Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock

[Esthlos]

As you know, KaM's military is roughly balanced to be a rock, paper, scissors counter system, where (I'll be referring only to Iron troops for simplicity) Pikemen counter Knights who counter Sword Fighters who counter Pikemen, while Crossbowmen are supposed to be all-around good.
Or at least, were supposed to: their power when paired with any melee troop (especially the cheap Pikemen) to distract enemies prompted the "shield patch", effectively inserting them into the rock-paper-scissors system and, probably, breaking it.

Now, what about transforming said rock-paper-scissors into its famous extended version rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock by "officially" adding Crossbowmen and another trainable unit (maybe Barbarians for Wood troops and Warriors for Iron troops?) to the system?

It would become Pikemen > Knights > Crossbowmen > Warriors > Sword Fighters > Pikemen, like in the picture:

KaM RPSLS.jpg

What do you think?

[Krom]

Looks good, but I suspect Pikeman/xBows, xBows/Barbarians and Pikeman/Barbarians arrow are actually the other way round at the moment?

[Killer!!]

I like the idea, but I think you shouldn't put the range units in this, because if they are for example the rock and the pikeman is the scissor they would just lose against them because crossbowman can't fight on his own if the enemy is to close

[Esthlos]

I like the idea, but I think you shouldn't put the range units in this, because if they are for example the rock and the pikeman is the scissor they would just lose against them because crossbowman can't fight on his own if the enemy is to close

The point is that with four units this won't work, and also ranged units are military units present in KaM.

Besides, Pikemen simply shouldn't get that close to Crossbowmen - they should get killed by bolts beforehand, since they have no shield nor movement speed bonus.

[Esthlos]

Looks good, but I suspect Pikeman/xBows, xBows/Barbarians and Pikeman/Barbarians arrow are actually the other way round at the moment?

I agree about the Pikemen/Warriors and Crossbomen/Warriors being the other way arond at the moment, but I posted this in "Ideas / Suggestions" because the game is not already this way - if it was, I should have posted in a "game review" section

[kocsis1david]

I like this idea, it would make strategies more important and interesting. Currently swordmans and bowman are the main strategy, sometimes with a few knights and pikes/lances. And with warrior it would be possible to counter both knights and swordman which is the most common. The warrior is not good against crossbow and pikeman, so it makes them more useful.

If the warrior is trained at the barracks, it would need a new weapon that could require two iron at the weapon smithy, idk how would it be balanced. And I think warriors should be in a different kind of group, they shouldn't be in the same group with swordmans and axe fighters. The barbarian could be kept as a special unit like currently it is. The problem is that it needs some new graphics, I would help making them if the idea is accepted. I suppose that than there will additional tests and corrections.

[thunder]

The knight seems weakly on this graph. The knights should to beat all s...storm units minus pikes. Not only the swordsman.
Knights should to be stronger then any TH units also. (this calculation is based on the used wares)
But yes this graph looks out good. Will you creat leather graph also?

[kocsis1david]

Thinking about it again, there is already pike/lance and sword/axe for the close combat. Maybe a new type is not needed. But if it's accepted, It would make sense to not allow storm attack for warriors, since it is weaker for archers. Btw I don't like that a storm attacking soldier stop if he has a tree or something in front of him. Thunder could be right about knights, because it's expensive.

[Esthlos]

But yes this graph looks out good. Will you creat leather graph also?

If you want it I can, but I don't see why should it be needed... it's just a 2-minutes consuming little thing I put together just to illustrate the idea.

Anyway, here it is:

KaM RPSLS L.jpg

Thinking about it again, there is already pike/lance and sword/axe for the close combat. Maybe a new type is not needed. But if it's accepted, It would make sense to not allow storm attack for warriors, since it is weaker for archers. Btw I don't like that a storm attacking soldier stop if he has a tree or something in front of him. Thunder could be right about knights, because it's expensive.

Not allowing them to Storm and making them cost enough should make Crossbowmen a counter to them without adding more "bonus damage/defence vs unit" bonuses than we already have.
Good idea!

Also, giving them enough cost difference Pikemen would be a counter to Warriors even without being able to take them out 1v1, by simply being able to mob them down.

By the way, if Warriors are not allowed to Storm and this graph gets applied, then the Knight does counter every Storm troop...

Applying this graph, we would have 5 unit types:
-Bruiser: slow and vulnerable to ranged fire, very expensive, but by far the best melee combatants in the game;

-Fighter: can Storm, resistant to ranged fire, expensive, capable of dishing out respectable damage;

-Horse: fast, resistant to ranged fire, expensive, the second best melee fighter with a weakness to anti-horse weapons;

-Anti-horse: slow and vulnerable to ranged fire, cheap, the weakest in melee combat but able to easily outnumber Bruisers and armed with anti-horse weapons;

-Ranged: slow and very frail, cheap, can be killed by any other soldier - provided they can close the gap and get into melee range without being gunned down in the process.