Myrran retort

[Seravy]

Draconian nerf: Remove bowmen.

For what reason? When we fixed sprites we changed lairs and nodes to be balanced with the flying ranged tactic.

Besides, a human player only tactic has no relevance to the race as a whole. I think the race is too good even for AI players. The units hit like a truck thanks to fire breath, are hard to kill thanks to extra armor, fly, clear nodes quickly (adamant halberdier doomstacks? Other myrran races don't get that, doomstacks require intercontinental units.), while their cities produce power, don't grow slowly, get every building except mechanicians guild, and can eventually produce wind walking units and doom drakes. Speaking of cities, the draconian player will always get to the best spots first, their settlers don't need a buff to be intercontinental, so they are ahead a few turns. That's a bit too many advantages for a race with zero drawbacks, even on Myrror.

Only dwarves get close in the number of advantages, but they can't build half the building tree in exchange and grow slowly.

[Nelphine]

The reason is the video of lunatic with no spells (literally converting all power the whole game to gold, and never putting points in research or skill) using draconian bowmen to annihilate all 4 AI?

However, you're right that's not enough by itself, since the AI needs to be slowed a bit as well. But I firmly think flight + defense + resistance should stay. And that's as someone who plays against draconians regularly. Not as someone using the draconians. Any reduction of their defensive trio will badly hurt them.

[Seravy]

Oh that video, it's been a while, I need to watch again. Wasn't that game won by retort and buff stacking like Hadriex's? Maybe not, I wonder. I need a new brain, I think I'm out of disk space on my current one, I keep forgetting things :D

I still think having fire breath+flight for what's effectively first strike damage that eliminates retaliating figures, plus increased defense on the same race is way too good. Imagine if your berserkers would always be guaranteed to hit first using thrown due to flight plus having above average defenses. (Yes, I know draconian halberdiers don't hit as hard but...well actually with adamant and buffs they do, lol.)

[Nelphine]

No they don't hit as hard, they don't have the extra +1 to hit. With bezerkere the rule is 'if 5 figures hit you, you die'.And bezerkers have more HP which is far better than +1 defense. And bezerkers have more speed so can always hit first anyway. And bezerkers don't cost 2 picks to use.

I've fought those halberdiers with bezerkers, and I utterly slaughgrered them. Kind of like bezerkers take out hydra and sky drakes without losses.

[Nelphine]

And yes that video is retort stacking.. But literally no spells, so no extra buffs.

[Arnuz]

I realized one thing. "Better treasure" is not a real advantage. By that, I mean, at the time you can crack high end nodes and lairs, you can also crack towers. So no matter where you start, you gain access to high end lairs at the same time. Obviously distance is a factor, but a marginal one if you use a stack enemies don't attack on the way.

So treasure contributes nothing to the value of Myrran through high end nodes and lairs aside from not having to walk to the nearest tower to access it. Low end is slightly better but at that stage of the game, the slightly stronger defenders easily outweigh this advantage on the added treasure, and you won't find much high end stuff like books in these. (not that you are going to get any - in my experience the AI wipes these from the map using their nagas before you even discover them nowadays. )

I'm playing the combo dwarves+ghouls with max magic for fun. I assure you that you can grab books and retorts, I've already gotten 4. The trick is to have specialised stacks doing it. And with golems that's pretty easy frankly.

Draconian nerf: Remove bowmen. They still have other ranged units, and they shouldn't be a one-trick pony.

I've proposed the same.

[zitro1987]

Draconian nerf: Remove bowmen. They still have other ranged units, and they shouldn't be a one-trick pony.

I've proposed the same.

I also believe this may be needed. a non-magic turn 1 flying ranged unit (with 8 shots!) breaks the balance of the [already good] race a lot

[Seravy]

Well, let's see that video again before jumping to any conclusions.

-His starting location is as good as it gets. Gold and Silver, on a river, 25 max pop and still enough mountains to have 60%+ production bonus.
-Spearmen are amazing - they can scout the map at insane speeds, comparable to using Earth Lore!
-Yes, he is retort stacking. Those are no longer bowmen, those are superbowmen!
-Up till turn 20?30? the bowmen got him...a pop 1 dwarf city which is just as easy using swordsmen. Sure, it's possible to get something better but not by much, at 3-4 pop ranged defenders start to show up in neutral cities.
-Next a draconian city - the bowmen being flying isn't relevant here, it wins because the city only had 2 spearmen
-A pop 3 dwarf city now with halberdiers. Considering how good these are due to the ore bonus, it might be worth making them spawn cannons as defenders earlier? Right now they only do it at pop 6. Halberdiers are too easy to kill, even without flying ranged units. Most other races produce a ranged unit earlier. I propose swapping the order here to get cannons before halberdiers.

...anyway, there are several major problems with removing the bowmen as solution :
-Doesn't actually fix the race for the AI or people who don't use a bowmen strategy
-Any race can do this by picking 2 Nature books for Sprites. Yes, bowmen are easier to produce but if you do then you aren't making settlers or buildings (unless you get the starting position in the video with the huge prod boost) while sprites come from magic power.
-If there are no bowmen, you can use the tactic with Shaman (Shrine is not that expensive) or Magicians (WG is expensive but not entirely unrealisitic if you get the starting spot seen in the video). Note that adjusting bowmen instead of removing, to make sure they aren't significantly superior to shaman and magicians is a more acceptable solution, either by making it require a building, or have less ammo or attack power. (Actually, I'd expect bows fired from the sky to be less powerful as you don't have a stable ground to stand on and aim)

well, these are my thoughts after watching the first 17 minutes, will keep watching for a bit longer.

[Seravy]

Next up, he starts to find and get some better loot from earth elementals and nagas. This is still not different from using sprites...but the efficiency is scary. Not necessarily the bowmen themselves, but their damage output with the extra level from warlord, war college (hey, at this point it's no longer a fast tactic at least) and...the greatest problem I see is, the lack of range penalty. Most bowmen suffer a -1 To Hit on most of their shots because they can't afford to be close to the enemy. Draconian Bowmen don't. Problem with this, the AI can't learn this tactic. So we can't balance the unit around it, otherwise it'll be too weak for the AI - and draconian bowmen are an important AI asset in combat against the human who failed to have an answer to flying units.

He attacks the AI capital with the bowmen stack. The sprites are supposed to win such a battle, and by a large margin. But due to stacking warlord, tactician, and the racial bonus defense, the bowmen win anyway. Here, the bonus defense definitely is a problem albeit the retorts are the majority of it. (Still if you look at it that way, +1 defense is worth 1 pick, as Tactician does exactly that. So the race has 1 extra pick for free.)

At this point I see no reason to watch longer - having the bowmen at elite level before turn 50 obviously breaks the game...but so does on any other race. An orc bowmen at elite would still kill the sprites. (albeit, they at least don't get extra armor. )

[Seravy]

Let's try to summarize Myrran races and the value of their traits in picks (yes, this will be very subjective).

Beastmen, compared to High Elf
Extra health, +0.5
Quite a bit better growth, +0.5
Total +1

Troll, compared to lizardmen
Higher health and attack but fewer figures ~0
Regeneration +3 (this is a huge deal!)
Roughly similar building restrictions ~0
Not intercontinental -1
Settler efficiency and outpost growth vastly inferior -1
Total +1

Dwarf compared to Klackon
Much worse growth -1
Double minerals +1
Much better units and unit versatility (Golem, Cannon) +1
Double taxes instead of -4 unrest +0.5
Worse building restrictions (no towers) -0.5
Total +1

Dark Elf compared to High Elf
Double power production +0.5
All basic units can shoot, special units slightly better +0.5

Draconian compared to High Elf
Intercontinental +1
Can do sprite tactic with bowmen +1 (Human only)
Can fly in combat +1
Fire Breath +0.5
Extra armor +0.6 (the better half of the Tactician retort)
Better growth +0.5
No mechanician guild -0.1
Total : +4.5

So yeah, I think the problem is obvious, the race has 3.5-4.5 picks worth of extra features while the other races have 1.
To get them on even ground they'd need to lose 2.5 picks worth of features.
Losing or nerfing the bowmen would remove the "+1, human only" but the race would still be 2.5 ahead for everyone.