Poko8

Join Date 08/2008

+20

[0.86 Suggestions] - Ineffective Units, Glass Cannons, Idle Heroes, and Wimpy Cities

I wrote a TLDR post about several balance issues and some possible solutions, here's the short version, with more detail below. I am really enjoying the game, but find that the mid- and late-game need improvements still.

Issue: Units are effectively useless right from training because of low hp at level 1
Possible solution: Trained units start with xp based on what equipment they're trained with. Idiots with clubs = level 1. Knights in magical equipment = level 5 (as an example - adjust levels for balance)

Issue: Defense is very expensive, making most units into glass cannons
Possible solution: Add defense to most weapons, representing the ability to parry. Possibly modify this with dexterity, but that adds complication

Issue: Idle heroes mid-game after wandering monsters have been eradicated, limited supply of XP
Possible solution: Allow heroes and their armies to embark on randomly generated quests that immobilize them for a few turns but offer something to do each turn (a battle, a decision, etc) that lets them level

Issue: Cities are incredibly easy to conquer
Possible solution: Choke points to simulate walls, more, better, and ranged militia

More detail:

Issue: Units are effectively useless right from training because of low hp at level 1

Units, right after being trained, are effectively useless. I'll often have them stand in the back of battles because they're too valuable to waste but too vulnerable to use until they've gained a few levels.

A level 1 unit will have approximately 6 hp (it could be as high as 8 or 9 with constitution buffs and traits). Here are some units that I put together (with base stats, actual values might be slightly different for different kingdoms / empires)

Clubmen
Hp: 6
Cost 35

Axemen
Hp: 6
Cost 70, 2 metal

Broadswords (Chain, Shield, Broadsword)
Hp: 6
Cost 135, 15 metal

Champions (Full Champions armor, Boreal Blade, Horse)
Hp: 7
Cost 320, 20 metal, 1 horse, 34 crystal (approx values)

The production cost of the unit is growing exponentially (35, 70, 135, 320), but the base hp is almost exactly the same. Anything that can do 7 damage will kill a champion that took several turns of production and many turns worth of metal and crystal to produce.

A potential ways to remedy the hp issue could be to add xp gain into each piece of equipment. The idea being that, while you can hand a peasant a club and say "go smash", you don't put that same peasant in champion plate armor, give him a horse, magic items, and a magic sword and say "stick them with the pointy end". Leather armor might give a couple xp a piece to start the unit at level 2, chain level 2.5, plate level 3, and champions armor level 4. Additional magical equipment or mounts might add xp as well. So the the above champion might be trained at level 5 and have 25 hp - much more survivability than the grunt with a club and 6 hp, as it should be.

Issue: Defense is very expensive, making most units into glass cannons

The other problem, the high cost of even basic defense, could be remedied by adding defense to weapons. Even a club can be used to parry, and a staff is even pretty good at defending attacks. Some attacks might be flagged as unparryable (some of the larger monster attacks for example). Potentially, this could be modified by dexterity - faster units are better at parrying - but that adds a lot of complication and might not be feasible.

Issue: Idle heroes mid-game after wandering monsters have been eradicated, limited supply of XP

This may be because of poor AI, but I find myself, usually mid-game, just hitting end-turn a lot while waiting for my cities' level 3 improvements to build. I could go eradicate all of the AI's with my sovereign, but I want to build an empire. This leaves most of my heroes stuck in place with a defensive army, doing nothing for 30-40 turns.

Additionally, also mid-game, my heroes stop leveling because I've already wiped out all of the monster lairs in or near my territory. When I improve recruiting and get all of the level 7 or 9 heroes, there aren't enough monsters left for me to level them on, and leveling on AI is impossible - I can wipe out an entire AI civilization with one hero + army on the most difficult setting on the largest map and barely get enough xp to go from 10 to 11.

Two part solution: near-unlimited recruitment of level 1 heroes (maybe from the Inn?), and the ability to go on random quests in my own territory (or in the wilds). I'd much rather be able to recruit level 1 heroes and level them to 5 or 7 or 9 than I would recruit a level 9 hero. The ones that started at level 1 are my heroes - I shaped them, I know them. The ones I recruit from the map are some idiot that has a really cool mount but is otherwise foreign to me.

Second part - the ability to do some kind of local quest that will gain them xp, maybe an item reward, maybe find a new tile improvement, or something like that. An example might be: I have a level 4 hero with a few spearmen parties. I choose to send them on a level 5 quest in my territory. The army is immobilized until the quest is completed. My hero is following rumors of a magical spring, and, every couple turns, finds himself in random combat, Eventually, he finds the spring guarded by an earth elemental that has jammed a rock to stop the flow. Killing him clears the spring and causes the land to bloom, creating a patch of fertile ground that can then be harvested by the city.

Possible rewards for these things include:
The standard stuff - Gildar, Items, XP
Saving a group of people who join up with your nearest city
Tile bonuses like fertile ground, apiaries, iron mines, shards, etc
City bonuses - maybe you help a master smith who goes to live in your nearest city and improves production by 2%

Issue: Cities are incredibly easy to conquer

Cities are jokingly easy to conquer. Even if they're garrisoned with a lot of troops, those troops have tiny bonuses. Cities, especially cities with walls and decent garrisons, should be a major endeavor to conquer. Lacking the ability to put troops on walls that need to be knocked down, some improvements could be:

Single-unit-sized choke point(s), and maybe the choke point(s) offer an offense + defense penalty (to simulate trying to scale the walls)
Ranged attack to-hit penalty to units not on the walls (nerf bows and magic attacks firing at units behind walls)
Militia with decent equipment and some levels, especially for high city levels - those should have a garrison, not just militia
Militia / Garrison with bows (if researched) to chew up the attackers stuck behind the choke points
Catapults (if researched and the building is in the city) to rain death on attackers

The main problem I see with this is to make it so that the AI can conquer cities and won't just fail because conquering cities was made more difficult. On the other hand, the AI will typically have several armies and might be able to wear down a city.

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Wizard1200

You should try my Waiting For Next Beta Mod if these issues are bugging you to the point of not playing anymore. It can be found in the FE Modding section. I should have a better balanced system out this weekend, but the one there now fixes almost everything you mentioned above.

Strategically, Aura of Vitality and Command Post are a great combination to avoid the lack of Hp for new units.

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I like it, I'll definitely give it a try. Thanks!

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I agree 100%.

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I wish there were techs, or more buildings that allowed you to train higher level troops for an increased labor cost (like the bigger squad size). I guess it was more or less what was intended with squad size, but it does not work with AOE spells and overpower ability around.

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Cant say I agree with the solution to units, having weapons give bonus to defense will make armor's even less likeable and probably ignored most of the time to just spam peasants with big swords.

What I would like to see to fix the current units are proper Traits, something that would be a display of your kingdom spending ages to train your units to learn to parry stuff, or buff theyre hitpoints.

I do think hp scales in a silly amount on the basic clubman, and levels should be less about hp, and more about a boost to all the 4 attributes and some accuracy imo. - Meaby a predetermined levelup path at creation.

Armor's giving more experience weirds me out tho, I would rather see the ability to create more solid units, and a alot of tweaks to the current items ingame.

For the defence issues, I think what is needed is the battlefield should change abit to support defenders with chokepoints, and give archer towers, or archer militia. But defense is weak in general, and the ai is terrible at it too! (been taking cities with a stack of 5 knights).

Everything not mentioned I cant argue about and you should consider them agreed with ...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Repost from another thread. These comments seem more relevant to this discussion, hence my cut and paste:

I did some research and balancing exercises a little over a year back, before getting distracted by other things and putting Elemental aside for a bit.

My initial solution to better balance combat was to add 5 to the attack and 3 or 4 defense values of all units, before modifiers. My rationale for this number was simple. Str at that time provided a damage bonus equal to Str/2, after the first 10 STR, so the 5 would be 10 STR/2. Similar rationale for defense (Con/3)..

This was also coupled with toning down the attack values a bit on higher value weapons, as well as adjustments to monsters, armor, and such as needed. If I remember correctly, I did boost the starting HP slightly as well. The result was less randomness in combat, and the least powerful units were at least able to put up a better fight. This made combat more interesting, as one hit kills were less common under this model.

My next step would have been to increase this base value to higher levels and see how those worked. Based on the combat numbers I'm seeing now in E:FE, setting all base attack and defense values at around 10 ATT/ 8 Def looks about right to me, and perhaps I'll play with the .xml values at some point and see how this works

What I'm finding myself doing now in E:FE is centering my attack around the Champion(s) with uber weaponry, who goes out and slaps out as much as 100+ damage strikes at times against the enemy. This results in many one shot one kills obviously. Cinematic? Yes. Challenging? Not at all.

Of course, when the tables are turned, and that uber monster appears, the only solution is to leave, quickly if your levels aren't even close to his, but thanks to the escape spell this can usually be accomplished. No point in even trying to fight it out if said uber monster has hundreds of hit points to begin with, and your usual strike does 4 damage... Again, Cinematic? Yes. Challenging? Die horribly or run are your only options at this point, so I would not call that challenging, but instead very Monty Python-ish.

Against most opponents, combat should be an affair where you are jockeying for position, and each of your champions and units plays a significant role in that. Not line up and take a couple of hits, while Uber Champion clears the enemies one by one.

At least with spells, this taps on the mana pool, so if they are a little over the top there is the mana pool depletion mechanic to offset this. And spell costs and mana regeneration are things that are relatively easy to adjust for game balance purposes.

And basic Militia? Don't make me laugh. Glass cannons are all fine and good, but I'd rather be trading blows over multiple turns than watching mindless cannon fodder plink out 4 damage before being swept summarily off the field.

The early game seems to be balanced well enough. But as stronger weapons enter the field, the square/squareroot problem manifests itself, turning a valiant defense by villagers into an exercise in boredom.

Those are my thoughts on the current combat model.

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StevenAus22

Join Date 06/2010

+110

Interesting ideas, tjashen.

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I think the simplest way of addressing many of the level issues is to let all units and heroes accumulate a certain base amount of XP every turn automatically. Think of it as passive training: while combat is the harshest teacher and grants the survivors the most xp, everybody is constantly practicing outside combat.

This would also make "path of the governor" heroes actually useful from the start rather than being deadweight taking XP from combat heroes in order to be useful stuck in a city some time in the future, when you probably don't need the bonuses from the path of the governor anymore.

Example of my thinking:

Let TU(i) be the number of turns you want it to take for a unit to level from level i to level i+1 through passive training. Let TH(i) be the number of turns you want it to take for a hero to level from level i to level i+1 through passive training.

Separate tracks, as it might be useful to let units level faster than heroes at early levels, but slow down significantly or even cap at a certain level. As an example pulled out of think air, think TU(i) = 2 + SUM(n, 1..i) = { 3, 4, 6, 9, 13, 18, 24, 31, 39,...} and TH(i) = 9+i = { 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, ... }

Then each turn, for every unit u, regardless of location adds XP_TO_LEVEL(u_level)/TU(u_level) to u_xp and for each hero h adds XP_TO_LEVEL(h_level)/TH(h_level) to h_xp, modified by appropriate multipliers. E.g. a multiplier between 1.0 and 2.0 for being located in a city with training factilities (the more the better) for units and likewise adventurer's guild for heroes. (Heck, a "path of the governor" hero could get a separate *2 multiplier for being in a city, now THAT would be a city administrator). Perhaps the "general" background should increase the XP gain from passive training by 10% or 20%?

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Quoting ,

quoting post

Issue: Defense is very expensive, making most units into glass cannons

The other problem, the high cost of even basic defense, could be remedied by adding defense to weapons. Even a club can be used to parry, and a staff is even pretty good at defending attacks. Some attacks might be flagged as unparryable (some of the larger monster attacks for example). Potentially, this could be modified by dexterity - faster units are better at parrying - but that adds a lot of complication and might not be feasible.

+ 1 Karma. That is a great idea to make the weapons really different, because even with the upcoming changes it is hard to balance the weapons and defense is a much better weapon stat than initiative, because initiative is too powerful and has a strange side effect (mage with a dagger):

One handed melee weapons: High defense and low damage

Two handed melee weapons: Low defense and high damage

Ranged weapons: No defense and medium damage

Powerful special abilities like counterattack should reduce either the damage or the defense.

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Quoting Peter Ebbesen,

reply 8

Path of the governor would feel better as the abilities is, if the hero wasnt supposed to be suited in a city (it can give bonus experience to the army it rides with, it gives prestige bonus, any similar bonuses would be neat, the ability to administer unit and building construction seems useless, since u cant get xp in town.

Thats my thoughts anyways, might want to be able to appoint a governor in a city, and whenever that governer gains one of these abilities, it works for the city that appointed him governer (with heroes only being able to governor 1 city at a time)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Poko8, Level 9 heros have feelings too you know

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Governors should earn XP for every building completed and every unit trained under their direct watch. Within reason, of course...

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Quoting tjashen,

reply 12

Governors should earn XP for every building completed and every unit trained under their direct watch. Within reason, of course...

Erh, thats some conclusion, you're making a version of the game yourself?

I feel there are more ways to fix a problem than one, and it seems it was intended for heroes to run around being heroic in the wild, in which it would feel empty to just house arrest him in some city and leave it at that. - Therefore I tried to suggest some alternate solution to the path, where it would still give a bonus, but also allow the hero to run with his other hero buddies and kill stuffs (cause mixing heroes and trained units seems useless because of the xp system as is).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Quoting Kongdej,

reply 13

Quoting tjashen, reply 12Governors should earn XP for every building completed and every unit trained under their direct watch. Within reason, of course...

Erh, thats some conclusion, you're making a version of the game yourself?

I feel there are more ways to fix a problem than one, and it seems it was intended for heroes to run around being heroic in the wild, in which it would feel empty to just house arrest him in some city and leave it at that. - Therefore I tried to suggest some alternate solution to the path, where it would still give a bonus, but also allow the hero to run with his other hero buddies and kill stuffs (cause mixing heroes and trained units seems useless because of the xp system as is).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Not at all. In other RPG style games, characters earn experience for completing tasks as well as combat. Not all life experience is directly related to combat.

Hence my suggestion.

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It would be nice to get some quests that trigger on the hero. Then we can have quests like "Oversee Construction of Onyx Throne." If a Governor does so, he gets alot of experience. The other option would be to give them an xp bonus equal to a portion of the labor cost for anything built in a city. Or do both.

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It would be nice to be able to choose level that unit starts with.

For example if you want to get unit with level x then you have to pay for additional production cost (unit production takes a few turns longer):

level 1 = 0 production cost

level 2 = 20 production cost

level 3 = 50 production cost

level 4 = 100 production cost

level 5 = 200 production cost

That should allow people to train units with more experience. So if you produce a unit with a costly magical army that additional production will be only a small percentage to total unit cost.

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Quoting Cyrecok,

reply 16

It would be nice to be able to choose level that unit starts with.

For example if you want to get unit with level x then you have to pay for additional production cost (unit production takes a few turns longer):

level 1 = 0 production cost

level 2 = 20 production cost

level 3 = 50 production cost

level 4 = 100 production cost

level 5 = 200 production cost

That should allow people to train units with more experience. So if you produce a unit with a costly magical army that additional production will be only a small percentage to total unit cost.

I agree that there should be some way for units to start at a higher level, but I don't think production cost should factor in. How often do people actually let units be produced by cities mid-late game? I just cast call to arms, making the production cost mean nothing - a unit costs 40 mana. Adding production cost for additional training just makes that spell even more overpowered, and makes it even harder to train units without it.

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Quoting Cyrecok,

reply 16

That is what high-level buildings are for. "Units produced in this city start with +1 level". You want Level 3 units, you build and maintain 2 of those buildings (Different types, of course).

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Quoting Malsqueek,

reply 18

Quoting Cyrecok, reply 16It would be nice to be able to choose level that unit starts with.

For example if you want to get unit with level x then you have to pay for additional production cost (unit production takes a few turns longer):

level 1 = 0 production cost

level 2 = 20 production cost

level 3 = 50 production cost

level 4 = 100 production cost

level 5 = 200 production cost

That should allow people to train units with more experience. So if you produce a unit with a costly magical army that additional production will be only a small percentage to total unit cost.

That is what high-level buildings are for. "Units produced in this city start with +1 level". You want Level 3 units, you build and maintain 2 of those buildings (Different types, of course).

Theres a trait too, thats lvl 3, I also feel there should be some natural levelling available to armies after production, no matter how hard you train them in your cities

For the higher hp, I feel they should modify the army designing area, and also makes constitution more important overall for hp (I usually just ignore constitution).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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James009D

Join Date 01/2005

+67

Just thought I'd comment and say that Fall Further from Heaven (an excellent mod for Civilization) had buildings you could construct that gradually gave unit's XP for being stationed there (akin to passive training) up to a certain level. This rewarded players who constructed these buildings and gave a way to revive old unit's who didn't necessary benefit from the initial Barracks upon training.

Basically, units and heroes need ways to slowly gain passive XP.

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Quoting James009D,

reply 20

I only think passive training should be up to a cap (Like the building that gives 1 free lvl to each unit build, would also slowly give xp to units stationed in the city, until they reach lvl 2 or a similar system), I feel slowly gaining passive xp is a flawed mechanics where you are awarded for doing nothing.
Meaby just a conflict of opinions

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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What if units that are under command of a hero received a temporary bonus to their level.

It would be nice if heroes could give temporarily 10% of their xp to units under their command.

In the late stages of the game if you add level 1 units to a command of a hero they would become level 2 or 3 units as long as they are commanded by an experienced hero. (a temporary xp bonus).

This bonus would only work if units are under a command of a hero. All new trained units would be still level 1 if they are alone.

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Quoting tjashen,

reply 12

Governors should earn XP for every building completed and every unit trained under their direct watch. Within reason, of course...

This is beyond rediculous. That just encourages players to pointlessly spam units and delete them afterwards. A much more reasonable (and easier to program!) solution is to give them bonus xp per turn while in town.

@James 'slowly' is relative. In fall from heaven 10 xp would take a unit to level 4, 10 xp in Fallen Enchantress would take a unit nowhere. In fall from heaven units could gain .25 xp per turn meaning that in 40 turns units would be level 4. Even at 1 xp per turn fallen enchantress would require 200 or so turns to achieve the same. By the time that happens your units will already have jumped army sizes and building a new unit would be more worthwhile.

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Quoting CdrRogdan,

reply 23

Quoting tjashen, reply 12Governors should earn XP for every building completed and every unit trained under their direct watch. Within reason, of course...

This is beyond rediculous. That just encourages players to pointlessly spam units and delete them afterwards. A much more reasonable (and easier to program!) solution is to give them bonus xp per turn while in town.

@James 'slowly' is relative. In fall from heaven 10 xp would take a unit to level 4, 10 xp in Fallen Enchantress would take a unit nowhere. In fall from heaven units could gain .25 xp per turn meaning that in 40 turns units would be level 4. Even at 1 xp per turn fallen enchantress would require 200 or so turns to achieve the same. By the time that happens your units will already have jumped army sizes and building a new unit would be more worthwhile.

Are we playing the same game? I've found that I can't produce units fast enough to deal with threats as is, so if you have time to delete and retrain units, instead of upgrading your city, more power to you. And by the time I might be in a position to discontinue training, well the game is pretty much won at that point, as I've already annihilated the opposing empires on the map.

And note that I said within reason. In my book, governing should net you roughly half of the experience that exploring and fighting does. My issue with a per turn award is that doing things (building/training) requires more effort than coasting/idling, and any XP reward should reflect that.

That's not to say I don't support a persistent XP award for Governors stationed in cities. Just that said persistent award should be lower than any XP award for completion of projects.

I'd also suggest that any unit training or building award be tied to the uniqueness of the situation. Training your first archer unit should be worth considerably more XP than your tenth... and building a 'wonder' should be worth more XP than a simple workshop.

Of course, I also think that each city should eventually end up with at least one governor, with potentially different skillsets so that each city may serve a unique purpose other than army and gildar production. If other paths to victory are to be made viable, the focus needs to redirected from combat a bit. I'd love to see viable and challenging economic and diplomatic victories as well as Spell Of Making and military ones.

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I am thinking of changing the Governor Path to add solid production to a city instead of a percent bonus. It makes balance impossible to coordinate with buildings and heroes reducing building times by a percentage. Making a building like Adventurer's Guild is the best way to deal with rewarding heroes that stay in a city. You won't ever get past level 5 this way though, as XP steeply increases at this point. I think the Hero section of the Magic tree should be expanded to include some new buildings and benefits to the economic aspects of heroes. This area needs some expansion to feel well integrated into the game.

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