500G not enough compensation for moving 2nd?

[Ming]

I am from the Far East and with my time zone I doubt if I'll ever get to play on-line. So my comments are based entirely on SP - usually testing ideas against myself.

First it seems that 500G is insufficient to compensate for moving second - I win over 80% of the games playing first against myself. The exception is Gnomes. I note that the the 500G figure might be arrived at by dividing the initial city's income by 2. If that were the case Gnomes are getting an extra 100G for playing second. If all other races also get an extra 100G for playing second i.e. 600G, it would make things more balanced (at least for me). What do everyone else think?

Second, I had a terrible time playing Arcatta against Gnomes. Even though the Archmage is excellent against Legendmaker and the Sorceress is excellent against Wolfriders, the Gnome player can usually dictate the match-up because Legendmaker enters play unspent and gnome units have high movement - especially if herbally enhanced. Wolfriders against Archmage and Legendmakers against Sorceress will result in disaster for Arcatta. Also, I find that the archmage's armor bonus hardly ever get used as the Arcatta player usually need all the firepower from the Archmage to keep the Gnomes at bay. Am I missing something?

Ming the Terrible

[ichbinsehselber]

I agree in most parts. Going first is better than going second in most cases.
But my observation about gnomes is different. If I go second with gnomes I have got 1200 gold, this is 400 extra fro going second, so it is exaclty as you are suggesting. Maybe it depends on the version?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Hey there,

A couple of comments:
-The Gnomes as Player 2 should only be receiving +400 gold (i.e. +50%) on their first turn. If you're seeing something different, please take a screenshot and post it, as this would definitely be a bug we'd want to look at.

-The Arcatta is definitely a tricky race to use to its full capability, and they're definitely classified as one of the 'advanced' races. We worked very hard to balance all of the races against each other, but only when they're used to the absolute fullest of their abilities. This does mean that for many players, the Arcatta and Afflicted can have a harder time against Gnome and Human players (for instance), except in games between tried and true veterans.

As for some specific tips with the Arcatta, their strengths don't lie in brute force as much as the other races. In fact, Levitate can become one of their strongest assets, as it can make all the difference between killing a unit or taking over a city when the enemy least expects it. Also, you may notice that while some abilities (like the Archmage's armor ability) aren't necessarily game-changing on their own or during battles in open areas, the Arcatta's abilities can all be used in one way or another to help a unit of yours get to and defend a city that you're trying to capture. In fact, when the Arcatta work together and focus on helping a friendly unit capture an enemy town, there's very little an opposing player can do about it. Usually this will just help set you up for an income advantage, but it can often win you the game by getting you that one last city!

The Arcatta also have the most efficient healers in the game, so make ample use of them!

[Ming]

Thanks Hiro. It is unusual to have the designer of the game answer personally to one’s questions, and with playing tips too! It is obvious that you care for the game and are proud of your creation. You should be proud as LOL is a great game. I checked out the other games in the top 5 strategy game award for 2005 (from the post elsewhere in this forum) and would personally rank LOL ahead of the other 4.

I was mistaken in thinking Gnomes get 500G when playing second. I stand corrected. Thanks also to ichbinsehselber for pointing this out. The fact remains that Gnomes can recruit Gardeners on T2 and 3 when playing second as opposed to T2 and 4 when playing first. As far as I can remember none of the other races has similar compensation in terms of recruitable units when playing second. Maybe you could illuminate me (and probably others as well) why you think 500G is sufficient compensation for playing second?

On my problem of Arcatta vs. Gnomes, I did use Arcatta healers to back up the Sorcerers and Archmages and almost always attack at full strength, but as Gnome player I almost always ensure that the Sorcerers/Archmages are killed even if it leaves others at full strength, so the high healing power is not very relevant. I also find that the flight ability can be extremely useful in some maps (e.g. Arcatta vs. Afflicted in the campaign) but not that relevant in others. Maybe I am missing a few tricks?

Two other comments:

1. In the spirit of your minimalist approach, shouldn’t you reduce all gold amounts by a factor of 50? That is, Cutpurse gets 1G per damage and cost 16G to recruit, Gnome cities generate 16G per turn and other cities get 20G per turn, etc.
2. Is there a keyboard command that cancels an action? Right now I need to click on the unit itself to cancel an action and clicking on the wrong square could end up having the unit cast a spell/ability on its adjacent ally. This could be disastrous as every mistake could become a game loser in LOL.

I hope I am not nit-picking. Like most gamers, I just hope that a great game can become even greater.

[ichbinsehselber]

I agree that the races are very well balanced. At least to the extent, that this is possible at all, given the goal that the races should differ a lot from one another. Which they do and I like it.

Still there are differences in the capabilities of the races. At least some terrain is favourable for some races. Distance between cities of 5 squares favours other races than distance 6 etc.

I only play vs Computer (I did not try to play against myself, I do not think this is fun for me).
My standard handicap is going first and doing nothing for 3 turns. This means I restrict myself on buying the first unit in turn 4. I tested Arcatta vs Gnomes and I won on turn 15. I had tougher times in other matchups. On the other hands I won also in a match where I went second and did nothing for 3 turns. But this was humans vs elves.

I do not know how Arcatta would perform in expert human vs expert human matchups. But I do think that the starting player will likely win. On the other hand going second may not be so tough for the gnomes as Ming nicely points out (T2 gardener, T3 gardener)

[ichbinsehselber]

Arcatta vs Gnomes going second and getting first move on turn 4 is also beaten and I feel a bit proud :-)

[Ming]

Ichbinsehselber,

I tried out your idea to make sure it is not just me having problems with Arcatta.

I went second with T4/5/6 Apprentice. Used random map (turned out to be Gold Mountain) and won on T17 losing 6 (1 sorceress, 1 apprentice, and 4 initiate) out of 22 units against the AI's 22 (all killed). The AI simply build too many Legendmakers and wasted money on Gardners/cutpurse) when it should concentrate on Wolfriders. I am afraid I had a much rougher time against myself as Gnomes.

[ichbinsehselber]

very nice, Ming!
... and another weakness of the AI is, that you usually know, that the AI will attack your unit on the city even if attacking a different unit would be much better.

[Ming]

I finally won my first game of Arcatta vs. Gnome against myself.

Hiro is right about Arcatta. I finally found the missing piece in Arcatta's arsenal: attack with apprentice! While not immediately obvious unless one studies the stat carefully, the one point reduction in skill in selected opponent's units can turn a battle and the 2 influence point reduction usually delays opponent's city capture by a turn - not earth shattering but enough to turn a close game in Arcatta's favour. Apprentices also have the lowest cost per HP amongst the Arcatta and therefore cost effective in soaking up enemy fire, posing a real dilemma for opponents. I have been mislead by countless years of conditioning in virtually all other strategy games that healers need to stay away from the front line.

Great design, Hiro.

P.S. I still suspect the player moving second does not get sufficient compensation. Would I be proven wrong again?

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Ming said:Great design, Hiro.

Thank you! It means a lot when a customer says that. =)

Ming said:
P.S. I still suspect the player moving second does not get sufficient compensation. Would I be proven wrong again?

Well, of course the problem is that in a complicated game like this, it's hard to prove either way. If it were completely straightfoward, I certainly would have done it the obvious way -- whatever that might have been. So the best I can really offer are my philosophies and experiences that led to the decision I made.

I suppose the biggest point I have is that LOL is a game of 'thresholds', which means that with all sorts of things in the game, the game doesn't really change substantially as values (damage, money, etc.) go up, until a threshold is reached that changes things rather dramatically. For example, if you deal 7 damage to an 8 HP unit, things aren't really different than if you'd dealt 6 damage. But once you deal 8 damage to that unit, it dies and that changes the situation radically. Likewise, accumulating an extra $100 here or there doesn't affect things until it crosses a threshold where you can buy a stronger or additional unit.

Where I'm going with that is that while the Gnomes have a very obvious 1st-turn use for that extra money because the threshold is crossed on Turn 1, it's not like it's lost on the units of other races. It just means that it'll be a turn or two down the road before a player's money pool crosses the threshold for another/better unit. In my experience, an experienced player will tend to make purchasing and/or tactical decisions in the first few turns to take advantage of that extra money to bring out an upper-tier unit before they could have otherwise. For some races, (and even on some maps -- for gold mines,) it makes sense to have a different build order as Player 2 than it does as Player 1.

Of course, we did an awful lot of playtesting, really scrutinizing the rules to make sure things were as balanced as possible.

So does that mean that things really are perfectly balanced? Not necessarily. But I can say we put a lot of thought into it, found the best and cleanest solution we could, and from my observation seems to have worked fairly well.

But if you still think that going first or second yields an advantage, make sure you select your preference on the setup screen in internet/skirmish matches! Both players have have the right to choose, and the game will randomly determine who goes first or second in the event both players choose the same. Even if one choice emerges as the clearly correct one, (which I doubt will happen,) over time all players will be granted their preference roughly 1/2 of the time, factoring into everyone's records (roughly) equally.