[1.6] Balance Concerns

+1

Good thoughts.

Golems do get more better if you make them unequip the maces which make them slow as hell to swords and other weapons but that's about it to how far I can customize the iron golems.

And an iron golem with sword/shield combo plus equipped with some initative accessory and an haste buff up made it an capable tanker able to respond to shifting battlefield. Downside is sorta expensive. But on plus side they can solo several monster armies by themselves with only one golem.

Edit: Three golems of that design is capable of holding an Titan down as six archers kill it slowly xD You might lose two but hey a dead titan is a dead titan.

Where one or two stacks of trained units or Juggernauts with that many crystal items would just kill it.

I never said anything about trained units or juggernauts

Why dealing with any armour in first place? Initiative is so much more valuable in the game that iron armour is a waste of production time and cost.

But more or less everything is unbalanced in FE, thus ist does not really matter if there is one thing more or one thing less. While still having less content than Master of Magic, where imbalances (and the braindead AI) were already a concern in 1991, FE easily manages to stockpile these much higher. I would not even know where to start the list.

For a turn based addict like me it´s an interesting game. Many elements to like, sound basis. But never really put together to a coherent game experience.

So why fix a minor issue like light plate against master chainmail?

Regards,

Thorsten

I have to say that golems are one of my big disappointments in this game. Juggs have a few different interesting builds due to the exclusive perks they get. A few more interesting perks to choose from would go a long way toward making golems as cool as they should be.

Agreed.

I very much expected to find Clay Golems, Stone Golem, and Iron Golems; all with different abilities.

or....You start with Clay Golems, and as they level up they reach different thresholds. For example, at level 5 the Clay Golems upgrade into Stone Golems....and at level 10 Stone golems upgrade into Iron Golems...

Is it that Iron Golems are underpowered, or the Jugs are overpowered though ?

Maybe a bit of both.

Well I tend to compare them to basic units. Personally I don't think Juggernauts are that much better then say a group of 4 or 5 trogs in chain with axes. Basic units get pretty ridiculously tough late game, to the point they can pretty much solo every monster but dragons. Without firebreath you could probably solo dragons to.

Pokemon evolution?

Won't work because according to the lore if I remember correctly ..

Clay golems is empire's invention.

Stone golems seems to be only used by kingdoms/empires of ye olde that got wiped out during the cataclysm.

Only stone golem design that's still available to kingdom/empire after cataclysm is the Guardian statues.

And Iron golems is Ironeer race's invention.

Don't really care about lore. I care about function. And function is telling me that Gilden needs a major boost in the  Golem's department in order to become a more interesting race to play.

Yeah makes sense.

This is a good idea btw, would be a good start.

@DsRaider,

I've got another one for you.  What do you think about the Unit Design traits of Fast vs. Muscle...

Fast (Labor Cost 15): +2 Initiative

Muscle (Labor Cost 12): +1 Attack, -1 Initiative

I really like the Unit Design concept.  But Fast is just too good no?  At the moment it's pretty much a no brainer to give it to every single unit design.

What's the "fix"... I tend to think Fast should have -1 Attack attached to it, what do you think?

'fast' as the term used to describe the ability in and of itself is a little misleading. I'd have gone with 'Quick'.

In any case, I agree in that this ability obvious for any unit created atm, though instead of a -1 attack as you suggest, I would reduce dodge by a certain amount....maybe -10. In other words, the unit is able to perform better at the cost of his defense.

Ya fast does seem to be the best unit design trait right now. +2 Initiative is a lot and makes a unit quite a bit better. I find it hard not to put it on every single unit I make. Not sure how I would balance it though, maybe just put it down to +1 Initiative. Of course if they look at fast they should probably look into the Strike Garrison and Aura of Grace.

Edit: Actually just reducing the benefit of each Initiative point would work better.

Imho, Fast feels about right for it's cost if your units are already pretty fast. It's a great choice for slow armored units, but not obscenely OP.

Muscle is the culprit here. It's fairly useless.

What might make Muscle scale better into the late game would be to change the +1 Attack_Pierce to say...

            <GameModifier>
                <ModType>Unit</ModType>
                <Attribute>AdjustUnitStat</Attribute>
                <StrVal>UnitStat_StrengthMod</StrVal>
                <Value>0.1</Value>
                <Provides>+10% to Strength Bonus to Attack</Provides>
            </GameModifier>

Assuming this stat still does stuff, of course!

    <UnitStatType InternalName="UnitStat_StrengthMod">
        <DisplayName>% Strength Bonus</DisplayName>
        <DisplayNameShort>SMOD</DisplayNameShort>
        <Description>Multiplies the units strength bonus to attack.</Description>
        <Hidden>1</Hidden>
        <DefaultValue>0.0</DefaultValue>
        <UnitStatGrouping>CombatStat</UnitStatGrouping>
    </UnitStatType>

I was actually looking for a catch-all Attack_Pierce multiplier.  That's the closest I see in UnitStats at the moment.

This?

Yeah that.  Only 1.1 though, not 1.5.

That way, in the early game you'd get a +1 attack, but as Attack_Pierce crosses into the double digits, you'd get a +2 or more...

That'd make the bonus more meaningful in the mid-late game, as units are upgraded/provided with stronger weapons.

Hmmm... Exactly how does initiative work? From what I've understood, each unit basically adds up initiative in a pool until they reach a certain number, and then they get to act and that number is spent, correct?

What if base initiative was simply changed from 20 to, say, 25 or even 30? Then each difference would be notably smaller - a +5 would mean you get 117% actions 125%, and -5 would be 83% actions rather than 75% (with a base of 30 instead of 25).

I'm gong to be making a proposal to address the issue of weak golems.

See

https://forums.elementalgame.com/455619/page/1/

Bump.

I like that idea. Although bloodthirsty already gives 20% to damaged units so you could go higher then 10%.

@DsRaider - this is a great idea, i've stolen it to be included in the next D&W version.     Also added a few more design traits for golems which I think makes things kinda interesting.  Hope you don't mind.