The Yithril are usually my first target if they're nearby. Juggernaughts are of course the reason why. Handling one or two Juggs is no problem at a time, but as more of them get trained, the lethality of the Yithril armies seems to grow exponentially. A Yithril sovereign + 4 Juggs is a BIG problem. I am curious to know what is the general consensus on the Juggs and what are your favorite anti Jugg strategies.
You can pepper them with archers, but it takes 2-3 squadrons of similarly teched archers to beat a juggernaut.
Another solution would base juggernauts more on the warfare tree, so they don't get all the good traits right off the bat, so you actually have to progress the tech tree before they eat dragons and stuff.
Sincerely~ Kongdej
Personally, I use high initiative lancers, backed by either archers or mages.Stinking mud is useful if you're ranged-heavy, but it needs water + earth. I love Juggernauts just the way they are now. They only give Ythril delusions of grandeur - faction ranking plummets once you've trashed their main Juggernaut armies.
I partly think your missing the point. If your not preparing for it in advance, and they suddenly show up on your doorstep, first in ones, then a few turns later in twos, then fours, then suddenly waves and waves of them come at you - you simply don't have time to change your tactics to deal with them.
If you invest most of your tech into civ, and a magic, with no crystal to be had, you're in trouble - and the first bows you unlock with tech are not going to do damage fast enough. I don't want to have to plan my game around this scenario, yet i find i need to.
yes you can say "why did you put most of you tech into civ and magic if you have no crystal?" - well, sadly, thats how you develop your henchmen.
sometimes you're rich formana and never run out of it, sometimes you're scrapping around for every single point of it and have to *gulp*, tell yourself "i really hope this slow spell goes through for 3 points of mana".
i wish early basic tech unlocked faster and later tech took more time, but that's just me.
I'm going to mod in more options as i have time too.
I wish for it in reverse, but I also hope that more tactical decisions be viable.
(reverse being each tech should unlock more equally in terms of time and RP, but my ideal research design is far from fe's
I have finally met the dread juggernauts, and they turn out to be not much of a problem. They have an ungodly punch and backswing, but they are completely depending on getting into melee. My spiders webbed them in place (resists happen, but not too often), which allows me to deal with them one after another without having to take all of their attacks at once.
I suppose any spell reducing/stopping movement would work as well to do the necessary crowd control.
On a side-note: Beastlord is an extremely powerful ability.
I'm in mid-game. finally got access to two iron mines and upgraded to smelter.
I have iron ore coming out of my ears and have already built 3 iron golems.
It's just a matter of time before that a-hole and his juggernaughts are irrelevant....
I think, regardless of whether or not Juggernauts are altered/balanced or not, that Lord Xia hit the nail on the head as far as the need to balance the races are concerned.
Before proposing my suggestions for how to change/improve the races, let us go ahead and write out what the final two races do (playable, but not attached to any of the pre-made leaders):
MANCER gain +1 accuracy per level. While I suppose this can add stability to higher level units, it is arguably worse than the Wraith racial (keyword arguably) in that it has minimal to no impact for most of the game (or all of it, depending on your playstyle).
URXEN gain +2 attack when in an army of 5 or larger. Would have been amazing if Urxens, rather than Quenar, had slaves, but is still a nice mid-to-late game bonus, and can be rushed early if you really want to pack an early punch. Not game breaking, and it could be argued that by the time it comes online it is negligible, but it is a free damage bonus, and especially nice if a majority of the army is Urxen.
With that out of the way, these are some proposals I have to help make all the races feel powerful and unique. These ideas are primarily to spark discussion, so feel free to dislike my ideas, or propose better ones (you will anyway, right?).
Let us say Trogs don't change (I don't like Beserk, but that is neither here nor there):
I wouldn't change Men either, but instead focusing on improving the AI use of henchmen.
Golems could get an inherit bonus that says they get a damage reduction percentage equal to the damage they would otherwise take. For example, if the Golem would be hit for 50 damage, it would get a 50% reduction modifier, reducing the damage to 25. The reduction modifier could cap out at 90%, to prevent 100 damage attacks from doing zero damage. This would lead to having to balance having no armor (improving your chance for higher modifiers, but making you more susceptible to weaker units) or lots of armor (negating weak units in a typical fashion, while weakening effectiveness against stronger units). an alternate ratio (1: 1.33 1:1.5 1:2 [damage:reduction]) can also be used if 1:1 seems too small (can obviously go the other way if too large). This may not be the best idea, but it is the best I've come up with so far.
I also wouldn't change Quenar (slaves are really powerful [odd thing to say about inherently weak beings]), but suggest that the AI get more slave unlocks naturally so that the human doesn't have to play them a couple of times before they can reach their full potential.
I honestly like the Krax ability (Fortify). If the aforementioned bug exists, fix it. Teach the AI how to use Fortify properly. Perhaps gains the ability to build units that have any of the other races blood abilities, like fire-resistant Quenar dragon hunters, Tarthan scouts and weak/medium monster hunters, etc. (fellow traitors). I know that sounds very weak (it does to me, any way), but I honestly don't know what to do as far as a Krax unit.
I honestly like the Tarth ability in theory. In practice, not so much, but the theory is cool (reverse Urxen in a way). I'd love to see a unit that compliments this (maybe something that can hit every square on the battlefield simultaneously with friendly fire, but doesn't harm itself). Then again, Tarth needs a lot of work in general (come on, just remove the stealth ability from the game. Let them remain mobile guerillas)...
Amarians are a lawful people who think they, by right, should rule (and, in my mind, by extension: control). What I think they could use is a special unit class that can start with controlling combat abilities (like Stun), especially if they can be done from range, applied to magic attacks, and/or cannot be resisted.
Wraiths, being bound to Ceresa in the Resoln description, gives me the idea that their special units, being bound to the sovereign, don't die unless he/she/it does. Upon being killed, they return to the capital exactly like the sovereign. To avoid an unbeatable capital, they could start at one life when reanimated, and be unable to move until they're healed to full (rather than an arbitrary amount of turns). In addition, they can only heal 1 HP per turn, regardless of other modifiers. This would both benefit their low HP (having them recover faster), keep high level units from being too powerful in their pseudo-immortality, and add some merit to their +3 HP on kill if they're down to their capital and the stakes are high.
Mancers, being a trading, merchant race, could have access to special mercenary units. They can only be rush or bought with gold or influence, but in return could have more perks slots than normal, unique perks, or have their perks be free.
It is a shame slaves are already taken, and Urxens can't have that mechanic. As people who, when performing acts in large numbers (and with migratory tendencies) have changed history, they might benefit from some sort of leader type unit who either can have followers bonded to his army for bonuses (bonuses dependent on the leader built), or makes his own followers. For example, I make my leader so every unit bonded to him heals X HP per turn, where X is the units level. Either units can bond to him in exchange for the inability to leave that stack, or he creates his own, bonded units whether with gold, mana, or influence (perhaps getting different types of units from each?).
Like I said, just my suggestions, and some of them I don't even think are good. Hoping to breed a different line of balance discussion in hopes of a better game for everyone.
Also, Mancers gain the ability to create units that can make roads. Road building is a nice ability, not game breaking or anything, but convenient
A bad suggestion is better than no suggestion, since I have seen some bad suggestion spark wonderful ideas.
I hope the approach which seem to be more and more pressing in this thread is the one approached. Where instead of nerfing juggs, we give all factions something unique and interesting, with a similar fear factor... Meaby change some numbers in juggernauts after the initial project, but first off I want my Iron Golems as Gilden to have the same meaning as the Juggernauts for Yithril.
Playing against them, I thought they were scary, but not necessarily overpowered as there are ways of dealing with them (though I may be underestimating them because of the Beta Shrink bug that turned their power to 0 rather than 50% - dont' know if that still exists). However, now I'm in the middle of a game playing as Yithril for the first time and seeing them from the other side, Just a few Juggernauts turned the tide of a war where Gilden and Tarth, both with greater faction power than me, attacked me almost simultaneously. And once the tide was turned, pumping them out from all my cities and doing nothing else was enough to put me in position for a fairly easy win. I think they are overpowered (or undercosted) by just a bit (and, as has been mentioned from the player side, more so against Gilden than Tarth).
That said, cutting through an opponent's infantry like a hot knife through butter is fun, and they are Yithril's main draw as a faction, so I don't think they should be nerfed too much - just a little less power, a little more cost, a little longer to research and maybe a few less HP.
I agree with most everything that has been said (especially the part about making other abilities stronger rather than juggernauts weaker), but I think we've got to sort out race traits vs faction traits vs leader traits. I'm not even sure offhand how it works, and that's a problem. I think there should at most be two: leader and faction. (Perhaps one of the choices when designing a faction can be choosing a race, which can then cost extra faction design points for better races.)
As it is now, I believe you can create some pretty wacked-out situations by cherrypicking various faction + leader trait combos, largely due to the fact that the built-in leader+faction combos were balanced (such as they are) without too much regard for what people can do when tweaking it.
Answer @ Thread title: Yes and that is actually a good thing. Fighting them can be fun. Gets the mind running. (they might endure a slight reduction but the concept is very much fine)Might even make me play the faction after fighting it.Better not do all to much negative balancing when there is so much room for positive balancing (provided the machanic which is overpowered is actually fun and juggernauts very much are at least for me). Resoln needs a less weakening faction / race bonus for example. It kills their troops efficiency and makes them relatively easy to beat even at higher difficulties (in lieu with no armor which worsens the issue.). Many other factions are not overpowered enough to reach equilibrium of power gain.Some stuff is clearly way to bland still (some good threads about that allready).Such posts / threads often lead to the developers overreacting a bit as they did with heroes (which imo they went to far with in terms of balancing.) for release. (tripple whammy was a bit much. Trying one nerf at a time whould imo have lead to a more fun and actually balanced result. Being forced to use troops not because I want them but because I need them doesn't equal what I understand of fun in a game.).Be careful what you ask for. Balance is fine and dandy. But I'd rather have an unbalanced and fun game than a balanced unfun one. This is not a competitve multiplayer game (hope it will never have its focus on competitive even when multiplayer arrives but rather a focus on feature equal and coop and stuff...)And to top it off normal and below difficulty seems a construction site of much bigger concern...
I'd rather have an approximately balanced fun game; than a wildly out of balance fun game.
I'm told that Mancer blood also gives your units (maybe it's pioneers?) the ability to build roads. I'm not sure, because I've never played a Mancer faction since the +1 accuracy per level seems nearly useless compared to some of the other bonuses from race that you could get instead.
I would change Quendar, since the Slave Lords faction trait would seem like it should enable you to train slaves, and doesn't offer much for its 2 point cost (lose all growth structures, but gain population after battle victories and by razing cities - fine, but population is almost worthless in and of itself, and so this trait only matters if it lets me reach the next city level faster, which it does in the early game but not in the late game, which is when those growth structures that you lost to get this start to look appealing). Also, having the ability to train slaves because you're Quendar makes about as much sense as saying that white people enslaved black people because white people are white people. I think they'd need something else in addition to their current blood bonus if they lost slaves, but I still think they should lose the ability to train slaves for just being Quendar.
If Wraiths, on top of having much less health than anyone else aside from Amarians, also healed at only one health per turn, I'd never play them in any game where I wasn't trying to see if I could win by tying both my hands behind my back and chopping off a leg and a half for good measure. I also fail to see how this helps Wraiths recover faster when all the other factions recover health at a rate dependent on unit level.
Some of the special units that the factions get seem reasonable. Juggernauts? Trogs are susceptible to certain forms of (magical or genetic) manipulation which create very large and muscular brutes, or have a certain portion of their population who are born that way. Iron Golems? A little harder to justify, but Ironeers are the masters of metalworking in this game, so maybe they've discovered advanced metallurgical techniques and magics, and have done their best to prevent anyone else from figuring out how to do the same thing. I personally think this should be attached to a faction trait, but as a racial trait it's alright. Henchmen? These should probably go into a faction trait (Heroic comes to mind), as they represent your faction having a culture that encourages individual greatness (at least, in my opinion), and this seems more like a faction-level trait than a race-level trait. As an alternative, make it a Kingdom equivalent of Sions. Slaves? I can be a Slave Lord of any race, and yet be unable to train slaves because I'm not Quendar? Slaves would be the only reason I'd take Slave Lords (if Slave Lords unlocked slaves), because population really doesn't offer that much, and the population boost from razing cities is only tempting if my capitol can reach the next level from the population boost, but it would take a fairly large city to do that by mid to late game, and large cities, since they are already well developed, are not the kind of city I want to raze, unless I think the city is in a terrible spot.
On the other hand, some of the units granted via faction trait could do with being race-specific traits. What did my Kingdom of Men with Binding do to get that Burning Wraith that was (according to its description) created by Ceresa and which is utterly loyal to her? For that matter, if it's completely loyal to Ceresa, why do I want to have it when I go to war with Resoln? According to the unit descriptions, every last one of the demons summoned at altars by factions with the Binding traits exist solely because Ceresa has developed Death Magic to a degree that no one else in the world has developed - yet despite not being even vaguely related to Ceresa I have the ability to create these, even without access to Death Magic? Also, the Burning Wraith that my Kingdom has says a lot about what my Kingdom thinks of non-men living within its borders, regardless of whether or not I intend to play that way (great - let's sacrifice the handful of Wraiths who decided to live with us rather than under the dominion of Ceresa over in Resoln! I'm sure they'll appreciate being sacrificed on our altars rather than hers, and won't mind at all that we've singled them out for this).
Making the bound demons a Wraith-specific bonus would go a fair ways towards picking Wraith Blood off the bottom of the racial abilities listing, though it would also necessitate that Resoln see some other change to make up for the disappearance of Binding (personally, I'd say drop the 'no armor' penalty - little good armor on top of having the least health of any faction in the game? Even the Amarians have more if they can get an Earth Shard or two, and Amarian Blood is generally better than Wraith Blood anyways - the bonus to initiative from Air Shards assures that, although the health, spell resistance, and spell mastery bonuses are rather negligible usually).
However, these are just my opinions.
I agree with this tying Wraith blood to Binding. Why not write this up as a suggestion - after all it is OT in this topic.
The shrink bug is still present, I was about to make a new support thread on this, but will wait for 1.01...
To add to this discussion, more traits for trainable units such as poison arrows, hobble, stun, trainable trolls etc. could be very expensive but be the key to breaking a juggernaut rush, a hero ability to summon 2 or 3 elementals for a battle and more interesting mounts (elephants, war slags, skaths that can deliver a bite once every three rounds in addition to the rider's weapon) or flying units that can stand off and pummel them with missiles would be great. How about a siren type unit ala AOW:SM? "Me like pretty lady, smell like flowers."
Or a spell that creates a sense of existential angst in the juggernaut: "Mongo just pawn in game of life"
Make more stuff, don't nerf.
While I can see your point, do note I said only their special unit would do this, and only because having pseudo-invincible units without an extreme drawback would be too powerful. The idea I professed was that they'd have units that, rather than dying, returned to spawn upon death like the sovereign does. All the drawbacks listed thereafter were to balance the suggested unit due to this singular fact. It may not be the best idea, but I thought it might be a cool one to suggest nonetheless. Then again, I like the idea of units that won't die until the sovereign does, even if it comes with severe drawbacks. May be a bad idea in practice (like the Tarth racial feels to me).
I can agree with this completely. However, if we do this, what would we replace slaves with?
The intrinsic goal I had with my suggestion was to give every faction both a blood ability and a unique unit that compliments their playstyle. I feel the Trogs handled this very well, and (rather than punish them) I'd like to see all the other factions brought to the same standard. My ideas may not be the best (as I aforementioned). However, my hope was to have others suggest better ideas rather than simply focus on the faults of my own. Hopefully, with enough input, we can come up with enough stellar ideas that the dev's can either pick from the best or imagine even better ones to put in to the game. That's the hope any way.
Yes, I love Fall from Heaven 2, and in particular the way balance is achieved by giving everyone "overpowered" abilities. But I'm still glad they tweaked things along the way that were so strong that they upset the design and flow of the game (the old version of pyre zombies come to mind).
In the present game, yes Juggernauts are great and they should certainly not be nerfed into oblivion! But they're also practically free. Which I think is sort of a broken combination for various reasons. I think we're generally in agreement that factions/races should have access to fun and unique things, but then, what is a fair resource price that doesn't break the rest of the game?
The choices could include
(1) Unit is Powerful but very expensive -- most balanced, quite possibly at the expense of fun though. Perhaps the Iron Golems are in this range, which is why nobody is interested in starting threads about them much right now.
(2) Powerful and cost effective -- my proposal.
(3) Powerful and practially free -- I would argue this is what the Jugg is currently, and that it is not the most fun whether you're playing Ythril or not (with respect to those who disagree)
(4) Unit is nerfed and cost effective-- lame!
(5) Unit is overpowered and game breaking at any price -- lame! but not at all what is happening here
So if you only had 1st tier equipment, not very many trained troops, 200 mana saved up with 4 generating every turn, you have 3 or 4 cities, you think your winning the game (up until now you've had the highest power faction) and then suddenly, bam there's ythril. 1000 TIMES your power level. How did he get so high? (oh there's his nine stack of only juggernauts.... zzzz)
and your facing waves of these evrery turn.
Guess i'll just restart the game.
assume the shrink bug is fixed so you cant abuse it.
My point is, if ythril gets to juggernauts fast enough and he takes advantage of it - it's an i win button.
I SECOND THIS... Come on guys... If you want the Nerf Hammer to fall on Juggs, then it wouldn't be long before someone starts complaining about needing the Nerf Hammer to fall on some other beasts. This starts an all out Nerf Hammer fest, where you get into "this needs Nerfed, now that needs Nerfed to compensate, and now THIS needs Nerfed to adjust for the Nerf done before that" kind of garbage.
Leave Juggs alone, for crying out loud. Who wants to play a game where all of the sides feel like they are just another nice texture pack placed on the common player class. Guild Wars torqued me off with that kind of mentality... and I am most certain there are others. A Strategy game SHOULD not have bland, cookie-cutter classes... it goes against everything for a Strategy game. If they are all the same, the WHERE is the Strategy? Simple question, with a simple answer. There is none.
Have a blessed day,
-kmkenpo
well then make Ithilen bows shoot 7 arrows and not cost any more resources, that wouldn't be cookie cutter either!
You know, it might be the ai making units and builidings for no cost that is accounting for the juggernaut spam....
Better not do all to much negative balancing when there is so much room for positive balancing (provided the machanic which is overpowered is actually fun and juggernauts very much are at least for me).
Totally agree. Like I posted earlier. It would have been cool to have been able to capture one i the wild with a studded collar or something else. That would have been fun. I now find out the collar trains what seems to me less interesting beasts.
Overpowered stuff can be fun if done in a way to make other faction have to counter with their overpowered units. With this being said, I feel the dragons are way over the top. Even then, they wouldn't be so bad if they didn't start wondering around.
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