Tophats: Squirreloid wins!

[Starshine_Monarch]

I've messed around with Bretonnia myself in SP a small bit before, but I do not believe it to be terribly overpowered, just very dangerous in an early rush situation.

I do think that perhaps the lords getting a freespawn Knights of the Realm in battle may be a bit much. You don't need very many KoTRs to be very dangerous in the early game since it practically requires a normal human nation to have Lightning Bolt or something similar if Bretonnia continues to build Lords. As of now, the Bretonnian Lord costs the same amount of gold as an indy Knight Commander and has roughly the same stats even excluding the Lords other abilities. I'd suggest perhaps bumping their cost slightly (10-20 gold maybe) and making the Lords' freespawn knight be a foot knight like the Grail Damsel, so that it can still be fluffy and helpful in certain situations without being possibly battle changing.

[Squirrelloid]

While a cost increase may be warranted, I think its a nice design feature that a non-mage can be battle changing. Mages already are battle-changing, why can't other commanders be? Strenuously object to reducing the freespawn to being unmounted.

(Also, its not like those freespawn are overly useful since they can't be scripted. So if you're actually depending on them to do something, no clever scripting for you).

Edit: Indie mounted commanders are really overpriced anyway. So they're hardly a good measure of appropriate cost. And we're talking a single KotR, right? ... Seriously, might be effective against 2 PD or something, but its not going to take much out on its own.

[cleveland]

...these handicaps often make Breton last in the research race.

Indeed!

[fungalreason]

In a big brawl between gentlemen
only Vanheim was left without friends.
Although perceived to be frail,
our magic not yet unveiled
made us difficult to apprehend.

Shinuyama was first to the fight,
a general convinced of his might.
He rushed in all alone,
was surrounded when prone,
and vanished in a great flash of light.

The aggressor not yet deterred,
his lord's judgment obviously blurred,
sent more troops to the fray.
Yet Vanheim won the day,
and Shin's prophet joined the interred.

Then Arco became infected with greed,
without caution did his forces proceed.
His traveling zoo
thought they could fight too,
but in fetters were dispatched with great ease.

And so begins Vanheim's humble tale,
with a tip from those under assail:
When choosing to double team,
you best topple that regime,
or expect to be mocked when you fail.

[Alpine Joe]

As the rusher in question, i'll make a few comments.....

Grail Knights are very strong early units. They are almost impossible to stop with human troops without magic. Of course, they are tremendously expensive, both in gold and resources. Five of them cost as much as a fort..... They aren't nearly as cost-efficient for what they do as many other sacreds. However, against MA tien'chi they were facing pretty much ideal opponents.

MA tien'chi also happens to be one of the easiest nations to rush. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had a target.

As the game progresses, I will figure out better whether this nation's early power will translate. I plan to write a guide with comments on balance once I am done.

By the way starshine, nothing personal. You just happened to look juicy

[Squirrelloid]

MA TC isn't that easy to rush... they have a great troop line-up and great mages that can cast most of the early rush counters. Admittedly, some cleverness may be required, but to say they're an easy target vastly overstates the case.

Of course, you have to make a point of researching the early rush counters...

Also, with celestial soldiers being sacred, I can totally see playing MA TC as a bless nation. Your sacred cavalry will benefit from the same blesses the celestial soldiers will, so they'll help foil rushes while you research your way to your real sacred.

[Trumanator]

Squirrel, they were _two_ provinces apart. Unless you have a research pretender and only research alt there's no way you're going to stop E9 Grail Knights. Even if you did manage not to die immediately, they'd just build up a bit more and own you in 10 turns or so.

[cleveland]

Good game Starshine! Sorry it didn't work out in your favor.

But I must ask, why didn't Celestial Chastisement work? 7+ AN against magic beings seems like perfect counter to 14hp Grail Knights. And only Evo1...?

[Trumanator]

Mr negates?

[cleveland]

Irresistible, and precision=100:


But if he DOES fail an MR roll, he gets enslaved. Not bad for a level 1 spell.