Archers

[Nebulia]

Archers have been around for a long time.
I've always wondered why they are not part of the game.
Don"t think they should be mounted but only introduced as infantry.

[Dieformason]

Hey guys I just read this post and thought I would give you my input. Bare with me I'm doing this on my iPad:/

ALRIGHT! so I read maybe the first couple of pages but there were just to many to keep up with. I did see pwnlaws don't break the balance and I read a lot of people saying it should be a defensive unit! I agree, how can we do it? When you open the way there will be 5 slots at the top. You can click one to make an archer on the top of your wall! This would start out at level 1 and you could upgrade it to make it stronger and increase your defense %. The way to counter them is to make them take 500 farm space each at level 3 or 5 whatever you choose. And cost 25k of each for the first upgrade and 50k for the last one. When people attack your city the archer will die and you'll have to rebuild them again from level 1. Of course 1 unit attacking you wouldn't kill them but if they made a successful hit on your city then your archers would die. By taking up farm space you greatly limit your offense and by making them expensive you keep them from being obtained before beginner protection is up. They would defend against all units, wall would have to be a base level to make one archer then as you leveled it up you'd be able to make more and upgrade them to higher levels. They could increase your defense by 50% total and for the cost to buy, replace and for the farm space I find that fair.

All the numbers can altered and I can go into more detail if that wasn't enough;P I'm open to questions.

[Zoom]

So the archers wouldn't do any damage, just act as an overpriced wall?

[Dieformason]

So the archers wouldn't do any damage, just act as an overpriced wall?

They would add to the wall damage % blocked. For example at level 25 the defense of a wall is at 200% with archers maxed out it would be 250% or whatever number is chosen.

[Arrigo]

Yes. Make archers a supplement to the wall, dependent upon the wall level. Therefore a lower level wall could hold fewer archers but they would still augment the defense of the wall. Then add in some infantry unit to counter just archers, that strikes before the battle to lower the number of archers on the wall and the defensive bonus.

[Dieformason]

Yes. Make archers a supplement to the wall, dependent upon the wall level. Therefore a lower level wall could hold fewer archers but they would still augment the defense of the wall. Then add in some infantry unit to counter just archers, that strikes before the battle to lower the number of archers on the wall and the defensive bonus.

That would be rams, they attack the wall before your troops.

[Matthew618]

I read to about page 6 and started skimming but I saw at least 5 possible unit types mentioned: Archers, Rouges, Crossbowmen, Shield Bearers, and Bandits.

Valor already has the functions of a rouge. Every reference I saw to a rouge was to sabotage resource production. This is what ballistas are for. Torpedo the enemy resource buildings if he is causing trouble. Get a solid hit and the enemy will spend more time rebuilding those buildings than Quark could (fairly) allow a rouge to slow production.

Bandits, I feel like these are the same things as rouges basically with the possible added effect of Rams.

And we have to remember, that every unit Quark adds, they have to find a way to incorporate it into a balanced system, and create a User Interface inside Valor that is not CRAMMED or CLUTTERED. For people like me who like to recruit multiple unit types at a time, the Graphical Recruitment system, while nicely organized and easily expandable for more troops (like Archers, Crossbowmen, etc) doesn't work for us. (I would actually happily use the Graphical System if Quark added the ability to recruit a scholar there so all troops could be recruited from the same place.)

Anyway, here is my 2¢ for this discussion:

Method 1:
Create both an Archer, and a Crossbowmen.

The Archer, like the Knight, relies heavily on lumber (for wooden arrows). However, only the archer is quick/maneuverable (which would be a valid reason to give it a unit speed of 4, the speed of a scout); on the battlefield, they have traditionally been protected by an accompanying person carrying a shield for counter fire. Because they have this accompanying Shield Bearer, it would have to be roughly the speed of a Merchant (5) or possibly closer to the speed of a berserker, and would take up 2 units of farm space.

The Crossbowmen, would be more like a guardian, relying on iron for arrows that can pierce armor. Crossbowmen could be an anti-ram/anti-ballista unit as well. A Ram takes up 4 units of space, so you would assume that one Crossbow would do a 1/4 damage/defense to incoming Rams, and 1/6 to incoming Ballista. As mentioned by others, these would be a good unit to tie to the wall and limit via a wall population. Because the population would be limited, they could increase the troop defense bonus received at each wall level.

Pros vs Cons (Balance)
New Offense Unit -vs- New Defense Unit
More Offensive Strategy Options -vs- More Defensive Strategy Options
New Unit for for clears -vs- New Unit for defending

OR

I also liked the Incoming Initiative possibility of Crossbowmen as defense. When an incoming army is within a certain time or distance of a city (say 3 minutes or 10 Field Units) they begin counter fire on the incoming wave. This lessens the initial blow for the defender, and makes it more challenging for the attacker. To keep things balanced, seeing as though Crossbowmen would be on the wall, they would have a higher casualty rate than other units (especially with rams factored in) so that the next incoming attack has less Crossbowmen to damage them (unless support is received that has crossbowmen in the wave(s)).

And if you just want to be an *insert describing word here*, create a unit called a sniper that allows you to identify in your incoming list what incoming waves are scholar waves without spending gold for a peek. Each detected scholar wave removes one of your ridiculously expensive snipers and adds a star next to one scholar wave.

Pros vs Cons (Balance)
The Same Reasons as above +
A Method for people who complain about others using gold to find scholar waves


Method 2:
Something I've thought was missing from Valor since I started playing was some sort of Water Transportation System. On the map, create a network of rivers (that could be represented by vectors or something for the programming cause). All cities along these rivers can be attacked, not only by Mounted Units and Infantry Units, but also by Water Vessels stocked with Archers.

A Vessel can be stocked with up to a given population of Archers and because they are moving over sea/river, their travel speed is a 3, slightly faster than a scout. Cities defend against these waterway attacks using Crossbowmen and Ballistas. This also gives a 3rd thing that can be put in the workshop, a giant Arc for carrying your Archers. Because there are two units that can defend against sea attacks, allow scholars to be transported on vessels at a faster speed to add a more inclined "danger" factor.

Pros Vs Cons (Balance)
More options to attack with -vs- more options to be attacked by
Faster Travel (w/ Scholars) -vs- limited clearing wave size
More Strategy/Attack Coordination -vs- Increased Danger & chances of being attacked

Possible Unit Stats Image



PS: Sorry, Didn't realize that was that long.

[0CraZysTyLe0]

Make them as a unit that give bonuses to other units. So maybe each archer can give 10 troops 0.1% attack bonus, but you can only give bonus to one type of troop, and each 10 offence can only get 1 bonus. So 2 archers can not give 10 troops 0.2% bonus, but still 0.1%. For example, if i sent 2000 zerks and 500 knights with 200 archers to attack, and i gave the bonus to the zerks, then each 10 zerks will get 0.1% bonus, and 2000 zerks overall 20% attack bonus. But if i sent 500 archers to give 2000 zerks bonus, i still only get 20% because troops can only get bonus once. Also if i sent 10000 zerks with 200 archers, then only 2000 zerks will get bonuses and the rest will still be normal zerks wirh no bonus. Archers can give bonus to both defense and offensive unit. It works the same with defensive too. This works perfectly and prevent players from getting too much bonus like 200%. Im not going to do all calculations. If you guys took my idea then you guys have to do most of the calculations like 'how much farm and resources for 1 archer to make the game balance' yourself.

[youssef26500]

Well I haven't really thought this out but what if the Archers were an anti-siege weapon instead of the infantry which could become all rounders or maybe the other way round? So they're not good against cavalry nor the infantry. But the Archers would also be purely nothing when attacking, almost like a scout.

I guess you could also just make the archers like weak all-rounders. So their defense is lower than a sentry's while higher than a berzerker's. Their speed can also be in the middle. As for attacking it could be between a berzerker's and a sentry's but still higher than a lancer's.

I guess they could pretty much be a stronger version of the lancer and should cost a little more than a lancer.

As for strategy it would really mess up a lot of people if all of a sudden new troops appeared so I guess they could only be added to new worlds so that people do not get their strategies destroyed by the addition of a new troop.

Just a quick idea

[Dieformason]

Ya know...maybe we shouldn't have archers.