Not just another drill thread

[MrPopov]

Quick reply to people having problems with the healing promo: I did that since combat IV and V currently give +10% neutral healing, and +10% enemy healing respectively. In my version they do not, so to get that bonus healing rate you have to acquire it seperately.

As far as super units go, the last promotion in either tree (+10% strength and +1 first strike chance) are repeteable so you can still have insane combat odds with high-level units.

@ Shakiko
I completely forgot about mimics. That could cause a problem if they could bypass the limitation by acquiring say drill I in battle when they already have promotions in the combat line.

This new approach would also actually make mixed choices a viable strategy: get 1-3 levels of combat to ease leveling up and then pick drill 1 and cover to get +135% vs those pesky archers your opponent is spamming ... so it wouldn't be a choice between "all combat" or "all drill" or "all withdrawal" anymore.

I'm not sure I get what you are saying. Once you pick combat I you cannot pick drill I and vice versa.

I am playing FFH .40 with its defensive strikes and other promotion changes before I work on this much more since I need to know how to adjust to those changes.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

 

[Tarquelne]

I completely forgot about mimics. That could cause a problem if they could bypass the limitation by acquiring say drill I in battle when they already have promotions in the combat line.

You could use the "overwrites" tag and have all the promos on one branch overwrite some or all of the promos on the other tree. If that leads to a too-long help text for the promo there's a new tag that'll help with that, too, and allow you to overwrite and replace the pedia generated text.

Hmm... actually, it might be easier to have a couple of invisible "effect" promotion exclude/overwrite all the promotions on each tree. Have it "autoacquired" with the first promo on each branch. xienwolf's mentioned he might make effect promos immune to mimic stealing, and even without that it might still work.

But I don't think it's too much of a problem if you just let them pretend they're playing Pokemon, though. IMO it wouldn't make them *more* unbalanced, annoying, or require a greater suspension of disbelief.

Something I'm unclear about: You plan on making the Subdues available to both sides, not just drill? (I ask because it looked like Amphibious, March, and Commando are Combat-branch - as "Recon-y" as Subdue IMO.)

 

[Shakiko]

I'm not sure I get what you are saying. Once you pick combat I you cannot pick drill I and vice versa.

I guess I misunderstood your concept in that part: so far, I thought you could buy combat or drill normally, without restrictions.
Overread/forgot that you are planning to make them mutually exclusive.


Suggestion: Why making them exclusive ? If someone really wants to go for 3xcombat and 3xdrill (+60% and 3 FS) instead of getting 4xcombat and getting 2 nice "specializations" (80%, healing, march) , let them be ?
Shouldn't be more powerful per se as long as specializing grants good effects (like the extra healing or shock/cover/etc.) **

I think adding a second line of "basic" promotions that you need to unlock certain, unique/more specialized promotions should already do the trick to make both lines more distinctive.
Right now drill just lacks any distinctiveness imho, because there are not alot of promotions you need it for (blitz mostly) - so you just go (or have to go) for combat anyways. If there were more options when you go down the drill-tree you'd prolly spend more level ups there and thus have less "exuberances" that you spend on combat becasue there is no real alternative to choos from

Using that idea, you also would have less problems with the Agressive trait granting Combat 1 to everyone (and thus mutually excluding all drill stuff from all units when you play a certain leader).
You could even go further and grant like Drill1 for certain units when a leader has the Defensive(or Homeland)-trait.

*throws in more quick ideas*


** If you really want to make "sidestepping" between the trees less attractive, you could make drill2 instead of drill1 a prerequisite for cover, e.g. - then it's less attractive to spend 3 levels just to get a good "off-tree-promotion"

 

[Kjara]

Some random thoughts on drill/combat:

First, rather than making drill and combat mutually exclusive, have you thought of making there be a max of the sum of drill + combat promotions? (5 or 6). If it was 5 you could grab combat 5 and no drill or combat 3 and drill 2, etc. Should be easy to do by making for example combat 5 and drill 1 mutually exclusive, combat 4 and drill 2, etc.

Second, If we went this route we should probaby rename combat and drill to something like bloodlust(combat) and discipline(drill). I can see that berserking troops would fight better, but the disciplined troops would be able to hold a shield wall getting a few hits before it becomes a melee, or to build a temporary fort with sharpened sticks to allow them those first strikes. This would make it more clear why one cannot max out both of them. Could also do some interesting things like give the dovetello and bannor unique bloodlust promotions that are more powerful or just different in some way(perhaps +30% attack +10% defensive strength)?(and perhaps have the elves have unique discipline promotions that favor defensive strikes but less first strikes)


Third in regard to the drill vs combat lines. Ive always found it wierd that combat is diminishing returns(in the sense that going from 100 to 120 is better than going from 180 to 200) while drill is increasing returns(which makes combat much better off the start). If we went to something like this we would probably need to fix this.

Finally, some random thoughts, only somewhat related:


Second, with the new defensive archer ability, some ideas to extend this. We could have siege units supress this defensive strike ablity(to make siege more worthwile), perhaps -x% chance and -y% damage for every siege unit supressing the square. Its pretty hard to aim your arrows if there are lots of large stones falling from the sky.

We could also perhaps implement defensive strike idea offensivly for either all cav units or perhaps just the ranged cav line(horseman/horse archer), to make them different from the chariot line? Not sure exactly how possible it would be, but having a quick charge or volley before the infantry hits would shakeup/weaken the defensive lines a bit, and would again encourage more mixed forces. Also, cavs should perhaps be immune or highly resistant to the defensive strike(as they close ground so much faster).

Last if we want a repeatable promotion, I'd suggest one thats not only drill/combat weighted, but unitclass weighted(aka, archers get a bit of defensive strike out of it, more so if they went the drill route, melee gets a bit of city attack, more so if they went the combat route, etc). If we went with the idea above where you can get both drill and combat, but up to some max, then I'd suggest 3 repeatables for each unit type, a combat one, a drill one and a balanced one.

 

[zup]

If it is combat I, shock I units for 5 exp that bug you, why not just make shock (and cover and formation) require drill I (or II) instead or perhaps as well. As for the issue of a unit becoming too strong, how about cutting exp gain instead? I believe there is already an option for that. Or then double power promotions are just too much? I can't recall getting absolutely horrifying units in Rise of Mankind or BtS (unless I played settler and responded to knights with modern armor or somesuch).