Barbarians: Stronger than before. The noticeable benefits are supporting units: +2 rta and pathfinding so that berserkers can move 2 squares. Marauders also seem like great scouts. Overall, it fits the barbarian style of early expansion. Balanced.
Thanks. Barbarians had good uses before. I just felt they needed a little more character. Also High Men, High Elves, and Halflings were just a little too strong by comparison.
Gnolls: Myrran-like quality of regular troops. Fast growth, fast and stronger wolf riders. Similar race to Barbarian, with even more emphasis on conquering cities quickly. No strong unit, but the other towns are for that. Balanced.
Also keep in mind they can put mithril to work. I think it's good the old game balanced races with "lots of buildings" against races with lots of "race bonuses." But gnolls were an example where Microprose just punished them too much. Besides, gnolls are supposed to be bad-asses.. much stronger than humans or even dwarves. Seemed odd Lizardmen had 2 hits per unit, yet gnolls did not.
Halflings: New units are a great idea and good slinger support. That you increased the price of shaman shows how good you are at balancing every little thing. Excellent defenders, bad attackers. more food means more production or/and slingers. I can imagine that a summon-oriented mage would find it useful since they would leave slingers defending and attack with monsters. Balanced.
High Elves: thank you for making pegasai useful!! Very little changes, but it was already a strong race thanks to to-hit bonuses. Balanced.
High Men: balanced.
Didn't feel I needed to do a lot here, other than to make halflings slightly less desirable (higher cost) and make a couple units more attractive (previously the halfling bowmen unit, and pegasi).
Klackons: Missile Immunity and +1 Production are excellent bonuses to my least favorite race. very bad water transport and no archers. Halberdiers seem like good early-units tho the race would be weak if it wasn't for the improved stag beetles. Balanced I think
From my play, this is still the hardest race to play (Orcs, a close second) just because they have no good mid-range unit.. although now klackon mithril halberdiers can be pretty useful! And the extra buildings make them more reasonable long-term. Like gnolls, they were just punished too severely for their racial bonuses (+2 defense, +1 resistance). The added unrest they produce in other cities is still a major drawback (slightly offset by reduced unrest in klackon cities).
Lizardmen: Wow, strong dragon turtles! Javelineers are unchanged but they were already among the best archers. The race is not that great, but great and cheap early units with water-walking gives a good headstart, so : balanced.
Just tweaked turtles because their dragon breath just seemed pathetic relative to what it really should be. A FB15 at elite seemed reasonable when a single chimera has 4.
Nomads: my favorite race, now with better archers and better rangers. maaybe it's a bit stronger than the other races due to the cheaper fantastic stables, but not to the extent to call it unbalanced.
Boosted rangers to make them a little more comparable to paladins. I think Nomads are one of the better races, but I don't think overly so. They still grow slow and horsebowmen have been taken down a notch.
Orcs: such a crappy race, now it's on par with the others. faster growth and +1 attack help, cavalry didn't have first strike originally? Still crappy until you finally get your tremendous wyverns, but they are not great all-around due to poison-reliance. Balanced
Racial bonuses added to make the race more in line with what its "supposed" to be. Orcs are a lot tougher than humans. Still, one of the hardest races to play for the reasons you mention.
draconians: Nice mages. non-mage units are pretty weak tho since airships have 4 rocks (but higher melee), and Doom Drakes seem to be equally vurnerable. Maybe improve those two units a bit since the mage units move by one. Not-so-balanced (IMO) unless you like to take advantage of the AI and leave flying units as defense and press done forever.
Yeah, flight (which can be heavily exploited by a good player) was the major reason why they appear weaker than some races. Also, a race that can churn out doom drakes with just a stable probably doesn't need that much help.
Dwarves: Swordmans are still decent no-upkeep units. Steam Cannon being cheaper helps. Golem, well I discussed that already. Balanced if the golem costs a bit more and has a bit less melee. +1 gold/production is a great bonus.
I'll take golems down to 18, cost 240. Seems reasonable. I still think they are balanced at 20, 200 though, when you compare them to hammerhands who are just awesome.
Trolls: Similar, late-units more balanced. War Mammoths are now incredibly strong, but if it weren't, trolls wouldn't be that great. Balanced.
Again, like dwarves, mid-range units for trolls are great and so it didn't make a lot of sense to go for higher units. Now War Mammoths are at least on par with Minotaurs and War Trolls -- they are ferocious in battle even with no enhancements.
Heroes: seems too complicated to read/review. There seems to be changes around Shuri to make her more normal and Torin.
Yeah Shuri was just ridiculously useful in the 1.31 game. Made her more fragile, but still one of the best.
Magic:
White: I don't understand the high upkeep of guardian spirits (3): they aren't great fighters, same for the unicorn, tho Angel/Archangel are on par with summons from other magic. I notice higher upkeeps on city enchantments which make sense, part from maybe heavenly light which I don't find too useful. Lionheart upkeep maybe could be (5-6), true sight seems too expensive as well. I like the higher cost of prayer and that invurnerability can only be cast in combat. Overall, pretty good and makes Life magic a bit more normal, but I feel a couple of upkeeps might be too high. Maybe make high prayer cost 70 mana instead?
Guardian spirit is upkeep 2, comparable with war bears, etc. 3 mana must be a typo. Life is so incredibly powerful the costs were just upped to compensate. Life also makes the AI "like" you more (in general), which is a huge benefit in and of itself.
Death: let me understand contagion, does it automatically kill any 4-8 figure unit with 2 or less hp? even warlocks? If so, maybe it could cost 35-40, due to death not being so much of a direct-damage type of magic.
Yes, anything that has less than 3 hp per figure is wiped out. So in a sense the spell does 2 to 16 points of automatic damage, depending on the target. When you compare it to something like Doombolt, which you get more quickly and costs 40, contagion seems reasonable. Maybe 35 mana... maybe.
Chill Touch and Spectral Force are excellent spell ideas. I like that you got rid of some useless spells. Cloud of Shadow with 1 upkeep is a great idea. Cheaper darkness/terror balances things out. Summoning zombies is a great idea, Demons too, but I feel they should be rare, due to their weapon-immunity being too much of an advantage early on. I keep reading, this is all spot on. Creature-wise, Cheaper ghouls was a good idea, no upkeep skeletons is pretty awesome and would change the way we play.
Thanks. Zombies is pretty powerful, but costs 25 mana. To put it in perspective, a single zombie can sometimes wipe out 3-4 normal defenders. Two phantom warrior spells typically take out 2, and a Fire Elemental 2-4. So it's a very good spell.
Shadow Demons maybe could cost 5 upkeep: they are very good units. Death Knights maybe 10, Demon lord maybe 20. I love the changes, I'll miss life-drain tho.
Well wraiths costs only 5 mana, as I recall, and they are superior units. Generally, I've taken the view that Death Magic is a low cost magic realm. They have at least 4 spells right off the bat that are useless to the human player, death magic inspires hatred in most AI more quickly, and the spells are generally less powerful than life.
I took out life drain because there was a bug with it, and the AI just used it way too much (and not in a constructive way).
Chaos: Not the strongest magic, it seems that it's improved, apart from losing one of their best spells (chaos Channels) and armageddon being expensive. I don't understand the need for acid fog: it seems too similar to fireball.
Acid Fog is something you can use at the start of the game, so in that sense it's a lot different from fireball. Also fireball is much more powerful than acid fog as your skill increases. Acid fog was meant as an early and mid-game combat spell, where chaos magic should excel but doesnt in the 1.31 version.
Maybe Chaos could use a spell that leaves an 3x3 or 5x5 square of lava and each unit that walks thru there takes damage (similar coding to firewall?).
I don't know how to do that :) There's only a limit to what kind of spells I can "make."
Great common/uncommon spell balances (tho wall of fire should maybe have its power doubled or its upkeep lowered), perfect creature balances. I love the changes. Creature-wise, I might suggest to improve gargoyles a bit like +1 hitpoint, but the lower cost makes it a bit more usable. Fire Giants are now pretty nice, Doom Bat/Chimeras more balanced, Chaos Spawn a nightmare that fortunately moves slowly. Efreet is awesome and Great Drake a bit powerful for its cost, but I notice the pattern of making the ultimate monster better in all magic types.
Gargoyles aren't that great, but I've lowered the cost to make them more cost-effective when you need a flying creature. They are also helpful in chaos nodes, obviously.
Nature: Not the strongest magic, and is luckily improved, despite pathfinding being expensive, which makes sense). I wouldn't miss Earth-to-Mud much (the AI can be annoying with it).
Got rid of Earth to Mud almost entirely because the AI was just annoying with it. Besides, it was a pretty lame spell all things considered.
I like the cheaper wall of stone/Nature's Eye: it gives emphasis to defense, which fits with Earth magic. Creature-wise, it's awesome and makes Nature competitive now. Making Colossus with 1movement was a cool idea for a unit that could defend a main city. I feel earth-elemental being cheaper would unbalance things a bit: it is a very powerful summon (25 melee, 30 hits, and now with many useful skills).
The added skills for Earth Elementals just made "sense". And it still costs 50 mana to summon them, and you don't get this spell until very late (typically). Nature was sort of Death-light in terms of cost: I wanted to make low-cost a characteristic of the magic realm. So that's why a lot of spell costs were brought down a tad.
Sorcery: It's a great magic type. Here you improved/weakened various things. I agree with many, except a few. Creature Binding can turn the tide of combat (was it 100% chance?), invisibility's upkeep is as much as a demon lord, you can cast that spell during combat (as well as mass invisibility late in game). Magic immunity has insane upkeep, but I think it's intended so that you cast it during combat.
Invisibility is just a super powerful ability. Anyone who's played the game knows how unbalanced that thing is against the AI, and why the Ninja is so useful. Sorcery is super powerful. I've just made it so they have a greater magic burden than others. The higher costs of some spells were offset by reductions elsewhere (Wind Mastery, Blur, Vertigo, Wind Walking). While magic immunity is expensive to maintain, it's cheaper in battle and now Djinn can cast it...
Creature Binding is -2 to save, if I recall correctly. I think what you are thinking about is the staff that gives you 4 charges of it, along with a -4 penalty. It's a very rare spell. It should be powerful. Besides, 50 mana isn't something to scoff at. I'm not sure if its much more powerful than Entangle (cost 50 mana), Disintegrate (50 mana) and Death Spell (50 mana), or even Wrack (40 mana). 55 mana is a weird price, and 60 mana seems like too much..
Also, there's a typo on Aura of Majesty I need to fix (it costs 500, not 250!).
My biggest complain in all spells is Vertigo. Me and my brother love Vertigo, giving a unit -2 to hit makes it very weak, plus it also takes out 1 defense. If a veteran griffin has 0-to-hit (30% change of damage), you leave it at (10% chance of damage, making your shields block the rest). It's a very powerful spell. I find it strange that you made it cost 40%.
I lowered vertigo for a few reasons. First, there is no "to save penalty". Second, consider that shatter, which one gets a lot sooner (albeit with more restrictions), does the same or worse (lowers attack to 1) and costs "only" 10. Black Sleep basically kills the creature outright with -2 to save, and costs 15 mana, which also you get a lot sooner. Third, sorcery has many other options. Why not just summon a phantom warrior for 10.. kills the standard unit for much lower cost. Perhaps most notably, why not use confusion with
-4 to save??? Confusion is super powerful.
So Vertigo is useful, and it does have the advantage of being useful against other than standard units. But at 25 mana? Crazy. Maybe I'll adjust it to 12 mana.
Thanks for the feedback!
