Sons of the Inferno are breaking the game

[Kranden]

Those sons of the inferno are really messing up game play at the moment for 3 reasons.

1. Being able to dominate a swarm of these guys leads to and unstoppable army which means its Good game with domination.

2. Fire Elemental wont attack your large stacks for some reason.

3. The AI will suicide their units into the area thus creating an artificial choke point between civilizations that only benefits you.

Few solutions.
1. limit the number of Sons of the Inferno so you cant walk away with 15 of these guys.
2. Remove them outright.
3. Add the loyalty promotion to them.
discuss

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I'd go with 1. + 4. Make the fire elementals start attacking without regard for combat odds

 

[DaveGold]

I've posted before that I don't like the guys. The dragon should have powers to do his own dirty work. Whatever issues the SoI were meant to solve should be solved another way.

 

[Onionsoilder]

1) Spawn Diciples of Archeron first(As of now Sons spawn outright) which start with Fire I, not Fire III.
2) Limit Sons of the Inferno to 4 units, which can be upgraded from diciples at Level 6.
3) Add the Loyalty promotion.
4) Fire Elementals attack anything that enters into Archeron's lands.

 

[Azhral]

1) Spawn Diciples of Archeron first(As of now Sons spawn outright) which start with Fire I, not Fire III.
2) Limit Sons of the Inferno to 4 units, which can be upgraded from diciples at Level 6.
3) Add the Loyalty promotion.
4) Fire Elementals attack anything that enters into Archeron's lands.

5) All of the above

 

[Morkonan]

I think Sons of the Inferno adds a nice flavor to the game with Archeron. So, I wouldn't like to see them eliminated.

Apparently, their intent is to keep Archeron from turning into a Goody Hut. I think that's a good idea. It makes for a much more interesting Dragon Cult type dynamic.

But, I do agree the bugs with them need to be fixed. Also, particular attention needs to be paid to possible exploits with them.

 

[Onionsoilder]

But, I do agree the bugs with them need to be fixed. Also, particular attention needs to be paid to possible exploits with them.

Like dominating a whole stack and killing Archeron with his own Sons?
Like the fact the fire elementals won't attack the AI, making archeron's lands an AI-exclusive passage?
Like the fact that Sons of the Inferno, fully-upgraded archmages, spawn around turn 120, before most players have axemen?

 

[Lone Wolf]

and killing Archeron with his own Sons?

That sounds appropriately twisted.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Personally I see nothing bugged with the whole SOI concept other than that they spawn way to early and the whole fire elemental thing.

If someone has the skill, luck and idea to go out and dominate a bunch of SOI without reloading failed captures than I can not see why this is not a valid strategy.

And if he keeps reloading he is a cheater any way so the point is mute.

 

[Emptiness]

Sons of the Inferno are a stronger version of the Archmage, a unit that has a national limit imposed because of its power level. The problem with being able to Dominate them is that one unit with Mind III (Hemah, Gibbon and Govannon are examples of units that can achive this ability without the need to research Strength of Will) can then create a free supply of experienced Archmage+ units in excess of the national limit on Archmages. It's abusive in single-player, and becomes a do-it-or-lose strategy in a multiplayer setting*. Even giving them Loyalty is not enough, because a unit with Mind III can also have Metamagic II at little or no extra effort. Sons of the Inferno need to be inherently immune to capture to avoid the abuse they invite.

* People would just disable Acheron in multiplayer games, but it would be best if that decision was not forced on them.

 

[xAlephx]

What patch number did the SoI show up in? I thought I was up to date and they aren't in my game.

Personally I see nothing bugged with the whole SOI concept other than that they spawn way to early and the whole fire elemental thing.

If someone has the skill, luck and idea to go out and dominate a bunch of SOI without reloading failed captures than I can not see why this is not a valid strategy.

And if he keeps reloading he is a cheater any way so the point is mute.

Balseraphs with Gibbon can happen fairly early, who can Puppets -> Domination (and, eventually, Twincast Puppets -> Twincast Domination). No chance of losing your promotion on the spellcaster who matters. Mimics might also be a solid way of beating hordes of Fire Elementals - if you can grab a couple victories against Fire Elementals first, your Fire Immune Mimics are going to really change the picture.

 

[Azhral]

Anybody know where the code is that actually spawns SoI's?

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I still fail to see how this is bad.
In any game, some features, actions or combination of these will inherently produce a game wining result.

Its only natural.

 

[a_civilian]

Presumably, then, you don't think it's a problem that the Clan worldspell can control Sons of the Inferno. After all, that's just a feature, action, or combination of these that will produce a game winning result.

Those who are concerned with game balance prefer to ensure that the payoff of a strategy is roughly in proportion with the risk or investment it requires.

 

[Kranden]

actually sons of the inferno can no longer be controlled by For The Horde. Thank god, but that does not address the issue.

 

[a_civilian]

Actually they still can (even in 041m), but that's beside the point.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Personally I see nothing bugged with the whole SOI concept other than that they spawn way to early and the whole fire elemental thing.

If someone has the skill, luck and idea to go out and dominate a bunch of SOI without reloading failed captures than I can not see why this is not a valid strategy.

And if he keeps reloading he is a cheater any way so the point is mute.

For the Horde can grab roughly half of them without much risk at all. The only real decision is when to use it, ad more Sons spawn later. Thankfully the Clan AI generally uses it before Archeron spawns, so that's somewhat irrelevant in SP games.

For using the Domination spell, it's much easier than you seem to believe. If Archeron is on the coast, as he often is, shipping a unit with Mind III off on a galley renders him immune to counterattack. If not, a sufficiently large stack guarding him will prevent the fire elementals from even attacking, though this takes more buildup. The point is, it is not difficult to keep a caster, let alone any unit, safe from the fire elementals, since they don't attack large stacks despite being summoned units.

For the actual luck of succeeding in dominations as you say, I have not found that to be a problem either. Unless I get extremely unlucky, I can usually dominate 5-6 Sons of the Inferno before I lose Mind III. And since I often use Hemah or Gibbon to dominate them, I have enough spare EXP where I can take Mind III again the next turn. The lower level Sons I capture can often can take Mind III as well, leading to more, faster dominations. I have not yet failed to walk away from Archeron with 10-15 Sons and his horde after I get my first archmage.

Both Gibbon, Hemah and I guess Govannon if you're Amurites, are all available earlier than standard archmages, and they all have enough EXP to take Mind III multiple times. If you see nothing broken about turning a single, early hero archmage into a stack of 10-15 archmage-level casters(Which have a much greater strength, and are thus much harder to kill by assassins), with no unit limit(as archeron keeps spawning more), then I really don't understand what would be. As I understand it, the Sons were designed to make Archeron harder to kill early on; not to function as a roadblock for those who lack the means to defeat the Sons, and not to provide a reward more powerful than his treasure for those few civilizations or religons that have early domination at their disposal.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I still think that there anything that does not make the .exe crash is not a bug.
I have seen to many things in FFH been taken to the execution post via the nerf stick.

In my experience I lose with dominate fairly often, actually quite a lot. And your strategy relies solely on the chance that the dragon spawns in a city near the coast. If anything I am yet to see him spawn in a coastal city that does not have barbarian ships around it (but that might be just me).

Furthermore, is not that exotically the role early archmages like those you mentioned are for? To create a massive edge for the faction playing with them unless killed by hordes of lesser troops.


The way I see it making the fire elementals much more aggressive and giving them the ability to swim is enough to satisfy the hordes screaming for nerfing.



If anything, I support any strategy that has a high chance of creating a quick win with little risk. That in it self provides for tension and competition in MP games. See someone sending ships at the dragon? Guess its time to declare war.

 

[Jarrema]

The problem is, that when one strategy becomes too good, then it becomes game like: "who dominate SoI first". It is more interesting game, when there are a lot of strategies that are competetive.
In addition, when using Mind 3 becomes more powerfull (thanks to dominating SoI) civilisations with easy acces to it becomes more powerful than others...

 

[Emptiness]

I still think that there anything that does not make the .exe crash is not a bug.

Not all bugs cause crashes, but that's beside the point. Those of us who say this is a problem are not calling it a bug, we're calling it a game balance issue. Changes are not only made to correct bugs. Sometimes, even though everything is working as designed and without crashes, a change needs to be made to correct a design flaw.