Are the Undead a little too strong?

[Pedro constitute]

Hello again Devs!

Sorry for the interruption, I needed to ask this because while playing as humans against undead (It was a skirmish match with the undead set to Ai-hard)
I had fun, but notice a little problem with the balance of the match, one of which is the undead's ease of access to a powerful unit known as skeleton monster unit, under any condition this would be fine, however while a player can use these units early on, say 3 turns, these units are extremely powerful in both early and mid game, monster skeleton units possess strong pierce armor (arrows), and blade armor (melee), even a 1 turn monster skeleton unit like the denizen can easily outmatch other race 1 turn unit.

that's not to say they are too powerful, but after the recent update, the undead faction now possess the most amount of units and diverse cast of units, of which many do not have easy counters or counters in general, for examples, undeads possess skeletons (immune to certain debuffs: like poisons and chills (makes sense) (burnable works too), zombies too, divine class as well, and the wight) however playing as a human faction is a losing streak because either the humans are underpowered or the undead possess so many immunities that grant them strong durability, all undead possess resistances to arrows and projectiles, so for them to possess resistance to poisons, chills and lightning makes them strong, if not for the skeletons they would be immune to fire, almost all the undead units are far stronger than they should be.

another example, undead dragons are by far the greatest combo, being considered dragons, they have flight and have strong damage and durability (especially melee), but are almost immune to arrows, the one weakness of dragons, although I have to give credits for buffing the zombies, they needed that, but the fact remains that the undead possess so much immunity.

Meanwhile the human factions has only one to two hard counters, that being the hospitaller and Imperial units, both of which are strong but can be countered by the many classes of undead, though it should be noted that I was playing against ai on hard so it could be a skill issue, still 1 turn undead werewolf unit that is a better version of monster skeleton denizen is way stronger for it's cost, effectively being spammable while maintaining way of a strong armor, and defeating a human faction in turns.

Thank you for reading this.

[makazuwr32]

1. In next update there will be some sloght rebalance incoming for recent update for undeads.
2. Now to your mentioned things:
2.1. Monster skeletons were weakened in recent update if you did not notice because they are affected by soulforge techs;
2.2. Strong piercing armor — that comes at cost of low attack range, both starting and maxed;
2.3. Strong melee armor — aside from 3 monster units which are giants rest of monsters do not have any starting melee armor. Is that really «strong melee armor»? Better than dwarves? (It is different story if ai has at start some techs already researched which cause units to have better stats at start of the game).
2.4. Dot effects resistance is one of strengths of undeads for having worse stats than many other races;
2.5. Lightning specifically — it will be changed later to do additional instant magic damage;
2.6. Undead dragons: which dragons are flying aside from zombie dragon? All 4 skeleton dragons do not have any flight and thus receive full damage from enemy land melee units. Summoned dragons also now have 1 major weakness — banishment spell that reduces their vanishing per usage by -2;
2.7. Humans have maybe 1-2 counters to whole faction but lots counters to specific units. They also possess best 3 turn cost caster unit — adept with her barriers.
2.8. 1v1 Monster werebone vs human militia — werebone will die. Horribly.

Once again:
If ai has no extra armor right at the start then it is just as planned and is just a skill issue.
If ai has that extra armor (0+something) than it is ai balance issue, not undeads balance issue.

[Jerryqian39]

Undead hard AI do have starting tech I they they have like extra attack and armor at the start of the game,but I think that would be a good challenge to players

[Pedro constitute]

Hey devs!

thanks! I went to test a theory of mine with Ai-hard undead, and your correct!, I suffered countless hours of trying to beat the undead hard ai in multiple matches as either race, with even playing as undead, I found difficulty, then I test a reveal map skirmish to test this theory to see their behavior, and you correct, the undead hard AI get unfair starting tech and bonus starting states. Thats why I have kept losing to them! nevertheless i am happy to know that the undead is balances in regards to playing with players and Easy AI, and it was the hard-ai that was winning, Imagine my surprise, heck I tested on Human Hard-ai and they get bonus states and starting tech, although not as nearly as powerful as the undead, still it's good to know that I was not only losing to an ai ans sucking at the game, but rather, the Hard-ai be given special bonuses.

Now comes the interesting part, I think the Ai-hard undead is good, but starting tech for them to unlock the elite units (Phantoms and apocalypse) might be overkill. nightmares and skeleton monsters are fare game. so long as they built the structures. same things applies to other Ai-hard race, from humans to dwarves, elfves, scale folk and orks.

Overall I think the ai-hard factions provide overall good experience to challenge foes that have better advantage, but maybe instead of having them unlock all tech, have them unlock some tech and let the unlock all techs later throughout the match, because having the Ai-hard straight up bodied the player in early matches won't really allow the player to learn from it, the easy-Ai, from what I observed had at least upgrade for a few tech, but does not try to unlock all techs.

Maybe suggestion, have the Hard-Ai be the only Ai to focus on unlocking all techs like the player, that way a player like me could challenge an enemy ai that plays like me, not in the creative sense of strategy, but one that involves in evolving tech to outmatch the player and provide a real but fair challenge.

Thanks for reading this devs, and answering my earlier questions.

[Lucifer]

Overall I think the ai-hard factions provide overall good experience to challenge foes that have better advantage, but maybe instead of having them unlock all tech, have them unlock some tech and let the unlock all techs later throughout the match, because having the Ai-hard straight up bodied the player in early matches won't really allow the player to learn from it, the easy-Ai, from what I observed had at least upgrade for a few tech, but does not try to unlock all techs.

That's actually a new feature we are working on right now! Currently, AI starts with a set of techs at turn 1 and then plays normally. This leads to very hard early game, and AI losing ground progressively over the match.
When we release the new feature, AI will slowly get more and more powerful and use different techs and units over each match. It will also give AI multiple strategies, choosing a random one in each map (like focusing on siege machines in one match, or focusing on cavalry in another).