Draconians

[Seravy]

So...while I want to play at least one more game, for now it seems the Draconian race will not need any significant changes or nerfs.

Which leaves the "do we want the new units" question open.

I mean these two :

Draconian Saints (replacing Shaman)
Parthenon+something
stats as priests or better

Draconian Firespeaker (replacing spearmen)
Sage's Guild+Fighter's Guild
Caster 20, higher breath, lower melee than halberdiers

[zitro1987]

I think the firespeaker has less chance of being overpowered as a mid-tier unit with unique concept.

Having a sturdier 'saint/priest' with your army of doom drakes on an airship seems like it could make the race stronger.

[Kaiku]

Can't comment on balance as I've only played them once and I suck, but new unique/diverse units seems like it can't be a bad idea. When done well, of course.

I did find Doom Drakes a bit... bland (and pink). Not good or bad - just, they're not very interesting. Pretty much a bigger and better swordsmen.

[Seravy]

After having played the race, I feel we have quite a lot of problems.

-Units are not strong by myrran standards, but they cost more. This extra cost is unwarranted and comes from the impression of "draconians are overpowered" which doesn't even seem to be true.
-Settlers move at 1/turn. That would be normal, but the thing is, it's worth building a boat and transport them as though they were not flying because that way they arrive 5-10 turns earlier. In other words, the settlers need to gain the lizardmen's "2/turn" ability if we want the flight to be of ANY use on them.
-The bowmen nerf was probably unneccesary - there aren't enough good lairs or apropriate type opponents to take advantage of flying ranged in the first place. And without that advantage, paying 50 for worse than baseline bowmen is just wrong.
-I felt the need for the draconian saints. Shaman don't have the durability to worth producing, even for a "hit and run" tactic. If the race is meant to be the "I'm flying so I can throw spells at you and you can't do a thing" one, it needs a unit durable enough to actually survive enemy common spells. Halberdiers won't really do that well and don't even have ranged attacks to bombard the enemy.
-For the same purpose, firespeaker would have also been nice to have, but losing the spearmen for it, I don't think I like that.

Finally, I feel the lack of low tier lairs and nodes on Myrror hurts a lot. In particular, late game strategies want to avoid conflict with AI but still need resources to build up to their late game. And those resources need to be "additional" ones because the AI has a bonus so they are ahead if the human can't get their hands on some external source of value. Which can only be enemy territory, or treasure. (Or spamming settlers but the AI is also better at that...)
So having close to no easy lairs and nodes at all is a problem.

[Arnuz]

Are you describing draconian issues or generic issues? Think about it...

-Units are not strong by myrran standards, but they cost more. This extra cost is unwarranted and comes from the impression of "draconians are overpowered" which doesn't even seem to be true.

Dark elves: same.

-Settlers move at 1/turn. That would be normal, but the thing is, it's worth building a boat and transport them as though they were not flying because that way they arrive 5-10 turns earlier. In other words, the settlers need to gain the lizardmen's "2/turn" ability if we want the flight to be of ANY use on them.

All races: same. It's always worth it making transports. A fix to the problem as you defined it would be to get rid of flying (they need to carry too much stuff) and making them cheaper...

-The bowmen nerf was probably unneccesary - there aren't enough good lairs or apropriate type opponents to take advantage of flying ranged in the first place. And without that advantage, paying 50 for worse than baseline bowmen is just wrong.

Playing your game, I'll postpone the answer on this one.

-I felt the need for the draconian saints. Shaman don't have the durability to worth producing, even for a "hit and run" tactic. If the race is meant to be the "I'm flying so I can throw spells at you and you can't do a thing" one, it needs a unit durable enough to actually survive enemy common spells. Halberdiers won't really do that well and don't even have ranged attacks to bombard the enemy.
-For the same purpose, firespeaker would have also been nice to have, but losing the spearmen for it, I don't think I like that.

Any magician or shaman or priest that needs to attack barring trolls: same. I don't bother producing them anymore, but one shaman who's only there for following troops and joining stacks after an attack for me. Or if I need to ensure that the AI first shot doesn't go to a more important target.

Finally, I feel the lack of low tier lairs and nodes on Myrror hurts a lot. In particular, late game strategies want to avoid conflict with AI but still need resources to build up to their late game. And those resources need to be "additional" ones because the AI has a bonus so they are ahead if the human can't get their hands on some external source of value. Which can only be enemy territory, or treasure. (Or spamming settlers but the AI is also better at that...)
So having close to no easy lairs and nodes at all is a problem.

On this I kind of agree but I've always found that it balances the myrran better races. Stuff that can grab the stronger nodes early:
- troll magicians
- dwarven golems
- dark elf nightblades, badly, not so early, and on a limited selection (I've used them as worse, more expensive golems that work on hill giants too but argh, the number of them needed lol)
- draconian bowmen on a very limited selection

That's it I think? Beastmen are absolutely shafted in this, as you can notice: centaurs can kind of work but they're no nomad horsebowmen and come much later and at more cost than draconian archers.

So basically, what I'm saying is that with the bowmen nerf draconians seem to have joined what I call the "slave races": those there just for neutral cities when playing a lunatic level strategy. Those races that are too slow to develop and cannot provide a master/lunatic level victory barring other lucky conditions.

So: draconians are joining the elves (both), beastmen (barring life strategic strength shenanigans), humans, orcs, and to a lesser extent halflings.

If minerals were rebalanced to become not front loaded as proposed somewhere else, then dwarves would join this bunch.

Frankly I hope that there can be another way!

[Nelphine]

I want to point out the difference between non buffed, and life buffed city troops is a huge part of the problem. If you reduce lairs any then life buffed troops will slaughter them due to +2 attack, +4 armor, +1 hp, +1 to hit, +1 to defend advantage the life unit has.

Life is also perfect for AI strategic cbat, which means those AI clear lairs far faster than the other AI, which in turn is already faster than the human.

[Seravy]

So will nonlife with their summoned creatures and spells, which Life cannot do. I don't see a problem there, the problem is not having anything to slaughter currently.
In case of AI it certainly favors life more...wait, they can't use prayer in strategic and can't build a doomstack (no flight, no waterwalking and no flying summon at uncommon), no, their advantage is actually cancelled out. Unless playing lizardmen/draconians for doomstack material...then it can be a problem.

[Nelphine]

Except low tier summons virtually always lose to high tier summons. That's how summons are designed. So all strategies that allow for early lair clearing of any nature are Dependant on buffs. But buffs can put city troops into lair clearing level as well. And life has more.

What's more, life buffs on city troops have to be better than common summons, because it costs a lot more mana, plus it costs production. So life buffed city troops are the best thing at the start of the game, and the human can make use of this far more than the AI. Therefore the balance between life buffed units, and everything else is high.

And if you want lair clearing to be possible in games like the one in the test game thread, where you took no buffs and no summons, then the balance for the best start game units will be thrown way off. I don't think you should base any lair clearing decisions on a game with no buffs and no summons.

[Seravy]

Except low tier summons virtually always lose to high tier summons. That's how summons are designed.

So we need more lairs with lower tier summons to let people use their low tier summons. That's the answer we are seeking, right there.

I didn't pick summons of buffs because I'm a COMBATSPELL SPECIALIST WIZARD. CHANNALLER, you know, does that. I send in 10 spearmen, firebolt/lightningbolt/flame strike everything to death and take the treasure. No troops needed. That's the point of playing a chaneller. I suppose I should have taken Hell Hounds but I assumed draconian spearmen and bowmen will do this. I rather use a spearmen for 10 than a hound for 40 if its fate is to die after I run out of MP for that combat and send in the next one to cast more...

But you know, nothing can be done without mana. You can't summon, you can't cast combat spells and you can't even buff. So first, people need to have access to mana. They need a node or lair. One that's weak enough to beat without needing spells or buffs or anything that exceeds the starting 20 skill and power they have.

...and yes after I have been hearing "flying ranged is so OP, remove the unit from the game", I'm obviously going to expect I can use that "OP" unit to hunt for treasure.

I don't think you should base any lair clearing decisions on a game with no buffs and no summons.

So you are effectively saying draconian bowmen are and should be incapable of clearing lairs? Why the hell did everyone want it removed then? Why nerf it even? It's not like they can compete with sprites, even with their original stats...as you say they need to be buffed to even be an equal match...

[Nelphine]

Because of buffs!

Take flameblade instead of shatter or firebolt - watch your bowmen go crazy.

Now add holy weapon. They'll start destroying things.

Now add warlord. Oh cockatrices? Meh, they die before they get to me. Chimera? Well, I probably need to actually back up a few times too.

Adamantium too?

Sky drakes? Ho hum.

Synergy is HUGE in this game.


Channeler does NOT kick in, until you have 100+ combat casting skill. You cannot possibly expect to use combat spells to best lairs with 6+ units in them before then. So the actual UNITS must do something.

Even sprites, for the most important things, needed focus magic. So do ghouls. My bezerkers need buffs. Heck, gorgons need buffs to be true monsters.

The Nerf was because of turn 1 buffs.