Discussion of the LA Mods balance

[Tuidjy]

2. Yes, they can be banished. But that's all. They cannot be fought or shot. And
you can go through pretty much any indies with six of them, which is two turns'
worth with average scales. As for massing, LoloMo threw 66 at me, and had 24
coming from the south. Heavy cavalry or elephants may kill one with some luck, but
if he is not one-shotted he heals himself, as his life drain is strength based, not
the toothless version. They have it all - defense, armour, regeneration, life
drain, thus no encumberance, and three attacks, the life drain getting a +2 boost.

I just think they badly need another way of being killed besides banishment.

3. Yes, I killed him with a earth random, veteran black priest with a crystal
shield, boots of earth power, a girdle of might, a shroud of the battle saint, and
five bodyguards over whom the vampire flew over. He ate 40 blades at point blank.
But that's a level 5 spell. A water or fire mage would have been defenseless, a
air mage or a priest would not have had the time to go through the hit points and
regeneration. No melee or range commander would have stood a chance. Please look
into him, and think about what it takes to stop him in an assassination.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, I threw two very decent armies away in the first few turns, armies that should, by any rights, have crushed the provinces they were attacking.

It was extremely sad, especially the second one, because I knew what I was fighting by then and I should have rode over the province easily.

So, it led me to building the *third* army up, and up, and up, probably more than was absolutely necessary, ultimately leading to a very poor start.

[Amos]

I had the same dilemma with my Vampire nation. They could go through any indy provinces with only 4-5 without casualties. But to make them any less would have unmade them as vampires. In later game their fire vulnerability is their main weakness but I dont know if that it enough.

[DrPraetorious]

I don't think that the fire vuln makes much of a difference.

Five of Amos' blood knights cost 700 gold and 190 resources. That's the same amount of gold as thirty five longbowmen and seven wardens of avalon - who can, likewise, wade through indie provinces without losses. However, those mannish units cost ~450 resources, the vampires are much easier to mass.

The real issue with recruitable vampires is the same problem I ran into with my various tries at well-equipped goblin nations. Goblins have essentially a human statline, and pay only size 1 resource costs. It's vicious.

Vampires are essentially giants (better, in many ways) and pay size 2 resource costs. Vicious.

So, there are a couple of ways to resolve this:
* Naked vampires can have a base resource cost (a large one.) As there are no recruitable vampires in the basic game, this is not a conflict with basic game expectations (if you care about this sort of thing.)
* Vampires can have #ressize 4. You could say that they demand the finest armaments, but this is non-conforming (I don't believe that any other unit does this.)
* You can make special armor and weapons for the vampire units and just set the resource cost ridiculously high. Armor them in blood metal, whatever.

Anyway, at prot 17-20, with that statline, they should cost > 75 resources *each*. Try that and see how it works out for you - for one thing, you need to take productivity which severely limits the efficacy of your blessing.

[Amos]

* You can make special armor and weapons for the vampire units and just set the resource cost ridiculously high. Armor them in blood metal, whatever.

I like this one.

I don't think that the fire vuln makes much of a difference.

Not against indies. But against any fire using nations I regularly loose whole armies of vampires. The fire just needs to hit them for higher damage than they can regen.