Due to popular demand, the following updates were made.

- Melee troops do double damage to ranged troops, who do half damage in return when in melee combat.

- Ranged troops do less damage beyond half their range.(-10% per hex beyond half their range - rounded up)

- Rival bonus is now Double Damage, not +50% damage.

- Extra Damage is now 20% chance for Double Damage not +50% damage.

- Max Damage is now 25% chance to do Max Damage (was 20%)

- Retaliation is now 20% chance to do Double Damage when retaliating

- Size Bonus fixed so it's now +5% per enemy troop. Balista's also get +50% Ranged Defense, as they too are a war-machine. Increased Bali health to 66 (was 60).

- Marksmen updated; lowered their Defense to 14, and Range is now 6 instead of 7.

- Increased the health of Arbs to 34, and now do 6-9 damage (was 5-8)

- Increased health of Rams to 55 (was 45) and increased damage to 36-54 which is now higher than Cats (at half the price), but melee only.

- Seige Weapons now do 1/2 damage if they attack after moving (Bali, Cats, Rams).

Last Edited : Thursday, 1 October 2009 - 05:12

so you will have to move bali and cats into their positions...then wait until the next turn to attack with them?

i think that will give your opponent a chance to destroy them before you can use them...making bali a defensive weapon more than something you want to advance with...

ill be sticking with just marks, arbs, and comms now!

one question... does this apply to balistas in a battle as well?

Last Edited : Monday, 28 September 2009 - 19:38

Ballista were never considered siege weapons before... are they now? Is that a mistake?

they should be as they are still war-machines, and take time to set up. their size bonus has been increased, and they have the largest range, so they are still formidable, they just cant move and attack at the same time like archers or melee units

i dont think you'll see many folks using bali in battles anymore...or at all for that matter... just maybe as defensive weapons when your castle is under attack... now if i see bali...ill put my marks 9 spaces away... the bali cannot attack me from 9 hexes out and cannot move closer then attack...so it will be forced to retreat... this change takes bali out of the game if you ask me...

Last Edited : Monday, 28 September 2009 - 20:19

Was the ballista changed back. I just moved and attacked in a battle? It appears that all changes have been reflected in the online manual, correct?

So I mean does that inevitably make balis no longer ranged and thusly they suffer very weak ranged damage due to being siege weapons?

Updated marks again, see first post

errmm...i just moved and attacked at the same turn for a cat.

most of those changes sound very nice...have to test them

It seems like most of those changes in reality do almost nothing beyond tweak how the specials affect combat. That's ok for the most part and i do understand not be able to attack after moving for cats. What i don't understand is why would rams and ballista suffer the same penalty.

Firstly for ballista, they are ranged units in this game and not considered siege unlike what they were historically. In this game ballista can't take down buildings at all and are specifically ranged units. So why does it make sense to handicap in the same way as cats to the point of being useless for anything other than castle defense? You can't use them for anything else really because they can only move 5 spaces, and by the time you can shoot at what you're aiming for it has had time to move back 6 spaces or time to move forward and destroy your melee cover and making them completely vulnerable.

Now rams are actually seige weapons, but when looking at game play they have become useless too. They move just about as slowly as cats do so in order to get into striking position they would already have had to get through two turns of attacks by a defender. By that time they're either dead or severely weakened and it has become pointless to even try without mass quantities at a time. Even if we want to look historically (which seems to be the prevailing method here) the first thing that rams did once they reached a target was to start swinging away. So again why should they be limited to moving only and waiting until the next turn to attack?

I know this is getting long, but i do have to say that marks with a range of 6 seems like a fairly decent way to limit their power (even though i don't really like this fact because of my games). Even so i'd propose that you lower archer's range down to 5 hexes in order to give the marks some range superiority over other ranged. There is no reason that an archer should be able to fire the same distance that a marksmen would be able to shoot and in the game that one hex difference has always kept a balance between the two units and their respective roles.

well said coop... changing balista changes the game... i used my fair share of balista...but wont deploy another unless im under attack... the change has turned bali into nothing more than a defensive weapon... if someone puts a mark 9 hexes away from a bali... the bali cant attack the mark...and cannot move and attack...so the only choices are to retreat or be destroyed... i don't think there was a popular demand to change bali... but i could be wrong!

I don't think it’s that bad. Instead of having an army of 5 ballista’s with a couple of support units, you'll have to have an army of melee units with support from ballista behind your lines, which is how it should be. I don't really think you should have to lower the archer range to give the mark more superiority, as they are already superior hands down. I was trying to get Req to up the range of the Arbs to 6 as well to give them a little more edge. Remember now that a Mark takes double damage from melee and ballista’s have 50% ranged defense, it may be a little tougher and riskier to just move your mark in range to try to take down the ballista. I think we should all give these changes a fair chance before passing judgment.

I thought there were lowering of marks attack ability too. But it's gone? To be frank, with the marks as powerful as it is now and ballista being a defensive unit, nothing has really change. It just made the marksmen an even more important unit since after all, battle now is won in a range fight. Marks can just wipe out any units before they even get close to it. A bunch of basic units can protect it. Lowering the defenses doesn't help anything because the problem is not whether you can destroy it or not with your melee army. It's whether you can get to it in the first place.

just made a 4k experiment using all types of units.
-pikes did 320 damage to HC...which makes them very usefull.
-ballis range defence is working and it is nice to have it considering the fact that you can not advance and shoot or retreat and shoot(which make them very vulnerable to mele).
- falcs did more than 200 damage a few times which also make them very usefull too.
- marks recived between 550-800 damage from maces and knights....that is the best news around here
- arbs still very week in damage between 50-100... don't think people will use them(I'm not going to) unless their damage will become the same with the rest of level 2 units(10-15).

Last Edited : Tuesday, 29 September 2009 - 14:09

Good empirical science laur - like it.

Anyone like to check the following:
1. Do ballis take reduced damage from ranged unit retaliation, or only when attacked by ranged?

2. At what range does the long-rang damage reduction start if you are in an outpost or tower?
E.g. for a balli in a tower, is it:
Rng red . . . or . . . or
4 . . . 0% . . . 0% . . . 0%
5 . -10% . . . 0% . . . 0%
6 . -20% . -10% . . . 0%
7 . -30% . -20% . -10%
8 . -40% . -30% . -20%
9 . -50% . -40% . -30%
10 -60% . -50% . -40%

Last Edited : Tuesday, 29 September 2009 - 15:00

I believe being in a tower just increases its range, and so the half range penalty distance also increases.

With Arbs, I set their Health to 34, and increased Damage to 6-8. This is already above what a ranged unit should be at that Points value.

All ranged are based on 1/2 the damage of their melee counterparts. Since melee units also at 125 points do 10-15 damage, Arbs should really do 5-7.5 damage.
So 6-8 damage is certainly above avg.

Maybe Ranged should only do 1/3 the damage of their Melee counterparts. That might make Melee the main troops with Ranged as support troops.

Last Edited : Tuesday, 29 September 2009 - 18:52

Updated Arbs to 6-9 damage.

Yeah!! you da man!

i havent been able to try it out yet but in writing i love it. Thanks req