***Champions/ single units versus group units: a balancing idea

I think that is a great idea, because it would improve the balance and adds more options.

lol absolutely not

already spells hitting multiple is too much and is not so fantastic mechanic, even traits for melee???

they are op as they are

maybe id consider it ONLY for dragons and bosses

You misunderstand. The NORMAL limit would be 1 unit (such as Champions) can kill ONE UNIT in a group, not something like Overpower. It's something I suggested as well and it would greatly deepen the game's tactical scene while making sure that armies are primarily fought between armies instead of lone assassins destroying everybody. Great warriors will still be able to do their thing if they specialized in it, although it wouldn't be given right off the bat.

i dont get them

 1 champions has 100 dmg

he attacks 1 pack with 10 creatures with 10 hp each

each attack deal only 10 dmg and kill just 1 creature?

for each trait "multiple x" he would do x times 10 dmg but still capping his dmg against multiple?

I think he just means the champion does 100 damage to one unit out of the pack at a time. So if it is one champion versus 3 groups of 5 wildlings, then the champion will have to do 15 total attacks to kill them, instead of 3 attacks where each is hit killing a whole wildling pack.

Yes. Basically, your hero can only cut down a single person at a time unless they had a special ability to mow down waves of warriors.

I'm not sure of the specifics behind the OP's vision but personally I think that special ability should only move the cap on damage so attacks can possibly effect additional units, and not multiply it or anything.

Right. No matter how much damage a champion does, they can only kill one figure in a unit at a time unless they have a skill, item, or spell that increases the number of figures that can be attacked per turn.

would groups of say three automatically start with the ability to kill 3, while groups of 7 would start with the ability to kill 7?

I like this idea, especially if it gets applied to non-aoe spells. Right now, champions are just way too efficient compared to units. If bringing an army of champions limits the number of attacks you get, without these traits, then those champions are at greater risk of damage, which should hopefully give units a bit more of a reason to be in the game.

Correct.

I really like this idea, though I think it'd be fine if spells continued to damage multiple units as is.  I'm finding that mana is a very limiting factor at the moment, even with dense magic setting, and that (Death magic excepted), magic is in a fairly decent place ATM. 

Right now champions/sovereigns are overpowered, being able to kill whole groups without a scratch., for example Magnar wiping 5 Iron Golems by himself.

It's Elemental deja vu, one champion with the 5000 gold sword and the magical plate armor murdering everything by himself.

I like this idea: because it introduces an RPS mechanic of heroes > monsters > mobs > heroes.

Might need some extra balancing work , as I can see certain things potentially being a bit too good as a result ofthis change.

This exact idea has been thrown around since WoM.

Not sure why they have never gone this route. I like it.

+1 love the idea, as champions are far too powerful atm

This would be an enormous nerf for champions.  And it's not going to happen (though perhaps it could be a mod).  For a refresher, this is what the game's designers want champions to be like.

High level champions are designed to be able to solo armies.  This isn't an RTS with rock-paper-scissor style counters.  The proper counter to a high level champion is a high level champion.

Frankly, I think making champions more realistic would be boring and kinda besides the point in a game with magic and dragons and whatnot.

iirc the Sauron thing applied to War of Elemental, not Fallen Enchantress. It also doesn't mean Champions won't still be able to take out armies, they just won't be able to do it without specializing in that sort of thing. A warrior would be able to cleave through multiple enemies (similar to now), an Assassin would be able to dodge most attacks until they wore the enemy down, a mage would blast them apart, a defender would laugh at their pitiful strikes in an unstoppable march... but each class would BE UNIQUE in how it managed to go Sauron. Unlike now which is just.. *whack* *everybody dies* for all physical classes. It's friggin boring and has no flair.

FE is the game War of Magic was supposed to be, so I don't see how the Sauron thing would be less influential now.  WoM's problems were legion and iirc, one of them was that champions were underwhelming compared to trained units.

Defender, Warrior, Assassin, Mage... but we have those classes and they work the way you're describing.  The problem is that the level of your champions is so much greater than the level of your opponents that it doesn't matter what you do because your guys are invulnerable.  You've made your champions into demigods; which is pretty much the point of the whole game! 

Of course, if you've outclassed your opponents to the point that there's no challenge then that's boring.  I fail to see how making it take seven extra turns to finish off a unit will make it more fun.

Perhaps you should play on a harder level of difficulty?

I do think this does highlight an issue with the AI, though: it doesn't really understand how to use spells or use units in combination in the tactical battle.  It's battle plans are basic and wrong-headed, (e.g. focus-fire on the weakest and least threatening units) and it completely fails to use its magic effectively to undermine your strategy while enhancing its own.  For example, if it slowed and shrunk/withered/cursed your champion, that would give its regular units a chance to apply a beat down.

Making the AI smarter is a huge challenge, granted.  But I highly doubt nerfing champions is the solution to making the game more fun.

It is not a realism issue. It is more about gameplay balance. Right now Champions are better than units in almost every case. 

Nothing in this idea would prevent building up high level Champions that can smash whole units, just like Sauron in the LotR. There has been talk here of abilities that you could gain as you level. Ideally, Warriors would have easy access to them, Defenders and Assassins less, and much lower chance for Governors and Mages.

Champions are too powerful because they are allowed to level too much. This would take too much extra code to be feasible for the devs or modders. It is an interesting idea though. I just think there are better ways to equalize the two types of units. 

I agree with the OP on this one. 

A mechanic like this is more intuitive, and allows for more specialization and differentiation among the various paths.

If you want a melee champion who destroys hordes of enemies with a single stroke, you should NEED to choose path of the warrior.

It doesn't just 'nerf' champions, it 'nerfs' all units.  I don't think there's all that much loss of balance on this one, not that the game is all that balanced right now to begin with.

I highly doubt this is true.  There is already code describing numbers of units. 

The way they went about and kept this mechanic is a nightmare, but this isn't a solution to me. I hate the multiple-unit unit, it makes the game impossible to balance.

That code does damage per unit, not limit damage to one unit. Totally different concept. The balance would further be shifted from this idea. The more you get unit size increased, heroes become weaker. So you would have to add abilities for heroes to kill more than one unit, essentially limiting the whole concept to the early game. The idea is changing a core game concept to fix a problem with hero power and weapon balance. It is one way to go, but not the simplest or most elegant.

It's not just the leveling, champions are too powerful because there's too much good loot in unguarded goodie huts. Too easy to find broadswords and naja skin gauntlets, and chain shirts and longstrider boots and dragonhide cloaks and round shields and such in totally unguarded goodie huts, where there is absolutely zero risk, and substantial gain.

Equipment is king. Take away all your awesome equipment, and give a level 12 champion a rusty short sword and a wooden shield, and he'll have a rough time with a troll again. Unguarded goodie huts need to give out rewards consistent with the effort required to loot them - almost nothing. Some gold, some metal, maybe a handfull of crystal, occasionally a rusty sword or beaten up piece of armor, a small healing item, that sort of thing.

The problem with champions is they can become essentially immune to troops after visiting a handfull of goodie huts and killing off the meekest of local monster lairs. The equipment being handed out in the early game is just way too powerful.

Oh yeah, I forgot that the vanilla game has a huge imbalance in equipment power. I shifted that power to levels and made it take forever to level. Nerfing equipment solves alot of unintuitiveness in the game. This also helps with the fact that AI heroes don't buy and equip from the shop, since most of their power comes from leveling.