It seems now you can chisel for points and win a game with 3 units. 1 comm, 1 bali or mark, and a scout or two for blocking. I think that building at 5 tiles away from enemy is too close, and the cost of walls and towers should be triple of what they are. I think 7 tiles away should be the standard for building walls and towers. I think if you want to build 3 outpost right next to each other, or any other fence in one move it should cost you at the expense of troop deployment. The game has turned into more of rifle battle than medieval hand to hand combat. Just look at the troop of the month votes. Balis and marks 5 months straight. The game is turning quickly into trench warfare.

Last Edited : Thursday, 23 April 2009 - 10:43

does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

At first thoughts , I agree with HOSA,if you want walls ect, they would be built well in advance of an attack so they could not be built as a deff quickly,i might even say more than 7 hex , but a palli of reduced strength could be built at say 4 hex
ie a palli =only 500 = two hits

I don't like the unlimited building that comms get to do now. It allows huge fortifications so fast that an attacker just can't get through. Same thing with barracks, I'd prefer they go back to being hard to activate, only allowed by castle ownership, as before when it was 2 free barracks with the ability to have 1 more, then 1 more per new castle owned. As it is, just too many barracks... even to the point that they are being used as cheap walls without the costs of researching walls. Ad mittedly, one could still build barracks as walls but if they were hard to activate without losing other ones elsewhere perhaps they would be less attractive.

7 tiles away to build walls and towers sounds ok to me, you have to think ahead that way.

I don't find the barracks a hinderance. I've taken quite a few of them over during games so far. It's the only thing that an attacker has that can help him hold his position up against a wall that has just been built right in front of his army during the battle. At least if they build them as a wall, you can take them over. Here's a good example. You run into your opponents army heading towards his castle. You both have say 5 units melee and 4 or 5 range (archers). You crush his melee, he backs his comms up say 5 tiles to a tight narrow passage 3 tiles wide. He then throws up 3 wall sections blocking it off. You're cut off from moving forward. Meanwhile he's creaping a bali unit up from the rear. You build a barracks next turn to reinforce your range to help hold the position backing up out of range of his. He builds a couple outposts or towers next turn. Now if you don't have a cat, it's a few turns to get one. Many I should say. So you decide to leave a few units there to try and hold and move to flank. Balis come in, you have to back up. He destroys the walls and moves forward 3 tiles to start all over again. Thus milking you backwards and picky off a few men as he goes each turn. By the time you flank, bam another wall. All he needs to defend is a comm and a bali, until you get your cats or marks on sight. And if he's built a gate, he can run units out to block and help him move forward some more. By then you've lost all the ground you've gained and units. If they want fortification cool! Great! Just not be able to build it right at my toes while the battle is going on. Make the cost triple, or, only build one item at a time at more than 7 tiles away per comm. Or leave the building the way it is, and take away the range retalition. That way the guy with one long range unit can't hold off a whole army of shorter range units. I'm having half to 3/4 armies being whiped out by just 3 units behind a wall. Or just make cats the very first heavy unit you produce! And make sure you make more than one.

Last Edited : Friday, 24 April 2009 - 13:28

I havnt been playing for too long, and dont feel I have the experiance to make any well thought out suggestions, but I would like to make a couple of comments on this anyway, and hope it will at least stir up some thoughts for you..

I dont see why a unit 7, 6, or even 5 spaces away would stop a comandeer from building a structure of any kind.
Its the comandeers choice to build instead of run. (i see you comming, but decide to start mixing cement.)
Now if the other unit was 1, 2, or 3 spaces away, It would deffinetly be close enough to interfear with the construction.
I also dont see how it would be possible for a comandeer to build 4 walls in one turn. (Build 2, move once, build 2 more.)

I suggest that once a comandeer starts a building, he can no longer move, limiting his/her build to 1-2 structures.
Or the structures being built take more than one action to finish it. That would leave the comandeer where he stands to suffer the attack from the unit that was 5-8 spaces away. Then the comandeer would not be able to finish the job due to the enemy unit now too close, and interfearing with the construction.

To sum it up, I think the only thing that needs to change, is the comandeer needs to be slowed down in construction. I think its the more realistic solution. I dont feel that the prices matter that much. I think there ok. The biggest cost in building should be time.

In my training game, I used 3 comandeers to build a wall 20 spaces long, cutting a feild in half in 2 turns. Thats outragious when you concider your building a wall that people cannot climb over.

what about a ladder unit that can stand next to a wall, and allow other "standing" unit to cross over at the cost of there hole turn...
Ok, now im just rambling..

I agree totally Gene. Building should use more build points.

It is currently possible for a commandeer to block a gap up to 12 wide (assuming enemy's advance is North-South) by building 2 barracks, moving, then building 2 more.

Barracks should: 1) cost more and 2) take 100% of commandeer build points to build. If you make them more expensive, give them a defensive bonus against catapults (only), so there's a good chance a single hit from a cat doesn't destroy them. (and with architecture, there should be a chance that 2 hits doesn't destroy them).

Also, why can't I repair something under attack by a catapult 11 spaces away? I'm not saying repair from 1-100% should be possible by one commandeer in one turn, but with a commandeer or 2, I ought to be able to preserve some barracks long enough to build some units.

I'd say pallisades should take 33% of build points, walls 50% and drawbridges 67%.

Cost-wise I think walls are about OK, but pallisades are a little cheap. Perhaps increase the gold cost if you have the building technology techs? (The manual says stone or wood costs increase).

I agree, a few tweaks are in order.

If everyone agrees, I can make changes to costs, and possibly the Build Points % as well.
I can also enlarge the distance from enemies required to build. 3 spaces from an enemy is ridicously small, and should be closer to 1 turns movement (8 spaces avg).

These are simple changes and if most players want them, they can be done fairly quickly.


FYI, WoK has a new resource/worker system. You will need to train "workers" and allocate workers to your resource buildings. Each building also has a "worker" cost, so that while the building is building (it could take 1/2-2 turns to build) it uses up that many workers. So if you dont have any workers free, you cant build.
Of course leaving workers free (or building), means they arent earning you resources.
Workers also cost you food, so there's quite a bit to manage and balance. It wont be possible to build loads of buildings in one turn unless you have loads of workers free, which means you're sacrificing resource income.

I play a game called Tribal Wars. It's a medieval based game,with a few similarities to WoL. Everybody should study that game and see if there is any way, to incorporate some of their ideas into WoL. I really enjoy playing that game because it is so detail oriented.

Doodoomite, message me about Tribal Wars. I have been playing it for almost a year but had to stop a few months back. I am thinking about playing again but I am sticking with WoL for now.

If you do increase the distances, can you make sure the no-build zone is a hexagon? At the moment it seems to be a diamond shape (so a unit 4 hexes east of hex prevents building, wheras one 3 hexes north of a hex doesn't).

This took me ages to figure out.

Can we adjust the relative cost of walls and pallisades so that it makes sense to build walls, not pallisades?

At the moment, with architecture, a 3000pt pallisade will be destroyed by one hit from a catapult, whereas an 8000pt wall takes 2 hits from a max-strength cat to destroy it.

So, a wall should be approx twice as expensive as a pallisade, but is actually 3 times as expensive. If price of a wall stays at 750, I would recommend the price for a pallisade of at least 750*3/8 = 281 (210 with Building Materials Tech).

I only read up to Requiem's last post So I hope I'm not saying something that's already been said unless I'm in agreement with someone.
I'll go along with that 3 spaces away can be tweaked to 5 or even 7, but I think costs are high all around now.

I do agree that comms can do a little too much now, but they used to be able to do too little.
Yes I know we have a lot of offensive, warrior type players who don't like defensive play, but I'm not one of them ... let's not turn the camps into *multi-player battles* although there's an idea for battles if not already implemented.

PS:
A couple other things are that:
(and I explained this in more detail a long time ago), but anyway the map needs to be viewed in at least two perspectives relative to realism:
(i.e. a horse can run probably at least a couple miles without becoming totally exhausted and walk probably a good 15 miles);

So with that said the map needs to be viewed with something like that in mind:
Yes the map is divided into spaces for the sake of gameplay and we giants can see both sides, but in reality the forces are a mile or two apart and apparently exhausted until next turn.

Of course the other perspective is caused by ranged units where we then have to look at the spaces in terms of how far they can shoot so that the spaces then get reduced to hundreds of feet.

However, it is the movement perspective that concerns us here and I come from a family of three brick masons who with me and two other laborers could raise a house foundation complete in one day
So don't forget that we are dealing with 10 commandeers
and probably their laborers and available materials can be assumed to be imagined.

PPS:
Something else that might need consideration with this is that in reality ranged units would probably be the hinderance to construction, so maybe ranged units should be given something like comms have (i.e. multiple attacks);

but however, that then brings up another objection of mine.
Aren't marksmen, ballis and their equivalents ridiculously powerful in relation to other units?

Please don't reduce the construction aspect of the game to the extent that it becomes boring for those who like to build strong defences.
Please don't change the game to the extent that the offensive warrior type player doesn't have to build cats.

Give the *multi-player battles* consideration if they haven't been already implemented.

rex

Last Edited : Wednesday, 2 September 2009 - 11:09