- Introduction
As of this writing, warrior is the most popular personality and human is the more popular race. Human/warrior is by far the most popular race/pers combo, beating former no-brainers like Halfling/Rogue and Faery/Mystic. Almost 25% of all provinces are human/warrior, in fact. Human/warrior is OP, I think we can all agree on that.
But why, exactly? I bet most of you will say "well, the 8-point ospecs, DUH" and… yes, they're pretty good.
But I think we should keep them.
- Diagnosis
The thing about human/warrior is not just that they have impossibly high offenses – it's that they're too durable. You can have as high or even higher offenses with Orc or undead, but Orcs are especially vulnerable to T/Ms and Undeads are lousy thieves. Plus elites are expensive. Humans, too, are poor mages and you can usually fireball them almost to death – but with ≈43% less wages, who cares? I have seen human provinces with 200 peons that kept on fighting, their offense barely dented. They just had to cut their wages to 50% and receive some small aid from their teammates – 500k gc can make a province run for an entire day. Hell, if you got some thieves –and humans usually do– you can probably just steal to stay alive and running.
And of course, there's the ospec losses from attacking… which are meaningless, because you get credits to train more units and because you need 25% less specs to get to a certain offense, which means they die 25% slower (you lose offense points at the same rate, sure, but you're losing less bodies overall).
Add to that the OME bonus and the human science bonus and you've got an unstoppable force.
Compare this with other race options for warrior. Halflings get ≈10-15% more pop, which is more or less the ratio in which human/warrior ospecs are better than other/human ospecs (8/7 ≈ 115%). You get weaker ospecs, sure, but you can have more of them, so it evens out. Furthermore, since halflers have extra strong mercs/prisoners, you can theoretically have a larger offense as halfling than as a human, even when using ospecs.
As of this writing, there are 8 halfling/warriors. EIGHT. Why? Probably because they get no hospitals, or because you need to pay about 50% (more units, more wages per unit) more to keep that larger offense, or simply because you need to pay for more units (nevermind that you can actually fit them). They are much more fragile as attackers (plus they're more popular as thieves), so people don't flock to them.
Avian/warrior is another good option. You don't get more ospecs per acre, as halflings – but you do get bloodlust, which is a 20% boost. 7*1.2 = 8.4, which is stronger than humans' 8-point ospecs. Humans get stables, yes, but avians can build training grounds… roughly, you can have the same offense with Avian or Human. And avians attack faster! Plus they get stronger dspecs, so you can train less of those and more ospecs or you can sit behind a stronger defense. Sounds good, right?
As of this writing, there are 7 avian/warriors. SEVEN. Why? They do get hospitals, but they also get +10% losses (≈+30 with BL), and that attrition rate happens at a faster rate because of the faster attack times. You're gonna lose offense and you're gonna lose it fast – and you'll have to train it all back, unlike with humans who get 2 points for free with stables. There's a reason why Cleric is the most popular Avian choice – people don't like losing units.
Elf/Warrior is another pretty good option. +10% military offense means you get ≈7.7-point ospecs, which is pretty close to humans' 8 points. And with Elves, unlike humans, you can actually dab in spellcasting, even if it's just in a support role for your teammates. It's a more rounded option.
So how many Elf/Warriors are out there? 16. More than halfling and avian combined, I'll give you that, but about 500 less than human/warriors. Why? Because you don't get a science bonus and you don't get a wage bonus that stacks with warrior. Also, because you're slightly more vulnerable to ambushes, I guess. I'm honestly surprised that Elf/Warrior wasn't a more popular choice, but there you go.
- Solutions
So, what do we do?
People like warrior, but it needs some toning down. I suggest:
- taking away their +10% OME (redundant) and wage bonus
- KEEPING the +1 ospec
Why? Because it gives people a different attacking option, something other than going with elites. You want elites? You pick War Hero. Warrior is for the brute force attackers.
What about human? I suggest:
- swapping specs with Avian
- giving them an offensive-minded elite
Why did humans get the extra strong ospec? It makes no sense from a fantasy standpoint and frankly, it makes no sense from a gameplay point of view, either. Stronger defenses, on the other hand, makes a bit more sense from a gaming – since humans are such lousy mages, it prevents them from becoming an OP T/M, but it's still a military bonus that goes along their reduced wages. Plus, in medieval times (which is more or less the setting of this game) warfare was a usually defensive affair.
As a compensation, their knights should get more attack (and less defense), like they used to have. A 7/4 unit would be ok.
Avian/warrior gets the 8-point ospec. But they get no stables to further boost them plus their higher casualty rate. They would need a further penalty, which should be one (and only one) of the following:
- Take away their ambush protections (or don't – I ambush avians just to kill more troops, I don't care about the land)
- Give them a further battle gains penalty
- Give them larger losses outright
- Take away their birth rate bonus.
Let them be the glass cannon attackers, the T/M breakers – strong on paper, but a challenge to maintain.
Halfling is fine as it is. I don't think people will flock to them as attackers.
Elves lose dungeons. It's a small offensive penalty, barely a blip.
That's my suggestion. In short:
– don't take away +1 ospecs from warrior
– do take them away from humans, give to avians
– make avians (even more) fragile
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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