various things that need to be changed, many topics covered

I think the bigger reason why many people feel Elves are so strong is because so few people have access to a chase/flanking unit. I do personally think it was a bit of a design flaw to leave such a core combat role to be unlocked after weeks of play. The "speed problem" is a perception problem that is taking root rather deeply in the community because of this.

If you have 3 archetype units who Rock-Paper-Scissors counter each other, and everyone only has access to R and P, the race with the best P will certainly feel OP to a degree.

It has been easy to bandwagon on calling elves OP and demanding buffs/nerfs instead of examining where the long term problem lies or if there is higher level of balance at play. They fixate on one or two things and declare that changes must happen.

I think if everyone had access to a "core 3" archetypes early - HINF, Cav, and Archers - say within 3-5 days of playing the game, I think speed would not feel nearly as OP as so many people claim it to be.

Players would spend a lot more time examining which proportions of those 3 archetype units work well for each of their races. Maybe because your race is slower, you would use an extra chasing unit in your army. If your race is naturally faster, you may not need to have that extra chaser. Maybe you purposely put a unit in your army that you use as fodder because they are so cheap and quick to heal.

Early access to 3 major units does somewhat reduce the "epic" feeling you get when you finally unlock those units. But I think there are ways to maintain that epic feeling when vertically progressing. For instance, the plan to add several units will make room for the epicness of progression.

The other option that might be easier for the devs to quickly create more room for progression would be to have players unlock more abilities to use with our units. We may unlock the units quickly, but to unlock all the options and variations of those units - that might take time and vertical progression. This would also add a layer of customization to our units.

Also, I think a shared pool of units for each faction would help give players access to a lot more units.

well, that brings us to the crux of the core argument here, regarding the dwarves lack of one, but because
A. Korr's the guy that argues for dwarves, and I'm not qualified to speak regarding it and
B. the issue I have is more or less regarding every race, not just dwarves
I'll not bring anything up regarding them. My problem with the elves is a small one, I'll start off by saying, and I didn't really want to make any comment on it due to the fact that we've yet to see how this 6th unit changes things around.

now, my problem is less the elven speed - it's a boost, but not too huge of one - but more that I don't feel that elven warriors have a con to balance this. they still have high morale, decent if not exceptional soldiers, better-than-average archers with increased range... as a result, even when you get to the late-game, this hasn't exhausted it's usefulness, as light infantry are still capable of being used to pressure the opponent's more vulnerable areas, rather than the need to rely solely on the cavalry at that point. The essential point I'm attempting to make is just that the speed buff, while not game-breaking, doesn't really have a balance effect to it - in other words, the pro has no real con. The dwarves have much lower speed, but have better endurance to make up for it. The elf light infantry is still average quality, however, but also has higher speed than the other race's light infantry. this is a bit magnified when you look at the archers, too, who, as noted in an earlier post, have enough speed to simply outmaneuver and ignore enemy light infantry - a micro component that I'd personally have preferred not to see in a game like this - http://www.battleconforum.com/t94-archer-unit-vs-light-infantry-normal here.
as a result, my problem with elves is that they feel, at least, minorly overpowered, not because of a significant capability in one area, but the fact that they have reasonably good pros all across the board, and without many cons.

AgentAAA wrote:

this is true of our LI's and our HI's, but last I checked our archers still have lower stats in most areas without a larger unit size. You normally have the stats on hand, so if I'm wrong, tell me, because I've tragically lost that reference that was going around the chat for unit statistics.

Here is the link again -- http://goo.gl/Q6NFH

And you are right, they have 5 less endurance and the same size of 16 individuals in the unit. I agree that would objectively make your archers less survivable than the others. From what I've seen, the devs have used lore to justify about 5-10 points of stats variation. I dont want to speak for them on that though.

What I have found is that when you counter a unit properly, it doesnt really matter if that unit had an extra 10 armor or 10 strength. P will always beat R - roughly equal levels and gear in mind. Heavies will always roll through multiple LINFs. LINFs will always beat archers if they can catch them. Cav can easily catch archers and will always beat them. Archers will always beat HINFs.

What I will also speak to is why I say balance should be done at the army level and not at the per-stat or per-unit level.

• Do undead armies make up for less survivable archers with more powerful heavies? or cavalry?
  
• And this is where not knowing any formulas causes us problems. We cant really know if the extra 5 individuals in undead LINF or HINF makes up for the minus 10ish stats in endu and armor. We cant know if their offensive ability makes up for this.
  
• So even if we can objectively say that 2 stats are worse on X unit than another race's X unit, we cannot really say that those two races are completely imbalanced because we cannot really say how much better or worse any stats are compared to each other.

The alternative is to say that all those stats should be equal on all races. I personally think thats horribly boring. It means we are all using the same units, but with different skins. It means that there is no room for personalization or evolving tactics. It means that I will always know how to counter every army comp and only items and levels matter.

This is the point I've tried to explain about unit stats to many people. Apparently some people consider it pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

Hegorn wrote:

AgentAAA wrote:

this is true of our LI's and our HI's, but last I checked our archers still have lower stats in most areas without a larger unit size. You normally have the stats on hand, so if I'm wrong, tell me, because I've tragically lost that reference that was going around the chat for unit statistics.

Here is the link again -- http://goo.gl/Q6NFH

And you are right, they have 5 less endurance and the same size of 16 individuals in the unit. I agree that would objectively make your archers less survivable than the others. From what I've seen, the devs have used lore to justify about 5-10 points of stats variation. I dont want to speak for them on that though.

What I have found is that when you counter a unit properly, it doesnt really matter if that unit had an extra 10 armor or 10 strength. P will always beat R - roughly equal levels and gear in mind. Heavies will always roll through multiple LINFs. LINFs will always beat archers if they can catch them. Cav can easily catch archers and will always beat them. Archers will always beat HINFs.

What I will also speak to is why I say balance should be done at the army level and not at the per-stat or per-unit level.

• Do undead armies make up for less survivable archers with more powerful heavies? or cavalry?
  
• And this is where not knowing any formulas causes us problems. We cant really know if the extra 5 individuals in undead LINF or HINF makes up for the minus 10ish stats in endu and armor. We cant know if their offensive ability makes up for this.
  
• So even if we can objectively say that 2 stats are worse on X unit than another race's X unit, we cannot really say that those two races are completely imbalanced because we cannot really say how much better or worse any stats are compared to each other.

The alternative is to say that all those stats should be equal on all races. I personally think thats horribly boring. It means we are all using the same units, but with different skins. It means that there is no room for personalization or evolving tactics. It means that I will always know how to counter every army comp and only items and levels matter.

This is the point I've tried to explain about unit stats to many people. Apparently some people consider it pseudo-intellectual bullshit.

Well, firstly, I'll note I don't use stats to back up most of what I say, I use in-game experience, but it's my opinion that at most you could say undead LI's are equal to other LI's, and, at least IMO, that's only once their passive's come into play. The archers I'll also note are an excellent example of why I believe passive's are rather important to undead, as I've never seen such a difference between one and 2-star units until I used the archer. they went from getting about one person, to about 2 or 3 people, using roughly the same gear. This is also why I don't consider them complain-worthy - they're great versus any endurance-based unit. however, they fall very quickly to enemy archer-fire themselves. Again, I won't use statistics, because in all reality I don't know how to use that data and I'd rather not use a debate tool I don't fully understand, but I've yet to have my undead archers do a direct engagement with another archer squad that ended in their favor, whenever the squad sizes were comparable - my rule is that I won't bother even attempting such unless I've got a full division and the enemy archer group's at 2/3's strength. while I don't know exactly how much 5 end is, it was considered enough by runeslayer in an earlier post to merit the loss of 10 armor and still keep them at least comparable, so it's implied 5 endurance is a reasonably important stat.

While I would in some ways agree the balance should be looked at as army-to-army, the devs have previously stated they want each individual unit in the core to be able to hold up to it's comparable counterparts in combat as part of balance, so I'd say it's reasonable to state that even unit-to-unit balance should be looked at. That, I do believe, was actually part of the justification for elven LI being as good as it is.

Regarding the other topic, that being elves again, While I would agree the smaller stats aren't easy to compare to eachother, and I don't attempt to, I also don't see their stats differing much from average with their LI's, their morale is something that's reasonably understood as a battle concept even with how little we know of game formulae, and speed is something that can be very objectively assessed - it's a stat we see the direct function of. My point is that the elves 17 speed is quite a large stat when honestly thought about as it's function has multiple uses. yes, cavalry can chase too, but elven warriors get many more free hits from a retreat, for instance, and their entire arsenal of light infantry has a much easier time fleeing. this is an advantage that in some ways can be even better than a higher morale in that it allows them to have a reduced penalty from breaking, and an enhanced reward for causing the enemy to do so. even when you bring in cavalry, artillery, and archers, this is a very significant advantage. This isn't a stat-based comparison that occurs unbeknowest to the player, it's a directly viewed and applied mechanic that has been shown to have at least some extra benefits to it that we can quantify simply by viewing.

thirdly, I agree with your idea regarding a shared units pool. Perhaps something like warhammer did with the dogs of war, or even some shared monster archetypes?

AgentAAA wrote:

well, that brings us to the crux of the core argument here, regarding the dwarves lack of one, but because
A. Korr's the guy that argues for dwarves, and I'm not qualified to speak regarding it and
B. the issue I have is more or less regarding every race, not just dwarves
I'll not bring anything up regarding them. My problem with the elves is a small one, I'll start off by saying, and I didn't really want to make any comment on it due to the fact that we've yet to see how this 6th unit changes things around.

now, my problem is less the elven speed - it's a boost, but not too huge of one - but more that I don't feel that elven warriors have a con to balance this. they still have high morale, decent if not exceptional soldiers, better-than-average archers with increased range... as a result, even when you get to the late-game, this hasn't exhausted it's usefulness, as light infantry are still capable of being used to pressure the opponent's more vulnerable areas, rather than the need to rely solely on the cavalry at that point. The essential point I'm attempting to make is just that the speed buff, while not game-breaking, doesn't really have a balance effect to it - in other words, the pro has no real con. The dwarves have much lower speed, but have better endurance to make up for it. The elf light infantry is still average quality, however, but also has higher speed than the other race's light infantry. this is a bit magnified when you look at the archers, too, who, as noted in an earlier post, have enough speed to simply outmaneuver and ignore enemy light infantry - a micro component that I'd personally have preferred not to see in a game like this - http://www.battleconforum.com/t94-archer-unit-vs-light-infantry-normal here.
as a result, my problem with elves is that they feel, at least, minorly overpowered, not because of a significant capability in one area, but the fact that they have reasonably good pros all across the board, and without many cons.

When you say across the board, you really mean across LINF and Archers. Once you start to compare elven units at the Heavy and Cav levels (or even arty levels) they do not have any stats that put them above all the other races.

This is why I said this is largely a perception problem caused by the fact that cav is so difficult to reach. Everyone is comparing their first two units to the first two units of Elves. The 3rd unit to be unlocked are Heavies which are very similar to each other but have a few minor differences. At the 4th tier, cav has some fairly significant differences. None would really affect their ability to counter archers, but all would give them a unique playstyle when countering other types of units.

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Heavies:

• Elves do not have any stat that is better than all the other races like they do with speed in the early units. Elves are tied for the best reaction (with 2 other races) and morale (with 1 other race). Everything else is equal or lower than other races.
  
• I discount morale right now because 1) it is being reworked, and 2) once you add a hero, the chances of you breaking are very slim for any unit.

So which races have stats that stand above all other races at the Heavy level?

• Orcs and Dwarves for survivability.
• Soon Dwarves for movement speed.
  
• DLegion for offense.
  
• Undead have more units again, but less armor/endu, so its hard to say which is better (I'd personally lean towards unit number but I cannot back that up with any real math).

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Cavalry:

• Looking at cav, I think the different unit sizes makes it difficult to draw good comparisons because that in itself is a big incomparable trait.
  
• In any case, all cav move at the same speed.
  
• Orc and Elven cav are both 2 unit chariot cavalry so I'll compare those first. Orcs have 1 extra health per unit, and elves have 5more strength. Of the two, I would prefer the 1 extra health. I could try to argue that orcs have better cav than elves, but I wouldnt really be able to use many numbers to back up that argument.

Which races have stats that stand above all the other races for Cav?

• Orcs as I mentioned above for defense at normal cav speed.
  
• Also Dwarves defensively, but that has been discussed ad nauseam in this thread.
  
• DLegion cav have higher attack numbers and endu/armor numbers than Elves, but sacrifice health. I'm personally really intrigued at how well a few of these units would flank into any unit already engaged with other units. The Dark Pact ability plus extra offensive power is something I'd like to learn more about.

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LINF:

• Even at the LINF level where so many people complain about elves, the human ability is a large boost to endurance that always triggers when they need it the most - and they have decently higher armor than all the other LINFs. Compared to most other abilities that seem to have an internal cooldown, that combination is powerful and scales well late game. How much better I cannot say but its always been an ability I have eyed for power.
  
• Undead LINF have the fastest reaction time which scales heroes well. Heroes are always attacking, so offensively, its a boost that scales well into the endgame. It also has the largest unit sizes, which should scale armor and endu well - again good endgame scaling. Again, I cannot say how well the scaling is or how it compares to other stat scaling.
  
• Elves have the same offensive ability as every other LINF except 2 (Undead are lower and DLegion are higher). They have a lower combination of Armor and Endu than every other race except 2 (Undead and DLegion again). They are tied for morale with 2 other races (Dwarves and Undead).

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Arty:

There is little known about this unit type so far, but we could compare range.

• Elves have the lowest range - which went against my own personal lore sensibilities, but I simply dont have any math/info to justify whining for buffs/nerfs.

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So elves dont have the top stats for everything.

Anyway -- none of these number comparisons really matter much to me. We cannot compare any of these stat differences with any real knowledge of how they affect one another. If you agree that balance should be done at the level of armies that are fully unlocked - or at least have unlocked all the core archetype units, then justifying minor stat differences doesnt matter. What matters is that armies of similar AP are balanced vs each other.

AgentAAA wrote:

While I would in some ways agree the balance should be looked at as army-to-army, the devs have previously stated they want each individual unit in the core to be able to hold up to it's comparable counterparts in combat as part of balance, so I'd say it's reasonable to state that even unit-to-unit balance should be looked at. That, I do believe, was actually part of the justification for elven LI being as good as it is.

Do you know where they talked about this? Was it in game, or an impromptu dev chat? I'm curious as to what units they consider to be "core" to any army.

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My point is that the elves 17 speed is quite a large stat when honestly thought about as it's function has multiple uses.

Only elven LINF and Archers move faster than other units. Theyre still much slower than all cav except ironforts - again I wont go into that discussion more.

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yes, cavalry can chase too, but elven warriors get many more free hits from a retreat, for instance, and their entire arsenal of light infantry has a much easier time fleeing. this is an advantage that in some ways can be even better than a higher morale in that it allows them to have a reduced penalty from breaking, and an enhanced reward for causing the enemy to do so.

I wont disagree with this part for low level matches. The next part is where the big disagreement comes in for me.

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even when you bring in cavalry, artillery, and archers, this is a very significant advantage. This isn't a stat-based comparison that occurs unbeknowest to the player, it's a directly viewed and applied mechanic that has been shown to have at least some extra benefits to it that we can quantify simply by viewing.

Very few people have cavalry. Until I got them myself, I saw them twice in about 2.5 weeks of play. The elven LINF speed advantage is not significant when you have a fully mixed army with cav and archers.

Right now, I almost never use my LINF to chase units. My cav and archers handle that way better than my LINF could. In large portions of co-op battles my archers are purely targeting running units. When the enemy unit breaks, I almost always retarget my LINFs at the next unit already engaged with my heavies - they dont chase. That would usually put them in an overextended vulnerable position.

So thats when I'm winning and causing a lot of units to flee. What about when I'm losing? When I am losing - it is rarely because my LINF fled. Usually it is when my heavy(ies) break that I am in real trouble of a match turning badly. Right now everyone feels like their LINFs are so important because that is the melee most people rely upon. Once I started using heavies, LINF turn into flanking support for my heavies. The Elven speed boost helps them flank a bit faster, but if my LINF break, the speed bonus doesnt matter much because my HINFs are right there to engage and catch the chasing melee.

This isnt meant in an accusatory way - do you have access to heavies yet? Once you manage heavies well and use LOS vs archers, PvE battles start to become very formulaic because of how much HINFs counter LINFs in melee combat. A lot of people dont even bother with LOS once they get decently geared heavies, they just point them at the nearest enemy line and let them wade through the falling arrows with very minimal losses.

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thirdly, I agree with your idea regarding a shared units pool. Perhaps something like warhammer did with the dogs of war, or even some shared monster archetypes?

Yea, there is a lot of room to add layers of personalization to army development there. The idea was also so that the developers may only have to make 1-2 units per faction instead of 3 if they release them in batches. It shortens development time while still giving everyone a choice between two units. It could also be an exclusive choice - or it could be a choice that adds room for vertical progression. I would lean towards vertical progression.

So much reading >< ok i dont need to stick my nose in most of these topics, so

Yes i mostly only speak for Dwarves because its the only race i play, but im a fan of several races, especially ones with the possibilities of being extra unique. Right now dwarves are just in a unique situation. I'm not going to suggest much things for races i havnt played for...uh... 50 hours in the last week. (why did i even buy auto collect?!)

Hergorn is right that Cavalry is extremely rare, i've only seen 3 Chariots and 1 iron fortress, no knights so far. I think this is because they arnt actually required in PvE, heavies and archers are a cost effective way to deal with everything, people might just bring them to level them, or solo with them for exp.

I think i mentioned something about the undead archers being a little less than average because of the stats, but having a larger stack of ARCHERS is a big deal, since they all attack at once. My thought was that 'plague' reduce friendly fire damage while increasing damage. Not like they're going to poison their own skeletons, and orcs/demons are probably resistant to that anyways. More of a utility thing, but utility is fun, ask batman.

@Hegorn the gun was already discussed prior to these posts though, Runeslayer seems on board for the idea.
There are still so many little details not even mentioned, like does the size of a unit influence ease of flanking since units naturally wrap around them? That'd be bad!

Do units re-gain moral for dealing damage, or does it require a kill ?Since the unit is alone and tanky, enemies may never gain moral for fighting this thing, that'd be good !

Does flanking cut a base amount of armor, or a percentage ? That could go either way. (how do you flank a tank with a sword x.x)

I feel the unit will be changed one way or another, if the devs think that the change i'd like to be matches what they want from it balance/lore wise, then i'll go for it! I think a lot of people are a bit shy. Forum definitely needs more active users.

I also cant remember what nerfs i screamed for besides an actual con for elves? Like it was pointed out, all of their stats are better or equal while everyone else has some sort of penalty. As far as buffs for dwarvs go, argued for different LI passive (for dwarf and demon for multiple reasons) trying to find one that compensates their weakness like many passives do. Higher damage for gunners? Which they might do, i keep hearing 'strength' and 'hidden missile strength', i shelved it until i know for sure. I didnt earnestly suggest anything for heavies, i like them, i dont think they're the 'best' though, three times in a row they are trounced by demon Heavies, they may only have 1 hp but the sheer bulk of stats makes that 1 damage so much harder to do but i'll be glad for the speed boost. Then a gun for the fortress. Wait till you hear my plans for the 'Dwarf Star' battle station

I'm all for exclusive choice units.
Hell its no secret, im waiting for siege weapons, whatever they do with the units in between arnt that important to me CANNONS!

Khor wrote:

Hegorn is right that Cavalry is extremely rare, i've only seen 3 Chariots and 1 iron fortress, no knights so far. I think this is because they arnt actually required in PvE, heavies and archers are a cost effective way to deal with everything, people might just bring them to level them, or solo with them for exp.

Are you suggesting that people have the tech, but choose not to use cav because they dont feel the need to use them? They are probably the quickest killers of archers available. I've seen single Impact Charges take out half a group of archers.

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I think i mentioned something about the undead archers being a little less than average because of the stats, but having a larger stack of ARCHERS is a big deal, since they all attack at once. My thought was that 'plague' reduce friendly fire damage while increasing damage. Not like they're going to poison their own skeletons, and orcs/demons are probably resistant to that anyways. More of a utility thing, but utility is fun, ask batman.

Undead archers are a 16 sized unit - same as all the other races. It is a thought to increase their size, but I'll leave that to the devs to balance.

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@Hegorn the gun was already discussed prior to these posts though, Runeslayer seems on board for the idea.

The gun was discussed, so were ranges that were almost on par with dwarven ranged units. Thats why I saying that having so much range would eclipse dwarven gunners. This isnt a unit that can be countered by conventional cavalry - or really any other unit except maybe ranged. Giving it long range and making it a "behemoth" at range would be very imbalanced.

You'll notice that most LOS on the maps is spaced apart about 30-40 distance. I just did a bunch of kiting for another thread so I got rather in tune with those spacings. Any ranged units with 30+ range can smartly use LOS to advance into effective range. A slow tanky unit that can always return fire on anything that tries to attack it? Thats a recipe for imbalance.

Again, this brings up the situation where Dwarves would be able to use 2 unit archetypes to be equally effective as all other races who have to use 3 or more unit types. Thats not fair in my eyes.

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There are still so many little details not even mentioned, like does the size of a unit influence ease of flanking since units naturally wrap around them? That'd be bad!

Yea, that is an unknown. It might be flankable, but at a smaller angle. I dont know.

Even if it was flanked, I understood flanking to only affect hit chances. I'm not 100% sure on this though. Even if this thing gets hit a lot, it derives most of its survivability from high endurance and armor. Flanking may be a non-issue.

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Do units re-gain moral for dealing damage, or does it require a kill ?Since the unit is alone and tanky, enemies may never gain moral for fighting this thing, that'd be good !

There definitely seems to be a morale bump when a unit kills an opponent. I also know most of the morale based self-rolls occur upon unit death - which gives the Ironfort a big advantage for both. It seems like there is a near-constant trickle income of morale too though. Not sure if thats caused by damage, nearby units getting kills, etc.

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Does flanking cut a base amount of armor, or a percentage? That could go either way. (how do you flank a tank with a sword x.x)

This thing isnt an M1 rolling around on the battlefield. Heh, if that was the logic used and you cannot flank a tank with a sword, then swords wouldnt ever be able to damage a tank. If swords and arrows can damage it, then I'm sure there are weak points on the tank that are more easily accessible from the rear.

Morale affects the chance to hit. Shivered units receive a penalty to its Melee for that round. Dont know about numbers.

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I also cant remember what nerfs i screamed for besides an actual con for elves? Like it was pointed out, all of their stats are better or equal while everyone else has some sort of penalty.

Theyre not better or equal. I clarified that in an earlier post. Elven LINF have lower combinations of Endu and Armor than 3 other races. Of the two remaining races, one has more unit size and the other has higher offensive capability. They dont have better or equal stats.

You wanted the Elf/Dwarf LINF abilities switched because of your sense of "lore"... and then you tried to justify why they had too much survivability for having their speed and again why that survivability should be taken from elves to be given to dwarves.

You also didnt like how ineffective dwarven archers were compared to elven archers. There were others that I forget and dont care to search for. Its all viewable for anyone to read.

Our gunners are good for their armor piercing, we plus we could field two and a half squads of them for the price of a fortress, so i dont feel it replaces them. I dont remember complaining about dwarven archer effectiveness VS elves besides raw damage, it should be given that elven archers are superior and im fine with that. It would only have 'long' range if it was equipped for it, in which case equipped cavalry could face it in melee. I'd rather keep the range in the 25-30 area considering its Reaction is really high.

Those 3 races that have better endurance/armor stats also PAY for those stats, every single unit has a pro and con to it right now. Dwarves more endurance, less speed/reaction, Orcs more endurance, less moral, humans more armor, less moral, demons less armor/reaction, more melee. The only price the elves pay for their reaction/speed is the fact that they have to be elves.

if only it were possible to make it ranged by putting Gunners inside it, or alternatively put Light Infantry inside it to make it stronger in melee instead. Units that interact with other units in supportive ways are fun.

The passive switch wasnt just my idea, and its more than just lore, the current hatred passives are just silly on both sides, i'd rather it be removed than put on anyone. It doesnt even make sense, hatred is a racial thing but only the Ironhands 'hate' the orcs, the rest of dwarves are unaffected ? Right now, dwarves literally level slower in the beginning because 1. Inability to retreat leads to high chances of wipe. 2. Inability to effectively chase leads to more escaping enemies. I've seen squads at 60% hp/moral flee off the map, this is a lot of exp after a couple hundred battles.

BUT since everyone is getting a new 'light damage dealer' infantry, i'm shelving any ideas for replacement passives on the Ironhand/Leadfeet guys since this new infantry might solve all of those problems.

Khor wrote:

Our gunners are good for their armor piercing, we plus we could field two and a half squads of them for the price of a fortress, so i dont feel it replaces them. I dont remember complaining about dwarven archer effectiveness VS elves besides raw damage, it should be given that elven archers are superior and im fine with that. It would only have 'long' range if it was equipped for it, in which case equipped cavalry could face it in melee. I'd rather keep the range in the 25-30 area considering its Reaction is really high.

You wont really need the armor piercing because Ironforts with range could kite all other HINF units. They have range and they move at the same speed.

Like I said before, 30 range allows it to advance using LOS and "cover corners" completely to advance. Basically you have every tool to counter HINFs very well, without having any units that counter your units well. It gives you similar functionality to your ranged units in a much more survivable package. You can completely neglect gunners if you wanted.

The fact that you have the choice to go with the Ironfort option or the Gunner option for effective range adds to the choices that dwarves have.

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Those 3 races that have better endurance/armor stats also PAY for those stats, every single unit has a pro and con to it right now. Dwarves more endurance, less speed/reaction, Orcs more endurance, less moral, humans more armor, less moral, demons less armor/reaction, more melee. The only price the elves pay for their reaction/speed is the fact that they have to be elves.

Morale isnt much of an issue right now - so theyre not really paying for the extra survivability. As I mentioned before, with a hero and some levels, LINF of all races come very close to dying before they flee. Almost every LINF unit I see fleeing in Co Ops have <6 units left.

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if only it were possible to make it ranged by putting Gunners inside it, or alternatively put Light Infantry inside it to make it stronger in melee instead. Units that interact with other units in supportive ways are fun.

Again, this is another way that simplifies the gameplay of Dwarves. Any RTS gamer will tell you that juggling a few strong units is much easier than managing many weaker units.

A lot of these buffs you call for lead dwarves towards that end goal - simpler gameplay with fewer, more powerful units. Thats not fair from a skill standpoint when all other races have to learn how to juggle multiple archetypes to be effective on the battlefield, and Dwarves could do fine with 2.

I'm a strong proponent of similar skill caps for equal effectiveness in any competitive environment.

Hegorn wrote:

A lot of these buffs you call for lead dwarves towards that end goal - simpler gameplay with fewer, more powerful units. Thats not fair from a skill standpoint when all other races have to learn how to juggle multiple archetypes to be effective on the battlefield, and Dwarves could do fine with 2.

I'm a strong proponent of similar skill caps for equal effectiveness in any competitive environment.

Fewer strong units IS easier to manage but is more restrictive tactically, and anyone can already to an extent do that. On the contrary i think the dwarves are slow and methodical, requiring more foresight to make up for a lack of maneuverability. A squad out of position, especially if you focus on fewer/strong squads, can get ya wrecked. Right now the only 'safe' way for a dwarf to fall back is to support them with another squad to hold enemies in combat. You could view it as 'riskier' gameplay maybe, when dwarves go into battle its all-in so they better get it right the first time !

Khor wrote:

Fewer strong units IS easier to manage but is more restrictive tactically, and anyone can already to an extent do that. On the contrary i think the dwarves are slow and methodical, requiring more foresight to make up for a lack of maneuverability. A squad out of position, especially if you focus on fewer/strong squads, can get ya wrecked. Right now the only 'safe' way for a dwarf to fall back is to support them with another squad to hold enemies in combat. You could view it as 'riskier' gameplay maybe, when dwarves go into battle its all-in so they better get it right the first time !

Its only restrictive if they cannot counter everything. Lets take the hypothetical that Ironforts get 30 range...

Getting it right the first time isnt much of a problem.

I talked about how once most races get HINFs, that LINFs turn into flanking support for them. Basically the same thing happens with Dwarves, except theyre using Ironforts as their "HINFs" and their Warsmiths moving at 13 (or more) to flank for their Ironforts.

Both are upgraded versions of what every other race has to fight with. There is no winning a melee with dwarves in that situation. Add in the new light assault unit for dwarvesto fill your 35% requirement, and you have 3 units that can build your entire army with 1 simple tactic - Advance using LOS.

Thats boring and any idiot can do well with it.

Now lets look at the counters to that. Two of the slowest, most survivable units in the game slowly advancing - all the while damaging anything within 30? Nothing. Not even ranged.

Already well geared HINF scale more survivability than archers scale offensive ability. If the archers dont move, HINF can just walk up to archers without losing anything close to enough units to cause them to flee or be ineffective when they reach the archers. The reason why archers can counter them is because they always have about 30 range between LOS objects to turn and fire off a volley, rince and repeat.

There should never be a combo of units that cannot be countered and have such a simple tactic to victory.

So in this hypothetical match we have an unknown unit, heavies, and cavalry? Good, no gunners to flank so its not like they need cavalry. Against what ? Just archers? Since apparently we just walk up to them. I'm going to just assume they have heavies to guard the archers like everyone in the game with access to them do. The fortress cannot fire while moving, or fire while in melee. Just draw them into an engagement where your archers are outside the IF's range, going around would be slow as hell, its not gonna be flanking since thats what the lights are for and if its not going to kill the archers who will ? Combat itself creates obstacles.

I'm sure they'll put a wildly speculative and hypothetical one sided match on file for reference.

Also that tactic already exists, its elven archers and heavies. Their heavies hold the line against anything, their archers murder anyone else's with higher max range/accuracy. 'If' the enemy has cavalry, either you do to, or just more heavies. I've yet to see a dwarf go all gunners/heavies but its the meat(tofu) and potatoes of elves.

Hegorn wrote:

When you say across the board, you really mean across LINF and Archers. Once you start to compare elven units at the Heavy and Cav levels (or even arty levels) they do not have any stats that put them above all the other races.

Actually, here you're entirely correct. My issue is not with their heavies, cavalry, or artillery in the traditional sense - it's more that they're also not bad at what they do, either.

Hegorn wrote:

This is why I said this is largely a perception problem caused by the fact that cav is so difficult to reach. Everyone is comparing their first two units to the first two units of Elves. The 3rd unit to be unlocked are Heavies which are very similar to each other but have a few minor differences. At the 4th tier, cav has some fairly significant differences. None would really affect their ability to counter archers, but all would give them a unique playstyle when countering other types of units.

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Heavies:

• Elves do not have any stat that is better than all the other races like they do with speed in the early units. Elves are tied for the best reaction (with 2 other races) and morale (with 1 other race). Everything else is equal or lower than other races.
  
• I discount morale right now because 1) it is being reworked, and 2) once you add a hero, the chances of you breaking are very slim for any unit.

So which races have stats that stand above all other races at the Heavy level?

• Orcs and Dwarves for survivability.
• Soon Dwarves for movement speed.
  
• DLegion for offense.
  
• Undead have more units again, but less armor/endu, so its hard to say which is better (I'd personally lean towards unit number but I cannot back that up with any real math).

I'll agree some people have better units than the elven heavies, but I'll also note a fair amount have roughly the same heavies without gaining in other areas, such as speed, for instance. my issue here has to do with the average rather than the specialization.

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Hegorn wrote:

Cavalry:

• Looking at cav, I think the different unit sizes makes it difficult to draw good comparisons because that in itself is a big incomparable trait.
  
• In any case, all cav move at the same speed.
  
• Orc and Elven cav are both 2 unit chariot cavalry so I'll compare those first. Orcs have 1 extra health per unit, and elves have 5more strength. Of the two, I would prefer the 1 extra health. I could try to argue that orcs have better cav than elves, but I wouldnt really be able to use many numbers to back up that argument.

Which races have stats that stand above all the other races for Cav?

• Orcs as I mentioned above for defense at normal cav speed.
  
• Also Dwarves defensively, but that has been discussed ad nauseam in this thread.
  
• DLegion cav have higher attack numbers and endu/armor numbers than Elves, but sacrifice health. I'm personally really intrigued at how well a few of these units would flank into any unit already engaged with other units. The Dark Pact ability plus extra offensive power is something I'd like to learn more about.

I actually won't argue this one beyond saying that this from my current perspective, again, makes cavalry quite potent without many drawbacks. I've yet to get to the point of using cavalry.

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Hegorn wrote:

LINF:

• Even at the LINF level where so many people complain about elves, the human ability is a large boost to endurance that always triggers when they need it the most - and they have decently higher armor than all the other LINFs. Compared to most other abilities that seem to have an internal cooldown, that combination is powerful and scales well late game. How much better I cannot say but its always been an ability I have eyed for power.
  
• Undead LINF have the fastest reaction time which scales heroes well. Heroes are always attacking, so offensively, its a boost that scales well into the endgame. It also has the largest unit sizes, which should scale armor and endu well - again good endgame scaling. Again, I cannot say how well the scaling is or how it compares to other stat scaling.
  
• Elves have the same offensive ability as every other LINF except 2 (Undead are lower and DLegion are higher). They have a lower combination of Armor and Endu than every other race except 2 (Undead and DLegion again). They are tied for morale with 2 other races (Dwarves and Undead).

I agree elf LINF is inferior to human Linf, particularly when we look at the passives. a slight note is that Undead Linf don't really seem to have a cooldown on their own passive, either.
on the subject of undead Linf, I'll agree heroes scale well with it, but until end-game, the units themselves tend to have issues - as I've said, unbalanced till they get their passives into play. However, even when you get to end-game, the fact that the scaling's only really a 25 percent difference means it doesn't really come into play till rares at least.
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Hegorn wrote:

Arty:

There is little known about this unit type so far, but we could compare range.

• Elves have the lowest range - which went against my own personal lore sensibilities, but I simply dont have any math/info to justify whining for buffs/nerfs.

Well, to be fair, if we went by lore, what exactly were elves ever bad at? To my knowledge, either elves are considered frail and bad on the front-lines, but excellent with magic and at range such as in warcraft, or good at everything in general, such as lord of the rings. This actually somewhat addresses the concern I was speaking of earlier - that elves have a fair amount of small pluses without having small minuses to account for it.
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Hegorn wrote:

So elves dont have the top stats for everything.

Anyway -- none of these number comparisons really matter much to me. We cannot compare any of these stat differences with any real knowledge of how they affect one another. If you agree that balance should be done at the level of armies that are fully unlocked - or at least have unlocked all the core archetype units, then justifying minor stat differences doesnt matter. What matters is that armies of similar AP are balanced vs each other.

I'll actually wait to address this last part on my next post, as to speak on it here would be redundant. I'll quote your second post to look at this more.

Khor wrote:

The fortress cannot fire while moving, or fire while in melee. Just draw them into an engagement where your archers are outside the IF's range, going around would be slow as hell, its not gonna be flanking since thats what the lights are for and if its not going to kill the archers who will ? Combat itself creates obstacles.

I'm sure they'll put a wildly speculative and hypothetical one sided match on file for reference.

Also that tactic already exists, its elven archers and heavies. Their heavies hold the line against anything, their archers murder anyone else's with higher max range/accuracy. 'If' the enemy has cavalry, either you do to, or just more heavies. I've yet to see a dwarf go all gunners/heavies but its the meat(tofu) and potatoes of elves.

So your suggested counter to the Ironfort Warsmith combo is to engage them in melee so that archers can friendly fire on their own units to stop the ironforts from firing back at range?... thats not balanced. Thats a lose-lose situation that doesnt give any other race any options to defeat that combo.

Do you disagree with any of these statements:

• What isnt hypothetical is the fact that Dwarven HINF slightly powercreeps all other HINF (which I agree is lore worthy).
  
• Warsmiths also powercreep dwarven LINF completely with the speed buff.
  
• Ironforts completely power creep all other HINFs.
  
  If those 3 statements are true, then the combination of Ironforts and Warsmiths together powercreeps all other HINF+X melee combos in the game - and that is even without giving Ironforts any ranged capability.

It is simply not balanced to have the most powerful melee combination in the game and then give it enough ranged to threaten the only possible counter to it.

Even if the devs could balance numbers to stop that from happening (there are options like an extermely low missile skill), it still runs the risk of simplifying Dwarven combat more than any other race. Thats a skill cap problem.

The tactic that would be used by a Ranged Ironfort does not exist yet and certainly does not compare to elven Heavies+Archers. Yes, elves and other races have to protect their archers - that is not the same as a ranged ironfort that needs no protection from anything. Advancing using LOS nullifies any extra range advantage other races may have. Every map has easy LOS pathways with anywhere from 20-50 gaps. Most are <30-40.

Hegorn wrote:

AgentAAA wrote:

While I would in some ways agree the balance should be looked at as army-to-army, the devs have previously stated they want each individual unit in the core to be able to hold up to it's comparable counterparts in combat as part of balance, so I'd say it's reasonable to state that even unit-to-unit balance should be looked at. That, I do believe, was actually part of the justification for elven LI being as good as it is.

Do you know where they talked about this? Was it in game, or an impromptu dev chat? I'm curious as to what units they consider to be "core" to any army.

Quote :

My point is that the elves 17 speed is quite a large stat when honestly thought about as it's function has multiple uses.

Only elven LINF and Archers move faster than other units. Theyre still much slower than all cav except ironforts - again I wont go into that discussion more.

Quote :

yes, cavalry can chase too, but elven warriors get many more free hits from a retreat, for instance, and their entire arsenal of light infantry has a much easier time fleeing. this is an advantage that in some ways can be even better than a higher morale in that it allows them to have a reduced penalty from breaking, and an enhanced reward for causing the enemy to do so.

I wont disagree with this part for low level matches. The next part is where the big disagreement comes in for me.

Quote :

even when you bring in cavalry, artillery, and archers, this is a very significant advantage. This isn't a stat-based comparison that occurs unbeknowest to the player, it's a directly viewed and applied mechanic that has been shown to have at least some extra benefits to it that we can quantify simply by viewing.

Very few people have cavalry. Until I got them myself, I saw them twice in about 2.5 weeks of play. The elven LINF speed advantage is not significant when you have a fully mixed army with cav and archers.

Right now, I almost never use my LINF to chase units. My cav and archers handle that way better than my LINF could. In large portions of co-op battles my archers are purely targeting running units. When the enemy unit breaks, I almost always retarget my LINFs at the next unit already engaged with my heavies - they dont chase. That would usually put them in an overextended vulnerable position.

So thats when I'm winning and causing a lot of units to flee. What about when I'm losing? When I am losing - it is rarely because my LINF fled. Usually it is when my heavy(ies) break that I am in real trouble of a match turning badly. Right now everyone feels like their LINFs are so important because that is the melee most people rely upon. Once I started using heavies, LINF turn into flanking support for my heavies. The Elven speed boost helps them flank a bit faster, but if my LINF break, the speed bonus doesnt matter much because my HINFs are right there to engage and catch the chasing melee.

This isnt meant in an accusatory way - do you have access to heavies yet? Once you manage heavies well and use LOS vs archers, PvE battles start to become very formulaic because of how much HINFs counter LINFs in melee combat. A lot of people dont even bother with LOS once they get decently geared heavies, they just point them at the nearest enemy line and let them wade through the falling arrows with very minimal losses.

Quote :

thirdly, I agree with your idea regarding a shared units pool. Perhaps something like warhammer did with the dogs of war, or even some shared monster archetypes?

Yea, there is a lot of room to add layers of personalization to army development there. The idea was also so that the developers may only have to make 1-2 units per faction instead of 3 if they release them in batches. It shortens development time while still giving everyone a choice between two units. It could also be an exclusive choice - or it could be a choice that adds room for vertical progression. I would lean towards vertical progression.

I'll make this post a quicker one - firstly, the unit-to-unit balancing was first talked about, to my knowledge, on a forum thread here regarding some balance ideas someone else had. I'll try to find runeslayer's post to include here as soon as possible, but like many other things, I've lost the link. if the Devs opinions on such has changed, I'm sure Rune will inform me.
secondly, as far as the heavies go, I've played around with them a fair bit using a friend's account that has unlocked them, who plays the same race as me. so, not enough to say I'm experienced, but enough to say I'm familiar, in essence. They're potent, but they're also slow and even with LI reasonably capable of being outmaneuvered, so I don't see them as closing gaps or stopping a chase unless they're practically next to the opponent.

I have no idea why i'd want Warsmiths AND Iron Forts, at this point, even if they perform about equally then it wouldnt matter if i mixed them. We have no idea how Artillery would effect any of these situations, or what the new dwarven infantry's role will be. We already know it sacrifices utility (flanking/speed) for raw stats, but none of those help when an enemy can flee in the touch of a button.

Giving it range doesnt mean its stats wouldnt change, im not suggesting what would be lowered to compensate for it, thats up to the devs. Man ya talk about tactics then everything is throwing deathballs at each others faces, if it is slow, you draw it to you, you could split up two stacks of archers and it couldnt do anything to them as it is. It either needs to become a standard cavalry, or some kind of utility, because it cant stay as a bruiser.

Again, you should stop treating every suggestion with a "You're going to ruin the game i play" attitude

AgentAAA wrote:

Actually, here you're entirely correct. My issue is not with their heavies, cavalry, or artillery in the traditional sense - it's more that they're also not bad at what they do, either.

Okay, so if Elven heavies are not better than the other races and they are not worse... If they have counters that all races have access to... that sounds like they are pretty balanced.

The bigger point I was hoping to make was that many of these stats are incomparable to each other.

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Quote :

I'll agree some people have better units than the elven heavies, but I'll also note a fair amount have roughly the same heavies without gaining in other areas, such as speed, for instance. my issue here has to do with the average rather than the specialization.

You mean the average of an entire army? I lost you here.

Are you saying that Elves have average heavies, which arent weak enough to justify strengths elsewhere?

The heavies that stand out in my eyes are Dwarves, Undead, and Orcs. DLegion is an unknown with potential.

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Quote :

I actually won't argue this one beyond saying that this from my current perspective, again, makes cavalry quite potent without many drawbacks. I've yet to get to the point of using cavalry.

Cav do have some drawbacks in general. They are quite strong in 1v1 situations, but are susceptible to being overwhelmed by a large number of units. I'm not really sure what stat contributes to this either. I dont see my cav being flanked by "wrap around effect" so thats not it. It may be the unit size.

I've seen 4+ archers doing well vs 1 cav (not enough to stop a charge, but enough to drop the cav to half health). I've seen 3 flanking LINFs surrounding and causing cav to flee within 1-2 rounds. A heavy and a single flanking unit will do well, but it usually takes a few rounds.

Quote :

I'll actually wait to address this last part on my next post, as to speak on it here would be redundant. I'll quote your second post to look at this more.

Sure. Will prob look at it a bit later.

Hegorn wrote:

DLegion is an unknown with potential.

They hurt, like, alot. 3 star dwarf heavy vs 2 star DLegion, i retreated after taking 5 casualties without killing a single one, i had to flank them to actually kill them. It could be they are more susceptible to ranged attacks and flanking and i'd be fine with that, they are 4 fewer and higher AP cost at the same time.

Khor wrote:

I have no idea why i'd want Warsmiths AND Iron Forts, at this point, even if they perform about equally then it wouldnt matter if i mixed them.

They perform similar to each other, but they do have synergies. Specifically the unit size of the Warsmiths would help avoid flanking on the Ironfort. The ironfort looks like it has better offense.

Thats why I asked those 3 power creep questions about Warsmiths being better than Ironhands, and Ironforts being better than any HINF in the game.

Quote :

We have no idea how Artillery would effect any of these situations, or what the new dwarven infantry's role will be.

Some of us see arty in about 50% of our matches, so we do have a fairly decent idea. What I've seen - which I think meshes with what others like Yan have seen:

Arty can hit hard, but they dont hit with much consistency, so its a bit difficult to rely upon their damage at all. I personally think their range is a bit small on large maps, and somewhat too large on small maps. This requires very little movement on small maps, but possibly a lot of movement on large maps - something they are very bad at doing. Its huge weakness is horrible move speed of 5. Everything can catch it with ease.

Quote :

We already know it sacrifices utility (flanking/speed) for raw stats, but none of those help when an enemy can flee in the touch of a button.

When you say it sacrifices utility for raw stats, what are you comparing it against? Other cav units?

Quote :

Giving it range doesnt mean its stats wouldnt change, im not suggesting what would be lowered to compensate for it, thats up to the devs. Man ya talk about tactics then everything is throwing deathballs at each others faces, if it is slow, you draw it to you, you could split up two stacks of archers and it couldnt do anything to them as it is. It either needs to become a standard cavalry, or some kind of utility, because it cant stay as a bruiser.

I wouldnt mind seeing it become a standard cav unit because that would solve the problem. I think the devs want to hold onto the lore feel of the ironfort, which is why I was suggesting that dwarves get a different unit that covers the chase/flank role. In any case, I dont see a downside to the ironfort/warsmith combo as long as it has a weakness that can be countered by other races. Every other 2 unit combo has a counter. This should too.

Quote :

Again, you should stop treating every suggestion with a "You're going to ruin the game i play" attitude

I'm bringing up reasons why there are problems with X idea. I even try to drill down to figure out where the reasoning splits on opposing sides of the discussion - thats why I do things like ask specific questions about elements of balance.

Hegorn wrote:

AgentAAA wrote:

Actually, here you're entirely correct. My issue is not with their heavies, cavalry, or artillery in the traditional sense - it's more that they're also not bad at what they do, either.

Okay, so if Elven heavies are not better than the other races and they are not worse... If they have counters that all races have access to... that sounds like they are pretty balanced.

The bigger point I was hoping to make was that many of these stats are incomparable to each other.

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Quote :

I'll agree some people have better units than the elven heavies, but I'll also note a fair amount have roughly the same heavies without gaining in other areas, such as speed, for instance. my issue here has to do with the average rather than the specialization.

You mean the average of an entire army? I lost you here.

Are you saying that Elves have average heavies, which arent weak enough to justify strengths elsewhere?

The heavies that stand out in my eyes are Dwarves, Undead, and Orcs. DLegion is an unknown with potential.

I'm saying that, yes' that's not really weak enough to justify strengths elsewhere. this is, again, because their lights are exceptional in several areas. By that standard, if you have elven archers/lights that are better than the opponents - even if we just count the archers - and then you say none of the other units, except artillery, which again I can't post judgement on - are not weaker to make up for it, it does begin to cause an issue. It's all pro, and 0 con. average is not in my consideration a con by necessity.

AgentAAA wrote:

I'm saying that, yes' that's not really weak enough to justify strengths elsewhere. this is, again, because their lights are exceptional in several areas. By that standard, if you have elven archers/lights that are better than the opponents - even if we just count the archers - and then you say none of the other units, except artillery, which again I can't post judgement on - are not weaker to make up for it, it does begin to cause an issue. It's all pro, and 0 con. average is not in my consideration a con by necessity.

Not weak enough by what measure? Without knowing formulas, its impossible say quantitatively how much better or worse any unit is from the "average" archetype unit. With some game experience, we can get a general feel for the areas that some units are stronger than others - but thats it.

The argument about OP Elven speed was that it had a lot of additional utility (Good chase, good escape, less downside when fleeing). You have even agreed that elven LINFs are less strong than other LINFs in areas like survivability. Their strength of speed felt magnified because no one had a counter to it - that has changed with the introduction of the new Slasher unit to the early game.

Later on, it gets countered by Cav units. If all Light Assaults have a movespeed of 18 (which is an assumption), then Elven LINF do not hold onto a lot of the strengths that the extra speed gave them. They are not above any other races in any other way and they turn into very average LINF units - possibly weaker LINF units until morale becomes more important.

If youre not trying to use stats to justify why X feels stronger than Y, then its all about what counters what and how easily X can be countered by Z. Its a more nebulous discussion, but right now there is a definite early-access counter to Elven speed in the form of the Light Assault unit.

Hegorn wrote:

AgentAAA wrote:

I'm saying that, yes' that's not really weak enough to justify strengths elsewhere. this is, again, because their lights are exceptional in several areas. By that standard, if you have elven archers/lights that are better than the opponents - even if we just count the archers - and then you say none of the other units, except artillery, which again I can't post judgement on - are not weaker to make up for it, it does begin to cause an issue. It's all pro, and 0 con. average is not in my consideration a con by necessity.

Not weak enough by what measure? Without knowing formulas, its impossible say quantitatively how much better or worse any unit is from the "average" archetype unit. With some game experience, we can get a general feel for the areas that some units are stronger than others - but thats it.

The argument about OP Elven speed was that it had a lot of additional utility (Good chase, good escape, less downside when fleeing). You have even agreed that elven LINFs are less strong than other LINFs in areas like survivability. Their strength of speed felt magnified because no one had a counter to it - that has changed with the introduction of the new Slasher unit to the early game.

Later on, it gets countered by Cav units. If all Light Assaults have a movespeed of 18 (which is an assumption), then Elven LINF do not hold onto a lot of the strengths that the extra speed gave them. They are not above any other races in any other way and they turn into very average LINF units - possibly weaker LINF units until morale becomes more important.

If youre not trying to use stats to justify why X feels stronger than Y, then its all about what counters what and how easily X can be countered by Z. Its a more nebulous discussion, but right now there is a definite early-access counter to Elven speed in the form of the Light Assault unit.

You're correct regarding the light assault unit and that's actually one reason I was attempting to withhold objections until said units came out - I mentioned my views as a passing point regarding my own bias and it turned into a quite enjoyable discussion, but one which I had some feeling would turn out to be resolved with said unit.

as for why I didn't consider the elves weak enough, that basically comes down to the fact that average isn't weak, it is just average. Undead archers are weak, weaker than average. this gets some pros to help balance that, like doing good vs high end targets. the undead LI are weaker than average and their weak stats make them more susceptible to higher infantry like HI's, which have a more decisive gap, but get a pro in that they will nonetheless survive the longest of any unit in an exchange, winning or losing, and that their gear stacks better. What weakness does the elven archers speed and missile skill account for?

Ok, I have read you guys a lot and I always wanted to say something but I was too lazy to create the account xD

Now Im here and you will have to suffer me muahahaha.

About the elf thing. I dont feel their are OP, but I do feel that as (some of you said) they have a few minor advantages that arent countered for any disadvantages.

Their archers are the best. We all agree here. I find most other archers having similar strenght, despite some playstyle differences with range and so, but at the end there arent many differences in final power of the unit.
Elf archers are just apart of all others. More a lot more hit chance from missile, more range (and hit chance from this as distance affects hit chance in relation to the max distance the unit can fire), and faster movement speed that in case of the archers seems even more usefull. Still they maintain an average endurance and their passive is like others.

So to start with when one race is fairly superior in one kind of unit you would expect it to be weaker in others to balance out.

Now we move out to LI. I consider LI to be at least above average. Average in most stats with higher movement, reaction and morale and great passive. To see it mroe clear Im gonna compare it one to one.

Starting with demons. Demons have 5 more melee that gives them a boost in atack iand defence. Elves get more armor and noticeably better atack speed (2 points difference). As RuneSlayer siad that melee is quite important in the formula Im gonna assume that the armor and reaction dont make up for the melee and still demons are slightly ahead in atack and defence.
Still elves have more morale (dont have in account only the fleeing, as as you siad with heroes is unusual, but other effects like shivering, my undeads seem to cause it a lot, and after rework its gonna have some combat efefct as dev said), more movement speed (is still an important tactical advantage even without chasing/fleeing taken into account).
And we move to the passive. Demons have a passive thats is great but only against one race, and doesnt help under archer fire, while elves have one that makes them really tanky (blocking 45% of the hits that would convert on damage after passing the melee, strenght, endurance and armor rolls, and works always.


In the case of orcs they seem to have a stonger battle start with their passive and the extra endurance that may be better for atacking already weakened units. But the higher morale, faster reaction and the continous passive of elfs (that appears to give a lot more tankiness than the 5 endurance) seems to give them again the upper hand as the combat goes on. And in top of that we have the move speed.


In the case of the undead we find again the problem of compairing the units number. I will talk later about this in another post about some experiences I have found.
For stats we have undead having better atack speed while elves having a lot more strenght, more endurance, more armor and the same passive but procs more often. And in top of that we have the movement speed.
We dont know if the extra 5 untis make up for this, but it seems a lot of difference to make up for.


In the case of dwarves we have again those 5 endurance thats gives more tankiness. But again dwarves have a skill thatis only usefful agains one race, while the elves one is usefull always and seems to give mroe tankines than the 5 endurance. Still elves have more atack speed and even more movement difference that with other races.

In the case of humans (what I consider them having a great LI too) we have they have 10 more armor. We know that thats is like the 5 endurance or even less important. Gonna assume like the 5 endurance to simplify things. Then elves have more morale and faster atack speed. The we arrive to the passive. Humans get a great endurance boost when having heavy losses. Still dont know if that endurance is capable of matching the 45% soaking of elves but Im gonna assume that the extra endurance is better than the elf passive because its what makes the most sense.
Still elves have it up all time whilehumans only when their units is 40% or below, what would mean that in the long run they would resist similar.


So at the end of this balance it seems that most LI units have trouble to match elven LI despite some doesnt seem to be very far. So I would conclude that they are not amazing (like in archers case) but they are above average.

This already creates some unbalance in new players as elves have a great combo of the first two units unlocked.

I agree their heavies arent the best. Orcs and dwarves shine here (speccially since movement buff to dwarves) and we have the legion heavies that have great stats at the cost of less untis and less hp per unit. I see them like a bit more luck based. If you are lucky they obiterate the enemy. If you arent they die too fast to do the damage theyre supossed to.
Still humans are almost the same with less morale and different passives and with undead we have the problem again of measuring the value of extra units.

Chavalry seems again fairly balanced overall. With legion been again high risk, high reward, and some having more untis at the cost of fewer stats but theres no much difference overall. Its fair to assume that elf chavalry is on par with others. While having the advanatage in taking a while before it loses damage output as it only has 2 units.

Artillery is the only one that seems fairly below par as has similar stats to the others but with less range. Then we have the difference of LOS against no LOS. Btw I a lot hink that each faction should at least have one race with each kind of artillery.

After having all this in account I would say that elf army is not overpowered but if you sum up everything it may be slightly ahead of other armies, specially having in account the inconsstency of artillery nowadays.

As a side note I would like to say that this also depends a lot in how works the elves LI passive. If it has some sort of internal cooldown that limits its constan use so it doesnt actually block 45% of the damage then I would say elf LI is good but on par with the others and that the balance is almost done.

Now Im gonna talk about the undead. Its the race I play and so the one I have more experience. I havent go still heavies (I will in a few days) so I will try to complete it more then.

With the excpetion of nergals (chavalry), who are pretty good balanced IMO and are similar to other races, undead units are charactericed by been weaker whle having more units to make up for it and ussually faster atack andhigh moral.

The weakness isnt a minor fact. In the case of LI all other units have 10 more strenght, and between 5-10 more endurance. And all other units but one have also more armor. This means that in any encounter the chances of hits converting into damage are a lot higher for the opponent, despite the faster atack and higher morale (through shiver) makes this slightly less important.
This is easy seen in experience. Before getting the skill you really have a hard time with skellies. I always had a ton of casualities till I got the passive. Always the one with the most in coop even if other players were also low leveled units.
The passive is a nice addition that helps greatly to cover this weakness but still they tend to take a lot fo damage, speccially at the start of battles when morale is stil high in both units fighting.

Apart from these I have tried to see the advantages of those 5 extra units. And sadly I have to say that I ddint found any apart form the 5 extra hp that gives to your army.
I did some test in pve trying to flank from more frontal angles (less than 90º) and its just impossible despite been larger unit.
There has been several situations when with 2 units I managed to completely surround another enemy unit or units atacking from a smal angle but still doesnt give any bonus. Doesnt even make more soldiers fight at at time. Only the ones at the front fight while the ones that are behind the enemy just stand still.

So from my experience I would say that only the angle between the arrows on top of each units when the units clash is what matters. If you dont really get the side or the rear doesnt matter how much you wrap arround the enemy, it doesnt gve any bonus.

Archer dont even have more untis while suffering form the same weakness than the infantry. I thought that may be due to mroe archers would also increase the damage output and may unbalance things from the other side.
So as the things are now they are weaker than the average. Their damage output is still fine but the lower endurance makes them lose almost every archer vs archer confrontation even if they started shooting first.

All this said I would admit having a slightly weaker unit of one kind if its rewarded in otherunits but so far it odesnt seem so. LI wih passive is in best cases as good as others and when you have bad luck with the hits due to that low strenght you take quite a long time to wear down enemies.

And HI doesnt seems to be that powerful. They have nice strenght and endurance (the average) but here they suffer for lower melee than any other, what affects both atack and defence, and also have lower armor than any other. They dont even have the best morale and despite they remain with the better atack speed there is less differene as one unit matches them in this aspects and most of them have 8 so the difference is lower.
So we could say that the extra 5 give them more lasting to make up for the decreased defence but that doesnt help much on the atack.
To conclude having all in account they may be very similar to elves heavies (speccially having same skill) but we already know that they dont shine.

Artillery is just average with lower melee stats, but that doesnt matter much for art anyway.

So here we have a similar situation but in the opposite side. We have units that are arround average with some slightly weaker but no much to make up as the units that get the extra units have already heavy penalties in stats. Overall as in the other cases the differences arent great. Just minor things but everything sums up.

It just the extra unit thing could give some kind of offensive advantage then I would think the problem would be solved too. And it would be that different playstyle that I would like to see on undead.