==[Discussion]== Visha Kanya

[Yekaterina]

Mauryan maiden guard archer and maiden guard swordsman are both named Visha Kanya. These two units are rarely used (according to the games I specd myself and watched on Youtube), so many players may not have noticed some issues with them. These issues have been brought up in many other threads, so I am creating a centralised thread to discuss them. 

1. The name Visha Kanya refers to poison girls who assassinated significant characters by poison. Wikipedia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visha_Kanya. They certainly did not go into battles with swords or bows. 

2. The poison effect has been implemented only for the archer maiden but not the sword maiden. Their poison effect makes little difference as it lasts for 10 seconds and deals 0.5 damage per second on average. Right now the sword maiden is identical to an infantry sword champion of any other civ. 

3. Both are called Visha Kanya...

Thanks to @Gurken Khan for suggesting this: 

 

After some digging in the forum I found a thread made in 2013 which seems like the contemporary devs talking about adding this unit into the game:

We should either change these units' role or change their name. Please discuss your opinions here.

[Gurken Khan]

So, I read around a bit. My impression is that Visha Kanyas absolutely were no battlefield units, so I think the name should be changed; in the thread @Yekaterinalinked @Pottersuggested the name 'Raksha Kanya' instead, which I guess would be fine.

From the sources I looked at it seems like maur didn't regularly use female warriors and that the Maiden Guards were only on palace duty; but I guess if we're lucky and our historians keep quiet we can keep those bad*ss chicks.

[Yekaterina]

2 hours ago, Gurken Khan said:

From the sources I looked at it seems like maur didn't regularly use female warriors and that the Maiden Guards were only on palace duty; but I guess if we're lucky and our historians keep quiet we can keep those bad*ss chicks.

Those are quite useless units for mauryans. They have sword cavalry and plenty of infantry archers already, the few champions won't make much of a difference. Having them just makes Maury too OP because you get more choices and backup plans. 

 

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

20 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

Those are quite useless units for mauryans. They have sword cavalry and plenty of infantry archers already, the few champions won't make much of a difference. Having them just makes Maury too OP because you get more choices and backup plans. 

 

A lot of civs have bloated rosters

[Yekaterina]

3 minutes ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

A lot of civs have bloated rosters

We shall consult other balancing advisors whether these should be removed. 

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

3 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

We shall consult other balancing advisors whether these should be removed. 

But there is a problem with that, I mean someone had to make these models, textures etc... And it would be really bad to throw their work in the garbage, so that is  why I think nobody will ever agree to mess with the rosters.

 

[Freagarach]

1 hour ago, PyrrhicVictoryGuy said:

A lot of civs have bloated rosters

That is called choice.

[Gurken Khan]

11 minutes ago, Freagarach said:

That is called choice.

Yeah, I also don't think it's necessary to thin out rosters.

[LetswaveaBook]

1 hour ago, Yekaterina said:

We shall consult other balancing advisors whether these should be removed. 

First of all, if it does not give major problems, there is no reason to remove it. These units are trained sometimes and I like to keep them as an option.

Also I think we should consider the nature of 0AD as a community project. These units are someone's contributions, so it feels unfair (and maybe a little unrespectful) to cut it without strong reason. Also (this argument is not popular by me) 0AD is still in alpha, which means there is no reason to cut now it if you can cut the unit from the game later.

[azayrahmad]

Regardless whether or not the unit should be removed, I think it's best for Maiden Guard swordswomen to have their special name changed to a more historically accurate name. Mauryan historians, please?

On another topic, I think the poison from these so-called Poison Maiden is a bit too weak. If you're going to make the poison with only 0.5 health damage per second, you need to make them last longer than 10 secs. Although reading from Visha Kanya wikipedia ("they can kill a person just by looking at them", "Visha Kanya can cause instant death with just a touch"), it seems higher damage within short span would be more appropriate, like perhaps 5-10 damage per second for 10 seconds. Also make the attack PrepareTime/RepeatTime longer if you will.

[jdag]

Maybe don't ditch the name but since these are rarely used it would indicate that their current implementation is not worth it.

 

Maybe embrace the name and redesign a unit around the name that is some sort of assassin? Maybe can only have 1 max, like a hero. They can kill hero's really fast but are vulnerable in some way so people would want to kill it before it reaches their hero.

Or maybe some type of stealthy design that is similar, can only have max 1 or something.

 

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

On 08/07/2021 at 11:53 PM, jdag said:

Maybe don't ditch the name but since these are rarely used it would indicate that their current implementation is not worth it.

 

Maybe embrace the name and redesign a unit around the name that is some sort of assassin? Maybe can only have 1 max, like a hero. They can kill hero's really fast but are vulnerable in some way so people would want to kill it before it reaches their hero.

Or maybe some type of stealthy design that is similar, can only have max 1 or something.

 

See the spy form AOE3

[Gurken Khan]

So this one of those discussions just ebbed away without any result?

[PyrrhicVictoryGuy]

55 minutes ago, Gurken Khan said:

So this one of those discussions just ebbed away without any result?

Yup  

[Dakara]

Hello

Differentiate the two names seem necessary.

Removing these units from the mauryas I am against. They are ok. Giving choice is important, it's not just a competitive game.

I like having common units a small number of civilizations. (archer champ = kushite, athens for example)

Just to give identity to civilizations we can imagine this but it might take a little nerve to compensate for this buff:

a small utility function :Modify the poison to make it a slowing poison (50% speed) instead of a damage poison (currently this makes the unit stronger than the equivalents of other civilizations in terms of damage). 

For the moment nothing prevents the creation of champion archers because they are widely used at Athens.

Sword champ is not use for the moment but maybe they can be used later in orther alpha.

 

 

Edited July 28, 2021 by Dakara

[Yekaterina]

On 28/07/2021 at 3:06 PM, Dakara said:

a small utility function :Modify the poison to make it a slowing poison (50% speed) instead of a damage poison (currently this makes the unit stronger than the equivalents of other civilizations in terms of damage). 

 

That might be too OP actually, because you can spray the entire enemy army with poison arrows and they will be pinned there, cannot escape or chase your units...

Maybe just let them be the same as any other archer champions? Or, let them keep their poison but decrease their health slightly and increase the train time to mimic the agents who die of their own poison? 

[vijayvithal]

I have spawned these archers in a few games, my opinion:

1. The poison should add up for each hit. i.e. with each hit the amount of poison delivered increases, OR
2. The unit should have an option to hit a unit once and move on to the next unit. i.e. instead of focusing on one unit for 10s, poison 10 unpoisoned units over 10 sec and return to first for the next dose....