Races, Units, Buildings

[Littlenog]

Invisible did pretty well against a town full of cannons.

1 stalker took out the entire town.

[Nelphine]

Yes, the human can do that. Unless an AI attacked you with it? I know nightstalker strategic value changed, but I didn't think it would let the ai attack 9 cannons yet.

But yes, invisibility works wonders, when it works at all. You'll note I was talking mostly against neutrals who rarely get invisibility.

That's one of the problems of playing a game of counters. Difficult to teach the AI. So they won't usually send nightstalkers after cannons on purpose.

[Seravy]

Copy of my Lizardmen post in the test games thread :

I believe the race has three-four main design areas it is supposed to be good at.

I. Scouting
The race is amazing at scouting as expected - In 1403 I already know the entire map. Not the lairs though - I decided not to waste time on scouting those as my primary strategy is better against wizards. This scouting allows me to easily eliminate other wizards using early werewolves, and being able to transform them on the destination continent means I effectively have "almost waterwalking" wolves. It also means easy access to neutral cities, and thus other races.

II. Sea dominance
The race...fails at naval dominance, their main "feature" due to what I explained last game. Yes they fight better than ships, but they move slower and cost more to maintain so an actual blockade is too inefficient - Ultimately it costs more to field the "sea garrison" than to put proper units into the cities, as protecting the sea always means a larger circle than the cities themselves and it also costs more than having a specialized army of galley or warships for it.
Hey, even a Floating Island with random ranged troops on it work better at defending your seas, at least that moves 3 tiles a turn! Best bet is probably having like 8-10 stacks of 2 warships though, no transport can slip through that and it's available to half the races.

III. Spreading
The race also fails at spreading which I learned from this game. Not because they can't reach good spots before others, no. It's because ultimately you ask yourself "Do I want a lizardmen city there or the elves my opponent plays?" and you'll want the elves. Being able to build more cities is not an advantage unless those cities are actually at least average in quality, which lizardmen cities definitely aren't - they are bad at research, food and production, and only average in military and power.

IV. Early military
While their units are good in the early game my Arcanus standards, they are nowhere near the quality of excellent units other races offer - horsebowmen, longbowmen cost less, are more resistant and come faster for the same firepower, and the other units are niche targets for buffing or countering some enemy strategies. I fail to see the high strategic strength of halberdiers too - they have 50% more HP and 1 more armor but lose 4 ranged attack strength compared to a Javelineer. So they might be near double on defense but they are only half on offense ratings. However, a race having four main roles is excessive and we have many other "early military" races in the game, so Lizardmen failing at it is acceptable. Naval Domination and settler advantage are long term (mainly midgame, maybe late, but definitely not early) strategies.

I feel a somewhat larger re-design is needed to fix this - not because the race is bad or anything like that, but because they...don't do what they are supposed to. It's the only naval/settler expanding race in the game and it fails to take advantage of it.

We don't need to fix I. as it works as intended.
Not sure what we can do to fix II - we might need to design a new, specialized anti-ship unit that is great at seas but medicore on land. Probably at Fighter's Guild level, or maybe two, one for FG and one for AG or FS.
III. is easy to fix - we need to allow the race to build more stuff. Most likely not every building like dedicated late races, but definitely more than what they have now. Sage's Guild and Forester's Guild perhaps.

I'm worried about making changes like these though - the race had to be nerfed last year due to it being far too dominant under AI use.

[Nelphine]

I disagree about its expansion dominance problem.

Look at my games where I chose lizardmen on myrror and destroyed the ai because I had 6 or 7 times as many cities as them.

Of course you might prefer the other races the AI can build, but if you can get 20 cities pumping out javelineers, and the AI only 5 cities you still win. 

They aren't a long term race but that doesn't mean they're weak.

I'd be fine with those two buildings though.

[Seravy]

6-7 times? How to you defend that?

They are bad at patrolling the seas and Javelieers are really slow to make with the low production rates and bad food production.

Please assume you are NOT playing Life and everything you produce will be used as they come out of the city.

They aren't a long term race but that doesn't mean they're weak.

That kinda is the problem. Naval dominance and settler expansion are mid-late strategies. The settlements won't be productive early and naval dominance is a defensive tactic that merely prevents others from attacking you.

If you say the race is early, despite their core features being midgame, that means something is very wrong.

Anyway, can you direct me to one of your games where you were playing Lizardmen without retort stacking or unit buffing and had success with it (since the population growth nerf)? Preferably Chaos and/or Sorcery so we have no interference from playing a "strong early" realm?

Seriously, what do Lizardmen settlements give you that make it worth building them?
Power? You get some but other races get more and Lizardmen take like twice as long to build your Wizard's Guild.
Amplifying Towers? No, you don't get those, not with 30 hammers produced a turn and without a Bank or Merchant's Guild or roads to pay their maintenance. I mean you get them but 5 years later than other races.
Research? No, none of that.
Food? Forget it.
Gold? Okay, you get some gold but...no roads, merchants or banks so yeah. And growth is roughly average now so no extra from high population either, you only really have the -1 unrest going for you. Also did I say no roads? With the cities being scattered on all the islands and remote continents, even if you have engineers it's not that great.
More Lizardmen units? Not with those production rates - getting the Fighter's, Alchemist and Barracks set up plus the necessary essential basic buildings takes so long by the time they could do that, they are obsolate, the AI has rares.

With +120 growth they were okay for humans - it gave you enough gold and production (and through that, magic power) to at least give you a strong midgame (they never had a good late game and I'm fine with that) but we couldn't have that because it was too good for the AI.

At this point the problem isn't even how good they are - the problem is I, as a player, don't want to take advantage of their special racial benefits. I don't want more lizardmen cities, they are not good enough for that. Conquering the AI's cities is just better (unless they play Barbarians or something like that) so settler speed is wasted.

Likewise, I don't want to try hunting enemy transports when I'm lizardmen - my units are too slow and costly for that.

[teelaurila]

Lizardmen only seem to come to their own with buffing: Holy and flaming weapon for javelineers, endurance and holy armor for turtles. Much more versatile than barbs, and also they can build at least something.

I don't suppose the human will succeed with non-life barbarians much, either.

[Nelphine]

Why would you play an early/mid game race, without using early game realms and retorts? That makes no sense. Don't split your strategies. (This is also the basic fundamental reason why early strategies will ALWAYS be better than late game strategies. Late game require some sort of early game in order to survive to get to the late game. But if you are forced to use early game, then why not maximize your early game? And if you maximize your early game, then you become an early game strategy.)

Other games stop this type of thing by doing things like Starcraft ladder matches - every starting base can be easily defended. So your late game strategy only requires you to go out and defend a small area, and build into an unstoppable force. Early strategies are split into 2: rush attack strategies, designed to overcome even that defense (in this game, I would call that the ultra buffed single swordsmen), or zerg-colony strategies - rush out and get a ton of resources while your opponent turtles. This is what lizardmen are in this game. You have to run around and get a ton of stuff, and then hit the enemy BEFORE they reach late game.

So, no, you can't use chaos/sorcery for this - they are late game realms, and this is a 'grab everything, grow super fast, and then kill them before they get higher tier things' race.


Problem is that in this game, late game strategies require you to get a whole slew of resources as well as surviving. Which you can't do without a strong early game. Its the basic problem that chaos has faced for a long time, and sorcery faced before buffed nagas + water elementals.

So, if you don't use lizardmen with the realms they're good with, then you might want to buff them; but if you do that, then when you use them with the realms they're good with, they will dominate even more than they do already (although they don't compare to dwarves, and they're inferior to barbarians and dark elves.)

[Nelphine]

On naval dominance - honestly, who cares? AI have learned how to do intercontinental. You might get 1 AI (out of 4) per game that actually requires a naval presence. Every other AI only uses naval forces to punish humans who try to use naval transports. So that means the majority of all games, naval dominance will do nothing except let you use transports safely.

Lizardmen IGNORE the sea, because they don't need transports, they don't win the naval fight. This makes them IDEAL for life/chaos who can't reliably ignore transports. Every other race (except draconians) have to plan for something to deal with the AI naval presence, whether via strong ships, or realm magic. Lizardmen just completely ignore the sea and attack land. It is VERY valuable, and worth far more than naval domination.

[Nelphine]

Actually this gets taken even further:

Every race (if you pay any attention to the race military) is better if you use Life/Realm. Its WHY I like Life so much. If you're not going to use Life+, then you should NOT rely on the race military (there are occassional exceptions; bezerkers and steam cannons are both strong enough to work against certain enemies regardless of realm); you should go for the realm to be your early game. In which case, you need to maximize skill as fast as you can, and you pick your race with an eye to doing that.

This means if you are Life+: Pick Barbarian, Nomad, Halfling, Lizardmen, Troll, Dwarf, Draconian, Beastmen
If you are not using Life: Pick High Men, High Elf, Dwarf, Dark Elf, Beastmen, Draconian, Halfling.
Chaos without life can work with Draconian or Nomad (and I think lizardmen, but, I haven't done it in a long while; may require luck with your opponents combat spells), Death can work with Trolls

Note that Klackon and Gnolls and Orcs do not end up on this list at all (and Beastmen are super close; while they are completely viable, the other Myrran races simply are more specialized, and therefore better). There are no realms that are enhanced by picking them. So if you play them, you're doing very niche particular strategies. I'd actually be super interested in seeing every race having at least one economic/production building it cannot build (like high elves can't build colosseums, and draconians can't build mechanician's guilds), except orcs and maybe beastmen. That would give Orcs a role (and Beastmen would be the Myrran Orcs). This would mean high men and dark elves would need to be given a building they can't build. I could see Animist's Guilds being removed from Dark Elves; I'm not sure what to remove from High Men, but I'd like to find something. Maybe Forester's Guild. Klackons and Gnolls are niche races with very particular weaknesses; I don't think they need to be boosted to be 'viable', as they should only be chosen on purpose anyway.

[Seravy]

Lizardmen only seem to come to their own with buffing: Holy and flaming weapon for javelineers, endurance and holy armor for turtles. Much more versatile than barbs, and also they can build at least something.

I don't suppose the human will succeed with non-life barbarians much, either.

Barbarians are designed to be a "one trick pony" where you get an overwhelming strong early unit that begs for buffing - and absolutely nothing else. (Whether this works well or not is something we'll think about when it's the Barbarian's turn for testing but that is the concept.)

Lizardmen aren't, especially because  that makes them redundant with Barbarians and Gnolls - the latter is "the" early military race that can build "some" buildings as well, in fact more than Lizardmen do.

So no, if the game's naval race plays identical to its early military races, but is worse than those at the same thing, that is a problem. Basically, Lizardmen aren't medicore at their units because they are designed to be buffed, but because the units are NOT supposed to be the selling point of the race. Being able to sink enemy ships before they reach you, (or surprise attack enemy cities directly from sea but that's a consequence of controlling the sea by not allowing others to have naval presence), or colonize half the world by getting there first and then grow powerful should be.

Lizardmen IGNORE the sea, because they don't need transports, they don't win the naval fight. This makes them IDEAL for life/chaos who can't reliably ignore transports. Every other race (except draconians) have to plan for something to deal with the AI naval presence, whether via strong ships, or realm magic. Lizardmen just completely ignore the sea and attack land. It is VERY valuable, and worth far more than naval domination.

While not convenient, 90% of the time you can easily build a single ship, move the units to the next continent in a single turn then watch as the ship sinks. And that allows your stack to move 4-5 tiles in one turn while lizardmen would need 3 turns to reach the same target.
If not that, you build/summon intercontinental units yourself. Half the races can build a flying unit in their Fantastic Stables, and almost every realm, even Chaos summons flying creatures.
Maybe it's because I don't rely on normal units much for offense, but I don't really see this as a very useful feature. In fact, it's more of a drawback - instead of being transported on a speed 3-4 ship or having speed 3-5 flight themselves, my lizardmen armies walk at a sluggish speed of 2 and take forever to reach any enemy city.

zerg-colony strategies - rush out and get a ton of resources while your opponent turtles. This is what lizardmen are in this game.

Technically I'd call that a midgame strategy - building up cities isn't that fast in MoM/CoM.
But yes, this is what the race should be doing and it fails at it. Note "ton of resources", well, Lizardmen cities produce way less than most other races in every category of resource.
Does the Zerg race in Starcraft build everything slower than others and do they have a penalty on their food and other resource production? Because that's what lizardmen do, heck, "rush" is crazy to even mention for a race whose fastest unit is speed 2.

I'm 100% convinced Lizardmen are in some sort of design limbo where they have a mix or early and late race elements and this doesn't seem to work well.

Basically, following your examples it has :
-Units that are strong on defense for turtling (Dragon Turtle especially but even Javelineers, being ranged, are good for it) but nothing to build up into so it's not a late race
-Fast settlers and spread but horrible resources from its own cities, so it's not a zerg race
-No units that are strong on offense and only one that's at least medicore at it (Javelineer) and can be good with buffing - but even that unit moves slow and is slow to produce so it's also not a rush race.

So what is it?

Barbarians are clearly a rush race - Berserkers fit the description of being the OP unit that breaks any defense and they move quickly. 
Gnolls also rush - they have the earliest "strong" unit in Wolf Riders.
Orcs are the zerg - quick growth, great economy, supporting lots of medicore units.
Klackons also zerg - bonus production, growth, gold (through -4 unrest) but their units are not that great for offense unless you have lots
Elves are late turtle races - longbowmen (and later pegasai) provide that unbreakable defense, while Elven Lords and magic is what they have to win
High Men are also turtle races - albeit they are not that great at early survival and need your magic to help with that, they do build up to it faster and have strong late units and economy
Halfings are turtles - your units are all ranged which excels at defense, and your late "win the game" feature is your research bonus. However you definitely need many cities for it to actually work for that, which is why they are so hard to play.
Nomads are also a late race - Horsebowmen are great defenders while eventually you get powerhouses like griffons and rangers. They are somewhat less good at being late than others, but better at being early as Horsebowmen and Pikemen are also decent for offense though.


If we want Lizardmen to function as a zerg race, it needs better resources and probably faster moving units. Move 2 units aren't very zergish. The latter would also solve the naval dominance problem, assuming there is one.
...the only problem I see is, whether doing that is safe for the AI or not. (Also coming up with a new unit... will need some good ideas.)