Assassins and Guardsman

[hbar]

Ah, I see - I misunderstood. I rarely play Bannor and I don't like Aristocracy, so I actually don't use Guardsman very often (that should change with 0.34). That "feature" sounds more like a break to me; logically guardsman should only come into play with assassins and no one else. The more I read, the more I am in favor of giving assassins an "assassinate" spell to bypass the tricky combat problems. That way, the Guardsman promo would only come into play when that spell is cast, and it would leave the more mundane defending to the archers.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

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.

that's EXACTLY the problem that the guardsman promotion has right now... these guys are not just guards, they have a death wish

 

[onedreamer]

well with the Royal Knights of Aristocracy (can't remember the exact name) I don't see a problem with how the Guardsman promotion works, because they are clearly defensive units, it's ok when they defend (they also happen to have a good defensive strength, whereas axemen only have a decent one). But axemen are supposedly what you'd build to attack a target, and very often you are slowed by a great deal in your moves because your axemen get severly injured or killed before they get to their destination in enemy territory. I would really prefer NOT to have this promotion on my melee units than have it, because it's a strategic nightmare for me !

 

[xienwolf]

The issue with guardsmen units guarding too much is mostly tied to the promotion granting 2 things: 1 - Anti-Marksmen capability. 2 - +100% Strength consideration for defender selection purposes.


I am not entirely certain why the second one was placed on there. Maybe it was required for Guardsman to actually block Marksmen with how the code was initially written. I've made quite a few tweaks to the promotion in Fall Further so that having Guardsman shouldn't matter at all unless attacked by a Marksman. And when attacked by a Marksman, the strongest of your guardsman units will defend.

If anyone has experience with FF and this promotion, I'd be quite interested in knowing if it works better, or if there are still kinks to be worked out. Should it be working "properly" according to what people think the mechanic is meant to be, then we have a solution (however, if it is intended to be a "balance factor" that your opponent can pick off your guardsman units with normal attackers, then whip out the assassins, no change will ever happen in main FfH)

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

wow, I play FF and I never realized Guardsman was changed there, when did that happen?

well done xienwolf, very nice change. I'll have to test it out now

 

[hbar]

@ Xienwolf - did you make G-man purchasable in FF, or is it still only on a select few?

 

[onedreamer]

The issue with guardsmen units guarding too much is mostly tied to the promotion granting 2 things: 1 - Anti-Marksmen capability. 2 - +100% Strength consideration for defender selection purposes.


I am not entirely certain why the second one was placed on there. Maybe it was required for Guardsman to actually block Marksmen with how the code was initially written. I've made quite a few tweaks to the promotion in Fall Further so that having Guardsman shouldn't matter at all unless attacked by a Marksman. And when attacked by a Marksman, the strongest of your guardsman units will defend.

If anyone has experience with FF and this promotion, I'd be quite interested in knowing if it works better, or if there are still kinks to be worked out. Should it be working "properly" according to what people think the mechanic is meant to be, then we have a solution (however, if it is intended to be a "balance factor" that your opponent can pick off your guardsman units with normal attackers, then whip out the assassins, no change will ever happen in main FfH)

I don't play FF, but I'm willing to implement just the part about the promotion if you show it
In fact, Bannor is my fav. civ (despite many considering it "weak"), and I've been complaining about Guardsman since when it was moved from a warrior-only promotion to a training yard and next with 0.34 civ wide promotion.

 

[xienwolf]

To get guardsman to always guard with the strongest thus promoted unit you need some DLL work. But to get them to be a bit less suicidal against the non-marksman units, just remove the <iBetterDefenderThan>100</iBetterDefenderThan> attribute.


I believe that Guardsman is a purchaseable promotion in FF, that would be Vehem's doing though, I don't much do XML except to show off a new tag I added

EDIT: When testing 2 posts later I see that Guardsman can be purchased in FF, plus the Bannor get it for free.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

What if Guardsman didn't itself make the uni more likely to defend, but instead allowed a spell to take or loose a new promotion that make the unit more than a 100% more likely to defend.



Actually, in my last FF game, it didn't seem like marksman was working at all.

 

[xienwolf]

Just tested it, and both Guardsan & Marksman work. Maybe you tried to cheat and use workers/hawks. That doesn't work anymore.

To clarify, I gave myself 3 Dragonslayers, 2 with Marksman. I gave the Barbarians 3 Archamge/Dragonslayer combo stacks, in one of them I placed Guardsman promotion on the Dragonslayer. Selecting my Dragonslayer without Marksman, I saw 3 Barbarian Dragonslayers waiting to defend. Selecting either of my Marksman dragonslayers I saw 2 Archmages and a Guardsman promoted Dragonslayer waiting to defend. Upon attacking, the visible defender was indeed the one who tried to defend.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

workers and hawks don't stop assassins anymore? that's so awesome.

 

[nealhunt]

Assassins are insanely annoying. They are one of the things that I like least about FFH. They're just not fun.

I was okay with Marksmen because they are national units and make sense as having some sort of preternatural ability based on the pre-reqs and such. That gives them both game balance and justification in the world setting. Assassins have neither.

These are units/brigades/regiments/whatever, not single people. Even heroes would be heroes and all their bodyguard or entourage or retainers or adventuring party or something. The idea of a regiment of assassins going in and assassinating a regiment of mages in the middle of an army is just... bleh.

Now there's even fewer options to guard against them and the few that are left are even more expensive and/or require even greater levels of micromanagement. Mages and priests take enough hassle and headache as it is. There's no fun in having to add to the high amount of babysitting they already require.

There should either be a reasonable defense that almost all civs can actually use or Marksman units should be extremely limited. The defense should be difficult enough that it's a real strategic choice - divert to protect my vulnerable units or risk not having the protection - but it needs to be there and it needs to be something besides stacks of cheap units. At least that way someone can say "well, I knew I was at risk and I made a strategic choice" instead of just a choice of micromanagement or death.

</rant>