Test games played

[Arnuz]

Meanwhile another idea : Instead of Crusader and Knight separately, have just Crusader, but make it into what I described as Knight, without removing the original Cavalry, but it requiring an additional building and having Healing. (either Cathedral, or Shrine, or Parthenon, or Fighter's Guild - probably best to have the Shrine.)

I reached the same thought reading the previous 4 posts! That'd make humans the only ones with a fast medic, finally something they excel at. I'd give it speed 4, but not require the cathedral that's paladin level. Shrine+FG or parthenon+stables sounds about right.
At that point though, would priests ever be built?

[Catwalk]

I'd much rather change Priest to Cleric, make them a melee healer with high armour at speed 2. I don't see the point in having two different healer units for the same race, that would feel like overkill. The Crusader concept is much too similar to Paladins IMO.

Can you add a trait to produce buildings cheaper? I thought you said that was impossible when we discussed coal doing this.

[Catwalk]

Also, I think it'd be much too radical to add caster to all normal DE units. They're already very unique and useful with their magic ranged attack.

[Seravy]

It's a problem for coal because the function that converts terrain to a bonus returns only one type of value and has no room to include two different ore effects.
Having a flat "costs 20% less if city race is high men" in the production cost procedure shouldn't be a problem, the problem is connecting that effect to the ore.

[Arnuz]

Also, I think it'd be much too radical to add caster to all normal DE units. They're already very unique and useful with their magic ranged attack.

Really? Have you tried them at master or lunatic? I find them to be the worst myrran now.

[Catwalk]

I didn't say anything about how powerful Dark Elves were, merely that their units are reasonable. I also didn't like Barbarian normal units having both Pathfinding and +1 moves. I don't mind buffing Dark Elves in other ways, they may indeed be too weak. I'd prefer buffing them in other ways.

[Catwalk]

Seravy, if you can't add this to coal then I agree that it's an interesting trait to have for High Men. -20% sounds like a balanced number.

[Arnuz]

I didn't say anything about how powerful Dark Elves were, merely that their units are reasonable. I also didn't like Barbarian normal units having both Pathfinding and +1 moves. I don't mind buffing Dark Elves in other ways, they may indeed be too weak. I'd prefer buffing them in other ways.

Well, "useful" to me means powerful. And I find DE units totally useless, with their magic attack: what can they conquer? ...Draconians? That's it I think.

Any suggestion? This one gives them a very strong flavour, DEs are the magic experts. I might see the same happening for elves, to a lower degree: I find elves to be quite weak too. Giving the arcanus counterpart half of the myrrans' caster ability would be formidable in terms of flavour and unique in the race landscape.
To continue with the flavour buff, their wizards/warlocks might get a little bonus in caster ability too. Actually, what the heck - why not all of their units? Cavalry, priests... Maybe not the elite ones as that would package too much utility in the same unit.

[Nelphine]

My main concern with the -20% building is for late game amp towers.

So I'm going to do dome math. -20% means 180 less production, which is 360 gold, which is 180 mana. 

Assuming average population of 15, that makes this ability as good as 24 turns of power production from being a high elf.

(Note that all other buildings have this too, so the city overall is about as good as.. 40-60 turns of being a high elf.)

Of course mana isn't quite as good as power production, but this is front loaded which is better so I'm calling it a wash.

Obviously for the early game, its not as front loaded, and you'll have the city a lot more than 5 years anyway, so being a high elf is better, so it would be fine to give it -20% from an early game point of view.

But for the late game, high men will be more desirable than high elves (and beastmen and draconians) from an economic point of view. 

I'm not sure high men should have that as well as far superior late game units.

I'd suggest only 10%. (I believe even 15%, which makes the amp tower worth 18 months of high elf power production is still too high.)

Alternatively, making the reduction a flat cost, like -25 (so that its good for early game buildings, and poor for late game buildings) might actually be better.

[Catwalk]

Flavour-wise I'm not keen on giving all normal units caster ability. I think it clashes too much with the existing concept. I can definitely see adding a warrior/mage type of unit, though. Longbowmen are on the weak side, how about a small caster ability on them? And Dark Elf Priests could be turned into this role as well.