Hunters - too powerful?

[3141592]

Making hunters more of a choice by raising their tech cost sounds like it'll make things much more balanced, right now hunting is pretty cheap to get.

 

[Maniac]

Hunters are intended to have their moment of glory. When viewed as an entire progression hunters are the high point of the cost/effect curve as compared to the melee units which begin to beat out the recon line in t3 and spellcasters which come in heavy in t4.

So making melee stronger than the rest is a conscious design decision?? I don't see the fun in that to be honest. While the choice whether to b-line to the recon line or melee line may be an interesting strategic decision, after gaining Iron Working sooner or later and especially after Mithril building Macemen then becomes a no-brainer, removing most strategy. Making rangers, macemen, pikemen, crossbowmen... have different functions and specialities while no unit overall being better than the other seems more fun to me.

 

[eerr]

So making melee stronger than the rest is a conscious design decision?? I don't see the fun in that to be honest. While the choice whether to b-line to the recon line or melee line may be an interesting strategic decision, after gaining Iron Working sooner or later and especially after Mithril building Macemen then becomes a no-brainer, removing most strategy. Making rangers, macemen, pikemen, crossbowmen... have different functions and specialities while no unit overall being better than the other seems more fun to me.

meelee is only better if you got the rescources...

 

[cvlowe]

So making melee stronger than the rest is a conscious design decision?? I don't see the fun in that to be honest. While the choice whether to b-line to the recon line or melee line may be an interesting strategic decision, after gaining Iron Working sooner or later and especially after Mithril building Macemen then becomes a no-brainer, removing most strategy. Making rangers, macemen, pikemen, crossbowmen... have different functions and specialities while no unit overall being better than the other seems more fun to me.

Recon units generally see farther and move faster. If they can also stand toe to toe with melee units, how is that any more fun? Melee should (in general) be the toughest best fighters, while other lines have other advantages. That's part of the reason why I don't like seeing stacks of hunters defending cities- they should be at their best out scouting the countryside, not sitting behind walls because they are the best city defenders too.

 

[[NWO]_Valis]

Yup, had the same problem. Althou they were all FoL cities so it might be not that fluff bad the cities in my game were packed with stacks of ~30 rangers. The AI builded only them and adepts/priests. Fluff wise it was not so bad for elfs to run mostly recon units but we are talking here about an empire that should at least have some archers, macemen, etc. The teh lvl of all civs was high enough to have the proper tehs.

 

[Blakmane]

Hunters are intended to have their moment of glory. When viewed as an entire progression hunters are the high point of the cost/effect curve as compared to the melee units which begin to beat out the recon line in t3 and spellcasters which come in heavy in t4.

I am going to increase the cost of the hutning teck from 250 to 400 in the next patch. It was to much lower than the other t2 techs.

But I did want people to know that I do want players to think about "should i go for hunters now for an early advantage, or start down the melee/spellcasting/religion line for a later game effect." All paths are valid for different reasons, and although I know that hunters are tempting, I want them to be.

Also I dont think we will ever have a anti-recon promotion, one of the things that sets that makes that design different is that there is no big bonus against them. Which I think is cool, and I dislike patterns so that will probably stay.

The big problem I have is if hunters become to effective at taking cities. Right now Im pretty happy with their handicap in this area, but if anything I would reduce their city attack and city defence stats further.

I hope that makes sense. I dont post this to stop you guys from talking abotu it and suggesting ideas, I've read the thread and thought about what you guys are saying, I just wanted to let you know where I was coming from.

The research cost increase is all they needed IMO. Balanced now

 

[onedreamer]

I've never seen anything but hunter spam during early game in the multiplayer matches i've played. Hunter spam, followed by catapult spam, followed by Ring of Fire spam is the usual pattern. It's not a major issue but I do think they need a little bit of nerfing. Ring of Fire and Catapults have both been nerfed, hunters just haven't been yet.

That's the same as saying that people nowadays are close minded and "sheeps". We already knew that. There are counters to hunters and there are counters to RoF... the real problem are (or were ? not sure yet, at least in SP) catapults. The best thing, especially in MP, is to not have a single strategy and most of all to not have a strategy that everyone can predict. Like I said before (and Kael seems to have confirmed it) Hunters are good units but the research path toward them is not very profitable compared to others, military wise but especially not.

 

[cvlowe]

The balance in multiplayer is probably way different than in single player. In my single games once I get my defenses up I can generally take my time, research when I want and choose my attacks.

 

[onedreamer]

it's not like "multiplayer" is a magical word that changes the game. First of all, what decides most strategies are the game settings. After that, multiplayer or singleplayer can be a concern. But with many MP settings you are in no way forced to a predetermined path like the one quoted above.

 

[katika]

I know I'm reviving an old thread, but after many more games I still think that Hunters are too good at defending cities. An early, str 3 defender with no promotion against it is by far the best defender. Warriors with bronze weapons? Archers? Shock I/II and Cover I/II easily overcome the strength and city defense bonuses. Hunters, on the other hand, can only be overcome with significantly stronger forces or City Raider III, which doesn't come early. I think applying the city attack penalty to city defense would be enough to give attacking units an edge.

 

[xanaqui42]

I know I'm reviving an old thread, but after many more games I still think that Hunters are too good at defending cities. An early, str 3 defender with no promotion against it is by far the best defender. Warriors with bronze weapons? Archers? Shock I/II and Cover I/II easily overcome the strength and city defense bonuses. Hunters, on the other hand, can only be overcome with significantly stronger forces or City Raider III, which doesn't come early. I think applying the city attack penalty to city defense would be enough to give attacking units an edge.

I'm confused as to what the problem is. Even ignoring the building cost, or the fact that once you get Copper, your Warriors will all gain Bronze Weapons for free (and thus be roughly as powerful as a hunter, for no additional cost), Warriors typically cost 25 hammers, whereas Hunters typically cost 60. In other words, for each produced Hunter, you could have produced roughly 2.4 Warriors.

Frankly, I think that the city defense problem in the early game (and, heck, the late game) should be solved by dramatically reducing defense from culture (and, possibly, increasing the amount obtainable via Walls/Castle).

 

[BCalchet]

The problem with comparing hunters to warriors is promotions:
Combat II adds +40%, Combat I and Shock I +60% vs warriors - not too much of a difference, yet, but...
Combat III and Shock II adds a massive +180% strength against warriors, while the equivalent Combat 5 adds only +100% vs hunters.

At even higher levels, Combat 5 and Shock II brings the anti-warriors up to +220%, while the anti-hunters are still stuck at +100%, and will stay there until warfare and city attack.

 

[katika]

I'm confused as to what the problem is. Even ignoring the building cost, or the fact that once you get Copper, your Warriors will all gain Bronze Weapons for free (and thus be roughly as powerful as a hunter, for no additional cost), Warriors typically cost 25 hammers, whereas Hunters typically cost 60. In other words, for each produced Hunter, you could have produced roughly 2.4 Warriors.

Frankly, I think that the city defense problem in the early game (and, heck, the late game) should be solved by dramatically reducing defense from culture (and, possibly, increasing the amount obtainable via Walls/Castle).

1) Shock and Shock II favor Hunters.
2) Bronze Working adds 300 beakers over Hunting (725 vs. 425).
3) You need a resource for this to work.
4) Culture defense climbs too fast.
5) Hunters can get very high XP quickly and easily through animals.

I guess warriors with bronze weapons are much better than axeman (which I was trying to use), but I still don't see why Hunters should be such amazing city defenders. Maybe just fixing the culture defense would be enough, but there just seems to be too many benefits to Hunters over other T2 units.

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Just keep in mind that recon units can't get Shock II.

 

[onedreamer]

I'm confused as to what the problem is. Even ignoring the building cost, or the fact that once you get Copper, your Warriors will all gain Bronze Weapons for free (and thus be roughly as powerful as a hunter, for no additional cost), Warriors typically cost 25 hammers, whereas Hunters typically cost 60. In other words, for each produced Hunter, you could have produced roughly 2.4 Warriors.

Frankly, I think that the city defense problem in the early game (and, heck, the late game) should be solved by dramatically reducing defense from culture (and, possibly, increasing the amount obtainable via Walls/Castle).

You're forgetting that we're talking of early game, so wars are fought on long distances. You may have produced 2.4 warriors for each hunter Katika produced, but you'd probably be researching at a quite inferior rate, since 1 warrior and 1 hunter cost exactly the same in maintenance.

1) Shock and Shock II favor Hunters.
2) Bronze Working adds 300 beakers over Hunting (725 vs. 425).
3) You need a resource for this to work.
4) Culture defense climbs too fast.
5) Hunters can get very high XP quickly and easily through animals.

I guess warriors with bronze weapons are much better than axeman (which I was trying to use), but I still don't see why Hunters should be such amazing city defenders. Maybe just fixing the culture defense would be enough, but there just seems to be too many benefits to Hunters over other T2 units.

6) you also need a building (forge)

 

[kenken244]

why not gove hunters -50% city strength? its been suggested before and it will keep them away from cities