Fun with balancing.
I am of the opinion that the troll whelp should have his cost
increased to at least 14. Trolls are especially harsh against
dwarves, because few dwarves can pelt them with ranged attacks. This
would also have the side effect of making the Orcish grunt cheaper
than the troll whelp, which I think would really help - I'd rather
see hordes of orcs on the battlefield, than hordes of trolls. I
think of trolls as being somewhat less numerous than orcs, although
still great in number.
I don't think trolls are that good against dwarves. Dwarves hit hard
enough that they can take them down fairly quickly, and in all terrain
trolls are good in, Dwarves are better.
Except for forest, and the trolls have the same defense the dwarves do
in grassland.
The regeneration of the trolls _really_ has a strong effect. In
mountains, the dwarves might be hard to hit, but the trolls are only
slightly less so, and this allows them more time to regenerate.
They, I would say, are about equal in combat strength, unless the
dwarves can pin them down and hit them multiple times on the same turn
- something that is quite hard to do if the troll has backup
(especially of the orcish assassin variety).
Again, the key thing is that for every attack a dwarf gives, the troll
gets a shot at the dwarf - because the dwarves don't have ranged
attacks on their fighters.
And even if we up the cost of the troll to 14, the dwarf still costs
three more gold.
Elvish Pillager actually suggested raising the cost to 13, which might
work just as well.
Things to consider in comparing them to enemy troops.
a] They move somewhat slow by comparison.
b] They potentially do slightly more damage, but not a LOT more
damage - only 4 more than an elvish fighter, for example.
c] They have no ranged attack. They shouldn't get one, but this
really, really puts them at a disadvantage against a lot of units.
d] They only get 30% defense on grass and forest, not 40% like
everyone else.
My suggestion - switch the dwarven movetype to getting 40% defense on
grass. A subtle change, but one that should *really* have a
worthwhile effect.
I mean, even _orcs_ get 40% defense on grass, and orcs are much
cheaper than dwarves, move faster, have more hitpoints, etc.
But you forget,
e] They have better resistance than most others.
I think the better resistance more than makes up for the poor
grassland defense. I think that the grassland defense works well, and
if we did need to improve them there, we should do so by increasing
their resistance a little further. It's already pretty good though,
with 30% vs blades, 10% vs fire, and 20% vs all other attacks.
An Elvish Fighter will do an average of 4*4*0.7 = 11.2 damage against
a dwarf on grassland, but 5*4*0.6 = 12.0 damage against an elvish
fighter, spearman, or orcish grunt.
I don't think that the better resistance makes up for the slower
movement, lack of a ranged attack, HIGHER COST, and the fact that an
elf gets decent defense on mountains and such whilst dwarves do not get
good defense in forest.
It's the higher cost that really sticks it to them, and yet I would not
be overfond of the dwarven fighter going down in cost. I think the
very subtle, but potent increase in grassland defense should make them
stronger.
I mean, the whole goal, I think, should be that the dwarves are
significantly more powerful, but less numerous than other races (except
maybe drakes).
In a 3 vs. 3 fight between dwarvish fighters and orcish grunts, the
dwarves should win, hands down, For the price of the three dwarves
17*3=51, you can get four orcish grunts 12*4=48. Dwarves should always
be singly superior in strength to enemy orcs/trolls/humans/elves.
The better resistance might make them equal to the elvish fighter in
combat prowess, but that's not good enough - they should be
unmistakably, and clearly more powerful, because their opponents will
always outnumber them. Right now, they are about equal to their
opponents in power, but are much more expensive.
Keep in mind that the dwarves have no lawful bonus to help them, nor
do they get the advantage of leadership.
Well, lawful can spin either way, and in the case of dwarves I think
it'd actually be a disadvantage, since their slow movement means their
enemies can dictate the time when battle takes place a little more.
I wouldn't want lawful dwarves, but I was just noting the advantage
that can be had by faster races acting at the right time, something
dwarves cannot do.
However, leadership is *never* a disadvantage, and it is something the
dwarves do not have. (nor is it something they should have).
And these things work in concert against them. Charging horsemen
during the day led by even 1 level of leadership hurt.
Being peppered by arrows from human or elven bowmen during the day, led
by 1 level of leadership (TOD obviously doesn't help the elves, yes),
hurts even more, because unlike many other races, this is a free hit on
them - they cannot shoot back, and when they strike back with melee,
the enemy can hurt them significantly, even if they are only archers.
An enemy archer can deal up to 8 damage in melee (depending on the
unit, and given the dwarves defense in grassland, it is likely that
they will deal all eight damage. The dwarves might kill an archer or
two, but the enemy is faster, and they can run, get healed, and come
back, whilst the dwarves have to enter into a five-something turn
commitment in order to go to villages and get healed.
If the dwarves had healing, the situation would be entirely different,
since they could just keep moving, but healing is _yet_another_ thing
they do not have, nor should have.
They need clear, and uncontested dominance in straight-out fights,
because we have stripped them of absolutely every other advantage.
Even the orcs have three things they do not - superior movement,
poison, and inexpensive, but strong troops.
However, this leads to another topic: I think we should convert some
units to lawful or neutral on some factions. At the moment, most
important units on the Drakes, Knalgans, and Rebels are neutral. This
leads to lots of possibilities of games where time of day has no
meaning whatsoever, which takes away a major aspect of the game. I
think we need to swing some units to one side or the other. Possibly,
we should make some Drakes lawful, if for no other reason than that we
really don't have that many lawful units in the game at the moment.
I really don't care either way. :)
