Another Avian Thread

[Gidoza]

My inspiration for today...it's a bit weighty, but UD is weighty, so Avian can be weighty, too. :P


Avian

No Distance Penalties
-10% Attack Time
-50% Thief Losses
+6% Maximum Population
Immune to Pitfalls
+50% Dungeon Capacity + Prisoners Taken
-60% Honor Losses to Spells + Ops
Spec Names Are Switched

Cannot Use Stables/War Horses
-10% Income
-6% Building Efficiency
+50% Rune Costs
Maybe -5 to -10% Birth Rates

All the spells it had before.

6/0 Elite - 700 gc (cannot lose Elites on the defensive)




Rationale...

No Distance - They fly. More to the point, this provides an attack time bonus for OOW and before war that is useful for Avians without their needing to log on too much per day.

-10% Attack Time - They fly. Specifically, I reduced the time for this and added different bonuses so that a non-Tactician Avian can attack twice per day in war without using Barracks.

-50% Thief Losses - They fly.

+6% Max Pop - They use trees. Counteracts weaker Elite/no Stables.

Immune to Pitfalls - They fly.

Dungeon Capacity - They're birds of prey - they take food for their young...and then use them to attack the enemy. :P Provides some compensation for weaker Elite/no Stables.

-60% Honor Losses (on spells/ops ONLY) - Avians are honorable creatures, and aren't going to give it away easily (again, compensation for weaker Elite/no Stables).

Spec Names Swapped - This is what Avians used to be before they got removed + reintroduced. Current names make no sense with their roles.


Cannot Use Stables/Horses - They fly.

-10% Income - Avians aren't about running a government, they're new to this (provides compensation against the pop bonus).

-6% BE - Avians build nests, not buildings - they're new to this. Helps to balance out all the other advantages I'm giving them.

+50% Rune Costs - Avians are new to spellcasting, too? :P

Less Birth Rates - In case I gave them too much power.


Spells - duh.


6/0 Elite - Makes the Elite a threat by letting the Avian sit around and attack at will when it is convenient. Combined with fast attack times, this could be tactically very useful. Increased gc cost to compensate.

[kwijybow]

Interesting idea. My counter to your suggestions...

Bonuses
-20% attack time
-20% thievery losses
Immune to Pitfalls (for sure!)
Immune to Ambush? (how can you ambush an army in the air when your army is on the ground? Also, their army is faster than your army apparently...)

Negatives
-10% building efficiency
-5% population
Remove greater protection from avian racial spells, give to another race / personality.

[Palem]

No Distance - They fly.

1. How does this rationally make any sense? It doesn't take a bird longer to fly from one tree to the next as it does to fly from it's tree across the country?
2. Flying means you have to travel a greater distance than things walking on the ground...technically.

6/0 Elite - Makes the Elite a threat by letting the Avian sit around and attack at will when it is convenient. Combined with fast attack times, this could be tactically very useful. Increased gc cost to compensate.

How would ambush work?

[Gidoza]

To Palem - OK, point taken - forget the explanation for No Distance and just use it as a bonus, then. :P Point is that it would be a useful and unique bonus.

As for Ambush, it would work the same way a spec works - Avians would have a 6-point unit to Ambush because the Elite has 0 defense (effective 4.8 defense in Ambush).

[Dungeon]

I like the concept you are trying to work here but would suggest immune to ambush except other avians can ambush you.

[Palem]

As for Ambush, it would work the same way a spec works - Avians would have a 6-point unit to Ambush because the Elite has 0 defense (effective 4.8 defense in Ambush).

Specs defend with the race's def spec strength. Since most Avians keep their leets out all war anyway and don't contribute to defense, they would essentially be running a 6/4 leet. One of the best leets in the game, for the cheapest price.

...not a big fan of the suggestion as a whole
*shrug*

[Dungeon]

lol, I like the idea solely based on the fact that I love Avian and I just think they are too weak to play. I would like to be able to play an avian where I can attack 3-4 times in a day and not be dead in the water 24 hours into the war due to the amount of losses sustained with attacking and defending.

[noobium]

I like the bonus of no distance penalties. It makes sense because the distance penalty is supposed to represent the logistical complications of building boats and so forth. Gameplay-wise it's basically an added -10% attack time, since the game usually makes one kingdom per island dominant over the others).

I don't think Avian needs quite that many bonuses/penalties though. Something I would play with...

Avian:
-25% attack times
-50% training time (specialists and elites)
No distance penalties on non-land attacks (this applies to raze, massacre, learn, and plunder attacks, effectively -32.5% attack time aside from on-island attacks)
Accurate Espionage (Tactician loses this)
Immune to Ambush

No Access to Stables
No Access to Dungeons
-20% offense on Ambush

Elite: 6/2, 700gc, 5nw
Spellbook: Fanaticism, Clear Sight

The net result of these changes:
- Avian is set up to be a particularly effective specialist for non-land attacks, due to having significantly faster attack time than their rivals for such attacks.
- With Clear Sight (also extended to Faeries), they enjoy the full benefits of Tactician without picking Tactician, instead of getting only the speed bonus. This makes Avian/whatever a much better pick than Whatever/Tactician, rather than the opposite as is the case now.
- Accurate espionage helps the Avian retain thieves both in and out of war, which favors them playing an attacker-thief role (and also removes accurate espionage from the already-good Tactician personality, thus weakening them a bit)
- Immunity to Ambush gives Avians an edge with troop retention, if they can't protect themselves against ambush by other means. This is more useful at the lower tiers than the higher tiers.
- Added penalties: No Dungeons removes an offensive option from Avians, thus further reducing the offense they have available, and sucks for Avians that like to multitap and those with the sense to stockpile prisoners. Because avian troops tend to be airborne, the element of surprise is lost on ambush attacks, and thus defenders and attackers fight on roughly equal terms; for gameplay purposes this is intended to counteract Avians' monopoly on troop attrition due to their immunity to ambush.
- The increase in elite price nerfs Avians a little bit (important because their set of bonuses is a lot better now)

With these in place, using Avians is a lot more interesting, now that Avians other than Tactician actually have a purpose.

[Gidoza]

Palem, the thread is here not to be accepted as is, but for suggestions and tweaks to be made. If I've overlooked something, please help me adjust the race until it becomes something that is balanced and unique. Thanks. :)

Specs defend with the race's def spec strength. Since most Avians keep their leets out all war anyway and don't contribute to defense, they would essentially be running a 6/4 leet. One of the best leets in the game, for the cheapest price.

...not a big fan of the suggestion as a whole
*shrug*

[Gidoza]

To noobium -

Something I would play with...

Appreciate the insight - but how is this helping to adjust things at hand? Now we have 3 different suggestions in the thread, and none of them has received any work. :/

[Palem]

Palem, the thread is here not to be accepted as is, but for suggestions and tweaks to be made. If I've overlooked something, please help me adjust the race until it becomes something that is balanced and unique. Thanks. :)

I don't like the concept of having a race that can tactically send their armies out at the most opportune time and have zero risk of having their armies sitting at home. I think you're undervaluing how outrageously powerful that is.

But I'm not going to sit around bashing it all day so...
*moves along*

[Gidoza]

I know how outrageously powerful that is - it's part of the point, but I'm not so attached to it that it can't be changed. It would certainly make Avian unique.

[SlightlyOverdosed]

There are drawbacks Palem, no defense on elites means it's much much easier to chain avians army home at the start of war, 12 epa is the defense of 6 dspa army home.
Also while sitting home they will still be hammered by MS.

To OP, when there are so many mods it's pretty hard to see clearly how it will all work together, like a machine with many many moving parts, especially while some of the attributes are new.

[Gidoza]

Fair point that I'm aware of when having made the thread - too many variables.

If you were to attempt to keep some of the uniqueness of the design that I am attempting to generate, what would you cut out/leave in to make it somewhat foreseeable of how it would work out?

There are drawbacks Palem, no defense on elites means it's much much easier to chain avians army home at the start of war, 12 epa is the defense of 6 dspa army home.
Also while sitting home they will still be hammered by MS.

To OP, when there are so many mods it's pretty hard to see clearly how it will all work together, like a machine with many many moving parts, especially while some of the attributes are new.

[noobium]

I don't like the concept of having a race that can tactically send their armies out at the most opportune time and have zero risk of having their armies sitting at home. I think you're undervaluing how outrageously powerful that is.

But I'm not going to sit around bashing it all day so...
*moves along*

To be fair I think it's bull**** that the game compels attacker races to army-in-army-out, or else they lose an absurd amount of their military strength. It is also why I would favor more turtle-type elites, or maybe even an overhaul of troop types so that there is more diversity in troop types.