balance issues (not bugs)

[xxhe]

Also is there a reason there is no hero that can upgrade to S in mounted units?
What does the S stand for by the way?

I think it may stand for Super

The S for mounted units is assigned to Ma Chao and Lu Bu. But none of them was shown up as a hero in this version.

 

[ORION11380]

Is it just me, or is Sun Ce underpowered in the early game? Granted he's got bonuses up the wazoo with everything related to water, but all those jungles and swamps! Sure he'll roll over those 3 little guys south of him in no time, but then he'll have to go West and tediously take out Liu Biao, since he can't cross the river with GanNing roaming the seas.

I dunno if I'm spoiled with Cao Cao's awsome starting cities, or Liu Bei with his super assimilation ability, but it's SO tedious with Sun Ce. I have a mass of worthless cities that generate barely anything even after they stop rebelling, and I then have to defend them against annoying barbarians.

And Sun Ce's special ability is redundent, since he already has Mo Ling, so why does he need the ability to build DanYang Army without DanYang? Mo Ling is the only city woth anything in Wu, so if he lost it, he might as well quit.

I would love to be able to play Wu with ZhouYu as ruler, and Sun Ce as a general. THAT would be a fun combination!

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Have the patience to build a river harbor and a dike (forget what the specific Sun Ce name is), all your cities will be more productive than anything up north. Add Ancient Compass to Qu'a pr Kuaiji and you'll not lack production. Yes, it takes time, but it's worth it.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

The new system with unit allocation is unbalanced. It's impossible to defend against double the number of AI unique units (like Danyang and cavalry) with half your starting units. Some are able to defend better because they have enough land and production initially (like Yuan Shao), but to start with Liu Bei having nothing but 5 generals and 3 troops in the capital is like making bricks without straw (or as Liu Bei would say, making sandals without straw).

For example, starting as Yuan Shao in settler, you have 5 units in Ye and a huge army up north. If you start as Deity, not only do you lose ALL your units in Ye (leaving it vulnerable and unhappy), your army up north is reduced to 1/3 its previous size, but your little neighbor to the west has a stack of 5 cavalry and 6 archers!

I think you should not increase the AI's units, just decreasing the human's is enough of a challenge. Also, defenders like archers and crossbows should not be deleted.

 

[stmartin]

The new system with unit allocation is unbalanced. It's impossible to defend against double the number of AI unique units (like Danyang and cavalry) with half your starting units. Some are able to defend better because they have enough land and production initially (like Yuan Shao), but to start with Liu Bei having nothing but 5 generals and 3 troops in the capital is like making bricks without straw (or as Liu Bei would say, making sandals without straw).

For example, starting as Yuan Shao in settler, you have 5 units in Ye and a huge army up north. If you start as Deity, not only do you lose ALL your units in Ye (leaving it vulnerable and unhappy), your army up north is reduced to 1/3 its previous size, but your little neighbor to the west has a stack of 5 cavalry and 6 archers!

I think you should not increase the AI's units, just decreasing the human's is enough of a challenge. Also, defenders like archers and crossbows should not be deleted.

I think if your city has only 1 unit left, that unit wouldn't be deleted, isn't it?

Liu Bei and Yuan Shao's case heard, also we will add a game option to allow you to tune how dynamic initial unit mechanic work.

 

[Kenjister]

A little issue that I take problem with is that the leader units sometimes don't even get Vigorous I. I understand that they're not truely combat heroes, but still at least one level of Vigorous would be appropritate for some. Cao Cao probably won't need it, but Liu Bei should definitely be buffed a bit more. At least give him a B level in something to make him equal with Liao Hua.

 

[Evalis]

So far from what i've seen in play, despite the slight cost reduction, Heavy Archers have repeatedly proven useless compared to their Heavy crossbowman counterparts. They are fine and balanced with zero promotions, but by the time they can be constructed most (if not all) cities will be able to produce units at level 3. I've just tested this a few times against a barbarian city and it appears archers require a strength upgrade of 1~2 in order to become the primary defender. Alternatively a strength upgrade of 1 and an additional first strike (or some collatoral damage protection) would work as well.

 

[stmartin]

@Evalis

You mean one heavy archer and one heavy crossbowman are equal when both not promoted, but when promoted, heavy crossbowman is far more superior?

 

[Evalis]

Correct. Unpromoted Crossbowmen are slightly worse defenders, when there are no city walls, than unpromoted archers. With city walls, crossbowmen (even unpromoted) are better defenders. This is not true for lower tech levels, as the difference in str is much smaller (33% at most) and the added base city defense bonuses from archers makes them better defenders when promotions are 2 or less.

 

[Kenjister]

Yeah, the low base strength makes promotions really worthless on Archers and the like. However, they do fine in a pinch (such as emergency city defense), since they get a really good city defence bonus right off the bat. Still, I think that you intended Archers to be the city defense units, while crossbows should be the relatively versatile unit. Perhaps if defensive strikes were added, Archers could be balanced by having a higher chance of strike along with higher damage per strike than crossbows.