Any ideas to balance Pyre Zombies?

[Jules.lt]

or maybe have the requirement for magic resistance be lvl 3, so you can apply magic resistance to units promoted to something else than Combat, Combat and Combat?
That would make MR more widely available without giving it out to green units.

 

[Seven05]

The biggest problem isn't really what the Pyre zombies can do to you, it's what they do to the AI. A stack of 5-6 PZ can completely eliminate every single defender in an AI city regardless of what they are or how many they are... without winning a single combat. The opposing units strenghts, promotions, defensive bonuses... none of that matters, you just as well off defending with an unpromoted axeman as you are a using a champion with mithril weapons. There are a few exceptions due to magic resistances, but that just means you need a few more PZs in most cases.

They really need some significant damage reduction for the blast effect versus units in cities, even if only given to AI units in cities. That or the damage they inflict should scale based on the targets strength so they wouldn't be so effective against later units.

 

[ShadowOfADoubt]

Seriously, another pyre zombie thread? Haven't these been done to death and back? Units that are able to move 3 tiles in one turn> stack of pyre zombies. Then they added the destroy undead spell for those that prefer a less micromanagement intensive approach. Stack busting spells in general work wonders too because explosion damage is directly proportional to zombie health/power. In fact, just about anything outside melee units with no roads/mobility promotions will work if used properly. A failure to do so implies a failure on the part of the player, not a balance issue.

Sorry, I didn't realize that destroy undead was so effective. I also didn't know the explosion damage proportional to health/power thing. Maybe I should be spending more time over on the Strategy thread...

 

[PotatoOverdose]

That or the damage they inflict should scale based on the targets strength so they wouldn't be so effective against later units.

I'm pretty sure it does scale. Iirc it is a pretty similar mechanic to fireballs. If you want to test it, go into world builder and make 2 stacks of pyre zombies, one with no promos/bronze weapons and one with say bronze weapons and combat 3 and several stacks consisting of many units in the strength 4-20+ range. You will notice several things, especially as target strength increases.
a) pyre zombie explosive damage is determined by the relative strengths of the exploding unit and that of the target unit(s) (fireball damage is computed in a similar way).
b) pyre zombie explosive damage can reach negligible amounts of damage against targets that are significantly stronger (just like fireball damage).

Also, with regards to the AI. The Sheaim AI can occasionally pull off something quite successful. However, other AI's, such as Tasunke for example, are successful even more consistently and to a much greater extent. Does it therefore follow that tasunke and the hippus need to get nerfed? No. And since pyre zombies are easilly countered by the player (see my previous post) there is no balance issue.

Edit: I've always wanted to use this smiley in an appropriate context:

 

[WarKirby]

Pyre zombies are not "easily" countered. They are possible to fight, and far harder to do so than normal axemen.
The have the same advantages as axemen with their strength, butin addition, they explode on death, and they have no building requirement, making them spammmable.

My solution, is to tweak how the esxplosion works.


1. If they're defeated on the attack, they should explode, damaging units ONLY in the tile they attack. (the 1 radius is ridiculously overpowered. They're exploding corpses, not mini nukes)

When defending, their explosion should damage ONLY the unit that attacked them, and units in their own stack.

Because when they're defending, they're with the rest of their army. When they attack, they charge into the enemy army.


This would introduce the logical tactic of going on the offensive against them. Detonating them on your own terms, rather than theirs.

 

[WarKirby]

I don't think they are a problem. The solution for Pyre Zombies isn't to find a way to take the fire damage, it is to avoid it. Strike them from a place of safety and retreat, and only the attacker will take damage. Build some horsemen/horse archers/chariots or give your melee units mobility (no prereqs) so you can charge in from outside the blast radius. Even recon units will work in a pinch. Summoned units are great for this too, as they are the very definition of expendable.

I don't see how using mounted units can work. Horsemen are WEAK, and you don't get horse archers until quite a while later.

Aside from the whole exploding thing, these are still axemen. Strength 5 usually, since they'll almost always have bronze weapons. The AI is also pretty good about moving it's troops through defensive positions like forests

 

[Jet]

Seriously, another pyre zombie thread? Haven't these been done to death and back? Units that are able to move 3 tiles in one turn> stack of pyre zombies. Then they added the destroy undead spell for those that prefer a less micromanagement intensive approach. Stack busting spells in general work wonders too because explosion damage is directly proportional to zombie health/power. In fact, just about anything outside melee units with no roads/mobility promotions will work if used properly. A failure to do so implies a failure on the part of the player, not a balance issue.

At the highest levels the AI has twice as many units as the human, better promoted. It's too hard to build, and rebuild, enough horsemen or hunters to take out waves of attack stacks.

I agree about stack attacking, but only catapults are at all early enough.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

At the highest levels the AI has twice as many units as the human, better promoted. It's too hard to build, and rebuild, enough horsemen or hunters to take out waves of attack stacks.

I agree about stack attacking, but only catapults are at all early enough.

At the highest level of difficulty, all AIs are overpowered by definition. The clan will have 4X as many units as you (assuming your empires are of the same size, more often than not they will have a much larger empire and therefore even more units), and they will all probably have combat III and up due to successful wars because of the sheer number of units they can field. The hippus will have waves of high withdrawal units that will wear you down while taking minimum losses themselves. Every non-elven AI will spam catapults and assassins to high heaven. Then you get the mercurians who get ridiculously strong units for every good unit you kill. Actually, the mercurians are the largest thorn in my side in my deity games. The thesis "Pyre zombies are hard on deity" is redundant. Everything is hard on deity, and it is supposed to be hard. That is a good thing. What is the point of a deity difficulty that is easy?

Pyre zombies are not "easily" countered. They are possible to fight, and far harder to do so than normal axemen.
The have the same advantages as axemen with their strength, butin addition, they explode on death, and they have no building requirement, making them spammmable.

Lets assume a Sheaim Civ and a completely vanilla(no special traits, uu's, buildings) civ of comparable size and technological parity. The sheaim, when they attack, will not be able to send 100% of their forces to attack you. This is for obvious reasons, but I will elaborate on them anyway: general civ defense, barbs, fear of counter attack fear of other AI's, Faeryl Viconia, etc. Therefore, assuming parity, you will have a larger defending force by definition. Now, if the player controlling the vanilla civ made good choices knowing that the Sheaim are their neighbors, they will have a relatively easy time repelling said opponent. They would have been able to amass some withdrawal horseman, some siege, mobillity promoted axemen, [insert any unit with 2 moves or more], and possibly some assasins/priests (these are a bit more advanced, but it also takes time to build a large horde of pz's, which may or may not give you enough time for said units).

In the above situation, the vanilla civ in question should be able to repel the pz's with relative ease, because it will have a moderate advantage in numbers. Withdrawal/collateral/marksman/stackbusting spells soften up the pz's, mobility units pick off pz's one by one. Done.

Now, there may be a problem if the Sheaim have a larger or more productive empire or a technological edge. If this is the case, then the player controlling the vanilla civ will be out manned and should loose. Furthermore, if playing on a high difficulty, the settings were designed to create a situation where the player should loose. Working as intended.

So, assuming parity (which is the only real context possible for balance discussions), the defender will always have a moderate advantage in quantity of units and the ability to reinforce his own army quickly which combined with an intelligent combination of units, can easily counter pyre zombies in moderate size. Now a stack of 100+ pyre Zombies may be another matter entirely, but by the time the ai can field that, the player had the opportunity to get life II or toher appropriate counters.

 

[Seven05]

I'm pretty sure it does scale. Iirc it is a pretty similar mechanic to fireballs. If you want to test it, go into world builder and make 2 stacks of pyre zombies, one with no promos/bronze weapons and one with say bronze weapons and combat 3 and several stacks consisting of many units in the strength 4-20+ range. You will notice several things, especially as target strength increases.
a) pyre zombie explosive damage is determined by the relative strengths of the exploding unit and that of the target unit(s) (fireball damage is computed in a similar way).
b) pyre zombie explosive damage can reach negligible amounts of damage against targets that are significantly stronger (just like fireball damage).

Also, with regards to the AI. The Sheaim AI can occasionally pull off something quite successful. However, other AI's, such as Tasunke for example, are successful even more consistently and to a much greater extent. Does it therefore follow that tasunke and the hippus need to get nerfed? No. And since pyre zombies are easilly countered by the player (see my previous post) there is no balance issue.

Edit: I've always wanted to use this smiley in an appropriate context:

If it scales it's not noticeable

Also, my concern with the AI is not when they are controling the Sheaim but rather when I am. They have fun mechanics but in the end Pyre Zombie Spam trumps all and the poor AI civs have no chance to stop you when you're spitting out one per from several cities turn allowing you to create a stack of longbow slaughtering, champion stomping, hero bashing mayhem in what, 6 turns, maybe 7 or 8 if you want to be extra careful. The thing is they actually get BETTER as time goes on and they are outclassed by everything else, you WANT THEM TO LOOSE. They're like fireballs on steroids, to hell with the summoner trait, give me free mobility promotions for my zombies and I'll never build a single arcane unit.

Something just doesn't feel right when I have a unit I refuse to promote (with the exception of mobility) and want to see killed off en masse and there is nothing the AI can do about it.

 

[Sephi]

I changed pyre zombie from a UU to a unit the Sheaim get from planar gates (with training yards).

 

[Izmir Stinger]

I don't see how using mounted units can work. Horsemen are WEAK, and you don't get horse archers until quite a while later.

Aside from the whole exploding thing, these are still axemen. Strength 5 usually, since they'll almost always have bronze weapons. The AI is also pretty good about moving it's troops through defensive positions like forests

Some of your horsemen will retreat, some will die, some will win and some will win and die. Those that win or retreat can heal and try again. If you are looking for a solution that involves no loss of life for your guys here is one: Don't fight a war with the Sheaim. What? They started it? Ahh, the inherent flaw of pacifism.

I don't know about you, but my horsemen are normally promoted to all hell because they have the movement range to wander around slaughtering wolves, skeletons, orcs, goblins and lizard men. Sure you will loose some to the occasional giant spider or griffin, but the rest will be strong. As long as you don't start building them in reaction to the flaming stack o' zombie doom crossing your borders, you are good. If the Sheaim are your neighbors, you should have seen this coming.

If you assume that your horsemen will have a one level advantage over the zombies (mine usually do, as a minimum) then they can be stronger.

Horsemen: Str 4 + combat 2 + shock = 7.2 (+ first strike)
Bronze wielding zombie: Str 5 + combat 2 = 7

Horses win. And chariots aren't that hard to get. And if you are doing it defensively, swordsmen with mobility + roads will work. And that one hunter everyone has that is promoted to level umpteenmillion cause he keep getting lucky can rock zombie face.

Really, you just gotta be flexible. You have lots of options.

 

[reverend oats]

Yes, because 3-move units are so available in the first 120 turns, when Os-bella or Tebryn's first stack is going to come at you. Or god forbid have a border city and they move a huge stack next to it on the first turn of the war.

 

[Rystic]

They should be rendered harmless by Spring.

 

[WarKirby]

You've missed a few points in the comparison, though.

Horsemen are strength 4. Pyre zombies are strength 4 + weapons + defensive bonuses.

In most circumstances, the zombie will win.
Now, you mention using withdrawal chances to soften them up. This is going to take moderately experienced horsemen, with enough flanking promotions to withdraw most of the time. Otherwise, you're just feeding experience to the enemy. You don't get that experience without winning battles, which horsemen are very poor at doing.

Stack damaging spells, all of them, require at least sorcery. Which is a pretty advanced tech, and certainly well beyond bronze working.

Now, consider farther, that pyre zombies have no building requirements. This means as soon as the sheiam get Bronze Working (and EVERY AI will always rush it) they can upgrade all of their little warriors to zombies, and start producing a zombie in every city. To compare, you need to have a training yard in every city first, putting you at a disadvantage.

Mobility/horsemen are also completely nullified by forests. Of which there is a vast amount in almost every part of the game. Forest is all over the place. And the AI knows how to use it.

A force of axemen is hard to defeat in general. If you're focusing on building catapults and horsemen to harass the zombies, you're not building archers and melee units to stand against them directly. And the AI is just building a pye zombie in every city because they can.

All they have to do, is march in a big straight line towards your city. And then suicide against it repeatedly. 5-6 of them and all of your defenders are pretty much dead. I've easily seen the AI come up with stacks of 20+ at the bronze working stage.

They have all the advantages of axemen, in addition to the no building req, and the self destruct, a damage spell which can KILL. As far as I'm aware, only one other unit exists with the capability to kill through magic. And that's Auric Ascended. Many things which are much harder to get, like Maelstrom, crown of brilliance, ring of flames, pillar of flame, tsunami, etc, all have a cap on their max damage. How in the world can that kind of limitation exist on such powerful spells, while an axeman level unit gets it for free.

They are horribly overpowered. Just because it's possible to defeat something, doesn't make it balanced.

 

[WarKirby]

Horsemen: Str 4 + combat 2 + shock = 7.2 (+ first strike)
Bronze wielding zombie: Str 5 + combat 2 = 7

You forgot hill/forest defence bonuses.

I fought against the sheiam recently. They just walked around my frontline army, and beelined for my cities. I was forced to attack them in forests, to prevent them reaching my walls.

Oh, and also, the thing about pyre zombies, is that even if they lose, they win anyway.

With strength values being that close, your horseman is likely to be critically injured if he wins the fight. And then the explosion will kill him.

 

[WarKirby]

They should be rendered harmless by Spring.

This is a nice idea, actually

Once hit by spring, they would (until they start a turn inside a sheiam city) become a "Zombie" unit instead. Strength 3, no exploding on death. Essentially a pyre zombie without the fire parts.


That would provide a good way to counter them.

 

[Mesix]

I personally think that Pyre Zombies are great. The fact that they require a different tactic than standard attack stacks to trump is part of what makes FfH a great mod. Sure it can be difficult to overcome in the early to mid game when fighting with tier 2 units. The Sheaim cannot build higher level melee units, so in the late game they are somewhat weaker when their Pyre Zombies top out at 8 str and other civs are building tier 4 units with 15-16 str.

I wish there were more mechanics that required alternative tactics to overcome.

 

[WarKirby]

The Sheaim cannot build higher level melee units, so in the late game they are somewhat weaker when their Pyre Zombies top out at 8 str and other civs are building tier 4 units with 15-16 str.

Manticores, Minotaurs, Tar Demons, Succubi, et al.

The Sheiam have their own lategame units too.

 

[Jet]

At the highest level of difficulty, all AIs are overpowered by definition. [snip]

I didn't say that. I said Pyre Zombies are too hard, not that they are just hard. At high levels (at least) they're too much (emphasis for clarity) harder to counter compared to what other civs throw at you in the early game.

 

[Seven05]

Keep in mind that they actually get better as they get outclassed, the more combats they lose the better off you are as a very small number of level 1 pyre zombies can decimate stacks of units that are magnitutdes stronger and more advanced, but only if the zombies are killed.

Try this some time for fun as the Sheiam, tech up to bronze working, make sure you grab agriculture and exploration on the way but you can pretty much skip everything else. Once you get bronze working you can set your research slider to 0%, you don't need another tech, ever. Build all of your cities as production centers, no GP farms, no cottage spam, just enough farms to grown them up so they can work every mine you can build. In the process, make sure you do NOT get access to copper, you don't want bronze weapons. Do not run any civics or build any buildings that give you free XP, just build zombies in every city on every turn. If cash becomes a problem have them pillage while on their way to their target, if you must you can turn research back on to get festivals for markets but you really shouldn't need it. Once you're at that point, hold down the ALT key while clicking on every name except yours on the player list and then go forth and lose as many battles as you possibly can. Use stacks of 6-7 zombies and nothing but zombies. Once you see how easy the early game is open up the world builder and give all the AI a bunch of free techs so they can start building champions, longbows, knights or whatever you want them to have. They should now be slaughtering your zombies at every opportunity and in the process killing off themselves and any other units unfortunate enough to be next to your zombies. Best case scenario: a massive stack of doom 'counter-attacks' your zombies outside one of their cities.

Remember, keep your zombies as weak as possible so they get killed. If you have weakened the enemy stack to the point you starting winning, consider waiting for a turn so they can do something stupid like kill one of your zombies next to the weakened stack, spreading out and surrounding them with groups of 1-2 zombies per tile can help speed up the process.

A couple things would help:
1) Reduce the damage they do (or cap maximum damage) to units in cities (perhaps only with walls?), and

2) Significantly reduce the amount of damage they do to higher strength units or

3) Limit the number of units they damage when they explode

Having their explosion being lethal isn't really the problem, the problem is how easy it is to take advantage of that to wipe out vastly superior opponents whether on the offense or defense.