[Suggestion][0.76beta] Balancing the number of champions in army stacks

By the middle/end game your best army will be a stack of champions. I'd like to see champions being important additions to armies rather than armies in their own right. Here are a few suggestions that may help to get this balance right (some of these have already been flagged but I wanted to bring the ideas into a cohesive list to keep armies important):

1. Introduce a new XML property called 'areaDamage'. Normal weapons would have <areaDamage>0</areaDamage> and a hit with such a weapon would only apply damage to one member of a group. This would allow parties such as spearmen etc to survive longer in battle. Drakes breathing fire and some other magic spells would have <areaDamage>1</areaDamage> where it would work as it currently does with the whole group absorbing the damage and the possibility of multiple deaths.

2. Have another XML unit property called 'stackFactor'. Trained units would have an stackFactor of 0; champions would have an stackFactor of say 4; and the sovereign would have an stackFactor of say 2.

Another XML property applied to each stack called 'stackLimit' would be the stack limit. Let's say the default for this is 10. That way most army stacks would have 2 champions and the rest of the slots filled with troops (8 stackFactors). Your sovereign could be added to bring this to the allowed 10 stackFactors.

This would also bring in new possibilities for some special units such as Drakes having a stackFactor of 6 so only one champion can be added to that army. It would also help with having some items reduce the stackFactor (eg. a tome on Army Logistics that reduces the stackFactor of the recipient by 4). Some factions may have different default stackLimits.

3. Nerfing the XP has already been incorporated in this release so that champions don't get too far ahead - but this on its own doesn't really solve the problem.

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Das123

Join Date 05/2003

+82

If the above suggestions add too much micromanagement perhaps stacks of champions could take a big initiative hit instead. For every champion you need a troop otherwise all units in the army get an initiative penalty.

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There are a few ways I can think of doing this:

First: And the most unlikely - make champion skills revolve around boosting the stats of regular units

Second: Create a 'path' that focuses on doing the above

Third: Split xp, make champions consume the xp of 4 regular units. Mind you this won't make the stack o doom any less powerful, but splitting xp will make champion armies of doom less likely. It will also open up new viable war strategies.

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I kind of like the Champion path. In my current play through, I use military units for protecting my cities, while I have my Champion Army being my primary exploratory and offensive force. I WOULD HATE for this to be removed as an option.

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I actually think 0.77 has gone a long way to improve on the champ stack issues. With the champions being higher level, the AI recruiting more heavily, and various other tweaks (xp, wounding), it doesn't seem nearly as easy to have a pure champ stack. And if you have mundane troops you've been leveling with your sov, by midgame/ late game they're prone to be pretty good and swapping them out for champs isn't quite as appealing.

To me, if it still needs trimming, I think the first thing I'd do is look at the exploration techs, perhaps ramp up the costs a bit, so that it required a more focused gamestyle to really recruit a big stack. Might need to add a few fodder troops in with the champions when they are attacked, though, to keep them from being wiped by the time someone could recruit them, which I think already might be needed already.

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