Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread

Frostion

Yes, dimming down the player/territory colors would probably do this map good. As long as there are the distinct territory border color outlines, I think it would work.

@alkexr If you will fiddle with the colors, maybe you should just pick out and dim the strongest ones (player color and the player's units) that stand the most out. And only dim to a degree that then matches the layers/colors that you didn't pick.

Hepps

@alkexr I think @redrum had some good observations. Most importantly is that if the volume of units were reduced at the beginning of the game it might help to slow a bit of the onslaught and give Good some breathing room. Evil can pretty much decimate everything that stands against it with all its multi-hit units at game start. Most of the valuable units for Good are either rendered impotent by the sheer numbers of opponents on turn one or out right destroyed.

alkexr

My thoughts after the game against @redrum.

General observations

Game is more dynamic than I expected, and stacks are smaller. So leader units are much less interesting than I thought.
Multi-hit air units are OP: fast, cheap, not really vulnerable to AA, can feed on stacks without punishment.
Sea units are too exposed to air units.
Multi-hit land units (esp. trolls, olog-hai, spiders) are too expensive. They can't ever really be used, because any counterattack will take them down very TUV efficiently.
Fast units are consistently underpriced
Catapults / trebuchets are a waste of PUs, except maybe vs fortresses. The only thing it is useful for is to threaten settlements, but I want my units to do more work than just that. Except maybe to suicide them to take down the walls, so that the next player can charge/trample in.
Chokepoints around Osgiliath and Gap of Rohan are not interesting. Opposing forces are built up and wait.

Strategy

Gondor, Rohan and Lorien are surrounded by strong Evil players, they are out-TUV-ed nearly two to one. Idea is obvious: if these factions are crushed, then game is over.

Southern theater
Assuming Mordor alone would break through at Osgiliath, the task for Harad was a naval invasion around Edhellond to grab weakly defended production or divert Gondor forces to help Mordor advance further. Except that the naval invasion was not viable and Mordor couldn't break through at Osgiliath. Until the oliphants arrived, that is.

Saruman theater
Saruman was to take Tharbad to set up a defensive position, after taking Hornburg. But then I observed that if Rohan re-takes Hornburg, there is no way to prevent Rohan from overrunning Saruman. I needed every last scrap of PUs to hold the ground. So much so that I even had to buy a wizard (to get more defense out of the 3 unit production) and I couldn't place 2 movement units in Isengard (they would have arrived a turn too late). Situation was dire.

Misty Mountains theater
I assumed that Lorien would not be able to resist pressure by the Orcs. So the plan was to focus on Lorien, even if that meant a lot of breathing room for Rivendell and with that the option of spamming eagles. The result was the fall of Cerin Amroth, which then came under too much pressure to mount an offensive further into Lorien.

Angmar theater
The plan was (after taking exposed Dwarven town on turn one) to overwhelm Arnor and hopefully make a miai threat against Fornost and Amon Sul, while allowing the High Elves and the Northmen to do whatever and not losing Gundabad. But superior numbers won and the offensive collapsed in 2-3 turns, and holding on to Gundabad drained considerable resources even though the Dwarves didn't even try.

Northern theater
I have observed previously that the Dwarves can defend the Halls of Gror so very TUV-efficiently that an attack in that direction by Rhun achieves nothing. So I moved Rhun to the Mirkwood to... well, fight; while also canopening on the South. By this I have taken off a lot of pressure from the Dwarves who failed to capitalize on this.

Things that shouldn't have happened

Turn 1 by Saruman was a huge mistake, exposing half of his army through a canopener. But it wasn't gg, because
Lorien left 40% chance for the Orcs to fix the mistake
Defense of Cair Andros by Mordor was exposed to a hit-and-run
Orcs failed to save 3 trolls which they could have
Dragon hit-and-run in Fornost: ~130 TUV swing
Dwarves spamming ravens instead of threatening Gundabad
Harad building ships
Orcs losing a smaller stack by not noticing the swan-boat

Units balance

Angmar Orc marauders and snaga skirmishers are thrash. They have almost no defense on plains. Dunadan guards are super efficient against them. The lack of any defensive ability made it impossible to maintain the attack against Arnor. So much so that I decided to just spam dragons, not because they are op, but because everything else is thrash. Coincidentally, dragons are op. (BTW, due to a bug they don't have 3x2 armor, which they are intended to have. Oh well.)

Arnor Dunadan guards and men-at-arms are efficient against Angmar. Bowmen do nothing against dragons.

Freefolk Seems good. Hobbit archers are too weak.

High Elves Eagles are too fast.

Dwarves Why ravens? They have 2 attack both in the Mirkwood and in Gundabad. Dwarven axemen have 6 attack + 3 shield in Gundabad.

Lorien Siege Ents have good pressure against Saruman (Hornburg). Very efficient in forest.

Woodland Realm Good in forest.

Northmen Raiders are op af.

Dol Guldur Spiders are too expensive for anything but doomstack protection. Snaga + warg scout is an op combo. Bats not useful, too many Elves have too many bows.

Rhun Chariots and easterling cavalry feels strong, almost able to compete with raiders.

Orcs Goblin stabber + shooter feels strong. Orc marauders, trolls underwhelming. Balrog not very strong if there are no terrorizable targets. Warg scout op. Bats not useful.

Saruman Uruk warriors are okay, uruk pikes are good, halforcs are really strong (had no time to buy them), dunlending wildmen are effective for specific tasks. Warg rider not useful.

Rohan Charging cavalry has formidable pressure. Bowmen good vs crebain.

Gondor Tower guard op.

Mordor Snaga + marauder are thrash. Some 70 units defending in river+settlement against tower guards had a whopping 50 defense. Olog-hai, spiders hard to use. Winged nazgul op. Uruk warriors weak-ish but okay. Uruk pikes good.

Harad Oliphants. Well, oliphants. 4 of them broke through what a 70-unit Mordor army couldn't. (Not entirely alone, but still.)

Map balance

Saruman can't defend both against Rohan and Freefolk.
Angmar is overwhelmed (after the initial momentum is gone). The only reason they can do anything is because dragons are op.
Gondor front not interesting.
Harad is very far away, supply lines are very long.
Surprisingly, Lorien can fend for themselves.
Orcs can't cope with everything thrown at them.
The only place Evil can push is Osgiliath. (Rhun + DG could only push because the Northmen lifted the pressure. I think.) That crushes Rohan, though, which is very near to gg.
The only possible answer Good has to that is to crush Angmar. And then we have a boring North vs South game, where it takes 5 turns for Harad to reach the front.
Fronts around Angmar and Orcs are interesting. Mirkwood front is still fun. The Saruman-Rohan front is probably the least interesting.

alkexr

Points where I disagree with @redrum. Would be worthwhile to sort them out.

Air units are overpowered across the board. This is because they are both too strong for their cost but also because the kamikaze air rules give them even more flexibility than air units on regular maps.

1-hit air units are not that strong IMO. I think this difference in perception arises because Good has way more units with AA.

Most mountain units are too cheap. Being able to move on mountains is a very large advantage on the map.

Didn't notice this. It felt convenient, at most. But I can imagine this being painful for Good vs. e.g. Orcs.

Feels like there are too many starting units on the map. End up with giant stacks of units on turn 1. This combined with the high movement makes the map feel very tactical and not very strategic. Mostly about creating a doom stack and marching it around.

Hmm.

Evil is getting better bang for their buck on unit production

There are a few OP units, but I didn't notice this.

Would be nice to tone some of the territory colors down a bit. This would make the map a bit easier on the eyes as well as make units pop out more.

I like the vivid colors... but I see the popular demand.

Angmar
Most overpowered unit set in the game.

The dragons, yes. The rest, no.

Snaga skirmisher and Orc marauder are an OP combo as they are relatively cheap, can both enter mountains, and have decent stats when combined.

I literally felt pain when planning my moves with Angmar. (Maybe I shouldn't have banged my head in the wall.) Attacking was okay, although I needed more units for taking territories than I would have liked. But setting up any sort of defense was a nightmare. So I fell back on doomstacks.

Mordor
Start out too strong compared to Gondor. Can pretty much just walk through Osgiliath

Gondor counterattack-pressure was too strong. Mordor would never have gotten through Osgiliath alone. Yes, Mordor could have attacked and wiped the Gondor army, but the same was true in reverse.

Lorien
Really weak compared to orcs. Need to essentially huddle in their cities and build up. No way to defend Cerin Amroth if Orcs focus on it.

I decided to focus on Lorien, which was a strategic tradeoff. And even though the Orcs focused here, Lorien didn't lose too much and it wasn't obvious how to push further. If the Orcs focus on Rivendell, Lorien can actually swarm the mountains and significantly reduce the Orcs (and threaten Saruman, too).

Orcs
Trolls are OP mountain unit that is pretty cheap for 2 HP

Couldn't use them for anything, because they are too expensive to expose them to counterattacks. Not sure though, did you feel a lot of pressure to avoid their attacks?

Bats are OP air unit that is cheap and has 6 attack

Not so op against bows. At least it didn't feel that good. Again, did you feel a lot of pressure?

Woodland
Very weak. Just huddles in its cities and tries to defend. Good units in the forest.

This is true, but not a problem. Evil is significantly behind in production, they need to be able to push forward on some places before the front balances out, otherwise they are just going to slowly be outproduced. In fact, when planning balance, I counted Rhosgobel for DG.

DolGuldur
Bats are OP air unit that is cheap and has 6 attack

Bats have 4 attack in forest and can be countered with Elves / woodmen.

Dwarves
Ravens are probably their best unit even though they are probably the worst air unit overall

Dwarven units get really good bonuses in mountains and caves, and their 3 shield axemen are especially good against Angmar snagas. Ravens just don't put enough pressure on important places like Gundabad. I was afraid that Angmar wouldn't be able to maintain pressure against Arnor if the Dwarves threatened Gundabad.

redrum

@alkexr So I think we agree on most things but a couple of things that seems that we don't:

I actually felt stacks were too large and it wasn't very dynamic. Almost all fronts are create a single giant stack and march towards your enemy or sit in a city. Leader units are just very expensive and most races start with enough of them cause they support so many units.
Most multi-HP land units aren't too expensive IMO. If you make them any cheaper then you'll end up with a similar problem that we have with multi-HP air units where you build a big stack and strafe enemies. I considered building bears as northmen but raiders are OP so did that instead.
Lorien is ok I think as they should be able to handle Orcs. Gondor/Rohan getting crushed is the biggest issue outside of multi-HP air units.
Angmar threater - I don't think there is really any way for Dwarves to actually take Gundabad if Angmar makes sure to move/buy a few units in it. It just starts with so many walls and trebuchets takes too long to get to there. Only chance is building catapults with Northmen to take out a few of the walls but Angmar can just block Langwell. Dwarve units are just so slow and their cities are far away from everything. Plus they can always move a dragon or 2 back if absolutely necessary. Dragons can also usually reach the territories adjacent to Gundabad so that Dwarves can't really stack next to it (West Grey Mountains for example).
Northern threater - Dwarves are too far away and slow to capitalize on anything. Given the current balance I think trying to build up a giant stack of ravens is their best bet. Dains halls also only has 3 unit production. I'd be interested in what you think they can achieve.
The hit-and-run on Fornost was probably a mistake by Good though my worry was if I backed off then I might never we able to retake it. Also if the dragons don't do that then they probably take out 50-75 TUV outside it anyways.
Orc marauders and snaga skirmishers do suck on defense on plains but are a strong attack combo especially in mountains/hills. I actually think its an OP combo.
Dwarves - axemen and their other units are too slow. They also only have 3 unit production anywhere near Gundabad (really feel like I'm either missing something or you are over estimating how much they can pressure it). The idea with ravens was to build a stack to force Angmar and Orcs into their cities by controlling everything outside of them. I was hoping to use Northmen and Woodland to handle Mirkwood. I felt like the last turn I had with dwarves was pretty successful in making TUV trades with ravens.
Bats - Bats are very good IMO. Not so much in the forest or for taking cities. But outside of that they have good range and strong attack for the cost. This makes them not that useful for Dol Guldur's situation and Orcs just have a lot of other OP units but I think you could use them more effectively as Orcs. They are also good against air with 3 air att/def. Ravens and crebains have only 1 air att/def.

EDIT: Couple of points to your response that I didn't see til after I posted mine:

Good does have more AA units but outside of forests, most air units still do fairly well against them. I think AA is just really weak across the board. An example is you can take 2 bats against an eleven archer in plains and have a slightly positive tuv. That just seems wrong to me given archers are like the best AA unit and are a defensive unit. I was glad every turn that orcs didn't build or have many bats. I think you could do a strategy where you take Cerin Amroth then mass bats to pressure everything around the cities they control.
Mountains were painful against Orcs, Angmar, and Saruman. All have strong mountain units that are hard to compete with as Good.
If you remove the OP multi-HP evil units (dragon, winged nazgul, oliphant) then unit sets are probably much more even. Those are definitely the biggest problem. Mountain units are probably the other one that evil feels like they have a advantage at besides around the dwarves.
Angmar just doesn't do well on plains and their units are much more attack then defense focused. I felt pain when trying to plan defense against them especially in mountains/hills.
Mordor's unit set favors attack over defense which is why I backed off to apply counter attack pressure with Gonder. But once you have Harad or Rhun units to help defend or can open then gondor is dead.
Trolls felt strong on mountains and had to work around them for a while. But yeah you mostly use them for mountains or in a big stack. Can't really use them for trading as they are too expensive to lose.

I'd encourage you to load up the game on turn 2-3 as dwarves and try playing their turns to pressure Gundabad more. I don't really see it but maybe I'm missing something.

alkexr

@redrum Dwarves vs Gundabad: even though you built ravens, in the last turns I calculated that if you had moved the Dwarven army into position, buying 5 units (marauders/snaga) wouldn't have been enough. One turn I had to buy a nazgul. If you had build dwarven axemen, I would have had to move more units (possibly dragons) there. This drains the production of Angmar completely, so Arnor can probably overrun those juicy 2 prod territories, while the Freefolk army is free to do whatever.

I'm not sure about this, but the cold fact is that Angmar is outproduced nearly 3:1, and the only reason they were still alive by turn 4 is the dragons.

mattbarnes

So I haven’t yet opened this amazing map. But I had a number of games on the predecessor map. Oddly my observations were relatively similar - after all the development you seem to have retained broadly similar dynamics which is great.

What I saw before was:

at first Angmar looks great and heavily pressured Arnor but then gets pushed back if several Good races work together
a key Good strategy is to defeat Angmar and then turn against the rest; I would plan my dwarf moves from the start, to get a large siege force through the mountains over many turns
Angmar dragons are strong (and expensive, in the original) but allow Angmar to play a guerilla warfare (for a while). However the couldn’t hurt big stacks and they couldn’t afford more than a few in the whole game originally
Rhun and DolG together are strong and progressively push back Dale/North/Wood; the dwarves have a tough choice between defending east and attacking west, or vice versa
Orcs/Goblins in the Mountains are aggressive and successful at first but Freefolk and High Elves eventually contain them; Eagles were OP and spammed
Lorien plays a guerilla defence; boring but shouldn’t be overwhelmed if their allies keep up the pressure on Orcs
Tharbad is strategically critical: a very interesting dynamic (my favourite in the original game) and it’s the pressure here that stops Saruman and Orcs overwhelming Rohan. Saruman probably falls eventually but so he should. That said, the lack of siege units on that front meant that Saruman would be bottled-up not defeated (make Ents stronger?)
there is a natural ‘clock’ to the game where the Harad/Mordor pressure ‘ticks’ in the south and Gondor can resist alone only so long; but isn’t this the entire theme of the books with the free peoples fighting collectively against Sauron at the end? The northwest-southeast dynamic doesn’t seem so wrong
I found the sea units limited and they produced uninteresting stacks, diverting Gondor but generating no interesting dynamics. I would solve this by giving Harad a few pirate ships and Gondor no navy. The pirate ships should not be easily destroyed but should also be unbuildable (it takes years to build a wooden warship). A lack of a Gondor navy may seem unrealistic but it would allow the Evil seaborne landing per the book and I don’t recall much naval action otherwise.
it might be interesting to replicate the Gondor ranger/guerilla action in the book on the east bank of the river somehow maybe using boats of a type that can retire and hide in Gondor cities rather than being open to sea battle?

epinikion

hey alekxr and redrum,

i love the map. you can let most things like it is but help good around osgiliath or rohan a bit. i agree that angmar is with very good starting option and best is probably to help orcs fast to kill high elves settlement. But then carn dun need to be defended and will fall later as osgiliath will fall too. but probably too early to let good a chance to figth. when os-giliath falls, minas tirith will also a bit later. Changing power of units is not necessary in my opinion. its nice to have some siege against walls, its like real. fleet will be vulnerable, but ok, harad may be free for a while and some rounds. what nation will air attack harads ships early? and later harad will have some more ships, so np.

I have some games now and i am still interested in a test game. Dont change the setting before we have some more test games. Only my 2 cent

best, epinikion

Cernel

@alkexr said in Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread:

Would be nice to tone some of the territory colors down a bit. This would make the map a bit easier on the eyes as well as make units pop out more.

I like the vivid colors... but I see the popular demand.

As I said, you can have both. Just use blends for the darker version (otherwise, a mapskin, but I'd say overkill just for this).

zlefin

Is anyone playing this live on the servers? The only games I've seen have been play by forum stuff; (when I last was looking a couple weeks ago).

aside from that, I largely agree with the observations others have been making. In particular about air units tending to be quite OP.

Hepps

@zlefin I haven't been on quite as much as usual... but I have not seen any live games.

epinikion

@zlefin yeah i am playing a BFA with Wassmuss as lobby game. I think its already the rematch. also there were 1-2 games of unknown players in the lobby so far. if you are interested to play slap me in the lobby.

alkexr

After lengthy consideration, here is a draft of planned changes.

Unit changes

Generally try to avoid over-nerfing units. There will be plenty of time for changes later.
✓ AA buff: all units with AA gain +1 AA
✓ Air units will have their movement reduced: 8 -> 5, 6 -> 4, 4 -> 3. This is a nerf enough, prices wil be unchanged until further testing.
✓ Rivercraft buff: rafts defense 2 -> 3, cost 7 -> 4. Swan-boats defense 2 -> 3, cost 10 -> 5.
✓ Ship buff: dromunds defense 4 -> 5, cost 14 -> 12. Black ship defense 3 -> 4, cost 16 -> 14. Both will have 2 HP.
✓ Dragons will get 3 armor (x2), as originally intended. Cost 36 -> 42.
✓ Dunlending wildman cost 4 -> 5, attack 2 -> 3 (slightly stronger, considerably more expensive: half-nerf)
✓ Tower guard attack 5 -> 4
✓ Goblin shooter defense 3 -> 2
✓ Warg scout attack 4 -> 3
✓ Raiders cost 5 -> 6
✓ Easterling cavalry attack 4 -> 5, cost 7 -> 8 (half-nerf)
✓ Chariot defense 5 -> 6, cost 7 -> 8 (half-nerf)
✓ (EDIT) Dúnadan lancers: movement 4 -> 3
✓ (EDIT) Variag raider: cost 7 -> 8
✓ (EDIT) Scout: cost 5 -> 6
✓ (EDIT) Éorling rider: movement 4 -> 3
✓ (EDIT) Éothéod cavalry: movement 4 -> 3
✓ (EDIT) Rohirric scout: cost 7 -> 8
✓ (EDIT) Elven cavalry: cost 7 -> 8, defense 2 -> 3

New unit

✓ Barrow-wights: 7 cost, 3/5/2 infantry, 2 terror, ambusher. Not melee or ranged (they fought with magic of some sort). Countered neither by armor nor by shield, they will be an interesting defensive option for Angmar.

Intended dynamic changes

Make naval invasion by Harad viable, instead of braindead oliphant-canopening
Strengthen Gondor considerably while weakening Mordor, push the front into Ithilien, at least initially
In exchange, make Evil more resilient in the long term where they are outnumbered, especially Angmar + Orcs
Try to avoid the "rush through Osgiliath" vs "rush for Carn Dum" scenario. Breakthrough should be the result of strategic decisions other than "move forward".
Decrease the amount of neutrals wherever reasonable, as there is little interesting in them, save for a few exceptions (Tharbad)
Saruman will not get Hornburg, hopefully this and other changes will allow both Saruman and Rohan to leave the boring doomstack stalemate for more interesting frontlines (vs Freefolk and Lorien / vs Rhun and Mordor)

Unit placement / territory owner changes

Remove pointless neutrals. Territories which will have more than 2 defending neutrals: Eryn Vorn, Druwaith Laur, Druadan Forest, Old Forest (lore reasons) and Tharbad (strategic reasons)
Decrease amount of starting units everywhere, as it has been requested by several people on and off-forum. This means that we can throw many of our observations out the window, but hey, progress requires sacrifices. Currently there's around 7K TUV on board, of which around 5K is land (+air) combat units (rest is mostly walls). This will be reduced to 3.5K-4K.
Angmar will get the Barrow-downs, infested with barrow-wights (with the anticipation that Freefolk will take them out quickly, but at the cost of being able to send less help to Arnor initially)
Angmar will also get the Coldfells
Harad will get catapults to help a naval invasion
Saruman will get everything to the river Greyflood: Lond Daer, North + South Enedwaith, Greyflood East Bank, Isen North Bank
High Elves will get Swanfleet and Ost-in-Edhil (with the anticipation that Orcs/Saruman will take them out quickly)

Territory production

Evil is favoured here slightly. production will grow in importance relative to starting armies, and Evil is significantly behind on production (especially after changes on the Southern Theater)
(Orcs) +1 production to Gladden Fields, Eregion, Dimrill Dale
(High Elves) Move production from Harlond (-1), Forlond (-1) and Mithlond (-2) to Trollshaws (+1), Rhudaur (+2), Coldfells (+1)
(Gondor) +1 production to Calembel, Linhir, Ethring, Pelargir, Anorien, Emyn Arnen, Field of Cormallen, Henneth Annun
(Mordor) -1 production to Morgai, Udun, Gorgoroth, Plateau of Gorgoroth
(Angmar) +1 production to Ettenmoors, Barrow Downs, +2 to Mount Gundabad, +4 to Carn Dum
(Saruman) +1 production to Lond Daer, Swanfleet, Methedras, Ered Nimrais, +2 to West March
(Dwarves) 3 -> 5 unit production to Dain's Halls to shorten Dwarven supply lines ( @Hepps )

Visual

Remove PUs from the reliefs and add PU placements ( @Hepps I will add the placements if you give me the relief without PUs and the PU images.)
✓ Tweak Dol Guldur and Gondor colors
✓ Ask @Cernel about this thing with map blends
✓ Remove placement hack and add dont_show_units
Flip Eorling riders (to make them easier to tell from King's Company)

Bug fixes

✓ Carn Dum, Mount Gundabad and Wellinghall don't have settlement territory effect
✓ Balcoth tribesmen don't have full tooltips
✓ (EDIT) snaga skirmishers are incorrectly described as ambusher
(EDIT) The names of "Rhudaur", "West Rhudaur", "Helm's Deep", "Treebeard's Hill", "Lands of the Balchoth" are misspelled ("Rhunaur", "West Rhundaur", "Helms Deep", "Treebeards Hill", "Lands of the Balcoth"), the former two only on the relief ( @Hepps yet again - only if that's not too much trouble)
(EDIT) Ethir Anduin doesn't have marsh on the relief

New feature (?)

Quasi-impassable rivers felt nice 4-ish years ago, because they made exploiting the AI much less effortful. Now they feel like they constrain frontlines too much. Rafts and boats were made significantly cheaper now, we'll have to see how this works out. But I feel that river-crossing land canals will be necessary, which can only be crossed if you control both ends (i.e. if you have secured a bridgehead).

redrum

@alkexr Changes look good. I think the only major thing that you still might want to consider addressing further are 4 move land units (I like the air movement changes). Looks like you nerfed a few of them by increasing cost (scout, raider, easterling cav, chariot) but I still feel 4 moves is a lot and maybe should go further on either changing most to 3 moves or making more expensive.

zlefin

looks good; that air nerf should be enough for now at least, and we can see how it goes from there.
One thing I still need clarification on: what combat type are Snaga supposed to be? Ambusher or something else?

alkexr

@zlefin Snaga skirmisher is ambusher atm.

epinikion

hey, I won`t purchase any air with this changes.

Frostion

@alkexr said in Middle Earth: Battle For Arda - Official Thread:

I feel that river-crossing land canals will be necessary, which can only be crossed if you control both ends (i.e. if you have secured a bridgehead).

I am curious.. Is there a way that a mapmaker can limit the number of units that may cross from one territory to another? Like if there was a natural narrowing in terrain or if the army had to pass via a small bridge or improvised rafts.

Btw. It looks like @alkexr is doing great work and progress. It's nice that players give feedback as written reports With lots of detail.

zlefin

@alkexr

are you sure snaga are properly coded as ambusher? iirc when I was testing in game; based on the numbers they got in provinces they were actually some other type (forget the name of it atm, ?creature? I think, the one with -2/-2 in cities). I'm quite sure I saw large stacks of snaga having 0 defense in cities even when there were like 20 of them, they had 0 pips of defense.
I'm not in a position to double check it myself right now.

alkexr

@zlefin Nice catch! They are coded to have wilderness preference.