Re: [Wesnoth-dev] The problem with Knalgans....

[David White]

> I am of the opinion that the troll whelp should have his cost 
> increased to at least 14.  Trolls are especially harsh against 
> dwarves, because few dwarves can pelt them with ranged attacks.  This 
> would also have the side effect of making the Orcish grunt cheaper 
> than the troll whelp, which I think would really help - I'd rather see 
> hordes of orcs on the battlefield, than hordes of trolls.  I think of 
> trolls as being somewhat less numerous than orcs, although still great 
> in number.

I don't think trolls are that good against dwarves. Dwarves hit hard 
enough that they can take them down fairly quickly, and in all terrain 
trolls are good in, Dwarves are better.

> Elvish pillager also suggested increasing the cost of the assassin to 
> 18, which I again think is a change long overdue.  The unit is easily 
> as powerful as the elvish archer, if not more so.

I think increasing the cost of the assassin is a good idea.

> Things to consider in comparing them to enemy troops.
> a]  They move somewhat slow by comparison.
> b]  They potentially do slightly more damage, but not a LOT more 
> damage - only 4 more than an elvish fighter, for example.
> c]  They have no ranged attack.  They shouldn't get one, but this 
> really, really puts them at a disadvantage against a lot of units.
> d]  They only get 30% defense on grass and forest, not 40% like 
> everyone else.
>
> My suggestion - switch the dwarven movetype to getting 40% defense on 
> grass.  A subtle change, but one that should *really* have a 
> worthwhile effect.
> I mean, even _orcs_ get 40% defense on grass, and orcs are much 
> cheaper than dwarves, move faster, have more hitpoints, etc.

But you forget,

e] They have better resistance than most others.

I think the better resistance more than makes up for the poor grassland 
defense. I think that the grassland defense works well, and if we did 
need to improve them there, we should do so by increasing their 
resistance a little further. It's already pretty good though, with 30% 
vs blades, 10% vs fire, and 20% vs all other attacks.

An Elvish Fighter will do an average of 4*4*0.7 = 11.2 damage against a 
dwarf on grassland, but 5*4*0.6 = 12.0 damage against an elvish fighter, 
spearman, or orcish grunt.

> Keep in mind that the dwarves have no lawful bonus to help them, nor 
> do they get the advantage of leadership.

Well, lawful can spin either way, and in the case of dwarves I think 
it'd actually be a disadvantage, since their slow movement means their 
enemies can dictate the time when battle takes place a little more.

However, this leads to another topic: I think we should convert some 
units to lawful or neutral on some factions. At the moment, most 
important units on the Drakes, Knalgans, and Rebels are neutral. This 
leads to lots of possibilities of games where time of day has no meaning 
whatsoever, which takes away a major aspect of the game. I think we need 
to swing some units to one side or the other. Possibly, we should make 
some Drakes lawful, if for no other reason than that we really don't 
have that many lawful units in the game at the moment.

David