Comprehensive Piece Guide From a Player Rated Over 3000 Updated (v1.01)
So I started writing this guide about a month and a half ago and so here it is. Due to the fact that grand seems to be threatening to release the next update soonish this guide hasn't been proofread as much as I'd like and there's probably at least one piece in here that I've changed my mind on in the long process it took to write all 17,498 words of this. So without further ado here's the guide.
https://pdfhost.io/v/8sZk6uTmn_Comprehensive_Piece_Guide_From_a_Player_Rated_Over_3000v101pdf.pdf Also please let me know if I missed a piece I will probably update this guide for v.55 if grand makes it happen any time soon; hopefully this guide will be enough motivation.
New version: v1.01-fixed some typos found by main_gi and f0x
by default I strongly disagree with almost any ' x is useless ' sentimentality, but it's still quite useful to have someone's detailed perspective on units, so I added some crowns to the bounty.
However, I think some of the ratings are clearly overpowered.
Getting a rating of 4 from a merely average unit seems much more effective than needing to use an entire strong unit for a rating of 5, which is only an increase of 1. In fact some weak units have a rating of 2, making them extremely efficient compared to using a balanced unit with a rating of 0.
Some of these ratings are somewhat inaccurate when compared to each other as I adjusted them to show power differences between tiers. Perhaps more granularity would be better or a rating for a piece then +-x for each tier like
pawn
rating: 3
base:+.5, +.3, .-2, -.5
I wanted to show that some pieces were more powerful at some tiers but not enough to justify a full point but I pushed it their anyway. But I do feel some pieces are useless except for a few edge cases which were too small to make the piece worth including like swordsman+ vs. skeleton- the promote makes little difference hence why its completely overshadowed by skeleton making it unusable in any high tier army not to mention how bad skeleton base is anyway. So in general I reserved that rating for pieces that are completely over shadowed by other pieces and also bad. A lot of combo pieces also suffer from this gravy and thundermage in particular (phoenix kinda) where there is little reason to not use +++ as it makes the entire combo better so I think breaking a design tenet and allowing side grades for these pieces is the best way to do it to make them not objectively better. Breaking a design tenet is not something anyone should do lightly and it might be better to leave it alone than break a tenet and simply take a few casualties in the form of pieces that make armies much worse by including them.
Something I find interesting is how attempting to rate the balance of each unit runs into the same problems as actually balancing them. This is the true genius of main-gi's challenge.
I really don't think the rating system is that important. There are definitely some odd choices you have to make, like scoring its combo potential or dealing with poor matchups. Lich I have rated as overpowered, but actually has a poor matchup against stall, the most overpowered army, but Lich is otherwise overpowered in any non-stall situation.
Your grand meme response to this will probably be something about how unsolvable that is, while I will just say, thanks grand for the nuance.
I am rated 3350 so I feel qualified to comment about the ratings you have set, the pawn has real use case vs. warrior and I at least greatly prefer it. Also you are a little unfair to the arch-bishop, if you run a very trade focused army it is incredibly good at sweeping up in the late game and creating opportunities for promotion. Your rating of the void mage felt very appropriate but I think you underestimate the value of the ++ Phalanx's ability to push, it certainly can be countered and "nuanced" as you call it but the pressure and tempo it can generate especially when used with a solid core of ranged attackers and +++frost mage is not infrequently absolutely pivotal and nothing is better at crushing AI kings then a range 3 armored move.
The reason I think I rated pawn so lowly is due to the fact it will die vs. vm due to its file bound-ness and to a lesser extent ranger/FE and I feel that warrior is decent as a side board trade fodder piece but its over shadowed by pride. I haven't used phalanx in a while; that sounds like an interesting tactic- I'll have to try it. And for Archbishop I feel a dragon is better for endgame power most of the time due to it being a huge checkmating threat and in a trade army you'll usually have enough points for a queen++ if you don't forsake having solid trade able minions.
Хотите побороться ? Давайте. Вы проиграете. Нельзя опускать у кого мало SP . Вас также моггут опустить.
Do you want to fight? Let's. You will lose. You can not lower someone with little SP. You can also be put down.
who exactly are you talking to, and why
с кем именно ты разговариваешь и почемуThis post has received a 58.57 % upvote from @boomerang.