So I've been mucking around with AoW 1 recently, trying to edit the game. I still get a huge kick out of it, but there's a few balance issues I've been wanting to adjust. I've made a few changes, and I wanted to get people's input on them. Once I finish, I may even end up packaging this and making it available for download (while there are some great mods out there, I'm looking at doing a more conservative "tweak" project. No new units or buildings, just take the game we know and love and make it play better).


GOAL: There's two goals here: Intraracial balance and interracial balance.

The first means making units of the same race and level competitive. IMHO something that really detracts from the game's potential is that there are some levels that are boring just because one unit is so much better or worse than the others. For example, the Orcs might as well have only one Level 3 unit, because the Warlord is so much better than the Assassin or Doom Bat. Meanwhile, I can't conceive of a situation where someone would build a Human Swordsman or Musketeer. I want to change that, to encourage army diversity.

The second means keeping all the races in relative balance with each other.


Here's what I've done so far:


ALL RACES BUT ORCS: Swordsmen (and equivalents) get +1 DEF

ALL RACES BUT GOBLINS: Archers (and equivalents) get -1 HP

The main reason for this change is that in AoW 1, as far as level 1 units go, ranged units are just way better than their melee counterparts - so much so that I can't imagine Swordsmen ever getting built, apart from Orcs.

Giving each Swordsman +1 defense gives them more staying power, both against Archers and in general. Archers being knocked down to 4 HP, however, should be the real kicker here. Now it's a lot harder for Archers to hit Swordsmen, and a lot easier for Swordsmen to kill Archers (in particular, Swordsmen with 2 DAM can now kill them in one round).

Another possibility here would be to give all Swordsmen Physical Protection instead of increasing defense, but that's gonna require some pretty careful testing.

Orcs don't get the bonus because their Swordsmen are powerful enough already; Goblins don't get the penalty because a 3 HP Darter would just be silly.


AZRACS:

Elephant: -Strike, Cost 25 (was 37)

This is a pretty significant nerf, but the reality is that IMHO Elephant rushes were simply over the top. Now it's basically a super speedy Battering Ram with more HP - a bonus that to me is still pretty substantial.


HUMANS:

SWORDSMAN: +Round Attack on silver medal

The challenge with the Humans is making the Swordsman useful, because it's basically completely replaced by the Pikeman. Frankly I'm not convinced my change accomplishes anything meaningful, but I'm not sure what else to do. Giving them Parry would be nice, but it feels a bit like intruding on the Halfling's territory.


MUSKETEER: +2 ATT, +1 HP, +Strike, Parry, Wall Climbing

I was hoping to edit Fire Musket itself, but unfortunately I can't edit abilities yet. Until then, we've got this. The Musketeer has always been known as "That crappier version of a Ballista that for some reason is a higher level than it." I decided to make it a bit more like D'Artagnon and co. It's got some moderate fencing and infiltration abilities in addition to its gun. Crappy damage, defense, and HP should keep this unit from being OP.


LIZARDMEN:

GIANT SLUG: +4 MP, +Swimming

Again, editing Venemous Spit would be nice, but another big issue with the Slug is that it can't keep up with Lizard armies.


I'm also considering giving the Wyvern a boost of 1 or even 2 to ATT, but I'm still playing around with that.


FROSTLINGS:

YETI: -Cold Strike

This isn't necessarily because I think the Yeti's OP, but rather because allowing the Yeti to freeze units IMHO steals the show away from units like the Frost Queen.


ORCS:

ASSASSIN: +1 DAM

Why on earth did the Assassin have only 3 DAM.


DOOM BAT: +Physical Prot.

As far as I'm concerned, Doom Bats were the most useless unit in the game. Really their only benefit was to use as a flying scout if you couldn't get access to another race's flying scout. Hopefully this will make them kinda decent.


WARLORD: -1 DEF




MAGIC:

OOZE: 4 Mana cost (was 6). Now a hero with Spellcasting 1 can cast something else in addition to it.

STONE SKIN: Has swapped places with Free Movement. +2 DEF is simply way too good for a level 1 spell.




FUTURE QUESTIONS:

HALFLING PONY RIDER: This is a really tough unit to balance. It's way too strong for a level 1 unit, but it's there to compensate for the Halflings being weak at level 2 (and arguably 3). The easiest balance fix would be to nerf the Satyr and have them change places, but that would really undermine the Halfling's uniqueness.


RANGER, CHARLATAN, AVENGER: Are they too weak? Should they be buffed?


DEMON, TITAN, CAVALIER: Are they too strong?


SALAMANDER: Swimming makes no sense in the context of the unit, but without swimming, its usefulness in the larger Lizardman force is kind of questionable.


And, finally:


NUCLEAR NERF: Dragons and Air Galleys would get Floating instead of Flying (or possibly Dragons could lose Breath attacks); Physically Immune units would get Physical Protection instead. All these units are really freaking powerful and the AI has no idea how to deal with it. This would bring a lot of them down to a more manageable level, I think.

These look like good ideas.

There are several mods out there for AoW1. Warlock's mod is my favourite. You could take a look at the changes they make to get inspiration. Check the Heavengames site to find them.

A couple of things to consider:

Units like Orc Warlords are less powerful than they look, particularly in multiplayer. Sure, they're immensely strong, but also incredibly expensive and -slow-. If you invest a lot of gold in a unit that then spends all game struggling to move across the strategic map, you'll lose even if that unit kills anything it touches. The real killers in this game are the fast, tough units. (Highmen Titans, for example, are much stronger than Warlords because of their speed. Oh, and Fire Immunity.)

Assassins may look squishy, but they have stealth skills and can climb walls, which makes them great for harassment. (But you're quite right that Doombats are very underpowered.)

A second thing: whilst balancing units is definitely important, you shouldn't neglect balancing heroes. Overpowered heroes can make most units redundant in this game. It's so easy to get DEF 10, Lightning Strike and/or Lifestealing and just kill everything. Warlock's Mod, for example, fixes this by limiting heroes to a maximum of innate DEF 5 -and- making DEF cost 8 skillpoints instead of 5.

Still, good luck! AoW1 is a lot of fun, but can definitely use some tweaks.

I haven't played PvP, so I probably know nothing, but... the dwarf Giant felt pretty strong in the campaign to me.