'Unbeatable Armies' and what to do about it?

[paulb84]

It took about a day for the new diplomat ability to be 'broken', with multiple diplomats, warrior and sergeant. Invincible against the AI and near invincible against human opponents if they don't know it's coming.
While individual units may be strong or weak, it's global abilities that really shake things up. Aegis and Armistice are examples of this.

Now, in the tower-thread there were suggestions of tournament play, which I think would be a great addition. What medieval game wouldn't want to have a glorious joust?!

But besides new game modes, what could be done about combo armies? Perhaps there can be a restriction of the number of units, preferably trough cost tweaks. Or the abilities themselves can be changed. Or is the nature of the game that there will be nigh invincible armies for a time, until the next unit shows up to crack it?

Sure, like the geo army, the diplomat/warrior army can be beaten. With a mirror army and playing better, or with martyrs or some other unit. But armies are getting faster all the time: diplomat/warrior is a turn 4 or 5 kill. This further increases a problem of playing constructed: you need to know what you're up against to combat it. Multiple games with a 'sideboard' may change this, but I don't think we'd want the game to be a copy of Magic.

Please feel free to give your view on this matter.

[paulb84]

Playing vs mongolian I had an idea that could solve the particular diplomat combo.

Make armistice possible once a game per player, no matter how many diplomats you have and also not if you redeploy.

[mongolian]

I've been trying to address this in another thread, that I completely loathe 'combo' units.  Zatikon will fail when combo units make up the brut force of coop, constructed & 2v2 armies.  For the first few years, there was almost no rock-paper-scissor's effect to making armies.  A witch was just as good as a warlock.

What needs to be done is a very careful consideration towards adding new concept ideas to the game.  The diplomat's complete immunity to a piece for a 1 turn thing needs is atoo strong a combo piece.  Removing it's complete immunity for 1 turn and changing it to "immune to all affects" is what is needed.  In no way should it not stop pieces from attacking it via normal attacks.

[mongolian]

Other options for diplomat:  Give all pieces for 1 turn or all turns the "shield-bearer" ability.  2nd is making all units inorganic, 3rd is any combo within with no or all turn limitations.

[zatikon]

I've got a fix in my development version. Armistice is going to prevent you from capturing the enemy castle for that turn, and the turn after.

[paulb84]

Re: unique abilities vs just plain fighting

I agree with mongolian that it's better to stick to the big army vs big army idea,  rather than having too many powerful unique abilities that change the dynamics of play so much.

However, aside from the once-a-game limitation that I suggested, I'd also note that there is nothing inherently wrong with highly powerful units similar to dracolich or hydra, as long as they are costed appropriately. So either make diplomat weak or make it cost 400 gold or so.


Re: fix

That would help out, except that you can still demolish their army and wait a turn.

[mongolian]

What you are proposing is basically, make units expensive and not playable or vamp them a bit so they are still going to be too powerful.  The route of all problem never comes from 1 specific unit, it comes from a combination of pieces exploiting other pieces:

3-4 diplomat
1 warrior
1 serg
--------------------
I really like the idea of a piece being neutral, but the ability to move up and be 100% immune to everything like the spirit was a bad idea.  Enough people complained about the spirit before, no need to create a similiar one.

[Kran]

hey, the diplomat armistice is good. i like it. The problem comes when you can attack, armistice, enemy run, you move, attack, armistice...

[mongolian]

i love the concept of an armistice, that being said, it's 100% broken right now (the part where all your units can move without attacking)