Hello guys,
the Game Design Team has been talking about the units and their current roles in the game. Thereby the following point is clearly visible.
Hoplites and chariots are currently really similar.
Both are hybrid units with sharp weapons and defensive focus against blunt weapons. Only the chariot is way faster.
Basically the chariot is like 4 hoplites driving a sharp car.
Right now we have the following other roles with the basic units:
- The swordsmen for defending against distance weapons
- The archers for defending against sharp weapons
- The slingers for attacking with distance weapons
- The horsemen for attacking with blunt weapons.
- The divine envoys as blunt hybrid.
But there is no offensive unit for sharp weapons. Instead we have 2 hybrid role units dealing sharp weapon damage and defending against blunt weapons.
So why not changing the chariot from a hybrid into an sharp weapon offensive unit?
This would need us to increase his attack value while decreasing its defensive values.
The graphics below would be our suggestions of how we would like to change the chariot unit.
Current values:
Suggested values for sharp weapons offensive unit:
By this change we would create a new role filling a gap in the current system and adding value to this unit and the research cost of it at the same time.
Tell us what you think about it!
Nils & Andreas
As Game Designer i'm doing my best to provide you with new game features, events and gameplay improvements. Therefore i analyze & play the game likewise to experience and feel the needs of a player. Reading the forums gathering and discussing feedback with my team and the community is part of this as well.
Hi Nils,
are you going to introduce this future on old worlds as well as on new ones?
Hi Diodemus,
currently the whole thing is up for discussion with you guys. We really wanna know if you share our thought on the chariot being basically not more useful than the hoplite.
And if you the community thinks having a more useful unit makes sense we gonna provide this to the worlds.
Do you see any reason why (IF we change it) we should not let the old worlds benefit from this as well?
I think if it is only get introduced on new worlds you can make it. I don’t see much disadvantages. But if you want also to “benefit” the old worlds i think it would be a big mistake. There are towns which get defended by chariots and with in a few minutes it won’t work any more. Players would have to “kill” them in their defensiv cities and change them for hoplites.
Furthermore I don’t agree with you that there is no offensive sharp unit. In cause of the way to much events there are far to much Manticores in the game. But this shouldn’t influence the change of the chariot.
Hi,
first of all thanks as you seem to share our thoughts on the charriots.
On the other hand im a little bit suprised that even as you think it makes sense to do so, you dont want it to happen on the old worlds.
A change which in general benefits all players should not be done because it will ONCE (at release time) make some current defense plans useless. But after that players would adapt their defense and profit from the change.
So maybe the solution would be more something like announcing it (if we would do it) some weeks before so people can adapt their defenses and change from chariots to a hoplite defense. Then the only problem would be solved and they could benefit from the change as well. Would that be solving the problem for you ?
Concerning the manticores yes they are sharp off unit, but most people dont get that much Manticores build regularly, some do during the events for sure. But besides the manticore at the normal set of units the sharp-off is missing.
Looking forward to your thoughts.
EDITED COMMENT: As i saw on the DE Forum that someone stated wrongly, that I said contrary to my colluege Andreas, “that we want to bring these units to new servers” thats not the case.
I first was asking if you see issues, (which Andreas & i thought you might have) with it.
I secondly was asking if this woulndt make sense for you to do so, if we can make sure (see above) that no one gets suprised by it and players could adapt defenses upfront.
Your story was really inotimafrve, thanks!
Well i think it would be a mistake and you should think serious of this. And what to do with the chariots in defending cities? Especially with the new farming village system there will be no use for them. Furthermore your colleague with the nickname”Anec” said something different then you. He told us, that your plan is to introduce this feature only on new worlds….
Hi,
we are seriously thinking about it, and want to discuss it with you thats why we posted it here.
Anec & I are not saying something differently also someone said so in the forum.
I saw on the DE Forum that someone stated wrongly, that I said something contrary to my colluege Andreas, “that we want to bring these units to new servers” thats not the case.
I first was asking if you see issues, (which Andreas & i thought you might have) with it.
I secondly was asking if this woulndt make sense for you to do so, if we can make sure (see above) that no one gets suprised by it and players could adapt defenses upfront.
I never said “we will have it on old worlds” i explicitly wanted to hear about your thoughts on this, what could be issues we might not have seen beside those we found, see if there are options to solve them.
I was thinking about the gap too. I’ll be happy if there is a sharp off non-myth units on new worlds and on old ones as well. Of course, it’ll be surprising for all players that their defense is now offense but it’s still better to have a sharp off units in rest of the game because you can replace your chariots by an alternative unit in several days. A few days or a few months?
I’m quite sure it’s possible to give time to replace the chariots by e.g. swordsmen. So, the most of players would have chariots prepared for the mentioned purposes. Yeah, it’ll complicate everything for a short time however who has a such amount of chariots that the adjustment can endanger him?
However…
What is the reason that you’re planning to make chariots off and not hoplites? Chariots are the only one deff (respectively it can be effectively used as deff) land unit which is fast. Faster than the fast trans. boat. Slingers and horsemen are quick but we usually attack over the sea, so travel time depends on speed of boats. Land support of chariots can save situation sometimes. 😀 Simply, I would like to have fast and slow deff units as I have fast and slow att ones. Hoplites are reaaaaaaaaallyyyyy slow & weak in attack. I use them just because I must (if I want to have any sharp offensive units – chariots are even weaker in att). Chariots are quite attractive in their speed. What about hoplites? I’m afraid I don’t need them in defense. If you provide me chariots strong in sharp, I won’t use hoplites anymore. In defense unnecessary, in (land) attacks weak (and slow). Yep, they could be useful to recruit them as universal defense in off cities which are very close to enemy but their disadvantage is defense against distance att – against slingers – the most used off unit…
Universal units need to be fast. They’re not effective in the middle of ally, they’re effective near to enemy where every minute costs and where you never know what you will need. If they are slow I can use specialized units because why should I use universal units if specialized can arrive in time too?
Of course, that’s my view as player who has his cities close to each other and plays revolt worlds. 🙂
So it would make more sense to turn hoplites into a sharp offensive unit and keep chariots as they are?
I have a question what is with the hoplites do you also thinking about changing the Deffabilities of this Unit because for a Hybridunit the Abiltis are ok but for a Deffunit there are to weak.
Hi Lexxi,
in the first place changing the hoplite from a hybrid unit to a defensive unit is not what we thought of but we’ll see depending on the ongoing discussion if or what changes we gonna make to the chariot/hoplite complex.
Cheers
I think the starting point here is good: apart from small differences, the chariot and hoplite may have been a little bit too similar for a long time. However, I do have two comments about the change as it is shown in the blog now:
– Right now, the instant chariot spell of Zeus can be quite helpful to defend an allied city on very short notice. When no reinforcements can get to a city that is under attack quick enough anymore, this tactic might be your last hope on saving a city. I don’t see the Devine Sign spell have the same value when the chariot is changed to a unit that is used for offensive operations only.
– The chariot looks very similar to the horseman with these new stats. Their attack strengths will be exactly the same, only the attack type will be different. Also, the defensive stats, although they are not used for defending, will be almost the same: Blunt 7.5 versus 6, Sharp 0.33 versus 1.5, Distance 8 versus 5.5. These numbers are of course per unit population and they show that there will only be minor differences between the horseman and the chariot.
Hi Ome Luuk,
first of all thanks for the feedback.
– Concerning the Spell you are absolutely right, if we would do the change we were bringing up for discussion this needs to be taken into account. One option could be then to change the spell to instead of providing the former “defense chariot” to give 4 Hoplites instead. But its definitively a point we would need to tackle.
– Concerning the values of chariot and horseman yes they would be close to each other but as you pointed out the weapon damage type would be sharp. So you would finally have a sharp attack unit (besides mythicals). That would be the goal of this whole thing.
Yes, chariots are very similar to hoplites,
Yes, sharp offence units are missing in the game,
but making chariots offensive units maybe isn’t the best thing to do:
Because chariots are now often used especially because of their hybridness. Like you have the trireme with a double use for fights over sea, instead of only having fireships for full-off and biremes for full-def
For example in a city with a lot of enemy-cities around, so they can function as well as attack as defence. By making them offensive they can’t be used in that way anymore.
You could use hoplites instead, but they are much less nice to use for this because they are very slow over land and because the resources you need are quite unbalanced.
So I don’t think you should change chariots and take away the possible use they have now.
You also won’t fill all gaps by doing this, because offensive sharp isn’t the only missing unit-type. There also is no (full) defensive sharp unit and there also is no flying distance unit for example.
So I think you could better change nothing, OR make hoplites better defenders, keep chariots as they are, add an offensive spear-unit and a flying distance-unit…
Hi Alfred J.K.
i clearly can see the point you make, concerning the speed of the chariots being of high interest. Several players brought up that point as being very important for them.
Concerning filling all gaps, your right currently their is several gaps, which you pointed out precisely. They are in the system which was build long ago.
Adding a new offensive (sharp unit is quiet an interesting approach, as we then could make the hoplite a clearly defensive unit and keep the chariot als quick hybrid. (Here we would need to check on the interfaces of different screens if that would work out everywhere)
A flying distance unit, also its missing in the system currently would be quite different in terms of work load. As that one (mythical) would/should be clearly connected to a new god (which would then result in a definitely bigger effort).
Thank you very much for you constructive and honest feedback.
I propose the opposite.
Chariots should remain as defense unit, while the hoplites serve as attack units.
Then, increase the attack power of the hoplites and decrease the attack of chariots.
It can increase the defense of the chariots, but I do not think it is necessary.
Hi Ikari,
thats an idea which also came up by other players as they value the speed of the chariots for quick defense very high.
So that might be an option.
Thank you 🙂
Imagine how much confusion and reorganization that players should make with the reduction of defense chariot!
A-) It will be easier, if increase the attack hoplites and decrease the attack chariot or increase its defense.
B-) The players keep their strategies and hoplita will be used and taken advantage of.
C-) You won’t need to change the divine power of Zeus.
D-) You could increase the defense of the chariot in blunt and sharp defense, but you also might reduce distance defense, so the swordsman would be more used in the composition of the strategy.
Please consider this idea and bring it to discussion! 😉
Hi Ikari,
sure i get your idea behind this. Its making a lot of sens. Being open we just underestimated the importance of the speed of the chariot for some tactical situations.
But my fellow design collegue and me thought of this solution you are mentioning here too with the ongoing discussions in the forum. I think there are quite some people that support that thought on the forums. So we well carefully take a look on that and keep up the talking on it.
Thank you for the constructive feedback
I agree with that, and make hoplites a bit faster then
My opinion is that if you want sharp attacking unit you should make manticores. true, it takes sometime to build a city with 50-65 of them, but you don’t need transports.
Are you considering adding in additional units to the game?
Hi King,
currently we are not planing on adding units to the game to be used by the players. But as we are working on island quests currently we will add some new units for the island quests as attackers or defenders.
Cheers
Nils
I think that the change should happen to the Hops and not to the Chariots. My reasoning behind this is simply because of the resources necessary to develop each unit. The balanced recruitment of Archers (Needing primarily wood) and the recruitment of Chariots (needing primarily stone) makes them an ideal package for any DLU city. The necessary requirement for silver to produce Hops, (which with change would be turned into an offensive unit only), could be replaced by the recruitment of swords in it’s place which also require a good silver output to produce. Their is no other def. land unit that requires stone to produce, by removing the chariots from the available def. land unit builds available, you are making the + stone islands almost obsolete in their effectiveness to maintain the long term goals of the players. If your stone islands can only be used to produce OLU then your stone islands in your core safe zones would be essentially be useless in the long haul resulting in lost resources that would not be utilized.
Hi Zhao Shun,
i and i think several other players shared your thought on if making changes it probably should happen to the hoplites instead. (Mostly for the reason of the speedy chariots being used as quick response force by many players)
The point of bringing more use to the silver and stone resources is a point nobody brought up until now. But this is a realy good one.
Cheers
Hey ,
It’s sure hoplites OR chariot should become more off than hybride .
-except the manticore no other sharp off unit is used (harpy take priority about medusea)
-When you start to play you have 4 units accesable for defence for 3 offensives (yeah hoplites and DE are in 2 catégories)
– Hoplites/chariot counter swordsmen but 100 chariot or 346 hoplites can’t pass the milice with rempo higher than lvl 16 , contrary of slingers countered by swordsman who can easy destroy milice
conclusion:
Ithink it would be better to up chariot as defender and hoplites as offenser
-> it would up blunt stat for early (so harpy cause of the introducion)
-> swordsmen will counter slingers // archers counter hoplites // DE will ignore all this . it’s more simple for néophytes.
1st unit is swordsmen who counter the 2nd slingers ,
then the 3rd is archer who counter the 4th hoplites (all 1 pop cost) 5th DE and 6th cavalier are good for attack
7th chariot counter 5th and 6th
a 3 step logic can be created :
1st-4th are the early
5th-7th are completation of fight mechanics
mythics and catapult are like an extension for more fun
sorry for the english lvl and so much tanks for your attention and your job about this game 🙂
Hi CamiLama,
thanks for making the effort and putting this together.
Concerning getting the hoplites more offensive instead, the Design Team found that also to be more useful and a lot of other players as well.
Your explanation to this makes sense too.
Currently we are rethinking if we will make that change in general but if it would definitely go into direction of turning the hoplite offensive.
Cheers and thank you for your kind words.
From time to time its good to hear that our work is appreciated. 🙂