Machaka screwed more than ever ?

[Edi]

KO said nothing about that when I asked about the Ranger Captain not having any stealth bonus, but it is possible he did not remember that particular mechanic at the time.

As far as what the manual says, there is no penalty if the following units have stealth(10) or better, otherwise it's -1 per unit. At least that's my reading of it.

[MaxWilson]

Sadly no, if an assassin has guards they will not accompany him in the assassination attempt. They will, however, attack the province in a revenge attempt if the assassin leader gets himself killed. I guess that's why they're "not yet fully-trained assassins."

-Max

[JimMorrison]

Also consider that a squad of those spiders, and the leader being properly equipped, could probably deal with quite some PD as a raiding force. Though sadly, I'm sure gear for PD raiding would be somewhat different than preferred gear for assassination.....

[moderation]

MaxWilson said:
Sadly no, if an assassin has guards they will not accompany him in the assassination attempt. They will, however, attack the province in a revenge attempt if the assassin leader gets himself killed. I guess that's why they're "not yet fully-trained assassins."

-Max

Won't they auto-rout and die since they have no commander though? I guess at least you create a few points of unrest...

[MaxWilson]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. That's why I had the wink. They'll auto-route as you describe--pretty ineffective revenge there.

-Max

[Xietor]

It is not unthematic at all to have Bane Spiders everywhere. Though they were trained at God Mountain, some have moved about the Kingdom and have trained others.

[MaxWilson]

Usually units that refer to a location in their description are restricted to the corresponding magic site. It wouldn't bother me hugely, and from a gameplay perspective I like the idea, but I'd probably want to change the description at least. But I also like the idea of reserving the BEST assassins for God Mountain proper.

-Max

[Twan]

With a nation having a capitol only best mage and a capitol only most cost effective researcher, nobody will recruit a capitol only assassin, good or not.

To see bane spider used the options are : make all mages recruitable everywhere, burn the lab in the capitol, or make the bane spider recruitable everywhere.

I think the third is the best one.

[Meglobob]

Xietor said:
It is not unthematic at all to have Bane Spiders everywhere. Though they were trained at God Mountain, some have moved about the Kingdom and have trained others.

Errm...could you not say this about virtually every capital only unit in the game?

I always thought capital only units were simply a, 'balance' issue rather than a thematic one.

[Chris_Byler]

Well, some of them have supernatural reasons why they have to come from the specific site.

...Actually, the Bane Spider is one of those, with their God Mountain-forged standard equipment.

The problem is as Twan points out, other capitol only units overshadow the bane spider, cool as he is.

There's a fourth option: allow recruiting of 2 commanders per fort, but only 1 can be a mage (because you have only 1 lab; on similar grounds you could limit only 1 priest, but it's not as important as a balance issue). It would require some recoding and affect balance for everyone, but I think overall the changes would probably be good, especially for nations with overshadowed non-mage commanders (many of which are mini-thugs or assassins that see little use because it's more important to spam mages).