Trample balance discussion

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Kristoffer O

Hinnom will likely be nerfed with next patch.
- Chariot nerf (possibly size, possibly something else that might affect other tramplers as well)

Poor Kristoffer, he mentions something offhand and a discussion explodes into being. Because the other thread is about Hinnom, I hope to take the discussion here.

I hope I didn't miss anything major.

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Nerfing tramplers in general would be great, in my opinion. Elephants have always been a bit crazy.

Originally Posted by Psycho

I feel that nerfing elephants would nerf nations which are weak as it is like Caelum or Arco

Originally Posted by Xietor

What would la arcos do without elephants? my god(: No national summons. In kingmaker i am being raided by angels(la marignon), and Bandar Log's national summons. Take away elephants then make those sirrush cost water gems or something besides s gems, or give them some anti thug ability(an affliction causing attack, arm loss or something).

Originally Posted by Sombre

I'd quite like to see def stat (not including parry from shield) have more of an impact on trampling. That way tramplers would be a bit worse and light infantry with virtually no armour, plus light cavlary, would be a lot better.

Originally Posted by DonCorazon

I'd prefer to see tramplers not get nerfed. They give some otherwise weak early game nations a nice boost. And they always have the risk of trampling their own troops and have some significant morale issues that can be exploited.

Originally Posted by Ironhawk

What has always balanced trampling units is the fact that when they rout, they kill your own men, instead of the enemy. Thats the key.

But the way things are right now, tramplers generally have too high hp and prot to be really risky to use in combat. Particularly if you balance thier morale by adding some slow, good morale troops to thier squad. If we just nerf thier prot and hp stats somewhat and make them vulnerable (not totally helpless, mind you!) to the relatively moderate attacks of a mundane army, then you will take tramplers back from being a no-brainer to a really interesting and risky decision.

Originally Posted by Meglobob

Chariot nerf - Just increase resources to decrease early numbers. They are easily dealt with later.


General trampler nerf - Please don't. It will effect alot of nations, all Caelum/Arco/Monkey nations and weaken them considerably. Elephants/Mammoths are very good as a alternative strategy to a bless and allow nice scales. After turn 20'ish elephants/mammoths are fairly useless, indeed they are expansive to maintain, so should be killed off, perhaps keep a small force to distract the enemy perhaps.

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

On the question of Tramplers, I always beleived the best way to "nerf" them would be force repel checks on sufficiently long weapons (say 12 length of weapons in the square). They'd still be fine for expansion, but would give players a non-magic option for countering them with out lots of mages.

Personally, I'd like to see some way for e.g. MA Ulm to use either units or summons to have a chance against an elephant horde. Using Bonds of Fire or other spells is fine as such, but it'd be nice to have an alternate option.

Some kind of repel mechanic might work, but it shouldn't be too powerful. Perhaps ability to deal 1 point of damage to the trampler if the trample is repelled?

Another way to nerf trample would be to change all recruitable tramplers to size 5. This would lower the damage they deal and allow Drakes and other size 5 summons to stop them.

Third change I once thought was a good idea would be to make trampling big units slow take more action points than trampling small ones. It would be nice if few size 5 Fire Drakes or whatever among your infantry would slow the elephants considerably.

[Sombre]

Drakes are size 5? Wow. That's crazy.

How big a drake knights for Agartha?

[HoneyBadger]

I like elephants being size 6. I don't see drakes being so big that they can't be trampled. The average size of an Indian elephant is 10 feet tall, 18 feet long, weighing maybe 15,000lbs. That's roughly the same mass as an average Tyrannosaurus Rex.

From their pictures and their ability to dish out damage, I'd give a very rough, uneducated, high estimate of average earth drake size at 6 feet at the shoulder, 21 feet long, 2000 lbs tops-and that's still gigantic for a predator, especially one that lives entirely on land (tigers rarely get to be 700lbs, and even the largest crocodiles don't get over 3000lbs).

If it were up to me, sizes in the game would run from 1-12, and they'd be graduated, because there's not enough differentiation between sizes in the game, with only 6 incremental designations-30 enormous (400lb) human professional linebackers wouldn't have the same mass as a single healthy adult elephant, and they're still size 2, compared to size 6. And there are creatures in the game that are certainly larger than elephants-Dagon for instance, and the Sphinx.

The easiest solution to elephant rushes would be to provide a generic, 0 level Construction summon that simply placed a stationary, immobile, size 6 unit on the battlefield. It would cost maybe 1 Earth gem a piece, and be summoned individually, and you'd need several to stop elephant rushes. You couldn't move them around, and they'd be vulnerable to fire, but they'd stop elephants for a long time, until the elephants pulled them apart with their trunks, or your other units got to them. The balance would be nice, since they'd be non-teleport, so you'd have to spend a minimum of 6-15 Earth gems a Province, each Province, and all that mage time, just to protect against Elephants.

[Endoperez]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Drakes are size 5? Wow. That's crazy.

How big a drake knights for Agartha?

I could be wrong. I remember testing size 5 elephants against size 5 drakes, but perhaps I modded both (instead of just the elephants).

[Rytek]

Make Javelines do X3 damage to Elephants.
I just read an interesting history where Ceaser extenively trained his 3rd legion to deal with elephants by using Javelins. he placed the 3rd legion on both flanks of his army where normally elephants would line up against him. Sure enough the 3rd legion routed the 80 african elephants arrayed on the flanks using their Javelins.No magic needed.

[HoneyBadger]

That's training, it's not a magical property that all javelins (or javelineers) have, so it's circumstantial-for that matter, elephant plate barding exists, and 80 plate-barded elephants would certainly have shrugged off most of Caesar's iron javelins.

[Zeldor]

Sombre:

Size 4 only.

Endoperez:

The real problem with tramplers is that you usually need a lot of mage power to stop them. And killing them is even harder. And nations that have tramplers available usually can make the use of research lead they can gain, when enemy uses mages to stop elephants. And they can also use their mages to make that tramplers even more powerful [ethereality, beat that!] to boost tramplers in many ways.

[Gandalf Parker]

For some reason I seem to find that slingers do well against elephants. Maybe its a wrong impression but I still fall back to it whenever Im faced with elephants. Or maybe its just because I can put alot of shots in the air cheaply with some chance to do damage and cause a rout.

[archaeolept]

i've seen many elephants. they would have difficulty trampling even a small riding drake

probably shouldn't be size 6

[Zeldor]

There are way too many size6 creatures. Elephants, Golems, Dragons, Juggernauts, they should have some size difference.