Era of Invasions (demons, celests...)

[francophone]

I tried to balance factions. All demons as much cost at lvl1: 21 (but I plan to go to 22). So these are great units. But you also see the lack of mobility of some of their and great weakness to the arcane. I try to balance on average. Ie they have an advantage against the faction Drakan, a disadvantage against the undead. I've been testing AI vs AI. Against the undead they are disadvantaged. AI vs AI, the loyalists recruit too many mages whose demons are feasting.
As they are all big and costly, type of map changes a lot. On a small map, they are pretty advantaged. conversely, a large map with very little gold in the beginning, the villages to take... they are disadvantaged, especially if there are many forests.
They axvel in cave as the undead, orc and co.

So the objective is to make balanced factions and I'm open to suggestions.


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Era update on the server (especialy for celests sprites)

[taptap]

Semi demon :
lvl0 hp19mvt5 exp20
claws 4X3 (damage 4, number 3) blade melee
It is a great lvl0 (cost 13). It evolve to all lvl1 demons (all cost 21).
“Semi Demon is a young demon from birth or conversion by plague, not yet specialized. It can evolve to every types of demons.”

Rabid Demon
lvl1 hp33 mvt6 exp44 (movement type small demon)
fangs 6X3 blade melee plague (type semi demon) bersek
“Rabid Demon is a small demon who haven't chose fire or cold way. It is a enraged demon who don't know fear.”

Just take these two. The rabid demon is a berserker but has the base damage similar to some dedicated melee units (2 more than the ulf, which is also expensive and is neutral). It also has has the plague ability. Plague is usually given to a very weak attack - killing things with a walking corpse is hard. The rabid demon however doesn't need weakened units to feed on, but has pretty much sure kills if he gets a victim. Each of it turning into a decent L0 unit. This alone is overkill, but it is even better, assuming you allow traits and they are chaotic he is strong enough even to run down dedicated fighters. 6-3 means at night (I assume your demons are chaotic) 7-3, if you allow traits for a strong one even 9-3, and it is fast with 6 movement points. 9-3 means it is way stronger than many dedicated melee units - which however often are not as fast as your berserker. So basically you can run down everything living (except rare examples of dedicated melee units on very good defense spots) and turn the enemy line into yours or the enemy has to run very early (which is not only impossible for some but also means you control the map easily). I didn't look so deep into other units, this alone breaks it. (Against undead however plague doesn't work most of the time.)

[francophone]

Only cold demons are chaotic (the others are neutral with the exeption of burn demon that is lawfull).
I assume the choice of demons more dangerous with plague that the undead. First they convert more easily. On the other hand, they convert into a great lvl 0 unit.
However we should not unbalance it. It is difficult to balance the units with plague, because their cost should not depend solely on their intrinsic qualities but also for their contribution in the game A berserk who kills a unit often does it losing a lot of HP. It is therefore likely to be killed following. But he created another unit. This benefit should be compensated.
Maybe I still have it decreases the rabid demon.

I'll probably pass the cost of lvl 1 to 22. For the rabid, I think decrease damage. Perhaps also for the horned: reduce the damage of attacks with plague.

[taptap]

It is really not the cost (the ulf is expensive too!), the combination of berserk and plague is the problem. Plague is a strong ability - creating a unit for free - it should in my opinion only be given to recruitable units in a weak or mediocre attack, but not to the only sure-kill attack available in game. Berserk is the attack which is obviously the most efficient in killing all those units against whom the berserker has an edge - and with a 6-3 berserk these are many. If you can kill an unit (say 15 gold) get another unit (say 10 gold for free) even losing the berserker on the opponents turn is perfectly acceptable (unless it costs more than 25 gold) but as you can saveguard your berserker even this might not be enough. The ulf costs more than many of its usual victims - thus giving an incentive to use him only when you can recover him - in your case the incentives are backwards, because you can happily throw him away after killing a single unit with it and still gain an advantage.

Really, get rid of this combination of berserk and plague. Take away plague or get rid of berserk - it is not that your demon faction is lacking punching power in other units. If you want both abilities give berserk to one unit and plague to another both should have at best mediocre base attacks, because their abilities turns both so much more useful.

And this continues with all other units: your ranged attacker has a passive melee slow which has "defensive marksman" (thus is somehow the ranged equivalent to the overpowered elvish hunter, but sports even more hp), your skirmisher has a 7-3 melee attack, compared to mainline skirmishers with 4-4, which is equal or better than many dedicated fighters (elvish fighter 5-4, mermen fighter 6-3, grunt 9-2) but it is a skirmisher! Upon levelling to L2 it has an amazing 7-6 marksman (mitigated by swarm) blade combined with skirmish abilities - this is way more damage potential at L2 than any other skirmisher does at L3! (Ok, it seems you changed that.) The ice and fire lines have equal damage in melee and ranged but both attacks are similar to dedicated units. So each and every unit is more awesome than most units in mainline. Even if you compare with other "awesome"-expensive mainline units, they always feature several flaws e.g. drakes cold/arcane/pierce weakness. Or compare your soulsucker to a mage (20 gold!) - 6x3 ranged vs. 7x3 ranged, but with +15 hp, and a strong passive marksman slow melee attack and drain on the ranged attack all this for 21? If you had a mage wouldn't you buy a drain on your attack for 1 gold anytime + you get 15 hp and strengthened and slowing and defensive marksmen attack for free? Seriously, they are completely overpowered, if you remove half the weapons specials and abilities and add weaknesses (arcane weakness is not enough - most factions have no access to arcane damage at all or at least not in recruits) and further increase their cost it might be different. etc. etc. If they lose against undead than probably because plague doesn't work and undead is the only faction with arcane damage on L1. But they will win against everyone else.

[Dugi]

How about giving him berserk or plague on a higher level?

[william150]

perhaps remove the plague, the frenzy for the RABID D. and horned already have the plague and it is interesting.

[francophone]

@taptap, the skirmisher is no longer so. Since I put descriptions in this thread, some changes have not been reported. The Horned must have less hp than in descrition here. The mantis has changed a lot.

I just reduce the attacks of horned (a little for horns, more of other attacks) and af rabid.
The cost of all lvl 1 from 21 to 22 (lvl 2 + 2, lvl 3 + ", etc.)
I will do testes and see what I can make abou the rabid demon. Maybe decrease its chance of converting its victims (1 chance on 2? On 3?).
Or replaced the plague by poison? it would make a unit with the poison lat vl 1.


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I also change the descriptions of the 2 races and add descrition of celest units (except lancer I think).
The easiest way is to read them in the game (add-ons updated on the server).
Feel free to notify me of errors and inconsistencies of English


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I forgot: I think reducing the hitpoints of soul sucker (and evolutions, especially the magic line). And also the damage of the attack in melee. I wanted to be a defensive units, but no need to strike hard to defend.

[Dugi]

Poison+berserk is not much stronger than berserk only, so this should not be overpowered in any case. Giving it a 1/2 chance to convert the enemy is quite hard to do, if you won't satisfy yourself with the plagued unit appearing elsewhere than it should.

And a lesser problem - you have a folder in that add-on named 'hybrides', that is an error in english. When I was reading it, I immediately attributed the french pronunciation to it, quickly realising something is wrong. It should write hybrids, the singular form is hybrid, not hybride. If you realised it after starting to make units for that faction, you'd have to edit the addresses for all images, that is annoying (I have sprites for 15 units in one folder (they are animated, some of them have even 12 frames, and male/female forms), without any division into factions, simply because I did not plan to make more units when I started doing it).

[taptap]

Really really, just imagine under which circumstances you would like to play rebels against them on a standard MP map. Reduce their stats and especially their amazing specials and combined abilities until you think you have a fair chance with rebels. Cut down about half of the special abilities and change the resistances (how are drakes supposed to do damage against your demons, with 50-100% resistance to both fire and cold in all your units + you have plenty of easy available cold damage how are drakes supposed to survive) then you might end with something balanced.

Rebels have slow - but on a whimpy unit with 3-2 melee and ranged, they have a 18 gold scout with 4-3, 6-2 attacks, their dedicated units have a damage output around 30 points, 20 points of it on the main attack. Now compare with your units. Only your scout is in the range. The combination of plague and berserk is completely outlandish, the combination of passive slowing on the secondary attack (as in Elvish Hunter) with a strong primary attack is usually overpowered as well, but your soulsucker features drain on the strong main attack as well. And those units come combined. So your soulsucker is attacked by a strong melee unit, it slows on defense now your rabid demon kills and produces a new unit in the process. The availability of slow and berserk in the same faction needs some huge safeguards to turn out balanced. If you want the faction for campaigns and survival only all this doesn't matter so much. But for MP it would be really sad. Really, just think when you would be comfortable to play against them not only how awesome they are when you play with them. Or in short: http://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php ... ra#p502990

[francophone]

Berzek + plague effectively can not work. I removed plague.
I decreased by one third the damage of the sting. I will also see to decrease the hitpoints of some demons cold.
I also increase the exp of all units a quarter. But maybe that's not enough for the semi demon.
I decreased by 10% defense (already bad) of armored demons. -20% In the forest: so now as much as on flat. If it's a little too much I will increase its hp.

@taptap: I prefer further reduce damage or hp, rather than withdraw special abilities.
For drakes, my goal is not that they are flush with the demons. But the advantage of demons on the drakes should be balanced by their disadvantage on other factions (especially the undead at the default age). But the Drakes should not be massacred more than the undead massacre the demons.
The drakes have powerful physical attacks which should partially compensate their weakness against the breath of demons.

you have a folder in that add-on named 'hybrides'

I thought I had changed names, but I only changed the folder where the files I have Gimp (I have a separate working folder to store files that have no place in the add-ons). So, thank you.
The file is called 'pariahs "in fact.



Still update on server because I had misnamed the new version of the sprite of the blower

[william150]

baseframe of the blower is blank.

[francophone]

baseframe of the blower is blank.

it must be good now


I just tested AI against AI. The rebels defeated the demons despite many recruiting of mages and Woses (good firewood ). Yet it is a mage who has finish the great demon leader. The conditions were rather favorable to the rebels: a few well-placed forest, a 40X30 map with standard parameters 100 gold initially.
Perhaps with a lot of gold at start the demons are steel tool powerful.
But it seems to work pretty good. The rebels are far more numerous but must be set on number against one demon to overcome it.


I put the movie of the match. I do not know at all if it can be shared.

[taptap]

Well, the rebel win goes half to the fact that the demon AI was unable to grab its villages - having few units to start with, starting second and engaging in battle with the scouts while leaving many villages unclaimed. When he finally equalized the village count his center became too outnumbered and soon the elves where far ahead in the village count again. This won't happen with a human player on a more standard map. Probably the other half goes to the elf-friendliness and size of the map (leaving the elves with a mobility advantage in village grabbing and good defense) with its many forests. +10 RNG advantage. But despite being outnumbered and outproduced the whole time, still the demons got 800 expected damage dealt vs. 1000 expected damage taken.

Imo this shows several points 1) it would be wise to give your faction a bigger variety in unit costs - e.g. the scout needs to be cheaper, say 18 or even 17 even if this means you take away 2 more hp or another point from his melee attack, or else the AI should recruit the L0 as well for having enough units to grab villages. 4 units, one of it very slow are not enough for village grabbing, 2) with this point solved your faction would still overpower the elves on any but a very much forested map, 3) the ai didn't recruit the berserker at all afair (he would have killed everything on the map but the wose, 4) the plague ability is still very powerful - the horned demon has "berserk light" (=rage) after all, 5) the elves didn't recruit fighters - which are likely the main unit you face against a human player but preferred wose as the main fighter, 6) you should check your resistances -50% arcane all around is too big a weakness, while both 50% resistance to cold and fire and sometimes up to 100% is way too much.

[francophone]

Against undeads on cave map, demons lost (despite the damage inflicted by the fire hunters and burn demons).
Against drakes (same type of map that for the elves), the demons won. This was expected... but too fast. While the drakes have sent several augurs.

For the film I posted, I think the AI ​​errors are not specifically more to the disadvantage of demons (they can't have many scout unuts). In particular, the recruitment of mages is a waste of gold face the demons.
So overall, I think the demons are steel overpowering, but not by much. Against drakes, the soul suckers did not look overpowering. But so the sly. I will reduce their ranged attack. Despite the decline in the defense of the soldiers, they do not seem too low.

Extreme resistances are the essence of my vision of demons. So I would not change that. I think rather lower their hp or steel increase needed experience.

[taptap]

Then you can as well give up the idea of balancing them. Because drakes can only deal them damage in melee if you give them both cold and fire resistance, then put them against the icy hunters with melee cold damage = game over. Or if you balance them for this matchup they will be underpowered elsewhere.

Do you really believe that it doesn't matter when you have constantly 3-5 villages less on 2 gold per village on a huge map playing with the more expensive faction. Rebels started recruiting mages when they were already comfortably ahead, the wose did turn out quite efficient because of the low number of demons and low defense.