Thoughts about archers, passive abilities, and reinforcement.

Hello.

After reading the lastest blog post, I was thinking I'd give my thoughts, and see if anyone wants to give theirs on the matter.

So first, I personally think archers can be a fun unit, but not necessarily only in early game. I know that the game is different, but often compared to the Wars series (Which is mostly known for Advance Wars outside of Japan), one basic, but commonly used tactic is to form a wall of tanks, preferably strong ones, followed by artillery. Although that could work in Wargroove as well with trebuchets, it is often way more a passive gameplay than an agressive gameplay, as the tanks protect the artillery, and if both players use it, they'll just both sit just out of range of each other's artillery until one tries to break the enemy's line, or tries to walk around it. But, if this tactic is employed with archers instead of trebuchets (or both), then the row of front units can attack, and be supported by archers, or archers could move first, weaken the enemy's units, and then the direct combat unit can have an easier time, which means an agressive playstyle can be employed for this particular tactic, although it will probably work differently than in Advance Wars. I think there are a lot of cool combinations to make with archers.

Now, about passive abilities, that's an interesting choice. It makes planning moves way more important, as placing your unit just right (or wrong) can then give a severe advantage to your, or your opponent's units. In a sense, then its kinda even more like playing a game of chess, and trying to read moves several turns ahead is, again, given more importance. Now though, I hope the AI will be able to take advantage of these, and not just charge blindly like Advance Wars' AI (Which honestly, often does a lot of mistakes).

And finally, reinforcements, that is something I actually asked about on a previous thread, as it seemed weird to me that only the commanders would heal units. So I take that if they go for this type of healing, then, that means that you must think if healing your unit would be worth it, and not make your buildings in danger, or damage your perhaps thin savings and prevent you from buying a new unit later, but still work kinda like Advance Wars' healing, where sitting on a city healed 2 HP per turn at the cost of 1000 per unit being healed, just here it is instantanous,but at a potentially bigger cost than just some money. That's interesting, now, just need to know if Mercia's commander power will remain healing, or if that will be scrapped all together, and commanders will only be able to heal themselves.

I am looking forward to learning about the commander's powers in a future blog post. In the meantime, if anyone wants to share their thoughts on this, go ahead.

 

The only concern I have about Reinforcements is having to sacrifice property HP to heal units in addition to the cost of the unit. That seems a bit excessive, given how buildings regen just 1 HP a turn. Makes it feel kind of pointless to sacrifice potentially over 5 turns of health for a building to heal a trash unit back to full. If there really needs to be a building HP "tax" in addition to the gold cost to heal a unit with a property, perhaps it could just be 1 HP, with the gold cost and having to use up the unit's turn to heal itself being the primary cost.

That way, healing multiple units a turn near a single property will slowly wear down the property over the course of several battles fought near it, rather than instantly reducing it to the verge of death and making the prospect of healing units more trouble than it is worth.

 

I kinda agree, but their idea is interesting, just needs to be sure its balanced. Although, buildings also seem to take quite the beatting, from the stream. So I guess all it'd do is make it last one turn instead of two.

 

I feel the mechanic is fine, as I was not a fan of sitting units on cities for 2-3 turns just healing them. Stalled the game. The less healing you have available, the more meaning death has. Which leads to a more tactics-driven match. Imo.

 

I agree. It is kinda borring to just sit around. Now though it means you have to think about your move more, which also was a thing that Advance Wars kinda lacked.
Also, with the lastest stream, they for now went with Mercia having healing as her special power (in a larger zone, but its locked behind a power bar like Advance Wars : Days of Ruins.), and commanders seem to heal 1 hp per turn as well. Which I don't mind, really.

 

Aye.
I feel Valder's power is very underwealming compared to the range and power (30%!) Of Mercia's healing. I feel the unit raised should be more important than a common footsoldier, even a unique undead unit which can only be obtained through his ability. I would love to see the ability to choose between 3 different units, all with various strengths and weaknesses, yet completely unique to Valder. But perhaps I am wanting too much

Unless it was balanced with some other strength. Such as being able to use the power more often. Or perhaps give him the ability to attack from 2 square distance, putting more emphasis on his own attacks vs his power.

Maybe enabling him to 'save' his ability, and over time be able to raise more than a single skelly. Perhaps up to 3? That would really cause your opponent to keep a close eye on him, where as currently a single skelly isn't all that difficult to deal with. As we saw towards the end of the latest stream. I don't ever see a single skelly bringing about such a power play as healing a large amount of troops 30% right before a final push.

Either way, if this ends up being the final version of Valder, I am slightly dissapointed. But we shall see - I know it is still early.