Races, Units, Buildings

[Nelphine]

I'll let grazzy answer that. He uses them and I don't. I'm not even super worried about when you get them, it just seems odd.

I'd swear I have cities that can only build engineers, steam cannons, and settlers.. I'll check again.

[Nelphine]

I was definitely wrong about steamcannons not needing a smithy. Sorry about that.

[namad]

Uh.... Steam cannons suck. Compared to war trolls doom drakes and warlocks. Dwavres are slow. If you play dwarves you hope for other races units to use in combat.

Imo beastmen and dwarves could use a very small military buff.

Summon catapult seems ok just because the so targets it too heavily. Alternatively if possible force all combat summons except vortex to be adjacent to an allied unit during targeting. Catapults aren't really a strong summon to fight. Just a strong so distraction

[Nelphine]

Heh, dwarf hammer hands are one of only 4 units better than lizardmen halberdiers for my strategy. And dwarf halberdiers are one of the other 3. (Orc hordes and gnoll jackal riders are the other 2.) Warlocks, war trolls, doom drakes, just don't compare at all.

All depends on your strategy.

But regardless, steam cannons may not be amazing for many, but the cost shouldn't based on how good it is overall - it should be based around its effectiveness compared to other units.

Catapults are 80. Steam cannons are catapults with +2 hit points, +2 attack, +5 defense, +6 resistance. But we can assume 4 resistance and 1 life comes from being a dwarf. So, a cost of 115-125 is probably good. Alternatively catapults could be cheaper (70-75), and steam cannon could be 105-110.

However, due to dwarf racial bonuses (especially increased production, and coal bonus), I would suggest all dwarf units should get a slight increase from where they are now (except hammerhands and settlers). I think swordsmen should be 5 more, halberdiers 10 more, steam cannons 15 more. All other dwarf units should be increased a similar amount based on their base cost.

[namad]

You have to keep in mind you don't automatically start with coal, swordsmen are basic units you're most likely to build before you can settle coal.

You also have to keep in mind how say troll or draconian units do. I'm all for increasing the cost of steam cannons a very small amount, but without coal/iron dwarves are average at best for myrran military, they're not the best military race on the myrran plane by any stretch.

Although it may be better to simply reduce the cost of building catapults, almost no ai, or player ever builds catapults, unless perhaps their race lacks another ranged option. Yes I know the ai does use them, but it might be fun to see them appear a bit more often, and I prefer improving things that aren't popular rather than nerfing things that are.

Beastmen units are definitely worse than hammerhands and steam cannons but trolls never dying in victory and draconians being able to ignore melee units on defense are quite strong, although both do have high production costs. Hammerhands go quite well with buffs compared to say minotaurs due to the figure system.

Another option other than nerfing steam cannons or buffing catapults might be to buff beastmen.
Another another option might be to remove the dwarven double mineral bonus in their capital to reduce variance in game difficulty on turn1, having 40% off units on turn 1 might be a bit OP, compared to not having it, and it'd be entirely random every game, this is probably impossible though and unfun, if you really want a more challenging dwarf game, just restart the game on all your best starts?

[Nelphine]

Right, but you still have bonus production, along with inherently tougher troops. The unreliability of the coal bonus is why I didn't suggest a larger increase. But between taxes and gold mine bonus, dwarves can also buy up buildings extremely fast, instead of waiting a long time to get top end military/production buildings (on impossible, I have settled multiple cities, built a war college and fighters guild, and am pumping out halberdiers before the AI declares war).

Dwarves should never build swordsmen except in dire straits, but all that is moot. The dwarves have a strong economic advantage, I think the cost should be raised on their troops. I'm willing to be wrong though, I haven't played enough races in the mod, especially myrror races.

[namad]

Edit1: I just realized that wolf riders are the unique gnoll cavalry, you buffed all regular cavalry to 5 movement yet gnoll wolf riders remain at 4 movement (despite them being a special amazing unique unit for the military gnolls) perhaps wolf riders should also be bumped up to 5 movement? (Then again they're already really good and maybe don't need it? Although this would help cement the difference between gnolls and barbarians in terms of raw damage versus a combination of power and speed.)

You have to consider things like how hammerhands cannot capture draconian or troll cities, like, at all, ever. (Assuming wizards control both sides of the battle the flying or faster units can just run in a circle.) Although yes hammerhands would wreck faces on arcanus, the myrran races are supposed to be at least 'better' enough that spending the extra picks on the retort isn't a giant waste.

Most dwarven units are also slow on the overland map which can hinder a players ability to rapidly reach relevant fights and snowball. Units like hammerhands already cost a lot, yes steam cannons are amazing on defense, but on harder settings a player will usually be behind and need to act aggressively to avoid falling further behind, moving 1 tile instead of 2 is a real drawback (although it's a flaw catapults also have, so I agree perhaps catapults should cost less).

Also think about it, is there any reason for dwarves to have a large production bonus and a large cost increase both at the same time? If you think they're building units too quickly perhaps you want their production bonus to be reduced slightly? (Although I personally do not think this is the right option.)

If you think it's never correct for a dwarf to ever build a swordsman, then they definitely don't need a nerf (from a cost increase like you suggested.) I mainly mentioned the whole capital city with coal as a way to argue against nerfing dwarven swordsmen (since that's the only situation I could ever see a player wanting to build them.)

[Seravy]

you buffed all regular cavalry to 5 movement yet gnoll wolf riders remain at 4

Intentional, a horse is faster than a wolf...but a wolf has pathfinding, so it still moves faster in many cases.

You have to consider things like how hammerhands cannot capture draconian or troll cities, like, at all, ever.

That's not really true, Cannons, web and flight work wonders. Even Chaos Channels...
Wait, trolls why? They don't fly.

I'm fine with the cost of Dwarf units, except maybe the cannon. I'm tempted to say even the cannon is ok, except the building requirement. Cheaper catapults might be a good idea, that's a powerful but extremely risky unit and it has a steep requirement in buildings (although the required buildings are good and worth getting anyway, a mechanician's guild is a lot to ask for)
What if the Catapult was the one requiring a Miner's Guild?
It would open it up for many more races though, not sure I like that...klackons and gnolls and whatever else having access to heavy ranged. I think pretty much every race except the lizardmen.

[Nelphine]

I wouldn't change the catapult building requirement, I like the idea of dropping its price to 70.

[namad]

you buffed all regular cavalry to 5 movement yet gnoll wolf riders remain at 4

Intentional, a horse is faster than a wolf...but a wolf has pathfinding, so it still moves faster in many cases.

You have to consider things like how hammerhands cannot capture draconian or troll cities, like, at all, ever.

That's not really true, Cannons, web and flight work wonders. Even Chaos Channels...
Wait, trolls why? They don't fly.

I'm fine with the cost of Dwarf units, except maybe the cannon. I'm tempted to say even the cannon is ok, except the building requirement. Cheaper catapults might be a good idea, that's a powerful but extremely risky unit and it has a steep requirement in buildings (although the required buildings are good and worth getting anyway, a mechanician's guild is a lot to ask for)
What if the Catapult was the one requiring a Miner's Guild?
It would open it up for many more races though, not sure I like that...klackons and gnolls and whatever else having access to heavy ranged. I think pretty much every race except the lizardmen.

I meant literally hammerhands, so canon wasn't included in my statement, requiring web and/or flight reduces your ability to rely on life buffs, which benefit hammerhands a lot. War trolls move fast enough to run in a circle while regenerating. Maybe I was exaggerating a little, but I see dwarves as a middle of the road military strength on mrryan but with big economic advantages over trolls and draconians. Which to me is a fine place for them.

I think moving catapults to miners guild might be fun, they're not that commonly used, if they were accessible to more races and the same races at an earlier time they'd get used a lot, it would change the game, but I think it might be in a fun and tactically interesting way, they'd still be map movement 1 making them a highly defensive choice. If you do make them more available don't also reduce their cost, imo it's either cheaper or more commonly available not both since if they were cheap they'd probably be really OP to give to new races.

Good point about pathfinding, does pathfinding work in combat now?