Clan of Embers rebalancing

[WarKirby]

We're presently doing a little adjustment of the Clan of Embers, as a whole. Feedback desired. All numbers in this post are rough values, open for discussion and debate.



Unit Structure:

Clan mounted line will terminate at chariots/horsemen (wolf rider)

Ogre will be moved to Iron working, as an alternate champion. Stats will be changed.

• Melee unitcombat
• Str 8
• Moves 1 or 2 (not sure)
• -25% vs melee units (weak vs champions)
• +25% vs archery
• May possibly be able to bombard cities/ranged attack/cause collateral (throwing rocks)
• Cannot use metal weapons.

Intended role is a living siege weapon. Clumsy and easily outmaneuvered by agile warriors up close, but good at tossing rocks, and arrows bounce harmlessly off thick skin.


Ogre Warchief will become an Immortal UU. (Divine essence)

• National limit 4
• Melee unitcombat (or maybe commander ?)
• Str 14/12
• Moves will be the same as ogre, whatever is decided
• Possibly, instead of immortality, 100% withdrawal chance. Always lives to fight another day, sacrifices minions as distraction, etc
• Not buildable, must upgrade from ogre, with min level/age requirement
• No metal weapons
• May possibly be able to bombard cities/ranged attack/cause collateral (throwing rocks)

Stoneskin Ogre will become Phalanx UU (mythril working)

• National limit 4
• Melee unitcombat.
• Str 14 or 16
• Moves same as ogre
• +50% vs archery units (maybe too much ?)
• +20% city attack
• Not buildable, must upgrade from ogre. Possible minlevel/unitage requirement.
• starts with stoneskin
• Whenever it doesn't have stoneskin, will gain "Regrowing Skin" which becomes Stoneskin in X turns. (x = 2 maybe ?)
• May possibly be able to bombard cities/ranged attack/cause collateral (throwing rocks)
• No metal weapons, no building/resource requirements

Upgrade line for normal orc melee will be:
warrior > axeman > champion > berserker

Ogres will be able to upgrade to warchief or stoneskin. Both will probably have some unit-based prereq like minimum age or level, but no resource/building prereqs.

Orcs will not be able to upgrade to ogres. Similarly, ogres will not be able to become berserkers.



Other changes:
No Knight/War Chariot/Horsearcher
No cannons or arquebus. Possibly also, no catapults. Would it be too crippling in the early game to have no catapults? Ogres can fill siege needs later.

Palace mana will be changed to Fire, Chaos, Body (is currently Fire, Nature, Body).
Chaos and body will provide good magical synergy with mass numbers of living units.

Orc Slaying promotion has been increased to 30% bonus vs Orcs (really a chislev change, but still relevant). Was previously 20%

Warrens:
Warrens will become much cheaper. But not entirely beneficial. Currently, the cost is 300
This will be lowered to somewhere between 60 and 150 . feedback needed.

Warrens will give Undisciplined promotion to units built in the city

• -20% strength
• 20% miscast chance (so that it's bad for adepts too)
• -10% ranged damage limit
• recieves 50-75% more collateral damage (tightly packed hordes)
• 2% chance to turn barbarian
• 3% chance to wear off
• Will be removed when a unit reaches lv4. Will not apply to units that are not normally duplicated by warrens (heroes, national units, siege, anything non-living)

restriction of second unit not recieving free stuff that the first one gets (xp, promotions, etc) will probably be removed.

The overall aim, is to make the Clan of Embers a more fun, and flavourful race to play. Their main theme is quantity over quality, an emphasis on low-tech cannon fodder in mass numbers.

These changes may or may not make it into patch C. Feedback and discussion is needed. post your thoughts!

 

[Tholal]

Interesting stuff. I would say that the Ogre Champion should definitely only have 1 movement, especially if they get some siege ability.

Also, Chaos mana doesn't really seem to fit the Clan, either thematically or lore-wise.

 

[WarKirby]

Why does chaos mana not fit the lore?

Camulos is known to be the most warlike of the evil gods. His vault is an eternal battlefield. it would be like heaven for the sould of orcish warriors

Thematically also, they're hated enemies of the bannor, who are about as Lawful as you can get. What's the opposite of law? Chaos!

Dance of Blades and Mutate are both Really Good Spells when you have a large quantity of expendable units. A free first strike means all your cannon fodder gets a free hit in before they die, drastically increasing their odds of causing damage. And mutating whole armies is just fun, have you tried it ? Many of them become enraged and go off alone.

Orcs are generally known for having little compassion for their own kind. i'm reminded of a story particularly, I think it's capria's pedia entry, where she tries to use an orc child as a hostage against orthus. And he attacks anyway, killing it in the process and laughing about it.

 

[Breez]

Ogre will be moved to Iron working, as an alternate champion. Stats will be changed.

• Melee unitcombat
• Str 8
• Moves 1 or 2 (not sure)
• -25% vs melee units (weak vs champions)
• +25% vs archery
• May possibly be able to bombard cities/ranged attack/cause collateral (throwing rocks)
• Cannot use metal weapons.

Intended role is a living siege weapon. Clumsy and easily outmaneuvered by agile warriors up close, but good at tossing rocks, and arrows bounce harmlessly off thick skin.


Ogre Warchief will become an Immortal UU. (Divine essence)

• National limit 4
• Melee unitcombat (or maybe commander ?)
• Str 14/12
• Moves will be the same as ogre, whatever is decided
• Possibly, instead of immortality, 100% withdrawal chance. Always lives to fight another day, sacrifices minions as distraction, etc
• Not buildable, must upgrade from ogre, with min level/age requirement
• No metal weapons
• May possibly be able to bombard cities/ranged attack/cause collateral (throwing rocks)

Stoneskin Ogre will become Phalanx UU (mythril working)

• National limit 4
• Melee unitcombat.
• Str 14 or 16
• Moves same as ogre
• +50% vs archery units (maybe too much ?)
• +20% city attack
• Not buildable, must upgrade from ogre. Possible minlevel/unitage requirement.
• starts with stoneskin
• Whenever it doesn't have stoneskin, will gain "Regrowing Skin" which becomes Stoneskin in X turns. (x = 2 maybe ?)
• May possibly be able to bombard cities/ranged attack/cause collateral (throwing rocks)
• No metal weapons, no building/resource requirements

The only part I don't like is no metal weapons. I can't even give a reason for it, other than I don't like not needing those resources... I realize they would still effect the melee line. It isn't a reasonable argument against it just an initial gut feeling.

I love the stoneskin regrowth idea. If that doesn't work could a 2 turn cast time stoneskin spell work?

Upgrade line for normal orc melee will be:
warrior > axeman > champion > berserker

Are the beserkers a limit 4 national unit?

No cannons or arquebus. Possibly also, no catapults. Would it be too crippling in the early game to have no catapults? Ogres can fill siege needs later.

I have seen mechanics (Orbis? FF+?) that allows a unit in a forest to gain a battering ram promo that lets them bombard city defenses. Is that in FF currently? If orc melee line can do that then I don't think the loss of catapults is that big of deal.

Palace mana will be changed to Fire, Chaos, Body (is currently Fire, Nature, Body).
Chaos and body will provide good magical synergy with mass numbers of living units.

Will adding Chaos mean random units are mutated?

Warrens:
Warrens will become much cheaper. But not entirely beneficial. Currently, the cost is 300
This will be lowered to somewhere between 60 and 150 . feedback needed.

Warrens will give Undisciplined promotion to units built in the city

• -20% strength
• 20% miscast chance (so that it's bad for adepts too)
• -10% ranged damage limit
• recieves 50-75% more collateral damage (tightly packed hordes)
• 2% chance to turn barbarian
• 3% chance to wear off
• Will be removed when a unit reaches lv4. Will not apply to units that are not normally duplicated by warrens (heroes, national units, siege, anything non-living)

restriction of second unit not recieving free stuff that the first one gets (xp, promotions, etc) will probably be removed.

Personally I like that. I think it does fit the favor of the clan. However that means EVERY unit is -20% strength until level 4. I think I would like to see one of the following

- raise the chance to wear off
- make it so the warrens only has a 75% chance to apply it per unit
- remove the -20% strength, i think the other disadvantages are enough to off set the reduction in Warren build cost. Making all orc units weaker out of the gate doesn't seem fair, even if it does make "lore" sense.
- add a small lets say 10% chance to make 3 instead of 2. If they are going to be weaker then make them actually numerous
- reduced maintenance per unit?

The overall aim, is to make the Clan of Embers a more fun, and flavourful race to play. Their main theme is quantity over quality, an emphasis on low-tech cannon fodder in mass numbers.

 

[Tholal]

Why does chaos mana not fit the lore?

I've always regarded Chaos magic in FfH as something similar to the Lords of Chaos from the Michael Moorcock books, which is not the same thing as the chaos created by a bunch of Drunken Soccer Hooligans

Chaos expresses the principle of possibility unfettered by rules. In general, magic and sorcery draw on the powers of Chaos because they break the laws of nature. The effects of Chaos can be beautiful, but left unchecked, they become too disruptive for life.

(text above is in regards to the Moorcock books)

The Clan of Embers seem to be more of a Horde of Orcs (and other such beasties) intent on pillaging and conquering the world rather than a race mucking about with a lot of magic stuff, especially uncontrollable magic that randomly mutates them.

*shrug* That's my take on it.

 

[WarKirby]

The only part I don't like is no metal weapons. I can't even give a reason for it, other than I don't like not needing those resources... I realize they would still effect the melee line. It isn't a reasonable argument against it just an initial gut feeling.

The main point of metal weapons, is that they give an edge in battles of equal strength. ie, an iron sword is more likely to be able to penetrate or break a bronze shield, since it's a softer metal.

This doesn't really make a difference with massive things like ogres, though. They have huge strength, so what their equipment is made of is pretty much irrelevant. It doesn't really matter whether they're wielding an iron club, or they rip a tree out of the ground. either way, they're going to crush any mortal man under the sheer weight of it. so the material is pretty moot.

I love the stoneskin regrowth idea. If that doesn't work could a 2 turn cast time stoneskin spell work?

This was pretty much xienwolf's idea, slightly modified by me. We agreed it's rather pointless to have a UU that's just a one-trick-pony, it needs some way to regain stoneskin after losing it in battle. Just being given it automatically seems a bit much, so having it regrow with a small rest time seems more balanced, and creates a weakness that can be tactically exploited.

Are the beserkers a limit 4 national unit?

yes.

I have seen mechanics (Orbis? FF+?) that allows a unit in a forest to gain a battering ram promo that lets them bombard city defenses. Is that in FF currently? If orc melee line can do that then I don't think the loss of catapults is that big of deal.

I think that mechanic is in FF, but only dwarves can use it. The loss of catapults would leave the clan completely without siege weaponry until Iron working. Do you think this is an acceptable weakness, or not ?

Will adding Chaos mean random units are mutated?

it will indeed.

Personally I like that. I think it does fit the favor of the clan. However that means EVERY unit is -20% strength until level 4. I think I would like to see one of the following

- raise the chance to wear off
- make it so the warrens only has a 75% chance to apply it per unit
- remove the -20% strength, i think the other disadvantages are enough to off set the reduction in Warren build cost. Making all orc units weaker out of the gate doesn't seem fair, even if it does make "lore" sense.
- add a small lets say 10% chance to make 3 instead of 2. If they are going to be weaker then make them actually numerous
- reduced maintenance per unit?

It means every unit you build in a city with warrens, is -20% strength. Warrens are something you can choose to build or not, at your own discretion. And -20% seems like a fairly small price to pay for having 100% more units, don't you think? it adds up to 60% more aggregate power in the long run, and that's not even taking wear-off chance into account.

I'm playing with it in practice now, and that 3% chance to wear off is a lot more than it seems. Quite a lot of the units I'm building seem to have it wear off pretty quickly. It's not as bad as you'd think.

 

[Bill Bisco]

Orcs need catapaults. Unless you want to turn axemen into catapaults iron working is too far away.

Thank you and have a nice day,
bill

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I've always regarded Chaos magic in FfH as something similar to the Lords of Chaos from the Michael Moorcock books, which is not the same thing as the chaos created by a bunch of Drunken Soccer Hooligans



(text above is in regards to the Moorcock books)

The Clan of Embers seem to be more of a Horde of Orcs (and other such beasties) intent on pillaging and conquering the world rather than a race mucking about with a lot of magic stuff, especially uncontrollable magic that randomly mutates them.

*shrug* That's my take on it.

I don't know where you got that idea. I'm not familiar with the books, but the Chaos represented by the precept of chaos is the embodiment of strife. Camulos used to be a god of peace and harmony, but is now a god of discord. The chaos sphere involves a hatred of external authority and even of personal codes of conduct, but it loves to impose its will on others. In its uncorrupted form, the sphere of peace was about not needing rules to govern interpersonal interactions because of mutual respect between individuals. This pacifist anarchism was replaced by a violent sort where every man believes he has the right to oppress everyone else to the best of his ability. Camulos was always the opposite of Junil, but is now an opposite of a different sort.


Using a looser definition, Kael has described Camulos, Bhall, and Tali as all being gods of chaos. Bhall represents a passionate upheaval against some perceived evil, like when a mob overthrows a corrupt ruler or burns a suspected witch at the stake. Camulos is a dispassionate violence for the sake of violence, represented by a sociopath choosing a random house full of innocents and burning it down just to watch the flames. Tali is chaos without malice, basically the god of fun and irresponsibility. He is represented by a group of men who set out to paint a random house red, but get distracted and end up mostly painting each other until they see a flock of geese and decide to paint them too, and get notice that the paint on the geese makes it hard for them to fly so they take their time to wash them off and stay up with them by a campfire all night singing songs and letting the geese dry, until they get hungry and decide to cook some of the geese for food, and then eventually wander back home the next morning laughing, covered in paint and feathers, with little recollection of what they had set out to do. (I'd consider adding Amathaon to the list of chaotic gods. His is a creative chaos, the way order emerges from chaos on its own without any external prompting. He is known to give out lavish blessings haphazardly, demonstrating benevolence that is entirely arbitrary and cannot be influenced by prayers.)


In yet a third sense fo the word chaos, Kael has used the term to describe all magic, as magic is the bending of the rules that govern creation. The chaos sphere is no more connected to this type of magci than any other precept. Since The one removed the power of creation, rules cannot be broken or rewritten (even by the gods who wrote them) but they are somewhat flexible. One can pretty much suspend a law of nature for a time, but eventually things will return to normal. The Gems of Creation gave the gods a lot of influence, but they are far from omnipotent.

 

[Breez]

The main point of metal weapons, is that they give an edge in battles of equal strength. ie, an iron sword is more likely to be able to penetrate or break a bronze shield, since it's a softer metal.

This doesn't really make a difference with massive things like ogres, though. They have huge strength, so what their equipment is made of is pretty much irrelevant. It doesn't really matter whether they're wielding an iron club, or they rip a tree out of the ground. either way, they're going to crush any mortal man under the sheer weight of it. so the material is pretty moot.

I agree... i have no argument that can make sense... just don't like the "feel" /shrug very minor point to me

I think that mechanic is in FF, but only dwarves can use it. The loss of catapults would leave the clan completely without siege weaponry until Iron working. Do you think this is an acceptable weakness, or not ?

If Orcs were to gain the same type of mechanic then I think the loss of catapults would acceptable.

It means every unit you build in a city with warrens, is -20% strength. Warrens are something you can choose to build or not, at your own discretion. And -20% seems like a fairly small price to pay for having 100% more units, don't you think? it adds up to 60% more aggregate power in the long run, and that's not even taking wear-off chance into account.

I'm playing with it in practice now, and that 3% chance to wear off is a lot more than it seems. Quite a lot of the units I'm building seem to have it wear off pretty quickly. It's not as bad as you'd think.

True BUT you already mentioned that lossing 40% of your units (2% go native vs 3% wear off) is off set by gaining 100% more units for a net gain of 20% units.

But 50% of your units are free
And that 40% figure is assuming that you're going to stand around for hundreds of turns

If that is the case then does gaining a net 20% more units justify -20% Strength on all your units? IF the Warrens were free in every city? MAYBE. Hence my suggestion of reducing the -20% strength OR increasing the wear off % so that you lose less than 40% of your troops.

You also mentioned in that other thread

They're orcs, they're supposed to swarm all over in massive numbers screaming WAAAAAAAAAAGH.

We agree they should be building Warrens in every city. -20% on 3 warriors seems excessive. -10%? /shrug I donno ust a thought.

 

[westamastaflash]

Removing Knights and War Chariots eliminates 8 national units. Perhaps change the orcs national unit levels to 6 (after all there are lots of orcs, right)?

 

[Iceciro]

Since the Orcs have lost War Chariots and Knights, they need more National Unit heavy troops of different kinds - something to balance the scales, something huge and very smashy.
Also agree on the higher chance to lose the promotion given by the Warrens.

 

[westamastaflash]

2 words. OGRE MAGE

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm

 

[MagisterCultuum]

You cannot adjust national unit limits for one civ. Such limits are set by unitclass. (Ok, so you could give them a unitclass other civs have no access to rather than a real UU, like how Mercurian Us are handled, if you want them to have different national unit limits.)

 

[WarKirby]

Removing Knights and War Chariots eliminates 8 national units. Perhaps change the orcs national unit levels to 6 (after all there are lots of orcs, right)?

The problem with this is that the national limits are embedded in unit class, not unitinfos

Does anyone normally run into problems with numbers of national units? In most games I play, I often don't even find myself using all four phalanxes/knights/immortals/whatever. I often end up with just one or two as pet units.

Adding more unit types in general is a bit odd, would it not be bettter perhaps to just make their berserkers and ogres smashier than everyone else's ? I think the Mounted T4 units are about the least used by non-hippus, anyways. Would you guys disagree there ?

 

[westamastaflash]

Adding more unit types in general is a bit odd, would it not be bettter perhaps to just make their berserkers and ogres smashier than everyone else's ? I think the Mounted T4 units are about the least used by non-hippus, anyways. Would you guys disagree there ?

Maybe just one additional T4 unit?

 

[WarKirby]

If Orcs were to gain the same type of mechanic then I think the loss of catapults would acceptable.

It doesn't really fit though. Might as well just leave them with catapults. Ogres will still be better once you can get them since you can have twice as many, though.

True BUT you already mentioned that lossing 40% of your units (2% go native vs 3% wear off) is off set by gaining 100% more units for a net gain of 20% units.

You miss an overarching point here, though. Playing as clan, you're more likely to lose about 60% of your units in battle before either of those effects happen, and those that survive low odds battles are going to get a ton of xp very quickly.

The main purpose of having thousands of weak units, is to serve as cannon fodder. One unit with a strength penalty is almost certain to lose against an equivilant unit, but he's pretty likely to injure the enemy in doing so. Most battles end up with the winner injured 50-70% if the units are fairly similar, which means the other orc who you got entirely for free, is almost guaranteed a victory. Net win: orcs

It's more complex when attacking entrenched archers in a city, for instance. But if you bring 4-6 axemen for every archer the enemy has, you're pretty likely to win. The strength penalty increases the number of units you need to accomplish any given task, but the number of units you have available to commit to the task increases by a far greater margin.

If that is the case then does gaining a net 20% more units justify -20% Strength on all your units? IF the Warrens were free in every city? MAYBE. Hence my suggestion of reducing the -20% strength OR increasing the wear off % so that you lose less than 40% of your troops.

You also mentioned in that other thread

You're gaining a net 100% more units. What I mentioned earlier was an aggregate combat strength calculation, not a number of troops calculation. Two orcs with -20% strength works out to be 160% of the power of one normal unit with no strength penalty.

We agree they should be building Warrens in every city. -20% on 3 warriors seems excessive. -10%? /shrug I donno ust a thought.

Warrens have a tech prereq of masonry. In most games I end up with archery or bronze working before that. And in any case, you're going to end up with a reasonable force of warriors before you get around to building warrens.

It's also well worth considering leaders. If you pick sheelba, her aggressive trait entirely offsets the strength penalty, making things even better. Alternatively, playing Jonas, expansive trait gives you double production of settlers, which are again doubled by the warrens. You can expand 4x as fast any other non-expansive civ in the game (and still twice as fast as those).

 

[WarKirby]

Maybe just one additional T4 unit?

Ogre mage does sound kind of fun, hmm...

how ought it to work ? What channelling level? What stats, etc?

 

[Bill Bisco]

By the way, removing National Units from a civ or musketmen and cannons from them does not make them more flavorful or fun or more sense. In short, you're doing it wrong.

 

[scutarii]

@WarKirby: do not forget upkeep issues. There is no point to favour cheap massive army style when you have no economy to support it.

Especially when in FfH2" there is no "oh I found tech from conquered city."

Looting? Yes, wheny you want simply to burn but in many cases you do not want...and for looting you do not need excessive amount of soldiers anyway...

 

[WarKirby]

By the way, removing National Units from a civ or musketmen and cannons from them does not make them more flavorful or fun or more sense. In short, you're doing it wrong.

That's a rather sweeping statement.

There are quite a lot of civs which have no gunpowder units. The primary thing they have in common is a relatively tribal, more free, or less civilised society. Doviello, hippus, chislev, elves, calabim etc.

The Khazad are also missing marksmen and Archmages. And horse archers. and rangers. And yet they're widely considered one of the most powerful and flavourful civs in the game. They have Dwarven druids, myconids, and hornguard, focusing more power where they have it to make up for where they don't.

And then there's the sheiam, who are missing an entire melee line.

One of the core precepts of the game is that not everyone has the same tools to work with. Many civs are deliberately restricted in some areas, and more powerful in others.