I finally tried 1.42 -
Heroes being so much weaker will work well in singleplayer I think, this basically solves the way they trivialise the campaign.
Still, 15 levels to get to Spellcasting V (if not starting with it), or 15 levels for (+5 ATK, +2 DAM, +3 DEF) does feel wimpy. I don't remember off the top of my head how much quicker levels are gained now.
If you feel generous once mainline AoW+ is complete, and release a version with a couple of multiplayer-oriented tweaks, I'd ask for heroes to get 15 skillpoints per level instead of 5. In multiplayer, superheroes make the game very fun, unlike singleplayer where they make it boring.
I like the Spellcasting casting point scaling of 5/10/20/40/80 for Spellcasting I/II/III/IV/V.
I guess it's intended to reflect the way that having just a tiny bit of spellcasting for a few enchantments on important units is the most valuable step, and to reward higher level mages more.
I do think those numbers are a little drastic - I'd prefer 5/15/30/50/75. (And with only 5 to start, I'd want to see combat spells be very cheap, maybe even cost nothing for lowlevel ones like Flaming Arrow).
At present scaling, I suspect that taking one step past Spellcasting I would make it almost ''mandatory'' to go all the way to Spellcasting V, to chase that huge +40 jump at the last upgrade from IV to V.
I know it's rude to harp on about the same thing again, but really these settlement rebuild costs are very high!
It takes 30 turns for rebuilding towns to pay for themselves, not counting the earlier expenditure for the Rebuilder unit. This is lower than 1.41, but I get the impression that rebuilding settlements is still never a reasonable strategic choice.
I've made two scenarios which feature starting areas with some ruined towns and rebuilders, I think this a cool thing to do - feels like setting up camp in a new territory. But now you need vast amounts of gold to do it - and if you had such gold, you'd be better off ignoring the ruins anyway!
I guess with looting generating so much money (10 turns of the settlement's income, 12 for cities), maybe you didn't want rebuilding to be paid for by the original looting, so there was a reason to increase rebuilding costs past the original game's situation where it pays for itself in 7 turns. Otherwise, loot-and-rebuild just becomes a strictly better option than migrating. Even so, a 15-turn pay-off could work fine - ie, the original 50/100/150/200 gold cost (effectively more expensive because settlements have less income now), with the new double duration of 10 turns.
Maybe I should open up some spreadsheet calculations to take a look at the comparative gold reward of migration, loot-and-rebuild, and loot-and-ignore, over time. I suspect that looting is ''too good'' now, considering migration takes a long time (and needs a fairly large garrison to enforce for that time), and considering looting doesn't take much longer than razing.
It would be interesting if it was worthwhile to leave cities of an enemy race unmigrated, and just garrison them with troops. But to make that a viable option you'd have to make it be better than looting and migration, while also paying for the soldier's upkeep, plus a bit. Wouldn't it be cool if units inside cities cost half upkeep? Sadly I'm sure that's impossible.
Perhaps if Rebuilders were more expensive, that would be interesting - you could shift some of the cost of all their actions onto the unit itself. This would make it easier to have scenarios where the player starts with rebuilders and actually uses them, instead of disbanding them because it's not worth it to use them.
Also like IniochReborn said, please don't hardcode spell costs or unit costs, we want to mess with those via ruleset! In any case the Pony Rider and Elephant probably need to be made weaker in terms of their stats, if you only make them more expensive, then they're in a weird place of having the cost and power of t2, but as a t1, with 2 upkeep. They already stuck out a bit, but with the weak archery, it's a gulf. I wouldn't want to see them moved to t2, since the races are too similar already - instead I'd do stuff like bring the Elephant down to 1 ATK, reduce the ATK and DAM of the Pony Rider by 1 each.
Also, what's the overall picture with mana changes? It seems almost like you're halving mana income, halving spellcasting points at low levels, and halving some spell mana costs.... isn't this an awful lot of work that basically cancels itself out?? :p
Oh, and thumbs up to the hero cost changes - being free to recruit and lower upkeep is a huge improvement.
Also, with newly spawned units starting on ''Scout'' action by default - does that mean you can actually recruit the heroes generated by Call Hero now, instead of needing to smother them in Nymphs? Very cool, let me check real quick....
Post edited July 13, 2020 by southern
