Undead's are unplayable agains dwarfs!

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Noy
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Post by Noy »

Personally I don't think the Dwarves are any more powerful than the undead. I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'll be arguing for why the dwarves are underpowered because it has crap defence on plains. For the umpteenth time, the Undead are the most difficult faction to play, but the most diverse.

Adding 10 HP to the ghoul- Its pretty balanced as it is vs every faction. It is possible to kill it with two fighters, but with any luck both of them would be poisioned (16 damage dealt total) plus a minimum of 3 damage each for a single hit (6 damage) so its done at very least 22 damage. Without another nearby village that goes up to 30 HP because a second turn of poision comes into effect. So I completely disagree with this point, and giving it more health would just unbalance it completely.

Secondly, I think using the undead to fight dwarves in the mountain, is just setting yourself up for a loss. Its akin to fighting elvish archers in the forest with drakes. Its like the most basic rule of strategy not to attack your opponents on their home territory. The undead lose their mobility in the hills and mountains and the dwarves increase theirs. It enables the Dwarves to maneuver their forces to create unequal match ups (DAs to Ulfs, Fighters to Skel Archers ect). I'd even be hesitant to attack dwarves on hills because they still are effective for these very same reasons. Lure them out and attack with your own unequal match ups on terrain they are most vulnerable on.

Also the most important lesson is to not attack with the Undead at day. Its almost a recipe for failure.
I suspect having one foot in the past is the best way to understand the present.

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Noy
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Post by Noy »

turin wrote:At one point I did advocate an all-dwarf faction, but I've changed my mind. I think it's a bad idea. Racially pure factions, in general, are boring. This is why I tend not to play classic. Although I do think the outlaw-dwarf alliance is nonsense, they would be better off allied with viking-humans than on their own...
Of all the suggestions I agree with this one the most. Personally I like the unit balance of the faction, and don't really mind that its "outlaws and Knalgans." But outlaws are very similar in concept to viking raiders, so this style change could occur without much alteration to the multiplayer balance of the faction.
I suspect having one foot in the past is the best way to understand the present.

Don Hewitt.
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

:arrow:
Last edited by Doc Paterson on September 27th, 2005, 9:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Dragonking
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Post by Dragonking »

I think that Knalgans have great set of units to deal with Undeads. Dwarwish fighter have great resistances and can deal great damage - really hard to kill on hills/mountains (and no - it ISN'T slow unit - it can pass mountains 3x times faster than any other unit, and hills/forest 2x times faster than most).
Also thug is very good anti-undead unit, which fights in forest - place where fighter would lose against undeads. Not talking about ulf <-> adept relationship ;-) which is usually deadly.
I think no other faction has such good set of anti-undead units. Northeners got trolls, and archers, though those are only 2-strikes units (and of course goblin pillager - but you have to get it first) Grunt can help too (but it's still blade).
Rebels have really slow wose, which can deal a lot of damage, and mage - faster but vunerable to meele attacks. Fighter can be some kind of good unit too (smmilar role to grunt).
Drakes got their very high mobility, burners against skeletons (great damage) which compleatly supplement their lack of impact (though lvl 2 enfoncer got 12-3 mace (!!) ). Of course main enemy are adepts in that case, but saurians, fighters and clashers can deal with them. Mobility allows drakes to chose when and where they want to fight.
Loyalists got their HI - slow but powerful (still weak to cold) and mage. Also Horsmean can rip apart adept from time to time. Cavalery got quite good resistances (even to cold), and fencer is quick near-to-death adept killer with elusivefoot. Lack of mobility compensates so many advantages.

Ok, conclusion.
Dvarves got ulf - most powerful adpet killer in game (more powerful dhan horsmen, cause there is no possibility of living adept after "meeting" with ulf). They got something what most other factions lacks - chaotic unit with _great_ impact attack for only 13g (cheaper than skeleton). Also for 16g they got fighter with 2 powerful strikes and for 19g we got adept-doom machine which can rip apart other units too (ghoul/ghost if needed).
Look on other factions undead-killers: troll - 13g, orc archer - 14 (both only 2 attacks), HI 19g, wose - 20g (both slow), horseman - 23 (pierce so only adept-attacker), burner 21g.
So main problem isn't that' that knalgans are much better prepared for fight agaisnt undead (still IMO they are prepared little better), but fact that they undead-killes cost less than in other faction.

Unfortunatly, we are not able to make big changes right now. But I changed fighter hammer attack from 9-2 to 8-2 - it's better than anything I think.
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

Dragonking wrote:ISo main problem isn't that' that knalgans are much better prepared for fight agaisnt undead (still IMO they are prepared little better), but fact that they undead-killes cost less than in other faction.

Unfortunatly, we are not able to make big changes right now. But I changed fighter hammer attack from 9-2 to 8-2 - it's better than anything I think.
Very well said; I completely agree that the main issue is the quantity of anti-undead units that Knalgans are able to buy. It's really a difficult problem, trying to balance this particular matchup without making the Knalgans weak against other factions.

Suppose the Thug was actually given a weakness to cold..... :o

It wouldn't weaken it much against other factions, and would make some sort of logical sense (they're wearing a thin-cloth-like garment and would be particularly poorly protected against an icy blast). Okay, maybe the rationale is a little bit silly, but it might help things a bit.

:?


At any rate, the hammer reduction is a very good start; great job, DK.
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Zilo
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Post by Zilo »

The reason why I started this forum topic was that undeads are extremy difficult race to play and i never suceeded against dwarfs with it (only with extreme newbees:)). Moreover , nobody couldnt give me a good proof that undeads are such powerful that dwars in 1v1 ...
Noy wrote:Personally I don't think the Dwarves are any more powerful than the undead. I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'll be arguing for why the dwarves are underpowered because it has crap defence on plains. For the umpteenth time, the Undead are the most difficult faction to play, but the most diverse.
Point is that if you want me to believe that they are equal, please attach a replay in which undead won against it or they played equall match:)...
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Academicus
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Post by Academicus »

few people can play well with undead
telly
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Post by telly »

I don't think theres any faction 1v1 matchup where one side doesn't have some sort of significant advantage and a lot as well tends to depend on the map and first turns etc, etc. Undead vs Knalgans, knalgans definately have the upperhand for me, but then undead are somewhat better against rebels, northerners and loyalists from my pov and Knalgans are only only the better choice vs drakes. So in that way neither side really has that much advantage. Ghouls I think with +10hp would be really evil.
I'd rather have skeletons improved or made cheaper. Directly comparing their raw stats they look ok but they don't get traits and so like even if you take away its hammer attack completely a strong resiliant dwarf fighter will easily win in straight fights.
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Doc Paterson
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Post by Doc Paterson »

:arrow:
Last edited by Doc Paterson on September 27th, 2005, 9:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Neoriceisgood
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Post by Neoriceisgood »

Do I hear the need for a new undead melee dwarf killing unit!
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Post by Cuyo Quiz »

I just heard Knalga needs more taxes on foreigners, maybe some restrictions on weaponry and their prices in their Customs department.

However, i remember hearing the yearning for a pierce undead cavalry and some Daeth Knights at a price of 3 gold per turn.
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WildPenguin
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Post by WildPenguin »

telly wrote:I'd rather have skeletons improved or made cheaper.
Could more people submit replays. Since, from what I can gather from the many posts that have complained primarily about Fighter/Thug impact damage, and from the above quote, I believe that the root of the problems against the Dwaves is too many Skeletons and/or Walking Corpses are being used (you wouldn't use too many of these against Drakes because you'd lose an advantage, and you really shouldn't use too many against KA either). Not only do the Knaglan Alliance have a quite strong Fighter available for recruit which does impressive impact damage, they also have 2 cheaper Outlaws which do only impact damage. With the Footpad more then capable of dealing sufficient damage against Skeletons, Skeleton Archers and WC's while being fast enough to efficiently capture villages. While the Thug is quite strong against Skeletons, again because of its impact damage and the fact that they are one of the Knalgan's cheapest units at only 13g.

Therefore, all Skeletons and WC's have a moderate weakness to impact and should never make up the bulk of the army when fighting Dwarves. Even though Ghouls will poison all KA units, they are too weak to make the majority of an Undead force. Ghosts are both costly and have weak attack, which is further deduced when attacking Dwarves due to cold resistance. Vampire Bats are extremly fragile until they level, and obviously far too expensive to be used primarily to attack. Leaving only Adepts, which are equal in cost to a Dwarf Fighter, and similar damage, also they are the only Undead unit capable of getting traits to strengthen it. Although the dwaves have resistance to cold, it could also be noted they have similar resistance to every other damage type. Adept magical damage is also very good at killing Outlaws, which rely primarily on above average defense. Using adepts also reduces the Dwaves advantage in the mountains, as movement should only be an issue when attacking or aquiring more defensive terrain, as very few 1v1 maps contain a large area of mountains which must be travelled across, and instead hills and mountains are often spread across the map, allowing Adepts to retreat to a village if the need arises. And, due to magical damage, if both units an Adept and Fighter battled in good defensive terrian(which you should be using anyway) I'd expect the Adept to win every time, then all that is needed is to have a skeleton or two in the 2nd line for those nasty Ulf's. :wink:
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Post by Tippsey »

Ok having read through the many posts for this thread and seeing Noy's stubbornes once again. We can solve all of this very easily. Since undead are complained about the most and called the most difficult race to play which in most games means weakest why don't we all just prove it once and for all and merely post replays of undeads vs the various factions. Now no facing the AI as it's been proven the AI can be dumber then a sack of hammers that were then thrown into the ocean. So people to prove your points, as good points were brought up, FIND REPLAYS! MANY MANY REPLAYS. SO once and for all the great and giant undead suck threads can end one way or another!
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telly
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Post by telly »

I just meant I think skeletons could be improved in general somehow, obviously not specifically as a fix to balance undead and knalgans.
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Post by Shadowdweller »

WildPenguin wrote: And, due to magical damage, if both units an Adept and Fighter battled in good defensive terrian(which you should be using anyway) I'd expect the Adept to win every time, then all that is needed is to have a skeleton or two in the 2nd line for those nasty Ulf's. :wink:
And you'd be wrong. Do the math:

Assuming mountains (which is foolish...lower movement costs for dwarves...and they don't even NEED defense against adepts). We'll also assume no hp mods (which should affect both evenly) and dusk/dawn to be fair.

Adepts: 28 HP / (21 possible damage * .4 chance to hit * (1.0 - 0.0 resistance)) = 3.33 average attacks to kill

Dwarvish Fighter: 38 hp / (20 possible damage * .7 chance to hit * (1.0 - .2 resistance)) = 3.39 average attacks to kill

Any time you attack with that adept, unless you somehow manage to kill the enemy (and you need a significant numerical advantage to ensure this against the fighters) you leave that adept open to instakill via 'zerkers.

LISTEN to Doc Paterson. He knows exactly what he's talking about.
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