is "fast" a bonus or malus ?

[F8 Binds...]

Of all my units I least prefer mages to be quick, because it makes them even easier to kill (especialy at higher lvls) and keeping your lvled mages alive is an important thing in campains.

The mage is vulnerable enough that even a strong resilient one is easy to be killed. Quick ones are just as easy to kill, or atleast not much easier.

[Sombra]

Hmm, I want to have fast units especially in the first recruit.... In MP I think its one of the most useful traits.

[Velensk]

I play the campains no save-reload, thus if 8ish hp (a rough estimate of strong resiliant mage vs quick intelegent mage) makes the diffrence between life and death of a mage, I'd rather have it to stop me from having to play the lvl over again. At higher levels the gap between those two trait sets expands even further.

I do like the quick trait though not on mages.

[Angry Andersen]

As someone mentioned before, traits are balanced for MP. In campaigns many things differ (gold available, lvl of units, ...) which makes some traits more preferable than others.

For instance, I don't like intelligent much in campaigns as most units will hit max level sooner or later anyway. I consider quick/intelligent the worst trait combination in many cases (in campaigns), but I don't think there is any point discussing this unless a solution is found that makes campaign balance better and preserves MP balance.

The -10%HP penalty costs more HPs for high-level units. Maybe there could be some sort of cut-off, e.g. never more than 5HP. This would pretty much leave things as they are for MP and make quick units more attractive in campaigns.

[energyman76c]

I love the quick trait.

Qick units are on the top of my recall list! 10% less hp? Screw that! It really does not matter when the enemy does not reach you because he is too slow.

Speed is a (the) key to victory! Quick horsemen can take out other horsemen while staying out of reach, quick elves are the kings of the forests, and quick dwarfs are able to keep up with the bulk of the army without slowing everybody down. Quick mages can get away from strong melee foes or bring critical support. Quick is one of the best traits you can get. Resilent? Only interessting for berserks or other throw-away units or maybe mages. Strong? hmhm, dextorous? funny but not really important. But quick? Wow! Quick+intelligent... that is the overkill!

Maybe not in multiplayer, but certainly in the campaigns - because the faster you are, the more gold you get...

[jonadab]

Of all my units I least prefer mages to be quick, because it makes them even easier to kill (especialy at higher lvls) and keeping your lvled mages alive is an important thing in campains.

Mages aren't good hitpoint sinks anyway, and they need so many XP to level up (especially the first time, before they really start to get good at killing things) that by the time you *have* high-level mages, you also already have a number of other high-level units, which are better defensively. So you don't put the mages on the front line.

I have been known to put a high-level mage on the front line occasionally, but it's risky if the enemy has anything with much of a melee attack, and aside from the risk it's typically a poor tactic anyway. Even a resillient strong great mage is still not really the best choice for holding a defensive line, if nothing else because letting him get hit with melee attacks is a waste of his considerable ranged attack and furthermore does practically no dammage to the attacking unit, especially compared to other high-level defenders. Even something with fewer hitpoints can be a better choice for this if it has a more balanced attack repertoire (e.g., Elvish Avenger).

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. If you're defending against something with a strong ranged and weak (or no) melee that's especially vulnerable to fire, for instance, then a mage might make a very nice defensive unit. But such circumstances are very much the exception, not the rule.

To me, having a mage that I can't use as a defensive dammage sink is a great deal better than having one I can't usefully take with me into practically any terrain but open grassland.

The trait I don't want on mages is strong, because it's pretty much totally wasted, since I hardly ever use their melee attack for anything, and when I do it's almost always because I specifically don't want to do very much dammage (e.g., I want something just a shave closer to dead so that my healer or whatever, which is attacking next, will be more likely to get the kill). Recruiting a strong mage is effectively tantamount to only getting one trait instead of two, as far as I'm concerned. (Again, there are rare exceptions, e.g., finishing off a Dark Adept that's just about dead already is something I might do with a mage's melee attack.)

[Sorrow]

Isars Cross

AUGH, I have no idea why people like to play on Isar's Cross.

I only play it because if I pick any other map it takes 8 years till someone joins it. Make Isars and its like BWEEOOP BWEEOOP you can start now!

[MDG]

I am curious to know what effect changing the quick trait to eliminate the -10% HP would have? (Beyond the obvious answer that it wouldn't result in -10% HP when you get this trait .)

It makes the trait more powerful clearly and therefore potentially makes all units that can get the trait more powerful. Since this is, I think, every unit in default era other than Wose and undead units it would presumably leave the undead faction unbalanced/underpowered. Not sure how significant the impact would be on the rebel faction (which includes the Wose units).

But, for the other five factions (i.e. not undead), would some benefit more than others? I appreciate balancing default era is a very intricate task. I'm more curious than anything else.

Also, will it have psychological implications? I.e. more likely that people will complain that the quick trait is too powerful relative to the other traits? (Or perhaps complain that the other traits aren't as powerful as the quick trait .)

[Weeksy]

It would mean that having the quick trait was so powerful that the game would become 2-3 times more luck based than it already is, because traits would affect the game so much. Quick makes 6 MP units into scouts, makes scouts able to outrun other scouts, makes slow units able to keep up with their 5 MP brethren, and so on... It needs a drawback, like it or not.

[F8 Binds...]

Quick cannot be a malus- even if all your opponents were strong resilient, you could take advantage of the lack of mobility and thus get the first strike... expose the flanks... etc. All of this is worth the -10% drop in hp. I guess that answers the question the topic originally imposed.

[Lorbi]

even if the +1MP is worth the -10%hp the trait should be a bonus.
if it is neutral all the other traits are better and that would be unfair

i really would love to see a game where a bunch of quick units wins over some with other traits.
all good player tell me that i can take huge advanteg of the +1MP but i cant see how.

[grrr]

I agree with Weeksy that the quick trait would be too powerful and too invasive for the overall game play if it only had the +1mp.
But i still HATE quick for one reason: quick/intel on fighter units! That can totally screw any 1on1 or 2on2 game. There is nothing to your advantage, q/i units will NOT survive if used for defense. Without units for defense, how would you stop the enemy? Oh yeah right - you outrun your enemy with your quick units, and they cannot attack you and such .... by that, you just hand your villages over to your enemy, but I am sure all you quick trait lovers have an awesome counter for the crippled economy a broken defense line leaves to you.

So my vote for a change would be: don't let melee units get the q/i trait combination, or at least reduce the chance for getting it.

That also means: q/s and q/r IS useful, just not q/i!

[Soliton]

There have been some trait related changes committed:
* changed the 'resilient' trait from +3HP +10% to +4HP + 1HP * unit level
* decreased the HP reduction of the 'quick' trait from 10% to 5%
* decreased the HP addition of the 'healthy' trait from +3HP to +2HP

It'd be nice if we could make quick into a purely positive trait but chances are that +1MP is just more powerful than we want a trait to be, so it might not change anymore than this (even this change might get reverted.. we'll see how it turns out).

[Velensk]

About those changes

I can realy see why you did that I remember a game I recently played with a healthy resiliant gaurdsman on a village that was practicaly impossible to kill in any reasonable time, but at the same time I liked the 10% for resiliant. It felt right that resiliant trolls got +8 (or was it 7?) while mages got a mere +5. I do like the change of quick to -5% because it helps close the gap between strong/resiliant and Quick/intelegent.

[Jetrel]

is "fast" a bonus or malus ?

Yes.