[Squirrelloid]

Hoplo: its a sites 20 game. 15 gems is maybe an overlord's per turn gem income at the start. That's a significant expenditure of resources.

50 gems is just obscene. Its unplayably obscene. For 50 gems you can get a RoW (with hammer) or your choice of 2 good artifacts (like the chalice and the scepter of dark regency, both with a hammer).

Consider that overlords got something on the order of +10gems/turn advantage. Now, without considering the disadvantages of that gem income being spread around, you're basically saying that for each extra attack they get to make they have to spend 1/2 a year's 'bonus' gem income. Now consider that Eriu or Vanheim or Jotunheim can produce multiple thugs each turn by year 2, and probably forge sufficient gear for all of them in the same time frame by year 3. Basically, severely limited attacks means the overlord loses any raiding war instantly.

Really, 25 gems is probably too much, but anything higher than that is certainly out of the question.

It absolutely has to be an item, so teleport/cloud trapeze raiding is possible.

Making them require Constr 4 is certainly reasonable - Overlords wouldn't need them early.

Namad's proposal doesn't increase attacks fast enough unless its on an exponential scale (+1 year 2, +2 more year 3, +4 more year 4, etc...), and even then it might need to be every 6 months by year 4.

Basically, there's a fundamental disconnect between how the game is actually played and how people seem to imagine its played. How the game is actually played involves potentially dozens of attacks by year 5 or 6 in a single turn.

Consider VC3, which is on turn 52 (mid year 5). The game leaders have ~40+ provinces each. If I can't make at least 20 attacks on turn 1 of the war against one of them, its not worth starting the war, and a more reasonable estimate is 25-30. Why? Because if I don't I will not inflict sufficient damage to make victory likely, and will probably be facing a similar size retaliation.

Now imagine I was an Overlord attacking a normal in that situation. I can make an anemic 6 attacks based on Namad's theory, or *maybe* that many based on Hoplosternum's gem cost (VC3 has a normal sites setting, and I maybe could have bought 4 standards at 50 gems and have been reasonable under those settings. Sites 20 would involve fewer gems...). Then my target retaliates with 25 attacks, my empire is halved in size, and the war more or less continues in that vein until I inevitably lose.