[.915] Master Scouts seems really powerful

All the faction abilities are op.

Agreed. Lord Relias can get any kingdom hero for free, and Karavox gets 1000gp to start out with to buy all the kingdom or empire heroes he can find (or whatever else he wants to fund). Verga may not get ranged weapons, but his armies get bonus hitpoints, encumbrance, and attack, start out at 2nd level, and have some decent special weapons.

That is the most fun kind of balance there is.

I'm not sure if you guys have actually played with the Tarth AI on, but Tarth is pretty much out of control (on hard) at the moment. They are settling absolutely everywhere, and are pumping pioneers like no tomorrow. It's basically like what people were complaining about the AI cheating in 0.914 when they were building next to monsters... except now, Tarth is really cheating. Not only do their pioneer have no movement penalties, they don't have to worry about any of the monsters. So they just send a stream of pioneers out as scout and settle everywhere. They've got tons of cities right next to lairs, and of course, you can't rush them at all due to all those lairs around. I'm barely keeping up with them (playing as Altar to test henchmens), but I think I'm going to have to take them out before they get too far out of line. Someone has to.

I've always thought that master scout was really good as it was, but now, it's pretty OP. Is this seriously the plan for them?

Maybe give them a special fast horse to put them over the top? They are not OP enough yet. People are still using lower case letters to describe their OPness. 

I WANT MOAR!!!!!!

Yeah Master Scout is "OPer" than the other OP traits.  And it only costs 1 faction point.

Custom factions are now super OP.  Great fun

How I would nerf it if it had to be nerfed

I'd restrict the immunity to monsters to just military units, not pioneers or cities.  It's still powerful but won't lead to Tarth rabbit breeding.

Also, the AI has to be able to use these special abilities- that needs to be the next point of emphasis in AI work.

I do think plenty of time is going to have to be spent re-balancing the factions, and you have two factions that still need to be done (when are we getting them back?)

 The other big benefit of master scouts is your champions can pick and choose who to fight, and so 1 or 2 can get powerful really quickly.  The game I tried last night Irane was at level 16 or so and I could pretty much solo armies if I had to.

Play MOM on Hard or Impossible.  It's AI did the same thing, except everyone was doing it.  There were incredibly tough monsters there too.  You had to win with stacks (plural) of doom to clear things out around you.  Gotta hope that Tarth won't see spell of mastery as a good way to win.

You can give all your troops the stealthy attribute which makes them less likely to be attacked

If you've used scouts before, you know that the stealthy attribute doesn't actually do much in the long run, you still have to avoid monsters or die and you'd be using a trait slot on all your troops (and you can't even redesign pioneers). The big thing with scouts is the movement through rough terrain, which master scout already gave (and was why I thought it was plenty good before). Besides, that still doesn't make your cities any safer around monster lairs. IMO, the only way to make things better with Tarth around is to play on sparse monsters.

But that's not really my problem with the whole thing (you can always adjust the balance if it's too out of whack). My problem is, every other faction gets something cool and interesting to play with... Iron Golems, Jugglenaughts, Henchmens, Slaves, Shiny Monoliths, Shard beasts (not really sure what else to call them), or the ability to use both type of heroes (though that seems a bit meh as well TBH)... meanwhile, Tarth gets... to spam pioneers. Really? Where are the treants, Morian wannabees, etc... heck, they don't even get to tame the monsters (that's another sovereign)... they just get to sit around them.... and of course pray that the monsters don't accidentally wander on top of their stuff. It just seems like they ran out of ideas/time and just toss it in last minute to say that all factions are now different. Sure, it's different... but that's not necessarily a good thing.

Tarth is for the folks who like small , high-quality armies.  It fits in with that.

I cant wait to get home from work and create a custom king / faction that has both Master Scout and the ability to cast the outpost spell

Already have.

Master Scouts + Outpost Spell sounds nice, but did you see Brad's post that monsters don't target outposts?  They wander aimlessly and may accidentally run into your outpost.

The real problem here is that there are so few viable city spots. Pioneer span plus master scouts is especially powerful because they can easily grab the few other city spots. In my first game this patch, as Altar, there were no other spit's for cities anywhere near me. The other factions had a couple. This ridiculous scarcity means that a Tarth player can easily grab the few viable spots on a map. Really annoying. Probably the main thing that I don't like about FE right now.

I would like to see Tarth's gladiator heritage played up more or their backstory as rebels. Maybe give them a good raider ability that lets them get a bonus for pillaging enemy improrovements or better combat ability vs larger or more powerful enemies

Tarth seems to be the early rush kingdom.  They settle quickly and get bonuses for fighting in small groups but they don't have any late game bonuses.  Golems or Juggernauts.  If it is balanced they should need those extra cities to deal with the other factions later in the game.  I haven't played as them so maybe they need nerfed or everyone else needs a boost, but I like the idea of having an aggressively expanding kingdom.

Also prestige is still split over all cities right?  So Tarth's extra cities should grow slower than Kraxis's for example (the turtler of the game).

Tarth is excelent for getting small stacks of uber champions buffed to the max.  Or lots and lots of small stacks led by a champion nutcase.  Due tot eh master scout ability, you can progressively level every champion without setbacks.  I think I got my Sov to level 20 the fastest using Tarth

I really enjoyed my game with Tarth + this ability but this line (quote), lol, the AI did it and evicted the monsters from their lair in another game and had me confounded, because if I do, I'd get annihilated...so devs, what the hell!.

I'm just trying to think the tarth ability through a bit. The differences between the intention and the gameplay since they seem to differ a bit through some bugs that are being discovered.

bonus is +3 to attack and + 3 to init when in groups of three or less. So small attack bands are really good.

Monsters don't attack your units and heroes. They will attack outposts and cities.

so this means to me that I would be able to run around and pick up early gear very easily without fear that my stacks would get ambushed by the monsters in the wild. I guess the big baddies in the wildlands won't chase me down eiether so i can go there to get a few things as well.

What it implies to attacking othe factions.

I will move my armies around in big stacks to get around so it's less finicky, but i will take the time to arrange waves of 3 unit stacks to wear down my enemies using spearmen or archers or clubs early on to get the damage upgrade on my troops.

So this ability becomes much more powerful on a dense monster map with dangerous monsters.

It seems like more of a guerrilla fighting tactic with no stealth, using the monsters in the world to protect you from the other factions but what happens to tarth when the other factions can clear away that screen of monsters. There is no stealth system in the game, which tarth could use the most loving from. If the later game armours that tarth gets is indeed lighter than the other options, perhaps an encumbrance modifier to movement speed could be useful to take advantage of that.

Some tarth ability to take more advantage of their "monsters" could be useful. Perhaps an ability to breed monsters and release them into the wild to harass everyone else seems very much in character with the game.

"become more powerful on a dense monster map with dangerous monsters".  Yup!

But, wildlands monsters are exempted from the tarth ability.  Ie they WILL attack you on sight!

I don't think yoe're right about them attacking cities or outposts.  Froggy said that NO monsters target outposts and cities, only run over them by accident. I just plonked cities and outposts down everywhere and mopped up the baddies as my champs progressively leveled.

if there is accidental stompage, perhaps a magic spell to persuade them to walk in another direction would work.

Monster Repellent.

DEEP DARK BAG WOOOOOODS

LOL!!

Mortein Monster Repellant, now in spell form   Or;

Peebo Protection Spray, stop those monsters from stomping your stuff   Or;

OFF!  now protects from more than just sun rays!

This is beyond op at the moment, settlers that cant get attacked is an I win button considering the rarity of settlement locations even on large maps. You either have to remove it from pioneers or allow other players to put stealthy on their pioneers, or something. I stopped playing with it when I scouted the map and I had 14 cities and the closest to me was 7 from the tarth ai with everyone else way behind.