The new Duin Halfmorn

[cabbagemeister]

I've never before understood what the big deal was with Duin, or why he was so strong that there would need to be a game option to remove him from the game. As far as I saw it, he was a somewhat strong unit (just like a mithril-equipped Stygian guard) who occasionally spawned weak units that didn't help you war effort much except as free city garrisons. He doesn't have the hero promotion, so while his base strength is high, he was too hard to level up into anything particularly unstoppable or unbalancing.

Then came patch q.

Duin's werewolf generation chance was upped from 25% to 75%, and all the lesser werewolves had their generation chances tripled as well. As a result, Duin is now an lycanthropic army-generating monster. Send him into war with the rest of your troops, and you'll get a constant stream of lesser werewolves running around behind enemy lines, threatening workers, blocking roads, and generally harassing and disrupting the enemy's ability to mass defenses. A few of them will survive and will join you as champion-strength units to help defend your stack. One or two will advance to be Greater Werewolves and will join in the werewolf-generating fun. Alternately, if you're not at war, send Duin alone into a big barbarian-controlled area and he will emerge on the other side with about 30 werewolves trailing behind, because the Ravenous werewolves almost always find some weak barbarians to kill and easily advance to Blooded werewolves. Then you can send a leveled Duin and his army off to war if you want, and just leave a few Greater werewolves in the area to keep generating more werewolves.

In short, Duin is really strong and maybe overpowered, but I don't care because he's ridiculously fun to play with. He's definitely my new favorite unit, even more fun than vampires.

 

[notque]

He is much better now. I'm trying to figure out what to do with him in my mod. Allow only the leader Duin to create him, but then only he gets a really awesome hero?

Allow anyone to create him provided Duin isn't in the game, otherwise only Duin can build him. If he dies, you lose all of your traits.

 

[Mesix]

Even as powerful as he is now, he is still not as unbalancing as he was before he was nerfed several months back. In previous versions, I used to beeline the Feral Bond tech while remaining at peace with everyone. Then I would build Druin and start raging. It really was a one trick game at that point.

 

[mo123567]

He is so fun along with the werewolf upgrades that I would love to see someone create a new werewolf civ.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I've never before understood what the big deal was with Duin, or why he was so strong that there would need to be a game option to remove him from the game.

That option was written not for balance reasons, but because some of the scenarios needed to have that flag on for obvious reasons, and Kael decided to let us test the functionality out instead of just burying it till the scenarios started being made.

Personally I think the old Duin was one of the worst units in the game, and if I was first to Feral Bond I would ignore him and let some AI piss away 500 hammers building him. Now, he's worth building, but worse than, say, every single religious hero. The ******ed behavior of some of the ravenous werewolves keeps him well enough in check. If they'd all attack the (presumably weakened) stack that Duin's working on, lots of them would win fights, promote and end their turn as part of a solid stack, but they instead tend to sort of wander into the path of enemy reinforcements and get brushed aside as if they weren't there.

Blooded werewolves are more common than before simply because you get over 3 times as many ravenous ones to try and upgrade to blooded, but not a huge amount more.

 

[Sarisin]

Here's what I wrote specifically about werewolves in the Crazed thread:

Here is my feedback on the changes in .40q on werewolves:

Ravenous Werewolves are being created on almost every battle where the Baron kills a living unit. I think I've had at least 20 so far in my game.

I have 4 Blooded Werewolves. The rest have been killed. I can live with a 20% survival rate.

However, there is still a problem with the Ravenous Werewolves running off and ignoring easy targets to be killed either defending or attacking tougher targets. For example, I was at war with Svartalfar, and a Ravenous Werewolf ran right past a wounded Svartalfar Archer, an easy kill. The next turn it was killed by Buboes. I watched three Ravenous Werewolves attack a barb city defended by a barb archer - not good odds there.

OTOH, I actually had one defeat an Elephant that was wandering around.

I haven't had any of my Blooded Werewolves create Ravenous Werewolves yet, but they have had limited combat chances. None have upgraded to Greater Werewolves, but again the one with most XP has only about 25.

Conclusion: I think the new system is better. The AI targeting when it takes over your Ravenous Werewolves is awful, but, as I said, I have no problem with getting a 20% success rate in getting Blooded Werewolves. This comes from the higher rate of Ravenous Werewolves created by the Baron. Definitely, an improvement over the old, new system.


Additionally, I forgot to mention that the key is having targets for all the Ravenous Werewolves running around. If you have lots of open spaces where there are barbs (not Lizardman Rangers, though ), you can do well with your baby werewolves. However, if there is an enemy city nearby, barb or otherwise, you are in trouble as they seem to have a knack for attacking fortified defenders in the city and lose every time.

CM, roughly how many Ravenous Werewolves did you get and how many survived their first battle and made it to Blooded Werewolf? Greater Werewolves?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I definitely agree that they are way too prone to ignore easy target and go for impossible odds. they should be aggressive, not suicidal imho

 

[Monkeyfinger]

I think they should attack the nearest possible target. Often, though, that's winnable even if said target is holed up in a city. My first try with the new duin was as the khazad, which meant I was constantly beating up stacks softened by crush. If the werewolves had attacked those stacks, I would have had so many blooded werewolves.

 

[Iceciro]

That's not just a problem with Werewolves but with Enraged in general - Enraged tends to mean "angry and really, really stupid/suicidal" not "wants to punch the first enemy it sees through a wall"

 

[Skitters]

...but the whole point of enraged is that the units anger is over-riding the "common sense" that says "Hmmm...that chap has just trod on my foot...but he's twice my height and appears to be carrying a battleaxe...I think I'll just smile as if my toes havn't been crushed" to "Grrurrgh...him....foot...mine....grraaggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!"

 

[Sarisin]

I ended my first epic speed game with .40q and the new werewolf creating mechanism. I think it is OK. I ended up with 6 Blooded Werewolves (2 were lost when AC 90 hit, they got Enraged AGAIN, and went off to die!) and one Greater Werewolf. I would say I lost 50-60 Ravenous Werewolves, so you do get plenty to watch whiz around the map.

I still think the targeting is out of whack both for werewolves and AC 90.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Conclusion: I think the new system is better. The AI targeting when it takes over your Ravenous Werewolves is awful, but, as I said, I have no problem with getting a 20% success rate in getting Blooded Werewolves. This comes from the higher rate of Ravenous Werewolves created by the Baron. Definitely, an improvement over the old, new system.

Additionally, I forgot to mention that the key is having targets for all the Ravenous Werewolves running around. If you have lots of open spaces where there are barbs (not Lizardman Rangers, though ), you can do well with your baby werewolves. However, if there is an enemy city nearby, barb or otherwise, you are in trouble as they seem to have a knack for attacking fortified defenders in the city and lose every time.

CM, roughly how many Ravenous Werewolves did you get and how many survived their first battle and made it to Blooded Werewolf? Greater Werewolves?

Wow, I clearly haven't seen the same behavior from my ravenous wolves as you have. Typically they'll get generated as I'm assaulting a city, and to my surprise they will NOT suicide themselves against the fortified longbows in the city. In fact I've never seen them attack a city defender unless the defender was severely weakened. Instead, they love to run into the countryside and pick off easier targets. Workers are targets they beeline for (and killing workers is great, because they get to promote to Blooded with no risk). In a barbarian area, the favorite targets are goblins. My Ravenous wolves must have killed 20+ goblins in my current game. From what I've seen, they do NOT attack when they have impossible odds. For instance, one of my wolves ran across my empire to target a frostling who had been dancing on the edges of my borders for a while, but none of them were interested in attacking a hill giant who had been doing the same thing in the same area. The hardest target I've ever seen them attack was a barbarian axeman on a forested hill. That's below 50% odds, but not much below. Overall, with about 40-50 ravenous wolves generated, I've had about an 80% success rate in promoting the Ravenous wolves to Blooded (though it probably dips down to 50% in non-barbarian areas).

From there, it's just a matter of shepherding your Blooded wolves to become Greater wolves. I find that on average, a Blooded wolf that's winning its battles will generate about one Ravenous wolf before it promotes to be Greater (meaning that it replaces itself in whatever function you had it doing before it goes off to kick ass as a Greater werewolf). If you're asking about pure numbers in my current game, I've had Duin about 150ish turns and I now have 25 Blooded werewolves (not counting 5 or so who have been killed at some point) and 7 Greater werewolves.

EDIT: just read through some of the other posts in this thread. Am I the only one who has seen the Ravenous werewolves not making stupid suicidal attacks, but instead running around to find targets they have decent odds against?

 

[Iceciro]

Whatever bug you have that makes enraged not = stupid, I want it.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

In my experience, the stack Duin is working on usually contains the only targets ravenous werewolves have decent odds against. The rest of the enemy countryside is crawling with champions, beastmasters, rangers, longbowmen, etc, all at full health. No workers to serve as easy targets. Occasionally I'll spare a spell to attack a particularly big reinforcement stack, and the werewolf can get an easy kill off that, but that's rarely justiifable.

 

[Sarisin]

Am I the only one who has seen the Ravenous werewolves not making stupid suicidal attacks, but instead running around to find targets they have decent odds against?

In a word, yes.

I think the way yours is working is the way it should work. I have not seen this with werewolves or other Enraged units, for example when AC 90 hits. The targeting by the AI is terrible.

 

[mo123567]

I have a bunch of blooded werewolves in my current game as well. I think that enough of them survive. I can send my highly promoted baron in to attack practically alone, maybe a little extra protection, and he comes back with an army. Sure a lot of ravenous werewolves run off somewhere but they still suck up a lot of the attacks from reinforcements. I like the way it is now.

Almost forgot to mention that my baron has blitz and he had it early thanks to Orthos's axe.

Overall I think enraged is anoying when it's you own hard earned units but it doesn't bother me when it is on free units that I can get more of each turn.

 

[Thunder_Gr]

This whole thread proves the new engraged to be a failure. Enraged has to be a negative ability, so that no one whats it. Now it has become an amusement.., which, of course, is alright for people who care not about realism and just want to beat the AI each game at any difficulty level...

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It is very much negative.

If enraged still functioned like it used to, Duin would currently be one of the best units in the game. As it is, though, he's pretty meh. Not trash like he used to be, but... hardly a game turner either.

 

[Fafnir13]

I might be getting fewer ravenous werewolves if the AI hadn't suddenly come down with a nasty case of scout-itus. That is a disease where a plethora of scouts are built instead of actual useful units. I don't care if they get +50% or whatnot vs him, they lose out on metals and city defense. My entire continent is pretty much a joke except for Ulvin (but I eated him already...).
Aside from the scout-itus, I am enjoying the Good Baron. Seeing wolves pop-out on almost every combat is much more satisfying then before. Much more lore appropriate (read Gilden's).

 

[Thunder_Gr]

It is very much negative.

If enraged still functioned like it used to, Duin would currently be one of the best units in the game. As it is, though, he's pretty meh. Not trash like he used to be, but... hardly a game turner either.

I am enjoying the Good Baron. Seeing wolves pop-out on almost every combat is much more satisfying then before. Much more lore appropriate (read Gilden's).

I do not argue about the not-so-repectful (being a werewolf and all) Baron. It may be a good thing that he pops a werewolf at 3 out of 4 battles.

My point here is the Enrage functionality. It should be bad. All you read here is that people "don't mind having free units not to do something, since these are so easy to get".
What I see is "great! Now it is even better than the time that I could cast loyalty to avoid enrage(a bug, if I need to remind), because now I get so many more units, that it does not matter anymore, and enrange does nothing bad to me! Rejoice!

P.S. Because I may have began to annoy some people with my persistance in the opinion that enraged shouldhave worse effect than it does now, I will not post any more on this subject. Thank you for your patience