Pyre Zombies!

[[to_xp]Gekko]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=353283

discussion about pyre zombies never stops on the FFH boards. someone says they are too strong, some say they are ok, many obsessively repeat they want some kind of "pie"



what do the Wild Mana people think about them?

IMHO it would be really sweet to have them start weaker than they are now, but gain more power as you go up the magic line. if that's at all possible.

 

[Skyre Noktis]

Three words: Averax the Cambion.

Now *those* are Pyre Zombies. His neighbours don't stand a chance in Hell.

 

[wapamingo]

Had a fight with him just last night, I had to last 6 turns before I researched Sorcery. I did, it took a whole 10 more turns to completely wipe him out.

Pyre Zombies are weak if you know to combat them with Destroy Undead.

The problem is satisfying the Shaem until you can get that, which the AI does not. If I know I am next to Shaem, I rush to Sorcery and pick up Divination along the way.

So that said, I do think Pyre Zombies are very powerful and walk through the AI very easily and need to be toned down.

Suggestions:

(1) Limit damage they do to maximum 10%
(2) Instead of doing damage, spawn a fireball instead (problem here is that this is useless in defense)
(3) reduce Pyre Zombie base strenght from 4 to 2 and keep aoe damage they do.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

wait, Averax is... a Sheaim minor leader with Aggressive?

 

[wapamingo]

How about, give Shaem back Swordsmen and have Pyre Zombies as a national unit with limit of 6

 

[tesb]

I like them the way they are, but they could need a nerf on the max. ammount of units they deal collateral damage to (maybe 4 or 6)

it's the planar gate that is the problem imho:
-too expansive
-only good in later staged of the game (high ac)
-ai builds it rarely at best
-summons should be improved:

-instead of a percentage chance change it to a reliable 1summon *AC /100 turns (meaning at ac0 you get 1 summon every 100
turn, at ac 100 you get 1 summon every turn)
-make the summons dependant on the ac not on buildings (the ai spams units, not buildings)

 

[wapamingo]

Sheim are nigh unstoppable with SoD's of Pyre Zombies, and at any stage of the game really because the damage they do hurts on a per point basis higher level units more than lower level units. They really need a nerf. The AI does not know how to fight them and win (holy II).

But I really like your idea about the Planar Gate and AC counter. It needs to give you better and more frequent units. I guess the reason it does not is simply Pyre Zombies - that is really all you need.

 

[Breez]

I don't mind fighting them, Wild mana makes it easier with the Fireshield buff... (why can't I auto cast that?)

However if the AI is hurt by them (I haven't seen that but haven't looked for it either) then I think a max damage might be in order... even if it is max 99%

 

[Skyre Noktis]

So is the consensus that Pyre Zombies are too strong and Planar Gates too week?

I suppose the question then is how much should Pyre Zombies be weakened and how should Planar Gates be strengthened.

 

[readercolin]

meh... make fireshield autocast, and teach the AI how to use it and destroy undead and pyre zombies will be perfectly balanced.

Planar gates do suck though...

-Colin

 

[Brokenbone]

I wonder if Pyre Zombies "best" powers (that of exploding on death) might be something that should tie to a spell, which has some inherent detriments? Like Moroi having their "Burning Blood" ability. This is not to say that I've ever seen the AI use Burning Blood, but a lot of interesting spell use behaviors appear in Wild Mana.

By detriments, I'm thinking things like a gold cost if you "click the ignition button" (like the Bonus Pay spell for Scion Centeni), or guaranteed death on attack, even if successful (like "For Emperor and Honor!" attack spell for Scion Honored Band), or that metal weapons while usable by an un-ignited zombie (call him a "Zombie" as opposed to "Pyre Zombie") get stripped if you send them into battle on fire... I can't imagine a bronze or iron weapon which is sitting in a bonfire for even a half-hour doesn't suffer some form of damage like warping, cracking, or other problems shy of melting down completely).

I guess the notion of a bunch of corpses flaming away for fifty turns without turning into ash is a little odd, but this is dark fantasy full of magic stuff. Still, I think there'd be a credible case for just having these be pathetic walking corpses like skeletons, only a bit stronger, unless you decide to buff them for actual use which may carry a cost. *shrugs*

 

[Sephi]

So is the consensus that Pyre Zombies are too strong and Planar Gates too week?

I suppose the question then is how much should Pyre Zombies be weakened and how should Planar Gates be strengthened.

there were many polls on the FFH forum but never had any consens on Pyre Zombies.

Vehem made a few interesting tweaks to them in FF. they have a collateral effect with limited targets, their explode effect only targets the unit who killed them, bonus vs. melee and malus vs. archers. good thing is that the changes can be done modular, so if it isn't good it's very easy to remove.

As for Planar Gates, I think they should give all creatures that spawn from them the promotion that increases the AC by one. Some more effects might be nice.

 

[Fafnir13]

Pire zombies would be a lot more manageable if they didn't have the ability to kill with their explosion. Almost nothing else can and I really don't see why they need it.

 

[Grimz101]

Give +25% city attack, and make it so that when a Pyre Zombie is attacking a city, the death explosion does 0 damage apart from to the defending unit.
Thoughts?

 

[Seven05]

someone says they are too strong, some say they are ok,

Two types of people think Pyre Zombies are balanced and fine as they are now, the people who never use them and the people who use them and don't want to lose their power.

They're odd units. They do best when their odds to win are lowest. So you get two side effects that make the tough to balance. First, they become insanely potent the more outdated they are as they give you the biggest bang per hammer against higher tier units. Second, they perform best against impossible odds so a massive PZ rush against an extremely tough city is the most devastating offense in the game and everything the defend does to make their city tougher has no significant effect.

So playing as the Sheaim is a simple strategy. You research bronze working and then you build as many Pyre Zombies as you can, assemble them into large stacks and go blow everybody up. Since you want them to be weak you never promote them and you make sure to never connect to any metal resources. As bronze working comes MUCH earlier than the techs needed to counter this 'strategy' you'll have plenty of time. If you pay attention and keep mana nodes under control you can all but eliminate the ability for most civs to use 'destroy undead' against you at all. The AI does something similar out of pure dumb luck as they really have nothing comprable to build for a long time, be glad the AI doesn't understand how to prevent you from withstanding their PZ assault.

So really, the single biggest issue has less to do with the raw power of the Pyre Zombies themselves and more to do with what it takes to counter them. A good measure of balance is if one strategy or unit requires substantially fewer elements than anything needed to counter it it's going to be imbalanced. The Pyre Zombies need something to counter them that can be done with the same amount of effort into research and production and requiring the conditions such as resources.

The planar gates are easier to get the AI to understand, they just need a tangible value for the AI to see so the AI has a reason to build them. There are lots of ways to do this, you could block the Sheaim from building elder councils and pagan temples and apply the bonus from each of them to the planar gate itself for one example. That won't fix issues with spawn chances or spawn rates but it will get the AI to build them.

 

[Tlalynet]

What Fafnir said solves the problem, even if you can survive with 1% (cap at 99%) Then you can stack attack them and flank attack them and get all sorts of tactical options to deal with them, you can viably beat them with axeman, archers, or horsemen, especially on defense. Attacking against them would still be very difficult but not as game breaking.

I play against them more than I play for them, but either way stopping them from killing would make things nicer. Unless we uncapped just about everything and let a handful of cats kill a 500 unit stack, then pyre zombies would just be averedge (and SOD's would truely be dead)

 

[Deon]

Hmm, nice idea about "not always burning" zombies. There're moroi with their burning blood and scion spearmen with "for the emperor" or something. Make a similar mechanic "ignite corspes" which allows you to sacrifice zombie but to deal AoE damage. It should be pretty balanced. They will work as catapults then.

P.S. When you attack with a pyre zombie at low odds you expect it to die anyway (actually it's what you WANT: for it to die and explode over the enemy stack), so I don't see this implementation as wrong.

I always thought that their explosion on defense is quite stupid: you move the whole tile to them and they die in a city, and somehow they damage a stack behind the walls over a river...