[1.02][BALANCE] Altar Henchmen Tweaks

a couple of things to help the AI...

from Elemental Forums

Over the weekend I've been playing with Altar's Henchmens (Altarian civil war) to tweak them a bit for balance. The idea isn't really to nerf them, but rather to tweak it so that the AI can put these guys to use a bit better to give them a bit of flavor when not played by the players...

Anyways, here's what I came up with after a few trial runs:

1) Alter Henchmen Tech's prereq to require Heroes (internal: Recruiting) tech and Enchantment tech (instead of just Shard Harvesting), double research cost to fit it into its new tier (16 instead of 8) a bit better. This is primarily to push back the Henchmen rush and make sure the needed accessories, weapons, and armors are available to them when henchmens actually unlocks. I guess you can think of it as needing some nice gear before adventurers will sign up to your cause...

2) Modified the Heroic Trait so that it starts you off with 100 Influence (this is mainly to make sure that the AI has enough Influence to field a few Henchmens - because they don't spam Quest Maps), but completing a Quest only gives 20 Influence (instead of 50), thus reducing the effectiveness of Quest Map spam. So while you can get a couple of henchmens fairly easily, it'll take more work to field an army full of them. Think of it as a sort of "soft cap" for henchmens via cost, 3 completed quest would still allow you to field 3 henchmen, but you have to work harder if you want more.

3) Modified the base Henchmen unit designs as followed:


Bard:
   - Traits:
      - Air Adept (same - also of note: Air Adept 3 says it unlock Growth when it actually unlocks Storm)
      - Water Adept (same)
      - Bard (same)
   - Weapon
      - Staff, auto best ice staff (cold attack only) (instead of overall best)
   - Armor
      - Monk's Robes, doesn't upgrade (instead of nothing)
      - Pants, auto best (instead of nothing)
      - Boots, auto best (instead of nothing)
   - Add Accessories:
      - Ring of Glacier
      - Ring of Embers
      - Ring of Life
      - Belt of Speed

Torchbearer:
   - Traits:
      - Fire Adept (same)
      - Life Adept (same)
      - Fast (instead of Cook, Cook is simply too useless to waste a trait slot on)
   - Weapon
      - Staff, auto best fire staff (fire attack only) (instead of overall best)
   - Armor
      - Monk's Robes, doesn't upgrade (instead of nothing)
      - Pants, auto best (instead of nothing)
      - Boots, auto best (instead of nothing)
   - Add Accessories:
      - Ring of Glacier
      - Ring of Embers
      - Ring of Life
      - Belt of Speed

Shieldman:
   - Traits:
      - Earth Adept (same)
      - Shieldwall (same)
      - Muscle (instead of Ironskin - the weight bonus allows him to equip armor, which more than makes up for the lost of Ironskin)
   - Weapon
      - OneHanded, auto best OneHanded weapons (all damage - swords only for high initiative and counter) (instead of overall best)
      - Shield, auto best (same)
   - Armor
      - Torso, auto best (instead of nothing)
      - Pants, auto best (instead of nothing)
      - Boots, auto best (instead of nothing)
   - Add Accessories:
      - Ring of Glacier
      - Ring of Embers
      - Ring of Life
      - Belt of Speed

End of quote


Basically Bards are ice mages, Torchbearers are fire mages, with only Shieldmans being Melee. These aren't the best designs by far (but those requires babysitting - and often involves exp stacking), but they are far superior to the current designs and helps the AI keep them alive when they are most vulnerable (just trained), which means less injuries and more exp (and more levels - which makes them even stronger). The extra accessories (and mage staves) means they'll require some crystal to field (8-13), but since it's just a single unit, the cost benefit for them is quite high, and well worthwhile. (I originally had them use the best accessories, but the techreq for those made henchmen too far down the tech tree.)

Although the result I witnessed seems much improved, I'm still not entirely happy with it overall. The AI is still quite a bit behind the player with regards to using henchmens. This seems to be mainly because they are unable to properly build their heroes in general, unable to synergize their skill picks with their equipment (I have some ideas on how to improve that, but it's not something that can be done in a quick mod, so I'll write it up in more detail later - in the hopes of it being in an expansion). The AI also doesn't seem to realize the significance of these henchmen units (they don't seem to prioritize building these units in well enchanted fortresses to take advantage of those bonuses - maybe Brad can do something about that... or maybe prereq Fortress, or a <PrimaryFortressPriority> tag?). Also, the EXP stacking trick for players really needs to be addressed (maybe some kind of diminishing returns on stacked bonuses in general).

Anyways, here's the mod if anyone wants to play with it (this is a core file mod, so extract the modified files into your data\english folder and overwrite to install, and extract the original files v1.02 also included to uninstall):

Altar Henchmen Mod



Also of note, while testing I noticed that when mages are assigned a default weapon (with <Equipment>) AND have them pick the auto best staves, the unit design sometimes don't show up until you research a couple of techs down the tree for some reason. Removing the default weapon option and just have them auto select seems to fix this. However, this is not entirely certain, I only did a few tests regarding this problem so I didn't mod any of the mage designs to address it.

PS: and finally, is it too late to say that "henchmens" sounds kinda stupid...? Seriously, can't we just call them... "adventurers"?

8,710 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Excelent work, thank you a lot. I'll test it as soon as I arrive home.

A few notes:

- Maybe you should include this post in "Mods Forum"

- Could you arrange with the author of "Female henchmen" to include it in your Mod? It would be great.

- Henchmens sounds bad (for a non native english speaker at least). But "adventurer" is so... common...I like "soldier of fortune" but it is too long...

- I understand that the mod is oriented to improve the AI performance. Have you thought in making a version to break the "quest  loop"? This is, to nerf the shieldwall and the bard's "XP bonus for army".

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SOLOSOL, reply 1
Excelent work, thank you a lot. I'll test it as soon as I arrive home.

A few notes:

- Maybe you should include this post in "Mods Forum"

- Could you arrange with the author of "Female henchmen" to include it in your Mod? It would be great.

- Henchmens sounds bad (for a non native english speaker at least). But "adventurer" is so... common...I like "soldier of fortune" but it is too long...

- I understand that the mod is oriented to improve the AI performance. Have you thought in making a version to break the "quest  loop"? This is, to nerf the shieldwall and the bard's "XP bonus for army".
End of SOLOSOL's quote

 

I really only included the mod for trial testing purposes if anyone wants to check it out, because there's only so much that I can do testing wise alone (I have no real intention of seriously pursuing this mod, anyone who wants to use it however they want to is welcomed - it's actually not that hard to merge them if you want to do it yourself).

I think these changes actually does a pretty decent job at addressing the quest map spam, mainly by reducing its effectiveness. I don't think it's necessary to completely break the cycle, if people like doing quests, that's fine in my book... afterall, there's even a quest victory condition in the game. I just wanted to make it harder to get an army full of henchmens.

For shieldwall, tactician, and guardian stacking effects, it is possible to do via a mod. You basically make it so that the trait autocast a spell that can't be stacked at the beginning of battle (but you won't be able to pick which unit to use it - so a lower bonus might overwrite a higher bonus). The other solution, and probably the only one that would work for trainer effects would be to make it so henchmens can't pick them entirely. Neither solution is ideal in my mind, and I didn't set out to nerf henchmens in the first place, so I didn't go there.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

 

I like the reduction of influence from quests.  I like the base influence on heroic.  I like fixing the typo on air adept 3.

The only problem I have is putting accesories on the henchmen, i agree that it makes them more worthwile.  The problem is that it means you need crystal to be able to recruit champions.  I hate to block off the pre-constructed champions from players that dont have access to crystal.

Hmm... Maybe I will for the Torch Bearer.  The Shieldman already needs the Wooden Shield before he can be trained.  And leave the BArd open for anyone.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah I can see that, during my test runs I ran into a few times when crystal was rare and became somewhat of a problem, it was one of the reason I went back a tier and use only minor accessories and not the best ones (amulets one tier up). The primary reason I had them doing that was because I wanted to give them the staves (to help keep them alive), which already cost crystal anyways... and a couple more didn't seem like too much of a big deal.

Although even without it, I really hope you gave them the auto armor selection (even basic leather is a great help).

PS: I'm pretty sure I could design Shieldman even without Wooden Shield, there was a couple of early trial runs where I rushed henchmen tech without anything in warfare, and I ended up with him only wielding a club.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Derek, reply 3
The Shieldman already needs the Wooden Shield before he can be trained.
End of Derek's quote

Not true.... you are already auto-generating the shield in the code...The shieldman ALWAYS starts with a wooden shield (it's generated after you recruit), I made note of this when I made the female henchman mod. Makes 2 handed weapons a bummer if you edit the shieldman and make your own unit with a 2 handed weapon (kind of a bug here).

The 3rd point is something that could be posted as a mod and just have pre-designed characters that people can use instead. I can easily include these in my current files, but I was just copying the core files and leaving everything else alone for people to design themselves as they can for future creations.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Are we going to have female henchmen now?  Just make one of the three basic types female, and we can design from there...

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Oh... and after some quick tests, the idea for auto cast spells might be a possible solution to the various stacking effects if you want to pursue that for a mod. You basically have to make 3 spells for each of the three levels of guardian, tactician (and one for shield wall). Since the spells are different, you basically get the "highest" effect by combining the various levels. For trainer, I guess disabling it for henchmens would be the best method.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tuidjy, reply 7
Are we going to have female henchmen now?  Just make one of the three basic types female, and we can design from there...
End of Tuidjy's quote

like a shield maiden?

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

I like the idea of female henchmen, and I wish I could have thought of better names than Bardette, Shieldwoman and Candlebearer.

But there is a question of design though, currently if you build a henchmen they get life spells, BUT if you are of the empire allegience (a specially made men race faction) you still get life spells for henchmen, not the death spell equivalent. I think I will mod in a fix for that one, unless they are going to do that at the vanilla level.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting parrottmath, reply 10
I like the idea of female henchmen, and I wish I could have thought of better names than Bardette, Shieldwoman and Candlebearer.
End of parrottmath's quote

What about

Minstrel (minstrelette?), Protectress and governess?