LIFE Realm

[teelaurila]

Does Heavenly Light give +1 to-hit for summons now? I can't think of any other reason why these angels have one +tohit more than mine. It could also be a un-intended side-effect of the "grants magical weapons" effect?

[Seravy]

There was a bug that did exactly that but it's already fixed. Are you using the last version?

[teelaurila]

Seems not. I'll finish this game and update. Thanks!

[Seravy]

It seems the fix for it was actually incorrect. I'll be fixed correctly in 5.55 whenever I manage to complete it.

[teelaurila]

Perhaps Heroism should only afffect non-hero units? Seems like my Life High Men games play too differently depending on whether I get an early power-generating hero (eg Sage, Druid). Even entering mid-game in my present game I got 350 base power, and about 700 mana+research+skill total. Out of that, 150 comes from sage and mystic x who has aether and sage. But earlier on, that sage pretty much doubled the total investment.

A power hero is ok with other realms. But with heroism it becomes a silly instant 2 nodes worth of a luck-out.

[Seravy]

This is why heroes don't come before turn 30. After that it's okay. You are sacrificing a slot that could have a hero that actually fights and conquers you more cities. You have to pay the initial cost for the hero which is usually 200+ gold. And it's still not that much better than a Noble which doesn't even require Heroism.

[Bahgtru]

Eh 200 gold = 1.5 libraries though. Getting money is quite different if you don't have alchemy.

I just got a sage in my chaos game and I was doubting because of those reasons, but then I realised that even without heroism, 10 research is already paying the 200 cost compared with libraries, and said ok. A caster won't be useful against AIs but it's sure going to go be helpful against nodes...

When then you put heroism on it, lolOP. Life really needs some tweaking.

[Seravy]

From the test thread.

So I'd say +1 to defend is simply too strong for a common spell. In which case revert the change to holy armor, and either leave endurance as is, or completely remove the defensive component from endurance.

In this particular game, it was equivalent to 2.33 defense which is only marginally better than the original Holy Armor. Yes, there are a few cases when it's much more but this game wasn't one of them.
I'm leaning towards, combat cast defense is simply too powerful. The amount of benefit it gives is not on par with the cost of 8 mana crystals and no overland skill spent.
I don't think the overland version has too much of a problem, other than it being strictly better than Endurance now (which is a problem by itself but at least, there are a few cases where you care about the movement difference).

With heroism a unit gains 6 armor or 4 armor and 1 to defend.

Without it it can be 4 armor or 2 plus defend.There lies the problem: holy armor plus endurance together is comparable to iron skin and even gives movement.

That's the whole point. Life has no summoning - it has to have enough buffing power to create an uncommon tier creature out of basic units, at an expensive overland cost.
Basically, Endurance+Holy Armor+Heroism is Life's equivalent to casting Cockatrices, Werewolves or Chimeras. This has been working fine so far - but there are two problems.
One, casting the spells in combat (and eventually you can use Prayer to replace the unavailable Endurance) has no overland cost. So it's as good as a combat summoning spell of the same tier, and no spell in the game summons a strong uncommon tier creature early for a good reason. The only one, Phantom Beast, has zero armor, not to mention the high research and casting cost.
If you can get the same unit for spending 8+15 mana in battle, that's a problem, especially because you usually only need one, at most two such units to win any early game combat. Swapping Holy Armor and Endurance made this worse, as it moved the more powerful effect from the overland only spell to the combat one. Let's compare the costs. Instead of 75+40 = 105 overland skill and mana, you only need to spend 23 mana crystals per battle. So you can do 5 battles before the cost breaks even on mana, but if I also consider the overland skill, it probably is closer to double-triple of that.
The other problem is more trivial : You can avoid getting dispelled - you buff the unit in combat, after the enemy used up their skill. Even if not, getting dispelled won't hurt - you aren't losing overland spells.

[Bahgtru]

Basically, Endurance+Holy Armor+Heroism is Life's equivalent to casting Cockatrices, Werewolves or Chimeras. This has been working fine so far - but there are two problems.
One, casting the spells in combat (and eventually you can use Prayer to replace the unavailable Endurance) has no overland cost. So it's as good as a combat summoning spell of the same tier, and no spell in the game summons a strong uncommon tier creature early for a good reason. The only one, Phantom Beast, has zero armor, not to mention the high research and casting cost.
If you can get the same unit for spending 8+15 mana in battle, that's a problem, especially because you usually only need one, at most two such units to win any early game combat. Swapping Holy Armor and Endurance made this worse, as it moved the more powerful effect from the overland only spell to the combat one. Let's compare the costs. Instead of 75+40 = 105 overland skill and mana, you only need to spend 23 mana crystals per battle. So you can do 5 battles before the cost breaks even on mana, but if I also consider the overland skill, it probably is closer to double-triple of that.

The light! You've put the finger on the wound, and you've describe the problem much better than I've ever been been able to.

Another characteristic of life is that all their "summons" are like werewolves: they are built first and buffed later. The smart player will not buff stuff in their city, like AIs, but stuff that is already in the field. This is a great logistical advantage - you can buff something the turn it attacks rather than having to move it all the way to your target. Later on this might be less noticeable as speeds become greater for rarer summons, but in the all-important early game it's fundamental.

Therefore, I don't see any issue with counter-balancing this advantage with the disadvantage of not having many in-combat spells. There's healing and the damage one - starllight? - and that's already covering both attack and defence. 

I would remove holy weapon too, to reinforce this. But heroism is the biggest offender thanks to its flexibility: attack, defence, resistance, and perfect application against roaming monsters in your back-lines!