The new crazed

[Fafnir13]

Just another thought on enraged units.
If they would seek out other enraged units to pal around with, they would become much more effective. Call it a birds of a feather thing. Picking off lone units is just too easy, even if the unit is incredibly strong. Just ask anyone who has a hero wander off alone.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

does the AI have any effect from having Enraged with the changes from patch Q? I'm pretty sure it's not that way right now. also, the effect of enraged can be overcome by assigning a queue of tasks ( and maybe even with automation? )

 

[Breunor]

I don't have that much experience with either the old or new crazed. I think I like the idea on the new crazed. In reading the thread I understand the 'old' crazed' had the problem that with the spell loyalty it actually could be a benefit.

I don't have a problem with the werewolves. I do agree, however, that the change would make it unlikely that I would ever build a lunatic for the reasons stated by many people. So, if the new mechanic make them useless, they should either be buffed, made cheaper to build, have some other mechanic, or removed.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Thunder_Gr]

They were not rendered useless by the new mechanic. There was a 1 in 20-30 that a lunatic could become useless if it got enraged far enough from enemy units, so that it would sit around doing nothing...

 

[blacknight]

I am personally in the dislike-camp for the new crazed mechanics. I feel dis-empowered as a player, when random units are effectively eliminated as soon as they are built.

All of my crazed units have immediately run off half way around the world and wandered around the ai's roaded plains until being attacked and killed by a better unit. I have never had a crazed unit do something useful and only ever once retrieved one when somehow he miraculously won a battle and could limp home.

Gripping aside, I like the idea but not the implementation. My problem is that there is no hope for salvation for the crazed unit; every turn he lives just reminds me of the useful unit I could have had, that now exists just to taunt me.

I disagree that there should be a low level spell to take care of this. My suggestion is to give the enraged promotion a 20% chance to expire each turn and give you your unit back (at least until the 3% per turn from crazed enrages him again). This maintains the unpredictability of the lunatic, while still allowing the player to use his unit in a somewhat productive manner. Once the unit runs off into the wilderness it will eventually be able to come back for you to guide it to where it can fight in a useful manner before running off again. The promotion will no longer be a lingering impotent death-sentence, and will I think add to the enjoyment of the game.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

I see. However, I do not understand why my proposition of having the enraged unit attack the closest unit to it and have the enranged wear off after the combat((if it survives) was ignored. It does fit the theme (enrage do not recognize friend from foe), solves the "forever enraged" problem and gives something for the player to be surprized at.

 

[Breunor]

They were not rendered useless by the new mechanic. There was a 1 in 20-30 that a lunatic could become useless if it got enraged far enough from enemy units, so that it would sit around doing nothing...

Oh, I see. Well, nevermind.

And it looks like they are being made cheaper in the latest patch anyway.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Ranos]

I see. However, I do not understand why my proposition of having the enraged unit attack the closest unit to it and have the enranged wear off after the combat((if it survives) was ignored. It does fit the theme (enrage do not recognize friend from foe), solves the "forever enraged" problem and gives something for the player to be surprized at.

That would completely destroy the Baron since every Ravenous Werewolf he spawned would immediately turn around and attack him. That would also mean every lunatic created would probably turn around and attack the city they were just built in. In the end, you'd lose more units that way than you did with the old Enraged.

Above all, I think Kael is going with the easiest solution possible. There are plenty of other ways to make the system work, this one just takes the least amount of work.

 

[Smakemupagus]

[edit: never mind, my post wasn't real constructive, i was just confused]

 

[Thunder_Gr]

That would completely destroy the Baron since every Ravenous Werewolf he spawned would immediately turn around and attack him. That would also mean every lunatic created would probably turn around and attack the city they were just built in. In the end, you'd lose more units that way than you did with the old Enraged.

So, you are saying you have the Baron going on his own killing things?
As far as I know werewolves do not have marksman, so they would attack a strong unit of your army, and if I still remember well, they are really weak, so the wearwolf would lose the fight.

As for the easy mechanics, what I propose is basically turn the unit aggressive to all (just like animals) until they kill something. This means, as it is now, just attack your own units as well, which I doubt that it is mechanicwise difficult.

The way it is corrected now will cause more problems in the future... Oh, are you seeing that impossible army of wearwolves comming that way! OMG!..And look!!! A hord of lunatics at our gates!!! WE ARE DOOMED!!

 

[Fafnir13]

I'm going to hold off on comments about these next fixes until I've tried them. Definitely want to see what a no-cost lunatic army can do...

AC 90 still needs some looking at, but I imagine we'll see some changes on that soon.

 

[Ranos]

So, you are saying you have the Baron going on his own killing things?
As far as I know werewolves do not have marksman, so they would attack a strong unit of your army, and if I still remember well, they are really weak, so the wearwolf would lose the fight.

Sometimes he's on his own, sometimes with guards. It depends on the current status of my game. The letters in bold make my point. The point of getting the Baron is to make a troop of werewolves, not watch as they suicide themselves on your own units. Here's how it works now:

The Baron attacks and kills a unit. A Ravenous Werewolf is spawned. He runs off under AI control and, at some point, attacks an enemy unit. If he wins, he becomes a Blooded Werewolf under my control. Now I have the Baron and a friend to go with him. Now repeat until you have a party.

Here's how it would work under your suggestion:

The Baron attacks and kills a unit. A Ravenous Werewolf is spawned. He immediately turns and attacks either the Baron or a unit that is traveling with him. The Baron is much stronger than the new pup and, more than likely, any units traveling with him are Swordsmen or Axemen with a few upgrades so also stronger than the new pup. So what becomes of the Ravenous Werewolf? He is dead and one of my units has a few more xp.

The Baron is an expensive unit to build for where he is on the tech tree. He also doesn't have the Hero promotions so he doesn't gain the 1 xp per turn and can't get some of those extra promos. Under your suggested Enraged, the Baron would be nothing more than an overpriced unit that you have to fight 30-40 battles to get him the same amount of xp as heroes with similar strength that cost less.

Let's also not forget Lunatics and other units that get Created with Crazed or Enraged. I'd bet that at a minimum, 75% of Enraged units would end up attacking your own units. So you either lose the Enraged unit or you lose a unit that the Enraged unit attacks. Either way, you are throwing away massive amounts of production.

A system where your own units attacked you would be even worse than it is now.

The way it is corrected now will cause more problems in the future... Oh, are you seeing that impossible army of wearwolves comming that way! OMG!..And look!!! A hord of lunatics at our gates!!! WE ARE DOOMED!!

A) I can see that the spawn rate may be too high for Werewolves but lets test it first just to make sure. If it needs adjusting, Kael can always take it down a notch.

B)

.40a-h Enraged - Build 12 Lunatics for 1440 , cast Loyalty on them, send a Crazy army against your enemy with +1 and +20% , attack enemy city with 12 Lunatics.​

.40i-p Enraged - Build 12 Lunatics for 1440 , watch as they start running around all over the place under AI control. Watch them attack and usually die.​

.40q Enraged - Build 16 Lunatics for 1440 , send a Crazy army against your opponents without +1 and +20% , watch as 4 run off on their own and attack and usually die, attack enemy city with 12 Lunatics.​

So what's the end result? You attack the city with the same number of units but those units have 1 less movement and less strength. In other words, everything is almost exactly the same, just without the free promo.

 

[Iceciro]

Comment - I had no idea Asylums turned people created in the cities that had them Crazed until I found the Forums, that should really be fixed.

Second Comment - I still don't quite see why the solution to a game imbalance, the ability to have bonus movement and attack while not being insane, is to make insane totally uncounterable as opposed to just making you not able to have both control and the buff.

I am countering this aspect myself as many others have posted - by not using Lunatics or Asylums. I'll take the other Religon's combat units, like Crusaders or Diseased Corpses or whatnot, over the current Lunatic squads ANY. DAY.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

The Baron attacks and kills a unit. A Ravenous Werewolf is spawned. He runs off under AI control and, at some point, attacks an enemy unit. If he wins, he becomes a Blooded Werewolf under my control. Now I have the Baron and a friend to go with him. Now repeat until you have a party.

Hold on a moment here. Ravenous Werewolves should have a chance to become enranged. They should not automatically become enraged. I think it is my fault for not telling this before. I am sorry for that.

As for the lunatics, with q will have no upkeep cost, and this is an insective to build much more maintenance free collateral damage high attack strength troops, that you do not care if they are just sitting around or going on to charge as planned.

and .40a-h, I had a lunatic turn barbarian on creation...No chance to cast loyalty...Anyway, that was a bug(being able to cast loyalty to avoid enraged)...

 

[Imuratep]

I wished there were units that turned barbarian on creation. I can imagine nothing more synergistic with the barbarian trait than this.

 

[Sarisin]

I wished there were units that turned barbarian on creation. I can imagine nothing more synergistic with the barbarian trait than this.

This used to happen very frequently with Ravenous Werewolves in the 'old system.' On paper they got Crazed on creation with a chance of going barb. In reality a good number of them immediately became barb units. You had no control and had to kill them quickly. You could also capture them with the right unit and promotion, though.

That was also when Loyalty was a useful spell and, if you had time, you could use it on the Ravenous Werewolf to allow you the chance to kill something before it went barb on you. But, you didn't always get the chance to use Loyalty as the Ravenous Werewolf became a barb unit as soon as it was created.

 

[Ranos]

Hold on a moment here. Ravenous Werewolves should have a chance to become enranged. They should not automatically become enraged. I think it is my fault for not telling this before. I am sorry for that.

Then you lose the entire point of them being a Ravenous Werewolf. Look in werewolf stories. When a person is first transformed into a werewolf, it is overcome with an extremely powerful urge to kill and eat. They will ignore all else until they have done this. I would be willing to bet that this is the concept behind Ravenous Werewolves. To not give them Enraged immediately would take away from the mythology of the FfH world.

As for the lunatics, with q will have no upkeep cost, and this is an insective to build much more maintenance free collateral damage high attack strength troops, that you do not care if they are just sitting around or going on to charge as planned.

Sure they will be able to have more of them, but the longer they have them and the more they have, the more likely they are to run off on their own.

Now it may be overpowered in patch "q" but that is why all of us are playing. We'll be able to see if there are too many or if they are just fine.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The thing I hate most about the new ravenous werewolves is how they DON'T ATTACK THE STACK THAT DUIN IS WAILING ON. Instead, they just run off.

 

[WarKirby]

maybe enraged units should also get hidden nationality temporarily, so that they can attack your allies too.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

Then you lose the entire point of them being a Ravenous Werewolf. Look in werewolf stories. When a person is first transformed into a werewolf, it is overcome with an extremely powerful urge to kill and eat. They will ignore all else until they have done this. I would be willing to bet that this is the concept behind Ravenous Werewolves. To not give them Enraged immediately would take away from the mythology of the FfH world.

Alright here, if this is not a contradiction!! You are saying that giving them a chance to become enraged is out of theme, but you insist that they should not attack your units!! In my point of view, they must attack the nearest living unit.

For going better with game usefullness, I proposed to have a chance to become enraged.

Besides, as was enraged previously they just had 3% to become barbarians, perhaps now they should have 30% to become AI controlled.