Barbarian race discussion

[zitro1987]

I remember myself being on the side of alchemist+barbarian breaking the design to the point of possibly being considered 'cheating'


Of course, I can't speak for everyone, but I'd really rather deny the magic weapons via alchemist as well.

[Seravy]

The new units are done. For the time being, these are the stats, we'll need to test and see how they work in practice :

-New Barbarian unit : Gladiators. 3 Figures, 6 HP, 6 Armor, 5 attack, 5 Thrown, Large Shield, 3 movement, pathfinding. Requires Colosseum.
-New Barbarian unit : Spellserkers. 4 Figures, 3 HP, 3 Armor, 3 attack, 5 Thrown, 3 movement, Caster 20, pathfinding. Requires Wizard's Guild.

Spellserkers became a mid tier unit, one which is very durable for a magician despite low armor (12 hit points), and can use the first-hitting property of Thrown to kill enemies without putting itself at risk. However, with low melee attack and defense, it's not very effective when the enemy attacks it or is outnumbered.
If this design doesn't work in practice, we can consider increasing requirements, and increasing defense and/or melee attack. We can also consider giving it Missile Immunity, the common trait of Wizard's Guild units.
Both units cost 120.

[Nelphine]

We already know bezerkers are considered too weak to survive. These spellserkers are even weaker than bezerkers, so will still die too fast on offense, and aren't much better than shaman on defense. I'd never use them (of course, I consider bezerkers strictly superior to shamans even on defense; these spellserkers are at least comparable, but they cost more, so I don't consider them good enough.)

The gladiators might be ok, but may still cost too much to actually be usable.

Recall even a big barbarian city only has ~40 production.

[zitro1987]

I generally like the distribution of stats, but they are overall low as proposed, would make ok units in non-military races, but barbarian needs a bit more here.

Gladiators. 3 Figures, 6 HP, 6 Armor, 5 attack, 5 Thrown, Large Shield, 3 movement, pathfinding. Requires Colosseum.
*I see the theme here, but unit is mediocre for a military race for 120 cost, mostly due to very lacking attack power
*With +2 to hit, it would be comparable to any other race's +1 to hit unit due to lack of magic weapons. Minotaur for example would have +3
*To play it safe, we can start with 6 attack, 6 thrown for now.


Proposed: 3 Figures, 6 HP, 6 Armor, 6 attack, 6 Thrown, +2 to hit, Large Shield, 3 (4 would be better) movement, pathfinding.

New Barbarian unit : Spellserkers. 4 Figures, 3 HP, 3 Armor, 3 attack, 5 Thrown, 3 movement, Caster 20, pathfinding. Requires Wizard's Guild.
*I like the theme, but again quite mediocre for a military race.
*I was hoping for base hp to be 4 (thus 16) at the very least.
*If the 'to hit' is +1, the attack rating is quite low as well.
*I was hoping hand-to-hand, this unit fights roughly as well as a lizardmen halberdier (but double cost for this unit for the +1 move and caster)

Proposed: 4 Figures, 4 HP, 3 Armor, 5 attack, 5 Thrown, +1 to hit, 3 movement, Caster 20, pathfinding.

[Nelphine]

I missed the lack of +to hit on the gladiators. Yes, I agree that they should get at least +1 to match bezerkers. (And all units need to be discussed pending magic weapons discussion.)

[Seravy]

I forgot to list the + To Hit but the units do have it. (+2 on gladiators, +1 on spellserkers)

I agree Spellserker stats are too low, I was overly cautious there. Probably should have 4 hp, at least 4 armor and missile immunity. Attack power is probably fine as is, while melee is low, thrown damage output is the highest among all units considering figure count, even berserkers (who have more figures but only 3 thrown). That limits the potential when the unit is outnumbered, but should still be very effective if a reasonable quantity is used - rememeber, these can cast Healing or Flame Blade on themselves, as needed, as well as Web or other unit curses.

For the other changes, I decided to try this first :

-All Barbarian basic units now have +1 to Hit to compensate for having no Alchemist Guild.
-Alchemy has no effect on Barbarian cities.
-Barbarian cities can now build Magic Markets and Wizard's Guilds.

[Nelphine]

As a note, if bezerkers keep only +1 to hit, I can imagine Barbarian players simply never building a fighters guild - it costs more than the Colosseum, and unlike both Colosseum and wizards guild it has no economic benefit. The bezerkers have much worse survivability than the new units, so until you can get enough magic to overcome that, the new units are simply better.

I'm not sure that's the direction you wanted, thus the comment.!
Bezerkers would end up a late game life warlord unit.

[Seravy]

Berserkers are pretty much unplayable outside Life strategies anyway. However, the new units deal significantly less damage - only 3 figures but attack strength per figure is roughly same as a Berserker. I think berserkers will still be more effective at fighting late uncommon or better fantastic creatures, where the damage output is necessary, and having a bit of armor won't make a real difference - so most nodes and lairs, and occasional, more powerful AI stacks.

I'm unsure if I want them at +1 or +2 To Hit but based on your 80%+ Lunatic win rate, +2 might be excessive, thus I want to see how +1 works first.

[Nelphine]

Fair enough.

[Seravy]

Uploaded that previous test game, it's not that relevant now but anyway : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF3M7yfu...e=youtu.be

I'll start a new one using the same strategy and see how the changes improved it.