[LH][0.9] Analysis of Factions

Reserved

Good post.

Again, I think the development team made a mistake not using traditional fantasy races.

The lack of differentiation really shows, with all races playing similarly and no real unit differentiation.  

It's my biggest gripe with LH - that and NO DRUID HERO

Capitar Pioneers can build roads. It isn't mentioned anywhere, and isn't useful to anyone but Capitar (or a custom faction with Mancer blood), but they do get a blood ability. Perhaps it should also grant a 'hire mercenaries' ability to champions, so that it's at least useful to non-Mancer factions? Get a unit of Silver Sword Mercenaries or something for a small amount of money?

I really wish that this and Warrior Caste would be combined. Together, that might be a fairly decent trait. Separate, they are at best passable but uninteresting. The other issue is that the tech-granting traits seem a little odd compared to one another - Adepts and Scholars both grant secondary bonuses (40 mana and 10% research boost, respectively), while Civics and Warriors grant nothing but the technology (at least according to the tooltip). Improving the Civics trait by, for example, adding a 10% income bonus, or a 5% faction-wide unrest reduction, or +1 production per materials, would help make Capitar a little more unique (especially the income bonus; when taken with the Bazaar from Legacy of Serrane, this would really make Capitar the money faction). If Civics got one of the bonuses in the previous sentence (or any other bonus; also note that the specific numbers given above were just things I made up rather than thinking about what might be reasonably balanced), and Warriors were combined with Warrior Caste, none of the tech-granting traits would be significantly superior to the others any longer.

Yithril would probably need to get something additional, though, because I don't think that Training and an extra level on trained troops is really worth two faction points, not now and not later. Tough or Axe Mastery could perhaps be made better enough to justify costing an extra point (for example, if Tough gave +10% fire, cold, and poison resistance in addition to +10% health, or something like that), or someone could come up with another trait worth one point (such as Conscription, X% discount on unit wages, production cost, or rush cost).

I'd support this. I also agree that the stat bonuses rarely come into play. Perhaps the stat boost could be worked into the city walls, and grant fortresses slightly better walls?

More like it's overkill - you get double swarm bonus, which encourages using big armies, and you get a bonus simply from having a big army, regardless of how well you can swarm. It might be better if they had a significant drawback like Resoln's lack of advanced armor, but either way everything the blood trait does is designed to improve big armies.

I agree that Tarth's blood trait needs a rework - either it also needs to grant the ability for individual units to escape the battlefield, or it needs to be changed to something else entirely, because in Legendary Heroes there is not really any good reason to make use of small armies if you can use a larger one instead (and, in fact, all the game mechanics aside from Tarth blood will punish you for it). Three attack and initiative might have been enough to turn Tarth into an early rush faction, but city militias are about the size and strength of early-game field armies, and if there's an actual army present in addition to the militia that extra initiative and attack isn't going to do much for you anyways.

Tarth Blood feels especially weak when compared to Urxen Blood, since Tarth Blood encourages something that the game mechanics fight against while Urxen Blood encourages something that is already strong due to the basic game mechanics.

Also agree about changing the Rebels trait to encourage a tall faction.

I agree that Betrayers lost a lot when champions dropped off the map, and that Heroic and Slave Lords are a bit expensive for what they do for you.

Resoln: Wraith touch scales with level and number of troops. When you will hit 60 dmg with a wraith touch later in game (healing your unit for same amount) don't say is weak Sure is not awesome, is just a good utility (or dmg vs high armor units when you would do very low damage with normal attack).

Tarth: it fits them to stay small being a small fraction of rebels (hence the penalty to unrest). The racial bonus isn't amazing, but it helps early game, wouldn't say useless. Regarding their archers - they completely rock the house mid / end game, because by that time you have enough accuracy to bypass the double strike penalty, so dps wise 2 archer groups = 4. When you get them to 100+ atk and 50% armor pen, they completely wreck, 1 shotting things like no tomorrow.

Procipinee: as of 0.9 I had 2 games where she used (not abuse) the arcane monolith. True AI won't abuse the spell as a player would, grabbing territory as you explore to ensure later settling / constructions / resource harvesting. I wouldn't want to play on higher diff levels vs a pariden that would do that, prolly by mid game they would be unbeatable controlling 80% of map

General opinion: each faction for me plays different, I can't copy tactics I use with one with another and have same success. Each faction has a different start research wise as well. I don't think their racial traits should change them to the point where you have to re-learn the game each time you play a new faction. The diversity is there, but it doesn't play a major role - good design decision. I don't like opposite spectrums like they made in heroes 5 for example, with dungeon being super burst damage super speed but very frail, while necropolis was very tough, very slow, very weak damage wise. This gets boring fast since severely limits your options when playing a faction. I don't want that to be the case with LH (look at heroes, you can make them any class you want and they will still be powerful, there is no such thing as Ceresa can only play caster or is screwed, or Relis is a commander or warrior otherwise he has to sit in town). Each faction has their flavor, that adds something to gameplay, while not being completely broken on the other hand.

Sure resoln and kulan have an early advantage with summons and beasts. Then midgame this shifts to other factions that bloom later (altar, pariden etc). They did a pretty good job with it and personally am pleased with the result. Of course wouldn't mind some tweaks if they don't completely change faction feel & play.

I think the faction should have ONE powerful blood ability and ONE powerful general ability. A few examples:

Pariden:

Soul spark (inflicts 3 + 1 per level lightning damage per unit, no mana cost, 3 turns cooldown)

Enchanters (unlocks the arcane monolith spell, unocks ranged lightning staffs that improve the damage of lightning spells)

Tarth:

Double strike (two attacks with - 15 to accuracy, 3 turns cooldown)

Scouts (unlocks powerful bows that cost no metal, heroes and units ignore rough terrain)

Why do you feel 5 turns is not a decent cooldown? It helps to balance abilities easier since all share same cooldown. If you would give some 3 instead of 5 cd, we will argue until end of world which ones should deserve 3 turn cd and which 5, and some will end up more powerful than others.

Soul spark is fine and so is double strike. Either of those having less than 5 turn cooldown would become op mid-end game (already - IMHO - double strike high end archers are on the border of being OP for tarth).

I think all abilities should have a cooldown of 3 turns to use them more than once per combat and make the combat more interesting.

Am curious how comes your combat lasts only 3 turns. Heck I even have fights that go for up to 20-30 turns. The combat is interesting as it is for what the game wants the tactical phase to be, it doesn't need to transform into ability spam.

The combat in my games lasts 3 - 8 turns, because that is enough time to kill most enemies with attacks or spells. I think an "ability spam" is more interesting than using standard attacks every turn.

Would mind telling me on what difficulty setting are you playing and in what part of the game (early game, mid game, late game) this 3-8 turns vs enemies of similar or higher strength than your party happens?

I am playing on hard world difficulty and hard AI difficulty, because i do not like huge AI bonuses. The fights vs. enemies of similar or slightly higher strength get shorter from early to late game, because the spells and attacks get more powerful and the AI is in most cases not able to counter them.

A few additional examples:

Resolin:

Wraith touch (inflicts 3 + 1 per level damage per unit and heals the caster, no mana cost, 3 turns cooldown)

Death worship (unlocks bound elementals, unlocks the dirge of ceresa spell)

Gilden:

Guarded strike (inflicts 75 % of the damage and the unit remains in the defending stance, 3 turns cooldown)

Mastersmiths (unlocks golems, the production cost of weapons and armors is reduced by 50 %)

hmm i don't like the idea of rolling the faction traits into the blood. one of the unique features of this game is the option to make custom factions based on various traits that were used in the default factions. if you roll many of the traits into the blood, you reduce the variety of possible custom faction combinations.

the ability cooldowns are fine imo. with 5 turns cooldown, you'll realistically only use your superpowers once per battle (which is true for about 90% of all battles), so deciding when to use it is an important decision. do i charge with my axemen and cleave the enemy line on turn 1, hoping that they will be wiped out or crippled to the point where their retaliation is harmless, or do i try to get the enemy units out of defense stance first by setting up my own line of defenders while circling around with my axemen and then cleaving them from the back when they are helpless.

by lowering the cooldown, that decision is less meaningful.

Agreed with Azunai. Leave everything untouched!

Concerning Gilden:

I have actually come around to believe that Gilden Blood (the traits the Gilden faction comes with not so much) may very well be among the strongest boni available for custom races.

This has a couple of reasons:

1: Excluding your Sovereign, most spellcasting will come not people with Gilden blood anyway. Getting a free endurance trait backed up by other endurance traits coming from level 3 fortresses is however, quite huge.

2: Guarded strike is suprisingly powerfull. On insane difficulty, it gives you a fairly decent chance to actually kill things like Mite Mobs and darklings without suffering permanent casulties.

3: Iron Golems can in fact be quite usefull, certain stuff with overpower on insane, or Yithril, really requires Iron Golem to deal with in an efficient manner.

Concerning traits:

The in my opinion strongest traits are enchanters (the extra essence is just huge), defensive (one handed spears are even better than spears are normally), lucky (effectivly 2 promotions for everyone).

Honorable mention goes to master scouts (mobility is always nice), and Wanderlust. Fending blades are actually quite usefull (especially for Gilden), and Wanderlust also eventually offers a way to turn Gildar into experience.

The by far weakest traits are those that give extra techs at the start.

Wrong.. wrong, wrong, so wrong. Orcs and dwarves and yes.. probably dark elves with purple armour...  so generic, and would probably still have the same differentiations between their factions as the current ones do gameplaywise.. only they wouldn't be uniquely elemental, even if they went with some outlandish designs for their dark elves, say like purple and black armour instead...

Not if you're playing on an Epic length game, having a faction with a couple starting techs could mean you get up to 100 turns head start compared to everyone else, that is huge.

The problem with Yithril is that they have gotten too many abilities that make their units tougher, because they are a warrior faction. They have a weakness so they get a lot of traits and this has crowded out Warriors and made it unimportant. Why does it matter if it is pointless because they already have good 3 traits. Warriors should really be replaced with something aggressive but not associated with units at all. Something like Pillage which would give them resources for destroying improvements and armies. This would also allow them too pursue super aggressive strategies other factions couldn't.

I always thought a reduction on improvement build times would fit Civics.

Oh I agree they are among the strongest factions, but that's not my point. Their bonuses don't make them play all that unique. Paying less for unit equipment might allow you to field units with lots of equipment but other then that they play like a generic faction.

i think the "warriors" traits should be changed. instead of the rather weak "Training" tech for barracks, it should unlock "Leatherworking" instead, which is way more powerful early on. the option to build a barracks without research is "meh", the ability to build units with leather armor and shields right at the start without wasting 15 turns of research is far more valuable and probably good enough to warrant picking up the trait for an "early rush" type of race.

in a similar vein, "civics" could unlock the free tech and also provide a lasting bonus (for example, +10% gildar income, or +1 production per material - much like scholars with the lasting research bonus on top of the free tech)

adepts could also give a lasting bonus to mana production (for example, 1 extra mana per shard improvement) instead of the one time 40 extra mana at the start.

that would make those tech based traits more desirable, imo.

opps

I haven't played it but I have heard that all the races play very differently. LH has good tactical diversity but not a lot of strategic diversity right now.

I believe that is not really related to factions, but to number of Victory Conditions available. Look at Civ 5, there's plenty of ways to achieve victory, and fit various playstyles and challenges.

This adds a lot to strategic diversity since you can't use same skeleton for your faction to achieve different victories.

I would like to see a VC where you have to conquer all wildlands for example, to civilize the world or something