Myrran retort

[Nelphine]

The AI problem is based on other problems, but I haven't been able to look through the production tables yet to suggest anything better.

And I'm not saying arnorers guild is a good solution - but, the stats say that's where the unit should be. As long as the stats stay as is, then there is going to be incongruity with that unit.

So I understand why you don't like the solution, but leaving it as fighters guild is still bad for balance; and lowering the stats makes the magic immunity meaningless. Magic immunity SHOULD be an end game unit.

(And 800 gold, even for this race, is not insignificant. It does make a big difference in ability to mass produce golems early.)

[Seravy]

Swapping one bad solution to another is meaningless, especially if it makes other problems worse.
No normal unit is endgame. Only very rare spells qualify for that. Even the most expensive normal unit is only midgame albeit there are levels, obviously a Paladin comes later than a Golem. So you are basically saying no normal unit should have Magic Immunity by this.
Removing Magic Immunity from Golems is a solution but I rather keep it as a last resort one as that makes the game less interesting and reduces unit diversity significantly. I don't think the balance problem is that bad yet, but videos can convince me otherwise, if they beat Lunatic without abusing other known tactics like retort stacking...

[Nelphine]

I'd argue golems are stronger than paladins when used against the AI, primarily due to the AI lacking understanding of magic immunity. (However, I generally find paladins are not terribly dangerous; jackal riders or doom drakes for instance are much scarier).

However, right now golems have two problems. 1) the AI cannot handle magic immunity. 2) the stats are too powerful for a fighters guild unit, regardless of the magic immunity.

Making the unit require an armorer's guild solves problem 2, but it creates the enjoyment problem, 3) that dwarves become limited in units (honestly, I don't understand how you think this us a problem. When was the last time you actually used more than 2 city built units from a given city (when the city had more than 2 options) for anything beyond purification?) and it creates a secondary enjoyment problem 4) that the armorer's guild is required for 2 units.. Much like trolls, orcs, or any other unit that uses fantastic stables.

So, by changing to armorer's guild, we fix problem 2; I personally think this is a bigger problem than both problem 3 and problem 4 combined (even considering that dwarves get buildings faster than other races).

It does not solve problem 1 (although it alleviates it somewhat, by giving ai more time to get uncommons, which is better than nothing).


As another alternative: make golems require alchemists guild and armorer's guild (no mechanicians guild at all), just to seperate them a bit more from steam cannons.

[Seravy]

This is what I'm saying if it hasn't been clear enough :

Building requirements mean nothing to a dwarf wizard. So your (2) is true, but irrelevant.

You have enough gold to buy the armorer's guild if you want to - at worst case you might need to delay your sawmills or other unimportant buildings in new outposts a few turns but you still get the golems at the same time. (well, 1 turn later because you can't build more than 1 thing a turn so an extra armorer's guild takes 1 turn indeed.)

By the time the city you want golems in turns into a hamlet, you can have thousands of gold piled up if you save it for this purpose. Even more so if you also convert mana.

One more thing. Golems are a "solo unit" tactic. You only need to produce 1 of them total to obliterate the entire map, as long as you can keep it undamaged (either through buffs, healing, or attacking the correct type of targets so they can't get hurt). Producing a Golem "army" of 1 unit is cheaper than other, 9-of armies, even if it requires extra buildings.

If Golems become proven to be overpowered (this hasn't actually happened yet!) we can pick one of these solutions :
-remove magic immunity/redesign the unit
-reduce golem armor/stats to match an actual fighter's guild unit
-teach the AI how to deal with it (if possible)
-bring in something new to the game that can deal with the golems or edit existing features for the same purpose

[Nelphine]

I completely disagree with that. 800 gold, even for dwarves, is a real investment. Even doing exactly what you suggest, saving up for it, I did not have enough gold to buy my way to fighters guild on my second city, let alone armorer's guild. And I had both gems and a gold mine on my capital.

On your 4th or 5th city? Yes sure. Not your second. And its only overpowered when you rush it before the AI have uncommons to fight it.

[Seravy]

Second city? But why use expensive golems in the second city when you can build some adamant swordsmen there, beat the crap out of anything nearby (from hell hounds to unicorns and night stalkers, or even enemy cities) and have that gold pay for your buildings?

There is absolutely no need for golems in the second city in my opinion, at least not as first buy. The enemies that early don't NEED such an expensive investment to beat.

[Seravy]

Except...one thing. If you want to fortress spike the enemies with that one lone golem instead of doing anything else, then it might matter. Although honestly I think even for that tactic you're good even if you have to build the AG. I guess it's worth a test though...let me run a quick one (not going to finish, only play up will the golems hitting enemy fortresses and winning (or losing)

[Nelphine]

Yeah, I'm specifically thinking of using 1-6 golems to fortress spike both nyrran AI as early as possible, as that was the impression I had from arnuz about how to overpower the golems.

[Seravy]

Golem testing.

Wizard : Omniscient, Alchemist, Myrran, Tactician. No more retorts because we don't want to overdo the retort stacking tactic. 3 Life (Endurance, Holy Armor) 2 Death (Wraith Form), 1 Chaos, Nature, Sorcery (Sorcery not actually needed, is a wasted pick for this tactic).


Capital building order :
Marketplace
Miner's Guild
Settler
University
Mechanician's Guild
Barracks (yes, I'll have the luxury of this)
Library
Alchemist Guild (I have mithril, again, luxury to prove how meaningless building costs are)
Fighter's Guild
Armorer's Guild + outpost turns into hamlet at the same time
First Golem done on turn 29.
Might as well splurge a little, I buy a Miner's Guild in the second city and push up skill production instead of mana. I can't keep up with buffing golems if I spend money buying them, and any Golem not wraithformed is of no use - they need to go through ocean to reach enemies. MG produces 36 a turn plus the Omniscient bonus so it's well worth this investment.
Golem reaches AI capital but I wait a turn to finish Endurance. I have 31 skill so I could cast Healing twice if I had it...so I'll pretend I picked another Life instead of Sorcery for that if I need it.
...but I don't, the Golem takes zero damage and defeats the wizard. It's too early so they are not returning - I could keep all their settlements with the single golem if I wanted to. It's 1403 May, which means turn 41 - the first turn the AI is allowed to declare war on. My second golem is not buffed yet but already found and stomped an outpost belonging to the other wizard. Since the Miner's Guild, I haven't spent a single gold on buildings or units - I don't need to. I have 3 golems, one for each enemy wizard, and one in my capital just to be safe from a possible naga attack.

1403 November and both wizards are defeated after I finally found the other's capital. This one had better defenders, so my Golem took 2 points of damage on its 20 health. The entire plane is mine.

Now, you might ask, what were the amazing ores on my starting city that allowed it?

well, I had...
1x Mithrl
1x Crysx Crystal
1x Nightshade

and that was it.
If I played it better, I could have won about a full year earlier (no settler, no time wasted on alchemist for mithril, better wizard picks, the spirits actually finding the second wizard before I was ready to attack etc)
While this was Expert difficulty, I would expect this early to work for Lunatic as well.

Conclusions :

Golems are broken as hell, we need to do something ASAP
Armorer's Guilds make no difference - I built it pretending they are required and still won faster than even the most crazy sprites tactic ever allowed.
Dwarves might just be overpowered after all. I mean, if I poured out Hammerhands instead, I would have still won the game albeit a bit slower...and I didn't even have an outstanding amount of ores or anything. Oh and I didn't do any treasure hunting either.

Save file attached :

  SAVE2.GAM (Size: 151.94 KB / Downloads: 0)

[Nelphine]

That sounds about right yes. Except I build ships instead if wraithform.