Test games played

[Seravy]

Checked outpost growth. Every ore gives +5 growth except Iron and Coal which are 12. So each Wild Game is +5, and the bonus through the additional max food (2/max pop, so that would be +4 for wild game if I read this right).

[Nelphine]

Interesting note. instead of giving me flameblade and focus magic, you gave me mystic surge and focus magic.

jan 1405: green asks for an alliance. (he had asked for a wizard pact in 1403)
Preparing to fortress strike red. covered most of his empire in corruption. he doesn't seem to be growing nearly as fast as you guys were seeing (he's barely twice my overall graph)

[Nelphine]

Jan 1406. Banished Red with first fortress strike (1 chimera, 8 bowmen). Note I did not have flameblade in this version, so these bowmen have literally no spells cast on them, just war college + alchemists guild (chimera has both resist magic and focus magic). He had orc archer hero, bard hero, 3 bowmen, 4 halberdiers. I should have attacked earlier (around october) but a stack of 9 hell hounds ate my first 3 bowmen when I left them in the wrong place preparing for the first strike.

I'm going to stop now. I could not have done the attack without flight (as I didn't have time to build any ships, or I wouldn't have been able to attack this early, probably pushing me back to, oh, april or so, plus I doubt I would have found him this early, plus I wouldn't have been able to do so much effective corruption - his capital was still pop 4 when I attacked). The flight also prevented the bard from doing anything except throwing vertigo once (and dying to the chimera).

If I had flameblade, I would have massacred it and probably had more units left (and I found flame blade and chaos channels in the wreckage, so any further combats on this plane will have monster bowmen) as it is the chimera literally has 1 hp, and i have one bowman left, I think with 5 hp.

Blur was key for this (and honestly none of my other combat spells remotely interested me for this fight - I don't know why you would pick most of them - assuming of course I don't have mystic surge, as I don't believe I would have had time to research it by now, assuming it was even in my spellbook. Maybe. Not sure. If it was in book, probably could have had it by june though, and the fight would have been a pushover.); fortress lightning was unlucky (it dropped chimera to 3 figures before they engaged); but it was also lucky (never hit chimera the rest of the match). Obviously if the fight had gone 2 more turns, fortress lightning would have destroyed me.

Could easily have gone the attrition route if his fortress had been stronger; almost all his other cities have swarms of halberdiers and hellhounds, my fortress strike stack could probably take out at least 7 of those cities before the stream of reinforcements would be too slow to constantly renew the stack.

Edit: I have no idea where green is. I found red, saw he was getting strong, saw he was weak to bowman, and went for the early first strike before he could become a threat. I have 3 cities (the neutral draconian southwest of red, and I put a settler down on the island east of red; I want a mithril city if I have to do anything past about end of 1406, although now that i have flameblade, that no longer matters. and i can just go and take the 37 mithril cities on reds home continent - which is the real reason he's so strong in your graphs - all his city built halberdiers will be mithril). Green and I have about the same army and power production, while i'm ahead in spell power. His overall is ahead of me, similar to your graphs. I only took 2 lairs (the naga/8 phantom warrior near my capital, and the 4 phantom beast/4 phantom warrior near red capital), both required flight; and no nodes.

Edit 2: further comparison. If I had flsne blade and 30 cost bowmen, I could have done this attack, what, 280 production earlier? And they all would have had flame blade instead of wasting time researching spells, so, about 150 power production sooner?

That's what, late 1404?

I think 45-50 is a good price for draconian bownen. 12 for spearmen, 36 swordsmen, 72 halberdiers. The AI almost had enough time to fight me off and force an attrition war. Going over a year earlier would have meant mostly hell hounds which wouldn't even have slowed my bowmen. Might not have had the heroes either as I don't know when he got them. Lightning would have been the only damage I took.

[Arnuz]

Nice, covering him in corruption also works if you start that early. Hadn't thought of that. It definitely helped your fortress strike given the close result!

[Arnuz]

Checked outpost growth. Every ore gives +5 growth except Iron and Coal which are 12. So each Wild Game is +5, and the bonus through the additional max food (2/max pop, so that would be +4 for wild game if I read this right).

Oh I didn't expect that. So when you start outposts in deserts they grow basically thanks to the minerals? It's sort of funny but makes some sense, gold rush style colonisation...
Do gems provide the same bonus?

> So each Wild Game is +5, and the bonus through the additional max food (2/max pop, so that would be +4 for wild game if I read this right).

Uh, so wild game gives +7 outpost growth do I get it right? What's this summed to though?

[Seravy]

No, Wild Game is 9 but 4 of that is already included in the max pop you see on surveyor.
Also this means on that map the pop 6 with orihalcon should have better growth than the pop 8 without. Interesting, I must have had bad luck on the pop 6 spot then.

Nelphine, fortress striking early with a late game race and realm kinda defeats the purpose of this test. I have to conclude early aggression is still too efficient compared to everything else...
wait a second. Did you banish or defeat the wizard? If banish, can you survive the retaliation? One of the major balancing factors against such early attacks supposed to be all the armies scattered around, ready to strike back at you. What if green attacked you now? They are chaotic so that's a possibility too. I suggest playing at least 20 more turns.

btw trying to argue draconian bowmen are efficient at the cost when you fought against other draconians who were penalized by the higher cost the same way you are also misses the mark. You merely proved blur+chimeras is enough to rush an enemy if you bring 8 bowmen of any kind with you that have some levels. Flight on the bowmen did nothing there except for not needing the Floating Island spell at start.

[Seravy]

PS : This might prove war college and barracks need to cost more though.

[Nelphine]

Can't really make them cost much more or your choice for war college OR armorers guild goes out the window. Admittedly, war college works on whatever unit you want whereas armorer's guild gives you a unit that may or may not be any good. That being said, I figure war college is worth 900, and barracks is worth 200.

And draconians aren't a blasted late game race. They are an early military race same as trolls and should be played as such. That's been my argument since this started - you are playing them wrong. Flight is only good until the enemy can counter it. Making them have cheap units will just make them easier to crush the enemy with.


And no, floating island wouldn't have been enough. It lacks the exploration of flight (another huge indicator draconians are early military). I could not have done the corruption, I probably couldn't even have found the enemy fortress early enough for a fortress strike. And not allowing a hero to attack my bowman is not nothing. That bard would have crushed bowmen in melee.

[Seravy]

They are an early military race same as trolls and should be played as such. That's been my argument since this started - you are playing them wrong.

They weren't designed to be one and the competition on the Myrran plane does not allow that to function well either - none of the other races are weak to flight and squishy fire breathing halberdiers.
If a race tries to fill a role it wasn't designed for and fails what it is meant to do, that shows it's not implemented correctly.

And no, floating island wouldn't have been enough. It lacks the exploration of flight

Ehhh speed 3 sailing units are amazing explorers. You might not see inside the lairs but you do see the shoreline, the position of players and even the garrisons of cities unless they are far from the shore...
Albeit I don't know remember the scouting radius of islands are, might be worse than Trireme - but you can stick a unit with a better scouting range on it and see anyway.
Draconians are amazing at exploration but I don't consider that a powerful enough trait to disturb game balance. The AI outright has the map fully explored all the time so it's not like the human can get ahead, and there is a common spell that can show you a large fraction of the map for 40 MP...
Also draconian units, while cheaper, aren't any faster at exploring than magic spirits. And they eat food so more than 4-6 is not viable in the beginning.
So sure, that is an advantage draconians have but I don't think that made the difference.

That bard would have crushed bowmen in melee.

Wait, you didn't focus your arrows (and chimeras) on it first? It's granting armor to the entire enemy team, obviously you take it out on turn 1. Tho other heroes can be an obstacle...missile immunity spellcasters much more than melee ones, actually.

Either way if we go with what has been proposed in the other thread, this stops being a valid tactic - not enough fame for war college. (tho flame blade can make up for that I guess, so idk.)

[Nelphine]

I wasn't here when you designed the race. Looking at the units, buildings, and abilities, then looking at the other races on myrror, my immediate reacyion was that they are an early military race.

Beastmen, trolls, and dwarves all have problems dealing with flight - the units that can deal with flight, are also rather poor when dealing with the other 3 races mentioned.

Dark elves have lots of ranged attack - but, aside from priests and warlocks, which are late game, these are usually weak ranged attacks.  Draconians have to be careful attacking, but still have a huge advantage, if they can do it early.

I don't understand what makes you think flight is so weak. Its incredible in tactical combat. Repeating that it isn't effective against myrran races doesn't make it true.


Floating islands have no bonus scouting like s trireme does.

Flying draconians scout 2 or 3 times faster than magic spirits due to the extra scouting range. Its not overpowered one bit, but it only matters early - thus its one of the two huge factors that tell me this is an early military race. I would never scout with more than 3 at the beginning, and possibly not that many.

And possibly I should have attacked the bard first. But having an extra -2 to hit against a unit with 8 armor, that can't hurt me in any way, seemed worse than attackinh the halberdiers with 7 armor that were charging me. Could well have been wrong.


You can make the tactic not work. We already rightly needed the ammo because of abuse possibilities.

My point is that this is how the race is effective, with its current set up, and this is why we did those netfs - and this is why I think bowmen should stay in the 45-50 cost range.

Also, why do we need the draconians to be a late game race, when beastmen and dark elves fill that role right now, and without major changes, will always be better than draconians at that role? I don't understand why draconians HAVE to br that way, when it seems obvious its the other way.