suggestions for improving order of asok (wages) ?

from Elemental Forums

Hi all,

Ok so i'm probably a bit slow catching on with this one, but I just realized the goold 'ol Knights of Asok have a wages cost of a hefty 9 gold per turn  8C .  A quick search of the forum shows this is not exactly a surprise to most.

 

They cost 600 production to built and 9 gold to maintain.

I modded them to 100 production and then they cost 1.5 gold to maintain.... so seems that the gold upkeep is maybe like a factor of 0.015 times the production labour?

I don't quite get why Ogres don't have a wage cost.... theirs is zero.  I assume it's because they are not men/fallen, anyone know for sure?

 

I'm also wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how to "fix" the Order of Asok guys to make them at all useful (mercenaries also)?  Is the simplest thing to just drop the labour cost right down... and maybe charge them a bunch of gold/influence upfront to recruit?

Other ideas?

Cheers.

6,086 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

You can use the "HasWages" to enable or disable wages on Knights of Asok ( <HasWages>0</HasWages> makes a unit have no wages, while <HasWages>1</HasWages> allows the unit to collect wages, assuming I've understood the XML correctly).

Alternatively, you can use <WageOverride>X</WageOverride> to set unit upkeep to X (again, I think - I'm not positive since I don't usually do this kind of thing).

I'm not positive that what I said is right, but I think it is.  Someone like Heavenfall could probably correct me if I'm wrong.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Mother fucker this hasn't been fixed yet?  God damn, been bitching forever!

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

What's awesome is when you upgrade one of their resources next to your city only to realize they suck, eat gold like candy, and you have no way to stop them from spawning anymore.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Imo, ANY unit that 'auto-builds' itself into your army should NEVER cost maintenance!!!

I'm fine with maintenance costs on these types of troops....but than the building sites SHOULD be included with a 'build' button, giving the player control over whether or not he wants to pay that upkeep.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


I don't really see the problem with building them automatically.  When you don't want them anymore or can't afford the maintenance just disband them and you get the 3 pop in your nearest city.

 

JJ

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Something I did in stormworld to balance a lower wage cost for my new recruitables was make them 1 per world resource, not 3. So you only get 1 unit and if it dies you need to wait 10 turns before you get another.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

I think even in SW none of these units should have wages. The "cost" should be having to find one of these lairs, conquer it, build an outpost or city near it, research the tech, then pay for the lair upgrade, having a handful of free units that will always respawn every few turns would make that whole process worth it. Giving them wages though just kills it, if I wanted to pay unit upkeep I'd train my own units with decent gear, they are almost always stronger and more useful and I can spit them out every 1-3 turns easily, as many as I need. They are just absolutely not worth touching as is, base game or SW (and I have tried most of them). Though I still get the dragons, can't resist having dragons in my army, even if they suck by that point.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

The reason I like a small wage cost on the units is because of the path you use to get to them - civilization. What I want is that the player should be able to focus his strategy not on magic, not on warfare, but on civilization. This, as all games, is dependant on his starting location. Magic uses shards and crystal, warfare uses metal, civilization uses gold, influence and recruitment centers. So, if there is no gold cost associated with the upkeep of the units, the player that focuses civilization will have a large income of gold that is not used for these monsters. That's an unbalancing factor that I don't particularly like, because gold is so versatile - you can buy gear for your champions or even rush buildings/units with what you get.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Just do some more testing on this... seems to me that these limited cap units don't have an upfront cost?  I've just been watching what happens when they start building and it doesn't seem to deduct anything.

Am I right?  There is a cost  (productionrequirement) in the xml but it doesn't look like you get charged for it.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Heavenfall, reply 10
What I want is that the player should be able to focus his strategy not on magic, not on warfare, but on civilization.
End of Heavenfall's quote

Even without the base game lairs that was already possible and not at all difficult. A town heavy strategy allows the player to buy the metal and crystal they need to build real units. They don't need the lairs, but by putting wages on the units that locks them to this strategy that can already do everything else. The civilization "link" to the lairs should stop at the upfront influence cost and tech requirement. You don't need a large number of conclaves to build units with magical equipment (or get crystal), you don't need a large number of fortresses to build strong units with metal equipment (or get metal), you do need a large number of towns to use lair units (with wages) in any meaningful way.