Races, Units, Buildings

[Arnuz]

Yeah 9 icons are always terrible, often I can't understand how much food the last farmer is giving by clicking the farmer as the icons move closer somewhere between 7 and 9, and I end up counting the icons. Painful, I've been wondering if it wouldn't be better to just put an icon and a number.

I noticed that heroes and troops have icons gathered in groups of 5, placing the icons closer until the fifth. Maybe it's possible to use the same procedure for maintenance?

[Soviet elf]

1. AI and buildings.
I'm not sure which build order is the best, but I always build market first and then usually settlers (then foresters' guild, then more settlers and/or granary, library), new cities in the early game buy sawmills, then build markets, then FGs. If you use gold to rush buy, markets are +4 production (that can be applied to different city), sawmill is +6, FGs are about +3.5 (more for klackons and dwarves, less for halflings), stables and granary are +1.
I noticed in one game, AI usually builds first couple of cities faster than me, but they don't have market in capital and their new towns don't have sawmills for some time (on normal diff-ty), while mine already do. After that AI towns usually build smithy after sawmill - not the wisest decision, in my opinion. Also later (not late game), while almost all AI cities have markets (good), it's normal for AI to have no granaries and foresters' guilds. Some cities have WG, bank and even amplifying tower, but no foresters and no granary (races can build them).

I'm not sure if my advice is the most optimal, but I think AI should build market first in capital before settlers, build a market after sawmill in new cities, and also priority for foresters' guild should be higher, definetily before banks, WG and AT.
...Unless you change effect of markets - personally I dislike it, flat +N per city encourages infinite city spam, equally useful everywhere (in case of markets - too useful, no-brainer) and unrealistic, +% (or per pop) rewards bigger, more developed cities; but that's a different topic.

2. Some in-game racial description suggestions:
- klackons: change "-4 unrest" to "-40% unrest". "-4" sounds like -4 per city, it's -40%.
- nomads: change "can't build food producing buildings, except..." to "can't build granaries".
- lizards: "have +1 health, but -1 resistance" instead of "have extra health".
- high elves: no need for extra sentence about res. Change previous sentence to "They have forester, +1 to hit, +1 resistance and can ..."
- high elves: "grow very slowly" (just like DE and dwarves).
- high men: incorrect that their magicians don't have res penalty - they do have lower res too, if I'm not mistaken. I would change sentence about res to "Most units have -2 resistance. Magicians have 6 figures per unit."

3. Suggestion: allow klackons to build catapults, galleys, warships and corresponding buildings.
Klackons have no ranged units at all - no bowmen, no shamans, no magicians, no catapults, no ranged ships. Their unit list is one of the shortest. They are good at construction, have engineers and universities, but no catapults. Even halflings have catapults. Why not?
On the other hand, I would remove parthenons. Isn't "no religious buildings" a klackon feature?

4. Why do halflings have a research bonus? It doesn't fit them thematically, in my opinion. And I don't see why they need it. Especially now, when you can't change main race by moving fortress. They can build all +research +power buildings anyway.
Instead I would give them animists' guild for +4f farmers.

5. Suggestion: remove +1 def from draconian units, remove airships.
Draconians are probably the best starting race in the game. Flight, flight+ranged combo on basic units like bowmen, extra mana from population, can build almost everything, normal growth (unlike DE and dwarves). My proposal doesn't even change that, I just don't see why they also need +def and airships. May be, they should have -1 def - for exposed wings and lighter bones. And airships - draconians fly because they have wings, I don't see why only draconians can build flying ships and other races can't. If you want flying ships, use spells (flight/CC/wraithform).

6. Suggestion: make alchemists' guild available from the start (no library req-t) and for all races (including barbarians), remove +1 to hit from berserkers.

7. Golems should consume no food (like catapults and ships). It doesn't change much in terms of strategy, more for realism - strange that golems eat food. I would also change name "steam cannon" to just "cannon".

8. I agree that beastmen are the weakest Myrran race, probably. To me they aren't lizards of Myrran, they are orcs of Myrran, but orcs have high population growth too. Trolls and draconians are better and have normal pop growth, it makes sense if beastmen would grow faster. And I would make minotaurs 4 figures (reduce attack and hp, of course) - minotaurs looks like trolls in size. Even war mammoths have 3 figures for some reason, minotaurs should be 4.

[Seravy]

1. Normal difficulty aside where the AI doesn't have the optimal conditions to work, nor does it need to (it's meant to be for beginners afterall), the AI doesn't care much about gold. They don't have to worry about maintenance as much as the human and even with the gold production bonus, it takes them like 15 turns to produce enough to buy an extra settler. ...well, ok that actually is worth it but unfortunately there is more to the AI than economy. It shouldn't be done because
-Later settler means the AI misses their chance to settle the best spots - the player will beat them to it if they don't do marketplace first.
-The gold being able to buy the settler is nice but the AI does not prioritize rush buying settlers. Buying sawmills, military buildings and hiring heroes once available is more important so I don't believe they should do that (except maybe the first two but honestly, if the AI buys their first two settlers from their starting extra gold, that's just unfair, not smart.)


Aside from the Settler vs Marketplace order, Marketplace already has a +20 base priority so it'll be one of the first things the AI builds after a sawmill (the other such building is the Library).
Granaries the AI sets at the same priority but only on Expert and higher.

Forester's Guilds aren't prioritized more than any other food producing building unless it's High Elves where it enables Longbowmen - remember that ultimately the AI builds at random weighted by their personality, unless there is a significant reason to pick a specific building (for example Alchemist Guild for adamantium locations or settlers as needed etc) - we don't want every AI to play the same way, that's boring and predictable.


Marketplaces are flat+X gold because you have to pay maintenance on things in the early game when you can't get anything from a +X% building due to low population. I don't think we want to go back to the "pass 50 turns until capital has population, now I can afford building something, yay" system the vanilla game had.

2. Klackons - Makes sense but then people will think " So out of every 10 rebels they only get 6? That isn't very good". Maybe "40% lower base unrest rate" is better. Nah...that still sounds like it was 40% less as in 60% of what they'd otherwise get, not 40% less as in 0% when taxes would say 40%.
Nomads - makes sense, changed.
Lizardmen - Changed health. No race lists racial resistance except those where it's very significant so either we add it everywhere or leave this one alone as well.
High elf - oh, they had the resistance listed? ok maybe I'll add it to lizardmen then. I wonder if any other race has nonstandard resistance which isn't listed, probably several...
I believe their growth rate is faster than Dwarf and Dark Elf, unless I'm outdated in my memory. We changed growth so many times...huh Dark Elves are the faster one now, but Dwarves are still very slow. Removing "very" from Dark Elf then.
Removed the "doesn't apply to more advanced" from High Men. Paladins cannot be compared to other races anyway and others do have the penalty (tho not entirely sure it includes Priests)


3. Klackons don't get a ranged unit, that's intentional. I don't remember why I allowed them the Parthenon, maybe because they'd suck too much at magic without one. Or maybe because Builder's Hall unlocking only one thing while other races get 5 is silly.
4. Because the race sucks otherwise. They can't produce good units except for the ultra-vulnerable and useless without buffing Slingers, and the decent but slow to get Magicians. Their racial extras are :

Lucky - this is worthless if your troops otherwise aren't good. A lucky regular swordsmen is still not worth as much half of an orc halberdier. This at best makes up for not having Barracks.
Extra food - still useful but the mod is less strict about food so it's far less relevant than in the original game
Low interracial unrest - good but that means you prioritize conquest over building Halfling cities so it's only encouraging you not to play Halflings aside from your capital.

The research gives the player a reason to build additional Halfling cities, which they normally wouldn't want unless playing a super-buffed-sligers strategy (heck, even then you only need one city to make them). It also makes the race playable for the AI - due to their weak troops, if the AI wizard does not get strong spells, they are a pushover and research helps with that - slingers mixed with Great Drakes makes a difference :D

It's a necessity, the race is below bottom tier without it. (unless playing heavy buffs)

5. Dragons are known to be hard to damage. But I agree the race might be too powerful as is. I'll add this to my "to-do" list but I'll want to play at least a few games using the race to decide. They have the Air Ships because you might hire or summon non-flying units and will want to move them together with your armies without losing the flying movement. I definitely want to keep Air Ships as a unit and I don't think I could name a different race where they are more suitable.

6. Why? Library is cheap. This makes minimal difference. For barbarians, I believe this was discussed before but I don't remember the details anymore. If we haven't changed it then, we probably shouldn't now, unless someone remembers better?

7. Can't do this one. Golems are a Dwarven unit and Dwarven units eat food unlike ships which are of the "mechanical" race. If I swapped Golem to be mechanical, every race could build it.

8. Minotaurs with more figures would be a weaker unit. Higher attack from fewer figure units can overcome shields more effectively and as figures are lost slower, the unit stays at their peak efficiency longer. Beastmen have the most versatility in their units which is a valuable asset. I admit I haven't had much chance to play a Myrran wizard lately though.

[zitro1987]

6. Why? Library is cheap. This makes minimal difference. For barbarians, I believe this was discussed before but I don't remember the details anymore. If we haven't changed it then, we probably shouldn't now, unless someone remembers better?

I think it was discussed in the past that Barbarian relies too heavily on magic weapons for strategic combat and just combat. You can tell that pretty much everyone here plays barbarian with alchemy retort. That is unbalanced.

So on that sense, weakening barbarian units in strength (swordsmen/cavalry at 1 thrown) and berserkers losing their to hit bonus (maybe giving +1 melee to compensate), but alchemist being buildable while library isn't. Sounds pretty balanced to me.


Draconians: to balance these, I'd rather have you lower the number of bowmen shots to 6 or even 5 and/or increase their cost. Early availability of 8-shot flying bowmen, especially with something like mithril is 'sprites against lairs on steroids'

Beastmen: all they might need is normal or slightly above average outpost growth

[Seravy]

Barbarians :
Read older posts and I think these were the most important statements
-Picking Alchemy with Barbarians is good because it rewards players who know the game
-Berserkers themselves are not overpowered, only their strategic combat rating misleading the AI into being afraid of them
-Barbarian basic units don't need 3 moves, especially the bowmen (already implemented)


Now, if Barbarians can get their magic weapons from the Alchemist Guild, that "rewarding the player for knowing" feature will be gone.
It is also a direct nerf to the race as a whole because the race IS the Berserker unit, they have nothing else that really matter. If they lose their To Hit bonus, they'll be weaker and by a significant amount .

And finally, what I can add to this : If there are no races in the game that can't build an Alchemist's Guild then Weapon Immunity becomes even less relevant - and that's a problem because it's a fairly frequent and supposedly important early game ability. Gnolls gaining Alchemist's Guild was already a major blow on that. Yes the AI and neutrals might still produce units that don't have magic weapons occasionally, but when was the last time a human player built important armies without them? The +1 To Hit is far too relevant to not build it if it's available - at least I always do it unless I need garrisoning units in an emergency.


...and while it's tempting to say "maybe if Magic Weapons didn't have +1 To Hit Alchemist Guilds were more of a choice" that would totally break the game balance as every current unit stat assumes it does so.

[Nelphine]

Also as a note, for my play, I take alchemy for the gold to mama conversion. +1 to hit is icing, and having to build something in one turn to get it instead wouldn't change almost anything about my gameplay.

[Arnuz]

Speaking of weapon immunity, the ability's description doesn't list magic weapons. What if the mistake was not in the description but in the ability implementation? I'd really love it if weapon immunity needed at least mithril to be overcome. It'd finally make me consider ever creating werewolves. I probably still wouldn't, but I would at least consider them...

Vouching again for beastmen, their racial bonus sucks given their units, and no growth advantage is really sad. Remove the +strength and give them double growth.

[Arnuz]

Minor issue: smithies list warships even for races that can't reach the warship, gnolls elves nomads and halflings, and there are similar cases on other buildings but I don't recall them now ;(

[Seravy]

Minor issue: smithies list warships even for races that can't reach the warship, gnolls elves nomads and halflings, and there are similar cases on other buildings but I don't recall them now ;(

Well, yeah, there is no check to see if the other requirement can or cannot be built by the race because the old code assumed it's already built. It has to be added.

[Seravy]

Uh, Maritime Guilds need sea. I can't fix this by checking required buildings.
However, it is limited to the Warship only - the other 3 "generic" units don't need more than one building.

So I can remove Smithy from the Warship's requirements. (Why is it even there? Maritime Guild requires it anyway, it's redundant...)

Problem : if a unit requires a building the race CAN build but the terrain doesn't allow for it, the unit will be listed anyway. I can't fix that.

So we need to decide if we want this feature anyway, or roll back and not display units unless the other required building is already built.