Test games played

[Seravy]

Hammerhand certainly felt a bit poor on durability but they still killed 3 hydras and an efreet which is not bad. They had adamant, elite and even an angel behind them, but no prayer, and I only lost like, 5 out of the 8 or something.
I have to do more node/lair battles to decide, but more health and slightly less cost reduction is an option we have, and might be the best one, actually.

+2 health for the normal unit cost and racial double production rate would be insane on halberdiers and swordsmen. Thanks to the +1 health and huge resistance, they are already quite above average, even for a Myrran basic unit.

...just checked and the original health of Hammehands was also 4. However, we did raise halberdier and up by 1 so maybe raising hammerhand is still a good idea?

[Catwalk]

I'd say +2 health and +50% cost, no reason to make dwarf units normal cost.

150 hammers for 6 health Hammerhands sounds good. Slow tanks with no skills are not super useful to begin with, they need to be strong to be worth it.

[Nelphine]

I'd probably go 170-190 cost at 6 health.

[Nelphine]

My dwarf game is going.. I dunno. I'm not losing, but I'm not really winning either. I'm pinned by naval units, so I can't get my golems out to fight anything. And 4 or 5 fire elementals kills a golem. So I can't do repeat battles infinitely, i need more golems. (I'm not life, so no healing..) I still haven't got those neutral draconian cities (although no one else has either). And since the first AI to go to war with me wandered all over my home continent.. and is pure chaos.. I'm losing tons of minerals to volcanoes.

[Seravy]

An idea for the Myrran pick cost problem :

"Myrran wizards also get guaranteed spells as though they had one more book of each realm"

Basically, the greatest problem I see with Myrran is, dual realm won't get the guaranteed spells non-Myrrans would. 6+6 for 2 rares would turn Myrran+5+5 for none. 5+5 and 2 retorts for 2 uncommons for Myrran gives none of those either. 5+7 for 1 rare and 3 uncommons is also something Myrran can't do....and guaranteed spells are a critical part of many strategies. For example, with Dwarves, you might want to play Raise Volcano+Transmute to create your own ores...but you can't because it needs 5+5 books and then you have no retorts at all and this strategy isn't powerful enough without one.Similarly in my current game I'm playing Life+Nature on Dry land...but I didn't get Stream of Life, Change Terrain, Gaea's Blessing, the spells I picked the realms for. I also don't have Prayer or Transmute.
(this, btw, also affects the AI - Myrran AI can easily be a non-threat if attacked early because they miss the most important uncommon spells in their realms.)

[Arnuz]

Welcome back Catwalk!

My dwarfes game is doing quite well, but it's master not lunatic. I am definitely trying lunatic next. Golems wtfpwn a lot of stuff. Flyers are a big issue though, especially in nodes and without astrologer which keeps the race at bay. Where are all the sprites and water elementals nodes when you want to find them??? I haven't felt the problem of pop growth, but I've also started on a continent with a lot of mountains and deserts.

IMHO the problem with myrran wizards is the strength of nodes: by the time the human starts cracking them, unless there's a very specific strategy (but that's highly prone to the roll of the nodes), the two arcanus AIs have probably cleared half of them if not all.

Hammerhands: tbh I haven't used them yet, start of 1409: I'm doing a couple stacks of steam tanks to deal with a many c.spawns node ^_^' my conquered troll wizards are yet to be started producing, they'll be for arcanus. I've almost finished an AI with golems (troll mostly Sorc). I am very satisfied on how the golems fared against the troll halberdiers, with a bit of wizard support: holy weapon and armor, some confusion here and there and they're conquering troll cities without losses. Quite early though, so it wasn't like full buffed halberdiers but a mix. With the new cost I would have probably used them more.

For iron/coal: why don't we make iron and coal give equal production bonus but something different as well? I don't know, iron might give a defence or strength bonus? Only normal units clearly.

[Seravy]

I don't know, iron might give a defence or strength bonus? Only normal units clearly.

We have Mithril and Adamant for that.

[Seravy]

Attacked a tower with two Great Drakes using the same army as before (8 adamant hammerhand, 1 angel). Hammerhands attacking the great drake survived with 3 figures remaining, so I don't think the unit lacks durability that much. 3 of them wiped out a great drake without any dying. Obviously when the drake is on the attack they do worse but any smart player would not let the drakes do that. Overall I killed the 2 drakes and 7 gargoyles with only 2 lost hammerhands.

So based on this combat I don't feel the need for more health on hammerhands, but I'll keep playing and pay attention to this.

[Seravy]

Golems - I attacked an enemy city with 8 Elite Golems and an Angel. They took out the magicians and bowmen just fine, but I lost all 8 golems in killing a single draconian halberdier, while the other 3 remained mostly unharmed. I was thinking "hey I'm making these at 50% off, I can afford a few losses", but instead of a few losses, I found they are completely ineffective. Note the defender had walls which I crushed, and had Prayer and Blur, so their halberdiers had pretty good defenses. Golems could barely damage them with their puny 17 attack strength. (these golems don't have adamant btw)
So yea, Golems are easy to counter and work very poorly against the incorrect type of enemy - even some halberdiers can slaughter them if not played correctly.
I tried replaying the battle to see if a different tactic works better - on second try won the battle (note we are still taking about using 8 golems and an angel against some halberdiers, no adamant or mithril, and 2 bowmen, 2 magicians, my army is worth like triple theirs in unit cost alone), but still lost 3 golems, with 2 down to red, 2 to yellow and 1 at green health, but as I was actively risking my Angel in melee, it also went down to red and almost died.

8 shields on a halberdier (even if elite) is very high considering they also have flight AND fire breath. That extra armor on draconians definitely is an overkill.

Also, lack of guaranteed spells is felt very much here : while my enemy got their Prayer, I did not, and I also did not get the "replacement strategy" which I was going for, Stream of Life/Change Terrain to take advantage of desert terrain.
Even more so than lack of balance, it's an enjoyment thing - I feel discouraged from continuing the game because I missed out on everything that was meant to be the core of my strategy. I'm going to play it to the end anyway but it's definitely an issue.

PS : that "better positioning" meant stepping into city tiles to surround enemies, and there was a big price for it - lost 6 out of 9 buildings.

[Nelphine]

I don't think draconian defense is overkill. Its the combination of flight, high defense, and hig h resistance that makes draconians dangerous. As soon as you manage to crack it, draconians are very frail (considering 3 of their neighbors have far more HP, and the other one is ranged) but you have to work at it. Reducing any of the defenses of draconians to me is like saying trolls have too many HP or too much attack.

However, this is part of why I'm suggesting draconians lose the power per population. Draconians ARE very effective combatants - but they need all the pieces of their combat skill or the whole mix just falls apart. Therefore, they should be treated like trolls, and have worse economy.