Races

[White Fang]

Alright, here's my thoughts: first off, each race should have a discernable "theme." In other words, races x, y, and z are best for a leader strat, while races a, b, and c are best for an indy strat. Not quite as basic as that, but that's the general idea. Right now, most of the races' stats seem to just be random.

Anyways, here's some of my thoughts on the specific races.


Rat: Right now, the rat is one of the few races that obviously has a theme. It gets hit pretty hard in in both Leadership and Loyalty, but gets a bonus in Training and Building. As it stands, it seems equal enough: -20% in two categories, +20% in two categories. However, it should be pointed out that a Building speed bonus is not even close to making up for an equal subtraction in most other categories, since this one's only taken advantage of occasionally, while most other categories have a constant effect.

Also, with such a high training ratio, the rat should center on building its own troops. How about making mercs +20%, building +40%, and training +30/35%? If not that, then building should at least be boosted to +30% (since, as noted before, +20% on building doesn't make up all the way for -20% on most other things).

As to the Leadership ability, its current one is pretty much worthless, since the lotto is pretty much worthless. Now, since they get such a blow on Leadership and Loyalty, it should be something that's used once every so often (as opposed to Gold-Mine or Pressgang). How about something that gives the next five or so attacks a Pillage attribute? After all, concentrating on troops make for a harder time supporting them (more barracks=less foragers/markets/tents, and more troops=higher costs). So why not a Leadership ability that helps with that? Combined with the normal Pillage, this could be rather powerful against a food/cash stocker. (Additionally, it seems to kinda' fit in with a rat's style--taking it from others instead of producing it oneself).


Wildcat: Another troop superpower, Wildcat should see the revival/restoral of Pressgang, to be sure. Now to make it easier to support all those troops that are coming in, how about re-arranging stats so that it gets -20% on costs and food? Not only would it make the race more unique (no other race has both a reduction in costs and food intake), but it would also augment its primary ability--Pressgang--quite well. More resources could be dedicated to huts or barracks, showing out its powerful troop massing capabilities. (Also, the two Wildcats we saw in the series seemed to be rather good at supporting more troops on less. Ungat had an absolutely absurd amount of troops--all which were provisioned for--and Tsarmina supported her army for several months on practically nothing). To balance it out, maybe knock out the attack and merc bonuses, and place a hefty penalty on building and scouting.


Weasal: I'm not sure if Corsair is still in effect on this on, but if it isn't, it should definately be brought back. Now, I don't have any specific thoughts on the stats, except that they clash pretty bad with Corsair. First, skiffs have 6 attack and 8 defense; maybe switch the 10% change on offense and defense, so that Weasal gets an attack bonus and a penalty on defense (which would balance out all those skiffs lower attack and higher defense). Also, Weasal gets a reduction in food eaten, but if it centers on skiffs, that's pretty much worthless; skiffs require virtually no food...but they take quite a bit of cash. Why not switch the reduction in food over to a reduction in costs? Maybe even increase food eaten to +10% and then give costs -20%. Either way, it would definately flow better with its ability.


Wolf: As it stands, Wolf is a solid leader race, but some of its stats still seem kinda' "spread out" or random. I would suggest removing the bonuses on scouting and costs, and bumping both loyalty and leadership up to +20%. The bonus on mercs is pretty good, since a leader-heavy strat generally relies on the mercs a good deal. As an added note, training and income could both be lowered to -15%, attack raised to +20%, and defense raised to -10%. This way, it would mirror Marten in that it had four 20% advantages (attack, mercs, leadership, and loyalty) with a slew of other disadvantages to balance it out. Also, since we are talking wolves here, why not give them the "super feast" that's been mentioned before? Maybe something like "Pack Hunt," with twice the effect of Feast for 1.5 the loyalty. After all, Wolf--even without any changes--has the absolute best stats for leadering in the game. Why does it go to waste with something so minor as Inspire Fear? Really, Protect is so easy to use (and takes so little loyalty), we're not really getting anything useful with Inspire Fear.



(More to come).

[White Fang]

Updated.