Let's talk Artillery

Posts : 38 Join date : 2013-05-17

Well first of I would like to say, and most people will agree that it is underwhelming. I'm quite close to it but yet to unlock it for my little bearded bads.

So the first problem I see with arti is that there is an imbalance between light and dark where as (as far as I know) Dark can fire over obstacles while Light can't. This is hugely unfair (if it is indeed like this) and makes arti completely pointless for us Lights. The way I think it should be is either ALL races arti can fire over obstacles or all bar elves. (Let's be honest they have enough OP units going for them and it doesn't make sense for a Siege Crossbow to be able to fire over something).

The second issue is that they are so vulnerable to archer fire. The way I see it is the crew can use the hulking mass of their warmachine as cover from archers and the like, however still keep it as weak as possible in melee.

The last issue is it's accuracy and point cost, well I can't really comment much on this and I don't know if it is worth it (make up it's AP cost with the amount of kills it gets) as I haven't bothered to test it out.
Again I'm not entirely sure how this works but how I think it SHOULD work (in the case of catapults/cannons) is it hits ALL units in a radius that it fires at and those units need to pass an endurance save while armor should be useless. This will also discourage people clumping up their units too but I don't think will make it too overpowered vs anyone who knows how to spread their units out and still having the arti itself widely inaccurate.

So yeah, any input on other peoples thoughts on arti go for it, and if you can clear it up for me just how exactly they work please post it.

Posts : 282 Join date : 2013-06-04

It's balanced because light artillery does multiple damages and light side has the best archers of the game, they don't need artillery that much.

Posts : 38 Join date : 2013-05-17

Souless wrote:: light side has the best archers of the game, they don't need artillery that much.

Yeah, tell that to my dwarves.

Posts : 282 Join date : 2013-06-04

Dwarves have a very powerful cannon and their archers shorter range is balanced by their toughness and armor piercing. Light artillery is very powerful when it is able to hit, don't underestimate your power. Dwarves are tanks, they have the fastest heavies in the game and very tough units overall with very good hp

Posts : 38 Join date : 2013-05-17

Souless wrote:: Dwarves have a very powerful cannon and their archers shorter range is balanced by their toughness and armor piercing. Light artillery is very powerful when it is able to hit, don't underestimate your power. Dwarves are tanks, they have the fastest heavies in the game and very tough units overall with very good hp

No, you really don't know what you are talking about with regards to dwarves.

Posts : 282 Join date : 2013-06-04

Dwarves are all about tanking, if you are not confortable with them change race...simple, this is why dwarves don't have fast cavalry, they already have 13 speed heavies and a powerful artillery

Posts : 51 Join date : 2013-06-07

Summary--Elf ballista should be LOS, all other artillery shouldn't
(and tweak the 35% rule so people would prefer cannons over more useful things... like cav/HI)

Elf archers are awesome, yes--I can deal with having the gimpist artillery (ballista should be pretty much single-shot, but guaranteed to kill on hit, and very accurate--and yes, very much require LOS)

Cannons (dwarf/human) shouldn't be LOS... right now, dwarves are terrible at ranged.

Cannons also take up a precious slot that would 'rather' be used (by most dwarves) for HI, due to that stupid 35% rule... a rule that is much harsher to dwarves than other races (dwarves having terrible archers and LI--66% of the time anyway)

As far as dwarf archers being 'better' because of endurance? pfft... yeah--that's like saying someone's heavy infantry is 'better' with lower armor and higher attack--It doesn't fill the role it's supposed to. (which is why dwarves never use their ironforts... it doesn't fill a role, and the 'kind' of role it has is filled better by something else)

As it stands, lights would prefer their cav/heavies than useless artillery.... why bother having light-side artillery if its so bad no one will touch it? IE--tweak the 35% rule somehow.

Posts : 51 Join date : 2013-06-07

Souless wrote:: Dwarves are all about tanking, if you are not confortable with them change race...simple,

.... yes, because COMPLETELY STARTING OVER FROM SCRATCH is -EVER- a viable answer.

Resetting (within the same faction) should maintain current city infrastructure/items/etc (for the --FIRST-- reset) so as to allow people to ACTUALLY change their race after learning about the game without a COMPLETE game restart.

Seriously--you made players pick BLINDFOLDED which race to be before they knew ANYTHING about the playstyle they liked the most, then PENALIZE them for trying to fix it.

Posts : 256 Join date : 2013-04-30 Location : Canada

Would be inclined to agree about the one time reset. While i'm happy with my race because it is what I expected it to be; the same can't be said of many others. Seems to be mainly dwarfs, and due to the fact not everyone expects the slow movement speed and devotion to the tanking role...even though it does fit.

Perhaps a battle tutorial in which you play a few minor matchups as several races and have the oppurtunity to read an explantion of each race and its abilities before choosing would be helpful; though not to those who are already disgruntled.

Posts : 282 Join date : 2013-06-04

It takes time to learn how to play successfully with a race, you learn your weakness and your potential, adding some strategy and fixing stats with items and leveling. Reset should not compromise personal game progression

Posts : 65 Join date : 2013-05-16

Most people expect dwarves to be slower and tanks.
What most of us didn't expect is how annoying that slow speed is.
- That you wont win a race to obstacles in the middle is something to be expected
- Flanking is somewhat harder since it takes you longer to get into position. Often enough that can be a few combat rounds. I have seen enough fights were by the time my LI got into position for rearing the battle was basically over
- Retreat is virtually impossible since everything except HI will hunt you down and kill you
- Without LIA you cant hunt (with the exception of HI again) nothing down and everything escapes. Even more annoying if its archers and they recover morale and shoot your units down again since they got that much distance again.

The last 3 points are things are the things you don't expect when you start and are what annoys many dwarf players.
Before all undead were unbreakable and the introduction of LIA it was very rare that I got MVP simply because I just couldn't get enough kills since my units were only (unsuccessfully) running after fleeing units.

While I expect there to be less dwarves (and most likely less demons too) if you can switch for free, I think it would be a good idea to allow players to switch if they realize that the play style some races "force" you to adept doesn't fit their wanted play style.

Posts : 38 Join date : 2013-05-17

Subject: Let's talk Artillery
Good job Souless for derailing this because of your ignorance.

Posts : 3124 Join date : 2012-11-13

Just to put some wood in the fire...

What will happen when we add Fog of War and units won't be able to see other units until they have LOS and are in sight range? Wink

Posts : 75 Join date : 2013-05-28

RuneSlayer wrote:: Just to put some wood in the fire...

What will happen when we add Fog of War and units won't be able to see other units until they have LOS and are in sight range?

That will make units with high speed stronger :p
If FoW is added, artillery's movement need to be improved to 10 imo, or it'll be a pain to use...

Posts : 3124 Join date : 2012-11-13

Latexlord wrote:

RuneSlayer wrote:: Just to put some wood in the fire...

What will happen when we add Fog of War and units won't be able to see other units until they have LOS and are in sight range?

That will make units with high speed stronger :p
If FoW is added, artillery's movement need to be improved to 10 imo, or it'll be a pain to use...

Actually players will need to "scout" ahead in order to:

1) Identify the composition of the enemy army.

2) Location of the enemy army

3) Assign targets to artillery

etc. etc.

Posts : 282 Join date : 2013-06-04

RuneSlayer wrote:: Just to put some wood in the fire...

What will happen when we add Fog of War and units won't be able to see other units until they have LOS and are in sight range?

In this case change every artillery unit with a LOS needed and buff artillery or
don't add FoW at all because in LOS dark artillery are weaker than light ones

Posts : 38 Join date : 2013-05-17

So basically units with a fast cav unit can use it as a spotter for their ranged units (if any) and to scout out enemy army composition while dwarves will have no effective means of doing this as fast as any other race? Not something I'm hoping for.