Foul! I cry Foul!

[Juska]

This round is a blatantly unfair towards players who do not have the capacity to use leaders to make land grabs.

Not only is leader land grab have a few small land gain variance (you almost always get good returns) but leader attacks only cost 10% health? Versus the 20% that troop attacks cost?

Leader attacks (land grabs) are very much in the same vein of war as any other attack which involves troops, and seeing that they have consistent returns are nearly if not more powerful.

This lends an unfair disadvantage to players who rely on barracks for net and therefore troops to attack.

I call for the raising of leader attack health penalty to the same level as troop attacks.

[windhound]

Major difference Juska
Leader attacks have always been 2%, I havnt heard you crying foul before
5 x 2% = 10%

Its very tricky and unsustainable to use leaders as an attacking troop as once they're dead and gone they're dead and gone.  You cant buy them back.  They slowly come back, slowly, but you must also keep enough around to have a good enough ratio to attack in the first place.

Not only that, but its very harmful for leader-ers to use leaders offensively.  Leaders provide resources, if used in attacks your ratio goes to heck and it takes some recovery inorder to use them properly again.

Last round was an indy round.  Leaders were absolutely crippled, verging on worthless with half land.  I know, I tried it.  This round we've got a slight, ever so slight edge...  but it comes at the expense of our precious ratios.

Anyways, there's a reason few have bothered with leader attack before, even though it only cost 2% health.  As a main attack type its simply not worth it and it does not give the advantage you think it does.

[Juska]

I don't know, I'm pretty sure I've been saying leaders are OP'ed for the last 2 years.

Leaders also require far less upkeep in comparison with actual troops (because of possible and required quantity) and are useful for things other than land grabs, espionage, steals, attack opportunity etc.

I don't care that regular leader attacks have a smaller health penalty, but the land grab attack should be on par with troops.

As for why I've never brought this up before is because honestly I was under the impression that the attack spell was at the same health penalty as troop attacks.

Lowering the land return to half of it's current value and leaving the health penalty as is would be another solution.

P.S. Making the actual "attack" spell require more health makes the leader suicide tactic harder to facilitate, something I believe there have been multiple complaints about.

[Shadow]

Leader players have /always/ had that advantage, it's just more noticeable now. Nothing has changed in the relative strengths of the races because of this besides making it harder to get land, which indiers depend on a bit more than leaderers.

As Windy said, using leader attacks to grab land can backfire majorly if you aren't careful about planning out a way to replensih the leaders. A few attacks too many and your resource run is shot.

Course, we could always murder cheaply, but again - we have always had that power, and the game goes on. I agree that there are some imbalances to iron out, but health loss is not one of them.

Also, why is everyone under the impression that indiers have to use troops for land grabs and leaderers have to use leaders? I think my defensive indying proved that indy races can be effective with leaders as well, maybe not against pure leader players, but certainly against other indiers.

[Peace Alliance]

Not sure if I can add any extra details to this discussion.

However, I would like to point out that not every race is meant to be played the same way, or for the same objectives. The fact of the matter is, some races work better in a team, some races are meant to take the top, some races are meant to lay low.

That one race can do something better then another does not necessarily mean there is an imbalance. Rats actuallyhave huge advantages to attacking and are way WAY better at gathering up land, even with the leader attack option.

Also keep in mind that themes often leave some races unbalanced. I don't think thats going to change, although over time i try and iron out the problems with our themes. This is the first time we've done this theme though, so we'll see. If somehow the leader attack option is too overpowered then I'll have to reconsider it next time (i don't actually think it will be though).

[Juska]

Well I figured about as much, mix between me getting returns under 100 over 5 times off a 20k target and losing 10k in 12 leader attacks and my general dislike of leaders led to this topic.

Until next time, when I'm sure I'll be thoroughly shut down once again :D

[Shadow]

I think leaderers actually have a disadvantage this round - indiers can produce while healing, but a leaderer is useless at low health, so any attacks are going to put off production for a significant number of turns.