Troll Headhunter

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Alexander82
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

Was the centaur in archer mode? In archer mode the headhunter has a high bonus against it. When i face headhunters i switch all my centaurs in melee mode. Also i was xonsidering to lower a bit the centaur cost since it doesn't benefit from elven techs or add more techs to give it bonus.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Puss_in_Boots »

He said it was in "meale" = melee mode.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Sunrise Samurai »

Centaur bonuses are confusing with the transformation effect, so I couldn't say much there.

Alexander, I don't think any of us would say you are anything other than the best design leader we could ask for. If you try quitting on us, I will personally arrange for all of us to find you and force you back into it, even if we have to find that school you teach in and remove you from the classroom. Please don't make me do that, since I don't think I could substitute for you while everyone made you reconsider. Especially since I don't speak Italian.

Up until now, I've played elves against your orcs. Honestly, a real test needs to be done both ways. I'd happily play you the other way around if you want to see. I don't think you realize the kind of no holds barred scramble I've made to kill a headhunter at all costs anytime I've seen you send one my way. Once I even deleted a centaur to make room for another just to kill your headhunter.
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Alexander82
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

Puss_in_Boots wrote:He said it was in "meale" = melee mode.
I tought it was meaning "male"
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

Sunrise it is that way with dodging units. If you are unlucky you are going to take a lot to kill some. Think about me trying to kill a whole army of elves where every unit can dodge.

Sometimes it is just bad luck, even when you try to hit something with some catapults but you miss that final hit...
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Sunrise Samurai »

That was our first game, before dodge came out. I had to remove one of your master headhunters before it got a chance at my archers, so I sacrificed a melee centaur (8 cost) to let another occupy that space and hit again rather than let you kill 3 of my quick/fire archers (9-12 total cost)

Speaking of catapults, did you know that if a unit dodges an aoe attack, the entire aoe cancels? It should probably be on each unit to dodge their own portion of the aoe.

Pm me for another game. I'll play orcs this time, so we can see what's up with headhunters.
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Alexander82
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

If that was before dodge elves had globally a huge advantage less... Also that was a bad tactical choice. It was you that wanted to kill a headhunter with archers that are weak against it...
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Stratego (dev) »

the thing is that trolls need counter on every race so Alexander suggested these:

ELVES:
If you play elves go with sentinels, same speed, high armor, strengthen, dodge everything and smith bonus.
If you go with lower melee units they work well with dodge but cheap units are generally worse costwise than bigger units.
Same reason because 4 orc warriors are worse than a ettin.

HUMANS:
With humans the best things to do is always siege or imperial knights since they are their best all round units. Siege outrange the headhunter. A wall of catapults is the best defense in game at the moment.

UNDEAD:
For undead there aren't great problems since they mostly have high pierce armor.


--------
i have checked the quick tests i wrote and the result was:
- only the upgraded knights were able to beat the basic trolls, but it was more like a "draw" becasuse one knight was killed, the other was in very low hp, like 1 pixel in red.
- all other swordmen, upgraded swordmen, non upgraded knights were failed, in swordmen case the trolls did not even get any damage.
- (i have not tested the "buff"ing casters version tough)

but Alexander suggested other units to test, those can be these

ELF
? trolls against ?sentinels

HUMANS
the 8 turn imp.knight is good against them, but that is a too costy unit i think
so we talked ablout some bonus for knights against trolls
so currently i can not suggest good counter unit for humans (besides imp. knight that is good against them)

UNDEAD
? und. knights vs ? trolls

ORC
idk, but i feel we could find armored melee against it.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

Just add the same bonus for infantry for u_anti_archers
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Sunrise Samurai »

Because of the 4 speed, I'd say most basic infantry won't be able to touch it. It should be cavalry that have the bonus against it.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

I meant the same bonus knights have for infantry
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

Also Daniel have you tested your knights with all upgrades? Human knights have smith arnor bonus that reduce damage taken
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Sunrise Samurai »

He probably didn't. It's hard to give upgrades beyond all techs and manually creating upgraded units in map editor.

Daniel: could you adjust the map editor to include an easier way to pick and choose already researched techs? Preferably not via triggers.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

I agree. Testing becomes a pain otherwise...
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

Anyway problems I've experienced so fr are related to the doge dynamic more than the unit stats:

At the moment the problem you experienced was that you tried to kill the headhunter with archers when he had 50% dodge.

It is a unit specifically made to kill archers so it is perfectly normal that you had to use a lot of archers to kill one (it has dodge only against ranged).

I also experienced a lot of problems with dodge (I've tried to kill a sentinel of yours and lost a lot of upgraded uruks since both archers and melee units missed against it).

So we might simply halve any dodge effect that is in game right now.

every dodge tech should give 5% dodge chance instead of 10% and we can halve for the same reason dodge for the headhunter.

We'll scale any other dodging unit by the same amounts in the future.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Sunrise Samurai »

I actually meant in melee. Haven't seen that much of a problem with dodge so far. 50% is a little much, but I think 30% is about right. I'm thinking headhunter masters should have 30%, and that should be fine for that when you remember it already has very high pierce armor. It's still hard to kill in melee, but I'm seeing the ranged defenses aren't as much of the problem. After all, they are the point of it's existence.

Dodge was implement in it's current values to be useful, especially for the inherently​ low health and armor elves have. Testing against ai controlled sentinels (20% dodge, not 30%) I think they are still relatively easy to kill, at least for a 6 cost unit that is supposed to be defensively oriented.

Anyway, I agree that headhunters should definitely have dodge (again, my opinion is 30%), along with other skirmishers, though we obviously need to convince Daniel of this. Dodge is only a small part of headhunter being so strong. My problem probably stems 75% from the fact that they get 3 actions. Most units only get 2 actions at most, and those don't usually get any buffs that can give +3 power, much less having 2 different buffs that can do that.
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Alexander82
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

His pierce armor isn't enough at all. That's why after the smith techs i've added the dodge. It is a better stat for an anti archer since it is already outranged by archers and they deal a greater damage after upgrades.

The value seems right to me since it is meant to be very hard to kll for groups of archers (the backbone of any elven army) and that should force players to divide their efforts into melee too (before elven melee units were rarely used).

I think that a bonus from cavalry units and a building to produce more melee units might be enough to allow some melee units to defeat headhunters without problems
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Sunrise Samurai »

Maybe for elves at least. Especially since you mentioned maybe making centaurs cheaper. Unicorn riders just don't have the firepower to deal with headhunters right now, but melee centaurs are pretty strong. I think I'm going to suggest an upgrade for unicorn riders later, more to accentuate the difference between the two, leaving them as a fast, evasive unit to harass while centaurs charge in and pummel.
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Re: Troll Headhunter

Post by Alexander82 »

They have bot smith bonus and dodge tough.
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