Gnoll continues to be seen as the weakest race due to poor economy and military past stables and should hopefully be boosted a bit prior to game release
I recommend increasing resistance for all their units except wolves by 1 and the jackals by 2 so their magic resistance is just passable/mediocre instead of crippling. Bringing back their bowmen with +2 melee, +1 range may benefit them too
TBH there are many problems with Gnolls, I am honestly shocked the race somehow remained so terrible throughout CoM's history despite others getting a overhaul. A resistance buff to jackals would atleast make them more relevant without requiring Bless or Resist Magic; to be honest, their resistance is so bad that Black Prayer + Possession negates Resist Magic and Bless effectively anyway. But there's also the problem that with an economy as bad as the Gnolls have, they're never going to afford building an Armorer's Guild in time for the Jackal Riders to be effective, unless they captured so much of the enemy's territory earlier that they basically control a significant chunk of Arcanus(I find this rather unlikely).
Gnolls are an early rush race. You either conquer cities with wolf riders, swordsmen, or halberdiers, or you are at a disadvantage. If you did conquer others, you now have access to cities with better economy and units.
The release date is tomorrow so no changes will happen before then.
I think Ruler of heaven is a bit too underwhelm (maybe I underestimate it) when compare to ruler of underworld which is its counterpart (and still not quite catching up with power of dark ritual that death wizard likely to casting them painstakingly in preparation before that. I think in order to make ruler of heaven more potent in equivalent to its counterpart in death, it should also add power generate by sanctify by 1 or 2 per unit too. Alternative could be free sanctify to all units which reach elite exp (but this could be ultimately broken potential when combine with crusade or warlord so should set by number of exp rather than level).
For me personally, the biggest thing about COM2 is the up to 13 opponents. That means that the diplomacy will play a much bigger part, so maybe improvements in this area would be most welcome.
In this line of thought, how about if a player/AI asks for breaking an alliance/wizards pact, the other party can ask for not only gold/spell but for breaking an alliance/wizards pact in return.
Also, if a human asks an AI for the above, the AI has the option to ask for gold/spell as an incentive. Why can't the human player ask for an incentive when the AI asks for a diplomatic breakup?
Some score modifier ideas (we have great initial ones!)
Quicker victory (score modifier 0.7):
-dominion: conquering 1 capital of each ai opponent wins the game (see civ vi)
And -spell of mastery: 1/3 research cost but +50% casting cost
No tree of knowledge (score 0.9?)
Permanent banishment:
-Spell of return does not exist
- wizard tower conquest leads to all ai cities and creatures turn to neutral
-auto lose if your capital is conquered
Permanent banishment (potentially tougher on player)
-spell of return only keeps wizard active for the expected number of turns , they can cast spells and behave aggressively as usual. When turns are up, wizard is gone, when this happens all units and cities become neutral
-still auto lose if your capital is conquered
Quick game
- research costs down 33%
- skill points up 33% (not buildings)
- unit and building costs -20% but buying multiplier 2.5
- pop growth up 10% multiplier
Tactical change
- all units have move +1
- units cannot move and shoot (nor move and cast spells) in same turn
Tower Power
- capital lightning bolts based on power instead of skill
Exhaustion
-range penalty is -25% across the board
-for each next combat, adds additional range penalty equal to cost:combat skill ratio used (max 4X)
-each turn goes back to default, preferably during start of opponent turn
I think now both Mystic Surge and Apocalypse are nerfed so much that I could not recognized it anymore. I think Mystic surge case is quite justify, I may like scary thrill when ai using it but I think now it pretty much where it should. It could either 1 more additional buff or reduce casting cost would be ok.
But what I think not quite justify is is how Apocalypse end up losing more than gain when casting it, and lose advantage is much more severe than in CoM due to now chaos surge stack even more than in previous CoM1 (in my previous game at the peak, there are 7 chaos surge global enchantment on, so risk become too much for gambling, any roll for chaos channel would give powerful weapon to enemy that would seal my fate.) So now spamming apocalypse every times you are in disadvantage is no longer help anymore, flame strike maybe similar spell but its usage is completely different due to firepower is too low, it only good for get rid damaged units as finishing move rather than open move to reduce your disadvantage. I would have to rely more on chain lightning that was not in my spellbook in the first place.
