Test games played

[Kaiku]

Playing a pretty fun game on advanced again and doing really well (top of the charts). I'm High Men, omniscient, famous and charismatic, with 5 nature and 1 of the rest. Don't ask me what I was thinking - I think it was indecision that made me do this. It's probably a terrible pick for a rushing/powergaming playstyle, but I'm playing a bit more casually and quite enjoy it.

Everyone was pissed off at Tauron, the former #1 (chaos always seems to do well), because he's spamming the map with his shitty volcanos. He's almost dead now, although I don't think I'm ready to attack his capital yet. Now, the charismatic, majestic and beautiful Kali is friends with everyone, including me. She tried to rush me at the start with a naga doomstack, and would've succeeded if a couple of cavalry didn't return to my capital just on time. Luckily that made her change her mind, as I think she would've won even with my reinforcements. Cavalry seem kinda crap.

I'm getting a lot of hero/unit offers, so much that I have to shoo a bunch of them away. But getting to choose which heroes to keep is pretty nice, instead of being forced to accept one, cause that's normally pretty much all you get.

I find bears to be absolutely amazing in early game. They beat pretty much anything and are super cheap, although I guess naga's are (especially now) serious competition.

I have a hard time deciding what kind of damage spell to use in combat, especially now that I have so many. They all feel a bit same-ish to me, and I find it hard to tell them apart. I also don't notice any 'draining' effect on drain life. It just does damage...

I still believe that there are too many cities around. When the entire map is littered with them, and when you start owning 10+, they lose their individuality and value and become a bit of a chore. I'd much rather focus on, say, 5-10 important, strategically placed cities that I recognize and have plans for.

Anyway, I do a lot of complaining on the forum, but I absolutely love this game and am very grateful for all the work you're putting into it, Seravy. We usually don't really talk about the things that are going well or that we like, but the game is amazing and I can hardly stop playing.

[Seravy]

I think I ran out of things to take out with bowmen, unless I discover something in the still unexplored areas. Total loot : 6 items (150-400 mana each, nothing valuable), a pile of ~400 mana crystals, 2 common spells (Warp Wood and Warp Creature). Fairly good for the investment of 4 bowmen (160 production) tho it does mean I had to go on without marketplace and granary the whole time and am behind on settlers. If I had Alchemy or these were piles of gold, or nodes, it would have been a great start, as is, more like, "as expected", well for a sprites type strategy anyway. I guess clearing 5 easy lairs by 1402 november is pretty good.
Still, I'm willing to accept this as one of the strengths of the race, since they aren't that good in general as I expected (yes, flight, early treasure and scouting are all big, but combat stats are meh, growth is medicore, economy is also medicore.)

A quick overview of the Myrran races...

Dwarf : bad- growth, good+ economy, good+ combat stats
Beastmen : medicore growth, medicore economy, good- stats, diverse units
Draconian : medicore growth, medicore- economy, medicore stats but "extras" of flight and its implications
Dark Elf : bad growth, good- economy, medicore stats but unique, unique special units
Troll : medicore growth, poor economy, good stats, extra of regeneration.

Looks diverse enough to me and (very) roughly evenly balanced. Beastmen might need a bit more growth? Not sure. Dark Elves probably need at least one more good special unit, something that comes a bit earlier than warlocks and is a bit less of a glass cannon.

[Nelphine]

I'd increase beastmen growth. Both due to this analysis, and the fact that you've increased 3 other myrror race growth (and/or outpost growth) now, and I think beastmen are meant to be the prolific myrran race.

Dark elves: nightblades aren't glass cannony. Yeah they're late too, but I think dark elf units are fine.

[Seravy]

Nightblades and Nightmares actually come after Warlocks tho not by much. (250+450+80>600+40)
I guess cavalry and priests are decent units until then...will find out when I play them...

I only remember increasing Draconians by 1, don't think we changed any others recently? Dark Elves was a long time ago?

[Nelphine]

Dark elves a few months back, just before we did the big outpost / growth rate when we changed lizardmen and klackon. At that time you changed dwarves.

So dark elve's, dwarves, draconians.

[Seravy]

Dwarves? I thought they were always a +2 growth? How much were they, then, at +2 they are still the lowest...

[Nelphine]

They also had super slow outpost growth. That was changed at the same time halfling outposts are changed.

[Seravy]

I also don't notice any 'draining' effect on drain life. It just does damage...

The spell's description should tell you what it does. Adding SP to the SP pool means your casting skill increases as though you spend that much on raising it (permanently, not for the battle). To get health, a unit needs to cast the spell.

[Arnuz]

I think I ran out of things to take out with bowmen, unless I discover something in the still unexplored areas. Total loot : 6 items (150-400 mana each, nothing valuable), a pile of ~400 mana crystals, 2 common spells (Warp Wood and Warp Creature). Fairly good for the investment of 4 bowmen (160 production) tho it does mean I had to go on without marketplace and granary the whole time and am behind on settlers. If I had Alchemy or these were piles of gold, or nodes, it would have been a great start, as is, more like, "as expected", well for a sprites type strategy anyway. I guess clearing 5 easy lairs by 1402 november is pretty good.
Still, I'm willing to accept this as one of the strengths of the race, since they aren't that good in general as I expected (yes, flight, early treasure and scouting are all big, but combat stats are meh, growth is medicore, economy is also medicore.)

A quick overview of the Myrran races...

Dwarf : bad- growth, good+ economy, good+ combat stats
Beastmen : medicore growth, medicore economy, good- stats, diverse units
Draconian : medicore growth, medicore- economy, medicore stats but "extras" of flight and its implications
Dark Elf : bad growth, good- economy, medicore stats but unique, unique  special units
Troll : medicore growth, poor economy, good stats, extra of regeneration.

Looks diverse enough to me and (very) roughly evenly balanced. Beastmen might need a bit more growth? Not sure. Dark Elves probably need at least one more good special unit, something that comes a bit earlier than warlocks and is a bit less of a glass cannon.

Beastmen definitely need something, I'd go on to give them superior growth - they're a myrran race after all and their +stats don't really synergise with their advanced units (low figures minotaurs, ranged centaurs). Eventually drop their +attack that is less then useful and give them even more growth.

Dark elves: please please please caster 10 apprentices for alchemist guild <3

[Arnuz]

As previously promised, I've done some more gaming with draconians. Unfortunately installing 5.03 overwrote the saves so I started a new one, which luckily had the food resource and no minerals.

All fair, 4L2CD warlord alchemy omni myr. Lunatic.

Results: pretty terrible. I've scouted all the landmass reachable in this time. I've found the easy lairs and cracked them getting only around 500 gold and 1000 mana, all used in buying. I've conquered a neutral city but the others were too far. Way too soon an AI has arrived with a full stack of hellhounds and conquered with no losses another close city with swordsmen and priests that would have costed many losses in tactical, outlining how the strategic combat is way too AI friendly in the very first years. Soon after the AI conquered my captured city, provoking the loss for food shortage of 4 priests - given the lack of archer friendly targets I wanted to try them - and that's it.



For fun I've revealed the map, this Tauron in exactly 40 turns has managed to summon 2 skeletons and... 83 hellhounds. (yes, you read that right eightythree) The trick? He found a node close to the fortress, that I think is an easy one as it's got only 8 tiles and is sorcery. Also, he doesn't seem to have any buff to waste skill on. So, there. We may have some unintended consequences to the change. Here's the savefile in case of curiosity. If you open it you'll see that he has stacks on every single continent... Added with the AI friendly strategic combat, I believe that the combination of cheating and various rules still makes the game unfun when finding a mono summoner or two close to you. Note that if it weren't lunatic but expert the amount of hellhounds would still be huge, even 60 is ridiculous at this point.