Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread

[Frostion]

@All ... Here are the changes made for v0.1.3. soon updateable/downloadable via the map downloader:

• Added more explanation during intro, on how to place Hero Origin Skills.
• Players now start with 1 Cavalry + 3 Infantry, not 5 Infantry.
• Sian-tsu's Restoring-Rain no longer heals Sian-tsu +2 HP, it only heals the other Horde Heroes with her.
• Food availability on the map has been reduced a bit.
• Gold availability on the map has been reduced a tiny bit.
• There are now 10+ Supply-Chests on the map for an early game resource boost. (5 PUs / 5 Gold / 5 Food / 5 Wood / 5 Oil)
• Dryads now have a silver horseshoe icon, just like the Knights, as they are “special” variations of Cavalry (The Dryads cannot blitz as normal Cavalry can).
• Stormwind-Port no longer has a golden dot as it does not add any extra protection or production to Stormwind Territory.
• Sevis tooltip spelling error fix (“place by Sevisat at factory”).
• Economic victory set at 450 PUs.
• Normal victory set at 6 Capitals.
• All spells now only have Movement 1, not Movement 4. (Unfortunately, spells can no longer be transported into battle further away. Any XML-help to fix this would be appreciated! I have not yet figured out a system where spells work as they do now + follow the Hero 1-4 moves. Note that spells are currently Air-units, so that they may not capture land territories by their own.)
• All spells can now hit sea units.
• Gryphon-Transport is now 3Att/3Def, not 2Att/2Def.
• The Gyrocopter no longer has bombing capability.
• Mortar, Fire-Thrower and Scorpid stats changed a bit.
• All buildable Factory upgrades now cost less than their larger upgrades (So that one large factory, capable of building 2 units, is cheaper than a two small factories, capable of building 1 unit each).
• Cavalry now cost more food. Raised from 10 to 15 Food.
• Skeletons now also cost 5 PUs, besides 5 Mana.
• Spider-Tank can now traverse mountains and rivers (Airways) as the only Land Unit.
• Fire-Canoe now cost 20 PUs, not 24 PUs.
• Various minor cost changes and other changes.

Bombing and Factory HP system redone/changes:
• All Capitals will now be set on fire when lost to the enemy. They will need to be repaired before any units may be built there by the conqueror.
o Now a Factory with 1 golden dot has 1 HP and a unit with a bombing value of 0-1 will deal 0-1 damage, a unit with bombing value of 0-2 will deal 0-2 damage, etc.
o Before, all factories had 5-25 HP / 1 HP cost 5 PUs to repair / Factories could produce as long as 1-5 HP was undamaged.
o Now, all factories have 1-5 HP / 1 HP cost 25 PUs to repair / Factories can produce 1 unit per 1 undamaged HP. Overall, Factories are now more easily destroyed/disabled, but there is now a risc of a bombardment shot not doing any damage at all.

New bombingMaxDieSides unit stats:
Lightning-Spell__0-1__________(Only Orc Hero)
Dynamite________0-1__________(Only 1 Hero on map)
Fire-Thrower_____0-1__________(Undead special unit)
Gunship__________0-1__________(Dwarven special air unit)
Mortar___________0-1___________(Dwarven special art. unit)
Ballista___________0-2
Catapult__________0-2
Trebuchet_________0-2
Bombard__________0-3__________(Only 1 unit on map)

@TheDog
Thanks for all your input! I have addressed a lot of what you have mentioned. But furthermore I would like to comment on some of the stuff that is not directly changed, or stuff that cannot work like you imagine it to. For your information, there are many ideas (some I see we share) that I have not, from start, been able to implement as I wanted. There are some engine limitations that we are working within.

Elementals & Banshees: These cannot just be placed/summoned anywhere the Hero might be. Just like I have not been able to make Skeletons be created anywhere the Hero might be. This is because, it might work “anywhere” within player-owned territories, like the homelands of the player. But it does not work when the Hero is on allied soil, as only the owner of a territory may build in Factories here. So this limits possibilities.

Hero vs Hero balance and streghths: This is a tough one! One thing is clear, we cannot just take the 8 starting level 1 Heroes and have them made “equally strong”. And the skills they get are very different. Some are very self empowering, while others are supporting others. Some are resource generation while others are pets or summoned creatures. I have tried to balance out the final outcome of level 8 players, but they are still very different and not all are equal in 1 on 1 combat. I think the map has to be played many many times before we really see if adjustments are needed. But you are doing your part I see

I hope you will test out the new simplified siege system:
• Is it comprehensible?
• Is there really a choice between bombarding the enemy factory OR choosing to go head on, taking the extra casualties?

As you have noticed: “AI cannot decode a path? Maybe the AI thinks the air bridge is usable by land units?” The AI has issues with the Airways, and sometimes AI stacks up units as it thinks it can pass. This makes especially The Horde kind of passive and sitting at their capitals. (@Devs ... HELP! ) Maybe you would like to run a game where you control all Human Horde vs all AI Alliance? (If so you could run the Alliance turn 1, 5, 10 etc. so that they may purchase Origins, Veterans and Elites)

[TheDog]

Well !!!
I thought I had a few days off, :astonished_face: that was a fast update.

It will take a few days to take it all in.

The Devs have made a few AI changes, Im hoping the Horde AI plays a bit better now.

[Cernel]

@Frostion said in Warcraft: War Heroes - Official Thread:

(Unfortunately, spells can no longer be transported into battle further away. Any XML-help to fix this would be appreciated! I have not yet figured out a system where spells work as they do now + follow the Hero 1-4 moves. Note that spells are currently Air-units, so that they may not capture land territories by their own.)**

If the program would work correctly, as I understand it, you could assure this for any "suicide" unit by just making the unit an infrastructure.

This way, you could send any suicide infrastructure in battle alone or with one or more other units, thus keeping the current behaviour, while making them unable to conquer any territories.

I know that the program would cause the infrastructure to be captured before any battle if alone and would also sometimes allow infrastructures alone to conquer undefended territories, but both these behaviours are wrong.

If spells are suicide and infrastructures, it is a wrong behaviour of the program that it cannot attack alone, as the step when the infrastructure would be captured is after every step in which it may make any fire and also after the step in which it would be removed as suicide.

If spells are infrastructures, it is a wrong (ad inconsistent) behaviour of the program that non-blitzing infrastructures can capture empty territories alone. Since the "combat" infrastructure behaviour captures the pre-v5 aaGun behaviour, such a unit is removed from the battle before reaching the step for capturing the territory, so, obviously, cannot do such a thing. What else should happen, however, is opinionable.

I'm just saying that, if infrastructures working correctly would solve your problem, instead of trying to work around it, I guess you can ask the developers to fix the issues. This would also fix other games like D1914NML, where the "gas" should be able to attack alone (under my interpretation of the rules).

CC. @Panther for what recalls the basic rules sets.

[TheDog]

I had my worst game yet, actually it was my best, random placement seemed against me, some of my attacks failed when I thought I should have won, The Pirates kept avoiding me and would not die, the Orcs did 2 sneak attacks, I was up against it, it was fab.  I did not get a chance to use siege a capital, in fact I did not get close.

Starting Point
No races had Origins, this makes it fair for all.
Resource Modifiers - NONE, yes none
Played as Gnomes for all turns.
Played all races at turns 7, 15, 21 to spend XP, Veteran and Elite points, and tried to steer the AI into moving units.

AI
The Undead in the Undercity on turns 15 and 21 I tried to move them left and then right of the Undercity the AI just moved them back to the Undercity on the following turns.  So the AI is not fixed.

Taureans in Thunder Bluff have 26 units on turn 26, why?

The Orc AI played a blinder of a game, 2 sneak attacks on the Gnomes, I was wrong footed twice,  Look how badly defended Orgrimmar is, just like a player would leave it.

All Bowmen and Crossbowmen Suggest Food 9, so they dont compete with Foot who also need 10 food.

Human Priests AI does not produce them even though they have 150 Mana, maybe they cost too much PU ?

Gnome Sub is fantastic for the gold cost, maybe it should cost more?

Taurean
Hero does not have Mount at level 5, "All Heroes receive a 2 Movement Mount at level 5." It has a shape change that can move 3 and an Owl at a higher level.

Kodo Tower is too expensive 120pu, I know it moves 2 and has 2HP, the Dwarf Gunship has a great stat line and moves 4.  I would lower its stats to get lower pu cost.

WoW-G2-26.tsvg

[TheDog]

Started as Trolls, but by turn 5, the Undead AI had stacked too many units at the capital, so I took over and played both Undead & Trolls.

WoW-UN-TR2-29.tsvg

Starting Point
Same as the first game, no Origins and no Race Modifiers.Played all races at turns 8, 15.

AI
The Air Bridge issue needs to be fixed, look at the Taureans crowding up against their homeland rim.

Treasure (Items)
-Nautical-Charts does not give +2 movement (or does it if the Hero is on a Transport?)

-Oh my!  Just had Long-Range-Artillery for the first time, its a bit good. Maybe make 3 of them, one for each of the main types of artillery.

Winning Conditions
450 Pu to Alliance - I did not see a message to the effect, but I was playing Horde.
6 Capitals - Get a message, with an option to continue.

Air Forces
Move 3                  
Treasure    Air-Balloon           Tran=3

Move 4
Human        Airship                  Tran=5, could be Move 3
Dwarves      Flying-Machine      Tran=0
Dwarves      Gunship                Tran=0
Gnomes      Gyrocopter            Tran=0
Night-Elves Hippogryph            Tran=2, could be Move 3
Orc               Wind-Hexer            Tran=0
Orc               Zeppelin                 Tran=5, could be Move 3
Undead       Gargoyles              Tran=0
Taurean       None
Trolls           None
Treasure      Gryphon-Transport Tran=2, could be Move 3

Move 4 is way too good for air Transports, it almost makes Ship transports redundant, they are very versatile and fast and their cargo can capture territory.  So I'm thinking all air transports should have a Move of 3?

Artillery
Pre cannon age, artillery tended to be built on the site of the siege.
I'm going to repeat my hope that Trebuchets can be built in a territory that you own and cannot move, so can be placed without a Factory.
Catapults can be built in any territory that you own and can move 1, and can be placed without a Factory.This gives them a distinction, as of now they are too similar.

My current thinking is all artillery is too good, but I have only really used it in one game, so Im thinking they should have a PU increase. But maybe all artillery should have Defence 3, then cavalry have a chance to Blitz attack it?

Ships
I dont think ships have an anti air defence, they should, it seems too easy to take out shipping by air, just put 3 flyers on one Warship, it tends to die.

Losing a Capital
This is a great change and expensive to rebuild. 
In short dont lose your capital.

Gnome Spider-Tank, shiney, a great little climber (forgot to mention it the previous game)

Trolls Fire Canoe - I tried to use them, the AI just danced around them with their 2 movement ships, the Fire Canoe is just not viable with movement of 1.- could make them move 2 and true suicide, ie explode on contact.

Trolls Dire Troll - gold cost needs to be dearer, its too cheap

Air Force, Trolls and Taureans dont have an air force, this is a big disadvantage, as air power is very versatile and can quickly tip a fight in your favour, because of move 4.

Undead
The AI will not place Skeletons that have already been over bought but not placed, even though the hero and factory are present.

Sorcerer - Replace Gold cost with Mana (only because they are casters)

Gargoyle - Replace Mana cost with Gold

Sorcerer 35 60 v Banshee 35 50 cost - Banshee appears to have a better stat line yet are cheaper than Sorcerer?

[Cernel]

Me and @SilverBullet tried to play this in lobby but gave up after more than 5 minutes stuck on launching screen. I was hosting and no error.

[Frostion]

@TheDog Nice feedback. I will soon study it thoroughly and respond!

@Cernel because the AI has some inbuilt "pauses" that cannot just be bypassed by the map/XML, the map start-up is long, unless you manually set the AI pause duration to 0. This is also stated in the pop-up during map start-up. I don't know if this AI pause duration can be done when you start up a lobby game?

[Cernel]

@Frostion As I said, it was more than 5 minutes with no game progressing. Have you tried to play the game online with another user? If not, I suggest you try to. You don't need to join the lobby if the other user joins your host by direct connection. I wonder if this game can be played online at all.

[Frostion]

@Cernel No I haven’t played it online or LAN. I guess there are some issues with the startup procedure / AI picking territories and thereafter placing a bunch of other units.

Did the AI picking of territories even start when you hosted? And is it even possible to go to settings as host and set AI pause duration to 0 ms?

This map issue is of high (second) most important to resolve as it maybe make multiplayer impossible.

The most important issue to resolve is the AIs inability to handle lad territory canals with unit type restrictions. (I wonder if the AI actually has the same issue when using sea territory canals. Can it not see/handle that some specific units may not go through a canal? Do the sea units that are restricted from going through a canal stack up at the entrance?)

[TheDog]

Orc Zeppelin and Human Airship
For the cost are way too good, they have a general purpose stat line 3 3 4 and can carry a unit.

Im thinking the stat line should be 2 2 2
So all air transports should be move 2, they can still hop over enemy units in a territory, fly over mountain ranges(air bridges), fly over the sea and 3 of them can still deliver 3 units deep into enemy territory by flying over the sea.

This will then bring all flyers with no transport down to move 3 including Taurean Owl-Form.

Currently Taurean Owl-Form is OP, fly 5 to an enemy capital, kill the defenders and repeat, game over.

[bel246]

I played the map 3 times now and think it is great! I love the randomization and the Heroes.

I played two times as horde and once as alliance on 175% income for AI. I didn't give AI origins and only used their xp and veterans once on turn 10. I quit the alliance game early because AI got stuck in base.

Some things I noticed:

Ships are very important because they give access to a lot of resources. Alliance Starts with harbours or is very close to them. Only one horde faction starts near a harbour. Depending on how creeps spawn that can be a big disadvantage. Even under optimal conditions I get a harbour earliest on turn 3. I found no way of upgrading harbours so you can never build more then one ship per harbour. Humans are the only exception.

Flying units are extremely strong because they are essentially a land and water unit. On top of that they have very high movement (4) and good stats. Every alliance faction has flying units but only 2 horde factions have them. I think that is quite uneven. Having the option to build 2 kinds of flying units with different special resources is also very strong (e.g. Orgrimmar).

Suicide ammunition is a little tricky. Let's look at the following case: I have one catapult with on ammunition and my enemy 10 catapults. He moves next to me. I fire with one shot. That one shot destroys all his ammunition + the chance of killing one unit. Next turn he can't use those ammunition to attack because it is gone. At the end of turn he gets 10 ammunition again but I can just destroy it again. This makes ammunition very uneven. Whoever moves first gets a big disadvantage of never being able to use his ammunition. In a player vs player game this would probably lead to two armies camping one field apart all the time. AI doesn't use suicide ammunition to attack with only ammunition which made my games a lot easier. This system also puts a big disadvantage on scrolls potions etc. from heroes. I think the catapult category is extremely strong for the price independent of the mentioned effect.

Cavalry is very strong in the beginning for exploring. Later I found them quite weak for the price. Spearman are cheap and have good stats anyway and they make most cav a 1/1. I would probably lower the effect of spearman. On a side note if you give AI a lot of income they build a lot of cav which makes the game easier because you can counter them so well.

A lot of items and map objects don't have a description. I often found myself wondering what they are actually doing. Sometimes I could figure it out by the change of income or stats but on others I am still wondering. It would be cool to have a description on every item/object.

I wasn't able to use griffins or Air-Balloons as air transport at all. Orc Zeppelins only got full movement for air-transport in non-combat, was that intended?

Spider tanks (from gnomes) can move through the blue arrows like air. Is that intended?

There is plenty of food which makes PU's the bottleneck. Except for very early game I never build irregulars.

On turn 15 I got the following error on a non combat move of gnomes played by the AI. https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/7184

[TheDog]

What the table below is attempting to do is look at the overall balance of each race and each side, it is very subjective and has a personal taste.

The Alliance have 3 capitals close together, so if the Horde take one chances are another will fall, so game over. Being close means they are easier to defend, so double edged, so in interesting.
Advantage to Horde.

Maximum ship production, even before the change in versions, production was still in favour of Alliance with 1+1+2+2=6 versus the Horde 4.
Advantage to Alliance.

Ship Production is linked to how near and accessible the harbours are,
Advantage to Alliance.

Special Units: my personal feelings on outstanding units, besides the Heroes and 2 HP units. Alliance have more flying units and forms of unit transport.
Advantage to Alliance.

Special Units for Trolls, none.
Advantage to Alliance.

For all the waffle above, it still produces a great game and the two real issues are;
• To have a worthy Troll Special Unit.
• Reduce the number of harbours for the Alliance to 5 or 6.

[Frostion]

@bel246 @TheDog Once again great feedback! I will very soon reply to it, and I have already gone through most of it and determined some sure changes to come. I like the level of detail in the feedback regards units and so. This really helps the development.

One map issue that bugs me is the AIs mishandling of Airways. This kind of ruins the AIs ability to play and AI therefore cannot show how it (with its limited playstyle) sees the map/alliance balance. I hope to write an official Github issue report soon, in the hopes of the devs coming to our aid

Also the issue of AI not building new factories is a huge disadvantage for an AI player, that makes it not really able to win I would say.

When looking at the "grand scale" of the alliances and balance I see, as you all point out , that the races are not equal on sea, air, territory defenseability (is that a real word?). But I would then really like to make this a part of the characteristics of this map. The issues could maybe be balanced out by some players, like the the horde, starting the game with one or more units than alliance, so that they may capture more land quickly as they have limited sea access. Perhaps then maybe at most game they are more equal in resources Just a suggestion.

Anyway. I will get back to you soon.

[TheDog]

@Frostion dont put too much store by my previous post, it is subjective, bar these two points;
• To have a worthy Troll Special Unit.
• Reduce the number of harbours for the Alliance to 5 or 6.

The rest as you say are 'features' of the race.

The AI is getting too me as well, in my latest game the Undead have too many units at their capital, with no threat within 5 territories and the Trolls have a handful of units. The Undead dont have an Air Bridge to cause the problem.

Put me down for being a AI tester for the Devs.

Orcs: You do not have the required units to build in Senjin Village, this should say Rachet?

Taurean Gart-Form on the Buy Screen shows 0 0 0 for the stats.

I will await the next version.

[bel246]

Just finished another round. This time I wanted a challenge and put AI income to 250%. On turn 11 I used AI's xp and veterans (forgot to do it on t10). It was more even this time. I stopped playing at round 18 because this bug kept reappearing (https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/7184). I think I would have won though.

Here are some more things I noticed:

Items have extremely different power levels. This time I got long range artillery. 2 movement for suicide ammunition was insane. Probably the best item on the map. All the +1 movement items are extremely good though.
One enemy got Skull of Guldan and War drums. I didn't know they stack into -2. That was also very powerful. He basically was a one man army. All the normal units don't stand a chance against him because they have barely any damage and with 3 HP it takes ages to kill him. I needed artillery for him (which made artillery even more important) Just imagine having Skull of Guldan, War Horn and War drums in one hero. 5 footman, 5 Spearman and 5 crossbowman having zero attack.
Ring of Retaliation gives +1 defense roll. It doesn't look like only the best roll is chosen. When you hover over the unit it says 2x5. The power on battle calc is weird though. On the unit it says 2x5 but power in battle calc it is 7. No idea how that works. Probably the same thing for the extra attack roll item.
Steel foot standard and Infantry field manual only work on normal footman not on veteran/elite footman. Seems a little weird, but maybe is intended?

Heroes only costing 10xp to revive seems way too low. I never even try to kill enemy heroes because it's just not worth it. On the same note killing my own is no problem so I use them for suicide missions. My personal opinion is that they should be more valuable. Probably costing a good sum of PU's (50-100) to revive.
Items are very fixed once the exploration rush is over. I would also like to see a way to reshuffle that later on. For example something were you loose some items to the killer when your hero dies. That way items could get reshuffled and great item combos can be helped by killing that hero.
Same thing with pets. They just revive for free every turn making them extremely valuable. It could just cost some mana and you can produce them in the territory of the hero.
There is also no description what a hero level does. Sometimes it explains itself, but sometimes I just couldn't figure it out.
Traps from night elves are quite strong. Creating a free permanent unit every turn is big even if it can't move. Totems from trolls seem similar but they don't have any HP.

You already mentioned it. AI doesn't build factories. That was very noticeable on 250% income. Humans just couldn't spend all their PU's.

Even though the AI had plenty of units around and killed every creep in their region they never attacked Gnomeregan. I don't know why that is but it is a disadvantage for AI.

Ents costing 150 wood seems a bit steep for their stats. It would make sense if they had 2 HP. Especially since elementals costing only 75 Mana with similar stats.

Wood in general is the most valuable resource for me because I need it for ships and artillery.

You can load artillery on transports and bombard the other navy. I am not sure if it is intentional but I actually like it. It just makes sense.

Tauren don't have a good unit for oil.

Guard is an extremely strong origin. Starting with one more unit helps you explore a lot. And then it is also a 5/5. And you get another one every ten rounds. Officer is comparable and there you don't have that unit at the start of the game. I would still take Guard if I didn't get another one every ten rounds, probably even if it was only a 3/3.

I like the idea that factions have similar strength and weaknesses. I really like the system in large middle earth were every faction felt unique. I think every faction should have a good land unit for every special resources though.

I never found myself building 2 HP units. They are very expensive. I know how easy they can become broken with attack retreat and all. They are tricky to balance. I think the big difference to other maps is: 1. artillery kind of already fills that role (free attacks every turn). 2. we already have heroes with additional HP that can be revived for a low price. 3. We have some units that respawn for free (hero pets and map specials like high elf village or ogre mound). 4. Targeted attacks mitigate their advantage because they can still die to 2 targeted attacks. 5. they are in very limited supply anyway thanks to special resources. It is not like large middle earth were you can spam Nazguls with all your PU's. I think you could experiment with the price.

I never build skeletons with undead. They compete against gargoyles over mana and air always seemed more important. Also the hero needs to be on a factory to build them. If I really have too much mana I can still build elementals for free too. I don't know what to think about them they are still a good deal in theory though.

[TheDog]

@bel246
Our play styles are very different, thats what makes this game great.
I produce Irregulars most of the time.
When I can I produce 2HP units, the best is the the Kodo Tower, its a move 2 Watch Tower (Factory), a bit overpriced.

Tauren Oil, the Giant Turtle, is very overpriced, but you only need one, stack with another ship and a transport to soak damage and in the narrow sea it should dominate.

I agree with you I now never build skeletons, its not the cost it is the requirement to be at a Factory that stops me.

I have not spent much time looking at the treasure items but I did notice the Artillery +1 range was OP. I will keep a closer eye on them, in the next version.

[avshar]

Well I managed to get some time to come back on here. Sorry for the lack of feedback lately.

Ok, been playing a bit and have some ideas about some of the things we have been discussing. I've played many games up to the first 15-20 turns, playing as different races and trying to see what the mix from the random placement does to starting play. I think i have played maybe 70 or more starts.

I am no longer certain food is such a huge issue that needs nerfing or at least not from land sources. I have come across a few games where the race i was playing ended up with a start that had zero of some of the resources within a good distance from me. Some of those times it was food. So if you nerf food maybe it should be more from the later game sources in the oceans. Your ships do collect a lot of food and that's why there is a large stock pile later in the game.

Depending on play style food may be more important to you than others. Some players have said they don't buy bowmen or crossbowmen but i find that if i have a good supply of food i almost never buy irregulars, i buy the bowmen or crossbowmen, depending on if i need to be defensive or offensive in my play on that game. So nerfing the food on the mainland may not be a good way to go about it. Not sure if you've thought about it one way or the other.

Shipping is interesting. I had thought, as the others did, that the Alliance gets a big advantage in shipping but this has not always been the case in my games. The pirates do hold them up for a few rounds beyond when they have enough resources to produce a navy and that seems in most games to equal the time it takes for the Horde to reach their ports, although the Orcs are really challenged in this, especially if there are a lot of creatures to kill to open the port. The Alliance can pump out a few more ships a turn than the Horde. For most of the game it doesn't matter and things tend to play out evenly. It's the games that have equalization on land and go for a long time that that advantage eventually seems to turn in favor of the Alliance. So i have figured that the Horde can't afford to be equal on land. You need to be aggressive so the Alliance doesn't use that advantage later in the game to overwhelm you. Makes for some interesting game play. But with competent players on both sides i do wonder if it would end up with more victories going to the Alliance when everything else is equal.

The races not being equal is not such a big deal to me. However there are some races where certain resources are just not important. I'm thinking of the Gnomes with regards to mana and the Trolls regarding oil. The Gnomes can only buy manabots with mana, unless they get lucky and have an elemental stone close enough. The Trolls only use oil to get those nearly useless flame boats. In the case of the Trolls its at least good that its a late game resource like oil. For the Gnomes it can be bad. I've had a few games where the Gnomes ended up with tons of mana but not much food or gold and they suffered badly in those games.

I agree with others about the siege weapon problems. The A.I. is stupid enough to come into range and suffer for it but a human will not make that mistake more than once. Well at least they shouldn't. Some of the more O.P. magic items may need more looking at. Sometimes i end up with one of my hero's being a juggernaut. I just wipe the floor with anyone stupid enough to fight me. Not sure if this was intended to be a possibility but it certainly makes for a short game.

Others have covered some of my other thoughts quite well and i think i will end it here. Still play testing though i hadn't been on for a while so i was playing with an older version. Will update before i play again.

[Cernel]

@Frostion For your information:
https://github.com/triplea-game/triplea/issues/7211

[TheDog]

@Frostion
Treasure Items
Nautical Charts, I can confirm the hero has to be in a sea area and all ships gain +2 movement, if this is intended the Tool tips need to be updated to this effect.

Quality Bow, I have never seen any hero pick this up, so it might be worth removing?

[Frostion]

Here is another update. I hope it is downloadable soon:

v0.1.3 to v0.1.4:
• Origin-Instructor now gives +10 Veterans, not 7.
• Origin-Officer now gives +7 Elites, not 5.
• Origin-Guard now gives free Veteran-Footmen units, not Elite-Footmen units.
• Orcs, Tauren and Undead now start with 1 Footmen more (to boost their start, as they are unlikely to get access to sea resources before round 6)
• Added the phrase “except Tauren” to the info about Heroes getting Movement 2 at level 5.
• Heroes and pets can no longer return in the same round as they were lost. Now they have to wait until the end of the next round.
• The standard 10 XP generation per round per player, has been removed from the Hero units given to a hidden unit. This is so that a player does not risk ending up in a situation where the Hero is dead and the player does not generate XP to revive him/her.
• Added info in tooltips about Map-of-Azeroth not giving blitz capability.
• “Steel Foot Standard” now works for all Footmen types.
• All Factory buildings and upgrades now cost the same 30 Gold and PUs (The bigger upgrades will still be attractive to put in chokepoints).
• All Air Units now have 1 less movement.
• All Artillery and their Shots have approximately 1 less strength.
• Fire-Canoe now has 60% kill chance / First strike chance vs. 1 Enemy Unit, not 50%.
• Elementals can no longer be transported.
• Sorcerer now cost 30 Pus, not 35 Pus.
• Dire-Troll now cost 65 Pus, not 70 Pus.
• A few other changes.

I will try to respond to most of what has been brought up here as feedback. But there is stuff that I have not touched upon:

“Nautical-Charts does not give +2 movement (or does it if the Hero is on a Transport?”
Yes it does. It is a Hero ability, so every ship that is located next to the hero will get +1 movement. Like if you have a Hero on a land territory and a ship or a fleet of ships out in the water next to the Hero, then all the ships will depart with +1 movement. I tried this and it works. It is very strong as it can be used to quickly move the hero up the coast, capturing land territories. But I think that the Hero MUST get off the ship between rounds (going to land) so that Hero may stand on the land and give +2 next turn. Heroes cannot give +2 when at sea (I think, but have not tried).

“Suicide ammunition is a little tricky (...) whoever moves first gets a big disadvantage of never being able to use his ammunition.”
This is an old issue. If the defender must be able to make use of the ammo, then the ammo must fire when it is attacked. This makes it vulnerable to the attack-to-kill-all-ammo “exploit”. Any technical solution to this unbalance is very welcome!

“A lot of items and map objects don't have a description.”
Hmmm? I thought that I gave all the items descriptions, at least the Hero items. All capturable buildings / structures on the map that stays on the map should also have descriptions. But there might be some items with only “generic game engine tooltips”. Just hover the mouse over the items and wait for the pop-up. But if I have missed any, then please point them out.

“I wasn't able to use griffins or Air-Balloons as air transport at all”
You have to click them and load them with the units, just like paratroopers. They may carry characters and Heroes. They are not moved like land-transports, where you just click both units and move them simultaneously.

“The Troll hero cannot use the movement speed of 3 from the Balloon in Plaguewood, see turn 10.”
Orc Zeppelins only got full movement for air-transport in non-combat”
This is a mistake that players often make. I also frequently think “why can’t I move this … why can’t it go full range!” This happens when you try to move the loaded air unit into friendly territory during combat move phase. You will experience no such problems during the non-combat move phase. This is because you are not doing a movement that results in combat, so the engine will not accept it.
I would prefer that the engine allowed the move, or alternatively went all in and illegalized all the land unit combat moves that did not result in combat or capturing of territories. The way it works now clearly creates confusion when players cannot move the Air Units. But I am sure that @Cernel and maybe the devs have some sort of explanation or reason for the system being as it is?

“Ring of Retaliation gives +1 defense roll. It doesn't look like only the best roll is chosen.”
I tested this out, and to me it seem like it is working as it should. I took this screenshot during a test battle. Basically it should the Hero killing first 1 enemy, then another one in another combat round, when the dice actually both hit, still only the “best one” is chosen. Maybe it is not working in the battle calculator, I don’t know about that.
EDIT: Here is the screenshot ... a little late Elven Hero kills one orc with the Bow at the very begining of the battle, and then later kills only one more orc while defending normal, even with two hits. One is grey as it does not kill.

“no description what a hero level does. Sometimes it explains itself, but sometimes I just couldn't figure it out.”
The best info at the moment is in the Hero Bar, hover the mouse over the top left of the level status, as indicated at the Human player. This will of course change in the future to a visual description of the level abilities.

“Guard is an extremely strong origin. Starting with one more unit helps you explore a lot. (…) you get another one every ten rounds. Officer is comparable and there you don't have that unit at the start of the game.”
Yes it is a strong origin start, and a strong unit. Therefore the guard unit given is now Veteran-Footmen, not Elite. And the Instructor gives +10 Vets now. We might see the Guard ad strong, but the Instructor, in theory, gives you about 50% more veteran units, when playing a long game. I don’t know if it is balanced, but I think it is at least a choice that the player needs think about.

With ”Instructor” (Can buy any veteran unit types!):
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 6
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 11
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 16
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 21
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 26
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 31
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 36
1 Veteran Footmen purchase round 41

With ”Guard”:
1 Veteran Footmen placement round 1
1 Veteran Footmen placement round 10
1 Veteran Footmen placement round 20
1 Veteran Footmen placement round 30
1 Veteran Footmen placement round 40

”Quality Bow”
This item is one of the lowest strength ranged weapons, but still any Hero will pick it up if he/she has nothing better, and they start out with nothing better than this Quality Bow. I tested it out But yes most of the time it will maybe not be used.

@Cernel So you got a multiplayer game going but starting it on your own, and then later letting another join?

@all If you play again, then please keep the feedback coming! And just re-address old issues if you still find them worth mentioning.