Races, Units, Buildings

[Seravy]

The AI would still be able to use it to attacking things on sea and at move 4 that's not a bad thing - but it's definitely more of a unit for human players. The AI is already better with Lizardmen than humans so I don't mind.

[Nelphine]

Fair enough. I would say give it a magical ranged attack, around the strength of a galley. Basically, I would make it better at ranged than a galley, but maybe not quite as good as a warship; and not quite as good as the galley at melee. 20 health (or even 25; lizardmen are known for their high hp, so giving it tons of health thematically makes sense.) I'd give it 7 or 8 resistance.

[Seravy]

That still leaves two problems though :
-Stables is far too counterintuitive for a sea monster (Fantastic stables would be better but I want the unit to come faster than that)
-who'll draw the graphics?

...make it three :
-How do you use a sea monster as a transport? A whale maybe but a kraken type thing definitely not. (actually sea monsters have nothing to do with lizards really, it sounds more like a summoned monster)

...maybe if it required the Wizard's Guild that I could see making sense but it's also a too expensive building.

If the transport and the sea monster would be two different units though, then the sea monster could be stronger and come from a more expensive building (I still rather have the Fantastic Stables or the Wizard's Guild for it than the Armorer's). It can't be too strong however, otherwise giving them land movement would quickly turn into a "more op than flying warships" outcome. A sea serpent would be interesting albeit if we want it to be ranged, idk. Not even fire breathing very rare drakes are ranged.

[Nelphine]

That's why I wanted a giant sea turtle. Like a Zaratan. Which is also big enough that it shakes in order to dislodge boulders, so you could give it a rock attack.

I agree about wizards guild working as the prerequisite.

If you want an early one, I'd suggest just give them ship wrights guild and a standard trireme. The idea being they experiment with ships, realize thats lame, and then use powerful incantations to summon a Zaratan to transport troops.

Give it limited ammo (3), decent ranged strength (12-15), high hp (25), high armor (slightly less than dragon turtle), high resistance (8 or 9) to reflect its powerful summoneryness. Give it a decent melee (12 or 14), but its a giant turtle. It's not used to having to fight - it has no natural predators. So it isn't super strong in melee.


As a note about ranged attacks in general: Lots of precedent for the GIANT dragons (drakes) to not spit fire a long way - they breathe it short distance, but in classic mythology, they do everything up close and personal. Thats the great drake/sky drake. Then lots of mythological beings that are much weaker that need to soften things up with ranged attacks - even if they are still huge creatures, that doesn't make them ridiculously great drake level strong.

[Seravy]

Give it limited ammo (3), decent ranged strength (12-15), high hp (25), high armor (slightly less than dragon turtle), high resistance (8 or 9) to reflect its powerful summoneryness.

That's.... so close to a Warship I start to question we need a new unit. (14 ranged, 8 resistance, 25 hp is a Warship - the only thing that does not match is the ammo.)

Maybe we should just let them have the default ships with a catch of different costs or building requirements for them if that's even necessary - ship buildings aren't that expensive (wait, Maritime Guild is expensive, costs 370!).

Nah, if we do ships, I rather have a recolor of the Galley, that comes from probably a Smithy and a Forester's Guild (can't come from ship buildings as that would enable the default ships and we want it to only have the racial as it's strictly superior), but has 4 moves and a stronger ranged attack. Considering the race can't build actual land catapults, maybe it should have an arrow attack to pretend they are javelins. Basically a warship strength ship but at the price of and appearance of a galley.

[muxecoid]

Klackon feels nice at first with ability to put massive tax rate, grow cities fast and bonus production. You can get 100 production city rather early and with little investment. Unfortunately you will realize that in terms of actual node clearing ability 160 hammer beetles are close to 50 hammer longbows. And you do not have much of an endgame.

[teelaurila]

To be fair longbows (with holy weapon and/or flame blade) are probably the most cost-effective node clearers after horsebows (and sprites, draconian bows against landbound melee).
Further, massed beetles don't really need buffs, and can even take on very rares for which longbows need both the buffs.

That said, at higher difficulty you need to use conquered cities, so I wouldn't even think of klackons without Stream of Life. Since klackons overcome one of the main SoL drawbacks in needing it in most cities before/because hiking the tax rate, it could be a strong match. Alchemy is a must. With 5 life for sol, 6 sorcery should give an endgame? It will be weak very early, before beetles are up. For real rush: alchemy, omniscient 8 life 2 death. Ghouls for early, also helping start beetle production. Then you really don't have an endgame but you should be able to rush almost like a dwarf.

[teelaurila]

What happened to lizardmen new unit? Read that again, and thought what if their Wizard Guild's allow magicians? Their +1hp is a strong synergy there, and with move 3 they could act ok as anti-ship - they are also impervious to galley arrows. Their main downside as naval is limited scouting, which most realms can counter by summoning a flyer. Their obvious strongest point is their full amphibious-ness.

[Seravy]

They got a new unit, the move 4 ship. It can carry the other units into battle quickly.

[muxecoid]

What kind of very rare can you kill with stack of beetles, even if 9Vs1?

Yes, alchemy is a perfect fit for klackon, you have lots of spare gold from maxed taxes from turn 1.