[en] Edain Mod > [Edain] Isengard Suggestions

Isengard Balance Discussion

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The_Necromancer0:
I'm not a very PvP player but I just wanted to drop my two cents.

The furnace discount is definitely a lot stronger than it used to be since it is now considerably cheaper. Upgrading a furnace to level 3 used to cost at least 450 resources but since the economy upgrades have been introduced it is no longer as expensive and most important it is impossible to remove it. Sure, you can destroy a couple of furnaces but as soon as they're built back up the discount kicks back in immediately.

I think this should be the primary targets for any nerfs since the economy upgrade overhaul gave it an indirect buff.

There are a couple solutions for this, but the idea of this unique discount is quite cool and I hope there is a way to keep it. One idea I had is to make this a temporary active ability which creates two possibilities:

Furnaces no longer provide a discount, when the ability is activated, all level 3 furnaces will discount unit upgrades for 30 seconds.

OR

Furnaces provide a standard up to -30% discount, when the ability is activated all level 3 furnaces increase that discount up to -50%


It's also possible to simply tie this system to Industry, where furnaces normally provide a discount up to -30% and every level 3 furnace on which industry has been cast increases it to up to -50%

Smeargollum:
Having the full upgrade discount of 50% only with an active ability by the furnace sounds really instresting to me and it is probably the best solution as it nerfs the discount but doesn't put it on standard level either.
I personally don't think it would be good if you would only get the discount by the active ability and without it not at all but having a base discount of 30% which can be incresased sounds good to me. I also think that tieing it to the industry spell would be really nice as that would allow the other player to snipe the furnace on which the Isengard player used it on and with that lower the discount.

FG15:
Increasing or interacting with a discount at all is quite restricted. The only thing that really can be done is to activate a discout when a certain condition is met like with the current furnaces. Influencing the maximum discount on the other hand is not possible without a lot of workarounds and side effects.

But a system that can be possible is the following:
-every Lvl3 Furnace reduces the cost by 5% up 60% if you have build 12.
-there is 1 or more active abilities somewhere that double that reduction for some time (can be infinite)

Also, please mind that if the discount is only temporarily higher, players will just wait with buying upgrades until the higher discount is active and nothing has changed, except that the player has to do an extra click and wait a bit before purchasing upgrades.

Halbarad:
1. Rohan traitors. It would be really easy to nerf Isengart without changing its qualities by changing the spell. Warg Riders would also benefit from that change since they would get much more important for Isengart (right now, nobody uses them when he has reached lg). One bataillion of cav would still be good in my opinion. It could also be mixed up with Traitors that could come as one bataillon of swordmen. In exchange they could get an ability that weakens enemy soldiers since the traitors know their fighting style or something. Because then we would have Wild Men vs buildings, Grishnak vs heroes and traitors vs units (including pikes).
2. Furnace discount. One possibility to nerf it could be to combine the full discount with an ability like this: "Furnaces give a lot higher discount on upgrades when reached Level 3. However, every Furnance additionally raises the count of buildings that influence inflation".
It could be activated in the citadel after getting the central spell, maybe replacing "Burning Forges". Of course (actively or passive) switching back to normal inflation and upgrade discount would only be possible after a while of waiting, like one or more minutes later.
3. Another way to nerf Isengart could be to change the discount from mineshafts, e. g. they could raise the recruitment speed from Uruk pits. Since Isengart already has one really strong discount it doesn't really need another one in my opinion. That way, Furnaces wouldn't have to be changed.

Seleukos I.:
Well, first of all, I agree that Isengard is possibly the strongest faction right now.
However, I don’t think the -50% upgrade discount is the problem with Isengard. Sure, having this much of a discount is very strong, but it kicks in rather late in the game (you need eco lvl 3 after all) and Isengard – as the most “industrial” faction in the game – is, imo, supposed to be very strong in the lg, but weaker in the eg and mg.

So I think the problem with Isengard it that it is so super strong in the mg already. This as a couple of reasons, I’d like to talk about:

First of all, the minions of the white hand (even tho I don’t think they are the biggest problem):
This spell is very good in the mg (when you first use it) because of the sheer mass of units it gives you. Later in the game, once you opponent got a larger army and heroes/upgrades, it’s much weaker, but in the mg it is definitely very good.
To nerf it I would suggest to lower the number of riders in each battalion of the cav summon from 15 to 10. With this change the cavalry summon could still do a lot of damage vs an unprepared enemy, but at the same time the cav can be killed faster.
 Also I think the building damage of the wildmen summon might be too high. This spell, combined with the Palantir, allows you to attack and most of the time destroy enemy outposts (such as the exile camp, Dol Guldur/Minas Morgul, Dunedain etc.) without much chances for your enemy to defend against it. If he doesn’t already have cavalry standing next to the outpost to charge the wildmen immediately they will most likely end up killing the outpost.  This means I would like to see the wildmen’s damage bonus vs buildings decreased from 50% to maybe 30%-20%. In order to not nerf them too much I could imagine to change their damage type from SLASH to URUK, to make them a bit better when it come to fighting enemy units in the later game.

The other two points, which are, imo, mainly responsible for Isengard’s OP-ness, are the very good eco combined with the very cost efficient units.
I think it’s safe to say that Isengard has the best economy in the game. The main reason for that are the four spellbook powers industry, devastation, the central spell and the summoned lumbermill, even tho the latter two aren’t used a lot.
Also Isengard’s units, the uruk hai, are probably the most cost efficient units in the game (except for Mordor orcs, I guess  [uglybunti]). They are better than normal standard units (such as Gondor soldiers, thrallmasters or Lorien borderguards), but they don’t really cost that much more, thanks to the mineshaft discounts. In fact, pikemen and crossbows even cost less than Gondor spearmen and archers, once you got the mineshaft discount (and uruk swords only cot 10 more than Gondorsoldiers). Now you could of course argue that you can discount Gondor infantry as well (with the taxes and townhouses), but that’s not realistic in a competitive game. I have never seen anyone go for the townhouse discount for normal units, unless combined with Denethor (and even then I doubt it’s worth it).

These two points combined mean Isengard as a over-average economy and at the same time over-average cost efficient units. The logical consequence of this is, that Isengard is op.

Now there are a two ways we could try to fix this issue:

1)   Nerf Isengard’s economy.
2)   Nerf the cost efficiency of Uruk Hai.

Nerfing the economy would definitely make sense, but we also have to keep in mind that a strong economy is one of the core-aspects of Isengard as a faction. Just like Mordor has the free orcs and the centralised levelling system with Sauron, Isengard has a strong economy and cheap upgrades.
I personally would prefer the second option, nerf the Uruk’s efficiency.

Here’s my suggestion:
Uruk Hai (swords pikes and crossbows) should be made more expensive (400, 500 and 500), but at the same time get better fighting stats.

On paper Uruks (swords) are already 50% more expensive than their Gondor (or other faction) counterpart while only being slightly better stats-wise (Uruks have, as far as I know, 15% more hp and damage), but this difference in cost gets pretty much nullified by the discount. However, if Uruks were even more expensive on paper, then they also would be actually more expensive than Gondorunits, for example.


So to summarise my suggestions:
1)   summoned cav battalions from 15 to 10 men each
2)   summoned wildmen’s bonus damage vs building from 50% to 30% (+maybe changed damage type)
3)   Uruk’s cost from 300, 400, 400 to 400, 500, 500
4)   More hp and damage for uruks (if they now have 15% more than Gondorsoldiers I could imagine giving them 30% more than Gondorsoldiers)

What are your thoughts on that?

Best regards,
Seleukos

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