Assassins and Guardsman

[hbar]

So everyone knows this issue needs some work. Hawks and workers do not a strategy make. Here is my proposal (difficult/impossible codework be damned!)

The Guardsman promotion, instead of guaranteeing protection against all assassins and being relatively difficult to get, should have some chance of protecting against an assassin's attack. So when an assassin attacks, the code goes through the stack Guardsman first, and gives a roll. If the guardsman's roll comes up, he defends. If not, the code rolls for the next guardsman, etc, until there are no more, and then the assassin targets the weakest combat unit and leaves the poor workers and birds out of it.

Example:
Defending stack = 2 guardsman (50% defend chance) axemen and a mage
Attacking stack = 3 assassins
Assassin attack 1: rolls a .6, bypasses first axeman. Rolls a .3, attacks second guardsman, damages him and dies.
Assassin attack 2: rolls a .4, attacks first axeman and gets a lucky kill.
Assassin attack 3: rolls a .9, bypasses wounded axeman. Attacks and kills mage, saves city from certain fiery death.

I think this makes sense in context - assassins are trying to bypass the 'hard' targets and attack the 'soft' ones, but they are not always successful. Furthermore, those trained against assassins are also not superhumans, and have a chance to fail.

This also makes the assassin/mage dynamic more fun. No more worker/hawk stacks, and no longer can a single high level guardsman protect 30 mages with impunity - some assassins will get through.

It also opens up two lines of promotions - Guardsman I-III and Evasion I-III which would buff/debuff the roll chance to defend. Also, traits and civs could get bonuses as well (Defensive, I'm looking at you )

Comments?

 

[Kael]

I dont think we ever want a random mechanic for who you attack, but I'll list one possible problem with the idea:

How would you determine combat odds if the opponent was unknown? Or would the assassin know before his attack which unit he would be attacking (the guardsman or the mage) and then be able to not attack and wait until next turn to "roll again"?

 

[hbar]

hmm, hadn't thought of that. I guess I'd just show the 'worst case scenario' in the combat odds and place the 'rolls' in the attacking/targeting code (although I'd be the first one to admit that I don't know how that code works). Obviously this setup wouldn't work if you know the outcome beforehand.

I also think that overall, it would not be more random than the combat odds already are, not to mention things like crazed or mutated. When you attack, you can see the units in the stack and their promotions, so you know (assuming 50% intercept rate) that with one g-man, you have a 50% chance to get through, with two you have a 25% chance, 3 = 12.5% etc. I also think it is more fair and fun than the binary useful/not useful* mechanic for assassins that is in place now, and there has been much written about how "gamey" the hawk/worker intercept is.

That said, when I started this post I never expected it to be included as stated, if at all. What I really want is for everyone else to tell me why I'm wrong, or what would be a better idea.

*I was being overdramatic. I know assassins have many uses, even in the face of guardsmen, but I was making a point

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I agree that this issue needs to be addressed cuz protecting stacks from assassins with hawks and workers is silly but I think the easiest solution would be to just make the guardsman promotion easier to get. maybe this wouldn't solve the problem entirely, but it would be a start. and I DO like the idea of guardsman I-II-III instead of just "plain" guardsman promotion

 

[loki1232]

why bother with the randomness? How about three guardsman and two evasion promotions? if none of the defenders have guardsman, a marksman will attack the weakest unit. If there is a guardsman, then he will have to die before the marksman ability works. However, evasion beats guardsman. So like an assassin with evasion I will get to attack the weakest unit in a stack with a guardsman I, but not in a stack with a guardsman II. Instead, they'd have to attack the guardsman. Make sense? (kind of like an arms race between the assassins and the guardsmen.)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that does make sense and I like it. the Evasion promotions are a nice idea, but it would need to be balanced very carefully against the guardsman promotions, otherwise I'm afraid the situation would not change one bit as all assassins would get evasion asap

 

[Zechnophobe]

Y'know what'd be a really simple fix for Guardsmen? Make the unit lose Guardsmen until end of turn after they get attacked. That way a single guardsmen will get in one Guard, and then go back to normal for that turn. Would make your Guardian defenders a little less suicidal.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Suicidal? That's not suicide, that's devotion to duty! Never mind that the priest has combat five, it's the warrior's job to fight!

 

[AljayBoy]

Or, drastic I know, just make the Assassin a national unit (4 max at any one time) and leave them as is (other than fixing it so they don't attack workers/hawks)?

It is silly when an approaching army is made up almost entirely of Assassins, which are clearly an addition to an army, for selective uses.

The Assassins should be powerful and difficult to defend against as it is at the moment, but armies of Assassins are silly and not really realistic (even in a fantasy setting).

To try and change how the Assassins attack, and fix the worker/hawk exploit, why not make them attack the unit with the lowest % of health, that has attack/defend combat values?

 

[Grand Seeker]

I want to propose severall idees:

1) How about a spell, "scrying" which is able to remove the marksman promotion of assasins either permanently or temporarily within an given area?

A spell could be resisted, and one could tweak the strength of it by tweaking how hard the spell is to resist. And it would make for a nice counter of assasin which i think would fit.

2) Also an other idee is to temporarily give an assasin the 'guardsman' promotion after he has attacked! The name of the promotion sounds a bit strange but the idee is to make assasins wounderable and not being able to hide behind stronger units in defence after the assasin has attacked. Now some guards may be able to
strike the assasins down before they reach safty. Also you could aply a probability
for assasins to get this negative promotion after an attack.

3) A summoned unit with the guardsman promotion would be a nice counter too.
We could make it a special spell or an possible mage promotion.

Guardian summoning promotion: Requiers combat IV, Death mana (or whatever)
All summoned skeletons gain the gaurdsman promotion!

4) A fearlike ability?
Instead of randomly choosing the target, one could say that there is a small
probability (lets say 20%) that the assasination failed and the assasin retreated
unharmed. This would be the same thing as fear. Also here another name would be appropriate.
---

1) would be fitting but a solution limited to divination magic, while ide 3)
could be made generall to available to a broader level of magic.

2) I would realy love to see blitzing cavalery kill of assasins in large numbers.
Now building your own assasins is a good counter to assasins.

If you include idee 2) and 4) you will have all posabilities open:
-The assasin successfully killed his target, and managed to escape.
-The assasin successfully killed his target, but guards where able to attack him before he escaped.
-The assasin did not attack but manage to escpae
-The assasin did not attack and guards where able to attack him before he escaped.

The balance could be tweaked by tweaking the probabilities.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

hey that's a nice idea actually. you could tie the actual "assassination" ( i.e. strike the vulnerable, valuale units in the enemy stack ) to a spell mechanic unique to assassins. that way it can be resisted, and I like the 4 options that Grand Seeker proposed: 1) success, escape 2) success, retaliation 3) failure, escape and 4) failure, retaliation.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

National Units don't have to be limited to 4, they can have any limit you want. Judging from Faeryl's diplomacy text, I think you should be able to have at least 12.



If scrying were added, it should probably be tied either to the Empyrean or to Malakim Lightbringers. It could be an added effect of the Vicar's Revelation spell, which is generally considered the weakest of the Priest spells right now.


I don't think that giving guardsman itself would be a good idea, but it could be interesting if Marksman gave a new promotion which could make it even more likely to defend than guardsman would. "Exposed" could make a unit ~1000% more likely to defend, so it would be just about impossible for it to hide behind stronger units. It would have to run away, and wait for the promotion to wear off.


It could also be interesting for the scrying spell to give out this promotion. It would be extremely easy to add using only xml if you just wanted it to go to all recon units in range, but would require python (which the spell already uses, so its no big deal) if it should only effect assassins/shadows.



In my version I gave Hosts of the Einherjar Guardsman a long time ago.

It could be nice to create a promotion for summoners that gave guardsman (or a guardsman-like) promotion as a summon perk.



I personally like letting Aureales be strong versus HN, Invisible, marksman, etc, and to target recon units/assassins in stacks of stronger units (like Balista Elephants target cavalry in BtS, or Luonnatar target disciples in my version).

I'd really like it if this ability to target specific unitcombats/unitclasses were expanded so that it could be applied by promotion, and if to be able to target specific promotions. I'd really like to change Marksman so that instead of targeting the weakest unit it merely allows a set of spells that switch between promotions that make them target different types of units, and if guardsman made the unit target marksmen.

 

[Grand Seeker]

I don't think that giving guardsman itself would be a good idea, but it could be interesting if Marksman gave a new promotion which could make it even more likely to defend than guardsman would. "Exposed" could make a unit ~1000% more likely to defend, so it would be just about impossible for it to hide behind stronger units. It would have to run away, and wait for the promotion to wear off.

Agree 100%. "Exposed" promotion sound realy nice and fits a lot better.

Adding "Scrying" give this promotion is also a very fun ide and a lot simpler than my proposed version of scrying.

 

[Atnanor]

It is silly when an approaching army is made up almost entirely of Assassins

Gnomygod... *runs off to play some damn FFH2!*

 

[onedreamer]

Suicidal? That's not suicide, that's devotion to duty! Never mind that the priest has combat five, it's the warrior's job to fight!

Warrior = fight
Priest = heal

However, this is a strategic and turn based game, and a warrior fighting many times a turn while a priest healing only once per turn don't cope well; that's why the guardsman promotion doesn't work as it is now.

 

[onedreamer]

Or, drastic I know, just make the Assassin a national unit (4 max at any one time) and leave them as is (other than fixing it so they don't attack workers/hawks)?

It is silly when an approaching army is made up almost entirely of Assassins, which are clearly an addition to an army, for selective uses.

The Assassins should be powerful and difficult to defend against as it is at the moment, but armies of Assassins are silly and not really realistic (even in a fantasy setting).

To try and change how the Assassins attack, and fix the worker/hawk exploit, why not make them attack the unit with the lowest % of health, that has attack/defend combat values?

I think this is the best solution actually. More elaborated: Assassins should be top tier units available with tech Marksmanship, and with tech poison you should be able to build units based on... poisons rathar than marksmanship. A high withdrawal unit with poison damage will do the job IMO.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

agreed that the "choose defender" should be more based on chances to survive... I hate to see one of my units die when there is another one that had 99% chance of winning

 

[hbar]

Of course, that is kind of the point of assassins - why wouldn't they assassinate the weak and wounded? Now, if there's two or more units with guardsman, then I agree, the healthiest should defend first (I think that's how it is currently handled, actually). At least if your 1HP guardsman gets killed by an assassin, your mage is still okay...

 

[Zechnophobe]

This will be different of course once guardsmen becomes a normal promotion.

The problem the Bannor have in .33 is that guardian axemen come from the bronze working tree, whereas adepts (Not worth saving really) and more importantly Mages (Totally worth saving) come from down a completely different tree. Even worse, the promotion is a negative effect against non assassins. It's very sad actuallyl, that the AI is forced to research a tech that makes them produce weak axemen.

 

[onedreamer]

Of course, that is kind of the point of assassins - why wouldn't they assassinate the weak and wounded? Now, if there's two or more units with guardsman, then I agree, the healthiest should defend first (I think that's how it is currently handled, actually). At least if your 1HP guardsman gets killed by an assassin, your mage is still okay...

Like Zechnophobe said (but I thought it should be expressed even more clearly) the problem and weakness of the Guardsman promotion is not vs the Marksman promotion but actually vs non marksmen units. The effect is that if you have an axemen and an archer both defending, the archer having much better chances at winning, the axemen will defend, every single time, until it will die, making one of these 2 units absolutely useless. In short, the guardsman promotion forces you to not use defensive units or to not use melee units, at least not together.