Halflings...Overpowered?

[inventio]

I apologize if this has been posted before, but I'm not seeing anything since the forums were revamped.

We went up against a halfling kd recently. While we would have lost anyway, the margin was pretty big...reviewing the war, I'm coming to the conclusion that halflings are overpowered, somewhat like dwarves were last age. This post may smack of whining (just a bit possibly), but I think there are some points to consider.

1. Halfings have 6/5 elites. Dwarves have 7/4. Their offensive power is a bit lower but they can easily make up for that with their thievery efficiency. Plus, their elites are also way cheaper at 550, with a low NW to boot too.

2. Halflings CS immunity cancels thievery protection of Avians and Elves. Since the best thieves are halflings, this seems kind of unfair.

Only dwarves are immune to other Dwarves' Fogs, so why Halflings have this "special" immunity?

3. If we do a direct breakdown of Halflings vs Elves aka the thief race versus the mage race

A. Halfling: +40% Thievery Effectiveness on "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops
+40% Effects when Performing "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops

Elf: +30% Magic Effectiveness

Halflings get double the bonus that elves have effectively. While the elves and DEs trade off spell strength versus Magic Effect, there is NO tradeoff for halfings if you compare them to any other theif-potential races.

B. Halfling: +1 Stealth Recovery per Tick
Elf: +1 Mana Recovery per Tick

This one's equivalent.

C. Halfling: Immune to CS
Elf: ...nothing

In fact, elves lose big-time on this one.

D. Halfling limitations: none
Elf: No Access to Dungeons, -15% Effects when Performing "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops

I don't care about the dungeons, but the last one is actually a sh*tty limitation when you think about it. All resource and damage ops fall under this category.

E. Spell selections
Halfling: Quick Feet, War Spoils
Elf: Mystic Aura, Clear Sight, Fountain of Knowledge, Pitfalls, Amnesia, Quick Feet, Reflect Magic

Obviously the elves win out here, but War Spoils and QF make the halflings better at recovery.

F. Elites
Halfling: 6/5, $550, Nw 5
Elf: 7/4, $800, 6.0nw

So the "total" point values add up the same. Halflings get cheaper and 'not-as-NW-dense' elites.

So out my 6 categories:
1 is equal
1 where elves win out
4 where halflings win out.

And this isn't even including gnomes...whom I feel is getting more and more gypped at the moment as half-*ssed mages and half-*ssed thieves.

There are definitely some balance issues that need to be addressed imho.

I will say that obviously in order to make full use of these overpowered advantages takes a skilled player. Not to take anything away from the person running the province. (Feels like the dwarf advantages were geared more passively and the halflings bonuses are actively-oriented...)

[Landro]

It's funny to have somebody claim Halflings are too powerful for a change. Most people complain their elites are too weak and some fools even claim Halflings need a stronger economy(!) :)

WS is rarely useful. The last time I saw it used, the player suicided (with WS) after getting chained and then got completely destroyed by the second chain on him that followed after his suicide :)

Having 6/* elites limits a Halfling's potential OPA. An Elf can have about 16.7% higher OPA than a Halfling with the same number of elites. That matters a lot in a warring kingdom.

You rank the 6 categories you list equally but that is pointless. People who pick Elf do so because of their spellbook. People picking Halfling do so because of the extra stealth and thievery mod.

I agree that the thievery handicap for Elves is crappy and overall Elves will have more trouble getting a good economy running.


I think Elves should lose their thievery penalty but otherwise they're both good enough that most kingdoms will want a couple of each.

[Bishop]

The elf can build WTs or train tpa. The Halfer cannot suddenly boost his WPA - this has always been the case with thievery versus magic. Halfers are meant to be the best damaging thief race though - thats their niche.

[Jukelius]

I think this wasn't about comparing just elfs and halflings. You can compare halffer with anybody and it is better number wise. 6/5 elite is not a bad, that works perfectly with the ability of turtling up, it's the only elite (besides gnome) with 5 defence value, and it's cheap. 6/4 elite, like what dork elves have, would be much more balanced

What I feel odd is their lack of any negative penalty. They have very good bonuses while they basically doesn't exchange anything for those. I think penalty to magic effectiveness, or penalty to attack times should be in place for halffers, they are just a bit too efficient like this.

[Landro]

Halflings are often tempted to semi-suicide because their offense is relatively weak. That's a penalty even if it isn't explicitly mentioned.

[Palem]

A race is only overpowered if they have an advantage that is too hard to strategically neutralize. Halfers are a very strong thief race and that's their real big advantage. Watch Towers are available to everyone as well running a modest tpa. With their thievery benefit eliminated, they're left with a lower-end military and a weak economy.

So no, I don't think Halfers are overpowered.

[Zermoid]

As a Halfer (Halfling/Shepherd) I really don't see the overpowered part, other than thievery they have no glaring advantage as far as I can tell.
I run (or at least try to) 4 TPA raw and still can't break enemy thief defenses alot of the time. Watchtowers are a pain, and everyone seems to have them this age. I may actually start targeting Halfers and Gnomes for thieving OOW, see how that goes as most of us thieves don't run WT's. Have to try it just to see, at least thieves vs thieves you can win at, WT's are a straight % failure of OPs no matter what you do. interesting thought?

Attacking strength is not there, I often barely having enough Off strength to break provs of equal NW. Forget double taps or attacking a higher NW prov without suiciding.
I try to keep ~40 DPA in specs, between that and 4 TPA and 1-2 WPA and even a 65+ percent draft makes it hard to attack chain targets, mostly I am semi-suiciding to hit our chain target at war start.
I guess if you ran a halfer as an straight attacker and not a T/a they might be decent offensively but that kind of wastes their main purpose, to rob and NS the enemy to death.

Sorry, I'm just not seeing the overpowered part, if it's there I'm missing it!

[VT2]

No, it's just that elf is horrible.

[inventio]

Having 6/* elites limits a Halfling's potential OPA. An Elf can have about 16.7% higher OPA than a Halfling with the same number of elites. That matters a lot in a warring kingdom.

Halflings are often tempted to semi-suicide because their offense is relatively weak. That's a penalty even if it isn't explicitly mentioned.

The 'tendency' to suicide is a direct result of the 6/5 elites. With the elite providing the same def as a def spec, one is going to replace more def specs with elites, leading to decrease in static defense while loading up your offense...leading to a temptation to suicide more.

Also, in general provinces train more elites than is absolutely needed to serve as reserve and non-static defense. Most people don't always send out all of their elites, and halfling elites provide significant defense.

You're also neglecting to mention the advantage of halflings at being able to turtle at will.

And...halflings have one of the cheapest elites while having less NW/elite point than any other race

"You rank the 6 categories you list equally but that is pointless. People who pick Elf do so because of their spellbook. People picking Halfling do so because of the extra stealth and thievery mod."


It isn't so much a direct comparison of elves versus halflings as rather a look at 2 prototypical 'thief' and 'mage' races and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. With the conclusion that one is being conferred more advantages than the other. I never said anything about picking one over the other - that wasn't my intention. I'm not going to say that one should pick elf over halfling and vice versa. See Jukelius' post.

The elf can build WTs or train tpa. The Halfer cannot suddenly boost his WPA - this has always been the case with thievery versus magic. Halfers are meant to be the best damaging thief race though - thats their niche.

Bishop, this argument isn't about thievery versus magic-which is really a null point as you're comparing apples and oranges. See my post above.

But to make some related remarks... no one can suddenly boost his WPA. The same handicap is applied to ALL races.


Towers are available to everyone as well running a modest tpa. With their thievery benefit eliminated, they're left with a lower-end military and a weak economy.

But Magic Shield is available to everyone as well, providing a significant boost in magic defense.

AND...are people forgetting that there are Thief Dens available? There is a direct counterpart for WTs in the form of TDs, which FURTHER boosts your thievery AND lowers thievery losses.

(There are no building available that suddenly boost your WPA, I might add).

On a related note, spell specific magic defenses are Mystic Aura and Reflect. So why are elves not immune to any of those, while halflings are immune to the only thief-defense spell in the game, at the cost to an elf who is hampered by both a crappy economy AND thievery penalty?

Not directly related but might as well state this...I see an effort being made to balance magic across both DE and Elves, providing one race with some kind of magic advantage while providing different spell sets. I see it VERY badly done for gnomes and halflings...and don't tell me Palem you don't make a half-*ssed mage. :P

I don't see how the existence of WTs should justify 40% thievery gains and 40% thievery effectiveness. That's overkill.

Attacking strength is not there, I often barely having enough Off strength to break provs of equal NW. Forget double taps or attacking a higher NW prov without suiciding.

Zermoid, I semi-suicide routinely when I break bigger provinces.


I guess if you ran a halfer as an straight attacker and not a T/a they might be decent offensively but that kind of wastes their main purpose, to rob and NS the enemy to death.

There are compromises being made everyone, and I can guarantee you elves are not exactly easy to play well.

[Palem]

1. Halfings have 6/5 elites. Dwarves have 7/4. Their offensive power is a bit lower but they can easily make up for that with their thievery efficiency. Plus, their elites are also way cheaper at 550, with a low NW to boot too.

Halfling has a lower-end leet in terms of offense and quite a bit of defense on it that allows it to turtle. It think that suits it's purpose very well.

2. Halflings CS immunity cancels thievery protection of Avians and Elves. Since the best thieves are halflings, this seems kind of unfair.

Would you prefer the bonus to go a race that isn't suited towards being a thief and that bonus being completely irrelevant and wasted? The CS immunity is one of the reasons Halfling is the best thief.

Only dwarves are immune to other Dwarves' Fogs, so why Halflings have this "special" immunity?

Because they're extra stealthy? This argument doesn't seem very relevant.

3. If we do a direct breakdown of Halflings vs Elves aka the thief race versus the mage race

This is sort of a strawman argument. Elf is not a particularly 'average' race. The only reason it's the best choice for a 'mage race' is because DE is not very good at all.

A. Halfling: +40% Thievery Effectiveness on "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops
+40% Effects when Performing "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops

Elf: +30% Magic Effectiveness

Halflings get double the bonus that elves have effectively. While the elves and DEs trade off spell strength versus Magic Effect, there is NO tradeoff for halfings if you compare them to any other theif-potential races.

Thievery is split up into Sabotage and espionage and that's where the split it. Halflings aren't as good as getting intel as gnomes are. You can argue that this split is not balanced, but you can't argue that the split doesn't exist.

Also, if an elf wants the same kind of bonus that a halfling has, it can go Mystic and get the same thing.

F. Elites
Halfling: 6/5, $550, Nw 5
Elf: 7/4, $800, 6.0nw

So the "total" point values add up the same. Halflings get cheaper and 'not-as-NW-dense' elites.

You keep bringing up these 'totals' and it's ridiculous. The totals mean nothing. By that logic, 0/5 and 3/2 are equally as useful. The halfling's leet is cheaper because it's weaker. Plain and simple.

There are definitely some balance issues that need to be addressed imho.

I will agree with this to some extent, though I feel like you're blowing the issue out of proportion. There can always be more balancing, but overall I don't think there was any kind of 'obvious choices' towards races, which means things were actually pretty balanced this age.

AND...are people forgetting that there are Thief Dens available? There is a direct counterpart for WTs in the form of TDs, which FURTHER boosts your thievery AND lowers thievery losses.

TD's have no effect on the efficiency of someone else's WT's. If I have enough WT's to make you fail 40% of the time and you build TD's, I still have enough WT's to make you fail 40% of the time.

Even if I was mistaken and that's not how it works, thieves already run enough TD's to get the ideal effect from them. More often than not, building more TD's is not at all ideal and won't help as much as if the lands were appropriately placed elsewhere.

(There are no building available that suddenly boost your WPA, I might add).

On a related note, spell specific magic defenses are Mystic Aura and Reflect. So why are elves not immune to any of those, while halflings are immune to the only thief-defense spell in the game, at the cost to an elf who is hampered by both a crappy economy AND thievery penalty?

Magic and Thievery are two very different aspects of the game and accordingly operate differently, just the same as Magic and Thievery are much different than attacking. If they were exactly the same, it would be terribly boring.

Not directly related but might as well state this...I see an effort being made to balance magic across both DE and Elves, providing one race with some kind of magic advantage while providing different spell sets. I see it VERY badly done for gnomes and halflings...and don't tell me Palem you don't make a half-*ssed mage. :P

I said when I started my A/m gnome that it wouldn't be the strongest, but my gnome certainly does it's job.

[inventio]

Ok, this is going to be long reply. So I'm going to break it down into parts.

Halfling has a lower-end leet in terms of offense and quite a bit of defense on it that allows it to turtle. It think that suits it's purpose very well.

F. Elites
Halfling: 6/5, $550, Nw 5
Elf: 7/4, $800, 6.0nw

So the "total" point values add up the same. Halflings get cheaper and 'not-as-NW-dense' elites.

You keep bringing up these 'totals' and it's ridiculous. The totals mean nothing. By that logic, 0/5 and 3/2 are equally as useful. The halfling's leet is cheaper because it's weaker. Plain and simple.

I'm not saying halfling elites are ridiculously DBZ-overpowered. Races with lower offense do need some turtling ability. I do feel that there are advantages for the halflings (including elites) that contribute to some balance issues.

Because frankly, I don't see how the halfling elites is weaker. You can't underestimate the benefits of replacing def specs with elites and maintaining the same defense. Before war, you can train more elites in the place of def specs. During war when economy is tight, replace elites lost with def specs...your effective offense doesn't drop in war while not sacrificing defense.

The elites are 6.0 NW, while def specs are 5 NW. Not a big difference - functionally equivalent substitutes. Also...a smaller percentage of elites are killed by NS - another advantage considering their 5 def value.

I know I harp on point totals a lot - and that is not a good way to make my argument.

I believe one of the most important aspects in a game is introducing new changes with keeping it as balanced as possible. I've played the game on and off since 2002 (?) - and there's been a LOT of changes.

Originally, the game was oriented so that elites were better than specs in every way. The ultimate goal of provinces was to convert as quickly to a full-elite army as possible. Specs were useless in the end-game. In order to bring specs back into play, Mehul made it so that elites had some weaknesses.

I remember one change Mehul made to elves where they got 6/5 elites with similar/same NW value. Despite the elves having "less offense" than some other races they were among the strongest attackers in the game, because they had great lasting power. This was removed after a couple ages (was it Mehul who did it?) - I think the reason was because it was somewhat overpowered.

In fact, I believe before one of the last Mehul revamps elites with high defense were usually PENALIZED with high NW values. One case in example being the DE elites with 4/6 elites of 8 NW and 6 offense specs.

I honestly feel it made DEs a pain in the neck to play. They had a static defense, which was made worse by the fact that running all elites boosted NW to the point where they were more susceptible to being hit by bigger provinces that were not as dense.

So in short, having the best turtling elites in the game (and with 6 offense making no reason to run off specs at all) and favoring them with a low NW value is not balanced.

[VT2]

They see him trolling...they hating...

[inventio]

Part 2!

Originally Posted by inventio
2. Halflings CS immunity cancels thievery protection of Avians and Elves. Since the best thieves are halflings, this seems kind of unfair.
Would you prefer the bonus to go a race that isn't suited towards being a thief and that bonus being completely irrelevant and wasted? The CS immunity is one of the reasons Halfling is the best thief.

Only dwarves are immune to other Dwarves' Fogs, so why Halflings have this "special" immunity?
Because they're extra stealthy? This argument doesn't seem very relevant.

I think it's unfair because Halflings already have enough bonuses to thievery, including +1 stealth, that that don't they need immunity to CS.

In its latest incarnation before this age, Fog was the only spell which which there was an immunity to, and only other dwarves were immune. So you have a race-specific spell that gives dwarves an advantage versus other races, without it penalizing yourself. Elves (and now Avians) have a race-specific spell that is nullified against Halflings (which makes it useless when you really need it). But yeah, the Dwarf and Fog argument isn't very relevant, but more so...

The biggest reason I'm against it is because it weakens an already not-so-great elf economy (since elves can't reply on CS to provide additional protection and will have to build more WTs at the expense of other buildings).

3. If we do a direct breakdown of Halflings vs Elves aka the thief race versus the mage race
This is sort of a strawman argument. Elf is not a particularly 'average' race. The only reason it's the best choice for a 'mage race' is because DE is not very good at all.

I'm not sure how this is a straw-man argument-and I mean it as an actual question. I never said elves were average - and what do you mean by "average" specifically? I wouldn't say DEs suck, but rather they are more like gnomes where they have both thievery and magical bonuses...

I said it earlier that I meant it to be a rather a look at 2 prototypical 'thief' and 'mage' races and breaking them down. Aka halflings have thievery bonuses that makes their thievery power unbalanced when you think about elves who are the closest magical counterparts.

A. Halfling: +40% Thievery Effectiveness on "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops
+40% Effects when Performing "Sabotage-Type" Thief Ops

Elf: +30% Magic Effectiveness

Halflings get double the bonus that elves have effectively. While the elves and DEs trade off spell strength versus Magic Effect, there is NO tradeoff for halfings if you compare them to any other theif-potential races.
Thievery is split up into Sabotage and espionage and that's where the split it. Halflings aren't as good as getting intel as gnomes are. You can argue that this split is not balanced, but you can't argue that the split doesn't exist.

Also, if an elf wants the same kind of bonus that a halfling has, it can go Mystic and get the same thing.

Now this is where the removal of CB rears up its big ugly head.

Thievery is divided into Sabotage and Espionage. On the espionage part, intel was dependent upon how many thieves you sent for your intel, with the exception of SoMs where the armies away information is 100% accurate.

Magic used to be divided into damage ops and intel (CB). CBs were completely accurate. That division doesn't exist anymore...which imho was NOT a good decision at all and came out of left-field, alienating a lot of current players...seemingly to have been the product of a Malaysian crack-monkeys brainstorming session - no offense to the developers.

So now the developers have created a situation where in Magic (let's make it a proper noun!) the the only "split" can be in terms of magic effectiveness and damage strength. And I would argue that since Magic effectively = damage and Sabotage = damage, thus Sabotage and Espionage is divided into 3 parts - and halflings get 2 out of 3 bonuses.

For the second point...the elf has to be pigeon-holed into a personality if they want the bonus? For that matter, you could also move +40% gains to the Rogue personality so if a halfling wants that bonus, it can choose Rogue.

[inventio]

Part 3 - in which we come to and end and I have spent way more time typing than I really should.

AND...are people forgetting that there are Thief Dens available? There is a direct counterpart for WTs in the form of TDs, which FURTHER boosts your thievery AND lowers thievery losses.
TD's have no effect on the efficiency of someone else's WT's. If I have enough WT's to make you fail 40% of the time and you build TD's, I still have enough WT's to make you fail 40% of the time.

The Utopia-wiki site says...WTs: increase the chance of catching enemy thieves, decrease in thievery damage.

The throne room says: % chance of preventing enemy thief missions, % rate of repelling individual enemy thieves from our borders (2.49%)

The latter is fairly simplistic - less damage is done to you. The former is a bit confusing, but it's supposed to work like CS I believe.

I don't see why TDs need to effect the efficiency of WTs in order to not justify the considerable halfling bonuses. If I have enough WTs to make you fail 40% of the time, you will still succeed 60% of the time, provided your TPA is high enough (which TDs boost). AND...you're running TDs that decrease your thievery losses anyway.

Even if I was mistaken and that's not how it works, thieves already run enough TD's to get the ideal effect from them. More often than not, building more TD's is not at all ideal and won't help as much as if the lands were appropriately placed elsewhere.

Err...just get more thieves...like the mages do? Besides, WTs work on the same principle of decreasing returns. You DO realize that it takes 38% WTs at 85% BE to get 40% chance to catch thieves. Do you think any race can afford to run 38% WTs? I realize you threw the number out there but that is a ridiculous figure to use.

(There are no building available that suddenly boost your WPA, I might add).

On a related note, spell specific magic defenses are Mystic Aura and Reflect. So why are elves not immune to any of those, while halflings are immune to the only thief-defense spell in the game, at the cost to an elf who is hampered by both a crappy economy AND thievery penalty?
Magic and Thievery are two very different aspects of the game and accordingly operate differently, just the same as Magic and Thievery are much different than attacking. If they were exactly the same, it would be terribly boring.

True. I don't mean to say that magic should work like thievery.

WTs and TDs work well to counteract each other and there is no to make the halflings have a gazillion thievery bonuses because WTs are not crippling them so badly.

I said when I started my A/m gnome that it wouldn't be the strongest, but my gnome certainly does it's job.

Hey, you admitted it yourself! Don't make me pull out my IRC logs. :P

I was mostly kidding (honestly I have NO idea how effective you are as mage...)

[Landro]

ok, the total sum of def and off value for elites is pointless. With the exception of Gnomes, all races use their elites as attackers. This means that only the offensive value is important.

Avian elites are 8/3. 8+3 = 11
Halfling elites are 6/5. 6+5 = 11

By your logic, they would both have equally strong elites and that's where you are wrong. Let's say we have 2 players; 1 Avian and 1 Halfling. Both have 1k d-specs and 1k elites. Which player will have the stronger army? The Avian of course. The Avian has 8k raw offense while the Halfling only has 6K. Both of them have the same 5K raw defense when their elites are away. (I'm assuming active players who want their elites to earn their wages and keep their armies out 24/7. I couldn't care less about inactives or other noobs)