Feedback requested from devs: How to stop this cheese.

[tigersfan]

So, we have a player on the Steam forums who won on Triple Hard. That in and of itself might not be a problem, but his strategy seemed like cheese. Here are their comments:

My strategy was to set both sides to Greek, and build nothing but Incense, Steel and Clay. Instead of troops, I just drop Minotaurs on everything and build towns to be destroyed. Worked great!

So... ideas on how to prevent this?

[nas1m]

Prevent the player from picking the same faction for both sides?
This always seemed a bit counter-fun to me...

Also: How did he build towns to be destroyed without producing any wood, rock, etc.?

[Mick]

I'm skeptical that this would always work depending on the woes involved, but I think the reason it is so effective is that nothing else is as effective at taking out bandit keeps. The minotaurs already do sick damage, and the bonus they do against buildings makes it worse. Since they are myth units, they are a lot easier to "guide" toward desired targets.

They could probably stand another nerf. They really go against the whole "Norse have better myth units" claim, because they are still extremely powerful. They do splash damage AND huge damage against buildings. Maybe drop the building damage bonus?

[nas1m]

I'm skeptical that this would always work depending on the woes involved, but I think the reason it is so effective is that nothing else is as effective at taking out bandit keeps. The minotaurs already do sick damage, and the bonus they do against buildings makes it worse. Since they are myth units, they are a lot easier to "guide" toward desired targets.

They could probably stand another nerf. They really go against the whole "Norse have better myth units" claim, because they are still extremely powerful. They do splash damage AND huge damage against buildings. Maybe drop the building damage bonus?

That sounds reasonable to me...

[x4000]

Well, playing both factions against one another actually is something I think is cool -- it's a different sort of mode.  But making it so the mythological creatures can't damage bandit keeps at ALL actually might be interesting and a simple solution to this, come to think of it...

[Mick]

That seems a bit extreme. They are already hard enough to take out.

[nas1m]

Well, playing both factions against one another actually is something I think is cool -- it's a different sort of mode.  But making it so the mythological creatures can't damage bandit keeps at ALL actually might be interesting and a simple solution to this, come to think of it...

Ouch. This one would probably break my neck on Hard the way I am playing right now (not yet found another way to survive the Age Of Man against the Bandit hordes spawning on this difficulty), but well - I think I should be able to come up with something new .

[x4000]

Well, the idea was always for them to be something you had to take out with siege units, period -- the whole mythological thing was really not supposed to be a factor on the bandit keeps or else there would be no reason to build siege weapons.  That said, I'll throw in this:

** However, also reduced the health of bandit keeps from 30,000 to 15,000.

[sojourner]

Good to see my nomenclature has been adopted . Though I guess it's possible I subliminally absorbed it from somewhere else.

And on this balance issue, I agree that hitting minatours even harder with the nerf bat is a better solution than preventing mythological units from attacking bandit keeps.

Edit: Scratch that, just saw the patch notes, thumbs up on the health nerf, that definitely evens things out.

[Teal_Blue]

So, we have a player on the Steam forums who won on Triple Hard. That in and of itself might not be a problem, but his strategy seemed like cheese. Here are their comments:

My strategy was to set both sides to Greek, and build nothing but Incense, Steel and Clay. Instead of troops, I just drop Minotaurs on everything and build towns to be destroyed. Worked great!

So... ideas on how to prevent this?

Hi Tigersfan,
                           quick question, but do we 'have' to stop this kind of thing? I mean the guy that is doing this 'knows' what he is doing, he is cheesing, and he is then blaming the game? I mean if we wall up all the 'cheese-able' tactics, then what? Can you or me play as casual players and still have the game just not roll over us?

I really am starting to think this whole 'We Have To Stop Cheese!' is the wrong way to look at this. If the guy wants to in effect cheat, then he knows it. But changing the game to much for these kinds of guys and these kinds of tactics is just taking the game out of reach for casual and low to medium ability players.
That is my opinion of course,

 -Teal

[Misery]

So, we have a player on the Steam forums who won on Triple Hard. That in and of itself might not be a problem, but his strategy seemed like cheese. Here are their comments:

My strategy was to set both sides to Greek, and build nothing but Incense, Steel and Clay. Instead of troops, I just drop Minotaurs on everything and build towns to be destroyed. Worked great!

So... ideas on how to prevent this?

Hi Tigersfan,
                           quick question, but do we 'have' to stop this kind of thing? I mean the guy that is doing this 'knows' what he is doing, he is cheesing, and he is then blaming the game? I mean if we wall up all the 'cheese-able' tactics, then what? Can you or me play as casual players and still have the game just not roll over us?

I really am starting to think this whole 'We Have To Stop Cheese!' is the wrong way to look at this. If the guy wants to in effect cheat, then he knows it. But changing the game to much for these kinds of guys and these kinds of tactics is just taking the game out of reach for casual and low to medium ability players.
That is my opinion of course,

 -Teal

Well, one thing I've noticed with this sort of thing is this:

It's true that some players might do that sort of tactic and know "Yeah, I'm cheating.... and I dont care, I can play how I want".   But, all too often, this is not actually the case.  You might get a new player, who tries something like that, thinking it's a totally valid, non-cheat tactic.... because how are they to know better?  .... and then decides "Well, this is boring.... all you have to do in this game is use mountains!  And here I thought this game was going to be good!", and then goes around bad-mouthing the game all over the place, saying that it's "shallow" and stuff like that.


This sort of thing can be seen not just with strategy titles, but with basically every genre.  To me, it's one of the core reasons why stopping "cheese" tactics is important, and making sure that the game in question is balanced.   I've watched it happen too many times, and it's never a good thing.

[chemical_art]

Misery your examples changes nothing.

It is still a player doing what they know is a cheese tactic to win.

And it still doesn't change that walling off mountains isn't a magic bullet. It hurts scores. I earned 2x more points in my tutorial in the first 40 turns with open warfare then the last 60 after creating several chokes. When chokes are made, they get stuffed. Units don't die. Buildings don't die. Points are not earned. This is in part why score gating was added.

You think cheese tactics will cause bad mouthing?

Removing edge cases of cheese, and in the process rip out whole strategies of existing players will cause exponentially larger badmouthing.

It's caused me from shouting at other players to try this game to me not playing at all. Imagine if I wasn't so enthusiastic at start how I would feel now?

[Misery]

Misery your examples changes nothing.

It is still a player doing what they know is a cheese tactic to win.

And it still doesn't change that walling off mountains isn't a magic bullet. It hurts scores. I earned 2x more points in my tutorial in the first 40 turns with open warfare then the last 60 after creating several chokes. When chokes are made, they get stuffed. Units don't die. Buildings don't die. Points are not earned. This is in part why score gating was added.

You think cheese tactics will cause bad mouthing?

Removing edge cases of cheese, and in the process rip out whole strategies of existing players will cause exponentially larger badmouthing.

It's caused me from shouting at other players to try this game to me not playing at all. Imagine if I wasn't so enthusiastic at start how I would feel now?

Oh, I never said the situation was an EASY one 


Because it isnt.   But I'm going off of what I've witnessed time and time again.... and off of my own experiences with some games that have major balance issues or problems with mechanics.   Obviously it's not going to be the same with EVERY player.   But that sort of idea DOES happen, and I'm betting the devs are aware of this.


And I"m still going with "walling off mountains" can indeed work without hampering score;  I know this because I've tried it out.   Only gotta wall off one town on a side.  The others are free to go bonkers.  My score went up FAST in those games because the risk stopped mattering (and it's worth noting that this is WITH my typically low total unit count and high number of long-thin-bridge-to-town chokepoints)   But that's a matter being worked on in the other thread.... for this one, I was just making a point, that's all.

[chemical_art]

If you wall off just one town on each side, you can do that already with smiting. Isolate it as a branch, smite the connecting tiles, done.

It requires a more work, or more precisely more forethought from veterans to accomplish, but the end result is those intimately involved with the game can cheese just as hard as before. Removing mountains just make it so that newbies, the ones who are most vulnerable and maybe even needing cheese, can't use the cheese.

[nas1m]

If you wall off just one town on each side, you can do that already with smiting. Isolate it as a branch, smite the connecting tiles, done.

It requires a more work, or more precisely more forethought from veterans to accomplish, but the end result is those intimately involved with the game can cheese just as hard as before. Removing mountains just make it so that newbies, the ones who are most vulnerable and maybe even needing cheese, can't use the cheese.

I think you might have a point here.