Posts from Balanced Units - A minimal balance mod for units Auto-translated

With agility, Alt is an overpowered unit, and he will always be chosen, at least for breaking through defenses. Moreover, the accompanying unit will no longer play a significant role. For example, you can look at the Dancers of the Wind: no one ever takes the Death unit, even though it has AoE.

That would be great.

Dancers are not a valid argument, because they are unpopular not because of the weakness of their AoE ability, but because of the significant decrease in their stats (-20% damage, -1 speed, -3 defense).
By the way, it's good that you reminded me: there, apparently, an increase to 100% parry will not be enough; it will also be necessary to increase the damage to the level of Alt (4-6 instead of 3-5).

2. Archers: damage 2-6 (was 2-8)

Against. With a human-sized armor-piercing radius, archers become a good alternative to their counterparts.

Early units are in demand, so can we abandon this change?

Indeed.

The ability change is perceived more easily than stat changes.

Not at all. I don't know what's going on in the minds of so-called "pros," but for casual players, it's usually easier to accept changes to stats.

Swift Riders: 100% chance to hit (was 25%), +agility

I'm all for it. As an alternative, remove the agility bonus but increase the damage to the level of the upgrade.
I still don't see the point in nerfing invisibility and I'm all for buffing higher vampires; otherwise, I have no questions.

I'm all for it. As an alternative, remove the agility bonus but increase the damage to match the tier.

The alt unit already has +2 attack, which almost compensates for the damage difference.

I still don't see the point in nerfing invisibility.

In what way? Are you saying you don't acknowledge that the ability to bypass invisibility with hunters is too overpowered? Or do you think reducing the duration from 3 to 2 rounds won't change anything?

2 rounds is enough to make 2 full moves under invisibility, considering the hunters' initiative. With a speed of 6, they can reach any point on the battlefield.

Against. With a human-sized armor-piercing range, archers become a good alternative to their counterparts.

Do I understand your point correctly that archers with 2-6 damage become underpowered? Compared to the buffed crossbowmen or compared to the entire tier?

It's much simpler: right now, crossbowmen are forgotten, but with the increase in armor-piercing range, they will rise from oblivion without reducing the number of ranged units. And if you want to stop the abuse of invisibility while attacking, it's easier to replace it with something else.

4 squares – that’s not a very large radius, in my opinion. The enemy still needs to move that distance. But if it were 5, then there would be no argument...

4 tiles increase the area of effect of the armor-piercing attack almost twice as much compared to 3. However, this is not enough to balance the upgrades; for example, consider the armor-piercing ability against archers, where it is easy to avoid the armor-piercing attack, and at any other range, the archers are stronger (at medium range, they are stronger due to the +1 attack bonus).
In general, to balance the crossbowmen with the archers, only through the ability, according to my calculations, the radius of the armor-piercing attack needs to be... 8 tiles. With this setup, from 2 to 6 crossbowmen will deal approximately twice as much damage, from 7 to 8 exactly the same amount, and from 9 and above, more than twice as little. Naturally, no one would make such a large radius for the armor-piercing attack, so the difference is compensated by the reduced damage.

Regarding invisibility, I really don't like the TE's castration of the hunting hounds. Why remove the ability and add something new in the form of other abilities/stats when it can be fixed?

The mod is available for download (link in the first post of the thread).

Updated the mod, removed the buff for skeleton archers (canceled the damage increase from 1-2 to 2-2).
Here, it's interesting to compare: formally, both upgrades are almost equal. With any non-native hero-fighter with good attack and a Battle Banner giving +1 to damage, the archers become stronger than the warriors. However, as is well known, the necromancer himself has no attack and only a lot of defense, which speaks in favor of the warriors by the time of the final battle. Be that as it may, in breaking through defenses, the archers are very effectively used due to their ghostly walls, and even in the final battle, a defensive necromancer (not a fighter) will still take archers to somehow deal damage from the box. In addition, there is a claw that gives +1 to damage and the unicorn bow, which makes it possible to seriously boost the skeleton archers even for a necromancer-fighter. Thus, it turns out that the archers already have a good niche, and there is no need to buff them further.

And if we add ranged attacks for the Night Queens and remove invisibility? Would that create a better balance between these upgrades?

Why would the Night Lords need ranged attacks when another tier already has them? This is clearly not a minimal change for balancing, but rather a creative one. Regarding the Shadow Lords, a possible option would be to increase their damage from 17-27 to 20-30 instead of increasing their initiative from 10 to 11, in order to maintain the initiative difference from the Alt faction. But this needs to be tested. As for the Sylvan Archers, I'm now leaning more towards a damage of 6-6 instead of 5-7, as this is more thematic for them.

Well, then:

13. Higher Vampires: damage 9-13 (was 7-11)

In my humble opinion, this is too strong for Higher Vampires. They are already quite effective at wielding swords, and in large numbers, they will become virtually unbeatable.

There are two options here: either increase the damage of the upgraded unit or decrease the damage of the alternate unit (in addition to nerfing the paralysis effect). However, the latter would be an unambiguous weakening of the Necromancers, which is not the goal of this mod.

Tournament practice shows that the alternate unit is currently much stronger. For example, in RTA, the higher vampires were buffed even further to balance things out. If the upgraded unit cannot deal more damage than the alternate unit, then what is the point of it? It has less health, less speed, and a mediocre retaliation against paralysis, which can decide the outcome of a battle. When dealing damage, I would rather deal damage with single spirits and have the ability to paralyze than simply attack without retaliation and do nothing else. Moreover, the lack of retaliation here is relative, because when the enemy gets a turn, they can deal significant damage to the vampires with their own retaliations, unlike when they are paralyzed.

Even with the reduced chance, paralysis still has about a 30% chance of occurring. And when it does occur in an attack, it provides two retaliations at once:
1) The enemy does not retaliate against the attack because they are paralyzed.
2) The enemy does not retaliate against the next attack that wakes them up.
And this is in addition to the fact that the paralyzed enemy simply skips their active turns. And this is in addition to the fact that the alternate vampire units deal maximum damage (13) with the attack that wakes them up.

I won't even mention that several squads of alternate vampires can easily defeat any number of enemy units without losses if there is skillful use of the "Confusion" spell. This squad will simply never get to move and will slowly dwindle.

Renamed the topic to match the others.

I'm now leaning more towards 6-6 damage for the Forest Archers instead of 5-7; this is more thematic for them.

That's even better (you should have done this right away).
By the way, if you didn't limit yourselves to the minimum number of "tweaks" and fully "polished" the balance to a near-perfect state, what would the changelog look like?

Updated the mod, made archers deal 6-6 damage. Also, increased the upgrade for witches to 20-30 damage (instead of 11 initiative).

By the way, if you didn't limit yourselves to a minimal number of "tweaks," but fully "polished" the balance to a near-perfect state, what would the changelog look like?

Precise balancing is too complex and time-consuming. We need tournaments with extensive statistics, as well as active participation in them, to see the consequences of the changes firsthand. This mod is a side project for me; it's good precisely because of its simplicity, the fact that it doesn't require any effort. I'm not interested in actively playing the original game (and this mod is very close to the original). I have another mod in which I don't limit myself in the amount of changes, but, as you know, it changes the entire gameplay, rather than specializing in balance fixes.

Added 2 hours 11 minutes ago
In general, if I were to expand the list of balance changes, I would include the following:

Skeletal Archers: damage 2-2 (was 1-2), good for the endgame, but I'm not sure if this change will work for piercing defense. Greater Liches: "Raise Dead" and "Immobilize" at Expert level (were at Advanced). Banshees: "Wail" (15-morale) x2, increased by 1.5 times. Ghost Dragons: Expert weakening (was at Advanced).

Druids: Alt initiative 9 (was 10). Crystal Dragons: +Crystal Scale (immunity to abilities that kill exactly 1 creature).

Bears: weaken the chance of scaring small creatures (by 1.5 times). Jarls: 100% damage from "Flame Strike" (instead of 120%).

Minotaurs: upgrade initiative 10 (was 8), Alt enhanced morale aura up to +3 (was +1). Hydras: Alt damage 11-14 (was 9-12), upgrade regeneration 60-100 (was 30-50) - I'm not sure about this because of piercing defense. Red Dragons: damage and health like Crystal Dragons, in addition to 200% burning.

Griffins: Alt 200% "Frenzied Attack" (was 150%), 100% "Pike" (was 75%). Adept: Advanced "Punishment" (was Expert). Seraphim: Expert "Punishment" (was Advanced).

Imps: all steal 1/8 mana (was 1/4 at base and upgrade). Cerberus: damage 5-7 (was 4-7). Pit Fiends: upgrade "Fireball" and "Meteor Shower" at Advanced level (were at base).

Wyverns: poison 10 (was 5), scavenger 30% (was 20%), regeneration 60-100 (was 30-50) - I'm not sure about this because of piercing defense. Cyclops: upgrade initiative 10 (was 9).

Goblins: 2 repairs (was 1). Golems: Alt 100% healing from chaos (was 50%). Titans: "Lightning" 40, "Storm" 20, penalty 5%.

All of this is based on discussions with top tournament players, but in the format of RTA (where there is no piercing defense, only the endgame).

Greater Liches: improved and weakened at the expert level (were at the advanced level).

Greater Liches are already better than Arch Liches. The Cloud doesn't really matter, but the improved attack is very useful.

Druids: alternate has 9 initiative (was 10).

I think it's balanced as is. Yellow Druids are taken early on, turned into a million stacks, and attack with lightning. Later, blue Druids with stronger ranged attacks become dominant. This change wouldn't change anything, except perhaps shift the "balance" of the upgrades.

Crystal Dragons: +Crystal Scale (immunity to abilities that kill exactly 1 creature).

It makes sense logically, but in terms of balance, Crystal Dragons are already much better than Emerald Dragons. Emerald Dragons only have the ability to be in the epicenter of a meteor shower, but this is rarely effective.

Hydra upgrade has 60-100 regeneration (was 30-50) - there is no certainty about this due to the attack bonus.

And rightly so, in my opinion... The upgraded Hydra is already the most durable creature of level 5 in every sense (although this is compensated by the fact that, on average, the durability of tier 5 creatures is not very high). The only thing that could be done here is to tie the Hydra's regeneration to the number of creatures in the stack, so that it would be more useful in the late game. Or buff the regeneration, but at the same time prohibit self-resurrection. Although this is unlikely to be feasible.

Adept: advanced Retribution (was expert).
Seraphim: expert Retribution (was advanced).

This, by the way, looks like a very useful change, because it was very strange before... Maybe it should be included in the minimum changes? At the same time, this will slightly balance Adepts (who are better than Incas) and Seraphim (who are worse than Archangels).

Cerberus: damage 5-7 (was 4-7).

By the way, the same applies here.

Pitfiends: upgrade has Fireball and Meteor at the advanced level (were at the basic level).

I think it's like with the Druids, everything is already quite good. The upgrade works effectively early on and in attack, the alternate becomes good later.

but in the format of a Random Town Adventure (where there is no attack bonus, only the final battle).

Ah, then the meaning of the changes is clear...
With the rest, I probably agree.