Orcish Empire

[PvK]

The graphics and unit concepts are nice!

Aside from the orcs and most of their stuff being better and cheaper compared to other units in the game, I'm not sure about balance between the two. Do you want them to be overpowered versus everything else, or are you interested in how to make them on the same scale against other units?

These orcs are supposed to be like Warcraft Orcs? They're like elite demi-trolls with slightly super equipment, no?

Even some of the regular weapons seem to be on scale with magic trinket weapons, rather than normal weapons:
Most daggers are 2 1 0 0 but your Orcs' daggers are 3 2 1 1.
A regular two-handed battleaxe is 9 ordinary damage but your Waraxe looks one-handed and does 10 damage and is armor-piercing.

PvK

[PvK]

The catapult fires every turn? Seems like it should only fire once every four turns or so.

PvK

[Tuidjy]

I don't think that they are overpowered, actually.
They have a nice early punch, but but I think
that they are not even competitive later on.
Abysmal research, no priests... once magic comes
into play, they will be as bad as basic/IF Ulm.

[Boron]

yeah they too need strong national troops like with cohens crusaders mod
in early game they are very great but when magic comes to play they will loose the egde.
i didn't play to far with them until now but i think the orcrace which gets the unique shaman from beginning could quite quick research conj6 for spectres to speed up research .

[PvK]

Heh... ya everyone needs "strong" national troops like Cohen's Crusaders!

I tried them out a bit and I guess I mainly think some Ratings are higher than make sense, rather than higher than are balanced for the entire nation in a high magic game.

Some things are severely off the usual scale for gold and resource costs compared to what you get. That can be all right if that's what you want, but if you want things to have appropriate numbers compared to similar things in the existing units, then I think there are several things I would change, like the "daggers" that are +1 to everything including length, and the 22-hitpoint orcs (unless these orcs are _supposed_ to be like half-ogres, or to be like Claymen).

The gold and resource costs are much lower than unmodded units with similar or lesser skills or equipment. However that could be the special ability of the orcs, which is fine.

The double hitpoints and built-in (magic ?) superior weapons seem more like mistakes, though.

I'd rather go even further and halve the cost of common orcs from 8-10 to 4-5 gold, but give them half as many hit points, change their daggers to normal daggers, perhaps change them from defense 10 to 9 (since they have attack 11 and are not elite troops). That would actually make them more powerful, in some ways (two for the price of one), but would make more sense to me than the super hit points and superior weapons, etc.

If these are based on Warcraft though, and in Warcraft the Orcs are like half-ogres, then maybe it's partly that I don't recognize what's trying to be represented.

PvK

[Boron]

Originally posted by PvK:
Heh... ya everyone needs "strong" national troops like Cohen's Crusaders!


PvK

the problem with cohens crusaders is that they are even stronger than the orcs. but in cohens mod you have almost no magic at all . 1 fire or 1 earth on the "mages" . and they have only 3 rp . for small maps they are really unbalanced . at faerun your opponents have most likely already researched quite far in magic. but since sages are so common you can still research quite quick .
what really imbalances cohens mod is the far to strong phoenix knight pretender . you can get powerful bless effects with him and an immortal sc without equipment . because 2 of the commanders produce 20 supplies furthermore you really can do very well for almost the entire game without much magic .

though i admire cohens effort and ideas and his drawings of the troops are very nice too i think it is really imbalanced for small maps because 1-2 of his neighbors can do whatever they want but almost 100% sure will be overrun .
at faerun it is perhaps more interesting since you have very low gem income and only your pretender can search either directly or with some spells . and as long as you don't find sages your research speed sucks bigtime too.


the orkmod is nice too .
but what i think is really imbalanced is primarely kronotauron the shaman hero for the renegade tribes . he has as good magic paths than a archdemon . no other unique summon has as high / many paths than he expect the 3 archdemons . + 4 death / 4 nature income is too much too .
with recuperation + 76 hp he is like a second pretender from start onwards .
+ for forging / summoning you already have covered death nature and air so you can design your pretender taking this into account and give him e.g. blood and earth or something similiar that you cover 60+% of the magic paths .
since the basic orks only need 1-3 resources and the most expensive unit only 17 resources you can take sloth 3 for additional points .

the mod is really very stylish and has much rpgflavour but is only good for either 1on1 with the 2 orcraces or as an aienchanting mod together with cohens if you don't take one of the 3 races yourself .

the oger's from orcish empire are like a trampling troll from turn 1 on with the same upkeepcosts . but i find the renegade tribes all in all even stronger because of their supermage .

the only real balanced mod so far which could be a official 18th race is really your amazon empire mod pvk but it was quite easier for you since 90% of the units / leaders you did just take from the game or ? you didn't alter any stats on the 4 tribes units / leaders ?
you "only" added the amazon scout / leader + the wayfarer and amazon + the 2 pd units or ? and of course the national heros .
but balance was much easier for you then if you made something completely new like cohen and weissi did

i think psycholochy plays an important part there too .
you want to make a really cool new nation and then you easily oversee that it is too powerful.
nothing is more frustrating than to hear your nation sucks because it is so weak. the other side of this is that you almost can't avoid overpowering it .

[Cheezeninja]

To the mod creator: I am currently well into production of my own orc mod, and right now the only real holdup is creation of orc sprites (im modifying existing ones to look 'orky') I was wondering if you would mind if i used your fantastic sprites in my mod . Being an extremely un-artistic person they are far better than anything i could come up with, and my mod is going to have a very different feel from yours. More along the lines of LoTR and D&D orcish hordes.

[ July 17, 2004, 00:36: Message edited by: Cheezeninja ]