ghouls

[Nelphine]

High speed is what wraithform warships are for.

[Catwalk]

Thing is, neutral cities are easy to take. Put Cloak of Fear on a random decent unit and it can mutilate most garrisons. You need to find a way to use ghouls to take lairs and AI cities quickly and convincingly in order to capitalize on it.

[Seravy]

The problem with melee ghouls is, Death already has 3 other early melee creatures. Skeletons, zombies, and Werewolves. Out of which, Zombies are pretty much a melee version of ghoul - except with better stats and in-combat summoning.

...Maybe renaming them Lich could work better but I imagine a Lich to be a very high tier creature, not a common, so it's not very good either.

...why isn't there a Lich in the game, anyway? Instead we have Wraiths and Death Knights which are the same thing with slightly different stats. Although I rather not have a high tier, ranged, create undead unit, that would be horrible for game balance. Ghouls are fine exactly because they are weak. So that's why...

[Arnuz]

Mmmmhhh liches I like where this is going! It might be a middle solo summon rather than high-end, beatable by 2-3 wizards units say, but with regeneration (the phylactery)... And maybe sporting a single casting of disintegration?

Werewolves have always felt weird in death - they seem to be much closer to chaos to me. No big deal anyhow, but I see your point with the too many melee units.

Ghouls took the place of the person they ate in the legends... Perhaps make them melee but disappear when they beat a better unit, replacing it as an undead? Then they could cost less for summoning. Ideally the player would be able to revert the effect. They'd not be able to create instant city garrisons which was my main issue. Too complicated?

Or, how about this idea: have this effect work on heroes only? Then they could be used to "steal" enemy heroes at an earlish stage. I think that this would be quite cool, and niche enough not to warrant huge balance worries (but of course niche enough to worry about whether it's worth it for you to code)

Well, at least I've transmitted my concern about flavour and balance of ranged undead creation, that was my main peeve here.

[Seravy]

Yea, unfortunately these are all impossible to do.
And while I agree about Werewolves not being very Death like, they are a very essential part of the game now, a bit too late to remove them.

[Catwalk]

I agree that Werewolves are boring, I'd be happy to see them removed. Both in terms of flavour and gameplay, they're a thoroughly uninteresting unit. I've always found it incredibly lame that you had to build a random unit of spearmen in order to produce werewolves, and that you were a fool if you used it on anything else. Switching them out for a cool Lich unit would be sweet. I agree completely with your analysis that Death has too many units that are way similar. I don't see anything essential about Werewolves, could you expand on that?

[Nelphine]

I love werewolves. They were what first attracted me to death, those decades ago. They're very ravenloft style to me, which suits death.

[Nelphine]

For balance reasons, werewolves are also the only summon that can be buffed with regular unit only spells. They're the only 6 figure summon, which allows for a buff strategy. They're unique enough I wouldn't want to see them leave.

[Catwalk]

Yeah, but you're a weirdo Nelphine I dislike Werewolves and think a Lich unit would be much more interesting, but I don't feel strongly about the subject.

[Seravy]

Werewolves, well let's see...

They are the "rush" unit of Death for 8 book strategies. Same role as Gargoyles and Spiders.
They have the "summon that benefits from adamantium/alchemist guild anyway" mechanic, the only such creature.
They are the main intended combo with Blood Lust.
They are one of the few early game things that warrant using Darkness. Ghouls are the other. Skeletons are just too weak to really go for it, and others are late so Darkness being common doesn't help them.
They are the "cheap, regenerating, fast melee unit" unit Death is expected to swarm you with in the early game. The other regenerator, Shadow Demon is expensive, slow and flying/ranged, a completely different thing.
The AI is already taught to pick this for guaranteed research, raise research to get it early, and it has it's own overland AI category to be used, entirely separate from other buffs and creatures.



A Lich unit would be interesting but would leave Death with no fast early strong uncommon creature, and the worst part, I'm sure it would be impossible to balance it out. So far I rejected any idea that involved putting "Create Undead" on anything stronger than a Ghoul, because it would be incredibly overpowered.  (btw we also don't have Vampires, which is kinda sad. But they steal life, make undead, and regenerate and the realm is already full of units doing those.)

If anything, removing Wraiths or Death Knights would make sense because they are almost identical, aside from DK being massively more powerful.
But these are just dreams, it's not like we actually have sprites for such new units, anyway.