Races, Units, Buildings

[Nelphine]

It is a flat bonus. If i have 10 lizardman cities and 10 dwarf cities, I will get 6 times more population from the racial growth in the lizardman cities (specifically in 10 turns I'll get 12 population across my lizardman cities, and 2 population across my dwarf ones. No, in one city it doesn't mean much. Over an empire, over a whole game? It adds up. Yes, there are other bonuses that are also adding bonuses, which is why you don't notice it on an individual level.)

[GermanJoey]

And more importantly, the Lizardmen will have 10 cities planted and turned into hamlets before the dwarves have even planted 5 outposts, so the lizards will start accumulating pop earlier on top of being faster. 2-move settlers is such a freaking gigantic bonus compared to every other race.

[Seravy]

Planned changes :

Dark Elf 
Outpost Growth +20
Population Growth +40
basic unit cost lowered to be same as High Elf
Nightmare cost lowered to 200
Halberdiers  (Dark Elf)
ARATE :   356 RRATE :   158 DRATE :  380 TOTAL =   47 COSTEFF = 2712
Nightmares  (Dark Elf)
ARATE :   396 RRATE :   396 DRATE :  506 TOTAL =   97 COSTEFF = 2003

Barbarian, Gnolls
Peaceful and Lawful AI shouldn't pick these

High Elf
Outpost Growth +20

Orcs
Outpost growth -10

Lizardmen
Outpost Growth +30

Beastmen
Outpost growth -5

Halfling
AI is not allowed to pick on Hard or above if playing Expansionist, Militarist, Chaotic, or Maniacal? This race has no means to effectively attack a human player.

Ignoring lizardmen who are penalized by not having any production boosting buildings which means they require the extra population to have the same economy, the highest population growth is +90 while the lowest is +20. I don't think that's too much of a gap. Outpost growth gap should be lower after the above changes, it'll be in the -20 to +40 range.

[zitro1987]

I'm not sure if the nightmares at only 200 cost makes them overpowered (on top of the population growth boost), they're so versatile units and work great in large groups - among the very best normal units in the game. That'll make it less likely that we would go for armorer's guild for the invisible unit. I think lowering the normal unit costs and 'maybe' having dark elf nightmares at 220 would make better sense.

I don't understand the outpost growth changes, are you implying Orcs should have -10 outpost growth instead of +20 (your first proposal)?

*Cough* Gnolls still a weak race *Cough*

[Seravy]

I don't understand the outpost growth changes, are you implying Orcs should have -10 outpost growth instead of +20 (your first proposal)?

Yes. I decided to try and follow this logic : races closer to nature and/or with better intelligence do better at building a new city out in the wilderness. So Elves got +20 and Orcs got -10.
I'm not entirely sure if this makes high elves too good or not, but their population growth stays low so it probably should be fine. Orc cities have high growth, all buildings and cheap mass produced units, so a slight penalty to outpost growth sounds fine.

Minotaurs have the same 200 cost as Nightmares will, and while they don't fly or shoot, they have 50% higher attack power AND health. And the Armorer's Guild is cheaper than the Fantastic Stables. If it proves too powerful, we can always change it back to 220.

I'm aware of gnolls but I need to play the race to see if any change is needed. I don't understand where all the hate is coming from, they are even faster than barbarians (not more powerful though), and have better building options than them. Both races are meant to conquer others in the early game.

[Domon]

However, i'd say barbarians can be still useful in the late game (not powerful, but useful: am i wrong? Not very good at the game) while jackal raiders lose most effectiveness after midgame, leaving you with cities that can just trade goods, and not that well.

[Nelphine]

Heh. Buffed 8 figure units? Flying or web or chaos channels to let them attack fliers? Jackal riders are king. In fact, I'd much rather play gnolls late game rather than early game. Barbarians ate strong early game and at least hold their own later due to spsmming bezerkers.

Gnolls don't have universal pathfnding, so you have to mix a pathfinding unit (which is not a real military cornerstone unit, not like a halberdier) in with slower units. They aren't as fast as barbarians, they have bad growth (for an early game race, average is bad), and they're cornerstone units aren't nearly as universally useable as barbarian.

Then you get to late game when a single buffed jackal rider is literally the strongest unit in the game.

For me, gnolls is all about surviving long enough for jackal riders to become unstoppable. But the race is very poorly designed for a survival strategy.

I think if you want gnolls to be a viable early race, they should get unit discounts, such that they have the cheapest units in the game at every tier. +2 attack is infinitely inferior to thrown weapons; 3 speed pathfinding is infinitely superior to gnoll movement. So give gnolls the cheapest units - where barbarians would have 10 units, gnolls might have 15.

[Seravy]

I finished implementing AI starting race restrictions.
Gnolls and Barbarian seem to appear a bit less frequently but they still appear often enough.
However halflings are, like, ultra rare. Found like two of them in some 15-20 games.
I'm not sure if we like that? (admittedly, a halfling AI wizard is easymode most of the time so this is not a bad thing for gameplay but...still, neglecting a race that much, idk about that. I guess they'll be still there as neutrals and might be spread somewhat if the AI started with a lower rated race, but still they'll be quite rare.)

[Domon]

maybe you have to alter halflings somehow to make the viable for the ai? or slighly increase their occurrence as neutrals?

[Nelphine]

I'd like to suggest horsebowman go to 4 ammo. They're hit and run cheap units - no need for long term staying power. (Compare to say centaurs, which due to call centaur get used by a lot of wizards so I would say have been thoroughly tested, and are extremely annoying, yet balanced as is.)