NATURE Realm

[Nelphine]

Yeah I would definitely vote against magicians summoning catapults. Not sure about the magic weapons though. Given the ai's inability to effectively deal with catapults, I'd be tempted to remove the magic weapon and leave it at 25. Obviously, you wouldn't use it in all situations then, but I don't think any summon should be something that is effective in many situations.

The catapults niche could really be throwing AI off - it has potential for damage too, but that's less important than distracting from your ranged units.

[Seravy]

Yeah I would definitely vote against magicians summoning catapults. Not sure about the magic weapons though. Given the ai's inability to effectively deal with catapults, I'd be tempted to remove the magic weapon and leave it at 25. Obviously, you wouldn't use it in all situations then, but I don't think any summon should be something that is effective in many situations.

The catapults niche could really be throwing AI off - it has potential for damage too, but that's less important than distracting from your ranged units.

Without magic weapons the damage they dealt was so horrible it wasn't worth summoning any. (except for distracting the AI but centaurs are cheaper for that and can actually run from the units chasing them)

[Nelphine]

Fair enough. Also, as an addendum to earlier discussions. I think nature should have a +1 HP common enchantment. It may be you don't need to replace any spells right now, and you did land linking as a buff, but but I think it would help.

As another note. Everyone talks about how natures strength is summons. But that only matters if the summons do things the wizard can't get anyway - for instance, using the mana that would cast war bears, to buy cavalry.

This means, if summons are the strength of nature, by its definition, that means its best with races that don't have standard units that easily replace those summons. Halflings come to mind - especially with research bonuses to get rare/very rare spells faster.

When the summons are not much better than the standard units, that is why nature is at a disadvantage in the early game.

(Which is why a realm that buffs units does well early game, and a realm that gets free units, and a real that does combat spells to support units, and a realm that does major buffs like guardian wind or aura of majesty.)

Common/uncommon summons simply do not add anything to standard units - they replace them instead, which isn't an increase in your combat ability.

(Which is one reason why comparison to MotG isn't so good. There are no standard units in MotG.)

[Seravy]

Common/uncommon summons simply do not add anything to standard units - they replace them instead, which isn't an increase in your combat ability.

Actually, they do. Not all of them but most. At least now that they have been improved

Common

War Bears : Has stats better than a halderdier, but you can have it on turn 1. There is no way to build anything compareable this early.
Sprites : Flying ranged unit on turn 1. Only similar normal unit is Draconian Bowmen, other races don't have this or not until much later.
Hell Hounds : These actually don't add anything indeed, and pretty much are stronger but slower cavalry. Chaos is designed to have a weak early game though.
Nagas : Strong poison, first strike and water walking. No normal unit has first strike with poison and no normal unit except lizardmen can swim.
Ghouls : They raise undead, that's not available from normal units
Skeletons : They have no maintenance, not even food, again no normal units do this except ships but those are bound to water.
Guardian Spirit : Protects nodes

Uncommon

Cockatrices : Strongest resist-or die attack in the game. No normal unit has any resist or die ability.
Great Lizard : Massive regenerating unit. No normal units regenerate except trolls.
Giant Spiders : They...aren't unique I guess, but hey, high resistance cavalry that casts web and has decent health and armor? No normal unit has all of that in one package.
Gargoyles : They fly and have armor and resistance comparable to the most defensive normal unit. In a realm where defense is hard to get and very valuable.
Fire Giant : They guys are also not unique, except that they pretty much do the same as magicians...with the health and melee of a stag beetle added in. Like spiders, no normal unit can do both in one. They also have fire immunity and mountaineer, both rare abilities.
Chimeras : Stronger than any flying normal unit in the game.
Unicorns : They teleport and buff army resistance
Werewolves : Weapon immunity and regeneration don't appear often on normal units, not to mention other immunities.
Shadow Demons :Plane shifting...and all the above and flying and ranged. Probably best uncommon monster in the game.
Night Stalker : Invisible and with Death Gaze and weapon immunity.

I'd say the majority of c/uc summons fill a completely different role than normal units and are generally superior. They are also more cost effective than normal units.

[namad]

Imo summon catapult and call centaurs are too similar. What about a steam Canon for 30-45?

[Seravy]

I'm considering to swap around the cost of Colossus, Great Wyrm and Behemoth. I can't help to think Colossus is the best of the three currently, and it is the cheapest. Wyrm is the easiest to kill and it only has slightly better attack and health than a colossus, yet it's costs the most. Behemoth is the weakest aside from having the best armor, it does less damage even than a colossus.
I think it should either be
Behemoth : cheapest at 800
Wyrm : second at 900
Colossus : most expensive at 1000
or
Behemoth : cheapest at 800
Colossus : second at 900
Wyrm : most expensive at 1000 but higher attack power (40?)

Drakes have breath attacks which roughly doubles their damage output while the wyrm has the same attack rating and no breath attack, only crappy poison that will do no damage to anything that matters. (also 15 poison is a joke compared to a melee of 30 with +3 to hit. At the very least the poison should be 30...I can see even 50 working, that would be 5 damage to res 9 units, 10 damage to res 8 etc)

Wyrms can merge which is a great ability but the ranged on colossus is even better.

[zitro1987]

Behemoth : 800
Colossus : 900
Wyrm : 900 but higher poison rating

If great wyrms simply have a very high poison rating of 30-40 and maybe +1 armor, it should compare to colossus.

[Seravy]

Behemoth : 800
Colossus : 900
Wyrm : 900 but higher poison rating

If great wyrms simply have a very high poison rating of 30-40 and maybe +1 armor, it should compare to colossus.

What if Wyrms specifically had a save modifier on poison? ...nevermind, hard to do and not really worth for just one unit.

[Nelphine]

I dunno, in a lair, wyrms are much tougher than colossus because melee can attack twice. I'd be OK with behemoths down to 800 though. As for poison, if it doesn't roll to hit, it's amazing when paired with resistance reduction abilities. Sure, it's nit that strong by itself, but it has great synergy with death/chaos magic. I wouldn't touch it - or at most increase to 20.

[Seravy]

Since the Path Finding item power, and the Land Linking spell are literally the same effect, if the hero is a fantastic creature, Path Finding items grant it +2 shield and swords.

I can either rename the ability and update the help text, or I can change the item power to not add the effect of the Path Finding spell and instead merely grant the path finding ability.

The combo with Chaos Channels works through the regular Lank Linking spell anyway, so it most likely makes more sense to change the name and help text, and keep the effect, although heroes being fantastic creatures is not very common.

(also, fun fact, the Chosen is a Life creature in combat so it always benefits from Land Linking)

Speaking of heroes being fantastic creatures, putting Chaos Channels on your Soul Linker hero allows her to buff herself which is amazingly effective.