[915 My Custom Faction - Called The Empire Of Majeer]

You would win on hard with little effort. The binding alone will do this for you.

Isn't it "Majere"?

It is Lord Xia, but thats copy written. I'm being original. LOL

FYI, I lose buildings all the time with the Master Scout trait.  Aha!  Perhaps that's what I should do with all the cheap pioneers--if I park a group on the shards and stables I want to protect will the roaming monsters leave them completely alone?  (This is typed tongue-in-cheek.)

I would recommend not using the Custom Faction as the system is pretty broken at the moment, at least for competitive play.  As it is just for "fun" though, then go all out

The particular custom faction you are using definitely would not be possible once they fix the faction points.  You have all the OP abilities in it.

The only OP trait he has atm is Master Scouts. I honestly do not see how you could think +10% research OR 2 free techs are OP. The only OP thing about binding are 9 stack Cyndrum demons, and they are incredibly hard to get unless you babysit them hard. He also has one of the more constraining weaknesses in the game with no armor selected. His units will be ripped apart by any other faction.

Honestly no armor isn't as big of a deal. Monks are my only units I produce from town, as the demons do incredible work for me getting my champions up levels after I babysit my demons to 9 stack. Auto combat doesn't seem to produce kills by the demons getting them their increased stack count by the way.

Auto combat does all kinds of weird. One case is your Sov will not take damage unless everyone else dies.

With the way I play no armor doesn't matter either, but most people rush 9 stack units with massive armor and damage.

It's a custom faction the copy right laws would not apply here unless you tried to sell it.

I didn't say all his abilities are OP.  I said he has ALL the OP abilities.  There is a logical difference.

And "no armor" isn't a constraining weakness when combined with his other traits, because he could win in less than 40 turns on Hard.  I'm not sure I would have even researched leather armor by then.

Well played Bellack.

MiamiBigAl, he does not have all the OP abilities, he is missing enchanters

Is that op? ... I think I play this game very differently from others (Long live steal spirit)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I've never really used steal spirit Kongdej. What is your usage and strategy with that spell, if you don't mind sharing?

Usually I tend to run betrayers as a faction perk, so when I get too many heroes, or rubbish heroes, I hire them and give some of the random magic to my faction leader, focusing on levelling up a few champions instead of all of them. Depends on the game though, I play rather randomly

I mostly use it for my sovereign to get the specific spell combo for some specific combo spells, 2 air and 2 water gives gentle rain for example.

Don't know if its the best way to play, but I love having 1 Über sovereign with tons of magical power (because I get some free magic upgrades from steal spirit, usually levelling up goes towards "Proper" traits.

Only really uses it with path of the mage though, wish there was an equilevant spell for melee sovereigns (path of the warrior, defender or assassin)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

The path tomes from enchanter are nice, but they're not its main strength.  The arcane monolith is what makes it shine in my book.  The ability to clear the enemy's outposts and place your own on the same turn.  The ability to stick a monolith on top of fertile land, and tell neutral pioneers to take a hike.  The ability to stick a monolith on a choke point, and deny passage.

Kongdej, I will have to give that a try, it sounds interesting.

Tuidjy, I have never played with 'enchanter', it sounds awesome, i'm gonna give that a go too.

Thanks for the tips people!

Not to mention using them with cloud walk to teleport all over the map, or drop friendly territory only spells on the enemy!

That said, while I think that the faction abilities are not close to being balanced yet, I give the devs a lot of credit for at least making a number of them qualitatively very different. The difference between, say, slave lords and binding, is a lot more interesting than "Magnar gets +10% to production, Reslon gets +10% to research", which is the extent to which many games differentiate factions.

Ah yes, I did miss Enchanters, the most gratifying sadistic ability you can have.

Now thats a use!!

The other stuff is just half-decent uses, since I like to use my mana on other stuff as well, I do like the mana economy in this game, tons of sheize to use mana on, less to use all the other resources on, I always trade away iron, crystals and influence so my economy is well better balanced off.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

In my book, if I have to cloud walk for 80 mana or pay an extra 30 mana to nail someone with a Tremor, I've screwed up.  Of course, I do screw up plenty, but I tend to value an ability for what it can do when I'm doing things the right way, as opposed to how it can pull my ass out of the fire I've lit.

That said, in my .913 AAR I Cloud Walked twice before turn 100, and in my .915, I rushed for Cloud Walk before I started fighting far from home.  I still think that "land grab" benefits are what makes enchanters shine. 

But I guess that when you are arguing which of the five uses of one third of a faction trait is overpowered, you're not even arguing whether it is overpowered.

I agree that using tactical spells usually means "oh no, I forgot my defenses!", but monolith+ cloud walk is a pretty potent strategy- just wait till your enemy's army is on the march, swoop your ass-kicking/bubble-gum-chewing sovereign into the friendly culture space you just created, grab/raze lightly defended cities, and still be back home in time to crush the invading army. High mana cost, sure, but it lets players leverage one of their biggest strengths (intelligently leveled, equipped and commanded champions) against the AI offensively and defensively at almost the same time. Imho, it doesn't seem that similar to casting tremor.

Also, cloud walk is just plain wonderful, especially when completing epic quests. I love being able to avoid hammering the enter key over a dozen long late-game turns of walking across the map!