The "Mono Stacking" Problem

[KDubya]

With the current game the go to move appears to be massing Stormbringers with lots of enchantments and synergistic transformations and support spells. If there were no enchantments or a limit of 3 or only one damage type you'd have mass Stormbringers anyway ....

Tier 4 skirmishers have enough hp and defense/resistance to tank the hits while dishing out massive damage. What suggestion has come up in 50+ pages that will change that? If you make ranged units really squishy you probably end up with a new doom stack of massed Warbreeds and we'll all be discussing them ...

At the end of the day AOW4 is not Starcraft.

 

[Jolly Joker]

@ GloatingSwine
I don't think it would change anything. No matter how many enchantments you have, the unit quality makes a difference (and with limited enchantments the basic unit actually becomes more important, so the mythical ones get relatively better - but those come fairly late.

But the problem is this, if you go Stormbringer, it's the 7th Tome at the earliest (you need 6 points in Astral/Nature). Where will you take the unit that makes your Stormbringers BETTER? Again - no matter the enchantments. It's the other way round. If you happen to have units already (you will), you'll replace them with Stormbringers, to the point when you will have ONLY them for the important stuff.
Any unit making those stacks better could come only from a later tome, really. In Cody's example on page 41 he has 6 points in Dark, 5 in Astral, 2 in Nature, 3 in Order, 1 in Materium and 0 in Chaos. He can pick now Stormborne - he has 7 combined Astral/Nature points - bringing his total to 6 points in Astral and 3 in Nature. He can now build Stormbringers. Which options - no matter of the number of enchantments allowed - does he have to pick a Tome with a unit that would make his all-Stormbringer/Hero stacks better? These units he CAN come by AFTER picking Stormborne (and some of those he could have picked before that).
1) Phase Beast (Shock)
2) Druid of the Cycle (Support)
3) Living Fog (Mythic)
4) Reaper (Mythic)
5) Tyrant Knight (Shock)
6) Umbral Mistress (Mythic)
7) Severing Golem (Mythic)
8) Prosperity Dragon (Mythic)
9) Calamity Dragon (Mythic)
Plus T3s, of course, of which it would be questionable why T3s even SHOULD make stacks of T4 Skirmishers better. So you have 6 Mythics, that you have to Summon, PLUS, you need to get to that tome first, which means your # of production places doesn't matter - it takes a lot of time to bring them. The Support unit could be used, but obviously not in quantity. Give it one per stack - it would mean, you could bring one Stormbringer back with 70% (per Support), I doubt this would be bad (I suppose the key point here is what brings the CYcle Tome to the table apart from that), leaving the two Shock units (which could even be researched BEFORE Stormbringers, since they are in T3 Tomes). However, Phase Beast is a Summons as well. Tyrant Knight could be produced (and before Stormbringer).

So, with one damage enchantment on everyone - why would you bother to MIX more than with unlimited? It would still mean, that you could boost both attacks of Skirmishers, It would still mean, that it would take some time to summon the Mythics (you'd still be a lot faster producing troops in your 5 towns). In contrast, you could have T3s way earlier. The only question with T3 armies is, whether they will be strong enough and deployed fast enough to do the job or whether opponents use the time to deploy a better army. But that question is true for all cases.

 

[Balthazar69]

Limit the enchantment to 3 is a bad idea. The time you make to x2 skirmirsher there is time consumption + the cost of upkeep, and this is always an added time. And finally you can't attack both melee and ranged is the same turn. So polyvalent yes, but three quarters of the time I delay melee upgrades because I find it not very useful on most skirmirshers. We speak of what ? about 80 % of ranged enchantments + artisan armament and flameburst.
Ok globally the critical aspect, what already have melee. But frankly, we all know that the problem is more that ranged don't have theses bonus, than other reason.

Stormbringer himself is perhaps the problem, but frankly, endgame, it is this kind of T4 who is expected. Perhaps, all others T4 that are not crazy ? For an imperium cost, this is the minimum...

 

[Jolly Joker]

You miss something about Skirmishers and melee: EVERY Skirmisher (the culture ones as well) have Slippery and Swift. Can't be slowed, don't suffer opportunity attacks. Meaning: Go in flanking, full melee OR ranged. If melee (or adjacent to enemy) EITHER go full melee or pull back without taking opportunity damage and deliver parting shot.
If you've played AoW 3 - imagine a Rogue with 80 HPs, a melee attack of 18, a single shot of 24 that works like a slightly shortened Cannon, defense of 13 and Resistance of 12. Plus 36 MP.
You want that unit.

 

[Balthazar69]

I play ranged / skirmishers all the day. I know that is strong. Without doubt the most polyvalent class of the game. But 3 enchantments will stunt the choice and skirmishers are not that good to change the game at this point, for only displace the problem, like said before. Plus, you must research more tomes for accomplish this result, so a false problem to me.

 

[seperamos]

How about a 10 enchant limit? Combos can be 6 offense, 4 defense. Or 5 offense, 5 defense. Or, 3 offense, 3 defense, 4 utilities or support.

A 10 enchant cap, soft or hard, offers more options. Of course, I'd prefer we didn't have any caps at all but rather a risk of "astral spawn" of units if too many enchants or transformations are used.

 

[Codyksp]

With the current game the go to move appears to be massing Stormbringers with lots of enchantments and synergistic transformations and support spells. If there were no enchantments or a limit of 3 or only one damage type you'd have mass Stormbringers anyway ....

Tier 4 skirmishers have enough hp and defense/resistance to tank the hits while dishing out massive damage. What suggestion has come up in 50+ pages that will change that? If you make ranged units really squishy you probably end up with a new doom stack of massed Warbreeds and we'll all be discussing them ...

At the end of the day AOW4 is not Starcraft.

You are very much missing the point. There are multiple changes required to make it all function.

Unit counters need to be made strong enough to actually be worth chasing and bringing the unit.
They should probably be capable of taking on a unit with 3 enchantments on equal footing.

Mythic units will need to be unstackable, otherwise they'll be the new mono stack in every single match.

You bring 15 Warbreeds. I bring 15 Templars. Now you swap 5 Warbreeds for 5 Ranged, I swap 5 Templars for 5 Shield.
You swap 5 more Warbreeds for Battle Mages. I swap 3 more Templars for Support. Do you see where I am going here?

But the above strategy doesn't work because counters don't work and unit availability is extremely limited.
On top of this, you can stack enchantments/transformations to overcome these weaknesses and win regardless.

So, with one damage enchantment on everyone - why would you bother to MIX more than with unlimited? It would still mean, that you could boost both attacks of Skirmishers, It would still mean, that it would take some time to summon the Mythics (you'd still be a lot faster producing troops in your 5 towns). In contrast, you could have T3s way earlier. The only question with T3 armies is, whether they will be strong enough and deployed fast enough to do the job or whether opponents use the time to deploy a better army. But that question is true for all cases.

With only one damage enchantment the defensive capabilities of the Prosperity Dragon go up by 200%.
With only one damage enchantment Druid of the Cycle's one-shot and resurrect become way more appealing.

Because you won't be able to just power through everything by overloading on damage enchantments.

How about a 10 enchant limit? Combos can be 6 offense, 4 defense. Or 5 offense, 5 defense. Or, 3 offense, 3 defense, 4 utilities or support.

A 10 enchant cap, soft or hard, offers more options. Of course, I'd prefer we didn't have any caps at all but rather a risk of "astral spawn" of units if too many enchants or transformations are used.

10? You just changed absolutely nothing. Enchantments come at 1-2 per tome, you pick up to 9 tomes over a game (if you reach T5).
Most units are able to obtain around 6 enchantments, only Skirmishers can obtain more. The limit needs to be way lower.

 

[Balthazar69]

I think that goes in the wrong side. Originally, the first thing that was fun, it was to retrieve shadow magic feel, with the freedom to pick a fucktone of enchatments, without limit, except imagination and combinations.
Age of Wonders 4 was selling on this promise. The game worked for this reason too. I think the double queue (Production, Draft) was also the brilliant idea of the game.
Recently, a lot of nerf were against the idea of liberty of choice. Often when we try to correct a small problem like that, we create a bigger one. It's difficult to negotiate.
Taking tomes should remain tasty, even after the third or sixth (= the limit that you want). You should enjoy EVERYTHING in it, even mid-end game.

 

[Kitschy]

Emmmm ... how can you enjoy everything that you got when it pushes you to escalate in to specific tier and type, that sounds like the opposite of "everything".

 

[Jolly Joker]

With only one damage enchantment the defensive capabilities of the Prosperity Dragon go up by 200%.

Who cares whether OINE unit is positively affected? Prosperity Dragon is Summon, by the way. You summon a few or you don't. Has nothing to do with production.

With only one damage enchantment Druid of the Cycle's one-shot and resurrect become way more appealing.

Nah, nonsense. Tome of Cycles is T3, so it can be researched as early as T5 - but not with the tome sequence in your example. You'd need 3 Nature earlier, so a different approach would be necessary.
A T4 support should be useful, no matter the wmount of enchantments.

 

[Codyksp]

Who cares whether OINE unit is positively affected? Prosperity Dragon is Summon, by the way. You summon a few or you don't. Has nothing to do with production.

Who said this was all exclusively about drafted units? Summons are just as relevant for the discussion.

Nah, nonsense. Tome of Cycles is T3, so it can be researched as early as T5 - but not with the tome sequence in your example. You'd need 3 Nature earlier, so a different approach would be necessary.

The example you took, from page 41 is built around the current state of the game. It is geared for stacking enchantments and researching.
The build would change if limits were introduced. I don't know why I have to explain this, it should be fairly obvious as a result.

I would adapt all of my builds to not go beyond the limit and pick up extra units or specific spells as far as general planning goes.
And during the actual game I would pivot into another tome if I needed a specific counter enchantment to beat my opponent.
Right now these kinds of dynamic choices don't exist because you can just stack everything without any engaging gameplay at all.

A T4 support should be useful, no matter the wmount of enchantments.

Well, as it turns out, an instant death ability that is based on missing HP is weaker than actual death by stacking damage enchantments.

 

[seperamos]

If balance is the focus of the game now, and it seems like it is with the restrictive hero rework recently implemented, then you need a certain number of enchantments that affect a certain number of battle roles, of which hero classes are included.

To decrease skirmisher/rogue enchantment stacking, simply divide enchants into categories of melee, ranged, seige, support, mage, shock, and skirmisher, for an example. Melee and ranged enchants can apply to ONLY melee and ranged units, while skirmishers would recieve their own stack of enchantments that vary by culture or tome paths picked.

There is more variety of enchantments and gameplay with players allowed 11 enchants to enhance their units as opposed to 3. These numbers can vary as the community wants, but as a member of said community and earnest advocate of strategy and choices taking precedence over established RPG class/unit/quest limitations, these are solutions that allow for fairer and more balanced gameplay using more tomepaths.

Wargamers and players interested in military conquest of their realms want the freedom to add units to their culture that support their strategies. Scouts should receive enchants or upgrades to be a base and effective light cavalry unit to complement a strategy based on cavalry, especially for t1-t2 stacks. Cavalry units should always start from t2 unless the culture is a nomadic/cavalry focused culture with a rare but weak t1 cavalry unit. Perhaps specific form traits can include this t1 cavalry unit for any culture that goes for a cavalry focused strategy.

I use cavalry as an example of a type of unit that wargamers build strategies around. Ideally they would be the counter, at least in melee zone, to ranged, mages, support, and lightly armed t1s. Then you have seige units and seige unit strategies that maximize combat at a distance and city destruction. They can be countered by any unit on contact, but have unique abilities and dramatically reduce seige turns. These are a few examples of gameplay enhanced by counter and battle role focused strategies that offer more variety than simple warbreed and knight monostacks we have now.

This game can do better, and the tools are there to make it the best game paradox has aside from Stellaris.

 

[Thiend]

Who said this was all exclusively about drafted units? Summons are just as relevant for the discussion.


The example you took, from page 41 is built around the current state of the game. It is geared for stacking enchantments and researching.
The build would change if limits were introduced. I don't know why I have to explain this, it should be fairly obvious as a result.

I would adapt all of my builds to not go beyond the limit and pick up extra units or specific spells as far as general planning goes.
And during the actual game I would pivot into another tome if I needed a specific counter enchantment to beat my opponent.
Right now these kinds of dynamic choices don't exist because you can just stack everything without any engaging gameplay at all.


Well, as it turns out, an instant death ability that is based on missing HP is weaker than actual death by stacking damage enchantments.

How someone thinks the problem should be addressed is open to some discussion, but the problem is very simply that death is the strongest CC.

Got a disrupt? Cool, but if the unit was dead it would do less damage than without enchantments, so stacking more damage is more effective.

Got stuns/blinds/etc? Same problem. It would do less damage over an even longer period if you incapacitated it by killing it.

It becomes solely a battle of survival vs damage output, which basically has three possible states.
1. Durability is so high damage output can't kill units before dying themselves, so you can only compete with different durable units
2. Durability and damage are about even, which has exactly the same effect over time as just removing ALL buffs to either (I am not saying this is a good idea, I'm saying this is the best case scenario among three awful options)
3. Damage is so high that more durable units still die immediately, so you can only compete with other output units (we are here)

Instant death is another example of this, because using a unit's turn on possible instant death is only valuable if damage isn't high enough to cause instant death with regular attacks... which it is.

I suspect this is outside the scope of a rework at this point, although I'd be delighted to be wrong, but the only way to fix the core problem (stacking damage vs stacking durability is either pointless or has a clear winner and the other is nonviable) is to remove simple stat buffs from both enchantments and transformations. No unconditional damage, defense or resistance buffs, only more interesting or situational effects, and the problem is gone. I'd still favor an enchantment cap (and a transformation cap), but all it actually needs is this and the problem we're actually talking about is gone, even if I think unlimited stacking of both is bad separate to it.

 

[Mourioche]

I think that to reduce the ‘problem’ of monostacking, we should not, as the author suggests, artificially reduce boosts on units, but on the contrary extend boosts to a wider range of units.

For example, if I have an enchantment that only applies to shield units, obviously I'm going to choose to build shield units instead!
That's just logic for a minimum of optimisation.

To encourage players to use other units, I think we should extend this enchantment to other units. Maybe with slightly different effects, I don't know, but that's a matter of detail.

And also, define more Tn units for each culture.
So player will have more choices than (for example) only a single T3 emblematic cultural unit.
IMO 2 T1 emblematic cultural units (as we already have), 2 T2 emblematic cultural units and 2 T3 emblematic cultural units could be nice.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Who said this was all exclusively about drafted units? Summons are just as relevant for the discussion.

When you have five cities you can produce a new army (like Stormbringers) fast because you can produce more than one at the same time. When you Summon stuff, you have to do it one after the other, so summoning a complete new army whould take a lot longer than drafting one.
Also, when it's a summon from a later tome, more time will pass until you can even begin to summon.

The example you took, from page 41 is built around the current state of the game. It is geared for stacking enchantments and researching.
The build would change if limits were introduced. I don't know why I have to explain this, it should be fairly obvious as a result.

I would adapt all of my builds to not go beyond the limit and pick up extra units or specific spells as far as general planning goes.
And during the actual game I would pivot into another tome if I needed a specific counter enchantment to beat my opponent.
Right now these kinds of dynamic choices don't exist because you can just stack everything without any engaging gameplay at all.


Well, as it turns out, an instant death ability that is based on missing HP is weaker than actual death by stacking damage enchantments.

The point I was trying to make is that a T4 Support should do more for the stack that it is part of than an enchantment. If it doesn't, something is wrong with the support - that you could build earlier than the Stormbringer, so producing three of them before Stormbringers get going SHOULD be better than leaving them for one more enchantment.

In the end, stacking Defense and Resistancies loses efficiency from a certain point onwards, meaning, increasing them does gain less and less, which would actually mean, that enchantments increasing defense/resistance would become meaningless by itself over aned above a certain number. Maybe that's the right way to deal with damage increasing enchantments as well.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The point I was trying to make is that a T4 Support should do more for the stack that it is part of than an enchantment. If it doesn't, something is wrong with the support - that you could build earlier than the Stormbringer, so producing three of them before Stormbringers get going SHOULD be better than leaving them for one more enchantment.

Yeah, but the reason they don't is that damage is too high and support and CC effects are too weak in the late game, and the biggest culprit in that is easy access to lots of damage enchantments in the early tomes (and no need to give up flexing off-affinity for most of the T5s which are underwhelming). There's no point building the support "early" so it can support units that aren't going to need it when they come out because they can inflict "dead" on the enemy all by themselves.

In order for support and CC to be valuable, damage and durability needs to hit a balance point where in general it takes at least 2 units to kill 1, healing is relatively broad and flexible, and CC can lock down at least 2 units per 1 CC and more than can be cleansed on an average turn.

That means that more units would be left alive per turn and healing them would be more valuable because if you get them back over half it still takes 2 to 1 to kill them on the enemy turn, and CC would let you lock down, defang, or otherwise interfere with the bits of the enemy army you couldn't kill on your turn, and you also have to plan for your enemy doing all of that and introduce resources to cleanse or counter it.

 

[KDubya]

Yeah, but the reason they don't is that damage is too high and support and CC effects are too weak in the late game, and the biggest culprit in that is easy access to lots of damage enchantments in the early tomes (and no need to give up flexing off-affinity for most of the T5s which are underwhelming). There's no point building the support "early" so it can support units that aren't going to need it when they come out because they can inflict "dead" on the enemy all by themselves.

In order for support and CC to be valuable, damage and durability needs to hit a balance point where in general it takes at least 2 units to kill 1, healing is relatively broad and flexible, and CC can lock down at least 2 units per 1 CC and more than can be cleansed on an average turn.

That means that more units would be left alive per turn and healing them would be more valuable because if you get them back over half it still takes 2 to 1 to kill them on the enemy turn, and CC would let you lock down, defang, or otherwise interfere with the bits of the enemy army you couldn't kill on your turn, and you also have to plan for your enemy doing all of that and introduce resources to cleanse or counter it.

I must be playing the game wrong as my troops are not one shotting the enemy, not in the early game and not in the late game.

Also in other threads people called for the increased defense and resistance to be nerfed due to being too powerful. How can that be if troops are getting one shotted?

 

[GloatingSwine]

I must be playing the game wrong as my troops are not one shotting the enemy, not in the early game and not in the late game.

Stack more enchantments and use a precursor AoE hit. It's not hard to get a unit like Pyre Templars hitting 30 odd between adding flat damage and multipliers, so with a leading AoE like a hero dropping chain lightning or a dragon breath and their own inherent AoE for all but the first target they can hit the threshold to chew up T4/5 units in one round pretty well.

 

[Vladisi]

Stack more enchantments and use a precursor AoE hit. It's not hard to get a unit like Pyre Templars hitting 30 odd between adding flat damage and multipliers, so with a leading AoE like a hero dropping chain lightning or a dragon breath and their own inherent AoE for all but the first target they can hit the threshold to chew up T4/5 units in one round pretty well.

So, it's not a one-shot?

 

[Jolly Joker]

Yeah, but the reason they don't is that damage is too high and support and CC effects are too weak in the late game, and the biggest culprit in that is easy access to lots of damage enchantments in the early tomes (and no need to give up flexing off-affinity for most of the T5s which are underwhelming). There's no point building the support "early" so it can support units that aren't going to need it when they come out because they can inflict "dead" on the enemy all by themselves.

No, the reason they don't is, that they are not good enough. You could make them good enough. Example for an ability: "Target friendly unit and every adjacent friendly unit gain X defense and Y Resistance for Z turns". This could even be a general support ability (every support has it) with different values for parameters X, Y, and Z depending on Support tier. Or, if that doesn't cut (because high tier units already have high defense and resistance), it could be a percentage decrease for T3 and T4 Supports.
And that's just ONE useful ability.