Mightypeon

Join Date 04/2007

Suggestion: Unit size as a balancing concept

Another way to improve summons, Golems, Harridans etc.

Greetings,

I would wish to make the following balancing suggestion:

Each unit gets a unit size. For a human, that unit size could be 1 or 2, for a Golem it could be 3 or 4, for a dragon it could be 10 etc.

If your max group size is 4 (cooperation), you could have squads of 4 humans or squads of 2 size 2 units. If your max group size is 6, you could have squads of 2 golems etc.

I also find it worthwhile to add "Global magical creature squad size increases" in the mage tree under summoning.

One could also make things more granular, and perhaps make cavalry be larger than infantry (right now, if you have the resources, and you will propably have the resources since no unit takes more than #unit size wargs or horses, while units can be much more expensive in terms of crystal/iron, and horses/wargs are frequent and produce 1 unit per turn even at the base level), perhaps add a "smaller than a standart human" squad size for shrills, or go generally hog wild on things.

This would significantly improve recruitable giant spiders and golems.

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Tormodino
phazonfreak
kathoum
Brago
animageous

cardinaldirection

Join Date 08/2012

+18

While I feel that a couple of your numbers are off, the idea is sound. Larger (/conceptually stronger) units should occupy more spaces in an army.

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This sounds like a plausible solution to one of the issues I have currently, that of there being no reason not to spam mounted units always and forever.

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jirkaesch

Join Date 08/2008

+11

Nice idea!

But wouldnt it be better to have such limit for an army rather than for a unit?

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I like it a lot.

maybe in this way is also possibile to give some bodyguards to the heroes? This can give them more survivability (the bodyguards dies first and help the hero in combat) and more option (es: you can have your hero on horse, but is bodyguard unit can be only of 2 horseman on a 6 size unit, or you can leave im on foot, with 5 bodyguard footman).

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another endorsement, that sounds like a very good idea and would probably solve a lot of balancing issues when it comes to late game unit design.

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Excellent suggestion!

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I like the idea as well.

Will be tough to get the right balance, but should be possible.

IMO a juggernaut is powerful, but not necessarily that "big". Possibly equivalent in size to a cavalry squad, but probably not. Do you equate 1 Jug with a group of 4 infantry, maybe 4 cavalry?

there is a lot of potential.

Just writing/thinking out loud

With that said - if I can only have an army of my single dragon - I can't collect loot.

Possibly not have heroes count toward army size? or just adjust sizes to cover.

example,

2 champions - size 1

2 henchmen - size 1

A dragon - size 9

A juggernaut - size 3

A cave bear - size 3

a set of 4 infantry - size 2 (@ .5 ea)

a set of 6 infantry - size 3

a set of 4 cavalry - size 4 (@ 1 ea)

a set of 6 cavalry - size 6

Example army size 15

2 champions @ 2

a set of 4 cav

a set of 6 cav

A cave bear

5 jugs

2 sets of 6 cav and a couple champs

5 cave bears..

Prob need to up size of jug, reduce size of cav - maybe even make equivalent

Size - Army of 3 jugs = 3 cav = 6 infantry = 4 bears = 1 dragon

Power - 1 dragon > 3 jugs > 3 cav > 4 bears > 6 infantry (with huge variety depending on build/technology)

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It's not a bad idea, but getting the right balance will be a bit harder in the mid-power units. It may even start forcing player choices to favour one unit type over another, which would be bad.

- for the following I'm assuming that we aren't talking about increasing the 'size' of an army above the 9 slots currently used for armies, but rather a 2ndary 'cap' to what can go into those slots.

IE, it's pretty easy to say a Sovereign/hero unit = 1 . A dragon could easily be said to be worth 8, or at least always the #1 sized unit in the game. Throw in a Juggernaut for 3 slots and a company for 2.

Problems arise though, in the middle of the pack --

- is a hammer unit with horses really more powerful (and more space) than a spear/shield combo non-horse unit? That might depend on the faction traits and chosen traits for the units. Plus a 4 sized horse unit < 7 sized anything unit.

- Can you even get an Epic Army together under the system? I would think not, given the limitations of the suggestions so far.

Company sizes also matter. A cave bear may very well be better than groups of 3 with little to no armour, but toss it against a company with shields/chain and it's dead.

Archers skew the data as well due to just needing meatshields in front of them to allow max damage. If they're alone, they'll die.

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Good points, but the issue is - an army of 9 dragons would be very difficult to match.

I think you DO increase the max army 'Size' limit, possibly significantly to whatever the engine can handle.

Do you want to be able to have 9 dragons vs 9 dragons? Is the equivalent due to "size" (not power) 72 champions (@1) or 24 Jugs (@3)? probably not - so maybe some lore rule comes in that no two of the same dragon can ever be in the same army (to allow for the dragon eye quest). So at max you get 3 dragons (@8), 24 champions, 8 jugs, etc. If you somehow get 24 champions... go nuts.

Again, we're talking size - not necessarily power.

What it does is gives another starting point for balancing power.

What SHOULD be needed to take out a single dragon? Well, right now... just a single champ with good initiative, defense and fire resistance. Maybe some fodder and a couple hard hitters. I think those 8 jugs in the above example would wipe the floor with 3 dragons if built correctly. Is that how it should be? Or should a dragon be a mini-boss, requiring resources and sacrifice? (also note, a wilds 'boss' should be a tough fight - not a pushover).

Should 1 unit of spear cavalry be able to take on a whole stack? Maybe, but then that 1 unit of spear cavalry shouldn't be able to be stacked with 8 others.

I remember way back, there used to be a magic type card game for lord of the rings. Each "hero" had a certain amount of influence points and that determined how many people could be held in an army. i.e. If i had gandalf, I could put the whole group together and it was powerful. If I had radagast (the brown one), he wasn't as influential and he could only have 1 powerful guy and a weak guy.

So maybe you require a champion to increase army size

no champ - 5 slots

Mage, assassin, warrior, defender - 9 slots

commander - 12 slots

With traits to increase army slot size

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Let me write out the sugestions a bit more:

Right now we have two concepts.

A) how much goes into one unit

How much goes into one army

My suggestion is largely about A). B is I think less dominant, the afromentioned 9 dragon army only kills one army per turn, so one could just slow them down while otherwise taking the 9 dragon empire elsewhere because they have all their eggs in one basket.

For unit sizes, I propose the following:

1: Multiply the caps (3 at start, 4 with cooperation technology etc.) by 10.

A normal human would have unit size 10, so as far as infantry is concerned, you get 3 per unit.

Cavalry could have a unit size of 12.5, so you get 2 at the start, 3 after cooperation 4 at unit cap 50 etc. In general, cavalry would on average be one less than infantry. I do think that this tradeoff is worthwhile.

Black Widows could get similiar unit sizes to cavalry, or perhaps be slightly bigger. Golems could be unit size 20-25, so when you unlock the current Squad size 5 technology, you can form units of 2 golems. Harridans as Golem sized units should also be ok, having 2 in a unit is still pretty far down the tech tree, and these units would occur at a point where normal units outdamage harridans so much its not even funny.

Dragons get unit size 100, you will not ever have a unit of more than 1 dragon. If you want to put 9 1 dragon units (as you could do right now, if you somehow happen to get 9 dragons) in one army, thats your choice.

For summons, I think it would be worthwhile to add squad size upgrades for summons in the summoner tree. Ice elementals are meh, but squads of 3-4 ice elementals in one unit? That could actually hurt someone!

Interface wise, you summon one guy, and then use upgrade squad size until you hit the cap. Design wise, having to different squad size things running paralell to each other (one for the added unit type "summon" and one for everything else) shouldnt be that hard.

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I think you two need to work out a functional proposal together for how this could work with the current mechanics.

I really like what I am reading.

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Ok, the current functionality is:

Squad Sizes go from 3 (start) to 4 (Cooperation) to 5 (Squads?) to 6 (Companys) I would be in favor of adding an extra level somewhere.

A rough and hopefully simple proposal:

Infantry:

3 to 4 to 5 to 6 to 7

Cavalry/black widows:

2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6

Golems/Harridans:

1 to 1 to 2 to 2 to ?3? (I think 2 Golems should be plenty, the balance of 1 golem vs 3 guys isnt that bad, the problem is that 1 golem vs 6 dudes right now, 3 would mean 3 golems against 7 guys late game)

Summons: Depending on the summon (I guess Earth Elementals are perhaps golem sized, Ice Elementals are propably cavalry etc. )

A balancing issue here is that the change from 1 to 2 golems is a lot bigger than any change from X humans to X+1 humans, which is why I dont fully like this implementation.

If we do it that simple, the user interface change could be perhaps simple too. Simply add "Monster/Cavalry group upgrades" on the tech tree, and have the build screen (where you select how many pixelmen you want to recruit) depend on the type of the to be recruited unit.

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Doh, I get it now - was completely on a different track.

Your change is smaller, more elegant and probably easier to implement.

Devil's advocate:

I don't think a non-recruitable/non-summonable unit should be able to be increased. - i.e. a black widow acquired through beastlord should not be able to increase group size, while a Resoln/hundred eyes faction should be able to increase. Not sure how tough that would be.

I like the idea, I would subjectively like to see a larger disparity - infantry (Size M) sizes can go larger, 3-6-9-12 maybe, cavalry (Size L) limited to one less, 3-3-6-9 maybe (to essentially pay for the power of mobility/simulate cost/logistics). Its much easier to form an infantry troop than a cavalry troop.

Add a unit size parameter to each unit type, VS, S, M, L, XL, Huge, Gargantuan

VS = shrills, mites 9-9-12-12

S = wolves, darklings, rock spiderlings 6-6-9-12

M = human, rock spider 3-6-9-12

L = Cavalry, medium spider (widow/corpse) 3-3-6-9

XL = large spider (harridan), air elemental, Golem 1-1-2-2

Huge = hoarder spider, juggernaut 1-1-1-2

Gargantuan = Dragon, wilderness boss 1-1-1-1

Possibly add in that other level - how frequently does a player get to the final unit size? Personally I rarely play that long on a given game, but it may be more frequent than I know. Usually once you get the 2nd to last the game is essentially over.

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[edited] Nevermind, somehow I read that you wanted units to occupy more tiles on strategic map.

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Quoting jutetrea,

reply 13

Doh, I get it now - was completely on a different track.

Your change is smaller, more elegant and probably easier to implement.

Devil's advocate:

I don't think a non-recruitable/non-summonable unit should be able to be increased. - i.e. a black widow acquired through beastlord should not be able to increase group size, while a Resoln/hundred eyes faction should be able to increase. Not sure how tough that would be.

That's not a problem as the bound versions (hundred eyes) count as completely different units to the spiders they're based upon. They already get levels and other fortification bonuses when trained.

Wilderness allies (Ogres/etc) should likely get boosted, but for the most part aren't really that useful (outside of the dragons).

As well, the unit sizes are already ingame, mostly.

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The Wilderness allies exist to boost military score a bit and to give you some free secondary armies.

They also generate essence around them!

And thats about it

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