How do I balance overpowered specialist units in my turn-based strategy game?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

So my "Commandoes" are basic laser rifle wielding futuristic combat units. They cost 50 gold, have 40HP and do 1d10 damage per attack. You can mine at most 120 gold per base per turn. This means a Commando kills another Commando in an average of 8 hits.

The "Hell Hounds" are a type of pyrokinetic specialist unit which attacks ground. They do 1d10 damage vs everything, but 2d10 damage vs small units. They also do 5 splash damage to all enemies on the target hex, and the splash ignores enemy armor. They also heal for 5HP per full round out of combat. They have 50HP and 1 point of Armor. They cost 50 gold and 50 oil, which you can mine at most 50 oil per base per turn. Hell Hounds can also set fire to Forested Hexagons, and "burn out" enemy troops over time.

This means a Commando kills a Hell Hound in an average of about 11 or 12 hits, while a Hell Hound kills a Commando in an average of 4 hits. So Hell Hounds really wreck Commandoes.

Unlocking Hell Hounds requires building an Academy, which costs 150 Gold/100 Oil/ 4 Turns construction time. This is to delay how many you can get in the very early game. They are still trained at the Barracks.

"Mages" are the fully trained version of Hell Hounds. They have Frost Armor, Fire Storm, and Rust spells to affect the Battlefield. Presently, I have them costing 100 Gold/100 Oil/2 Supply, and 2 Turns to train.

Frost Armor is +40HP and +2 armor, does not stack with itself. Cost 50 Energy, range 2.

Fire Storm is 30 damage to everything int he target Hex, Cost 75 Energy, range 2.

Rust sets an enemy mechanical unit to 1HP. Cost 100 Energy range 2.

Mage starts with 100HP, 1 Armor, D10 damage, and 50 Energy. It regenerates 15 Energy per round of combat.

What does viewers think for this conceptually so far?

[msc545]

Now that I see the actual system, I’d change my earlier answer somewhat. Conceptually, this is quite good. Hell Hounds look intentionally brutal against Commandos rather than accidentally overpowered, and the Mage has the beginnings of a genuinely interesting battlefield-control unit. The place I’d scrutinize is the Mage—not because its numbers are obviously broken, but because its spell effects can create enormous swings in action economy.

Hell Hounds
I actually like the Hell Hound design.

The Commando is your baseline: 50 gold, 40 HP, no specialized resource requirement. The Hell Hound costs the same 50 gold plus an entire base-turn's maximum oil production, requires the Academy investment, and is explicitly an anti-small-unit specialist.

So a Hell Hound murdering Commandos in roughly half the attacks required in the reverse direction isn't inherently a balance problem. That's what the player paid for.

Its 50 HP + 1 armor also makes sense. The armor is particularly valuable against repeated low-damage attacks, which reinforces its role against ordinary infantry.

The regeneration and forest-burning abilities give it character without merely increasing its damage. I especially like forest burning because it changes the map rather than just changing somebody's HP total.

The question I'd test is whether Hell Hounds are also the correct purchase when the enemy isn't fielding small units. If they're merely adequate then, you've got a specialist. If they're still better than Commandos against practically everything, they're probably too efficient.

The Academy is doing useful economic work
The Academy cost matters considerably:

150 gold + 100 oil + four turns

That's not just an unlock fee. It's delayed military production and resources that could have gone somewhere else. Consequently, I would not nerf Hell Hounds merely because they annihilate Commandos in a straight fight.

The Commando player should be punished for sending ordinary infantry into a unit explicitly designed to incinerate ordinary infantry.

That's good strategy-game logic.

The Mage is where things get interesting
Your Mage costs:

Mage
HP
100
Armor
1
Basic attack
1d10
Starting energy
50
Energy regeneration
15/round
Cost
100 gold + 100 oil
Supply
2
Training
2 turns
Notice something important: its basic attack isn't what makes it frightening.

Its spell package is.

And I think that's exactly right for an advanced specialist.

Frost Armor looks excellent conceptually. +40 HP/+2 armor for 50 energy is substantial, but the nonstacking rule prevents one of the most obvious abuses. It also creates an interesting decision: buff something now or bank energy for a more decisive spell.

Fire Storm is potentially very powerful, but I like the basic idea enormously. Thirty damage to everything on the hex means its effectiveness depends upon enemy concentration. If somebody stacks five units on a hex, the spell isn't really doing 30 damage—it has potentially generated 150 points of damage from one action.

That's not necessarily broken. It creates a strong anti-stacking mechanic. Players learn:

“There's a Mage over there. Don't bunch everybody together.”
That's counterplay.

Rust is the one that makes me nervous
Enemy mechanical unit → 1 HP.

That's much more dangerous from a balance perspective than “does 99 damage.”

Why?

Because its power automatically scales with the target.

A 40-HP vehicle loses 39 HP.

A 100-HP vehicle loses 99.

A 500-HP late-game supertank loses 499.

So as increasingly powerful mechanical units enter the game, Rust becomes increasingly powerful without the Mage becoming any more expensive.

That's the ability I would watch very carefully in testing.

I wouldn't necessarily remove it. It's a terrific thematic spell. But I'd consider giving important mechanical units some resistance to it, imposing a maximum HP reduction, or making Rust reduce a percentage of current/max HP rather than literally setting anything to 1 HP.

Otherwise you've potentially created the classic strategy-game problem where the answer to:

“How do I defeat the enormous 800-gold battle tank?”
is:

“Buy the same 100/100 Mage and press Rust.”
And suddenly nobody wants to build the enormous battle tank.

There's also a clever energy economy here
The Mage starts with only 50 energy.

That means it can cast Frost Armor immediately, but not Fire Storm or Rust. At +15 energy per combat round:

Fire Storm becomes available after 2 rounds.
Rust becomes available after 4 rounds.
Spending 50 on Frost Armor postpones both.
That's good design.

You're making the Mage player decide between immediate survivability and saving toward battlefield-changing effects.

I would preserve that tension. In fact, I'd be cautious about increasing its energy regeneration because the waiting period is one of the principal things keeping those extremely powerful spells under control.

One thing I'd clarify mechanically
I'd want to know exactly what constitutes a “round of combat.”

If a Mage can sit somewhere safely while combat happens elsewhere and regenerate 15 energy every turn, players may simply delay until every Mage has 100 energy before engaging.

If energy regeneration requires the Mage to be meaningfully participating in combat—or if energy doesn't persist indefinitely between engagements—you avoid the “everyone waits until the mana bar is full” problem.

That's potentially more important than changing any of the spell numbers.

Overall
I wouldn't start nerfing anything yet.

Commando → Hell Hound → Mage gives you a nice progression from general-purpose infantry to specialized anti-infantry unit to expensive battlefield manipulator. More importantly, each one feels qualitatively different rather than merely being “Commando +20%.”

The Hell Hound's apparent imbalance against Commandos is actually the part I worry about least. If I've paid the oil cost, built the Academy, waited four turns for it, and then sent my futuristic pyrokinetic attack monster against ordinary rifle infantry, I damn well expect the infantry to have a very bad afternoon.

The Mage's Rust ability and, to a lesser extent, the interaction between Fire Storm and unit stacking are the two things I'd put a big red circle around during playtesting.

And I'd tell your friend not to balance these by spreadsheet alone. The resource economy, map geometry, unit density, movement range, attack range, supply cap, and opportunity cost will ultimately determine whether these units are actually overpowered. On paper, though, I think the underlying design is promising.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Thanks for reply.

Fire Storm and Rust require further researches to unlock. Theya re 100 Gold/100 Oil and 4 turns to research each from a queue on the Mage Tower. So getting your first fully unlocked Mage is a big deal.

Of course, it's still subject to play-testing. I can fix what the Bot complained about too.

I'm experimenting with Rust doing 50% damage to mechanical units, instead of reducing directly to 1HP.

[strateguy632]

Make a surprise opponent like something weak on other side but each also defeats a different specialist.

Like weak spy in stratego loses to almost anything but 9, and kills strongest. same for your mages. And others various weak can surprise them.

[AI Opinion]

Turning crazy-strong units into fair tools is one of my favorite design puzzles 🎮

From your numbers, Hell Hounds hard-counter Commandos too efficiently for the same gold. I’d either raise their gold cost, lower their HP/armor, or reduce splash or bonus vs small. For Mages, those spells feel awesome but swingy. Add clear counters, longer cooldowns, or higher energy costs so they feel powerful without deciding every fight alone. Balancing around “how do I beat this cheaply?” keeps your meta healthy 🔥🧊

[Anonymous]

Make more of them obviously.