I don't care what period of history you pick out no army has ever dedicated all of their resources to ranged units. Actually ghengis khan used archers on horseback but their armies didn't include units that didn't have horses... ranged units, no matter what name you give them have always been "support" Even today artillery, air strikes, and missiles are all last resort or special case uses. Even the spectacle that baghdad was supposed to be was unsuccessful, as far as a "ranged" campaign is considered.

This game has become almost purely a ranged unit game. I have a few ideas and suggestions but there are a few things that would of course need to be elaborated on.

power and cost should be decreased across the board. power more so than cost. I don't know if the amount of barracks points used should be decreased, maybe slightly in the case of marks and ballis.

how far the units can shoot should be shortened. maybe not the cats since in all reality they would stop at some point and be rooted before they fired. As far as wol goes they would prob be useless if there range was reduced. The ranged now need to be able to shoot the front line and you are going to need 2-3 units between your ranged and the enemies front line. 5 for archers and marks, 3 or 4 for arbs and 6 or 7 for ballis would probably work better than what they are currently.


I think the speed of most of the units need to be revamped too. calvary units should prob be able to move twice as fast as regular units without being able to move a second time but able to attack/go into defense mode. Maybe this could be a special action in wok and not played with here. Like a sprint option or something.

I would support the range of all ranged troops being reduced by one. This would have the benefit (in combination with recent changes to how close you can build to the enemy and how much a commandeer can build in a single turn) of making it more difficult to operate solely with ranged, commandeers and pallisades, because it will be harder to throw up a pallisade in between the enemy and where you have to fire from - you will need s screen of melee units.

You could still use outposts or towers to achieve this, though, so perhaps cost of towers should be pushed up? Outposts have already risen from 500 to 2000. Perhaps push towers up to 4000 and give them the same sighting range as outposts - after all you can keep a lookout from the top of a stone tower just as well as from a wooden one.

Damage-wise, all ranged troops already have less health and do approx 1/2 the damage of the equivalent (i.e. slightly cheaper) melee troop (and remember that melee attacking ranged does double normal damage and takes half normal damage)
Examples:
Damg. Hlth . Att/Def. . Cost . . Troop
04-06. . 16 . . 04:06 . . 2000 . Spearman
02-04. . 12 . . 04:06 . . 2200 . Archer

10-15. . 40 . . 12:08 . . 5000 . Pikeman
05-08. . 30 . . 08:12 . . 5500 . Arblelester

25-35. . 92 . . 14:16 . 12000 . Maceman
12-18. . 60 . . 15:10 . 13500 . Ballis
Marksmen have no similar unit, so I've multiplied their damage, health and cost by 0.6 to compare them with Macemen:
11-22. . 66 . . 20:18 . 12000 . Marksmen

As you can see, in every case ranged have 66-75% of the health and half the damage of the equivalent melee unit, except Marksmen, whose maximum damage is a bit high (but their special ability is a bit crap). If you figure in the higher cost of the ranged units (as I did with marksmen) the difference would be even more. (e.g. you can buy 9 macemen for every 8 ballis).

In summary, there is already a finely crafted balance between the relative strength of the melee and ranged units. If we tweak it, let's just reduce the range globally by one and see what happens.

I quite like your idea of catapults having to stop and set up. How about Catapults cannot fire and move in the same turn, or reduce their damage by 20% for every full or part movement point expended before they fire?

Last Edited : Saturday, 26 September 2009 - 03:59

Hmm. I've some additonal thoughts. I will make a new thread for catapults, but here we'll carry on with the ranged unit discussion:

All range units have 2 ranges:
Effective range - that's the range at which the archer/whatever can usually hit his target
Maximum range - how far they can fire their arrow, with a much reduced chance of hitting the target.

Now Marksmen are listed as having a special ability that their damage is not affected by range, so that they can hit a target just as well at a range of 7 as at a range of 2.

The trouble is, I haven't really seen any other unit's effectiveness reduced by firing at extreme range.

So I think that firing at extreme range needs to be made less effective, without affecting firing at close range.

How about giving each unit an effective range and a maximum range. By default, all ranged units' effective range would be half of their maximum range (except for marksmen, as that is their special ability). Round up.
Unit's firing at a range above their effective range have the damage reduced, pro rata to how far the actual range is from the eff and max ranges.
For example, ballista:
Range %damage
. 2 . . . . 100%
. 3 . . . . 100%
. 4 . . . . 100%
. 5 . . . . . 80%
. 6 . . . . . 60%
. 7 . . . . . 40%
. 8 . . . . . 20%
. 9 . . . . none

This would greatly help reduce the effect of having a longer range than your opponent - at the moment, you always try to position you ranged unit so that it is firing within your range, but just beyond that of the unit you are firing at. That way, you get no retaliatory damage, so do 100% of your damage, but take none.

With this system, you could still do that (and there would still be an advantage in being in a tower or outpost, because they increase both your effective and maximum ranges), but you would only do 20-40% of the damage.

If you made this change, you probably wouldn't have to mess with ranges at all. Marksmen's special ability would become much better, so you might have to tweak the marksman's max damage or range down a bit.

Last Edited : Saturday, 26 September 2009 - 04:30

Actually, let's discuss catapults here:

How about this:
Give the catapult a very low effective range, i.e. 2, but increase the catapult's effective range by 3 for every subsequent shot taken at the same target, without moving:
. . . . . . . . Damage done on shot
Range . . 1st . . 2nd . . 3rd . . 4th+
. 2 . . . . 100% 100% 100% 100%
. 3 . . . . . 87% 100% 100% 100%
. 4 . . . . . 75% 100% 100% 100%
. 5 . . . . . 62% 100% 100% 100%
. 6 . . . . . 50% . 80% 100% 100%
. 7 . . . . . 37% . 60% 100% 100%
. 8 . . . . . 25% . 40% 100% 100%
. 9 . . . . . 12% . 20% . 50% 100%
. 10 . . . . none none . none none

So, if you're attacking from close range, the catapult behaves very similar to the way it does now. If you set up at long range, you'll take a few turns to hone your aim, which will give the defender time to sortie and attack your cat before it demolishes their stone walls or barracks.

If you move the catapult, your effective range drops back down to 2.
If don't move, but you change your target, your effective range goes back down, but only by the number of hexes your new target is from your old one.
For example, you've been firing from range 9 at a barracks for 4 turns, so have effective range 9. If you switch to the adjacent tower (also range 9), your effective range drops to 8, so you only do 50% damage on your first shot, then 100% damage on subsequent shots. If you switch to attacking another barracks 4 hexes away from your original target, your effective range drops to 5.

Last Edited : Saturday, 26 September 2009 - 06:12

Very nicely thought out and presented arguments, I must say.

When making suggestions, remember to differentiate between simple statistic tweaking and adding new levels of programming, for instance, changing the range of troops is easy, but adding new features like variable damage may be more than Requiem wants to do for a game he expects to discontinue on the arrival of the new game... whenever that happens.

If he can do it quickly and easily he is far more likely to consider it. I think if some of this had been suggested a few years ago it would have stood a better chance of getting attention. Perhaps it might get to be part of WoK!

In any case, I applaud the ideas.

Thanks Mog.
With regards to the variable damage depending on the range, I suspect that something like this must already exist in the code, otherwise the marksman's published special ability makes no sense. However, from what I have seen happen when firing from the limits of a ballista's range, this code appears to be commented out, thus negating the marksman's special ability and making the other ranged units more powerful than they would otherwise be.
If so, I say bring it back.

I would be very happy to see these suggestions incorporated into WoK. Is this at alpha-test stage yet (i.e. playable without all the graphics)?

Last Edited : Saturday, 26 September 2009 - 06:14

making the damage reduction so extreme would make all of them near useless except the marks. arbs aren't really used and ballis would be made far to inferior to marks to even use them.

The cats wouldn't in reality have any less effectiveness at a further range, in fact the projectiles launched would probably be flying at a higher rate of speed and therefore doing more damage.

To be honest, with the new recruitment rules, Marksmen are a bit of a Superman unit.

In the old rules, you had to decide what kind of unit you were going to train, and then watch patiently as a few of those men were trainned each day; when you had the amount you wanted you then paid to equip them and have them exit the rax.

Marksmen took forever to train, as it would in reality to train the "perfect longbowman" I can use a bow myself, and it aint quick to get to that level of accuracy.

The new "you get 50 points worth of men trainned" every day, and those men can be outfitted anyway you want at the last second before they leave the rax; just makes it suicidal not to get a few of these "Delta Force" guys out ASAP.

I think the rest of the ranged fellows are pretty balanced still, but maybe these "Delta Force" units could be scaled back to maybe "Ranger" standards =)

marks are so over rated. They are not delta force material at all and if you want to go marks from the beginning i invite you to play against me. Most players here become somewhat nervous when they see these units. You just need to power through them. unless you wait until mid game to deploy your marks they are more than inviting to chase down the way cats are. I have not experienced one game in which marks have ruled all and yet it never fails that i hear at least 60% of our community exalting them.

I favor ballis far more, only 6 turns to get the barracks points to get them(without techs and versus 9 turns) and only 2(versus 3) turns to get them paid for. after a couple of techs you can upgrade two barracks and put out a balli every 2 turnn. You are not going to upgrade two barracks for marks until mid-late game and even then you arent going to have the production power of the ballis. ballis are going to take out all basic units in one hit and cripple all mid level units in one hit. a marks is not so much more effective. They are just harder to take down but not so much so that they are worth the extra time needed to get them.

They are both overpowered for a "support unit" though

Last Edited : Saturday, 26 September 2009 - 16:37

have you played against Neb yet klyph?

nope but i would love to

he is pretty deadly with the marks. I'd love to see the outcome of a duel with him using your strategy

what if any ranged attack larger than 4 spaces away gets hit with -40% damage penalty.

marks get penalty at 5? If so i think this might help. We would just have to see

well no. Marksmen special ability is to ignore that rule.

we'd have to simply make them weaker or smaller range or something to compensate.

the alternative is swap Marks & Arbs abilities.
Allow Arbs to shoot at full strength at full range (they only have a smaller range anyway so its not overpowering), and give Marks the melee combat saftey, since they are supposed to be highly trained in combat anyway.
It also means while Marks are the most powerful, they still get penalties when shooting from a distance.
i probably like this option the best.


as for seige weapons (machines), i might be able to add something so all seige weapons (rams, bali, cats) cannot move then attack in the same turn.

i think you should save all these changes and apply them to wok... how many times is this game going to change? it gets annoying when you study the game and think you have things worked out...only to have everything change over night... im not saying these would not be changes for the better...but why now? why not save them for wok?

as for marks vs bali... its no contest... marks win...


btw...does anyone know when wok will actually be coming out... i've asked ppl but no one seems to know...

Last Edited : Sunday, 27 September 2009 - 20:50

wok is different anyway, and still a while away.

if we can make simple changes here to make WoL better, why not?

infact, there was indeed a penalty for ranged attacks beyond 4 spaces, but it is no longer working. All I have to do is fix it and it goes back to the way it was.

Or I can just tweak it so it its a flat penalty (eg 40% as I suggested earlier) when shooting beyond 4 spaces, which is even easier, and simpler when calculating combat options.

you may feel you are making wol better...

i feel too much change is ruining it...

here is why...
it is a strategy game...ppl develop strategies which are effective... but become less effective or ineffective due to rule/power/movement changes...(many times mid game) if you switched the rules in another game such as chess...don't you think it would piss off everyone who spent the time to learn and study the game... folks come back here after a short leave of absence and its like starting over due to changes...

Last Edited : Sunday, 27 September 2009 - 21:49

The penalty for ranged attacks should be implemented, but as gradual increase of penalty instead of the flat 40%. Else, people won't try to move as close as possible before shooting away. They will just stand the furthest they can since its the same penalty anyway.

I like swapping Arbs and Marksmen's abilities. It would even a lot of things out and make Arbs very useful at midgame while bringing marks down from being so strong.