Fall Further 0.51 Balance Discussion Thread

[Kentarion]

Archers are much much much to strong.

It's like the ultimate Weapon of the game - build archers - masses and you're on the save side...
thats boring.

bombard from archers is ok, but it should be available for archers above the 10xp point.

i had a game where fighting a simple fortress from goblinarchers was a very difficult thing - as such the fortresses grow like mushrooms - that's simply . .. .. .. .ed up.

too strong too strong too strong

 

[Grimz101]

Archers are much much much to strong.

It's like the ultimate Weapon of the game - build archers - masses and you're on the save side...
thats boring.

bombard from archers is ok, but it should be available for archers above the 10xp point.

i had a game where fighting a simple fortress from goblinarchers was a very difficult thing - as such the fortresses grow like mushrooms - that's simply . .. .. .. .ed up.

too strong too strong too strong

Ever heard of catapults?

 

[2Hydroclopse]

In Beyond the Sword, archers were strong in the early game[replaced by similar things up the tech tree for later game situations]. All the way up the tree, there was an rival opponent[swordsmen in the early game, then stronger siege weapons later on] for the city defense units.

In Fall from Heaven II the tech path for archers shrunk slightly, reducing the steady ramp up in power to something a bit more steep; also, siege weapons seem to show up later in the game.

In Fall Further archers types learned how to bombard, and therefore completely eliminate their one true threat, the siege weapons.

Are siege weapons immune to bombardment? That might redeem the situation. Or maybe make anti archers[such as siege weapons] available stronger/earlier.

[Edit: Hm, I think the current system is possibly more realistic than it's previous incarnations, but it is also seems to give to much weight to a branch of the tech tree(game play wise)for the early game.]

[Edit2: I don't think archers are overpowered, they just pop up really early in the game and all of their stronger enemies pop up later in the game, which gives a pause in the mean time when they seem rather strong]

 

[WarKirby]

Archers are much much much to strong.

It's like the ultimate Weapon of the game - build archers - masses and you're on the save side...
thats boring.

build masses of any one thing, and you're weak

Horsemen are a counter to archers, for a start. They get a significant bonus against them, and the ability to hit and run is perfect for weakening an archer emplacement.

There's also the Cover promotion. If someone is fielding a force entirely of archers, you can get +40% against their whole army with one promotion.

Catapults can stack damage through bombardment, too.

and let's not forget cultists, ritualists, air II mages, etc. Stack damage spells will kill archers same as anything else.

 

[Iceciro]

Can I make a request regarding toning down archers?

Can they not Pillage and Ranged attack on the same turn without Blitz? That REALLY sucks to have happen to you early game when Scorpion Clan Jerks come over and bombard your defenders (and have a first strike and four offense as opposed to 3 of a standard archer) and then pillage your improvements while moving around generally making it impossible to counter them without far stronger units (throwing hordes of warriors at them doesn't work, they have a guaranteed first strike, throwing other archers at them doesn't work, archers have a crap attack, and if you don't have bronze or they blew it up they're still more than a match for your Axemen, too, especially if they get a bombard off before the axeman gets there, which is likely.)

Also because of the way their bonus poison damage is counted on top of weakened strength they're very hard to take down to a reasonably handle-able level with other archers.

 

[Breez]

Can I make a request regarding toning down archers?

Can they not Pillage and Ranged attack on the same turn without Blitz? That REALLY sucks to have happen to you early game when Scorpion Clan Jerks come over and bombard your defenders (and have a first strike and four offense as opposed to 3 of a standard archer) and then pillage your improvements while moving around generally making it impossible to counter them without far stronger units (throwing hordes of warriors at them doesn't work, they have a guaranteed first strike, throwing other archers at them doesn't work, archers have a crap attack, and if you don't have bronze or they blew it up they're still more than a match for your Axemen, too, especially if they get a bombard off before the axeman gets there, which is likely.)

While I happen to agree with you can that be done?

Wouldn't that make them unable to bombard and attack in the same turn or move and attack in the same turn?

Personally I would suggest removing their ability to pillage all together. They have other strengths, I say let them concentrate on those and leave the pillaging to the grunts.

 

[rocklikeafool]

I say archers are fine. They are realistic as they are now. Leave em so. If they're so hard to deal with, use strategies such as using promotions and stack spells that can potentially kick their asses. It's all about using your head to counter these things. Nothing should have to be toned down if it already has a counter. In this case, the most common counters are horsemen and the cover promotion. (Note the cover promotion is a melee promotion.) Alternatively, get some adepts and some fodder and weaken em with stack spells. Then, send your fodder in to do cleanup. Easy solutions imho.

 

[far_wanderer]

On a completely unrelated note regarding archers - ranged attack have been around for quite a while now, has anyone put any thought into updating the Flaming Arrows spell? Currently it just adds 1 fire strength to regular combat.

 

[Kjara]

Not sure if this is a balance issue or a bug, but you can do the axe exploit with commanders. If you have 1 open command slot, you can rotate fodder through it(as each fodder dies, it opens up for the next fodder). True, if one manages to survive, you might have to detach another of your normal units, but somehow the number of units that can link to a great commander in 1 turn should prob be limited by its command limit or something. The only plus seems currently that its not as exploitable with most summons(since it doesn't give boosts to most summon types).

Other commander balance issue is that battlefield tactics is slightly overpowered when compared to garrison commander(assuming that you haven't invested in the tactics line yourself on your led units). 10% withdraw rate and 35% defense for 4 unit types as opposed to 30% city defense for 1 unit type. Also, it lets you gain blitz/tactics III without having to take tactics I and II, just follow the commander, grab either of those promotions(or some of the civ/religion ones in the line), and then unfollow. Should prob change the commander tactics promotion to give a unique promotion like the rest of them do to avoid this(and prob scale it down to 20% or 25% def bonus and 5-10% withdraw?).

 

[WarKirby]

As far as I'm aware, summons can't join a commander (if they can, we have a problem) and the ability to farm xp through rotating fodder through the commander is limited by the rather sharp level ramp.once the commander gets a few levels, he'll suddenly start getting 0.2xp per battle from lv2 fodder units. Diminishing returns prevent much usefulness of this exploit, so it doesn't seem problematic.

 

[vivictius]

The tactics from a commander does seem to be a bit unbalancing though, the easiest solutions would probably be to have the commander give Tactics III instead of I and II, the bonuses are about the same but it doesnt let you grab blitz and march.

 

[Kjara]

Some summons can, not sure how its calculated, but my djinni and air elementals could, but my tiger's couldn't. Might be that perm summons can't but temp ones can(or might be a unitclass thing, since tigers would actually have gotten some boost from the commander)?

I'm not so worried about the exploit for farming exp for the commander, just for making the fodder better. We seem so worried about being able to use orthus's axe this way, if you have a commander that has all 3 of the strength promotions, thats +50% str, more than what you get with the axe on a warrior(4.5 vs 4 assuming no promotions on the fodder, its still better at with c1 at 5.1 vs 4.8), more if you are banner(+25%) or are dealing with religious troops(+75% more?--not sure how easy it is to get the 2nd religious promotion).

It also seems exploitable with the captain ability to prevent war weariness, just make sure that all your fodder bannor units take a captain as a leader before suiciding, and you get no war weariness on top of the 75% combat boost.

Edit:VV Well of course that's the point, I just don't feel that 1 captain should be able to sacrifice an unlimited number of troops in 1 turn, there should be some limit.

If chain of command isn't officially part of ff, it prob shouldn't install and be on by default (installing is fine, it prob shouldn't be on by default though or perhaps it needs a prompt/warning in the installer). Honestly I wasn't even aware it wasn't part of ff before you said that, I was figuring it was just something that was put as a module to give an example to people. Anyhow, even without chain of command its pretty easy to get 85% on disciple units.

 

[WarKirby]

It also seems exploitable with the captain ability to prevent war weariness, just make sure that all your fodder bannor units take a captain as a leader before suiciding, and you get no war weariness on top of the 75% combat boost.

Exploit?

I'd call that working as intended. What do you think No War Weariness is for?
Suiciding cannon fodder, of course.

I'd say the +75% strength is a bit much, but then, the chain of command module is severely unbalanced in general, and so not officially supported, or part of FF. It's darn fun though.

 

[xienwolf]

Actually right now only Animal and Beast unitcombats are prevented from joining commanders. Everything else is allowed, including every non-animal/beast summon.

 

[Kjara]

Err, if animals/beasts are prevented, why does the battle commander line give boosts to the beast and animal lines?

(The Doniello should get a unique great commander that can lead animals (perhaps beasts)?).

 

[xienwolf]

Cause the spell requirements haven't been re-written from when I first set up the capability and at the time I just needed to have SOMETHING prevented from using the spell so I could ensure it was possible to prevent anything at all.

Honestly I had quite a few ideas for making it worthwhile to have a mage be commander of their own summons, but I agree that allowing summons as followers in the current setup is inappropriate.

 

[Kentarion]

Archers.

Yes thank you for your comments...

I know how to build Siege Weapons (if i'm able to do so - depends on race).
I'm enlightend of the wisdom that there are promotions against Archers.

....

Normally - like in FFH2 i could choose to build more axeman or whatever to defend my cities - at least until the time i got archers.

NOW i have to rush for archers. - i simply don't like play with every race the same way - that's the big thing about FFH isn't it - you play every race different.

There is no.. "you have to get archers first of all to defend your cities" in FFH

And its like that - raging barbarians - masses of archers from the enemy - that's how the ai works it out now. bombard and pillage - without counterbombardmend - in a wood/hill tile - i want to see how much promoted horsemens you need...

whatever - i don't want to flame here - it's just my personal feeling that i don't like such a central point in this game.

I love to see Fall Further getting better - it's just a start here - you fight with similiar issues like ffh did in the beginning.

keep it up, but pay attention.

 

[WarKirby]

I don't see how archers are such a central thing at all. I've done incredibly well in some games just ignoring them entirely. Melee units are still more flexible on the whole. You can defend cities perfectly well with axemen. A ranged attack is nice, but it only damages. A direct attack can kill.

When the enemy is using archers, your own archers are about the least useful thing you could possibly use to counter them. Just assault them in flat ground, or forests as they approach you.

When it comes to barbarians as well, an axeman is more flexible than an archer. He can kill the barbarians directly, and get twice as much xp.


and despite all their strength, archers still tend to get steamrolled when high level heroes come through

Now, if you want to assault an enemy, some archers to weaken them will certainly help. But archers won't do it alone.

This isn't putting the focus on archers. This is taking away focus from melee units. There's a big difference here. InFFH, elee is pretty much the be all and end all of military. Even in FF, that's not entirely untrue. Try building a military consisting purely of melee units. It's stll going to be farmore sucessful than any other kind of single type army. And they work vey well in combination with others.

Mix armies up a bit.

On the defence, archers are king, undoubtedly. Because that's what they're supposed to do. Ranged attacks make them good at that, and also ive them some attack capability. Just as melee units have some defensive capability, but are mostly attack focused.

You can comprise a defence force entirely of archers, just as you can make an attack force entirely of melee units. But in all situations, a mixed army serves better. Archer are utterly useless if the enemy decides to start pillaging instead of suiciding on your walls. If you have some melee/mounted in your defence force, you can strike out at them after your archers firing from the city have weakened them. Recon units are especially good for this, combining fast movement and good strength.

Archers are a piece of the puzzle. not the whole thing.

 

[Pohlmann]

in my current game i play dural

calabim attacked me with warriors. i had teched for horses and 5 of them at the ready. beat up the whole warriorstack in 5 turns. then i got my 1st tactician and all horses had 85-90% withdrawal.i kept 7 or 8 of my 70+xp riders who beat up 50% defense hillside city archers .

it worked perfectly. archers are easily countered by great generals and their tactics promos. attack with low risk, damage archers, finish them

 

[WarKirby]

i had a game where fighting a simple fortress from goblinarchers was a very difficult thing - as such the fortresses grow like mushrooms - that's simply . .. .. .. .ed up.

too strong too strong too strong

It's a true thing in general, that FF's barbarians are stronger. We have animals that grow hideously powerful over time, our barbarians move in armies, and when the AC gets high, demons can stomp you into the ground. These present additional challenges.

Goblin forts aren't hard to take down. Just promote a bumch of warriors to cover/drill, and charge. Outnumber your enemy 4:1 when assaulting any entrenched position. This is just simple military tactics.