I'm not really looking to boost TNN/Eriu but preserve a style of play. I thought it would be nice if Eriu in particular could have gotten a boost (despite the fact that EA has tougher competition I thought Eriu was worse off than TNN) but if it didn't happen I could live with it.
If you look at these nations as of CBM 1.6 (and vanilla for that matter) they are thug centered and, in a broader sense, focused on commanders rather than troops. I like this emphasis - if I want more of a thug/troop combined focus I play Van. This focus on thugs certainly isn't the most powerful strategy in the game (and in the late game raiding becomes very difficult and the focus of these units changes to being part of anti-SC squads) but it was the dominant theme of the nations and I find it a lot of fun to play.
If you gave me a choice between a version of the nations that was weaker but had the same emphasis on thugging and one that deemphasized thugging but was stronger overall I would choose the former. As far as options go, I was always pretty happy with my options with TNN, largely because of recruit everywhere bean sidhe. It's Eriu that seems really limited.
But the thing is, if the nation is focused on thugging it has to be done cheaply. In the end these are low HP units and there is constant attrition. So removing hammers hits them hard. Since most of the items I forged cost 5 gems using a hammer was effectively more like a 40% discount than 25%.
You can deal with the impact of removing hammers in different ways. One is to do nothing and say they just have to deal with it. It's one thing to do that with a top ranking nation but it doesn't seem fair to do that to nations that are in the bottom half of their respective eras. Thankfully, llama (and/or qm - not sure when things switched over) decided to compensate them for the loss of cheap forging. They went with a hybrid approach - a considerable boost to a cap only thug chassis and some non-thug boosts to the nation. My reaction to this was that awe added enough utility to Ri that it made up for the increased forging cost. However an unfortunate side effect is that I didn't find Sidhe Lords worth equipping at full cost and didn't recruit one the entire game.
It's a bit strange to hear talk that TNN is OP. I'm guessing it's due to the impact of the boosts to Ri (though even with that they hardly seem like more of a threat than being rushed by one of the EA powerhouses). So let's say you eliminated the boosts to Ri/Tuatha. Now they no longer have a clear advantage over Sidhe Lords as thugs, which is good. The bad part is that now they are both not worth equipping, which really kills thugging. So llama mentioned giving them a forge bonus. Personally I'd be happy removing everything that has resulted in complaints and give them a 25% forge bonus and be done with it. Sure, they won't be able to forge fire/astral gear at a discount like they could with hammers but otoh having a 25% forge discount when most others don't is a relative advantage. The relative importance of thugging to the nation would stay the same. But that's probably not in the cards so if the Ri/Tuatha boosts are removed maybe a 10% forge bonus with some better built-in gear or reduced cost like rdonj mentions could would keep them viable (though if Ri lose their improvements I really think the forge bonus should be 15% to get another gem of savings on shields). What I wouldn't like to see is compensating them by improving their troops (the reduced encumbrance was already a nice bonus) - I think the commander level focus of the nation is fine. Again, if I want a combo thug/troop focus I'll play Van.
As far as the late game goes, yes, they don't have a great late game. So what. That means they have to get something done earlier in the game to position themselves for a strong late game. I think it's interesting if nations have different areas of strength. Some might have great troops but middling commanders or vice versa. Some might have a great early game but fade later, etc.
|