Test games played

[Seravy]

Been thinking about Runemaster.
Free Dispel Magic is nice but it's somewhat redundant - the retort does accelerate Arcane research already.

I think if we want to improve the retort (which probably is necessary), we should raise the Arcane research bonus.

A +25% source impressive but it isn't - it merely equals a 20% cost reduction. That's quite insignificant, not really worth it even for a Spell of Mastery strategy. I think +50% (which is as good as 33% reduction) would be much more reasonable, without being overpowered.


...meanwhile I'm unsure if +15% on Specialist is good or not. Sage Mastery is 25% so this is more than half of that, plus the cost reduction and dispel resistance. Maybe 12% would be better, to match the cost reduction?

[Nelphine]

Sage master runemaster SoM peaceful win before the AI can get very rares! Go!

I feel like that's the only possible implication that would be scary, and generally I consider runenaster underpowered. So I'd be ok with that.

I wonder if 6 sorcery charismatic omniscient dark elves you actually could win with SoM before AI had very rares... That would be neat. Could try for rares!

[Nelphine]

Specialist. I would go as far as 10%. I brought it up during the research changes, but you didn't make any change at that point.

[Seravy]

Decided to go for the Halfling Runemaster one more time. Had a good start - 3 low pop easy neutrals early.
Not much diplomacy this time - no other Chaos/Life wizard and contact happened too early to have spells to offer in tribute. By the time I finished producing my first two slingers, blue already attacked and conquered one of my neutrals with some Nagas. Unfortunately I had to attack yellow - they put a city on a choke point that blocked the bigger half of my continent from access, including the easy nodes I found. This however didn't work - slingers are helpless in front of the mighty Warp Wood. I should have remembered that, I actually got the spell from that wizard...
Being maniacal expansionist with Chaos/Death and already spamming corruptions and putting cities on my continent, war was the only option either way, and it's a war I cannot win.

...so yeah, another loss. I already knew Chaos halflings are bad, but it seems not even Life is helping with that. This setup simply has no early game besides "please don't kill me" in diplomacy.

So next up, Life/Chaos Lizardmen. Those will pack a punch unlike slingers with no ranged attacks. Or maybe I should try 4 Chaos, 4 Life, 2 Nature Halflings to have an early strategy? (bears and/or sprites. Probably bears. Or 2 Death for ghouls?)

Either way I can't help thinking buffed slingers are just bottom tier. They do enough damage without just a few buffs so stacking multiple is useless questioning the purpose of the entire strategy, plus they auto-lose to Warp Wood, Guardian Wind, Invisibility, etc a bunch of things, some of which are common.

...or maybe just play Nature/Chaos halflings instead and drop the entire idea of relying on life and slingers. Bears do work, I know that. Sprites, too.

[zitro1987]

As I mentioned before, I really think Halflings seriously (really seriously) needs barracks allowed. Not having it for an 8-figure oriented race is simply cruel and too limited to life (and even life may be insufficient with the high cost of mass-casting heroism and risk of dispel).

Are you trying the runemaster granting 'dispel magic'? I know the discussion spread to disenchant, but just having 'dispel magic' will clearly not run the risk of overpoweredness. You (just like me trying the retort) suffer too much early on.

Simply put, runemaster without starting with dispel (and now dispel having higher research cost) is just harsh and unfun early on. You're getting 'black sleeped' / 'guardian wind', etc and your 2-pick retort is useless until you get dispel, prohibitively expensive at the start of the game.
*Wouldn't it be fun to counter enchantments from day 1 as runemaster? It's a 2-pick retort after all and possibly the only retort with 0 early benefit.

[Seravy]

I'm trying with 50% Arcane research bonus. Works good enough, if I actually want to, I can research Dispel magic before turn 40.

I don't see how barracks would help - I have heroism and it's not helping either. It doesn't matter how buffed or what level my slingers are if enemies can disable ranged missile attacks at common tier AND slingers are expensive to produce and buff. In theory the strategy could fuel itself from nodes, but by the time you get the first slingers and buff them it's past turn 40 and you might get attacked, before you even have that node.

Gave one last chance to this setup. I was able to get a Wizard's Pact with one wizard - but they then rushed their lizard settlers into my continent, going around my blockade (it moves two on water, I can't stop it...) and built in the center of my continent, blocking my two settlers. If I let this go, I'm stuck on 4-5 cities for a while and have the best land taken by someone else on my continent. If I don't, well there goes diplomacy. They aren't strong or anything but my "army" consists of what, 5 slingers and 4 hounds total...but two other wizards also pushed their settlers in, one Chaos Death and one Sorcery/Nature. Slings are suboptimal against any of these wizards and I can't do peace when I'm starting to get outnumbered in controlled cities on my own continent.

Of course I can just go aggro and attack them all but I know from experience that doesn't really work with this race. I guess I have to try either way...

[zitro1987]

Oh, 50% research bonus to all arcane? That's a different but really good solution, covering more than just dispel.

Yes, barracks technically will help , though not much in your particular scenario of warp wood. The solution in your case is to prop up a wizard's guild and get heroism-magicians.

But in a general game scenario, barracks help tremendously and make Halfling a playable race with the early +1 to attack/resist. It's worth considering and I doubt would make the race overpowered.

[Seravy]

Meanwhile, continued the game and attacking surprisingly went well - I evicted the unwanted outposts and no real forces came my way to retaliate, so I'm kinda the strongest wizard on arcanus (not by a large margin but slighlty). I guess I was just being paranoid - I was expecting stacks of 9 nagas and whatnot to show up. I guess my continent wasn't close enough for enemy doomstacks to care and they've found plenty of things to fight on their own lands.
Eventually this aggression might still backfire but by then I'll hopefully have at least a few decent unit in every city. I'm aiming for a mix of slingers, magicians, and some klackon halberdiers (and eventually beetles). I'm also hoping to get galleys and have at least some sea domination going on, as I fully own my continent and it's decent sized. I'll have 11 cities as soon as I get rid of those last two enemy outposts.

The land modifier certainly seems to have an effect - Arcanus feels a lot more spacious than before - that extra 20% does make a difference. It's 1407 now and I already control 4 nodes (but stupid nature conjunction is halving all four)

[Nelphine]

Buff the swordsmen. Stop wasting time on slingers. One halfling swordsmen with magic weapons and heroism is much better than war bears.

[Seravy]

But swordsmen would get annihilated by Nagas and other Poison units, wouldn't they?
Useless for nodes, too.
Well, I guess I did get Endurance and Holy Armor so using melee units is not unreasonable, but isn't it better to buff a Klackon Halberdier? No lucky but way higher base armor and more health.

Not that it matters if the AI keeps ignoring my continent like this, lol