I really like the automatons and have had alot of fun with them, but going for Leto over Prometheus as Kronos seems like a terrible decision given the technologies and god powers. The spider nest is relativley useless and niche, and the technologies, while good for automatons, dont help much elsewhere other than some more pierce armor for human units. I’d propose a few changes to make Leto more viable. First would be to change spider lair to cover a surface area in a large web, maybe covering a similar area to a barracks foundation, that slows enemies as they enter it, and if they spend enough time in it up to 3 spiders can leap out like they do to insta kill some human units before dissapearing. As for the technologies perhaps the armor one could include an extra 10% hack armor as well as pierce. These changes give Leto a bit more viability early game, as well as some long term impact with the extra armor for units.
Maybe just add a 3rd upgrade? She only has 2.
She is the mother of Apolo and Artemis so maybe some upgrade for archers?
Could be a standard one with a flat value improvement, or even a more unconventional one, like alowing arcus in classical (in additio to arcus buff).
Yeah, Leto definitely needs a buff.
Ares gives you early access to a Heroic Age unit through a technology so that would not be something entirely new.
It would certainly open some interesting strategies and help with prolonged Classic Age fights.
Maybe hero conventions for Archers getting cheaper could be the secondary effect?
Personally, I’ll collate a few suggestions we’ve talked about in the Discord:
- Increase their decay time—either substantially from the existing ~36 seconds, or change how it works so that it’s similar to phoenix eggs. Dead state starting at full HP and needing to be destroyed a 2nd time actively by the enemy (while not triggering on attack move ideally so that it’s not just automatically cleared out)
No matter what—the current decay time is too fast given their train time even on the defense. If you didn’t win an engagement, they’re basically guaranteed dead. More permanence unless destroyed (or a longer decay time) gives an incentive to try capturing their ruins + gives them a lot of value compared to infantry even if they’re quite bad against heroes.
- Combine the two Automaton upgrades into a single upgrade; neither are too impressive in their own right for their cost. Add a 2nd upgrade related to Artemis/Apollo; ideally something to buff ranged units (helps Turma, Chiero in Classical & helps buff ranged later without bringing in Arcus too soon) or just unlock Arcus an age early with like +10% pierce to ranged.
She does have the Oracle upgrade as a 3rd upgrade either way.
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Increase Automaton Hack Armor from 30% to 40-60% to bring it inline with other melee myth units; notably Anubites and Einheri, which have a similar role (melee MU infantry augment/replacement) but different ‘flavours’ (high mobility & buffing other units vs Automaton repair).
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Consider allowing Automatons to build buildings similar to Norse military units. This would indirectly make them an economy pick, because it’d reduce the main cause of citizen idle time (walking to build/building); it’s competing with Valour + Prometheus’ hero economy upgrade and Oceanus’ Caladrias vs early raids + Katapeltes buff.
To this, I’d like to add:
What’s been mentioned for the Spiders feels good because you can use it reactively (to slow down an enemy army) and proactively (to force engagements, and to keep fights in spider webs to kill a few enemy units) by skipping the egg phase. It addresses the lack of value people feel from it due to it either being something people avoid (or something people instantly destroy from a safe distance if made permanent but destroyable) at the first sight of it.
If necessary, raise its cast cost to something more similar to Deconstruction or Chaos.
Ohh forgot about the new oracle upgrade.
I also thought, if we want to buff automatons, we could make them special in a way, by making them benefit from armory upgrades, as they are made of metal.
I really like the idea of them being able to build buildings, since it gives Automatons an actual use that could even be considered an economic bonus which rewards you for building automatons. They probably need a limited selection though so they dont create too much overlap with Norse.
That will make Norse less unique and be a huge boost to Atlanteans so I am totally 100% against that. Allow Automaton to construct Automaton so you don’t require a Temple to make more is a upgrade I think would be reasonable when it comes to constructing something but not constructing buildings.
I’ve spoken to some Norse players, and they didn’t really find this to be the case—it being tied to a single unit + minor god choice makes it sufficiently detached to where it doesn’t infringe on the identity. But that’s going to be subjective unless it’s actually tested out and people have time to see how they feel about it.
That said, Automatons making other Automatons is an interesting option. Likewise for e.g. Automatons being able to repair buildings.
This would actually be pretty cool.
Maybe combine it with the Automaton statues from the campaign.
You don’t build Automatons you build Automaton statues, they don’t cost any population but automatically come to live if an enemy is close by and you have some free population.
You can also manually wake them up if you have free population.
That would be an interesting defensive mechanic in the late game.
If you are at the pop limit but you are floating resources you can build some Automatons for defence.
Helps against those annoying Fimbluwinters.
But you can of course just build someone during an attack to reinforce your army.
Give her an Archer tech to represent her kids, fold the two hephastus upgrades together and let Automatons be effected by Armor techs. They are an infantry substatute after all
So here my idea t rework Leto -
The oracle Visibility remains the same.
Volcanic Forge - Now costs 200 gold, 50 food, 20 favor, Now gives automatons +20% HP, +20% pierce armor, and +10% attack. Automatons are now renamed Warrior Automatons.
Hephaestus Revenge - 100 wood, 75 gold, 10 favor - Automatons now cost wood instead of gold, and 10 less as well (so now 80 wood, 2 favor). Automatons can now build other automatons on the field like buildings. Automatons can now regenerate.
Out Of Place Artifacts (New)- 150 wood, 10 favor- Leto acquires technology from another time period to increase Arcus’s attack range and line of sight as well as make them available in the classical age.
- Out of place artifacts are items that appear to have been made using technology not thought to be available to humans of which the time and place had available. One of the most famous of these is the Antikythera mechanism, a gear powered orrery found in a shipwreck off the coast of the greek island Antikythera and the oldest known anolog computer.
I quite like this and having archers would be a great addition in classical
Classical Age Arcus would be really strong for Kronos and Gaia especially when upgraded with more attack range and line of sight that I can see it becoming a big problem.
The atlanteans on the whole are in a could be better place. Gaia sucks and Oronos, while not possessing Leto, really sucks. The only one in a semi decent place is Kronus. As for the improvements to thee Arcus, eh, they could be changed or the cost increased- I just wanted something to suit the Antikythera mechanism as it really fits into the automoton theme without being directly related to Automons itself.
Letos GP is really bad atm in my opinion. even its cheap. i would add two more laires. and not in a complete line. also let spiders take all units except heroes and siege.
suggestion: automatons hitpoints from 230 to 300. attack from 11 tp 13. hack armor fro, 40 to 45 amd pierce armor from 45 to 50.
[its silly that e.g. herakles can use 2-3 autos and they are dead. during villagers are so damn tanky that e.g. colossus needs more than 3 autos to kill them. villagers should just be good against siege and should be squishier.]
So after quite a while of brainstorming & discussion on the various AOM:R Discord servers, here’s one approach to reworking Leto that I’ve really latched onto. Please note all numbers given are just illustrative.
Opening comments
Leto is the weakest Atlantean minor god choice right now. She has a strong Oracle upgrade & meaningful pierce reduction tech, but fails to deliver with her myth unit (strictly worse than the Promethean & other Classical MU except as a pierce tank, rebuilding is balance hell so can’t be made too impactful) & god power, which fails to deliver on mines / stealth.
At the same time, right now she enables an Automaton cheese for Kronos against Norse (discovered soon after the survey closed) where a small window exists for Kronos to deconstruct a Temple for Norse players and Automatons (who can survive under TC fire more easily than Prometheans) can shut down the berserks from building another one (so Hersirs cannot get trained). This buys time to add pressure by time-shifting in barracks / counterbarracks and training another pair of Automatons so they can be cycled.
(Letting the Norse build Hersirs from the TC / getting a free Hersir, similar to how Egypt can train Priests, should go a long way to alleviating this, too, without needing to straight up nerf the myth unit; other pantheons are much harder to pressure this way)
I’d reiterate that no matter what, it’d be best if the devs looked at a harder rework of the goddess; at the very least, the Automaton needs a new ability, stat shuffling—with some moved to the upgrade—even if tech/god power are not fundamentally changed. This way it’ll even out the Atlantean choices in Classical and improve flexibility for Kronos/Gaia, even if e.g. Gaia right now needs action taken against her economy tech discount.
- Automatons: The identity that feels like it’d be easier to make impactful without being oppressive is [a support effect] provided to units fighting in their proximity.
The example given assume it’ll be a damage vulnerability reduction effect, as that seems like an unfilled support ability and doesn’t clash with e.g. Fenris Brood if it were made fully centered around Automatons fighting together; bonus points for synergizing with human units.
Automaton & Tech - Example #1 of the idea
TL;DR
Hack armor was raised so that it can join the infantry at the front. Pierce armor was reduced, but the upgrades provide more (putting it back exactly where it is right now after it’s researched—64%), to further delay the problematic Krush window. HP is reduced, but upgrades provides more (putting it back to where it was in Classical); like this it scales slightly worse with ages (if 200 HP it’ll be 360 in Mythic (same as Anubite) vs 391 right now) but is less vulnerable vs hack + has its support effect making up for the difference.
Recommended to balance by:
- Adjusting gold & favour cost as needed.
- Adjusting tech costs or proportion of ‘full’ effect in either.
- Adjusting rubble decay time or other aspects of the support ability.
Full text:
If the goal is to lean into it being a tank / Leto providing survivability, it can provide additional vulnerability reduction in a small radius around itself. That said, this effect probably means there’s a need to rework Volcanic Forge (it’s probably too much to double-dip on pierce resistance).
- Automatons can still repair other Automatons. [ideally unchanged]
- Destroyed Automatons cannot be rebuilt. Instead, Automatons passively reduce the damage vulnerability (H/P/C) of units within [e.g. 1~2 range] by -X%; this effect can be made to persist for X seconds outside their range, or decay outside their range linearly, or it could only exist inside their range. But the core idea is them fighting together with human units/heroes.
- Destroyed Automatons do not instantly die, but linger in a downed state for some amount of time. The downed state should ideally continue to provide the buff (now stationary). Whether or not there’s a bigger/smaller buff from rubble, how long it decays, etc. are all parameters to adjust, but the idea of the downed state providing a benefit will makes it meaningful.
Whatever the chosen support effect, the Automaton needs more Hack Armor / Hack effective HP to survive & contribute as a frontline myth unit, irrespective of other changes. It’d also be neat if they retained an edge against pierce (when upgraded to Warriors).
The idea is to tweak their statline and move more of their combat potential (survivability, esp. pierce) behind their Warrior Automaton upgrade. Assuming it is now a support unit, I’d personally prefer if the support ability was left at full strength without the upgrade as them dying sooner will itself be a limiting factor for their value and incentivize getting it, but it can also be put behind the upgade. If the goal is to make it a 2-tech upgrade path, putting the support effect / buffing it can be shuffled around, e.g. putting that in Volcanic Forge
As an illustrative example: [Numbers provided merely as a suggested testing point]
Currently: 230 HP 30-55-80% [329 511 1150] 4.2 MS
Proposed: 200 HP 50-40-80% [400 334 1000] 4.2 MS
(w/ Automaton nearby, assuming -10%):
Proposed: 200 HP 55-46-82% [445 371 1112] 4.2 MSReducing max base HP will reduce how they scale between ages:
- Hephaestus’ Revenge:
could we rename it to Volcanic Forge? I respect the creative vision though.
Currently: Upgrades Automatons to Warrior Automatons, granting +30% HP, +0.5 regeneration rate. Costs 100G 10 favour 40 sec
Proposed: Upgrades Automatons to Warrior Automatons, granting +40% HP, -25% pierce vulnerability, +1.0 regeneration rate. Cost can be increased.Stats with Warrior upgrade in the format of HP / Armor (H/P/C) / Effective HP:
Currently: 299 HP 30-55-80% [428 665 1495] 4.2 MS 0.5 regen
Proposed: 300 HP 50-55-80% [600 667 1500] 4.2 MS 1.0 regenIf Volcanic Forge was left unchanged, this would result in:
200 HP 50-52-80% [400 417 1000] 4.2 MS
300 HP 50-64-80% [600 834 1500] 4.2 MS 1.0 regen
(w/ Automaton nearby, assuming -10%):
200 HP 50-57-80% [445 465 1112] 4.2 MS
300 HP 55-68-82% [667 926 1667] 4.2 MS 1.0 regenBut I feel like it’d be too much having the support effect on the Automaton as well as the -% pierce for human units on the tech; ideally I’d remove the human bonus from Volcanic Forge and instead provide something like +10% pierce attack to Ranged Units.
Compare with upgraded Anubite, Einherjar:
| Unit | HP / Armor / Effective HP / Speed / Regen | Hack / Crush DPS | Ability Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automaton#1 | 300 HP 50-55-80% [600 667 1500] 4.2 MS 1.0 HPS | 11H | Provides armor% to allies in proximity. |
| Automaton#2 | 200 HP 50-52-80% [400 417 1000] 4.2 MS | 11H | Provides armor% to allies in proximity. |
| Automaton#1+2 | 300 HP 50-64-80% [600 834 1500] 4.2 MS 1.0 HPS | 11H | Provides armor% to allies in proximity. |
| Einherjar | 303 HP 70-60-80% [1008 756 1513] 3.5 MS | 16.8H 11.2C (auto) \ 18.8H 12.5C (manual) | Provides ATK% to allies in r:10 (avg ~15%) |
| Anubite | 280 HP 60-55-80% [700 622 1400] 5 MS | 16.5H | Jump attack w/ r:2.5 splash, ignoring obstacles, harrass |
Automaton:
90G 6 favour 10 sec 2 pop
100G 10 favour 40 sec upgrade #1
100F 50G 15 favour 40 sec upgrade #2
100F 150G 25 favour 80 sec (#1 + #2)Anubite:
100F 15 favour 9 sec 2 pop
200G 10 favour 30 sec upgradeEinherjar:
175G 15 favour 17 sec 2 pop
250G 10 favour 30 sec upgradeIf needed, raise unit cost proportional to effectiveness of support (radius, desired synergy strength, how lenient the effect is with regards to duration outside range / downed state duration / etc.)
- Reworking Spider Lair to better incoporate Stealth & Mines in AOM. You really need a detection system for something like mines to work, because otherwise they’re really frustrating to play against. It’s probably the most flexible to tie this detection system to a Protounit or specific Unit and have a defined distance at which it is detected (for easy adjustment, up to LOS distance), and have it recloak the unit after a certain amount of time.
Current Spider Lair + Stealth Mechanics Example
We can incoporate a reveal mechanic to the current Spider Lair; this suddenly makes it acceptable to either increase the number of eggs that spawn per cooldown and change the spawn field shape (circular minefield = area denial)—this has the benefit of not making it cheesy for extra vision while remaining a technique that can be used, as well as being more potent denial—or decrease the cooldown but make mines individual (for more frequent, but avoidable, individual mines).
The fact the mines will remain there until used means they’re likely to get some value over the length of a match, proportional to the length of the match; if desired, a de-mining mechanic can be implemented where-in heroes would need a [relatively long time] to remove a mine.
Summonable Unit + Stealth Mechanics Example
To this end, we can take inspiration from the Hesperides Tree, Carnivora, & Gullinbursti and do it through a summonable myth unit.
Given we want persistence, we don’t want this unit to be overly dangerous, but still capable of providing help in an early Classical fight. A relatively big hitbox and low armor values can do this, while relatively high HP will ensure it’s decent enough and scales with ages relatively well. It’d also be good if minelayers needed a fair amount of time to cordon off an area, but could still pose a credible danger. We can accomplish this by limiting speed when they’re cloaked & adjusting skill cooldown as needed, as well as imposing a build limit.
Proposed Spider Lair changes:
- Rename power to something referencing a Mother Spider (potential to tie into Arachne).
- The power spawns a Mother Spider on a position designated by the player. The mother spider has the following (proposed) stats:
600 HP 20-20-50% [750 750 1200] 2.9 MS stealth, 5.0 MS revealed | Hitbox ~2
HandAttack | 6H 10P / 2 sec (3H 5P DPS ≈ 10.5H vs 40-10-99%) | r:1.5
Multipliers: x2 vs MU, x0.5 vs Hero
- Cost & Cooldown: I don’t believe I can suggest a good value to illustrate a point, as it’ll entirely depend on dev implementation.
- Build Limit: 1~5 (relatively high but achievable favour, and long total cooldown ideally)
Stealth Mechanic:
- Not visible to enemy players until within a certain radius of a hero unit; something relatively small like 4.0~5.0 should be good enough to protect armies even for the Greeks.
- When revealed, re-cloaks after 20 seconds. (balance recloak time)
- When revealed, her base movement speed is increased to 5.0 MS
Active Ability:
- Spawn a Spider Lair egg (visible & destructible until hatched, hatch time reduced from 5 sec down to 3 sec which is ~12m of infantry walk distance / ~15-18m of cav, have to worry about LOS too) at her location every X (e.g. 30/90/etc.) seconds; can be manual / autocast. Once hatched, the lair is invisible, but the same reveal mechanics apply to the lair and the Mother Spider. Spider Lair kills human units that step on them, but cannot be destroyed.
Thoughts:
- The slow speed when cloaked will limit how readily she can place spider lairs around the map and will increase the chance a patrolling army with a hero can detect her. The movement speed base stat change when revealed is supposed to give the player a chance to escape with her; if intercepted there is little chance of getting away or getting value out of kills if the army is big.
- The damage is about average against frontline units for a Classical MU, but low against anti-ranged counters who generally have high pierce armor.
- Can be cast and used as conventional MU in an emergency, e.g. base defence at the beginning of Classical to bolster an army when unit counts are relatively small.
- Unhealable further reduces the chance of it being used for kiting. Allowing it to use Mythic Rejunevation gives a way to keep them alive in Mythic, if they’re still being used at that point.
- Reworking the techs to better mesh with the Automaton rework, reference Apollo and Artemis, and provide lasting value for ranged units.
Some examples:
#1: Somehow integrate the stealth mechanic with the ranged units, such as bonus damage when attacking an enemy with lower LOS, or invisibility when not attacking + reveal in the a certain radius around heroes.
#2: Move the entire pierce resistance value for Automatons to the Warrior Upgrade (and adjust its cost appropriately) and add a tech to improve the ATK of Ranged Units + a side benefit. (such as a debuff that decreases enemy target LOS / attack range (if Ranged Unit) / etc.)
Post has been edited for better presentation.
Just some idea. What about upgrade give oracle stealth when stationary at max vision?
To break stealth, you need scout units. If necessary, tower could help detect stealth.
This give scout a bit more role in mid to late game after scout most of map.
Oracles are already good throughout the game and relatively hard to catch if hidden in tree lines well. I also don’t think it’d be very balanced (hard to define “scouts”, no one is building towers everywhere just to detect them, and if scouts are too widespread it’d be pointless).
She already gives a hefty Oracle rate buff; divorcing them from map control feels like asking for trouble.
Another Spider Lair rework idea, based on keeping the eggs and making mechanically relatively easy changes. Will be testing as part of a broader mod in the coming weeks:
Illustrative Example:
Spider Lair spawns a single Spider Egg, which has a snare aura that lasts for its lifetime, & a snare field that lasts 6 seconds. Area affected by both effects is a r:2.0 circular area.
Egg hatch time is increased from 5 to 15 seconds.
Replace statline:
20 HP 05-05-99% [ 21 21 2000] 10 LOS
280 HP 30-60-80% [400 750 1400] 15 LOS
Cost: 15 + 15 ramp.
Cooldown: 90 sec
Core Idea: The idea is to offer value by providing a Classical crowd control ability (the snare) and minor benefits with either a kill on 1 human unit (>15 sec kill time / hatched beforehand like a mine) or vision in an area until a valid target steps on it. Kill time is balanced to be relevant in Classical (2-3 snared units, no myth unit helping) but still leave room for them to break out given support. 6 second guarantee exists so it isn’t pointless in later Ages, but isn’t outrageous either.