chickens

[1v0ry_k1ng]

chickens are not that fun atm simply because there is rarely an oppourtunity to take the initiative.

suggestions:

more respite at the begining (at least twice as much)

longer gaps between waves

more swarmer waves

remove the pigeon sounds (my ears still bleed..)

reduce dam output of chicken tubes

reduce dam output of chicken arty (stationary)

reduce AoE of chicken arty (mobile)

remove/shrink the particles of chicken artillery (it looks terrible atm)

make chicken artillery less common

smaller dodo waves

coctracies more mixed in with swarmers early game (solid waves are unpleasant in a bad way)

more swarmer waves, less specialist waves

less chicken defence structures spawning

quality rather than numbers scale up late game (too much lag in 4 player+ games)

easier first 10 minutes (medium)

less chicken number scaling up with player number (because chickens always focus on one player, atm 5+ player games are v v v hard on medium

balance chickens for normal maps, not chicken maps

[knorke]

i think chicken tubes should be anti air only, would make it easier to leave your base to kill some nests etc.
atm that can only be done by arti.

[Licho]

I would change way chickens work completely, there must be more incentive to kill nests imo and they could be a bit smarter. They could even react on players actions. (Chickens can measure how much damage they did and alter tactics - if they did small damage and were killed by air, spawn AA units etc)

[Saktoth]

I would change way chickens work completely, there must be more incentive to kill nests imo and they could be a bit smarter. They could even react on players actions. (Chickens can measure how much damage they did and alter tactics - if they did small damage and were killed by air, spawn AA units etc)

They need to change, but adaptive algorithms are probably asking a bit much. Go ahead though if you want to do it, i've been asking for Chickens to be updated for ages.

It needs to be more like the origional implimentation: It needs to respond to player aggression, it needs to encourage the player to kill burrows and take territory, rather than being a glorified tower defense.

The proposal ive had for a long time is that there are two variables, queen anger and chicken tech. Each burrow levels up the longer it is alive, which contributes to the overall chicken tech level. If you kill a burrow, the tech level drops correspondingly. Chicken tech level may also increase over time in a non-burrow dependent fashion. This means if you dont kill burrows (if you porc) the chickens level up faster, getting better porc-killing methods.

Queen anger levels up every time you kill a burrow. It also slowly increase over time. It causes more chickens to spawn, and at 100% summons the queen. This means you can pro-actively choose to summon the queen, if the game is too easy (6 orcones) or if you want to beat it earlier (try and best your previous time). It also means you need careful management between tech and anger, so you dont make the queen too angry but still keep the burrows from teching. It also responds to you being aggressive with its own aggression.

more respite at the begining (at least twice as much)

Not really needed with boost, you should be fighting them back from the start and scrambling to secure land, not porcing up.

longer gaps between waves

The problem with having all the units appear in larger, more overwhelming waves is that it lags to have that many units at once. Having them come in smaller, more frequent waves helps keep the lag down. The fact that each waves counters a specific unit type should help: Bring your krows back in when the spore shooters appear, take your mobile units out when the arty or shields appear.

more swarmer waves

Again, lag.

remove the pigeon sounds (my ears still bleed..)

Already done.

reduce dam output of chicken tubes

Might remove them entirely or make them AA as knorke says. They discourage attacking.

reduce dam output of chicken arty (stationary)

I want to encourage having to go in and sweep out nested areas, with nukes or mobiles. Why damage output?

reduce AoE of chicken arty (mobile)

There are now two chicken arty types: Lobber, which comes way earlier, shoots a single, fairly accurate AoE blob, and Blobber ('big lobber', geddit?), which is like a mini-tremor with very little AoE, rapes shields.

remove/shrink the particles of chicken artillery (it looks terrible atm)

Done, they use a spore trail.

make chicken artillery less common

Again, want to encourage people to keep a mobile force and use it on the appropriate waves.

smaller dodo waves

Why? These things are awesome. D:

coctracies more mixed in with swarmers early game (solid waves are unpleasant in a bad way)

Its so you can counter them, say, using skirmishers. I've changed them so that they do heaps of damage then have to reload, this makes smaller, lighter units much better against them, and means they completely rape defences if they get in range.

more swarmer waves, less specialist waves

Again, lag and why? Specialists force the player to think laterally and have several tricks up his sleeve.

less chicken defence structures spawning

Well, that or remove them.

quality rather than numbers scale up late game (too much lag in 4 player+ games)

I've done a few things to help fix this (chickens go redundant sooner). But arent you saying add MORE swarmers?

easier first 10 minutes (medium)

Just balance tweaking there.

less chicken number scaling up with player number (because chickens always focus on one player, atm 5+ player games are v v v hard on medium

Try using more mobile forces. Other players should contribute economically and use mobiles.

balance chickens for normal maps, not chicken maps

Hard is meant to be unbeatable. The fact you can beat it on chicken maps is, frankly, not what i intended. It is balanced for normal maps.

[Pxtl]

Personally, I think the chicken arty does a good job of encouraging player aggression. The problem I see is that there are too many tubes so the best way to take out arty is with moar arty, rather than raiding.

[knorke]

An option like
(x) only basic swarm units
would be nice.
I find great lolz in playing only with the commander in egg mode, turret creeping across the map or just making a castle.
Sadly that doesnt work as well when arty etc. show up.

[KingRaptor]

Modified chickens (in latest stable), needs testing for value tweaks:

• Burrows don't respawn.
• Every wave, each burrow reduces the tech time of all chickens by a few seconds (so high level chickens appear faster).
• Killing a burrow causes more chickens to spawn at other burrows in the next wave and increases queen anger.

Not mentioned in changelog: burrows still spawn units (albeit at half the normal rate) when the chicken queen spawns, although no new burrows will appear.

Give it a spin.