I'm sorry for retaking a thread for Beastlords, but I've tried some games with a Beastlord Sov, and the conclusions are evident.
What it seemed an easy way to create an early army, becomes a bit gamebreaking after Sov grows Spell Mastery, and can tame easily Ravenous Harridans and Hoarder Spiders (I even got the Spider Queen from the Spider Event). And with affinity and/or the suit of less spell cost, I could tame BB for a ridicuolus amount of mana.
Umberdroths and other beasts are easily tamed too. So, I sent my Sov alone, and came back with a full army (bears, wolves, spiders...). I gave it to the champ, and went alone again for a new army... Lots of fun the first time, but after that, the game might be broken, with deadly armies with 0 upkeep. My last game, I just researched Civ and Magic untill late game...
And when a beast is tamed, my army receives XP the same as it was killed (well, I find it interesting, but maybe the XP should be halved, or (sigh) removed).
So, to give a bit of balance, I think that tamed beasts should have some mana upkeep (from 1 to ... 10? ... depending on the level or the power).
A quick list: Low level: 1 mana. Mid level: 2-3 mana. High level: 5 or more mana.
If not mana enough for the upkeep...beasts should "untame" (lol?) and get free again.
(Edit) These suggestions by now:
-Leave it as it is. Most people find fun as it is, and we (are supposed to) live in a democracy. So this is the winner suggestion.
- Beasts are untamed if they leave the Sovs's army. I find this one interesting, as it puts a logical limit to the number of tamed beasts. The most balanced untill now (attach number of tamed beasts to army size...I find sense here), so I put it the second in the list.
- A nice alternative: beasts have no upkeep while in Sov's army (as he has direct control over them), but if they go out of the army, then require a certain mana upkeep. I find this very balanced, and make sense with what a beastlord is suposed to be.
- You need to attack the beast. There should be a HP threshold for the beast before being able to cast Tame. Suggested between 10 HP and ...25?. This way, low HP beast are easy to tame, but high HP beasts would require tactical strategics (and a proper army). This sounds good too.
- Not mana upkeep for low level beast, only for high level (hoarder, harrigans...)
- Influence upkeep for beasts with higher level than Sov
- Risk of rebellion each turn. It could be avoided by a sort of spell that require a upkeep.
- Increase resistance to tame for high level beasts. For example, use the HP difference as a % of more resistance. Maybe (HP difference /2)?
1 mana per turn every three levels of beast sounds extremely excessive to me. But I think one mana per turn per beast sounds excessive.
I can justify a significant food cap -- beasts eating a lot makes sense to me -- but a per-beast mana cost that equals or exceeds that of summoned elementals? I understand that you can only summon a limited number of elementals (limited by your supply of champions with summoning skills) but they are also guaranteed and can be re-summoned (albeit with their levels reset, based on your faction's shards and summoning levels) after they die.
Anyways, I do not like the idea of making beasts and elementals consume the same kind of resource. Henchmen consume coins (and not anything like 1 gildar every three levels, last time I checked?) and can easily exceed beasts in power. Champions also consume coins (again, not 1 gildar every 3 levels) and have even greater potential.
Beasts tend to be plentiful, and making level 9 beasts cost more than level 20 champions (at least when a mana point has a higher value than a gildar) does not seem like a good way of balancing the fact that they are weaker than champions and ... plentiful...
Definitely NO on the Mana upkeep.
You could probably do a fractionally tiny gold expense to represent the cost to feed them.
Perhaps a different approach:
Instead of trying to nerf the fun part of BeastLord (the search and taming), change how the beasts operate in combat. Make them AI only. Let the beasts be beasts. So you can still grow your menagerie, but will have some difficulty in controlling them in combat.
That would be rather severe, also, since (with a few exceptions, like rock spiders) beasts typically have no defenses. when fighting against armored and prepared defenders, they are quite flimsy.
(It's also rather funny, in that insane campaign, where I was impressed by how rapidly I was able to build up my forces, I stumbled over Kraxis and Karavox immediately declared war on me, long before I was really ready for that, but I cannot afford to let him start turning my cities. Anyways, I'm fighting units with 500+ health and 20x7 to 30x7 melee damage and I'm only able to slowly whittle them down with my spells which is eating up my small mana reserve, and I lost my great wolf to some impulsive archers so my bears are now doing single digit damage... I am mostly leaving them behind because they just slow down the combat, and also the spiders walk too slowly to be useful to me and they are way too flimsy to fight armies without me there to keep them safe. So I'm mostly using them to scout into territories I do not have time to visit, and to take unguarded outposts. My tamed animals are more useful than wildlings or darklings, but only slightly. Then again, even a dragon would have problems here. Still, ultimately, the real problem with game balance is that the AI is not very smart -- otherwise I would be crushed almost instantly.)
Aye, it sounds excessive. Let's put it this way. I wouldn't mind paying 4 mana for a lvl 12 Great Wolf. It is very useful. Same with Corpse Spider, Umberdroth etc. Would be a nice limitation for the number of the beasts on our side.
I did not go into details, but you think right, summoned elementals/beasts have a limitation on their number, so I would not change the mana req for them. Plus, they are "created" by us. Exactly.
About using mana to "feed" beasts: I did not give details here either, but I do not see it as a real problem. A summoned Shadow Warg upkeep is 1 mana. It is an animal, summoned by a spell, so keeping it under control is 1 mana. However, a beast of the wild is part of the world we try to conquer, born in wild, keeping it under control should be more difficult.
Hero vs. beast: heroes fight for you for their own good. Fame, adventure, whatever. 1 gold upkeep is really low ofc for a lvl 20 hero, but they are heroes. Special kind. 7 mana for a lvl 21 Great Wolf (probably around lvl 15 if the sov is 21 so it is 5) howling for +21 attack for the whole army is just nothing in my opininon.
Anyway, we are just discussing ideas, this is mine... I am sure it will not be implemented in any way (with the leader/beast level % thing), I was just describing how I would solve the BL+beasts challenge.
On a related note - the great wolf is a prime candidate for a nerf. It makes no sense that a powerful archmage spellcaster who wants to buff his army cannot possibly match a simple howl by a wolf
The howl should only buff the attack of other wolves, not knights and dragons, IMHO.
Agreed.
I find interesting the howl, no need to nerf it. Should it buff only beasts and dragons? Maybe, that would encourage to have a beasty army
That great wolf is great... right up until you meet some archers in an army worth fighting, they love shooting great wolves.
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