Making Keshiks stronger

[ntz]

Hello,

we're sometimes playing a MP game .. We're playing warlords, not BTS (for some reason) and we decided to make Keshiks a bit stronger .. It's just a request from our players .. We were looking into and made 3 options, I would love to ask you on your thoughts and if you could kindly share what would be your personal preference if you decided to make Keshiks stronger ..

Options are (I list them by my personal preference - only mentioning changes below)

1) 3 tiles of move, removed -10% penalty for a city attack (in Warlords have Keshiks and HA -10% city attack (iCityAttack -10))
2) 30% iWithdrawalProb and some minor collateral damage (iCollateralDamage 20, iCollateralDamageLimit 40 and iCollateralDamageMaxUnits 4)
3) strength 7

All of these sounds imho a reasonable .. If I wanted to be a bit historical I would say that Keshiks were fearsome mounted warriors and all 3 options could probably apply Vs usual mounted unit in given era ..

thanks for your input ..

cheers, ~dan

ps. we have some other minor changes over the years to balance which we're happy with, this is why we play Warlords ..

 

[ntz]

edit .. I've added instead of iMoves 3 a free Morale promotion to prevent Keshiks have 4 movement points with GG and Morale promotion for scenario #1

> diff ./Warlords/Assets/XML/Units/CIV4UnitInfos.xml ./Warlords/Assets/XML/Units/CIV4UnitInfos.xml.backup
8776c8776
<                       <iWithdrawalProb>30</iWithdrawalProb>
---
>                       <iWithdrawalProb>20</iWithdrawalProb>
8780c8780
<                       <iCityAttack>0</iCityAttack>
---
>                       <iCityAttack>-10</iCityAttack>
8830,8835c8830
<                         <FreePromotions>
<                                 <FreePromotion>
<                                         <PromotionType>PROMOTION_MORALE</PromotionType>
<                                         <bFreePromotion>1</bFreePromotion>
<                                 </FreePromotion>
<                         </FreePromotions>
---
>                       <FreePromotions/>

 

[Gumbolt]

Do they really need buffing? They can walk through forest/jungle and attack in a single turn. If you give them flanking they have close to a 50% withdawl chance. They just need a super medic to heal. Not sure any of those options are reasonable. Remember the Mongol UB is pretty good too for xp.I think they lack first strike but it hardly matters.

 

[sampsa]

How can you talk about balance and make a strong unit stronger? All given options sound unreasonable to me.

 

[Izuul]

Maybe give them free city raider 3.

 

[ntz]

How can you talk about balance and make a strong unit stronger? All given options sound unreasonable to me.

there are UU that are much stronger compared to original unit ... point here is that people who are playing MP are requesting to buff them .. There have been many debates discussing on the matter how useful practically is to ignore terrain movement costs for iMoves 2 unit (my opinion is that it is a minor bonus) and how useful is to exchange bFirstStrikeImmune 1 to iFirstStrikes 1 so buffing Keshiks a bit is absolutely nothing that would spoil the balance when there are superstrong units like Praetorians or ChoKoNu

 

[sampsa]

OK... but shouldn't you be concerned about some at least 15 (useless) UU:s before buffing Keshik? Or is this some history thing why they need to be stronk.

Anyway I think this sums up the consensus pretty well

Maybe give them free city raider 3.

 

[Izuul]

I never really played Warlords as i took a civ 4 hiatus and went straight from vanilla to BTS, but one of the absolute strongest parts of HAs is their speed. Keshiks are already even faster. You don't have to worry about getting slowed down by the AI that hasn't chopped the 15 forests around its Capitol. You can attack cities in the jungle if you need to, etc.

 

[sampsa]

Even in MP I'd say their ability is very useful - they can always fork cities unlike HAs.

 

[ntz]

I asked a question for your opinion on 3 listed options .. I've already stated out that buffing Keshiks is on request of our players who think that Keshiks are on the weaker side of UUs .. I don't get this attitude .. If you don't like it just please don't disregard that somebody else could have a different opinion ... There is simple task .. We decided to make a Keshiks a bit stronger for next MP game otherwise nobody will want to play Mongolia .. I wonder why so easy concept seems so hard to understand ... three options

1) add +1 one movement by giving a free Morale and removing -10% city attack (which is done anyway in BtS but we play for historical purposes Warlords)
2) Adding a bit more withdrawal to 30% (Cavalry has a 30% and few more) + a little collateral damage (it actually sounds to me Colateral Damage on Keshiks more natural than on ChoKoNurs)
3) giving 7 strength ... - I don't like this personally
OR
4) ??

Please gimme your idea what you would do ...

thanks

 

[sampsa]

4

 

[ntz]

4

can you kindly elaborate on it further ? thanks much

 

[Izuul]

Honestly I think collateral damage would be extremely OP. Its a stupidly strong mechanic. 7 str would also make them incredibly strong. Adding base strength has a very large effect on overall unit strength.

#1 is probably the least broken of your options.

I think something more reasonable might be to remove the 10% penalty and give them free combat 1 promo. That would still allow you get 3+ promo keshiks right out of the box which would make them fun.

 

[War Master in Training]

Collateral is overpowered in the since that HA are so far ahead of the first seige weapons, so getting rid of the 10% penalty and maybe reversing it to a +10% or 20% could be interesting.

 

[ntz]

@Izuul thanks ... yep, my thoughts

 

[War Master in Training]

I am assuming the end goal is for Mongolia to be a frequent pick but not overpowered to the point where everyone fights over it?

 

[Gumbolt]

Collateral is overpowered in the since that HA are so far ahead of the first seige weapons, so getting rid of the 10% penalty and maybe reversing it to a +10% or 20% could be interesting.

You are either doing an early rush or if later on you have seige. The seige kill the defenders.

If the Keshik are 5-10xp they may have 10-30% strength pending how you promote them. They really don't need any bonuses.

 

[floydmcw]

In addition to removing the 10% city attack penalty, why not allow Keshiks to be promoted up the City Raider line? This is
- historic (the Mongols were very skilled at attacking cities)
- a good buff
- not broken (the CR bonuses have to come at the expense of combat promotions; CR Keshiks will be weaker in the field)

 

[ntz]

Collateral is overpowered in the since that HA are so far ahead of the first seige weapons, so getting rid of the 10% penalty and maybe reversing it to a +10% or 20% could be interesting.

I was considering only a minor collateral damage like 20/40/4 or even smaller 10/40/2 (iCollateralDamage/iCollateralDamageLimit/iCollateralDamageMaxUnits) but yeah, I am not the big fan of this idea ... But let me tell you one thing .. if you remove the negative modifier to attacking a city (and/or add positive) it will weaken the withdrawal chance significantly (combats math is making withdrawal chance bound to combat odds, bigger odds == lesser withdrawal chance so adding positive city attack should be followed by increasing a withdrawal)

 

[War Master in Training]

I was considering only a minor collateral damage like 20/40/4 or even smaller 10/40/2 (iCollateralDamage/iCollateralDamageLimit/iCollateralDamageMaxUnits) but yeah, I am not the big fan of this idea ... But let me tell you one thing .. if you remove the negative modifier to attacking a city (and/or add positive) it will weaken the withdrawal chance significantly (combats math is making withdrawal chance bound to combat odds, bigger odds == lesser withdrawal chance so adding positive city attack should be followed by increasing a withdrawal)

If I understand the way it works correctly, the only reason bigger victory odds leads to lower withdrawl odds is because the withdrawl chance isn't even rolled unless the unit loses the battle. a 10% withdrawl with 50% odds is not as strong as a 10% withdrawl with 85% odds. In the first scenario the withdrawl only happens a 5th of the time the unit loses, but the second unit can withdrawl 2/3rds of the time that it loses combat.