Test games played

[Nelphine]

Did you know: high men pikemen have higher strategic strength than bezetkers once you get a few buffs going?

Veteran high men magicians with focus magic are easily a rare quality unit (on defense only). Elite+ they're solid rvrn on offense. If they manage to get an extra +1 to hit somehow, they move into very rare level.


High men probably have the best potential units in the game.

[Arnuz]

Yeah from year 1500 :D

[Nelphine]

Still get em faster than actual (non undead) rare summons. But yes I get your point. And it's why I don't try to make them work with my bexerker strategy.

[Seravy]

Cheaper buildings can help with being too slow while making it a decision to prioritize the strong units or the more cost effective buildings. More importantly, it helps the "raze and build high men instead" strategy which is relevant due to unrest but unlike klackons, not very doable here due to slow growth and production.

[Arnuz]

Fact is, the more advanced the difficulty, the higher the issue for slow races. I include dark elves. I don't think they're worth it. That's the reason why I was proposing an "apprentice" with casting 10, using the new possibility.

I'm reaching the point of believing that for balance, all races should work equally quickly.

Giving humans a construction bonus could be a good way, but then shouldn't orcs get it too?

[Seravy]

Well, orcs aren't slow. Sure, their early units don't have any extra stats, but they are cheap to maintain and don't have a resistance penalty so they are playable at least until the high growth enables the hordes or wyverns.
(also when playing Orcs you probably aren't building around your units but around being able to build every building with the best growth that type of race has.)

But might as well look at all races on Arcanus like we did for Myrror

Barbarians - dedicated early race with powerful units and no economy.
Gnoll - Strong early options with slightly below average late game buildings but decent endgame unit. Downside is no counter to flight.
Klackon - Strong growth and economy with pretty good units, but buildings and units are limited and it doesn't work well with other races, so it's a bit of a one-trick pony.
High Elf - Only race that produces mana on Arcanus and has most buildings and pretty good units for both early (longbowmen, +1 hit basic units) and late game but in exchange they grow slowly
Nomads - Similar to elves but instead of power they get a gold bonus and growth is penalized through having no granary. Horsebowmen are amazing early units, so the race performs fairly well in that department.
Halflings - Weak military but best unrest tables, free food and research. Lack of early units here but it's a nonmilitary race meant to produce units in other race's cities (or research strong summons) so that's fine. Basically you either play as pacifist with these or as a summoner. (Or buff slingers)
Orcs - Builds everything, high growth, low maintenance, medicore units. Mostly useful if you rely on magic to be strong and want a robust economy behind you to support it - kinda like klackons but this one works better for conquering and both units and buildings are more versatile.
Lizardmen - Obviously strong in the early game, with medicore late game, similar role as gnolls.
High Men - weak early with no extra growth, increased unrest and having no real benefit even late except for having good units..which might allow for effective conquest but the unrest penalties make that strategy perform poorly as well.

From what I see High Men are the only race with neither an early game unit nor the ability to grow/build fast.

For Dark Elves, Cavalry might be able to take the same role as Horsebowmen on Nomads albeit I haven't tested. If not they they will need a new unit indeed, or just a buff to the ranged attack on the early basic units.

[Kaiku]

Well, I am thoroughly impressed with Demon Lords. The description isn't lying about them being one-man armies. One pretty much single-handedly wiped out a 'many Angel' lair, while my "kickass" hero had to run from them after getting a beating.

Also, Merlin is nearly gone. Iron-skinned Gorgons sometimes cause some issues. He also likes to cast 3-4 Earth Elementals each battle.

Huh, just had a ship make this jump. That's... interesting.

[Nelphine]

Panama canal. And yes, totally permitted.

[zitro1987]

What if high men towns get some kind of an extra production bonus that helps early game?

Maybe something like a fixed +4 base production to each town or to a sawmill?

What if the unrest penalty simply gets dropped?

[Kaiku]

Well, I did find out Death's weakness (I know the first post in the Death thread says so. Shhh...). They have a very had time dealing with strong, buffed units like very rare Nature summons. The usual combat enchantments work great for most of the fights, but reducing 15 resistance to 13 isn't so hot, and most of their combat spells rely on low resistance/armor. The only in-realm solution for this I've found is to brute force your way through with Death Knights and regular Demon Lords attacks.

And I believe that's fine.