balanced yet diverse? starcraft is not very diverse, this game however IS diverse.

And the good players are saying that dryads are not "all that"

Pick your argument and stick to it. Do you fundamentally feel that balancing isn't needed in a single player game (as your previous posts stated) or do you feel that dryads specifically don't need it, but that balancing itself is fine to do?

By bouncing around, you come off as simply being stubborn rather than reasoned.

And frankly, you might also want to get out from behind "the good players" skirts as support for an argument.

i am saying that balance is not needed AND that it just so happens that despite not NEEDING to be balanced, the dryads ARE balanced.

At least, balances with the SLEW of other "game breaking" tactics... things like using invisibility on a fast unit, mining mana with spring of magic to res everything, phantom/summons + sacrifice to finish a battle with MORE units than you started with etc etc etc...

People are finishing the game without loosing a single units. Dryad is definitely a "power unit", but there are much MUCH more powerful things in this game.

check out those threads:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=5727
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=4979
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=5467

And many many others... there are some about undead armies (specifically vampires) and some others, damn I can't even remember off the top of my head all the methods of completely dominating the game.

Dryads are just a cog in the "power puff" strategy... that is... get anga's ruby and dryads, lake sprites, demoness, and i forgot the other females... anyways the demoness can swap places of friend and enemy troops, the sprites have a no retalian attack with very VERY high damage and extremely fast movement (especially with the ruby giving +3 initiative +3 move +3 morale etc... and morale itself giving 30% boost to attack and defense)

Geez, the fuss about the Dryads. They have awesome abilities, and they are FUN to play with. As an unit in the hands of the AI, they are not such a threat(will be the first to die anyway). They can cast their stuff (under Ai control)which can be countered (mass dispell?) and that's pretty much it. I'm much more concerned by the dragons, in fact. Since the AI does not have the ability to come here on the forum and whine about units and OUR cheap tactics we use against it, i'm not concerned about the whole 'imba' issue.
Hypnosis+Sacrifice is imba. Resurrect is imba. Mana-harvesting is imba.Poison cloud+mana spring is imba. Half our skills are imba. Using the Spirits of Rage is imba (AI doesn't have Spirits, sigh :) ).
Completing the game on impossible with ZERO losses is imba. Then, one can argue that half the game is 'imba'.
Play the game, have fun, gimme a break.

Pointing out a bunch of other broken or cheesy things somehow makes Dryads not broken or cheesy?

That's like someone pointing at other people mugging or rioting and trying to claim that his shoplifting is okay because there are worse offenses elsewhere.

That made me lol'd

Sleepy, Sleepy, Sleepy.

Riding this tired old horse again, are we? No matter how many times you beat it, it will still be dead. (yay for mixed metaphors).

[QUOTE=sleepy;62962]Pointing out a bunch of other broken or cheesy things somehow makes Dryads not broken or cheesy?

That's like someone pointing at other people mugging or rioting and trying to claim that his shoplifting is okay because there are worse offenses elsewhere. /QUOTE]

No, what Taltamir is saying, is that, compared to these other tactics, Dryads aren't that unbalanced, even if they were unbalanced to begin with.

Let me just sum up all the arguments why they are NOT unbalanced:

1. You won't get them until the latter half of the game, by which time, most units you face that are actually a threat are either undead, level four+, or immune to mind spells, which removes the only truely powerful ability that dryads posses.
2. Their damage SUCKS. 1-4 damage is absolutely brutally bad for their leadership value. Even Anga's ring doesn't help much. Though their pathetic speed, even with the ring (not enough to get them across the map unless you have tactic lvl 2) means they won't be in combat much (EDIT: at least in the first round, and by the end of the game, that starts to be the only round that really matters, cause most fights only last 2-3 rounds)
3. Their other abilities aren't amazingly stellar. Sure, summon thorns is nice, but thorns are really weak, and do fairly pathetic damage, though i'll admit, their distraction value is highly useful. No retal is nice, but their damage sucks, so it doesn't really matter. They have other minor abilities as well - elven song (only 1 charge, and only useful for elves, and let's face it, if you are using dryads, you're probably using sprites and wood fairies too, and they already have tons of initiative), and some others that i can't remember (i think +1 morale to ents and thorns, which aren't highly useful units, though they have their place and also some ability that makes humanoid males sometimes miss (annoying, but survivable)).

Let me also state the "it's a single player game" argument, as i understand it.
1. Since you are playing on your own, against the computer, you have the power to decide whether or not you use any given unit. So, to pick a totally random (cough, cough) example, say you don't like dryads, and think that using them makes the game too easy, DON"T USE THEM
2. You're probably now going to say, "but what about the dryads i will be fighting? I always lose against them". The answer to that is that, firstly, they won't show up in any more than 1% (at most) of all the battles you fight in the entire game, so, really, it shouldn't matter that much. Second, if you always lose against them, then adjust your tactics. This is one of the best features of the game. There is no troop combination that you can pick up at the beginning of the game and use until the end. The different areas force you to change your tactics. Eg: you get to Ellinia for the first time, and explore around. You notice that many of the troops in the area are weak against fire. You then go to the Land of Death, and discover that the undead also have somewhat of a weakness to fire. You see Red and Black dragons for sale there, so you buy them, and clear most of both areas with their tanking awesomeness coupled with their ability to hit several stacks (useful hint: ice thorns (lina ability) + red/black dragons = heavy damage with no retaliation). Next you boldly go to Demonis, ready to do some more Dragon ownage, only to find that demons are 50% immune to fire, and laugh in the collective faces of red and black dragons. (in case you couldn't tell, "you" here is me in my first game of KB). The game forces you to change your strategy against different foes. For Dryads, don't use level 1-3 troops, except undead or mind immune ones. Or focus your spells on neutralizing them (either with direct damage or blind lvl 1, or pygmy, or teleporting a stronger stack with high init (horsemen, for example) good and close to them, and watch the carnage. Or use your own dryads, cause they are lvl 2 units, and vulnerable to their own lulaby ability.

Does that about cover everything, Sleepy? This dead horse can`t take much more beating.

Your amazing lack of knowledge of lullaby, the dryad's most powerful ability, completes discredits any position you have on dryads.

At least know the damn unit if you are going to argue about it.

I guess I must have missed it when you flashed your "intrawebz dead horsez appointer badge". Isn't it convenient for you to just declare something you don't want to see discussed as a deadhorse, and you think everyone should trip over themselves and comply with your judgement.

Just because you *want* this to be a dead horse does not magically make it so. Why? See, I can do the same too. Its easy. Here's an example : Ryastar, ryastar, ryastar, still trying to defend this dead horse which cannot be defended any more? This dead horse can't take much more beating.

See? Are you now under some magical compulsion or obligation to suddenly stop talking what I don't want you to talk about? No, I didn't think so.

Trying to tell other people online what they can or cannot discuss is ultimately futile. The only CONTROL you have is to hit the "Back" button on your browser if you can't stand reading criticisms on Dryads. Your demand for people to be silent didn't work in the past, and it isn't working now.

But I *do* enjoy watching you try futilely to attempt to control other posters' actions.

So, the lesson for today's class is that you can either try to talk people into being silent and fail, or you can Exercise. Personal. Responsibility. but not reading that which you cannot tolerate. No one is twisting your elbow to keep on clicking this thread. So tell me, which way do you think will get you what you want, trying to control others, or exercise control over your own actions?

Class dismissed.

if half the game is "broken" and "overpowered", maybe it is not the game but your expectations that need to be adjusted. I just love the idea of there being creative rule uses that are exploitative...

You know what else has specific rules that can be exploited? physics. thats why we have air planes, space ships, guns, etc...

"Dear Lord who art in heaven, I have a bug to report... airplanes are TOTALLY broken, they are just way overpowered, I demand you nerf them at once or I am taking my business elsewhere!"

For me finding something out like hypnotize + sacrifice is merely discovering the science behind the magic and using the laws of physics to your advantage. (for example, lets say sacrifice requires a unit to perform part of the magic ceremony itself, like say, stabbing its own heart with its weapon as you cast the spell... hypnotizing the enemy and making them commit suicide sounds perfectly logical!)

Ryastar, YENKO, thumbs up for two very well written posts..