A (different) 5-day building for LM&HM

[Deleted User - 1178646]

In easy battles, the computer is about as good as manual, but it's really bad in tough ones no matter what troops are used.

The lizards are the best HM, IMHO. One problem with the computer using HM with a reach of 2 is it never gets right next to the enemy to attack which prevents extra HMs from attacking that round. Of course, that's a good thing about their knights.

yeah the 2 walk issue is very common the 1 range paladins / vallorians have makes a huge difference even if there HP is only half.

It's also funny when you find the enemy in a walking deadlock, sometimes you make a move and the AI responds, the you counter walk and the AI reponds by walking back to the old location essintially walking left and right but never forward, so you can range kill it in 500 turns without it ever getting near your position.

The AI has 2 main flaws:

• It always runs to attack the enemy, while often in round 1 avoiding the enemy gives you a better position on the battlefield (this is often done by the 1 round manual rest auto group, they avoid the round 1 pitfall and let the AI finish the rest)
• walkpath failures when maps are involved, sometimes it just gets stuck and you die for no apparent reason. also when playing manually you often see the enemy block it's own units from attacking. that same AI is used on your side.

Does this mean a player who is exclusively on a tablet can never have a city that mostly fights and has to cater everything? Right now I guess I’m early enough in the game that the fights aren’t too hard but I still find that I have to cater a fair amount of the time.

No, but autocombat means you have more losses and less often a no loss battle.
This means that if you want to squeeze every last drop out of the tournaments and you have the stamina of playing manual combat for hours on end, you will get a better result than a similar player using autocombat who finished after only a few minutes.

It's a resonably fair tradeoff time for convinience both with there own strength en weakness.

Also for general use, in autocombat you can only use 5 of the same type of units (for limited AI purpose again, mismatched units will use there own strategy instead of working together) but what manual mode teaches you is there in some cases there are tricks you can use to your advantage in auto mode as you better understand the moves of the opponent (and therefore your own AI moves)

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Not at all, I auto-fight 99% of everything with an extremely rare cater, and have for years.
Yes, watching the AI is painful, but TBH all manual fighting is very basic and super slow.
Almost the entirety of manual fighting strategy looks like this:

"Can I hit the enemy?"
If Yes, do it.
If No,
"Can the enemy hit me if I stay here?"
If Yes, move forwards
If No, stay here.

That's it, the rest is rock-paper-scissors(lizard-spock) except you get to see what your opponent is using in advance.

some asterix here, sometimes even if you can hit staying might be the best option,
Sometimes your attack exposes yourself while waiting gives you a better position.

example: I use rangers and priests/blossoms.
the first 2 rangers kill the enemy mages and are in a save position.
2 priests / blossoms can attack and stay out of the enemy's counter.
that 3rd ranger / blossom could attack and hit but exposes itself to the enemy. staying put so you do not get hit this round would be the best option instead of attacking. next round you have 5 free attacks before any enemy could hurt you, this reduces damages.

Manual combat at a certain point is no longer about "winning a battle" once you unlocked enough battle strength it's all about reducing damages. you can win all battles, but at what cost?

So it's about reducing losses so you can squeeze out more victories out of your existing units before your army succumbs to annihalation.

 

[SoggyShorts]

some asterix here

Indeed, you are why I was careful to say "Almost"

Very few fights are won with manual that wouldn't be won with auto, but for as you say "squeezing every last drop" out of the tournament reducing casualties by even just a 1/4 stack matters.

In your example, you are talking about the difference between 1 of your stacks getting hit 1 time vs zero.
For the vast majority of players, I don't think the time: reward ratio fits.

 

[samidodamage]

For the vast majority of players, I don't think the time: reward ratio fits.

*bolding is mine
You are absolutely correct (of course!).
For me, I play little mini-games with myself in both the tourneys and spire: How many zero loss fights can I have? Of the non-zero loss fights (Mist Walker + stupid move mistakes) how many fights can I manage to lose less than 10/20 (depends on the squad sizes of the fights) diamonds worth of troops total? How many of my 'most valued' units can I keep at >999 squads available in the Army Camp tab without using the Brown Bear? Without those personal motivators, manual fights would be a huge waste of my time.

 

[Fayeanne]

I actually enjoy manual fighting, but I don't do it terribly often because it does take quite a bit longer than simply hitting a button to either auto-fight or negotiate. I don't manual fight specifically to get fewer losses (most of the time); usually I just manual fight for fun. (Although there are occasions where I look at the match-up, grimace, and hit manual because I don't trust the AI to be able to win...)

 

[Palavyn]

I agree with the idea of boosting LM. But I don't want any new expiring buildings. If the boost were added to existing expiring buildings OR a new Ancient Wonder, I would be all in.

 

[SoggyShorts]

But I don't want any new expiring buildings.

Why? The 5-day part of the idea is the core of the whole suggestion.

Also, I pretty clearly outlined why an AW would be impossible and or useless.

 

[Palavyn]

Why? The 5-day part of the idea is the core of the whole suggestion.

Also, I pretty clearly outlined why an AW would be impossible and or useless.

I'm on mobile and it would be more buildings I have to track and place: Arrange my city to make even more room. Shuffle through the building inventory to find it since the boost buildings are not arranged properly at the front. Try to remember which buildings I've placed and which I haven't, etc. In addition to this, new buildings in the Magic Academy will likely reduce the opportunities that other important buildings are available to make.

If AW is out of the question, the boosts can be added to existing buildings. For example, the Enlightened Light Range could be adjusted to also boost Light Melee units.

 

[SoggyShorts]

In addition to this, new buildings in the Magic Academy will likely reduce the opportunities that other important buildings are available to make.

You must have missed the part where I explained that these would absolutely NOT be in the MA.

If AW is out of the question, the boosts can be added to existing buildings. For example, the Enlightened Light Range could be adjusted to also boost Light Melee units.

Nope, as I said a very significant motivation for this idea is to have something useful but not permanent available as a daily event reward.

I feel like you didn't really read the original post

Also just making an existing building more powerful is simply asking for a huge buff from inno and they'd never go for that.

 

[Yogi Dave]

This topic seems to have withered since it's been 10 days since a post. So, keeping the concept of 5-day buildings that (hopefully) stay as event buildings, what other options instead of initiative would work better?

• I like @CrazyWizard's concept of the building giving the melee units better defense. Call it Melee Brute Force. 50% and it stacks.
• Perhaps add a movement step. Call it Light Foot. While this helps all the Melee, the dogs are improved the least. Still, there are times, if only it could take one more step is what I'm thinking. 1 range improvement and stacks.
• This isn't melee, but how about +1 movement for all units whose movement is 3 or less. This helps all HM, the Elf's mage and the banshee, but only the barrack's LM.

I know this is a partial hijack of the topic, and hope @SoggyShorts doesn't mind these ideas being put here.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I know this is a partial hijack of the topic, and hope @SoggyShorts doesn't mind these ideas being put here.

Even though my minimal testing (now up to 50 fights) does show that I'd rather have the first move in a majority of cases, I've pretty much abandoned it since it's not enough to make me choose melee units over others.

Hijack for now and if the brainstorming yields something make a new thread

Here's an idea:
a 5-day building that reduces damage taken, and stacks BUT only lasts 1 round like a spell debuff.
if it was 50%, you could stack 2 and be invincible in the first round.

Perhaps combined with initiative bonuses?

 

[Deleted User - 1178646]

Even though my minimal testing (now up to 50 fights) does show that I'd rather have the first move in a majority of cases, I've pretty much abandoned it since it's not enough to make me choose melee units over others.

Hijack for now and if the brainstorming yields something make a new thread

Here's an idea:
a 5-day building that reduces damage taken, and stacks BUT only lasts 1 round like a spell debuff.
if it was 50%, you could stack 2 and be invincible in the first round.

Perhaps combined with initiative bonuses?

this is currently impossible since they redeveloped the combat system years back. in the past stuff worked like that.
It would need a redevelopment of the entire system again. currently it can never reach 100%.

But it's an interesting idea to give some units a round of respite so they can actually reach the enemy at a somewhat full strenth instead of being reduced to dust.