Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

[Teraswaerto]

Xietor said:
Man does get the longbow men, and air magic. Longbows are good, but many races have as good or better missile troops.

What are better than longbows at every castle?

[Shovah32]

And when you add wind guide(and possibly flaming arrows from a pretender/indies/summons) those longbows become more than good.

[Dedas]

I hate longbows! Being on the receiving end that is.

Even with tower shield troops you lose men with every volley when the arrows are wind guided and fire enchanted (as Shovah wrote). The only relief is that those longbowmen don't have a lot of armor and most new players tend to ignore protecting them from counter archery/"crossbowery" and fliers. Oh, and you can always cast storm/rain/mist (if you're lucky Man will do it for you), that will keep you somewhat alive.

[Teraswaerto]

If you get blasted by Man's air mages you might not think that storm is so great. They also can buff their melee troops with a lot of different Nature spells.

[Dedas]

Yes I know, but at least you get rid of those tiering longbows. I prefer to be blasted by sorcery over shot by an arrow any day.

Just kidding of course.

[Xietor]

MA races with longbows(off the top of my head)
Pangaea, Shin. Bandar Log, Man.

Better than longbows(at times)

Tien Chi has the composite bows, Maragon crossbows, Ulm arbalests, and ap bows are not commonly found among indies. Ulm's arbalest are also better infantry than many so called infantry.

And later in game, arrow fend can neutralize missile troops to a large degree, so you cannot always rely on them.

My only point is, not to argue with anyone, is that some races likely could use some adjusting with their capital only troops.

As for thematics , just change the description of Ulm's keep to say "In Ulm's Keep, the heart of Ulm, the FIRST Lord Guardians and Guardians were trained."

For Man, "The Knights of Avalon, loyal to the Mother of Avalon, fight alongside her." As you know, the Mother of Avalon can be recruited at all castles, so it is no less thematic to allow the KOA to be recruited all over either.

[Dedas]

I understand. However, being able to recruit elite units everywhere kind of takes away their charm for me. It feels so gamey somehow, even if you make it realistic within the fantasy world by adding premises to why you are able to do it.

[Xietor]

And I agree 100 percent with the earlier discussions on changing the luck events.

A lucky event should never be a bad thing. Getting militia usually is a bad thing. Having faith decrease in favor of growth is at best a break even event(the game is called dominions), and having a witch curse your troops for gems is a bad event if your pretender or key unit gets cursed.

I think the events getting troops should be quality troops that most would want. And I think events where people move into the province should be much more common. It seems there is an obsession (with events, spells, themes, high taxes, patrolling) in general with lowering the population. And there are few ways to increase the population of a province.

So more luck events boosting population would be nice.