5.58 Brainstorming thread

[Seravy]

Flying units blocking entry to the city.

[namad]

wait what? 4 turns of nothing happening at all ends a battle?


also I think that flying is just.... very narrowly, situationally, super duper OP.

One good solution I think is that if players don't want to abuse this mechanic, they don't, if they don't want to be tempted they don't play draconians. As this flying abuse is a core draconian mechanic, and almost basically all they offer.

The ai has no idea how to do any of these tricks so they don't need the balance?

it would be cool if there was a way to make draconians immune to heroism or something weird like that just to discourage life draconian human player wizards without having to nerf either life magic or draconians, as neither is really that OP on it's own. ai life draconians aren't op. human life mages aren't op. human draconian non-life mages aren't op.

etc.

[Settemio]

I had an idea a while back for a change to Alchemy retort, but the retorts thread got locked after it became complaints about Werewolves. Here's the idea: instead of Alchemy giving magical weapons for free, it gives Magic Market all the benefits of Alchemists' Guild (magic weapons, +2 power, access to Nightshade, ores) and costs 2 (or maybe even 3) picks.

I think Alchemy is too strong. It's been the main economy engine that Sapher has used in 90% of their games across the last 10 versions. The fact that it also gives a free boost to military on top of the economic advantage is also significant. I don't know how much slower the Draconian Bowmen would have been without +1 To Hit, but it definitely had some effect. Forcing the human player to build Magic Market to take advantage of that boost would help to slow them down a little bit, while being mostly inconsequential for AI.

As a side bonus, Barbarians could gain access to ores without Uranus' Blessing and for other races even in cases where Alchemists' Guild was already built, it would still provide an extra 2 power.

[zitro1987]

At least 1 race has no access to magic markets. That may make suggestion confusing. Alchemist is one of those retorts worth 1.5 picks too hard to balance and would only be worth 2 is it auo-activates all ores adamantium nightshade etc with 0 requirements other than ore being there

[Seravy]

Alchemy not giving a military bonus would probably delay all strategies by a flat 6-8 turns at most. Which is something but not the game-winning speed we see in Sapher's games.
The problem with Alchemy in his games is that he uses it as a retort stacking multiplier on casting skill, the exact same thing why Archmage and Spellweaver became mutually exclusive. While Alchemy doesn't directly increase SP or casting efficiency, it allows you to spend more on the SP production than normally because you don't need to produce MP ever. I have doubts it's a real issue overall though - it's possible to do the same thing without alchemy, you just need to find enough mana crystals, or accept losing 50% on conversion.
It might be that raising casting skill in the early game is way to effective as a strategy compared to anything else and as alchemy encourages doing that, it makes that more obvious.

[zitro1987]

I disagree that early investment of skill is overpowered. Of course it is overpowered for an alchemist archmage but at the cost of 2 picks

[Seravy]

Any opinions on allowing Thrown/Breath/maybe First Strike to work on the defense? That's a pretty major change, I was expecting more responses to it.

[Sapher]

I understand that it is another buff to the AI, but i dont like how some skills work only if you attack so i am ok in general.

[Seravy]

By the way, allowing thrown/breath/first strike on defense doesn't require it to work under the exact same rules as other counterattacks. We can make special rules, like
-Units can only use these on their first counterattack (= can't use it if the unit already has ? suppression counters), or
-these attacks suffer double the normal suppression penalty
-something else?

Also, obviously, if we make this change we likely should readjust the existing thrown/breath attack strength on units where needed, and possibly adjust which buffs affect them and by how much. And ofc we need to update AI where necessary.

[zitro1987]

I like applying those attacks on defense. It is intuitive and also fair