Carrion Woods - Issues

A Few Issues with the Carrion Woods

Whether Intentional or not:

Carrion Dragon cannot use Personal Regeneration (since he's undead?) I think this should either be adjusted to allow him to have Regeneration, or if that is impossible, give him regeneration and adjust his cost. (Edit: Yes I know you can use Regrowth on him, but he can't use it himself, since he's a pretender and can't have levels in Unholy, alternatively just have Personal Regeneration cast "Regrowth" on him)

Carrion Dragon initial Paths do not count towards Bless Effects.

Carrion X (Dragon, Lord, Manakin) are all counted as Undead and Magical Being, making them doubly vulnerable. But they are not 100 Cold Resistant Like other Undead, and not unable to go underwater.

Carrion Wood Dominion Kills *Faster* than Ashen Empire, even with Growth 2 vs Death 3. There is no way to use Unburied Corpses (No initial Death Gem Income, Reanimators only reanimate Manakins which do not use corpses with no other options). Also while Carrion Woods Priests (Carrion Lords, etc) are expensive, they reanimate nearly equally in low numbers (3~5 a turn, AFAIK)

Carrion Wood Dominion also provides supply for the enemy (... ) while you do not use it. Perhaps Growth Scale in Carrion Wood should count as Death Scale for supply vs other Living opponents.

Making a Prophet makes an Unholy Prophet, even if formerly the unit was Holy. This Nulls the effect of any "Blessing" of Living Units or "Sermon of Courage" which is an initial weakness of Pangaea (their Satyrs have terrible morale).

Perhaps make the Dryads have Unholy instead of Holy?

Give Apostates or Carrion Lords 1 Pick of Random or 1 Water.

The other option of an Enter Site for Carrion Woods to summon Black Centaur (or even something else) would be an alternative to an elite unit.

[ February 07, 2004, 11:31: Message edited by: Zen ]

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Zen:
...

Carrion Wood Dominion Kills *Faster* than Ashen Empire, even with Growth 2 vs Death 3. There is no way to use Unburied Corpses (No initial Death Gem Income, Reanimators only reanimate Manakins which do not use corpses with no other options). ...

Are you sure about this? Carrion Woods dominion should only kill at one fifth of the rate of Ashen empire, discounting the scales, ie 1% per dominion step.

30120 (Starting Population)
29940 (Turn 1)
29460 (Turn 2)
28110 (Turn 3)
26810 (Turn 4)
25580 (Turn 5)
24400 (Turn 6)
23030 (Turn 7)
21740 (Turn 8)
20530 (Turn 9)
19380 (Turn 10)

What is that? 8% a Tick, this is with Growth 2 BTW, not Growth 3. Sorry my brain is a little off. I don't know the Ashen Empire death rate off the top of my head, but maybe it's a little under or equal to it. I don't think it's quite to the 1/5th stage.

Edit: As you can see it doesn't start off too bad, but once your dominion starts to kick in (I believe) it starts chewing you down pretty quick. The example above is with 5 Dominion.

[ February 07, 2004, 14:01: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Teraswaerto]

Maybe the Carrion Woods starting site could give more than 5 gems. It could be like Ermor, 10 at normal richness, and so forth.

[johan osterman]

I have checked it out, Carrion woods kill off pop at the rate of 1% per dominion step, which should be one fifth of ashen empire, IIRC

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Zen:
30120 (Starting Population)
29940 (Turn 1)
29460 (Turn 2)
28110 (Turn 3)
26810 (Turn 4)
25580 (Turn 5)
24400 (Turn 6)
23030 (Turn 7)
21740 (Turn 8)
20530 (Turn 9)
19380 (Turn 10)

What is that? 8% a Tick, this is with Growth 2 BTW, not Growth 3. Sorry my brain is a little off. I don't know the Ashen Empire death rate off the top of my head, but maybe it's a little under or equal to it. I don't think it's quite to the 1/5th stage.

Edit: As you can see it doesn't start off too bad, but once your dominion starts to kick in (I believe) it starts chewing you down pretty quick. The example above is with 5 Dominion.

By my calculations you lost an average of 4.3% per turn (1 - (19380/30120)^(1/10)) leaving you with 64% of your original population after 10 turns. This is about what I would expect if you had max dominion of 5, didn't reach it for a couple of turns, and had a growth scale to offset it slightly. Eventually it should stabilize at 4.6% loss per turn with Growth 2 (until you build enough temples to gain more dominion).

IIRC Ashen Empire doesn't even start with a full 30k population, but even if they did, I doubt if they'd have 64% of it after 10 turns.


I think that in addition to the Apostate, CW should get either the normal Pan or the Pandemoniac (either would be interesting). Losing both for the Apostate is too harsh as nature and death don't go together very well - about the only thing they cooperate on is Manikins, which you already have through the reanimators.

I was about to say that if they get the Pan, they should get the no-Maenads Version, but... why not a Corrupted Maenad? More berserk, maybe more strength, lower defense (and maybe attack, but will get it back when berserking).

On the other hand the cross breeding, dark vines awakening Pandemoniac would suit CW very well too. You'd have to keep moving your blood hunting grounds away from your dominion, but blood summons and death mages can work together very well.

I also wouldn't mind seeing the CW Grove's gem income changed to 4N 1D. It would slow their Carrion *** summoning initially, but give the Apostates (or god) more options to raise a fighting force quickly.

Finally - if Desert Tombs can start with an unholy priest, why can't Carrion Woods start with at least a Carrion Centaur? I'd gladly give up the starting Black Harpy for it (I can easily make one of those if I want to, while Carrion Centaur is a several turn wait and *then* it starts to slowly animate manikins).

Alright. It *seems* to eat quicker Mostly probably because of the intial need for money (CW) vs not needing money initially (Ermor).

If in 10 Turns you lose 37% of your income. And it levels off to 4% a turn (With 5 Dominion which is lets say an average dominion)

I don't know if blood hunting is/should be apart of CW. It would fit thematically, but so would having most of the prices of the units dropped to 1/2 their cost.

I really like Carrion Woods, but they are just too weak to play competitively. Even New Era is weak. While base Pan is decent.

Just pick one way or the other living or dying. And modify the theme to be compatiable in it.

If you want to keep both, make the units they create by animation able to hold up their half of the fight. Manakins are just as weak as normal undead when it comes to being banished or arrowfire, so I don't see how CW is supposed to cope.

[Arralen]

Posted this suggestion in another Carrion Woods thread already, but seemingly nobody noticed...

- Make all "Carrion Woods"- specific troops cost 0 upkeep.

- Make new nation spec. site:
"The hidden grove of natures call" or somesuch.
Works similar to R'lyehs gate, but with nature skill. Gives standard troops, nature summons, black troops, black commanders with growing skill.

- temples will still cost 100 .. you might need to convert gems at some point during the game, but this doesn't seen out of theme to me.

It had been mentioned before Arralen [Edit] I mentioned it at the base of my original post, but hopefully they will see it. I don't know about the 0 Upkeep, that would probably work as well as 1/2ing the cost of their units.

On Gem income I don't think it would be out of place to give Carrion Woods 5 Nature, 2 Death. That is below the Ashen Empire/Soul Gate 10, and below Pythiums 8, but slightly above other nations.

This would also allow them the opportunity to some of the initial death magic. As you can't afford to build a mass of pans, you have to make your 1 or 2 work for you.

[ February 08, 2004, 10:22: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Zen:
It had been mentioned before Arryn

He's "Arralen". I'm "Arryn".