Hand-Axe @ 15 (20 ranged) strenght - overpowered?

[Tomice]

Barbarian Hand-Axes seem to be the most powerful "archer" unit, significantly stronger than chariots (10/13ranged) or even crossbowmen (12/17). Their melee strenght equals swordmen, and they easily beat them 1vs1.

This wouldn't be a problem if they wouldn't start appearing very early - it's very frustrating to fight them with archers and warriors!

Is this intended? I don't remember them being such a pain in the ***. Together with fortification bonuses, they can barely be damaged by archer-garrisoned cities and dual attack. In vanilla BNW they're 9/9ranged, by the way.

 

[jwerano]

I had the same thought. Actually when i fight them I feel like i'm fighting against barbarian Death gods who can slay me on a whim and even with the honor opener its very difficult to stand up to them. Plus they also seem to have 3 or 4 movement points like chariots. Please reduce their strength or somehow increase the reward for defeating them.

 

[Hreat]

I find the 4 movement combined with move after attack to be way more annoying than the high stats. Shoot/raze/heal and then run out of range all at once makes them pretty much invincible until all your improvements are razed, at which time you can try to corner and kill them (assuming you have 4-5 military units)

 

[Toby.]

They are quite intimidating. Pretty sweet honor culture yield though

It also makes the bireme class more useful for barb patrol. That having been said, even Dromons have to hang around for a couple turns to get rid of camping hand axes.

 

[Tomice]

I think I remember some discussion about how a barbarian super-unit could make barb hunting more interesting (you can't just send 2 units across the map to farm barb camps without risk), but this fellow may be a bit too tough... Its strenght is so high that it resembles units 2-3 eras ahead, meaning we can barely scratch it without considerable effort.

Maybe 12/15r would be a compromise?

 

[AnthonyG]

Agreed. It was like when we had barb horsemen for a bit.

Sometimes I just fire up IGE and nuke these axe guys if I can't be bothered with them.

 

[hhallahh]

I would be okay with this unit if pillage healing was removed. As is, unless you have several units attacking it at once and/or manage to box it in, a single hand-axe in your territory will be able to pillage an inordinate amount of improvements since they take so little damage from attacks.

 

[mystikx21]

This looks like a bug in the chariot archer unit as a whole (with ranged strength bumped by nearly 100%), which in turn impacts the hand axe.

But it might have been some kind of unannounced balance change in both.

Note: The armies spreadsheet has very different figures for chariots in both strength and even range is changed, so that's why it looks like it might be a bug.

 

[ExpiredReign]

It looks like the Axman, which is classed as a Chariot Archer by Firaxis, needs his own set of values.
He is getting the same adjustments as all the other Chariot Archers but because he is just a "barbarian with an ax" his stats stand out as weird.

His original stats are for Combat & Ranged = 9 & 9
with the modded values = 15 & 20

A huge step up. The actual end results are not a straightforward multiplier of the original value by a modifier but involve some initial baseline adjustments using a typical Chariot Archer as a guide.

So the question is. What sort of values would fit in with other units of the era?

 

[mystikx21]

The first question I'd have is "Why are chariots changed?", not what would fix hand-axes. The chariot's unit stats stand out as weird (with range 1). I'm less worried about barbarian units for balance. Chariots were well-balanced for the age at 10-13 as far as I was concerned, they were mobile, powerful ranged attackers, and could hit and run in most kinds of terrain. Especially Warcs with desert power would be quite terrifying. They're even useful for garrisoning over archers.

All of that makes them quite valuable even when horsemen arrive to just have to build those fresh.

I'd say 12-8 or 10-10 would make the Hand-Axe sufficiently annoying. Maybe +/- 1-2 off those as needed. It should be possible to set the unit stat without much trouble, separate from the unit class stat. Same technique as UUs.

The other problem I've noticed in BNW vanilla is that they often use the chariot AI and try to do hit and runs, abandoning the camps in the process.

 

[albie_123]

...surely the best values would be the same, if not slightly higher, than a normal chariot archer, considering that's basically what it is?

 

[mystikx21]

Could invert it, and set it to 13/10?

 

[ExpiredReign]

...surely the best values would be the same, if not slightly higher, than a normal chariot archer, considering that's basically what it is?

Tend to agree. Currently they are 50% stronger than other Chariot Archers.
They have erroneously been given the same movement rate as Chariot Archers instead of 2 like other bipeds which makes them just that bit more 'Conan'.

Perhaps they should more likely be viewed as somewhere between Archers and Bowman. That being the case, their values should revert to vanilla.

 

[albie_123]

If their movement rate is reverted then maybe they can keep a tiny bit of extra strength (though 50% seems a bit much) and a bit more melee strength as well.

 

[Haderlump]

If their movement rate is reverted then maybe they can keep a tiny bit of extra strength (though 50% seems a bit much) and a bit more melee strength as well.

I second that. Although they are too strong in the moment, I like the " its the axemen again" - effect when I encounter them next to my precious new enhancement

 

[Ahriman]

I haven'y played the latest version so I guess it could have happened already, but I think there needs to be a giant balance pass on unit strengths.

 

[mystikx21]

There were some adjustments in units. Most of which are improvements in the balance, if not quite. But air and naval units are also more powerful alongside gunpowder units getting a bump.

Lancers are now ranged as well. (1).

 

[Tomice]

Maybe the hand-axe doesn't need to be perfectly balanced compared to "normal" units. The chariot has to, of course, because we can build it, but the hand-axe could be some kind of super-barb, some kind of special "event" we have to cope with. Something that keeps us from just sending 2 units across the map hunting barbs without facing much danger. It just shouldn't be so strong that archer can't hurt it.

Of course, random bad luck might be a kinda interesting gameplay element for a human (like champion groups in Diablo), but it might screw the AI...

 

[burningrave101]

Hand-Axe needs to be nerfed. Their current strength with the modifiers is either a bug or makes no sense balance wise if it was intentional. The barbarian mini game as a whole needs to be improved IMO. Now that the AI has this auto clear script and a huge bonus against barbarians the AI is clearing most of the camps taking away the increased gold which was the whole reason in making barbs stronger in the first place which leaves little incentive to have them in the game for the human player when you factor in having to deal with them constantly pillaging improvements. You can't even scout anymore without getting surrounded and killed by two lowly barb warriors while the AI's scouts can just fortify and stand up against 3 or more.

 

[Ahriman]

Lancers are now ranged as well. (1).

This seems odd to me. What was the rationale?

Is there a design document that has the unit strengths and upgrade lines written up? It's hard do comment without a design doc, since its tedious to go through the in-game civilopedia, and since strange things in design are much more obvious when the unit strengths are all out in front of you. It then becomes much more obvious when different unit types have different per-era strength multipliers going forward.

In particular: are melee units good now? Is there a Renaissance-era upgrade for longswords?

But air and naval units are also more powerful alongside gunpowder units getting a bump.

Relative to BNW, or relative to the older version?