New experimental version

[Seravy]

eh that would prevent replacing the crappy angels with much superior water walking colossus. Even Pegasai would be impossible to upgrade into 3 move summoned units. The core idea of a doomstack is "9 strongest units" not "9 fastest units" and the two can't be true the same time because better units aren't always faster.

(also, speed isn't very relevant. As soon as the stack hits one of my cities, I kill/damage it with spells anyway so it has to regroup assuming anything even survives. If I can't do that, I lose the game anyway because they keep destroying things while the AI can build the next identical stack and once there are 2-3 stacks you can't hurt there is no way to avoid losing, slow movement or not. )

[Seravy]

So...I'm playing Sorcery/Chaos and I happened to get the Illusionist hero and a Regeneration accessory.
I though it's worth using that opportunity to have a quick casting hero with a flame charge charged staff to use it multiple times the first turn but...

Wand, +3 Hit, Haste, Teleportation, 4x Flame Strike = 5800 mana. For that I can have 9 Hydras or any other very rare creature I might research, or 9 Storm Giants with Magic Immunity. As much as this is a good strategy, I can't see it worth as much as an additional full stack of the best units. And that's just the wand, I'll probably also need a movement accessory to go with it and I already have the regen item and the hero so I'm not counting those.
Am I underrating the item or overrating the creatures? If neither then the prices are wrong...unless we want to say these things should be worth it only for artificers or if you didn't get a very rare summon.
I guess there is the ability to have more power in a single stack but...unless all defenders regenerate, 2 stacks of very rare creatures is better than the hero in one stack of VRs.

I guess I can do a budget version with 2 FS only and no "extras" though which is very much worth it.

[Nelphine]

That's pretty much it. Items need to stay high budget for rare powerful found items. You don't need to make a max slot item for it to be amazing - a +3 movement item on a windwalker is almost as good as a +3 movement +4 attack +4 defense inner fire item. So the cost has yo be based on when that ability, by itself, is amazing. This means its VERY expensive to make a maxed out item; but that is also good because nothing beats heroes with perfect items. So, a perfect item will never be worth crafting, because its too good to ever be allowed to be worth casting.

Tldr: compare one slot (the most relevant) on am item against whatever else you could cast instead. Everything else will be overpriced, but should be because everything else is icing.

[Nelphine]

Overland speed: you underestimate how important this is. However, please note, for the split speed idea to work, your slower units will just go into a new doomstack anyway. So, no, your angels won't be replaced by waterwalking colossus - but you don't want them to be. You want 2 doomstacks - one with all angels and pegasi racing around, destroying any weak cities the human risks, and a second one with waterwalking colossus and water walking gorgons hitting all the high defended cities the human thinks are proof against the angels.

[Seravy]

your slower units will just go into a new doomstack anyway.

Except they won't if the "fast" stack is weak enough to not find a target and stay idle, still counting as "the" doomstack. This is a likely outcome considering there is a range limitation on it AND fast units tend to be weaker, for example a 9 pegasai stack is speed 5 but can't attack anything with a proper 9 unit garrison.

Yes, as the human player I would want two different stacks but the AI is working that way. It only makes the second stack while the first is busy as a (very welcome) side effect.

[Nelphine]

Yeah that's why I said I wish you could do it. But it does requite you to build two doomstacks at a time.

[Seravy]

Completed the Chaos/Sorcery game. It was long but the difficulty felt about right (tho think a less experienced player would say it's unbeatable :D ). Next I'll try some faster strategy on Advanced then move up to Expert.

A few conclusions from this game :

1. Hydras are far too good for what they are meant to be - regenerating, high damage high health creatures with a distinct weakness of being slow, multi-figure and low armor. They also have the highest strategic combat rating which isn't intended either. So I think losing 2 shields and a resistance can help making them more of a "hit or miss" creature with defined strengths and weaknesses.

2. Time Stop feels overpriced. It's still amazing and great but I had 500+ casting skill which is not true for every player. At less skill, it is much less efficient. I was able to maintain it for about 8-10 turns before it got so expensive I wanted to cancel it - albeit I did use it from 10k mana, not 30k. While we calculated this with the assumption that it'll be going for 20-25 turns max, that's not how it'll be used by the player. For that 30000 mana crystals are necessary and you won't be able to save that much in a reasonable amount of time unless you already won the game.
So I think the cost should be 60, 75 or 80 MP per turn instead of 100.

3. The resistance values of high end very rares were set with the assumption they cost twice as much as they do now, so I think it should be lowered a little - probably by 1 on most of them. The numbers were designed to give a 10% success rate of Annihilate but at these costs, 20% is more fair (note that this with Black Prayer already included) and would make Annihilate a more relevant spell again.

4. A lot of things had both Smithy and Stables listed as required buildings when the Stables requires the Smithy. This is redundant so I removed it.

It looks like I'll have time for roughly 2 more games before the release so I think I'll do one more Advanced and one Expert.
For the next advanced, I'll do this one :
6 Death, 6 Life, Nomads

[Nelphine]

I wouldn't change hydra. They're non fliers, non water walkers, they're slow, they can be kited easily. Their damahe isnt eben that high if they do catch an enemy. Literally all they are is a bag of HP, and chaos doesn't have call lightning to make that important. If you remove armor or resistance, you should increase their speed to 3.

If you're reducing resistance across the board, then reducing hydra resistance by 1 is fine.

Hydra strategic strength is just the nature of multifigure. While it might not be intended, I really don't think you should touch their tactical armor because of that.

[Seravy]

Call Lightning? If the Hydra(s) last long enough to let me cast Disintegrate 6 times, that's more than enough.
And while in theory they can be kited, in practice I put Mystic Surge on them and they are the fastest thing in the battle. They regenerate so there is no downside to doing it.

They are so durable I considered using them against a wizard with Entangle - 3 moves a turn are plenty to catch all defenders in 25 turns if I really have to, especially when backed by Chaos spells. Then I got Great Drake and made that 4x Flame Strike artifact because I like that hero too much not to, so I didn't need to bother using the Hydras, but I'm sure it would have worked.

The resistance is part of the global reduction, yes.

Losing 2 armor would be a large hit to their strategic rating (25% reduction) while not affecting too much in normal combat - it wasn't the armor that kept them durable against other very rare creatures anyway. It also makes their "weak to immolation type attacks" drawback a bit more relevant - they'd lose ~1 additional head per Fireball effect targeting them. It also makes them die a bit faster to ranged attacks from multi-figure defenders so if they end up being kited, they will actually get hurt instead of just laughing after the defenders run out of ammo and regenerating at end of battle anyway.

If it doesn't work out in practice and makes them too weak, we can always change it back, but we should try I believe.

Unsure about what to do with Time Stop costs, afterall, 8 extra turns only "feels" not much, in reality it's still a lot, dumping 10k mana into getting 9 Great Drakes instantly instead of over 9 turns is definitely worth it. And the AI gets double benefit due to their cost reductions.
Oh, and I just realized, with this exponential cost, the "do Spell of Mastery while time is stopped so no one can spell blast" tactic no longer works - even if you can cast it in 30 turns that still costs far more than 30k mana. So I guess that's a good argument for reducing the cost. Maybe cumulative 70/turn?

[Nelphine]

Right now, I kill hydra with halberdiers. And not megabuffed halberdiers. They do not feel remotely like very rare creatures. Yes, chaos has nasty combat spells to back them up, but I can just produce 9 swordsmen (far easier than 1 hydra!) if I only care about using combat spells.

Don't reduce a very rare because certain combinations are good with it. Very rares are SUPPOSED to be great. Right now, hydrs simply are not. Mystic surge being overpowered, now that is quite possibly a real concern.