Quote:
Originally Posted by llamabeast
I was considering giving the Ri 10% forge bonus. Thoughts?
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You won't be surprised to hear I like the idea.
But I think that would help with making thugging more affordable and I think it's a safe amount for a forge bonus. It would help because with exception of vine/eye shields all the gear I regularly forge for glamoured thugs costs 5 gems (technically rainbow armor is 10 gems but it's a 5/5 split). Reducing the cost to 4 (compared to 3 with hammers) definitely helps restore affordable thugging. I also think it's a safe discount in the sense that the discount isn't large enough that you could try to develop an Ulm-style forge economy - which I don't think TNN/Eriu should be able to do (btw, I assume this would apply to Eriu's Tuatha as well?). I wouldn't mind a 15% discount because while it wouldn't change the cost of 5 gem items it would help get 10 gem items like vine shields down to 8 gems (compared to 7 with hammers) - but that also allows a larger discount on items that cost more than 10 gems than you may want.
I also wanted to throw another idea out there, also intended to address the early game issues with awe. What about doing something like you did for Machaka with Foul Sacrifice? Only instead of summoning a troop, the ritual would "transform" the caster into a unit that had awe (or personal luck, or whatever bonus you wanted). It would be a fairly low level spell but wouldn't be available from turn 1 for expansion purposes. I guess the main issue would be to avoid loopholes where you could use a cheap indie mage and get a thug out of it. I think casting requirements of A2H2 would serve that purpose. I don't think there are any indies with those paths and of your national mages only Ri, Tuatha Sorceresses, Tuatha and Sidhe Lords would be able to cast it. In terms of magic paths, I was thinking the Sidhe Lords' A2N1H2 would be best. That means Ri would lose magic by casting this spell but if they receive a forge bonus they'd have a useful niche right there, while Tuatha Sorceresses would have the strongest magic.
You could even have a couple of versions of it, one of them being a high level late game spell that would perhaps give a HP boost as well so that the thug can be more survivable in a late game setting. Even if it were more cost effective to go for an EDM summon I'd get some of these just for the fun factor.
