Werewolves

[Bahgtru]

Werewolves lairs early are really not easy though. And with the removal of death immunity, resistance should go up to avoid the poison beeing too effective. Come on, how cool would undead werewolves be?? Just make it more difficult to achieve for balance: more resistance.

I like this option:
+resistance (8 or 9)
-immunities
-special materials - that makes no sense whatsoever
I don't remember if they have weapon immunity.. They should have it definitely.

They could perhaps keep the illusions immunity to represent the rage?

[Seravy]

You can already have undead werewolves by casting the Bllod Lust spell on them. You just can't get them by raising them from the enemy.

Higher resistance is not an option. Almost all existing intended counters to werewolves use resistance (Exorcise, Cockatrice, Holy Word, Petrify), we specifically lowered it for that purpose.

My current thoughts :

Regeneration 0 - The best option we have, it cuts the total efficiency to half in abuse/benny hill situations while having minimal impact otherwise and doesn't interfere with strategic strength. Overall, it hits using fewer wolves for faster expansion most and larger stacks almost not at all.

Less HP - Makes sense but probably overkill if we do the regeneration nerf. Reducing Regen from 1 to 0 is effectively a 25 HP reduction for the entire battle while this is only 5.

Which makes me think maybe Regeneration needs more tweaking. Adding HP in increments of 25 is not very good. If it applied every second turn, it would be only 12 HP for each Regen amount.

Armor 2 - A more significant nerf that makes a heavily outnumbered wolf take like 5 more damage a turn. Equivalent to HP nerf if using many wolves in the battle, but much more significant if only using a few. Since the problem is using too few, this seems better than reducing HP.

No Poison Immunity - Probably can't avoid doing this one and if we remove it from undead, it makes no sense to keep it on wolves anyway. A fairly significant nerf that makes Nagas and Spiders relevant.

No Death Immunity - Due to the undead damage preventing regeneration, we shouldn't do this.

No Illusion Immunity - Confusion also prevents regeneration so shouldn't do it either.

No Mithril/Adamantium - Unsure, I do like being able to use these, but it doesn't make much sense and makes balancing the unit harder. However the synergy of 5 Nature 5 Death with Transmute would be sad to lose.

No Magic Weapons - They should probably keep it to require the alchemist guild or Alchemy - although that makes the spell less AI friendly as they will likely target units without. If we remove it, they should probably get the lost +1 to hit back as a default stat, although 6 attack with +2 to hit might be excessive for a cheap uncommon creature.

[jhsidi]

Finding / capturing / creating mithril and adamantium for use in werewolves is a fairly complex and niche strategy -- it takes planning and it's fun to see that planning succeed. Even if Adamantium werewolves are bit overpowered, it seems like a loss to remove niche strategies.

[Bahgtru]

Finding / capturing / creating mithril and adamantium for use in werewolves is a fairly complex and niche strategy -- it takes planning and it's fun to see that planning succeed. Even if Adamantium werewolves are bit overpowered, it seems like a loss to remove niche strategies.

It makes absolutely no sense - werewolves don't use weapons ffs - and AIs don't seem to be using it very well.

You can already have undead werewolves by casting the Bllod Lust spell on them.

I didn't know. I wouldn't ever consider casting it on death immune critters. This is nonsense.

Higher resistance is not an option. Almost all existing intended counters to werewolves use resistance (Exorcise, Cockatrice, Holy Word, Petrify), we specifically lowered it for that purpose.

Yes sure, but the point is to create more counters (by removing the immunities) and reduce the effectiveness of the "existing intended counters" (by raising the resistance to standard common/uncommon levels) for balance. All while keeping the usual werewolves fantasy characteristics: brute strength, with various weaknesses.

No Death Immunity - Due to the undead damage preventing regeneration, we shouldn't do this.

No Illusion Immunity - Confusion also prevents regeneration so shouldn't do it either.

And they should be different from any other regenerating creature why?

They are alive. They're the one alive creature in the death realm, and that's fine to treat them as such. Remove death immunity, and if the situation requires it (fighting a blue?) then you give good players the opportunity to buff again their werewolves with bloodlust, enriching gameplay. It's perfect. It's also probably something that the AI can achieve, and I'd sure be scared shitless if playing monoblue I saw AIs send bloodlusted werewolves after me.

No Mithril/Adamantium - Unsure, I do like being able to use these, but it doesn't make much sense and makes balancing the unit harder. However the synergy of 5 Nature 5 Death with Transmute would be sad to lose.

There's no synergy there: newbie trap. If you can waste that kind of mana to have the future option of slightly better cheap uncommons, then you have already won. The same skill/mana can create several more werewolves. If the situation makes it relevant then it's better to have the werewolves now, if the situation doesn't, and you have the time to do adamantium ones, then you've already won.

Magic Weapons - auto +1 (like magic weapons) sounds perfect - they can hit weapon immune targets in many cases of fantasy lore. +2 seems way OP for me, agreed.

Armor & HPs - agreed on less armor

[Seravy]

Remove death immunity, and if the situation requires it (fighting a blue?) then you give good players the opportunity to buff again their werewolves with bloodlust, enriching gameplay. It's perfect.

That's a valid point. Blood Lust is underused anyway.

There's no synergy there: newbie trap.

Okay, considering how much Transmute costs to research, this might be true. By the time you have it, you could have gotten a strong uncommon summon instead, like Shadow Demons, or Werewolves+Blood Lust+one more uncommon spell.

[Seravy]

Okay, so for the next version, I'll be playing my test game with these included :

-Regeneration 0
-No Poison Immunity
-No Magic/Mithril/Adamantium (not sure if +1 or +2 to hit? +2 would be equivalent to current assuming Alchemy. Since we didn't want to nerf the attack power of the unit yet, likely should do +2.)

Unsure about Death and Illusion immunity. Removing both is likely an overkill. Blood Lust can grant protection from either, so either seems fine. Sorcery already should be much less vulnerable now that Nagas actually are relevant to defeating wolves. Armor isn't high so illusion damage makes minimal difference. So Illusion Immunity only works against Invisibility (not a problem, it's not an early game ability) and Confusion. I'm afraid Confusion would be far too effective - it disables regeneration by default, is common, and can even turn your wolf against your army. If we did that, Sorcery would actually become strong against death instead of fairly balanced or slightly weak. Considering it's a "weak early" realm plus you usually want to fight them early, that's not the best. It makes less sense flavor-wise too.
Removing Death immunity comes with the unfortunately consequence of not regenerating to undead damage, but you'll want to cast Blood Lust on them to counter Black Sleep anyway against any Death wizard. So I think that's better. Ghouls turning neutral werewolves to undead is a legit worry, but you're getting something available anyway if you pick the spell so it shouldn't be a major problem.
However, I believe we should reduce the RP cost of Blood Lust if we really intend it to be used more - at 1280 it's way too expensive to be an option to launch an early attack on a death wizard. Swapping the cost with Drain Power (640) sounds the best option - Drain Power is pretty useless to research early anyway. (and as far as I remember we already agreed Drain Power isn't particularly fun to have in the game anyway so we might even replace it eventually.)

...oh it's already in the 960 slot. Might as well swap it anyway? (we wanted the AI to get it early, too, against Life superbuffed strategies)

[Seravy]

Looks like raising as undead is explicitly disabled for Death realm creatures even if not death immune. I guess I should be removing that for consistency. Also should add an explanation on Create Undead on how undead damage works against various abilities. (there is no room for that on other sources)

[Bahgtru]

I guess illusion immunity has a sense - their bloodlust making them mindless. I like it.

[Seravy]

Okay, we have a problem. Thanks to Sapher for pointing it out, Wolves are now the perfect Life Drain abuse target. They have 4 resistance, they regenerate, exactly the same thing as the Troll spearmen were before we raised their resistance.
So we either need a major Life Drain nerf, or we need to reconsider removing Death Immunity. However removing Death Immunity seems to work quite well so far, I keep worrying about black sleep and cloak of fear even before I start my battles, which also restricts my trade options.

[Nelphine]

I'd be fine with a life drain nerf, given you already thought it might be undervalued for all its different use. 

I'd also be fine with increasing resistance of wolves to 5.