with the new troop (3 curser jumps already!) deployment Cats are cheep, and as a 10 nothing stands in the way. one hit destroys any building. they have further range than anything else, so they take out your ability to defend, walls 3 thick fall in one turn. and you can not even retaliate. your only defense now is a fully open map.

Considering income and troop production has been ramped up, walls (and other buildings?) should probably be increased in cost and strength to compensate.

-Biodus-

cats are cheap? I just bought 1 in a game, I couldn't deploy anything else that turn and I had just captured my 3rd castle.

I was just able to build 6 cats, 16,600 was cost and I could build 2 per barricks, NP when you are big enough, and My opponent is bigger than I am.

it seems expensive enough in a normal game

i guess the question is, how quickly should a full 10pop cat destroy a standard wall?

1 shot?
2 shots?
more?

thats what we need to figure out before we can adjust anything

Well, with the new build rules, a comm can throw up 6 towers/walls in one turn. I think to have a cat tear down one of them in 1 shot is not too much.

personally, I feel like there still needs to be some planning as far as walls are conserned - they should be strong, not something you can throw many up and break many down in a turns time.

neb makes a good point though, mass wall building is possible, so mass wall destruction should also be possible - UNLESS - unless we restrict wall building somehow.

perhaps make it so that you can only put up a certain number of walls per turn? to throw out a number, maybe 4? or 6? this way planning would be required, no wall spamming for urgent retreats.

Perhaps walls are too cheap now that Stone is not required.

250 gold is very cheap. How about 500 or even 1000 Gold per wall?

Of course, if you're going to up the cost you need to up the hp. I'm not spending 1000 gold on something that can be taken down in one hit.

I think upping the cost is not a bad idea though; if we keep the cost low, and allow cats to take them out in one turn, players will just build slews of walls to compensate, which is not very aesthetically pleasing (and leads to the map being walled off very early in the game). If we, however, make each wall 1000 gold, but make it so that a full pop cat (and only a full pop) can take it out in exactly 2 hits I think that's reasonable. The standard for any higher level building (walls, towers, drawbridge, upgraded barracks) should be over one full cat hit (now, it may be 1.2, 1.5, or 2 hits depending, but something at least over one). If not than players will just build huge numbers of buildings to compensate, which isn't necessarily what we want. With expensive buildings players really need to choose where they wall/tower up (and do so over a significant period of time), instead of doing it indiscriminately (and quickly); isn't that what this new version is all about...decisions decisions?

I say town down the siege a bit and up the cost/hp of buildings; this will keep the game map open for longer (since players can't fort up as quickly/cheaply) and make end game sieges a real challenge. Players should invest a large amount of time and funds to fortify their lands (just like in real life), and likewise players should have to invest in a large and expensive siege force to take down strong fortifications effectively.

How about purchasing building HP techs, or adding further building HP techs. Come on, it's 1000 gold, in a time (mid-game) when there's periods of non-urgency, and 25% HP is a substantial increase for that cost.

As for nerfing catapults? Why? Do you want to sit and have to produce several catapults because your opponent sits behind his constantly-regenerating shield wall while towered ballista hold your catapults from pushing in? Catapults are ridiculously expensive when compared to comms and compared to how long comms can delay them.

With demons being introduced, walls are more or less obsolete anyways.

Last Edited : Sunday, 19 October 2008 - 04:40

That is a hyperbole if I ever saw one. That's like saying ranged troops make non-scissors troops obsolete, or saying paper troops make rock troops obsolete. I'm sorry, but if you honestly expect to leave a castle empty and expect walls to hold out, that's rather naive.

There's a reason that fliers are by far the weakest out of all the comparable classes. Think of them as cavalry on steroids that are significantly weaker.

It's not completely true from either perspective that the wall is or isn't made obsolete by the fliers, but it has always been said that modern warfare rendered walls obsolete;

yet in the war in Iraq it was revealed recently that the only thing that worked to separate hostile factions within the city was a concrete wall erected in the midst of the fighting.

A wall is intended to restrict movement in or out of a place so when something is no longer restricted by it, the wall can be said to have been made obsolete by the thing that it no longer restricts.

However, the wall is still effective against ground units So it comes down to a matter of whether a combined invading army of Demonics that is able to breach a wall by destroying it and by flying over it would be a balanced fight against a defending Medieval or Barbarian army.

Again though I think Demonics might be more used and more effective at hit and run and evasive tactics than at direct assaults and also just hording tribute points.

rex

Well, TR, I'd grant you that it'd be made obsolete if the Demonic fliers were on par with average combat units. As it stands, they aren't, so a garrison of comparable tech and size will beat the fliers out every time.

I must agree with you in regards to the Demonic hit'n'run playstyle, TR, but you seem to think of that gameplay style in a derogatory manner. Not that I can blame you considering that the Demonic class is practically the polar opposite of what I suppose could be called the "slow and steady" medieval class. I will admit it will take a lot of getting used to a foe that can circumvent defenses rather than the classical "tower/scout/comms/ballista/mace" wars of yore.

That said, Demons need their mobility. They can't stand up to medieval units, their units are slightly weaker and cheaper, and they can't use range. The only thing that makes Demons even remotely playable are their fliers.

Anyway, none of this changes walls and it's probably a debate for another time. I still suggest that Wood Panelling is a reasonable alternative, but if this is really about Catapults, well, they're incredibly expensive and pretty dang vulnerable, and without them we'd get into good ol' WWI trench warfare.

My answer to catapult power is that if your enemy is the same size, he probably shouldn't be able to afford catapults without a weaker army. If he's bigger, why is he bothering with catapults :p?