Random Musings

[MrBiscuits]

I meant "every other unit that has a gaze attack" as Chaos Spaw has "multigaze" which is very special (it has 3 components)


A Gorgon would raise it's Gaze attack strength from zero to 3 meaning it becomes capable of dealing damage in addition to the "resist or die" effect with that gaze attack (albeit, at 3 strength that damage is not really worth anything).

Ah I see thanks for the explanation.

A doom value of 7 is pretty deadly as well for chaos spawns. I love how focus magic works with the other game rules to create many new interesting combinations.

Edit: Am I the only one who thinks high elves and halflings are underpowered?

High elves grow incredibly slowly putting you a long way behind at the crucial early stage and halfings don't seem to be able to kill anything with their units at all.

Also Berserkers seem so much superior to other top tier units. I don't understand what makes them so effective, is it the thrown weapons?

[Domon]

halfling slinger are absolutely deadly when buffed and even swordsmen can hold their own. as long as you have buffs halflings are pretty decent

elves are a late-game race in a game that need early game strategies for higher difficulties, so, yes, a little bit UP maybe.

yes, berserkers are deadly due to their amazing throw attack: not only throw works as additional attack rating, but it's applied before the melee phase, reducing the damage berserkers are gonna take.

[MrBiscuits]

halfling slinger are absolutely deadly when buffed and even swordsmen can hold their own. as long as you have buffs halflings are pretty decent

elves are a late-game race in a game that need early game strategies for higher difficulties, so, yes, a little bit UP maybe.

yes, berserkers are deadly due to their amazing throw attack: not only throw works as additional attack rating, but it's applied before the melee phase, reducing the damage berserkers are gonna take.

Faster growing races get more production and more money which can be converted into anything you need. High elves have ok final units but not really amazing. Certainly nothing as good as berserkers which are available earlier anyway. Maybe one power per population would make them a bit more attractive?

Yes halfing slingers buffed are amazing I agree, so I suppose life is mandatory to play them.

[Settemio]

Yes halfing slingers buffed are amazing I agree, so I suppose life is mandatory to play them.

I imagine Chaos could also make pretty good use of them. I wouldn't say Life is mandatory, it just helps a lot with that strategy, as well as improving some of Halflings' other weaknesses (Altar of Battle, Just Cause) and I think Life is just generally the strongest realm.

[Seravy]

High Elves are good, I play them a lot.
They grow slowly but you get free power for their people which no other race can do.
Also, their longbowmen are pretty powerful units, and come very early - you can effectively rely on them to keep yourself in the game while you wait for your cities to grow. In fact, they are almost as good at getting you free treasure as Sprites. (of course, some summons never hurt in addition - especially if an enemy has guardian wind.)
Later, they have Pegasai which are amazing (flying ranged normal unit on arcanus, the only one!) and Elven Lords which are slightly weaker than Paladins but almost as good.

If there is a race I would worry about, it's High Men - growth is not slow but the extra unrest means poor economy and they don't have any early unit either - you absolutely need to rely on spells for a very long part of the game because you'll have nothing strong until you build magicians or paladin otherwise. (their Pikemen are very powerful if buffed though, so Life works well with them if you don't want to rely on summoning.)


Berserkers, well, 6 figures are a lot, many other top units only have 4. Berserkers also have a +1 To hit, so they hit as hard as a unit with magical weapons - but without needing to build the alchemist guild. If you also have Alchemy, they hit as hard as if they had magical weapons twice (think of getting a free "Holy weapon" on each of them).
And of course, this bonus applies to both their attacks, which makes them even more deadly, so yes, it's also the "thrown" which is a lot of extra damage.
Then there is the cost - berserkers are one of the cheapest top units to produce.

Halflings are weak unless you buff them but amazing if you do - so you either need to play a buff strategy with them, or rely on the "conquer others" strategy, which they are excellent at - no racial unrest, extra food to feed your nonhalfling armies, and even boosted research to put you ahead and give you superior spells to help win battle.
Albeit, "weak" is not entirely true - their magicians and slingers are fairly powerful, just vulnerable to direct damage and invisibility, so I wouldn't use them as a military race without Life magic.

[Nelphine]

Ah for the good ol' days of halfling spearmen wiping everything out.

On a serious note, there are issues with early vs late game. We're trying to come up with resolutions, but balance is very delicate. And plsystyle matters too - giving high elves 3 power per population (let alone the suggested 1) wouldn't mean anything for my plwystyle because I go very node heavy. 1 power would also be as good as dark elves late game, which I think is against what we want.

[MrBiscuits]

High Elves are good, I play them a lot.
They grow slowly but you get free power for their people which no other race can do.
Also, their longbowmen are pretty powerful units, and come very early - you can effectively rely on them to keep yourself in the game while you wait for your cities to grow. In fact, they are almost as good at getting you free treasure as Sprites. (of course, some summons never hurt in addition - especially if an enemy has guardian wind.)
Later, they have Pegasai which are amazing (flying ranged normal unit on arcanus, the only one!) and Elven Lords which are slightly weaker than Paladins but almost as good.

But doesn't the lack of production and money throughout the game cause you to be a long way behind? Also curses and spells like Doomsday mean that if they lose population they take ages to recover.

If there is a race I would worry about, it's High Men - growth is not slow but the extra unrest means poor economy and they don't have any early unit either - you absolutely need to rely on spells for a very long part of the game because you'll have nothing strong until you build magicians or paladin otherwise. (their Pikemen are very powerful if buffed though, so Life works well with them if you don't want to rely on summoning.)

Maybe give them a bit of a bonus....higher growth rate perhaps? Or give their troops another figure.

Berserkers, well, 6 figures are a lot, many other top units only have 4. Berserkers also have a +1 To hit, so they hit as hard as a unit with magical weapons - but without needing to build the alchemist guild. If you also have Alchemy, they hit as hard as if they had magical weapons twice (think of getting a free "Holy weapon" on each of them).
And of course, this bonus applies to both their attacks, which makes them even more deadly, so yes, it's also the "thrown" which is a lot of extra damage. 
Then there is the cost - berserkers are one of the cheapest top units to produce.

They are just so early, powerful and cheap compared to any other top unit. They can take out the most difficult lairs/nodes and can even hit flying units. They seem overpowered to me.

By the way, when a unit is not flying but has an attack that can hit flying units eg. thrown, does all of their attack work against the enemy or just the thrown part?

Halflings are weak unless you buff them but amazing if you do - so you either need to play a buff strategy with them, or rely on the "conquer others" strategy, which they are excellent at - no racial unrest, extra food to feed your nonhalfling armies, and even boosted research to put you ahead and give you superior spells to help win battle.
Albeit, "weak" is not entirely true - their magicians and slingers are fairly powerful, just vulnerable to direct damage and invisibility, so I wouldn't use them as a military race without Life magic.

Fair enough. I'll have to try that sorcery omniscient halfing game I mentioned. 

On another note I noticed a couple of things in my previous game. Cities that have their max population reduced by corruption can still have a higher population than the new number if they had it before the corruption happened. I'm not sure if this is a bug or not.

Doomsday is so annoying, two wizards cast it at once so most of the map is covered in corruption. I've got around 40 shamans purifying but they can't keep up even around 1 or 2 cities. It would be nice if the rate or corruption reduces the more of the map that is covered. 

I'm not a massive fan of negative spells and curses in general though as I find they create a lot of micromanagement. 

In my current game Sss'ra has flame strike and wave of despair so depending on how many units are in the battle they get obliterated by one or the other. I've no idea how I can combat this and he seems to have endless mana to cast one of them twice each battle.

[Seravy]

By the way, when a unit is not flying but has an attack that can hit flying units eg. thrown, does all of their attack work against the enemy or just the thrown part?

All of it.

I'm not sure if this is a bug or not.

Not a bug. Unless your actual food drops into negative in the city, existing people will not be lost.
Cities are able to produce more food than the amount needed for max population, otherwise players would have no extra to feed units.

flame strike and wave of despair

That's a really powerful combo. You can try one of the following :
-Use 9 units that have Fire Immunity, or at least Elemental Armor and high shields so Flame Strike doesn't do much damage to them even if used repeatedly.
-Use a few (4 or less) units that are all immune to Cold so Wave of Despair doesn't work on them.
-Use disposable troops - spearmen, common summons, etc and kill enemies with combat spells.
-Use an invincible hero (Inner Fire plus as much defense and To Def as you can get)
-Use armies of 9 and counter the Flame Strike with Mass Healing
-Use strong armies of 9 Regenerating units so losses from Flame Strike aren't permanent
-Use Golems or spam Magic Immunity on your strongest units

[MrBiscuits]

That's a really powerful combo. You can try one of the following :

Thanks for the tips.

-Use 9 units that have Fire Immunity, or at least Elemental Armor and high shields so Flame Strike doesn't do much damage to them even if used repeatedly.
-Use a few (4 or less) units that are all immune to Cold so Wave of Despair doesn't work on them.

I don't really have access to those units or elemental armour unfortunately. Also I'm getting attacked 6-7 times a turn so I'd need a huge number of troops.

-Use disposable troops - spearmen, common summons, etc and kill enemies with combat spells.

I'm also running low on mana and he has zombie mastery so any time I lose a battle then he gets a free army to attack me with again the next turn which means more flame strike/wave of despair and even more zombies.

-Use an invincible hero (Inner Fire plus as much defense and To Def as you can get) 
-Use armies of 9 and counter the Flame Strike with Mass Healing
-Use strong armies of 9 Regenerating units so losses from Flame Strike aren't permanent
-Use Golems or spam Magic Immunity on your strongest units

I don't really have any access to any of these things, he seemed to get those spells really early. 

I think I might have to write this game off as a loss unfortunately. Not enough mana or options to combat those spells every turn. Shame as I was doing quite well, I've got the most production and the largest army, but he has a huge mana production from somewhere (not sure how as he doesn't seem to have many nodes on Myrror and the largest one I found I have control of). I can only really reliably win on extreme with barbarians at the moment.