Unit Movement

[KGB]

I'm creating this topic for Max Warlorder since he asked about it in the Balancing for Beta 2 thread.

My preference is to break all units into one of the following categories:
A) Heavy infantry/Military types: (Heavy infantry, Dwarves, Pikemen, Siege units etc)
B) Light infantry/Militia types (Scouts, Light infantry, Archers, Orcs etc)
C) Large Creatures (Giants, Minotaurs, Unicorns, Elephants etc)
D) Cavalry (Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Wolf Riders etc)
E) Monsters (Spiders, Ghosts, Serpents, Devils, Demons, Elementals etc)
F) Fliers (Bats, Griffons, Pegasi, Dragons, Archons etc)

Then for each category define a movement range. In each category there can *possibly* be one exception to the category to define a unique unit (for example, scouts are the exception to the light infantry category so they can get a movement range outside normal range for that category. Wizards would be another exception to the Monster category). This makes adding new units easier to balance.

Warlords I had in general much slower movement rates than Warlords II. The result is that in Warlords II almost all combat tends to take place in cities. This makes the city bonus overwhelmingly valuable compared to all other bonus's. So I think Warlords I did a better job with movement rates than Warlords II because in a well balanced game there should about a 1-1 ratio of combat outside of cities and in cities.

Two KEY factors in selecting movement rates:
1) Boat movement rate

Boat movement in Warlords I & II was fixed at 20. This meant that the more you reduced other movement speeds the better/more valuable boats became because of their 20 movement rate and because water move only cost 1 pt like roads in the open water and 2 next to shore.

2) Vectoring

Vectoring dramatically reduces micromanagement/speeds up movement. So again, the more you reduce movement the better vectoring becomes.

What happened in your Warlords II scenario is that you can't edit boat speed nor can you 'turn off' vectoring. So as a result what happens is that the loss of a city often means the enemy can vector in armies faster than your own armies can walk from the nearest city to counter attack. That's very bad for balance. Despite your feelings on vectoring, it's here to stay and so has to be accounted for when designing movement rates.

My Preferences (based on playing Warlords I, II, III and IV):
Heavy Infantry Category:- 8-11 move
Light Infantry Category : 12-14 move
Large Creatures Category:- 14-18 move
Cavalry Category: 20-24 move
Monster Category: 12-18 move (biggest category of creatures to classify so needs a wide range)
Flier Category: 16-22 move

These rates let units move reasonably far relative to boat but at the same time not so far that they can jump from city to city without ever spending turns outside a city.

One last word on vectoring. In Warlords II it's 2 turns - any distance. Warlords III introduced timed vectoring. That means it's 2 turns minimum but can range as high as 5 turns based on the distance between the start and end city. This reduces the overpowering advantage of vectoring especially when you capture a city behind enemy lines where it takes 4-5 turns to get units. It would be a welcome addition to Warlords II (In Warlords III its a game option you select, 2 turn vectoring or timed vectoring).

KGB

[Max Warlorder]

If boats and vectoring were slower, would your rates change, or do you like those rates in relation to the map size as well?

I think vectoring should take much longer than it did in War3, because 1) the distance is usually much longer without vectoring because of slow and winding terrain, and 2) your units don't have the chance of being attacked while vectoring, so are getting there faster and guaranteed unharmed. The only risk is losing the units if the city gets taken before recieving the units, and cities are easier to defend than units in transit. In my opinion, vectoring should probably take an extra turn or two just for saving people from the hassle of controlling their own units.

[Max Warlorder]

I also consider flying to be so powerful that it is at least worth 1.5-2x normal movement, so I wouldn't like a 16 move minimum. It gives units the ability to easily hop away from danger, or fly on terrain where land can't attack it before swooping down to take a castle, and it also gives complete radial movement, instead of being constricted to more predictable land paths. It all makes opponents work so much harder to strategize against your units!!

This leads me to asking about your categorization. Does each category contain certain unit schemes, such as high str/low movement, and vice versa? I assume so, else you wouldn't categorize them. If flyers have tons of movement but automatic handicaps to counter that, it would make a lot more sense to me.

[Max Warlorder]

I just want to add that I agree with you that my unit movement scheme in Incarnations is impractical if playing with the War2 vectoring settings. I Don't want to sound like I do nothing but disagree! The disagreements are simply more interesting to me.

[KGB]

Max Warlorder,

Re: Movement Rates:
If I recall correctly, the map size in Warlords 2 is always the same. Or can you chose different map sizes with the editor? In Warlords 3, there are 6 different map sizes possible.

The answer is that map size does matter. I was assuming the standard Warlords 2 map size (which I believe is equal to the largest map size in Warlords 3). But it doesn't matter *that* much. What matters more is distance between cities. With well balanced movement and well designed maps, stacks should typically spend 1-2 turns of movement in the open when moving from a city to attack a nearby city (note in some cases you should spend no turns in the open and in some cases 3-4 turns but on average 1-2 turns) That provides the ability for battles to occur outside cities. Ideally 1/2 of all battles should take place outside cities. So the map size doesn't matter so much as the distance between cities. On a smaller map you'd simply have fewer cities.

What you definitely don't want to do is make movement so slow that a defender can see an incoming stack moving toward him and have time to build 4-5 1-turn units before the stack arrives. Because in that case it's too easy for the defender to simply produce defense as needed and shifts the game from attack oriented to defense oriented.

Re: Vectoring:
There is one other minor advantage to vectoring. You pay no upkeep costs while the unit is in transit.

Your points are valid but the big counter point is that vectoring simply speeds up the game. In other words the presence of vectoring makes cities way in the back lines still useful in the mid to late game. It also probably cuts the time down to complete a game by an order of 1/2. I happen to appreciate that fact because I am no longer in college/first job out of school with tons of free time to spend 10-12 hrs on finishing a single map in solo player mode (much less 20+ hrs for a 2-3 player game). I want a map to be finish able in 4-6 hours on average (solo mode) with the occasional marathon game running up to 10 hrs.

The timed vectoring in Warlords III actually does a much better job than you think of preventing vectoring abuse to cities taken behind enemy lines. Waiting 4-5 turns for a unit to arrive (plus at least 1+ more turns to produce it) gives the defender ample time to counter attack. That's all you can ask for. In Warlords 2, the max number of units that can be vectoring to a city is 4. If that proves too many it could be reduced to 3.

Re: Flight:
There is no doubt flight is one of the most powerful skills a unit has. It was by far the dominant skill in Warlords 2 and Warlords 3. It can be balanced out by making flying units expensive and giving long production times to flying units.

It also why the +3 skill vs fliers was added to archery units in Warlords 3 as part of a balancing game patch. That bonus meant that a defender could place a few archery units in a city to defend against flying incursions knowing that those 1 turn defenders would have a very good chance to kill the flying unit.

I also suggested flying units pay 2 MP for all terrain including roads/water as they did in Warlords I. This prevents a flier from benefiting from roads and allows slower land based units to use roads to catch or reinforce cities flying units threaten. This is a much bigger balancing feature than you think. With 2 MP on all terrain a 20 move flier can only go 10 squares a turn. Even the slowest Heavy Infantry types will move 10 squares on road.

If a scenario map has limited amounts of squares where fliers can 'hide' from land units then that won't be a big problem esp if such squares are kept far enough apart that fliers must spend some time on squares where land units can attack them.

The other important thing is to make sure that flying units don't get too many valuable skills. For example it's VERY important to make sure there is no flying siege skill. The Flying Demon in your scenario for example is the single best unit in the game. It should not be possible to get a -1 stack flying skill nor a cancel non-hero bonus flying skill nor a cancel terrain bonus flying skill etc.

Re: Categorizations:
My categories were not meant to contain any schemes such as high strength/low movement. The categories were meant to reflect what I considered to be 'realistic' movement rates. For example heavily armored men (chain/plate mail) are going to move slower than lightly armored (leather/none) men. Large creatures like Giants/Elephants etc by virtue of their longer legs/4 legs move faster than men. Cavalry types move furthest of all due to military training/conditioning. Flying units almost universally move faster than anything else but are handicapped by the fact they can't fly at night and that flying expends enormous amounts of energy requiring lots of food.

It's up the scenario/game designers to balance out the skills/strengths/build times/upkeep/production cost of the units in each category.

KGB