Any ideas to balance Pyre Zombies?

[Neomega]

As welcome as the Calabim?

I think either capping explosion to around 80/90%, or allowing spring to temporarily stop the effect (3 turns maybe?) would do.

Calabim arent that bad. But something like bum rushing with the Doviello, or casting stasis on turn 30 after warrior spamming, is just not going to win you friends.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Yeah, well, come play an mp game or two, and try your cheap stunts, and see how welcome you are by game 3.

So using tactics enabled by content added to the mod by the devs are considered cheap in your mp circles? Ok... we play with two very different mp crowds. Since your defining some rule set outside of the game design for what is and is not welcome, we really have no common frame of reference in which to discuss MP. Some people like to play mp with certain world spells not allowed. Some people play mp with RP rules too, but that doesn't mean RP or any other abnormal rules should influence a balance discussion.

I didnt imply anything, you are the one grasping at straws, I said name one unit, you named combos, many that required not one but 2 extra buildings. It just gets more and more ridiculous how much effort you have to go through to get something that is close to equivalent of pyre zombies.

3 fresh ice golems? Good luck.



Hmm mmm but a few archers behind walls will hold off plenty long enough.

Why are we discussing military balance in the context of one unit? By that logic catapults are worthless because a stack of all cats won't kill anything. The game is all about combos. I named combos available in the same time it takes to research and build an "unstoppable" stack of zombie doom. Anywho, opinions are opinions, to each their own. The poll will show a conglomerate of opinions held by the community at large which will paint a more reliable picture of the state of the game.

 

[Neomega]

So using tactics enabled by content added to the mod by the devs are considered cheap in your mp circles? Ok... we play with two very different mp crowds. Since your defining some rule set outside of the game design for what is and is not welcome, we really have no common frame of reference in which to discuss MP. Some people play mp with RP rules too, but that doesn't mean RP or any other abnormal rules should influence a balance discussion.

Well, maybe you do like playing with people that suicide rush and use world spells early to take out one civ in their first 30 turns. Yay!! The big winners won in the first 40 turns, wasn't that fun? Let's do it again. I hope someone is keeping score, chalk up another awesome W for the guy that goes around with a huge warrior stack looking for the first undefended city, or spams 10 warriors, casts into the mist, and then looks for a weak capital. Wow, what a genius! I want to play with someone like that!!!

Why are we discussing military balance in the context of one unit? By that logic catapults are worthless because a stack of all cats won't kill anything. The game is all about combos. I named combos available in the same time it takes to research and build an "unstoppable" stack of zombie doom. Anywho, opinions are opinions, to each their own. The poll will show a conglomerate of opinions held by the community at large which will paint a more reliable picture of the state of the game.

Because, talking of combos (once again), makes us have to discuss your obvious blind spot in this discussion. If you want to talk of using combos to create pyre zombie equivalents, then you must, to be fair, start dreaming up of the awesome pyre zombie combos.

Your blind spot is, you can think of great pyre zombie counters, which is fine, but they usually involve doing extra. We are not discussing whether promoted units can defeat unpromoted pyre zombies, or if certain unit combinations can defeat pyro zombies alone, to do so would be an uneven footing to start with, and would defeat the purpose of a debate on balance.


Regarding your poll, I would bet, if you asked if any other unit, unique or otherwise, was "unbalanced" it would not even be close to the results that this poll will garner.

 

[Snarks]

I don't see why we just can't add a damage/unit cap to PZ. They should be about Axemen/Fireball effective, but not more effective. Their ability to be a hybrid of both already makes them unique and a powerful unit. It's hard enough managing a bunch of 3 movement units to weaken the stack.

 

[Mesix]

If you have enough pyre zombies to walk right up to cities, blow away stacks of archers, fortified on hills, behind defenses of 75%, you can achieve victory with a stack of catapults+axemen of the same size.

A level II unit that needs to be attacked or it will ruin the game for you? Any pillaging unit needs to be attacked or you loose because of a bad economy. Any unit of any level. Some units, like horseman or hidden units are very difficult to stop and can ruin the game even when you do try to stop them. Hell, a city with mostly pillaged tiles is worse than no city because of shoddy research/commerce/production + maintenance costs and the mandatory defenders.

As for level III units: Priests, assasins+cats, mages, etc... just about anything, really.

Most worldspells are better when cast later? It's the ones that are amazing early on that can win games or make winning significantly easier.

As much as I think Pyre Zombies don't need to be nerfed, you make an interesting point about them needing to be attacked. Maybe if their defensive bonuses for terrain, river, etc. should be removed. They are zombies afterall, what do they know about the tactics of setting up a defensive line on a hill or lining up on a shore line to take out units crossing a river?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

So, just all of the sudden, Calabim aren't that bad!?! What next? Balseraphs are underpowered? The Bannor are weak, The Amurites boring, the Doviello miss things, the Clan is problematic, the Hippus are too good, the Lannun useless on land, what civ do I forget? Nevermind.

If someone reads the posts about the various civs having "problems" needing to be "nerfed" or "powered up" will get the impression that nothing is good in this mod.

Too many nerfs on civs have made it reach to this point. I will say it one more time, although I doubt it will make a difference.

Sheaim have just one mellee unit. The Pyre zombies. And they are undead. And, we all know how much undead are hurt due to the recent changes, adding the fact that they do not count as happiness satisfying city defences.
Now that Summoner was nerfed, complementing the gated creatures with summons is weaker. Nerf the pyre zombies, and there will be a number of threads "Sheaim are worthless, they have no melee units, it is worthless to recearch anything along the metal line" etc.

I agree with PotatoOverdose in general. His points seem well thought.

 

[Dux_]

Pyre Zombies with a couple of adepts raising skeletons, can take a hill capital with 75% defenses guarded by a stack of archers, roughly same ammount of them. Of course, Sheiam eco isnt the best, no financial or organized trait. Zombie are good, but they wont be good forever. & you have to admit that Sheaim got a big hurt from the summoner change, which imo was not called for. Balseraphs could really abuse that, but Sheaim were far more balanced that way.

& yes, in multiplayer, warrior rushing that early will get you kicked out of games soonish, cause we all want to at least play some 100ish turns. Of course, some early wars can be unavoidable.

By experience, as Sheaim, to be competitive all you need are bronze working, knowledge of ether & festivals for markets. At least on an early war.

Just in case this post might be confusing, my opinion is don't nerf the zombies, unless you give the sheaim a champion level buildable unit!

 

[renardargent]

If you have enough pyre zombies to walk right up to cities, blow away stacks of archers, fortified on hills, behind defenses of 75%, you can achieve victory with a stack of catapults+axemen of the same size.

Although I still believe that the unique ability of pyre zombies should not be nerfed, reading this statement made me think that being capable to perform a role of both catapults and axeman, by researching one technology and with no building prerequisite might be too much, even as an only melee of the Sheaim imho.

Some building requirements or slightly higher hammer cost might work nice, without much pain.

Going off topic:

Spoiler :

After reading the civilopedia description of PZ, I was thinking that making them unbuildable, and only upgradeable from other units, namely warriors and workers/slaves, similar to how the "drowning" works, might be nice as a flavour.
Digressing further more, making the upgraded PZs strength = strength of the original unit + x strength (fire) might be fun, so that diseased corpses and other non-hero melee units available to Sheaim could be burned down to replace the lack of high tier melee units!
It's fun to fancy things

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I posted this in the other thread, I'll post it again: pyre zombies need a damage cap on their explosions imho. even if it's 95% . then they will be perfectly fine and still deadly.

 

[Sephi]

I posted this in the other thread, I'll post it again: pyre zombies need a damage cap on their explosions imho. even if it's 95% . then they will be perfectly fine and still deadly.

great idea

 

[Jules.lt]

(being asked whether a magician could kill by magic)

“I suppose a magician might, but a gentleman never would.”

You finish them off with grunts

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Regarding your poll, I would bet, if you asked if any other unit, unique or otherwise, was "unbalanced" it would not even be close to the results that this poll will garner.

If we were to take this route of balancing, where a minority with above-average but still minority support claims something is unbalanced, there would be nothing interesting left to balance in ffh. In the early versions, there were so many cries of "Nerf!" regarding the elves' ability to build in forests. You can dig up so many old threads regarding this, many considered them to be the most ridiculously powerful civ ever. Fast forward a few years and the elves still have their forest cottages, but they are no longer considered overpowered, puppets and pz's are the new scape goats. If, for every time a minority of the player base cried for a nerf, something was nerfed, this mod would be very boring indeed. And let's be clear: the poll has shown that the majority of the player base (as can be best determined by the given sample size), do NOT want Pz's to be nerfed.

Your blind spot is, you can think of great pyre zombie counters, which is fine, but they usually involve doing extra. We are not discussing whether promoted units can defeat unpromoted pyre zombies, or if certain unit combinations can defeat pyro zombies alone, to do so would be an uneven footing to start with, and would defeat the purpose of a debate on balance.

Your blind spot is time. You think that just because you researched the bronze working tech, you can immediately field a huge stack of pz's that will crush all opposition. It takes time to build cities, time to improve land, time to build infrastructure, time to build an army. Building a stack of 12 PZ's, assuming a beeline to BW, could easily take 30 or 40 turns after getting bronze working. And then you have to worry about a counterattack, a backstabbing neighbor, etc. Upgrading warriors won't help too much either because someone has to stay and defend your own cities. And then it takes time to get from point A to point B. And let's not forget, you have to build a city to hook up copper, else archer defensive strength will be able to create quite a problem for you. And anything less than 10-12 Bronze promoted PZ's has no chance at all against a heavily fortified opponent fielding archers or whatnot.

And ALL of the above assumes a beeline to BW on the part of the Sheaim, which is generally horribly inefficient in the long term unless you start with
gold/gems/large quantities of wine in reasonable distance of your starting location. Even then, you'll still want for cottages and lumbermills.

So your saying in all that time, a competent opponent will not be able to muster a defense capable of repelling 10-12 Pz's? And keep in mind, the Sheaim have no expansive trait, no particular warrior rush capability. Other civs do and will likely have larger empires with more cities, more production, more research, more resources, and already larger armies by the time you start to produce PZ's, which means you'll need a larger defensive army. Yay, more delays. You're already playing catchup, against a competent opponent. And all of the above assumes you don't get attacked by a belligerent neighbor like faeryl or tasunke, who can be quite annoying.

To say nothing of MP, where all of your neighbors that play to win may well ally against you to stop you from amassing your pyre zombie nuisance army in the first place, so that they don't have to bother with countering them in the first place. And if you are in a situation where you can't be attacked, the reverse is (probably) true and you're probably too isolated to rush a horde of PZ's before they can amass counters.

 

[Senethro]

Cottages have been nerfed, Elven workers have been nerfed, Ancient Forests have been nerfed, non-FoL religions have interesting new options, Elven offense outside their borders has been changed. The Elves have the role of an irritating and hard to remove green stain on the map with a good gold economy, but are not immediately threatening neighbours. Whats your point? I think the game overall has benefited from these changes.

And why should other MP players be force to co-operate to deal with PZs?

 

[PotatoOverdose]

Cottages have been nerfed, Elven workers have been nerfed, Ancient Forests have been nerfed, non-FoL religions have interesting new options, Elven offense outside their borders has been changed. The Elves have the role of an irritating and hard to remove green stain on the map with a good gold economy, but are not immediately threatening neighbours. Whats your point? I think the game overall has benefited from these changes.

And why should other MP players be force to co-operate to deal with PZs?

I never said they'd need to co-operate to deal with PZ's I said they might choose to cooperate in order to forgo countering later as it may be a nuisance. I listed it as one of a number (a large number in fact) of reasons why the build stack of PZ's---> win because your enemy can't field a counter (allegedly) theory doesn't hold water. The nerf of cottages was a nerf to cottages overall, not to elven cottages specifically. Elven military is still quite powerful. Remember Alazkan? And Gilden has been effectively buffed because of a significant re-balancing in his tech requirements. So what was your point about the elves? Mine was that there was a point in time when there were some who called for a nerf of the abillity to have an effective forest economy because it seemed too powerful at the time. The ability remained and the game was the better for it.

I cited this in response to Neomega's thesis that the size of the nerf pyre zombie minority justified such a change:

Regarding your poll, I would bet, if you asked if any other unit, unique or otherwise, was "unbalanced" it would not even be close to the results that this poll will garner.

One more thing:

Oh, and your so called "other" terrible starting worldspell strategies are the ones that get you labeled an ass, and nobody plays with you anymore, because basically they are on the pretense that you are only going to play until you beat one person, then leave, and have no intention of actually sticking around for a while. It might be cool for ffh 1v1 ladder play, if such a thing exists, but I don't think that is why most people play ffh multiplayer, so they can use their worldspell cheaply. So your cheap tactic counter is pretty much pointless.

If we're playing mp to have fun and rp or what not (which is all well and good), and certain things are frowned upon, then the format of said mp and anecdotes of mp balance thereof are completely invalid as evidence of imbalance because your playing by some set of arbitrary rules foreign to the actual mod which restrict the options available which may cause its own problems that are not relevant to the balance of the whole game, not just the part that you and your buddies feel like accepting.

 

[Senethro]

My point was that the runaway Elven forest economy was brought to heel. "Nerfed" if you like. I thought my helpful listing of the factors involved in this would have made it obvious. Let me be clear then when I say its possible to nerf something without removing it. I think this should happen to PZs. Even capping their damage at 95% would probably do the trick.


And on the MP tangent, as someone who has been kicked from games before I advise people to inform your opponents on the startup screen if you will potentially exercise tactical options like warrior rushes or ganking early workers with your starting scout from outside visual range.

 

[jwin]

At tier two as Sheaim, I would rather have 12 adepts with death and a few combat promotions than 12 pyre zombies. The zombies are great at taking a city in one turn. But what you end up with is a conquered city, half as many pyre zombies, and some of them injured. While you took the city no problem, you are left with a lot less, and subject to the horsemen coming in to kill your wounded zombies.

Now, take the adepts. They summon 12 skeletons and attack. Even against a well fortified city, you will kill some defenders and wound he rest. If you are lucky, your adepts can kill some more at very high combat odds, either taking the city or leaving it very poorly defended. You hen summon 12 more skeletons, promote your adepts that attacked the next turn, and carry on with undiminished forces.

While the PZ strategy is using its cities to rerplenish attackers, the adept strategy can just keep making more adepts to strengthn the attack.

 

[Grey Fox]

I think I would prefer a combination of the both. This would level up your skeletons better.

 

[jwin]

yes, when you have the time to do both, it would be an advantage.

I was just trying to point out that, while very good, perhaps even very, very good, for an initial rush, PZ might not be the best long term strategy.

And I would level the adepts, not the skeletons. Combat five, spell extension adepts is nice.

 

[PotatoOverdose]

And on the MP tangent, as someone who has been kicked from games before I advise people to inform your opponents on the startup screen if you will potentially exercise tactical options like warrior rushes or ganking early workers with your starting scout from outside visual range.

That is a very reasonable point, in mp rules should be clearly established before play begins. But that same point goes to show why mp shouldn't factor too much into balance discussions:external rules.

Back to the topic at hand, I am curious about one thing. A number of posts suggested damage caps in the 90's (percent-wise). could someone explain how this would be a significant change as opposed to the current mechanic, because (imo), usually when a stack of units is damaged to the point where explosive damage is killing them, pyre zombies tend to win the combats and not die as much. In fact, explosion related deaths are relatively rare when compared to normal deaths against pyre zombies, aren't they? At least, this has been the case for me most of the time outside of obscenely large stackc of PZ's.

 

[jwin]

I think where it becomes the issue is after the first five or six combats, the entire stack is almost dead, even before they had the chance to fight. Then, one more explosion can kill them.

If ther was a limit, I would rather see the limit to number of units, not amount of damage. But, then there would be nothing except magic that can damage a whole stack.