Quote:
Originally Posted by Squirrelloid
And i just took a look at Itza - Morale 13 Prot 18 mega tramplers with archers on top *and* mages that are ridiculously cheap for what they do? Those mages should be 1k and 2k gold respectively, at the least, and the trampler should probably be near doubled in price since it has no real weaknesses. (What are the disadvantages of elephants? Oh yeah, morale and protection... no such problems here, which is just amazing - and Itza's stegasaurs have a mere 3 enc on top of that so you can't even count on fatiguing them out). Then their scouts are 1g(!) and have glamour(?!?) and stealth *+65*(!!!), and their Ld40 commanders are a mere *20g* 16r with a *magic weapon* (!!!) and good stats. What the hell is this? I bet they get cheap castles somewhere too. They could probably win just by spamming castles and building as many of theose 20g commanders as they can - they don't even need equipment (which they could certainly be provided). They also have cheap researchers, H3 priests, and all of their melee units have magic weapons (!!!). And they get to mass them for peanuts. What *doesn't* Itza do well? I feel like rdonj discovering his enemy has immortal death summons of stupidly awesome.
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I guess I'll address all these points, but I think you're being a little bit hysterical. That said if Itza does prove to have overpowered elements they'll definitely get nerfed down. No-one likes a Hinnom after all.
Stegadons - These I admit have not been thoroughly tested, so the price could be off (too high or too low). I don't think the archer part of them is a big deal - it causes a few casualties, but only fires twice and is more of a flavour thing. They certainly got elephants beat in both morale and protection, but they share the similar problem of being expensive lowish mr animals that are stopped by roughly the same counters. They're cold blooded too, so they will fatigue out about as much as elephants in my experience. The main difference is that it's much harder to reach critical mass with stegadons than elephants because of the cost. And critical mass is a huge deal with tramplers - once you reach it prot and the like becomes a lot less relevant. We'll see how they perform I suppose.
Slann 4th and 5th gen - To an extent I guess a Slann player would still build these guys no matter what they cost, because otherwise they only have priests. While they are devastating combat mages in battlefield communions and they have a huge spread of paths, the actual depth of the paths is very shallow considering the cost. On paper they look great and if you go adding up the path totals, they seem like ubermages (they are by far the most expensive mages in the game though) but they're actually pretty hard to use and you have to make quite a few just to get the right paths. You then have to worry about upkeep and probably keep a bunch of them dormant (which does still cost you, for no benefit). They suck for research after all.
Scouts - That the scout costs 1g makes little difference. How many are going to get built? I think all national scouts should be 1g personally. Equally the fact the scouts aren't found and killed isn't massively important. It's just a scout. A good one, but consider the opportunity cost for Itza (most expensive forts of any nation, want to build huge amounts of skink priests).
Saurus Scar Veteran - Again, how many will be built? They could make decent mini thugs but the opportunity cost would be substantial and itza isn't very good at budget forging. All the saurus have magic weapons so I don't know why you're excited about that - it isn't like it's an enchanted sword with strong + to stats or anything. The 20g price reflects that national 40ldr commanders just don't get built because of the opportunity cost. If this proves to be too cheap and someone is owning with armies of these guys, I'll definitely look into it though. Unequipped saurus scar veterans would get their asses kicked by most stuff, so again I think you're being a bit silly suggesting you could win by spamming them with your 1400 gold forts.
Cheap Researchers - Yes, Itza has decent research. It's in the upper tier of vanilla. It isn't outstanding as far as I can see. I will adjust it if it's really too good.
H3 priests - These are also very expensive mages who have to do a lot of stuff to make up for their cost. If you are using them just as H3 priests they probably aren't worth it. Admittedly it is another string to their bow, but you pay for the variety and if you buy a jack of all trades and he only does one thing, you're losing out the whole time. It's another matter of opportunity costs. The strong religiosity of the nation is intended though and balanced by their extra expensive temples in my opinion. Temples you'll need to build, really, to get what you want from the forts. Along with labs, that is.