I actually love this change. As it was, Elves were pretty mediocre hybrids... The main problem being balancing an offense with mage-like WPA and having enough TPA to defend runes, all without having any innate WPA/TPA bonuses. That meant they were second-rate Mages and poor attackers, even for a hybrid. An elf Mage essentially needed to be an M/t to protect runes already, which left little room for hybridization, and even then only at the expense of much lower effective WPA than Faeries and lower offense than most hybrids. So they could suck at two things or be good mages and barely attack.Originally Posted by Palem
The +50% WPA change actually allows them to be competitive as a Mage without having to spend so much population on their raw WPA. An elf/mystic will arguably be the best at duration-spells, but Faeries still have the upper hand with instant spells due to their 30% bonus, and Faeries still benefit from the fact that M/T compliment each other so well. So neither one is made useless, but they can synergize.
I like this change as is : )
As for Faeries, I can agree on loosening up the -10% pop bonus if they didn't have 3/8 elites... that allows them to maintain higher defense with a lower draft rate than any other race in the game. If it takes your army 25% less population to defend your land, compared to a 6-defense spec or elite, doesn't that already counter -10% population penalties overall? If Faeries didn't have those penalities they could be UB to all but the most aggressive, suicidal Orc/UD attackers their size.
Edit: I guess conquest would work for less-aggressive attacker builds trying to break a faery, but there are penalties to that as well - lower gains and higher losses- and the Faerie would still be UB to massacres from anyone but the most aggressive Orc/UD pure attackers his size.
I just don't like the idea of encouraging provinces that run UB strats. That's boring, and it ruins the game for attackers who have to sit on their thumbs and hope they don't get op'd. Being able to hit someone (with ops or attacks both) means you have to be able to get hit back just as easily!
