How much should upgrades cost?

[Gumberbunbder]

There are a lot of upgrades in my map. 8 in the blacksmith, most with three tiers, and several other upgrades at different buildings. I'm wondering how much upgrades should really cost. I noticed that many of the upgrades in the melee default game cost less than the unit they are upgrading. What are the factors involved in choosing to get an upgrade? I'll give a few examples of upgrades:

1.) Strength of Nature: gives the Ent of Fangorn a 25% cleaving attack. (The Ent is a tanky unit that increases attack speed as it is attacked by enemy units)

2.) Cannibalism: Allows your Uruk-Hai Berserkers to sacrifice a friendly unit for hit points. (Essentially Death Pack, but with a small twist in that the Berserker gets more hit points from the dunland raider which is a sort of trash unit)

3.) Defense Breaker: Increases your Shield Breakers mana regeneration by 100% and attack damage by 10. (the Shield Breaker has a siege attack, 20-25 damage. He has the ability, Capture Tower, which he automatically uses on an enemy tower when it is below 25% hit points and he has 100 mana)

4.) Heavy Armor: Increases the Swan Knights damage resistance to pikes by 25%. (The Swan Knight is a heavy cavalry unit, but cavalry are very vulnerable to pikes, so this just makes it so they have a little more leeway)

Also, gold in this game is obtained through income based on the amount of regions you control. Lumber is obtained through supply depots which you build yourself. They produce 1 per minute, but the depots take up 10 food. I made a harsh upkeep, so having high food can slow your production down a lot.

So what do you think? Any ideas are appreciated!

 

[Nordmar]

It's hard to tell since you provided not enough information. Just play around with different values or host the map in multiplayer and let other players give additional input on that topic.

If the upgrade should be available early game then make it cheaper and vice versa. I am doing the exact same thing when balancing things in general:
-Give the upgrade/unit/item values you think which could fit.
-Test it in SP and afterwards test it in multiplayer.

The more often you play your map, the more balanced it will get.

 

[Roland]

Upgrades costs like.
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000
Lumber and gold.
Nah, Just kidding.
-It depends on the quality and the effect of the unit/building or whatever
That's all I can say :3

 

[Tickles]

Trial and error would be the only surefire way to balance a map. Just throw down values from gut instinct, post the map in the map development forum with a nice description, and let the suggestions roll in that way.