EitB v12 Wishlist/Progress

[Tasunke]

have you considered adding +1 (defensive) strength to the guardsman promotion? Makes it more worthwhile for heroes to potentially take the otherwise underwhelming promotion ... and (in light of Elohim getting march spam) makes the Bannor MUCH more interesting to play

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to be fair I've considered march spam before and I consider it an excellent idea. I had made early MP strats to go altar w/ Malakim purely for the sake of march spam, and i've thought of leaders and traits w/ the Bannor to encourage march spam .. like a Logistical trait that gives mobility 1 and march to units (yea ... a bit much xD ... but an interesting concept nonetheless).

And at one point I had thought of making the Bannor almost roman-like, with Legionairre replacing Champion and Praetorian replacing Phalanx. But anyways, in all of my Bannor thoughts I had this one really interesting idea. And it came from one of my many attempts to make a fair and balanced split of the guardsman promotion. Splitting the 'assassin counter' from the 'defense chance bonus'

In this version that I was proposing, Guardsman gave just +50% defense chance +1 defense strength ... possibly +100% defense chance +1 defense strength. While removing the Marksman 'counter.'

In this version the Longbowman was switched to 'Nightwatchman' and was given a Watchman/Bodyguard promotion which just countered Marksman w/o a defense chance increase. I was going to rename the Esus unit to something else, most likely ... or even give the Esus unit the very same promotion, to allow Esus to, in a way, control whom would be assassinated and who would not.

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As far as the whole 'counter marksman' thing goes, to each his own I say, but regardless ... giving +1 defense to melee units (for Bannor) .... maybe its not as overpowered as we would like to think? If necessary we could give them a warrior UU that can't use copper ... or something, so that their warrior spam doesn't become to strong.

Well anyways, Ive given this a fair amount of thought, and I'd at least like to get it tested out at some point. Let me know what you think.

[Agnes The Orphan]

Uhh, the Bannor don't need that (fairly massive) buff. They're a boring civ to play, I'll grant, but with the big buffs to cottages and the melee line, they're strong enough as is.

- Qgqqqqq

[Tasunke]

fair enough. Still, if we replaced bannor's guardsman w/ a copy promo doing the same thing ... and then if units CHOOSE to promote to 'Guardsman' they get the +1 defense ... that'd be a nice perk, and make the promo more readily bought by units of other civs. Eh?

[Bobchillingworth]

The free Guardsman promotion is def. a very minor boost, but I think that's all it's supposed to be. Ignore the silliness with it being applied to Warriors and the like which will never make use of it, and just consider it a tiny boost in the form of a civ-wide Marksman immunity.


Plus don't forget that Flagbearers give their units some actually useful promotions, albeit nothing game-changingly good.

[Tasunke]

Bannor could certainly use some more flavor, or perhaps a leader that centers around the art of making Crusade. Imho Bannor, from a lore perspective at least, could use two types of flavor in addition to their Hell-focused religious worship (focusing on the angels and heroes that saved them from hell, of course, not anything profane).

They also have in the lore the largest of the human nations, if the largest of any of the nations, being the largest remnant of the Patrian civilization, taking a large part in the wars vs Kylorin's evil magical henchmen/allies. Often using mass armies of peasants, and religious leaders with 'holy fire'.

Well ... they have the largest nation, the most people, and of course there is the crusade mechanic. I feel that the Bannor could use a Leader like Catherine of Russia, focused on Expansion (Creative/Expansionist), and also a leader focused on Crusade ... something to make the newly drafted Demagogues a bit more useful perhaps.

Now, a Crusade focused leader would be a bit harder to create, Spiritual + ??? ... probably not a a trait that already exists.

I have thought of a few options.

1) march for melee units ... something the elohim currently have
2) mobility 1 for melee units ... probably what I'll go with, but its worth while to look at other options
3) +1 food on tiles with 3 or more commerce .... NOT LIKELY, a novel idea, but full of unintended consequences, like extra Sea-food.
4) A unique civic to further boost the *early game* of bannor cottage economy? ... or perhaps double cottage growth during crusade (a confusing notion)
5) a trait that doubles the build speed of Flagbearers, gives additional (trait based) spells with which flagbearers can boost the war effort, and perhaps some other minor bonus.

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Separate from all of that, I think it would be fruitful to make Archers 4 str, +50% city defense, +2 first strikes, +10% withdrawal. And to allow archery units to take Flanking I, and possibly Flanking II.

That was imho the least offensive change, as the archer unit is somewhat of an enigma. However, if to extrapolate to Longbowmen, perhaps have them not connected to metals, but instead to have them be 7 strength, 3 first strikes, 15% withdrawal, and +25% city defense.

One of my mod ideas in this end was to make, by changing which unitclasses could buy which promotions, a sort of Melee beats Cavalry, Cavalry beats Archery, Archery beats melee ... with Archery still getting the city defense bonus of course, and with Cavalry normally beating either in open field unless they were sufficiently promoted. In such a mod, Spears and Pikes would also be melee units, already thus promoted with Formation 1, possibly also with Formation 2. An interesting almost circular dynamic that perhaps wouldn't affect the majority of games but something that from a modding perspective I felt was very important. Anyways, from all of this I thought maybe Archers could be city defense while Melee could be field defense (with Archers being able to out-combat Melee in a sort of skirmisher role), and of course skirmishing archers in the field would be outmatched by horses, at least without any forests to help them out. In all of this, with melee as field defense, I thought perhaps the 3/5 or 4/5 unit could be remade as a melee unit. And that this could possibily be a strictly Bannor, or a Khazad/Bannor invention. Seems like a Khazad thing too tbh ... both of these civs seem lore-wise to fit the bill. However, as a civ wide bonus, instead of a specific unit, it would probably be a mistake. Especially if allowed on warriors .... yeesh

---> One way to boost Flagbearers would be to add +1 movement to the 'Morale' promotion that they provide. (would it be necessary to have this only affect melee units?)

It is nice to think of a way to just make demogagues better, or rather, Demagogues that are directly spawned from towns ... although perhaps having them be fresh recruits is above and beyond the point, and perhaps part of the fun of a successful Crusade.

[Qgqqqqq]

Bannor have a SPI/FIN leader. Again, I don't think they need any changes/boosts.

Whilst archers aren't exactly used often atm, I think they've got enough buffs ladled on that I'd rather not add any more.

[Tasunke]

It's more of a shift imho, from 3/5 + 25% city defense to 4/4 +50% city defense and 10% withdrawal. The number of first strikes is arguable ofc I just thought that perhaps 2 would be appropriate.

I'm well aware that they have SPI capria. I just think having a special new trait would be nifty.

I *would* like to see a cre/exp leader though. And Bannor seems the only logical fit to both traits, at least in a way that makes sense to me. Certainly an arguable contender for such a leader.

[Tasunke]

Tbh it isn't exactly a boost to archers, almost a nerf in some ways. Perhaps it could be a model for the javelin thrower if nothing else.

[Dreylin]

I've not got a strong opinion yet on whether it's needed, but you could make the penalty on the Warrens be Unhappiness rather than Unhealthy to hit both leaders equally. (Lore-wise it could equally represent the consequences of squalid conditions) That would be an implicit nerf to the building itself since there's be less production in the city to multiply.

The other issue that's been brought up tangentially but not really discussed is the interaction of the Barbarian trait with a late era start - does the later tech baseline negate some of the drawback of Barbarian?

[Tasunke]

I'm neutral on the Warrens tbh. I've thought of a LOT of different things to do with the Orcs.

1) Agoge replaces Warrens, +50% military production. Then Warrens @ Engineering, with double unit production.

2) Ogre at 240 hammers, Feral Bond + Ironworking. Separate unitclass. New Champion UU at 100 hammers, 5 strength +25% vs melee. Ogre now has (beast?) unitcombat.

Those are just a couple things I've thought of doing to the Orks. Also, in mods where I have spearmen, typically Orks can't build them (due to having massive amounts of units etc ... not sure if its really lore to not have *any* spearmen, but would definitely be Goblin spears imho .... ie a bit weaker and cheaper (I guess). Idk just doesn't seem like they should have spears, partially b/c they dont have Horsearchers .... that realy probably doesnt make any sense objectively but subjectively it makes sense to me.

Anyways, thats all for now.

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As far as late era starts ... meh, there isn't a fix but should there be?