FfH Paring Questions

[DerWille]

Let's try to give some specific ideas for changing government civics. One idea is to break up the governments into 3 tiers. Basic governments and advanced governments. Advance governments would be better than their basic counter parts but this is to reward players who take the time to go after them.

Basic Govnerments

Aristoracy:
+2 farm commerce
-1 farm food

Idea: The specialist economy government. This lets people turn food into money and with other techs other resources like specialists. This may be powerful enough as it is. Royal guards should just become a national unit you can get at feudalism no matter your government.

City States:
-80% distance maintenance
-25% number of cities maintenance
+100% cottage growth
-25% culture

Idea: The basic war monger's government. It doesn't off set their war weariness but it lets capture alot of territory without crashing their economy. It also pushes them into a riskier cottage economy. It's also there for players wanting to develop their cottages faster.

God King:
+50% hammers
+50% wealth
+25% distance maintenance

Idea: Early expansion government.

Advanced Governments

Republic:
Villages and towns give +1 hammer
Villages and towns gain +1 commerce
+50% great person rate
+Unhappiness to others without Republic

Idea: This should let the cottage economy gain some teeth. It's finally able to convert its commerce into hammers and gain even more tech speed. This is like the builder strategy's dream government.

Theocracy:
Unlimited Priests
+2 exp in cities with state religion
-40% distance maintenance in cities with state religion
+25% unit production in cities with state religion
No non-state religion spread

Idea: This is the upgraded war monger's government. It trades maintenance bonuses for bonuses to both unit production and unit strength (exp). When its combined with nationhood/military state this could be similar to a miniature crusade.

Theocracy ideas: Other ideas I had were that it would increase shrine income by 25~50% and allow faster free state religion spread.


Good ideas? Bad ideas? What do you think?

[uberfish]

Rankings

Despotism 3 (can't give it 1, sometimes you need a WW fix)
City-states 5 (overshadowed by aristocracy)
God-king 8
Aristocracy 10
Theocracy 7
Republic 1 (absolute trash)


Religion 5 (if spiritual: 8)
Pacifism 3
Nationhood 5
Sacrifice the weak 10
Social order 6 (the military police effect is decent... but too late)
Consumption 8
Scholarship 8 (another civic that comes very late)
Liberty 3 (can't run it with scholarship)
Crusade 7


Tribalism 1
Apprenticeship 8
Slavery 8 (it's fine, Agrarianism is the culprit here)
Arete 7
Military state 8
Caste system 8
Guilds 1 (can't run it with caste system)


Decentralization 1
Agrarianism 10
Conquest 8
Mercantilism 1
Foreign trade 6
Guardian of nature 5 (elves: 8)



Traits:

Financial 10

Raiders 9

Aggressive 8
Charismatic 8
Philosophical 8
Spiritual 8

Expansive 7
Organized 7

Creative 6
Summoner 6

Arcane 5

Barbarian 4

Ingenuity 3

Defender 1

[Bobchillingworth]

Here are my ideas on how to change the various leaders. Added traits are in green, cut traits are in red, and any traits that are untouched are left uncolored. My commentary is in "deep sky blue". I've also included a few minor leaders from the scenarios at the end, who I think would benefit the mod as additions.


Present Leaders



Dain the Caswallan: Arcane, Philosophical. Looks / plays fine, no changes.


Valledia the Even: Arcane, Organized, Ingenuity. Ingenuity makes sense from a lore perspective ("pragmatic" ought to be a trait), and helps boost Val a little by making her mage upgrades cheaper.


Perpentarch: Charismatic, Arcane, Creative, Insane. Leave as-is. Insanity means that his traits don't matter as much as others, anyway.


Keelyn: Summoner, Creative. She doesn't have much trait synergy, but there's nothing terribly wrong with this combo. No changes.


Sabathiel: Organized, Charismatic. No changes.


Capria: Spiritual, Financial, Defender, Industrious. Her two present traits are pretty weak on their own, the small boost from Defender helps make her a little bit more competitive, and fits the lore. Industrious doesn't help her much at all, so cut that, while financial assists the Bannor in their cottage spam endeavors while they prepare for a Crusade.


Decius: Organized, Raiders. Works fine at present.


Alexis: Philosophical, Aggressive. Not as useful as the other two potential Calabim leaders, but she isn't necessarily weak- just overshadowed.


Flauros: Organized, Financial. Great combo, especially for the Calabim. Goal here is to boost really weak combos, rather than beat down those which work well, so no changes.


Jonas Endain: Barbarian, Expansive, Spiritual. No changes.


Sheelba: Barbarian, Organized, Aggressive. No changes. Both Clan leaders have nice combos.


Charadon: Barbarian, Aggressive, Ingenuity, Charismatic. Right now the poor guy might be the worst leader in the game, with absolutely nothing going for him besides an ultra-early rush. I think Selrahc proposed giving him Ingenuity and Charismatic earlier, and I agree- they fit his character and change him into a very fearsome warlord who still has the barbarian trait as a restraining bolt to keep him from being overpowered.


Mahala: Ingenuity, Raiders, Defender, Creative, Adaptive (replacing Raiders). As was the case for Capria, defender & creative are added for lore reasons, and for the slight boosts. Adaptive certainly fits Mahala's "do whatever it takes to survive" mentality, and allows you to trade out your nice warmonger's raiders for financial (or something else) in case you want to be the first person to ever build the War Machine.


Einon Logos: Philosophical, Tolerant, Defender, Arcane. Since "tolerant" really ought to be a Civ trait instead of attached to the Elohim leaders, I suggest Einon get Arcane to help move Elohim away from over-emphasizing Discipline units, and because it fits the lore well. And because he looks like Gandalf.


Ethne the White: Creative, Tolerant, Defender, Ingenuity. Creative and defender are pretty weak on their own. Ingenuity at least helps the Elohim have an easier time with upgrading the awful Devouts (who really ought to be channeling II).


Cassiel: Philosophical, Industrious, Adaptive, Agnostic (from civ). No changes.


Minister Koun: Philosophical, Agnostic (not from civ) Charismatic . Special mention for this guy in the regular leader section, since he does rarely show up in normal games. I saw make him charismatic too (fits what little we know about him), and add him in as a regular leader for the Grigori. Also leave him in as a random event leader (but not if he's already leading the Grigs).


Tasunke: Aggressive, Raiders. Very powerful combo, borderline overpowered, yet no one has even chosen him for a PBEM game yet, so perhaps he isn't too overwhelming. Leave as-is, for now.


Rhoanna: Financial, Expansive. A nice econ choice for the more intellectually-inclined Hippus player.


Auric Ulvin: Agnostic, Charismatic, Arcane, Defender. [COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]His civilopedia entry outright states that he's "a magical prodigy". Surely this man should be Arcane. Get rid of defender though, four positive traits (if he gets the free Aggressive bonus, which should occur in any SP game with the Frigus) is too many.
[/COLOR]


Hyborem: Summoner, Barbarian, Aggressive, Ingenuity, Spiritual. Hyborem is a perfectly workable leader already, so I'm recommending his changes on the basis of lore alone. This is the suggestion I care least about. Although Ingenuity also helps him in case you go mad and decide to actually upgrade some manes instead of settling them.


Kandros Fir: Aggressive, Ingenuity, Financial. One of the best leaders in the game, and probably the greatest example of synergy with this native civ.


Arturus Thorne: Industrious, Ingenuity, Financial, Organized. Right now poor Arturus just can't compete with Kandros, considering how important it is for the Khazad to generate gold. Organized does nothing for him at present. I kind of feel like he should be Spiritual too, which could also help with collecting gold, but it seems odd to not have an industrious Khazad leader. Too bad they don't have a minor leader to bring in from the scenarios.


Cardith Lorda: Expansive, Philosophical, Adaptive. No changes.


Falamar: Charismatic, Expansive, Adaptive (replaces expansive). [COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"] His default combo isn't at all bad, but he's focused too much on the bonus food that the Lanun get from water tiles. Adaptive gives the player a chance to sacrifice growth and health to get a boost from financial or a war trait to pair with charismatic. Also, lore!
[/COLOR]


Hannah the Irin: Financial, Raiders, Creative, Insane. Yes, I just made Hannah insane. She totally is I don't want to gimp her overly much, but Financial and Raiders is such an incredible power combo that I can't see anyone selecting Falamar unless their leader options are artificially restricted.


Thessa: Arcane, Expansive. Oh hey, it's the most boring leader in the game. No changes.


Amelanchier: Defender, Raiders, Magic Resistant. Defender fits too well from a lore perspective to remove. Raiders is a nice trait for the Ljo to have available. But combined, they're just a little too weak, and so magic resistant seems to me to be the best boost.


Arendel Phaedra: Creative, Spiritual. She has a weak combo, but I don't know if she needs a boost. Summoner for better tiger spam? But that makes her very similar to Keelyn- drop the creative in that case. I could go either way.


Garrim Gyr: Financial, Arcane, Magic Resistant, Defender. Going to second Selrahc here that it's almost incomprehensible that Garrim isn't arcane, given his civilopedia entry. Magic immune recommended on the basis of same entry, even though it won't impact most of his troops. And why the hell does he have Defender? Golems can't even use it, and it doesn't make sense from the lore!


Beeri Brawl: Financial, Industrious. Basium's BFF, and the coolest dwarf to ever live. No changes.


Varn Gosam: Spiritual, Creative, Adaptive. Another example of an ideal leader / civ combo. No changes.


Basium: Aggressive, Ingenuity, Raiders. No changes to the leader traits, but Basium the unit really needs some Phoenix Blood of his own. Otherwise he has to hide like a sissy lest he risk losing his traits, while evil counterpart Hyborem can gleefully charge off with suicidal abandon.


Tebryn Arbandi: Summoner, Arcane. Very nice combo, A+, wouldn't change a thing.


Os-Gabella: Summoner, Spiritual, Industrious. Industrious does what for her? She gets the Catacomb Libralus and Prophecy of Ragnarok a few turns earlier. That's about it. Right now she's strictly worse than Tebryn, spiritual at least allows her diversify her forces a bit and works well with summoner should she eventually get those Balor-summoning Profanes.


Sandalphon: Defender, Industrious, Charismatic -or- Defender, Industrious, Adaptive (replaces industrious). Probably the leader the most people can agree needs to change. Charismatic means quicker waning; Adaptive allows Sandalphon to explore other avenues making the most of the Sidar, like Philo.


Faeryl Viconia: Arcane, Raiders. No changes.


Scenario or "minor" Leaders to port over to the main game


First a foreword- I know that this "paring" mod is about balancing the game, and not adding a ton of pet content. But I believe that adding in some of the official leaders from the scenarios could improve the main game experience. I've tried to provide decent rationales for each addition. With that out of the way, first up is:


Tethira of the Bannor: Magic Resistant, Industrious, Aggressive. Added to give the Bannor some physical punch and make up for Capria's lost industrious change if Sareln implements my suggestions. Also another Magic Resistant leader.


Thessalonica of the Elohim: Defender, Organized, Tolerant, Spiritual. Opens up some options for the Elohim to get a little aggressive and exploit those monks better, which fits the leader (who goes out of her way in a scenario to invade the Illians).


Volanna of the Svartalfar: Aggressive, Raiders . Why do the Svarts have only one leader in the main game, but two other lovely ladies in the Winter Court scenario? Volanna would be a good choice for a Svarts player who says "screw it" to messing about with Illusionists and instead just goes out and cracks some skulls with some very nasty recon units. Charismatic could work in place of raiders.


Rivanna the Wraith Lord of the Svartalfar: Organized, Expansive, Magic Resistant. The other missing Svart leader. I envision her fulfilling more of a potential builder role for the Svarts.


Hafgan the Purger of the Clan: Aggressive, Magic Resistant, Barbarian. From my personal experience with the one scenario that Hafgan appears in, magic resistant works very well with the Clan, especially their Ogres. It increases stack survivability significantly in the face of Maelstrom and Rust. I don't even know if he really needs another trait, perhaps Ingenuity or Creative for a slight boost.


Captain Uldanor of the Hippus: Defender, Charismatic, Industrious. Retreat abuse, pure & simple. +10% from defender, +10% from the Hippus horselord bonus, +35% natural unit bonus on HA, and then flanking promos =... a lot of withdraws. Charismatic makes better use of the normally minimal retreat exp, while Industrious helps him reach martial wonders more quickly.


Melisandre of the Balseraphs: Expansive, Aggressive, Magic Resistant, Defender. [COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"]Drop defender, cause' it's pointless. The rest of the traits are there so that she can help give the Balseraphs options outside of magic (and whatever Perp happens to be today), making better use of their recon and melee UU.
[/COLOR]


Averax the Cambion of the Sheaim: Barbarian, Aggressive, Magic Resistant, Ingenuity. Idea for this guy is to be the Sheaim's PZ specialist. Pretty straightforward.


Tya Kiri of the Amurites: Spiritual, Magic Resistant, Ingenuity, Defender, Arcane. Yes, I actually dropped arcane from an Amurite leader. Tya should be all about abusing Govannon to the maximum extend possible, and that means boosting those Tier II priests instead of wasting time with mages. The other boosts are to see how many minor benefits can be crammed onto one leader


Shekinah of the Sidar: Defender, Arcane, Spiritual. The Sidar could really use another leader, and here the scenarios are, ready to oblige! With both arcane and spiritual, Sidar players will have the option of using either / both adepts and priests for all their waning needs. I think that of all the minor leaders, Shek should be in the game most.




Annnnd, that's all of them! Whew =)

[Sareln]

Incidentally, the spreadsheet where I'm keeping the poll data is here.

Traits_and_Civics.xlsx

[WarriorKnight]

Nice work Bob. I agree with you on most of the changes for the current leaders, so I'll just chip in with one's I disagree with. (not sure what I think of the new leaders yet)

Capria: Spiritual, Financial, Defender, Industrious. Her two present traits are pretty weak on their own, the small boost from Defender helps make her a little bit more competitive, and fits the lore. Industrious doesn't help her much at all, so cut that, while financial assists the Bannor in their cottage spam endeavors while they prepare for a Crusade.

Spiritual is weak? She is arguably the most dangerous out of the three Bannor leaders due to being able to go in and out of crusade at will, along with boosted Disciple units. She doesn't needs Financial to go with that. Maybe one of the other leaders should get it instead?

Mahala: Ingenuity, Raiders, Defender, Creative, Adaptive (replacing Raiders). As was the case for Capria, defender & creative are added for lore reasons, and for the slight boosts. Adaptive certainly fits Mahala's "do whatever it takes to survive" mentality, and allows you to trade out your nice warmonger's raiders for financial (or something else) in case you want to be the first person to ever build the War Machine.

Defender, Creative and Adaptive? I know the Doviello need a boost but still, that's 4 positive traits plus adaptive! Probably Ingenuity and/or Defender needs to be cut.

Ethne the White: Creative, Tolerant, Defender, Ingenuity. Creative and defender are pretty weak on their own. Ingenuity at least helps the Elohim have an easier time with upgrading the awful Devouts (who really ought to be channeling II).

I agree that another trait is needed, Ingenuity might be a bit weak of a boost compared to Einion's arcane though.

(Incidentally, Upgrading Devouts only costs 5 gold in the first place so Ingenuity wouldn't make a noticeable difference. Also Priests start with Channeling 2 anyway, so Devouts starting with it wouldn't change much either. Maybe give them another spell sphere or enable them at an earlier tech?)

Minister Koun: Philosophical, Agnostic (not from civ) Charismatic . Special mention for this guy in the regular leader section, since he does rarely show up in normal games. I saw make him charismatic too (fits what little we know about him), and add him in as a regular leader for the Grigori. Also leave him in as a random event leader (but not if he's already leading the Grigs).

If your adding him as a Grigori leader, then he'll be overshadowed by Cassiel as Adaptive is flat out better than Charismatic or any other trait (unless Charismatic makes a big enough difference in the first few turns). Nice change for the event though.

Falamar: Charismatic, Expansive, Adaptive (replaces expansive). [COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"] His default combo isn't at all bad, but he's focused too much on the bonus food that the Lanun get from water tiles. Adaptive gives the player a chance to sacrifice growth and health to get a boost from financial or a war trait to pair with charismatic. Also, lore!
[/COLOR]

Do the Lanun really need an adaptive leader? Granted, Falamar is the lesser played of the 2 pirates but still, the Lanun are already good enough not to need a boost.

Hannah the Irin: Financial, Raiders, Creative, Insane. Yes, I just made Hannah insane. She totally is I don't want to gimp her overly much, but Financial and Raiders is such an incredible power combo that I can't see anyone selecting Falamar unless their leader options are artificially restricted.

Insane is an interesting choice. Giving her a 3rd trait might be overdoing it though (again, Lanun don't need a boost). Maybe just give her Insane with her original traits?

[DerWille]

Great work Bob, that's quite the list. I'll give my opinion on some of them.


Major Leaders:

Capira - Looks great, almost too good. I think I would pick Capira over Decius/Sabathiel every time.

Charadon - Great one here. He would probably be the best rusher in the game. Which is a great niche to have.

Mahala - I really agree with Selhrac. Raiders/Ingenuity/Creative would be perfect for her. Creative would let her skip monuments to pour more hammers into soldiers and buildings.

Minister Koun - Great Grigori leader, but I can't think of a single reason why I would pick him over Cassiel though.

Auric Ulvin - Agree completely here. Charismatic/Aggressive/Arcane would be amazing. Would definitely put the Illians on the arcane masters map.

Falamar - I actually prefer him to Hanah. He has incredibly synergy with a REXing Great Lighthouse fueled trade economy. I think Adaptive would be over kill.

Hanah the Irin - I don't think Hanah should be insane. That should be Perpentach's card. However I do agree that Financial/Raiders is too ridiculous to have on any leader. Why not have her be Spiritual/Raiders? Falamar would be the arcane/economic leader while Hanah is the all out war leader for the pirates.

Os-Gabella: I also disagree here, if not from a pure lore perspective. She doesn't seem to like the gods all that much, but is crazy aggressive (she tortures her former "husband" for the fun of it). How about Aggressive/Summoner for Pyre Zombie + Summon shenanigans?

Sandalphon - Charismatic is a must on him. I think the Adaptive set up with Charismatic/Industrious (Adaptive) would probably be best on him. The Sidar don't have much going for them so letting Sandy be adaptive would help alot and let them pick and choose which waning path they want to take.

Minor Leaders:

I'll confess. I haven't played a single scenario, but I'll approach this as if they were major leaders.

Tethira - I don't know if the Industrious/Aggressive combo works all that well for the Bannor. However, I can't think of anything takes advantage of Industrious either.

Tessacolina - I like this leader. I think I would choose her over Ethne almost any day of the week though. I've always wanted a Spiritual Elohim leader.

Volanna - Now this leader kicks ass. If Faeryl is the arcane Svart, this is the Recon one. I want this leader in.

Rivanna - I could see this working with REXing, but not sure if I would pick her over Volanna or Faeryl though. Raiders/Expansive or Expansive/Spiritual could be interesting though.

Hafgan - He feels like he'd be the new Charadon with this load out.

Captain Uldanor - I like this one. Retreat abuse on the Hippus could be a great mid game strategy. I'd want to try it out.

Melisandre - Ah, the Aggressive/Expansive combo. This seems like it could work. Maybe Expansive/Creative would be another for a gigantic REX strat.

Averax - Definitely the Pyre Zombie specialist, but that sort of makes him a one trick pony. I'm not sure if I would pick him over Tebryan or Gabella.

Tya Kiri - I like this one, because all it does is scream, "FIREBOWS" to me. Firebows + religious units could be an interesting Ammurite strategy.

Shekinah - This leader feels kind of pulled in two directions.

[Irgy]

Here are my ideas on how to change the various leaders.

I quite like your idea of bringing in some new leaders from the minor leader options. Spice up some of the one-leader civs.

I agree with most of your ideas, but here's some comments, because I can.

Capria: Spiritual, Financial, Defender, Industrious. Her two present traits are pretty weak on their own, the small boost from Defender helps make her a little bit more competitive, and fits the lore. Industrious doesn't help her much at all, so cut that, while financial assists the Bannor in their cottage spam endeavors while they prepare for a Crusade.

FWIW, she's currently the best leader with which to build the mercurian gate. Industrious to build it fast, spiritual for running disciple units to ensure they havew a religion and become angels when lost, a civ that beelines to Fanaticism and spams a ton of living units on its own. The dwarf you mention could beat her there, as could probably some of the really good economic leaders, but otherwise she's a better choice. Mind you, financial instead of industrious will probably get the gate faster overall.

Personally I think Industrious is under-rated in multiplayer (I confess this is an opinion I've somewhat stolen), and am starting to wish I'd picked Os-Gabella in RBFFH2PBEM3 to try and demonstrate it. Speaking of which:

Os-Gabella: Summoner, Spiritual, Industrious. Industrious does what for her? She gets the Catacomb Libralus and Prophecy of Ragnarok a few turns earlier. That's about it. Right now she's strictly worse than Tebryn, spiritual at least allows her diversify her forces a bit and works well with summoner should she eventually get those Balor-summoning Profanes.

I don't necessarily particularly disagree with this suggestion, and I kind of like the symmetry of the two summoners here. But for what it's worth, there's plenty of other wonders worth building with her than just those two. Here's some I would generally consider worthwhile:
* Tower of Mastery, and all the supporting towers! These have no doubler resource, and are expensive but highly worthwhile. Industrious is a 50% faster win.
* Industrious helps with all the other national wonders which are always worth building: Heroic Epic, National Epic, Bazaar of Mammon, Deruptus Brewing House, and the various extra Palaces.
* Infernal Grimoire. She should always be the one to build this.
* Celestial Compass. Ok it's late, but it speeds up those Elegies quite a bit when you're desperate for more AC.
* Soul Forge (just for the death mana).
* The Nexus (for minotaurs).
* And of course all of the just generally good wonders that you want to win the race for if you can: Bone Palace, Crown of Akharien, Great Library, Great Lighthouse, Guild of Hammers, Form of the Titan.

Falamar: Charismatic, Expansive, Adaptive (replaces expansive). [COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"] His default combo isn't at all bad, but he's focused too much on the bonus food that the Lanun get from water tiles. Adaptive gives the player a chance to sacrifice growth and health to get a boost from financial or a war trait to pair with charismatic. Also, lore!
[/COLOR]


Hannah the Irin: Financial, Raiders, Creative, Insane. Yes, I just made Hannah insane. She totally is I don't want to gimp her overly much, but Financial and Raiders is such an incredible power combo that I can't see anyone selecting Falamar unless their leader options are artificially restricted.

FWIW, Lord Parkin picked Falamar for our two player games, out of all the possible leaders in the game, as the one he thought to be the best. He's the fastest city-spammer around with the pirate-port economy to back him up. I still think Hannah is better, and I'm killing him with Vampires at the moment (but that's a separate issue), but just saying there are other opinions out there. Giving him adaptive sounds too good to me - city spam like mad, then switch to financial and he becomes better than current Hannah.

Sandalphon: Defender, Industrious, Charismatic -or- Defender, Industrious, Adaptive (replaces industrious). Probably the leader the most people can agree needs to change. Charismatic means quicker waning; Adaptive allows Sandalphon to explore other avenues making the most of the Sidar, like Philo.

It almost feels like he should be the Industrious/Philosophical leader rather than Cassiel. Cassiel kind of needs to be Philosophical for adventurers and the Grigori worldspell, but could maybe be something else along with it?

Tethira of the Bannor: Magic Resistant, Industrious, Aggressive. Added to give the Bannor some physical punch and make up for Capria's lost industrious change if Sareln implements my suggestions. Also another Magic Resistant leader.

The Bannor have Decius too don't they? 4 leaders is a little overboard.

[DerWille]

I just realized that both Tansuke and Vollana have the same Aggressive/Raiders combo. I thought about Aggressive/Charismatic, but that's Charadon.

[Bobchillingworth]

Thanks for the commentary, guys. If someone wants to borrow my format and write their own suggestions, please feel free.


RE: Capria- Yeah, perhaps I gave her too much. Maybe drop Defender? Spiritual & Financial are powerful, but they will leave her weaker than all the other Bannor leaders.


RE: Mahala- Hmm, my goal was for her to be a decent rusher at the start w/ raiders, and then be able to switch later with adaptive so that the Dovello have some options to actually tech to their Hero and Tier 4 UU. Although now that I think about it I'm not sure if their later UU are actually any different from the generic units they replace. I guess either drop adaptive or creative- personally I prefer that she keep adaptive, but I understand if that makes her too powerful.


RE: Ethne- Perhaps give her Industrious instead (or in addition to) ingenuity? She did canonically build the Mercurian Gate.


RE: Koun- My thinking here was that he'll be better poised to exploit heroes than Cassiel since they'll gain levels more quickly, although I guess Cassiel could just switch to charismatic himself, making Koun moot. What if he had Aggressive or Defender in addition (depending on how much of a boost he needs to compete with Adaptive) ?


RE: Falamar: Okay, leave him as-is. But it does seem rather telling to me that both Lanun players so far in our PBEMs have gone with Hannah.


RE: Hannah- I gave her three traits because I was under the impression that Insane needs three regular traits to replace in order to work properly. If that isn't the case, perhaps drop Creative. Technically Perp isn't the only Insane leader in FFH, since there's a minor Balseraphs leader with the trait, but I can see the case for making it exclusive for him in the game proper. But either she or Falamar needs to change, at least. DerWille's suggestion of Spiritual / Raiders is certainly interesting, although perhaps not terribly synergistic with her civ.


RE: Sandalphon- Charismatic and Adaptive is too powerful, I think. Philo and Charismatic might be pushing it. From what Selrahc has told me, he's industrious because the intention is for players to build those wonders which enhance specialists & settled great people. If Sareln can make those wonders more viable, by reducing their costs or the costs of their requisite techs, then Industrious may be a reasonable trait on Sandy.


RE: Too many Bannor leaders- Four is a lot, I agree, but with my suggestions they each specialize in a unique aspect. Capria is the economist, Sabrathiel the bonus promotions / insta-mage leader, Decius the deep-striker & cavalry specialist, and Tethira the master of melee.


RE: Hafgan is weak- My rationale for not changing him is that magic resistant matters when your units already have high base strength. To give an anecdote from my own experiences with the scenario he appears in, when fighting Sheelba six casts of Maelstrom and four or five casts of Rust can take Strength 10 Iron Weapon Ogres down to about 5.5 health each- easy to pick off with your own Tier 3 units. Using the same number of spells on Hafgan, his Ogres generally still possessed their Iron Weapons and never fell below about 7.7 strength, which makes a big difference when it comes time to attack them directly. However if he still needs another trait to stand out, Defender fits his position in the scenario as Sheelba's bodyguard perfectly.


RE: Volanna is the same as Tasunke- Yeah, she'll have the same traits, but I figure it's okay because her unit emphasis will likely be entirely different.

[Bobchillingworth]

Also a random idea mostly unrelated to the above leaders discussion-


What if Baron Duin Halfmoon worked like Minister Koun, but only for the Dovello, and only if they build the unit of the same name? Essentially, they'd get an option to either use the Baron as the unit per usual, or he'd join their civ as a minor leader permanent ally (spawn with a settler + perhaps a couple werewolf guards, similar to Hyborem). Advantage to taking him as a partner would be the palace mana, being able to pull city-gifting shenanigans with him to make conquering a bit easier, and benefiting from having new sets of Tier 4 units and a new Tower of Divination (especially useful if another human player can take control of him).


Would that help boost the Dovello at all, or simply introduce an unnecessary complication?