Mainline AMLAs

[Dalas120]

Right now, a max-level unit who advances will gain a full heal and +3 max hp; much less than a regular advancement. I think this is good - Wesnoth is a game about armies, not 2 or 3 super-units who you feed kill after kill.

However, I feel that the current AMLA does its job too well. XP given to a max-level unit is effectively useless, encouraging players to avoid using their strongest fighters. This is bad thematically. Players shouldn't feel like they "wasted" XP when their Royal Guard gets a kill they were saving for a Spearman.

In addition, longer camapigns frequently have issues with enormous recall lists. In the final scenario of HTTT, for example, I ended up with vastly more level 3/4 units than I had the gold to recall. Even with that much extra XP floating around, there was never a reason to AMLA any of my veterans.

And on top of that, the current AMLA also cripples units like the Javelineer or Lancer in SP campaigns, since they "dead-end" much sooner than the other advancement lines.



To be clear, I think AMLAs should continue being less powerful and more expensive than a regular advancement. Just... less so.

For example, maybe an AMLA-ing unit could select +1 melee damage, +1 ranged damage, or +8 max hp - still much weaker than a standard advancement, which usually adds around +50% damage AND hp. And like with the current system, each AMLA would require more XP than the former, to make super-units impossible.

Simple AMLAs like these would be stronger on some units than others, but that could be balanced out by adjusting XP costs. For example, a Master-at-Arms (5 strikes) would benefit greatly from +1 melee damage and could have a large XP pool, while an Iron Mauler (2 strikes) could have a smaller XP pool to compensate for an effectively weaker AMLA.

I believe this change would improve the SP experience without affecting standard multiplayer balance, since level 3 units are uncommon already, much less level 3+ AMLAs.



TLDR: AMLAs being weak is good; AMLAs being too weak is bad. Can they be made stronger?

[Lord-Knightmare]

I normally use a mod that adds this feature in and then play.

I argued before about this and was denied so I make my own changes.

[gfgtdf]

Unlike normal advancements, amas don't come with the disadvantage of increasing upkeep though. Furthermore introducing an even bigger variance in player strength would make campaigns even harder to balance.


Also, like Knightmare said, there are UMC mods that can enable that.

[Dalas120]

It's true that improved AMLAs wouldn't increase upkeep, but the regular +3hp AMLA doesn't increase upkeep either, and that's clearly not overpowered. I don't think +1 damage or +8hp is meaningful enough to cause balance issues, especially if it takes large amounts of XP to achieve.

I disagree that better AMLAs would make campaigns harder to balance. If a player invests hundreds of XP into a single unit, that's a lot weaker than playing normally, with spread-out XP. Could only be an issue if a player trains a purpose-made elite squad for a mission where you get a limited amount of units, but that's not a common mainline occurrence (and would still handicap the player in all the other scenarios).

I certainly could get (or make) an add-on, but I don't think the ability to mod the game is a reason to avoid making positive mainline changes. I'd be happy to make a pull request with this change if that would help though.

The key question is "would better AMLAs be more fun", and I believe the answer is yes. In this thread, for example, "Custom AMLAs" was by far the most-voted option.

[gnombat]

It's true that improved AMLAs wouldn't increase upkeep, but the regular +3hp AMLA doesn't increase upkeep either, and that's clearly not overpowered. I don't think +1 damage or +8hp is meaningful enough to cause balance issues, especially if it takes large amounts of XP to achieve.

Well, I agree that the +3hp AMLA is not overpowered, but if you take something that's not overpowered, and increase it by 167%, and then add extra damage on top of that, then it might be a bit overpowered

I disagree that better AMLAs would make campaigns harder to balance. If a player invests hundreds of XP into a single unit, that's a lot weaker than playing normally, with spread-out XP. Could only be an issue if a player trains a purpose-made elite squad for a mission where you get a limited amount of units, but that's not a common mainline occurrence (and would still handicap the player in all the other scenarios).

Right now for any scenario there are fairly clear limits on how powerful a player can be:

• Lower limit: the player has no recalls at all and can only recruit.
• Upper limit: the player has enough level-3 units on the recall list that all gold can be spent recalling level-3 units. (Possibly these might have some +3hp AMLAs, but that is not likely to make much difference.)

With improved AMLAs, the lower limit is the same as before, but for the upper limit, the player has some unknown number of level-3 units which have some unknown number of super-AMLA enhancements. In fact, it's not really clear what the upper limit actually is, since it's difficult to predict how many of these super-powered units the player will have at that stage of the campaign. It makes the player's overall power level more open-ended and unpredictable.

I certainly could get (or make) an add-on, but I don't think the ability to mod the game is a reason to avoid making positive mainline changes. I'd be happy to make a pull request with this change if that would help though.

Sure, it's not a reason to avoid making mainline changes, but ... even if you intend for a change to go into mainline, it's often best to implement it in an add-on first, so it can get some actual playtesting and feedback, before it goes into the mainline. Just submitting a pull request to mainline which changes the rules of the game that has never been tested anywhere does not seem like a good idea to me. Why not test it in an add-on first?

The key question is "would better AMLAs be more fun", and I believe the answer is yes. In this thread, for example, "Custom AMLAs" was by far the most-voted option.

I'm not sure if that is what that poll option meant (or if it's what the people who voted thought it meant). The poll option is "Custom AMLAs (like in UtBS, DiD, etc.)" [emphasis added]. The AMLAs in, for example, Under the Burning Suns, are just for Kaleh and Nym, not for the player's entire army. Giving custom AMLAs to 1 or 2 specific units can make the campaign more interesting, and it the same time it doesn't really risk making the player's army too powerful because it's limited to a small number of specific units.

I would not be opposed to giving additional AMLAs to, say, Konrad and Li'sar in Heir to the Throne. But giving them to their entire army seems like it would be going too far.

[Dalas120]

Well, I agree that the +3hp AMLA is not overpowered, but if you take something that's not overpowered, and increase it by 167%, and then add extra damage on top of that, then it might be a bit overpowered

Haha, fair enough

[*]Upper limit: the player has enough level-3 units on the recall list that all gold can be spent recalling level-3 units. (Possibly these might have some +3hp AMLAs, but that is not likely to make much difference.)[/list]

With improved AMLAs, the lower limit is the same as before, but for the upper limit, the player has some unknown number of level-3 units which have some unknown number of super-AMLA enhancements. In fact, it's not really clear what the upper limit actually is, since it's difficult to predict how many of these super-powered units the player will have at that stage of the campaign. It makes the player's overall power level more open-ended and unpredictable.

I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree. Campaigns aren't balanced around a 100% level-3 recall list any more than they're balanced around a 100% level-1 recall list. Even with perfect play, there's only so much XP available in each campaign, and each scenario is balanced around that amount. AMLAs are much less XP-efficient than regular leveling (even with my proposed changes), so any player who prioritizes AMLA-ing units will end up weaker than a normal player, not stronger than the upper limit.

And really, are single-player campaigns that precisely balanced in the first place? Hejnewar's upcoming patch's includes major XP changes for a large number of units; the White Mage, for example, is having its XP reduced from 136 to 75. If a 45% XP decrease isn't an unbalancing change, I have a hard time believing that spending 150XP for +1 damage would be. But I do think it would increase enjoyment.

I guess that's the core of why I want this change - I feel it increases enjoyment, but almost-never affects balance.

I'm not sure if that is what that poll option meant

Good point; I hadn't considered that.

even if you intend for a change to go into mainline, it's often best to implement it in an add-on first, so it can get some actual playtesting and feedback, before it goes into the mainline. Just submitting a pull request to mainline which changes the rules of the game that has never been tested anywhere does not seem like a good idea to me. Why not test it in an add-on first?

Others already have! Both the 1.16 and 1.14 servers have "additional AMLA" add-ons (though they're more powerful than my proposed AMLAs). In a more extreme example, the Reign of Lords add-on achieves a similar effect by adding level 4+ advancements to most units.

If you mean you want to personally test out my specific changes, I'd be happy to make an add-on. I'd also need to test them out myself ofc; to fix bugs if nothing else. But eventually, I feel that the only way to make a change is to make a pull request, otherwise it'll just get lost and forgotten like so many other.

[gnombat]

I see where you're coming from, but I still disagree. Campaigns aren't balanced around a 100% level-3 recall list any more than they're balanced around a 100% level-1 recall list. Even with perfect play, there's only so much XP available in each campaign, and each scenario is balanced around that amount. AMLAs are much less XP-efficient than regular leveling (even with my proposed changes), so any player who prioritizes AMLA-ing units will end up weaker than a normal player, not stronger than the upper limit.

But, in many campaigns, it is possible to field an army consisting of 100% level-3 recalls in the later stages of the campaign. For example, you mentioned Heir to the Throne, where typically the player ends up with more level-3 units in the recall list than can actually be used. In some scenarios the player might not want to use only level-3 recalls - an army of all level-3 units will drain gold quickly. On the other hand, in the last scenario, the player will almost certainly be fielding an army entirely of level-3 recalls. With enhanced AMLAs, that army would contain some portion of super-powered high-HP, high-damage units. How many? It's hard to predict the number a player could realistically expect to have after 20+ scenarios.

And really, are single-player campaigns that precisely balanced in the first place? Hejnewar's upcoming patch's includes major XP changes for a large number of units; the White Mage, for example, is having its XP reduced from 136 to 75. If a 45% XP decrease isn't an unbalancing change, I have a hard time believing that spending 150XP for +1 damage would be. But I do think it would increase enjoyment.

Well, there are several objections to that change in the replies. (Maybe I'll add my own ...)

If you mean you want to personally test out my specific changes, I'd be happy to make an add-on. I'd also need to test them out myself ofc; to fix bugs if nothing else. But eventually, I feel that the only way to make a change is to make a pull request, otherwise it'll just get lost and forgotten like so many other.

Not every add-on gets lost and forgotten - many add-ons have become very popular, and some have been incorporated into the mainline.

[Dalas120]

With enhanced AMLAs, that army would contain some portion of super-powered high-HP, high-damage units. How many? It's hard to predict the number a player could realistically expect to have after 20+ scenarios.

I'm really not sure about the plausibility of super-powered units. To get just +1 damage on a single level 3 unit would require an extra 150XP - enough to advance a whole other level-3! And +1 damage on a single unit is really not a big deal; that's worse than the strong trait (which also adds HP).

You'd need over 1000 XP (default AMLA cost increases by 20% each time) to get even a single super-unit, and that's after already reaching level 3. And you'd need MANY super-units to impact campaign balancing! I just don't think that's feasible to achieve, even in a long campaign like HttT.

Not every add-on gets lost and forgotten - many add-ons have become very popular, and some have been incorporated into the mainline.

That's fair - I guess it could never hurt to make this an add-on! Worst case I can play it all by myself

[lhybrideur]

I think you could try to test this by making an add-on that would be HttT but with your AMLA system.
As you both mentioned, this is a campaign where you end with a lot of lvl-3 units, so it would be easy to see if feeding XP to several super-units would unbalance the campaign.

If you do, I can playtest it, but consider I am bad at Wesnoth, so I am not sure how useful would my playtest be.

[Lord-Knightmare]

Possible refactor-ables might be HttT and TRoW. The long campaign length will all you to test out the thing. Another case is NR where you get XP is abundant due to loads of level 2 units being thrown at you. There's also SotBE

[Dalas120]

Sounds good. I'm partway through a bronzeman TRoW playthrough (not far enough to have AMLAs yet), so I'll see if I can add in the modification mid-campaign.

[LienRag]

I disagree that better AMLAs would make campaigns harder to balance. If a player invests hundreds of XP into a single unit, that's a lot weaker than playing normally, with spread-out XP.

Well, in any long campaign one very often gets more veterans that one can recall, so having units with a few AMLA happens quite frequently.
I'm currently playing Invasion From the Unknown, and I have a Nightgaunt and a Specter with 12 more hit points that their basic statistic, and it is quite useful (it means that in many situations they can survive mage retaliation after an assassination, which the basic 3-level unit can't).

Not to say that mainline AMLAs wouldn't be neat, but implementing them under the principle that "they'll nearly never be used so they don't need to be carefully balanced" is not going to bring good results.

Note also that what is really interesting in custom AMLAs like in UtBS is that they're custom : it's up to the player to choose which he wants.

[Dalas120]

Hmm, maybe this is a difference in playstyle. While it does happen for me in some long/easy campaigns (e.g. HttT), most of the time I don't end up with more level 3 units than I can recall. Maybe because I don't reload after deaths? But if a lot of players do play that way, then I definitely see where you're coming from; thanks for your post!