Naval Blitz overpowered

In my opinion it should only apply to bombardments, since all other units are theoretically in danger no matter what their retreat capability. The problem with bombardments is the AI's near-total inability to fight with naval units.

Is there a potential issue here that we end up affecting chariot archers, war chariots or keshiks that have the blitz promotion?
Is that a price we're willing to pay? That would be a sizeable nerf for these guys.

Or is there a way to make it affect only the naval units (or to not affect units that also have move-after-attack)?
 
Is there a potential issue here that we end up affecting chariot archers, war chariots or keshiks that have the blitz promotion?
Is that a price we're willing to pay? That would be a sizeable nerf for these guys.

Or is there a way to make it affect only the naval units (or to not affect units that also have move-after-attack)?

I wouldn't want to pay that big a price. With that choice I would switch Blitz for move-after.
 
I agree. It leaves these ships powerful enough that I don't think we'd need to mke the adjustments jacktannery proposed. Jack, what do you think?

Yes I agree, this is a big improvement. However the optimal ship promotion line will remain the same:

Anything > Anything > Anything > nerfed-blitz/range > nerfed-blitz/range

A naval unit with five promotions is much better (by a factor of 4x or 5x) than a naval unit with 3 promotions. Naval units with five promotions can safely attack enemy coastal cities (for example) twice per turn with no danger of dying, getting 2x experience per turn. In comparison, naval units with three promotions cannot attack enemy cities effectively.

The extreme difference in effectiveness between having three promotions and five promotions is not present with other unit types. Breaking down the promotions as I suggested above would deal with this.
 
The extreme difference in effectiveness between having three promotions and five promotions is not present with other unit types. Breaking down the promotions as I suggested above would deal with this.

Agreed, and this is a good idea, imo. Even if blitz is nerfed as suggested, it's superior to range. With blitz you can either 2-attack, or 1-attack and move to the same range you would be with range anyway. Range does allow you to reach further inland if the coast is safe, though.

Since AI naval forces seem to be a joke, even at the hardest difficulties, then how about a promotion line that goes like:
landbonus1 > landbonus2 > landbonus3 > range
navalbonus1>navalbonus2>navalbonus3 > blitz

This would at least make you think which path to take. Since enemy ships are dead anyway, I always take 3 land bombard promotions to my ships, then blitz, then range. Since even with this suggestion blitz is far superior to range, now it makes you think whether to take naval or land bombard path. And being epic uber with both blitz and range is very hard.
 
Since AI naval forces seem to be a joke, even at the hardest difficulties, then how about a promotion line that goes like:
landbonus1 > landbonus2 > landbonus3 > range
navalbonus1>navalbonus2>navalbonus3 > blitz
I don't really like this, it doesn't make much sense to me that landbonus ships should be unable to get blitz. I think having (modified) blitz, range and move-after-attack all as selectable promotions that require land or naval 3 is proabbly ok.
 
The approach I implemented for v106 is simple:

  • Blitz keeps a max of 1 move after attacking.
  • Renamed "Can Move After Attacking" to "Attacks Use 1 Move."
when a unit has 2-attacks, after using its first attack it only has 1 movement point left?
This would only apply to bombardments?
I think the only situation where "bombardments-only" would make a difference is Mechanized Infantry. Introducing inconsistency between units with the same promotions would be too complicated, if just for the sake of one unit type with a specific promotion.
 
I think the only situation where "bombardments-only" would make a difference is Mechanized Infantry. Introducing inconsistency between units with the same promotions would be too complicated, if just for the sake of one unit type with a specific promotion.

Are you saying that after reading this thread, you nerfed Blitz for all units?
 
The approach I implemented for v106 is simple. Units with Blitz keep "ExtraAttacks" moves after attacking, unless they have the "Attacks Use 1 Move" promotion.
If I am interpreting correctly: "Attacks use 1 move move" promotion comes standard on chariot archer and UUs, camel archer, keshik, siege units, etc.
Naval units do not have this, so after an attack they only have 1 ExtraAttack movement point left?

That seems a little confusing; couldn't we have a system where the extra promotion was on the (naval) units with the rule-change?
Or better: get rid of blitz for naval units, but have a "doubleshot" promotion instead, that acts as blitz but leaves only 1 movement left after attacking?

I think the only situation where "bombardments-only" would make a difference is Mechanized Infantry. Introducing inconsistency between units with the same promotions would be too complicated, if just for the sake of one unit type with a specific promotion.
I don't understand what you are saying here. Mechanized infantry don't have bombardment.
Like Txurce, I would oppose this change if chariot archers (and other land units) with blitz could now no longer move after firing twice.

There is already a fundamental difference between the various horse archer units and the naval units, because the horse archer units already have move after attacking, so blitz just gives a second shot, while the naval units don't, so they end up getting both a second shot *and* move-after-attack from the same promotion.
 
The extreme difference in effectiveness between having three promotions and [four] promotions is not present with other unit types.

No, it's not just limited to ships. All these promotions approximately double damage:
  • March with 4-promo footsoldiers
  • March with 3-promo mounted units
  • Blitz with 4-promo ranged units
March has a similar effect for melee units because they don't need to spend half their time healing.

I think the only situation where "bombardments-only" would make a difference is Mechanized Infantry. Introducing inconsistency between units with the same promotions would be too complicated, if just for the sake of one unit type with a specific promotion.
I don't understand what you are saying here. Mechanized infantry don't have bombardment.
Like Txurce, I would oppose this change if chariot archers (and other land units) with blitz could now no longer move after firing twice.

I'll try and explain differently...

Mechanized infantry are the only non-ranged land unit with >2:c5moves: that does not have "attacks use 1 move." Limiting the blitz change to ranged units would therefore only affect this unit. Mounted archers use only 1 move per attack, so the change to blitz does not affect them either.

To put it another way, the change I've done only affects ships and mechanized infantry.
 
I disagree... several promotions make a big difference with other unit types:

  • March with 3-promo and 4-promo footsoldiers
  • March with 2 vs 3 mounted units
  • Blitz with 3 vs 4 archers

I interpreted that statement to focus not on the benefits of the final promotion, but on the value jump from the prior promotion to Blitz. It seems much bigger to me with ships than with land units. I don't get a lot of use out of increased bombardment vs land units, but can go to town on a city with Blitz.
 
The only melee land unit with >2 that does not have "attacks use 1 move" is mechanized infantry. Limiting the blitz change to ranged units would therefore only affect this unit.
Ok, I think I see. Persian units during Golden Age are another exception though. So if I am interpreting correctly:
Horse archers will be unaffected.
Naval units with blitz will lose all but one movement point after firing, so can fire a second time or can move away 1 move.
Mechanized infantry with blitz will lose all but one movement point after attacking, but can attack a second time or can move away 1 move.
Persian melee, siege and ranged units with blitz during golden age will lose all but one movement point after attacking, but can attack a second time or move away 1 move.

I don't get a lot of use out of increased bombardment vs land units
I disagree, I think the +vs land promotions is very valuable for naval units. It lets you pummel any units near the shore very effectively.
 
I disagree, I think the +vs land promotions is very valuable for naval units. It lets you pummel any units near the shore very effectively.

It might be valuable - I said that I personally don't have much use for it. For some reason I don't find frequent land targets. (I'll try to seek them out more as an experiment, and see if it has an effect on my goals.)

More to the point I was originally making, I find much more use for the promotions on my land units (who are frequently using them in a war).
 
I don't know the details of what the game engine is capable of (although I am an accomplished C++ programmer know the C side of the Lua API pretty well).

Some thoughts:

- The AI does suck when it comes to controlling water units. Would it be possible to improve the AI? This would help nerfing Blitz without changing the game code.

- The AI also leaves land units exposed to enemy ships by putting them 1 or 2 tiles from the coast needlessly. I've seen many examples of land units that could have easily moved themselves to un-attackable positions but didn't. Just guessing but there must be a phase where the game calculates an "advantage" and "disadvantage" value per tile and moves units to min/max some utility function. This should factor in exposure to water units that might not currently be in attack range, but could move in for an attack. This might consume more CPU though.

- Reducing the moves left to 1 after the first naval attack using Blitz would be a definite improvement although not a perfect fix. At least this way, the player must make a choice between the second attack or getting out of harms way. If we could combine this with an AI naval improvement that "retaliates" against human naval units which have attacked in the previous turn, it could balance it out.

- Is it possible to make the Blitz promotion different for land and water units? Land units could get "Blitz" (2 attacks) and Naval units could get "Onslaught". This way we could nerf boats without affecting chariots. Chariots are more limited because of terrain so the blitz exploiting is not quite as bad (but still problematic near roads).

- Can we ask the game developers to change the core to add some scripting support for consuming remaining moves on the second attack?
 
Would it be possible to improve the AI?
My understanding is that there is very little we can do to affect the AI with the current tools available.

This way we could nerf boats without affecting chariots.
Thal's fix does this already. It only affects boats and then non-cavalry/tank units with blitz and more than 2 moves.

Can we ask the game developers to change the core to add some scripting support
I am skeptical that we have the ability to influence developer decisions.
 
"Can Move After Attacking" is a lot different from "Attacks Use 1 Move."

"Attacks Use 1 Move" means that tanks can attack like 5 times, or however many move points they have....
 
*If* I am interpreting correctly:
"Attacks Use 1 Move" means that tanks can attack like 5 times, or however many move points they have....
No it doesn't. "Attacks use 1 move" just means that an attack takes up only a single movement point. A unit can still only attack once per turn unless it has an ability that lets it attack a second time. Blitz lets you attack a second time, it doesn't let you attack as many times as you have movement points.
 
No, it's not just limited to ships. All these promotions approximately double damage:
  • March with 4-promo footsoldiers
  • March with 3-promo mounted units
  • Blitz with 4-promo ranged units
March has a similar effect for melee units because they don't need to spend half their time healing.

I agree that the blitz or march promotion doubles (x2) the effectiveness of land-based units, and I like this. My argument is that the blitz promotion effectively multiplies the use of naval units by x4 or x5.

For me, a single naval unit with five promotions is worth five naval units with three promotions. It's almost a completely different unit. Any naval unit, from trireme up, with the blitz and ranged promotions, is an invincible coastal killing machine in the hands of a player.

Altering the blitz promotion as you suggest will do a great deal to fix this. I would like to try your v. 1.06 before suggesting any other changes.
 
For me, a single naval unit with five promotions is worth five naval units with three promotions. It's almost a completely different unit. Any naval unit, from trireme up, with the blitz and ranged promotions, is an invincible coastal killing machine in the hands of a player.

My thoughts exactly
 
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