might be not at all what's wanted, but I thought I should throw it out there. Falcons would still have some use as cheap scouts, but wouldn't excel so much in that role -- as a consequence they could be more aggressively costed for their combat stats, which would help promote their role as a finisher and in water control.


Two more small, mostly perpendicular comments:

- Falcons are very easy to level -- see my replays for how often I levelled falcons. The combination of high speed and a choice between 12-1 and 3-3 attacks means they are very good at finishing units, and they only need 2 kills to level. Other level 0s mostly level with two kills, but don't collect the kills quite so readily. Walking Corpses take 17xp to level. Perhaps Falcons could move up to about 18? This would just make it a little less fast to level up, but I imagine that it would still happen quite a bit. On the other hand, perhaps being very easy to level is intended as part of the unit's character?

- If the Naffat's melee attack is a flamethrower (which is my understanding from the images from that unit line), should it really be able to get the strong trait?

[tekelili]

- Falcons are very easy to level --

I dont have a defined opinion here, but really I wonder if low xp on flacons is working for Khalifa or for his oponent. Playing khalifa I am not too sure I would want starting paying 1 gold each turn for such little improvement

[Colouredbox]

Given the continued 'falcons too strong' problem (to be fair I don't know if this still the case in 1.0 -- or shouldn't that be 0.10?) , here is a suggestion which might be of help in weakening them a little while also making them more distinct in character from bats:

Drop falcons to 7MP (as I believe they were originally), and give the movement point to the Rami instead (as I believe the faction needs an 8MP unit, and it would help make the Rami, which doesn't seem to be a particularly strong unit at present, feel less like "just another archer".

This might be not at all what's wanted, but I thought I should throw it out there. Falcons would still have some use as cheap scouts, but wouldn't excel so much in that role -- as a consequence they could be more aggressively costed for their combat stats, which would help promote their role as a finisher and in water control.


Two more small, mostly perpendicular comments:

- Falcons are very easy to level -- see my replays for how often I levelled falcons. The combination of high speed and a choice between 12-1 and 3-3 attacks means they are very good at finishing units, and they only need 2 kills to level. Other level 0s mostly level with two kills, but don't collect the kills quite so readily. Walking Corpses take 17xp to level. Perhaps Falcons could move up to about 18? This would just make it a little less fast to level up, but I imagine that it would still happen quite a bit. On the other hand, perhaps being very easy to level is intended as part of the unit's character?

- If the Naffat's melee attack is a flamethrower (which is my understanding from the images from that unit line), should it really be able to get the strong trait?

I really like that idea.
Also I prefer this even more if falcons won't get traits, because 9 movement unit can be needed sometimes.

I like the XP requiment increasement to falcons too.
Of course Naffat's should be able to get strong, you need strong arms to aim the heavy flamethower for maximum damage. Also flavour etc.

[The Black Sword]

I think this is going to lure me back to play some games this weekend.
I'll probably restrict myself to those water maps and hopefully I'll be able to give some proper feedback.

I just wanted to point out that a 7mp falcon makes the whole "scout the water with flying unit and block threats to land" strategy more difficult. If you're still worried about the Khalifa's ability with water it probably wouldn't be a good change.

[tekelili]

I played other game as elf vs khalifa to see if I was right. This time tried to push hard with elves at night to see how they manage. No best game ever for any side, but still productive to see how factions work. At least this game proves shamans are really good in this match up. My thought that khalifa has hard time to attack here becomed stronger. He needs some naffat for sure. But if want really threat elf at day also need other expensive units that makes elf outnumber him and have easy deal on defense. My main conclusion is khalifa is suffering a severe army inefeciency, where units dont work very well together and may becomed useless when suffer loses and are alone from other kind of units. For elf player, looks easy recruit and keep army efficiency when has loses. You just need a mix of your units (but mages, wich I dont see for this match up), with fighters as main force. If some of your fighters support (woses, shamns or archers) die, you still can manage it.

Game was posponed at turn 14, if we keep it, then I will replace replay.

Edit: I wonder if what really happens here, is that elf player if facing for first time a faction wich his main cheap infantry unit, is unable to deal more damage at his own tod than elf fighter (jundi). Speramen, grunts, drake fighters, dwarf fighters/thieves, skulls/da make their factions able to concentrate more damage on elves at their right tod for a reasonable cost. Khalifa player has to use 18 and 19 gold units to try be meaningfull in concentrate damage at his own tod.

[Horus2]

Version 0.8 out.

Changelog:

*** Version 0.8 ***
Changed Khaiyal movetype (and thus also resists) from armored to regular horse (IE same as rami).

Didn't anyone notice yet this makes no sense at all?
This is obviously a mistake due to tiredness. Please give back the previous resistances to the Khaiyal.
He is the armored horseman, the impact resistant guy in the team. He has an important role of defending against mass impact spams, thus making matchup smarter and not like: "troll troll troll troll troll". Furthermore Khalifate is now helpless against mass trolls, i just found a northie vs khal match going and what i see is verifying my thoughts.

Besides that i still suggest to give pierce vulnerabiliy to the khaiyal, for the same reason: more kind of units will come into play that way, f.e. goblins in the northeners line.

[AlaskanAvenger]

A unit that has horse resists and hitpoints and 60 defense on hills is much too strong.. but with the current resists it has become a much more balanced unit.

[The Black Sword]

Well, 2 games later and I can verify that we are still getting OOS errors .

First game was elves vs Khalifate on weldyn with what I'm pretty sure was a corrupted replay but wasn't much use anyway, due to a lot of luck on my side and my opponent misrecruiting IMO.

2nd game is the game Horus is talking about which I'll attach. I also agree with Horus, for 21g the Khaiyal is pretty useless now. His resists weren't that good before, IMO still not enough to justify his cost as a standard unit but he had uses. Now though, he's only there for impact damage, pretty much anything else is done better by the Arif.Very expensive impact damage at that.

Eventually I won this game, due to a mistake by my opponent, I think he was tired by the long game. But I don't see much onus on the orc player to recruit anything else besides trolls. A few grunts for vills, but even then your better off with a troll on the vill if arifs are attacking, maybe archers in 1.9 with their 6-3 but not many. I think it'd be good to make either the naffat or the Khaiyal(preferrably the Khaiyal since he's so bad right now) a little bit of a better counter to trolls and leave them with a relative weakness to grunts/archers. Though to be fair, I wouldn't go as far to say the matchup is unbalanced but its certainly a bit boring and stalematey.

Oh, btw, the falcon performed fine both games, Weldyn and CoTB.

[Rigor]

weldyn channel, khalifate (me) v horus (orx).

briefing: check out the navy potential and troll überness with khayial usage and by healing stuff from behind.

i took the healer leader but otherwsie would have recruited the healer and used the leader in the attack/defense. what happened was a little mind game on my part (all explained in more detail in the chatlog), exposing my falcons to damage early on, to make sure that at least one naga isnt on full hp during the orcs powerphase. the next unit was the wolf that also had to suffer in order to make him useless. the falcons were excellent unit finishers if u like that term, and were more than adequate to block hot-spots to prevent for instance blocks, provide cover from finishers, take away 60% nagini spots in the water and leaving only 50 or worse instead, and to zoc the trolls that had to retreat during the day already because i had one on lvl1 already on turn 8.

altogether, it was a tactically demanding game and therefore ended in a very clear win after horus gambled too much on his defensive skills on bad terrain (very bad to have exclusively trolls +- nagini/wolf, for instance for villages) and his very, very specific recruits.

my conclusion: build "standard" recruits when u face khalifa, trolls dont have a significant advantage in the initial attack. really.

[Scatha]

Rigor, my impression from that replay is that the trolls perhaps attacked without enough support and got a bit unlucky. It certainly didn't seem enough to conclude that the trolls aren't a good recruit there -- anyhow I'd like to see more games (and will try to provide some).

[AlaskanAvenger]

Had an interesting game with scatha in northerner vs khalifate. there was a lot of night/day tug a war going on and the trolls did quite well, although certainly not overpowered. Unfortunately he had to quit for the night a good way into it so we saved it and are hoping to continue tomorrow, will add second half of replay if we get it finished.

2p_-_Weldyn_Channel_replay.gz

(18.24 KiB) Downloaded 179 times

[AlaskanAvenger]

A fun elf vs khalifate matchup on fallenstar lake vs Skrim as khalifate. I recruited mainly fighters with a couple shamans for the first half of the game, chasing him away at night, and falling back to my village line at day. Because of my unit selection he only recruited one naffat, but later in the game after I had chased him off at night, I recruited 4 woses out of is LOS and then ambushed him the next day when he attacked, killing his chief.

2p_-_Fallenstar_Lake_replay.gz

(18.4 KiB) Downloaded 171 times

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Undead vs Khalifate