Crystal Tournament

[Deleted User - 3932582]

Something seems to have changed. I've got Martial Monastery at level 23, an Unleashed Unit building deployed, A dwarven Armourer deployed, and I just lost a manual fight getting the second star in province three. The terrain has been against me in almost every battle I've fought today. this isn't about beginner vs experienced. This week's tournament is harder than past crystal tournaments. And please don't give me "crystal is harder" I've had max boost in crystal for over two years. I know what I'm doing. The frog units are unbalanced.

For those in the later chapters I would suggest 3* banshees, they eat frogs for breakfast (especially all frogs with no support). Terrains would always be an issue when you field short-range units vs your enemy's long-range. I did my usual 2x rounds, and so far hasn't had any particular issues even with all auto mode. Losses were somewhat higher than usual, but not dramatically so. I think we're feeling absence of 3* upgrade for the Vallorian Guards, which should be rectified in chapter 15.

YMMV

P.S. I have no boost buildings placed, and my Monastery is only L9. Fire Phoenix is fed.

 

[kctanzen]

2 dogs + 4 frogs + 2 mages and not even particularly bad terrain .. is really horrific, as in multiple combinations of troops with Fire Phoenix, level 22 monastery, and manual battle were wiped out. (caveat ... I'm not an incredibly skillful manual battle tactician).

Is it possible there was some code inadvertently added to Live that should have stayed in Beta for additional testing around the new chapter?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I am surprised that people did not start talking about the Frog Prince unit until this week, since it started appearing as an enemy unit in last week's Planks tournament. Also, they are not going to go away because they are the third level of the Frog unit we make in our Mercenary Camps.

 

[DeletedUser20951]

My buttocks are being handed to me on a ruinous platter filled to the brim with slaughtered units' despair, more so than usual, and the catering costs have skyrocketed. I've been stuck in the same spot on the tech tree for the last few months and I haven't researched any squad size increases between the last crystal tournament and this one.

 

[kctanzen]

I am surprised that people did not start talking about the Frog Prince unit until this week, since it started appearing as an enemy unit in last week's Planks tournament. Also, they are not going to go away because they are the third level of the Frog unit we make in our Mercenary Camps.

They weren't present with any kind of meaningful density / frequency in Planks that I recall.
I'm pretty much early on in Amuni so I don't have all of the advanced troop upgrades yet -- but when do our own frogs get to 3 star levels?

 

[Deleted User - 3932582]

2 dogs + 4 frogs + 2 mages and not even particularly bad terrain .. is really horrific, as in multiple combinations of troops with Fire Phoenix, level 22 monastery, and manual battle were wiped out. (caveat ... I'm not an incredibly skillful manual battle tactician).

Strange, I have dealt with this exact combination several times with 5x 2* Vallorian Guards without any particular issues, with Fire Phoenix and L9 Monastery on auto even...

I'm pretty much early on in Amuni so I don't have all of the advanced troop upgrades yet -- but when do our own frogs get to 3 star levels?

They haven't yet - final 3* upgrades are part of chapter 15 research tree.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I am at the end of chapter 14, and waiting for chapter 15 to go live sometime tomorrow, so I have all my troops at 3-star except the Frog, Ranger, and Vallorian. I tend to use my different mages in these fights with all the heavy ranged, even with other mages and dogs present, and I win almost every single fight on auto-battle, though I lose more troops that way, of course. I also use the heavy melee, including the 2-star Vallorians, and they have been fine for the first two stars. But I know the squad size deficit that starts with the third star of a province will cause me problems. Also, my Fire Phoenix is only level 8, so only 40% extra damage, and I put out one UUU for the HP boost. I do not have the Monastery built at all, but I do have the Dragon Abbey built and boosting my mage damage.

 

[mucksterme]

The main thing I have learned from crystal

I really really want that poison toad upgrade.

I am at the end of chapter 14, and waiting for chapter 15 to go live sometime tomorrow, so I have all my troops at 3-star except the Frog, Ranger, and Vallorian. I tend to use my different mages in these fights with all the heavy ranged, even with other mages and dogs present, and I win almost every single fight on auto-battle, though I lose more troops that way, of course. I also use the heavy melee, including the 2-star Vallorians, and they have been fine for the first two stars. But I know the squad size deficit that starts with the third star of a province will cause me problems. Also, my Fire Phoenix is only level 8, so only 40% extra damage, and I put out one UUU for the HP boost. I do not have the Monastery built at all, but I do that the Dragon Abbey built and boosting my mage damage.

I would suggest you put up a Monastery since you are obviously a serious fighter. You can't always count on having the crafted buffs.
But I am an AW Ho, so I am biased.

 

[DeletedUser22890]

I'm assuming the new super-units and impossible terrain are Inno's way of compensating for the extra troops from the Brown Bear. This makes little sense. If you're going to take troops away to balance giving us a troop boost why even bother? I've stayed out of this for a bit trying to wrap my head around it and I just can't get it to make sense. Why not just introduce random natural disasters and kill off our troops that way? Hell, just have them desert. Introduce lightning strikes on the battlefield that only hit our troops. Randomly delete our Armories. Or just delete all the Brown Bears people won and give them 25 diamonds to 'compensate'. Until someone official tells me that Inno has NOT adopted a policy of counteracting the boosts they make available I'm going to assume that's it.

Extra troops from brown bear? They basically took away petfood. I used to be able to get 4-5 petfood a week, so I could keep my Fire Phoenix turned on the whole time. Now they add more things that use petfood, but I can only craft it once or twice a week. My Arch went 9 days in a row with no petfood. Brownbear might be good if fed but I have only been able to use it once.

I am losing fights it seems like I shouldn't lose. Usually, 5 Vallorians can take out a combination of Heavy Ranged and Light Melee, in any number, on the tournaments. My 5 V's are losing fights against HR and LM that are 3 star fights if the fight includes 3 stacks of frog princes. IE - 5 Vallorians against 3 frog princes and 2 cerberus..... The frog prince wins.

At the same time, catering costs are soaring. I have some that are more than 100,000 combined goods to cater a single fight. It wouldn't be possible for me to get to typical levels if I cater, and my group would lose the 10th chest.

Is Inno trying to throttle us back so we don't get as many blueprints? Get us to pay for upgrades instead of being able to win them?

 

[qaccy]

I am surprised that people did not start talking about the Frog Prince unit until this week, since it started appearing as an enemy unit in last week's Planks tournament. Also, they are not going to go away because they are the third level of the Frog unit we make in our Mercenary Camps.

Just wanna quote this for emphasis. It's not really that they're unbalanced or that Inno's trying to screw us. It's the typical unit upgrade just like every other unit has, and anyone who's been participating in crystal provinces at any point in the past couple years should have expected that 3* frogs would be appearing once they were made available, since we've been facing 1* and 2* frogs already. Frogs have been replacing cannons in this province ever since their introduction to the game. Again, the frogs aren't really unbalanced, but cannons are extremely weak so now that they've been replaced at the highest level as well, the frogs seem WAY stronger than they actually are. Going from 3* cannons to 3* frogs was a bigger upgrade for the AI than going from 2* to 3* frogs is!

 

[DeletedUser20414]

Something seems to have changed. I've got Martial Monastery at level 23, an Unleashed Unit building deployed, A dwarven Armourer deployed, and I just lost a manual fight getting the second star in province three. The terrain has been against me in almost every battle I've fought today. this isn't about beginner vs experienced. This week's tournament is harder than past crystal tournaments. And please don't give me "crystal is harder" I've had max boost in crystal for over two years. I know what I'm doing. The frog units are unbalanced.

Thank you for making my point. Wait till day 4 when you are trying to do 4 star and 5 star provinces. You think you are taking losses now...

 

[qaccy]

Bringing up another point, it would appear that we're finally starting to see what it's like to be on the receiving end of what I've noticed a while ago. That being that heavy range units aren't actually as bad against heavy melee as the bonuses would have you believe. If my Mortars can still kill them before they get the chance to attack, are Knights or Orc Generals really at an advantage? Cannons had a much harder time with this than the new Frogs do, so a lot of players are about to see even more evidence that melee units (both light and heavy) are the worst ones in the game because of how limited they are by the game's battle system.

 

[shimmerfly]

but don't sit here and tell me its not harder for the smaller FS's

I never said that

 

[Ashrem]

Terrains would always be an issue when you field short-range units vs your enemy's long-range.

I don't think that's true. Purely anecdotally, I feel like there has been a significant increase in terrain that renders a third or more of the board unusable. Long barriers, both top to bottom and side to side that have the effect of keeping some of my Heavies from ever being able to reach the toads across from them because they are pushed across the map before they can even being to move toward them. At least six times last night I hit maps where the second unit to move could not make any useful move before it's third (and even once fourth) turn, because all of the other units had to move out of the way first due to a single hex choke point in front of my forces.

 

[DeletedUser20414]

Im now wondering what these next tournament are going to be like with open field. They going to add Super Samurais who can't die but slice a stack to death with one hit. Or how about Fly Lords that swarm up to you and turn all your men into a puddle.

 

[qaccy]

I dunno, for the most part we're using the same units they are. Do keep in mind as well that the terrain can be just as bad for the enemy at times as it is for us. It all depends on what units are being used. I regularly have battles where I take zero damage from the enemy units, and I'd say that more than balances out with the battles where I suffer moderate to heavy losses or have to cater.

 

[Ashrem]

I dunno, for the most part we're using the same units they are.

Are you asserting that most players have a Mercenary Camp and are training Faineant Frogs (let alone Frog Princes)? Or do you only mean most of the people hatt matter, as in have gotten at least half-way through fairies and also have enough space for the camp? Because I happen to think there are more people not raining frogs than there are training them.

 

[qaccy]

Perhaps I should correct that part of my statement. The enemy units are no stronger than ones we have access to. Or put more bluntly, they're not using super-powered Frog Princes. Anyone who unlocks them will have access to the exact same units they're using. I feel like some people here are suggesting that the enemy units are somehow stronger than ours when that's not really the case.

The rest of my post still stands.

 

[Ashrem]

Again. Setting aside space issues for the Mercenary camp, people only "have access to them" if they have made it past fairies, but people who have not reached fairies are still facing them in the tournaments. And I am not in the final chapter, and I am facing Frog Princes, early in the tournament, which have dramatically increased the difficulty level for me. I made 2800 points in the last Crystal tournament, without any particularly large effort, and am unlikely to break 1000 on this one, despite having a dwarven armour up for the first time adding to an unleashed Unit building, because I was hoping to get another event artifact. Instead, I was not able to complete 45 tournament provinces on the second day, and gave up in disgust.

 

[qaccy]

That 'dramatic increase in difficulty' has to do with things I said in previous posts. Maybe I should just start pasting all of my replies together every time I make a new one so nothing gets forgotten...

Cannoneers suck, and they've been a stand-in for Frogs in the crystal provinces ever since they began replacing them with the Woodelves chapter. First it was level 1, then it was level 2, now it's finally all 3 levels. This isn't an uncommon thing, either. The same thing's happened with all of the other mercenary camp/training grounds units that have been introduced to the game; they've replaced select NPC units in various provinces. It's only now being discussed as a problem because the power difference is massive between Cannoneers and Frogs, unlike most of the other replacements that have occurred with NPC units in the past:

Drone Riders aren't significantly stronger than Ancient Orcs.
Dryads and Rangers aren't significantly stronger than Bandits and Wild Archers.
Banshees aren't significantly stronger than Enchantresses
Orc Warriors and Vallorian Guards aren't significantly stronger than Orc Generals and Knights.
Orc Strategists aren't significantly stronger than Steinlings.

However, Faineant Frogs ARE significantly stronger than Cannoneers. This is true across all 3 levels of the two units as well. If Cannoneers had only about 5-10% less damage than Mortars to go along with their slightly higher health instead of 40% less, we would have hardly noticed the swap to Frogs for level 3, just like all of the other unit replacements that have occurred in the past. All of these replacements have been generally in the enemy's favor, but this is the first time it's actually been a huge difference. Add in all the stuff I said earlier about melee units already being at a disadvantage in general and it adds up to a lot more losses.