Myrran retort

[Nelphine]

No space for new abilities (no idea if that ability could be made if there was space.)

[Catwalk]

Suggestion:
Replace Draconian Bowmen with Firespeaker.
Melee 1
Fire breathing 7
Health 1
Shields 3
Figures 6
Requirements: Forester's Guild
Cost: 50
Upkeep: 1

Fire Breath can't be buffed much, so I think the abuse potential is limited. It's basically a slow flying first strike unit. Good against high off / low def melee units, weak against ranged.

[Nelphine]

Levels buff it. That's better than a halberdier. I'd drop that fire breath to 5, and even then you might need to increase to cost 60. Maybe not though. But yeah, breath 5.

[Catwalk]

I think that sounds a bit weak in comparison to halberdiers (1 health, 3 shields), but fine by me.

60 cost and 6 fire breathing?

[Nelphine]

Maybe yeah. I forgot the health that's true.

[Nelphine]

Can we add individual spells as opposed to caster? Give the firebreathers firebolt? Make breath 5, add firebolt, cost 60? I have no idea if that's possible.

[Catwalk]

Also, keep in mind that we're removing a powerful (and abusive) unit from Draconians. They should get something nice in return, as long as it doesn't make halberdiers redundant. Faster access is nice, as is the higher portion of first strike damage. At 5 fire breathing they're strictly inferior to halberdiers, I honestly think 7 is reasonable. I assume strategic combat strength won't be off the charts either, no to hit bonuses for fire breathing.

[Nelphine]

Except per seravy and my analysis, draconians could lose bowmen without gaining anything at all in return, and still be the best race. Anything being added needs to be lore, not powerful.

[Seravy]

I think that unit is kinda missing the point.

All Myrran races have either
-high hp so Fire Breath is inefficient as a "first strike" tactic - the unit will have enough health remaining to retaliate and kill you despite the first striking
or
-lots of ranged units so it won't make it there and dies to arrows.

I would never produce that unit because it seems useless - at least halberdiers have high armor and health so they can survive the inevitable retaliation, spells and ranged attacks better. While I understand the intention is to be equal to halberdiers, for me this unit looks massively inferior. To be able to rival a 2 health 5 shield melee unit at 1 health and 3 shields, it'd need to have crazy offense like 12 fire breath and 5 movement because those stats make it about as durable in melee as a unit of sprites unless they manage to wipe out the entire enemy unit in one hit.

Can we add individual spells as opposed to caster?

Sure, any of the existing spell abilities, which are Fireball, Doom Bolt, Web and Healing. Oh, and Summon Demon. Others, we can't, because they don't exist as an actual ability. (unless we remove one of the above but that's a bad idea.)

Looked at unit data. The bytes used for ability flags are all completely used. I do see one byte that seems to be free (but might just be the upper half of a word value that does not store actual word numbers) but even if we code abilities into that, an ability icon would be problematic. Both displaying one, and even more so, there is no room in the LBX for another. Notice how even "Primal Force" uses a duplicate of "Meld" and "Supernatural" uses "Illusion" due to this.

...on the other hand, caster doesn't need a new icon so if we used this byte to store casting capacity as a number then that might work. Except I have no idea if that byte actually is free or not, it might just look like it is. For example another similar byte that's all zeroes is in use but filled with data on startup, and contains the unit sound. This is something to investigate in the future.

[Catwalk]

Then you and Nelphine should agree on whether my proposed unit is overpowered or underpowered I agree that my proposal is on the weak side, that's intentional.