Balance gripe: Drill promotions

To increase emphasis on individual, elite units, the superior line of generic promotions from vanilla, Combat, had its power doubled. So did the specialized promotions like shock, cover, etc. Why's drill left out in the cold? All it really has as a new bonus is that it unlocks blitz instead of the combat line... but even so, that's 5 promotions and not a single extra point of base strength to show for it.

Drill was weaker than combat in most situations, now it just blows. With blitz and someone like Chalid, it is useful for making steamrolls go that much more quickly, that's it. I like its concept of how it sucks at first and gives greater and greater returns the more you invest into it, I just want the later bits to be better.

My rough idea is this:

Drill 1: +1 first strike
Drill 2: +2 first strikes
Drill 3: +3 first strikes
Drill 4: +4 first strikes

And leave all the other bonuses (collateral resistance, etc.) and unlocks (blitz, etc.) they have as they are.

Simple, easy to remember, and not completely owned by combat.

For reference, Drill line is currently:

Drill 1: +1 first strike chance
Drill 2: +1 first strike
Drill 3: +2 first strike chances
Drill 4: +2 first strikes

There was a discussion about this a while ago. Drill is really good already if you have the combat line of promos, and making it better will make a Combat 5 Drill 4 Unit even more unstoppable... I would say make the Drill a bit better but not as drastic as your change, perhaps +1 fs, +2 fs chance, +2 fs, +2-3 fs chances

Combat 5 Drill 4 Unit

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unstoppable

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Doesn't that kind of make sense?

Not to mention things that are immune to, or grant immunity to, first strikes, which the AI will only get better at using from here on out... for instance, a combat 5 mounted unit would be a match for a combat 5, drill 4 melee unit of comparable tech level even with my proposed changes.

One problem with this is all these first strikes can be ignored if you just use the shadow 1 spell. Humans would realize this better than the AI, and so get one more advantage.

I'll try to be simple. When calculating combat odds, the code assumes 50% of the strikes hit (or the percentage they are exactly). If you have 4 strikes, it assumes 2 hit. With those 2 hitting, it gives you combat odds of... 99.1%. But that is actually a range. You can test in worldbuilder by giving a unit drill promos and watch the odds increase. The range is something like 90% - >99.99%. So do not be surprised then you lose a 99.5% with a drill 4 unit. You probably missed most of the strikes, causing the fight to be 10% less than odds shown. Take 90% odds a few times (1/10) and what should one expect?

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While other promos are doubled (city raider being so is broken, because it subtracts from base), drill is same as bts :/ as well as dangerous to use below >99

Alternative;
Drill 1: 5% strength, 1 first strike chance
Drill 2: 10% strength, 1 first strike
Drill 3: 15% strength, 2 first strike chances
Drill 4: 20% strength, 2 first strikes.

I'm still hoping that we can convince Kael to implement a Morale Mechanic, and have Drill improve your/reduce rival Morale. I was thinking that it would be good to make Fear part of the Morale Mechanic, so that units with enough Drill promotions would have a higher chance of overcoming fear. (Courage should also be a temporary promotion, and maybe just greatly boost morale instead of giving complete immunity to Fear.)

i would suggest to replace drill by something else. if you don't go for blitz there is no need to ever take it

MagisterCultuum said:

I'm still hoping that we can convince Kael to implement a Morale Mechanic, and have Drill improve your/reduce rival Morale. I was thinking that it would be good to make Fear part of the Morale Mechanic, so that units with enough Drill promotions would have a higher chance of overcoming fear. (Courage should also be a temporary promotion, and maybe just greatly boost morale instead of giving complete immunity to Fear.)

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that is a very good idea.

also, I agree that drill needs to be buffed.
maybe increase chance of first strikes by a bit and increase drill's bonus? maybe +2 +2 +2 +2?

@ Slowcar: Only if you go strictly for efficiency and don't play very long games at normal or slower speeds.

In long games vs. AI (especially vs. raging Barbs) where you hatch your units to one-man-armies its worth quite alot. If you expect plenty of battles (10+ in a few rounds) against alot of weaker units (like Power 3 / 4 or seriously busted ones from Mealstorm / Tsunami / Crown of Brilliance.) it even tops combat if maxed. Especially for units which do already have combat + high strength and the likes.
In Multiplayer im sure its near worthless save for blitz though.

So Ecofarm is right strictly speaking and tactically. But not against swarm. (there are several ways to counter swarm, given. But its very easy to do drill with just one unit and don't bother with many sophisticated strategies against raging-barb-swarm.)

If i play a little game of hatch-the superunit i usually go for drill first. safer and faster way (thanks to blitz) to reach very high levels 10+. Maxing combat first packs more punch but takes an awfully long time to reach blitz then. By my experience.

Oh and for high-level city defenders (like City-defense 3 Drill 4 Longbowmen) its also very usful (again: vs. AI and roaming monsters only. But i play marnoks mod and there its far more important to have a solid citiy defense. Tier 4 Elementals with city Raider 3! around Turn 100 normal speed are serious stuff to handle with just warriors / Axes)

So all in all: Not efficient but rather convenient.


That said Drill could / should be improved a bit even if i think that Monkeyfinger has gone a bit over the top with 10 guaranteed first strikes at maxed Drill as opposed to 3-6 as of now. (Aren't Cho-ko-nu already very powerful in vanilla with less first strikes than 10 guaranteed already?). After all that whould be more than just doubling its efficiency. The combat improvement like some above or some other interesting utility-skills whould indeed help alot. Immunity to collateral, higher city defense and other things spring to mind as possibilities.

I'd really just like the first two points of drill to be slightly better. The last two are all together 'ok'. You just don't go for it single mindedly like you can with other promo lines.

Drill I gives + 1 First Strike (Not chance). Drill II gives another First Strike, and maybe +20% city defense, or something. Then the last two just give a whole pile of extra strikes.

Drill isn't terrible at the moment. When I play hippus (huge-immortal/deity) i usually go for flanking III and then drill.

Would you still do it, if Blitz wasn't there?

Ooh, cool idea. What if we made the following change (two birds, one stone).

1) Each level of drill gives a +25% chance to allow the unit to attack again that turn. We remove the blitz trait from the promo tree (It can still be gotten but by units that start with it, mutation, etc, but you don't 'get' it so much as just get the drill promotions).

Blitz no longer exists by itself. Drill still does what it does. But now it specifically acts as the 'attack again' line. Drill I by this would mean you have that extra first strike chance, and also a small chance of getting an additional attack in.

And Drill 4 would be (25+25+25+25) chance for 'attack again'- basically Blitz. This could be nice.

Two other ways to improve First Strikes (and thus Drill) would be to 1) recalculate combat odds after each first strike or 2) provide attacks of opportunity to fortified First Strike users so that they can help enforce a zone of control.

The second is a major shift in gameplay and probably very resource intensive so will probably will not happen. But the first is more modest. It can help when your opponent is just on (to you) wrong side of a jump point as if you manage a successful first strike, the normal combat rounds will be on the good side of that jump point. Of course, it will probably mess up the combat odds display...

I love the "attack again" idea!

The Drill combat line is very end heavy. I'd be far more inclined to take it if there was any value in the first or second promotion. I'd love to see each level give a constant +1 first strike and call it linear (like combat).

We could even reverse the curve so there was a situation of diminishing returns.

I just find the +20% for combat X vs +1 first strike *chance* for drill 1 an impossible choice to decide in favor of drill until I already have all the combat promotions.

Another idea is to give a +20% bonus defense vs collateral at each level of drill, or at least for the first two. This would make them more valuable then combat promoted units when the enemy brings along a pile of catapults.

Cheers,

I did think that drill was a little underwhelming before but I've thought more about it. First strikes are only good if you already have a high probability to win. The full number of first strikes you can get from drill (I think it's around five) is enough to entirely kill off an opposing unit (I think) if you hit with them all. So it wouldn't matter if you have enough first strikes to kill a unit twice over when you've already done it with the first five. The bigger combat bonuses would actually get you faster to the point where you're far outclassing an unpromoted unit and first strikes become useful.

I would like to suggest a few changes to the promo tree entireley:

Bring back the shock/cover promos to the drill line (meaning you can take either combat I or drill I to unlock shock I/cover I). Not sure how to bring formation into that though. Maybe allow formation with drill II or combat II.

Anyway I would also suggest adjusting drill as follows:
Drill I: +1 first strike chance and +10% vs melee and ranged.
Drill II: +1 first strike and +10% vs recon
Drill III: +2 first strike (chance?)
Drill IV is unchanged at +2 first strikes and +10% vs mounted.

In this way, you can take drill I and shock I for a +50% vs melee and +1 first strike chance. Then the next promo you really have some options. You can either go for combat more and try to unlock shock II (or just for more bast str), or you can go down the drill line if you think that unit has enough effective strength to leverage first strikes.

Another suggestion is to make it more of a recon focused line. Something like this:

Drill I: +1 First Strike Chance +20% vs animals
Drill II: +1 First Strike +25% poison damage
Drill III: +2 First Strike Chances (unchanged)
Drill IV: +2 First Strikes +20% vs Mounted (unchanged)

EDIT: drill IV still retians the collateral damage protection

If you are going to improve Drill I - IV, I think you realy need to make it imposible to take BOTH compat and Drill line of promotion at the same time.

Drill I -> IV is so powerfull because it stacks with the combat line of promotion, and is allways effective. No other promotion stack that nicely with combat V. And any upgrade to drill would make them overpowered in the hands of a unit with combat V. Remember also that if you have drill IV and combat V, not only is your chance of failing an attack minimal, you also take minimal damage. Now you want a Combat V Drill IV unit to take NO damage whatsoever???

Besides, any upgarde to drill would also overpower some of the level 1 spells (and other effects?) wich makes you ignore first strikes.