Ram too op OBSOLETE

[MrLich]

Every race with rams , like dwarfes and and humans get super advantage against rest just by having rams, as it pretty much increases survival of casters and shooters several times and enables some really strong strats(apprentice mage barrier spam for example, or even shooters, so enemy skirmishers become useless)and theres no real counter(cavalry wont get close, fire doesnt do that much aside setting burn stack) elves and orcs just always lose lategame against rams, as they dont have any way to pack units inside tanks

[makazuwr32]

Rams a bit later will allow to carry purely only foot melee non-giant units.
Casters, shooters, workers, throwers will not be able to even enter them, not mentioning acting from inside.

Just that we have some other stuff to work on so this change is delayed for some time since i also want to add some other changes to rams as well.
Mainly to make them more as proper melee siege in terms of damage.

Cavalry also later will get extra damage to armored mechanical units like rams, metal golems, siegr mantlets and so on.

[MrLich]

I think to make them a pure melle siege unit theyll need to be trained in siege workshops and foundry only, also definitely would need much higher melee armor, and bigger anti building bonuses, maybe max hp as well

[makazuwr32]

No need for much higher melee armor since they already have good health.

Tc training will be kept because otherwise humans without techs will not have even single siege unit in tc who is available at base, without techs.

[MrLich]

They have high hp, but they are too slow to storm strong defence lines, and flammable, as a melle siege they have hard time compared to just tanks on wheels

[makazuwr32]

Well early game you do not have many units to hold off them.

As for "not strong to storm heavy defences" — that is not their purpose.
Their purpose is to deal with early game 1-3 walls and 1-2 towers.
And i must remind that cost of most towers in future buildings update will drastically increase.
For example stone shelter of orcs will have 1100-1400 (for now in plans) hp and 4-6 times higher construction cost than it has right now.

[MrLich]

Rams are too slow to get to action in early gamee, by the time they get to action, its already midgame, or lategame, if you aimed for regular army first

[MrLich]

So setting defences will be slow enough to the point you will be able to get to enemy on a 30 30 map with rams before he builds any of the better megas

[makazuwr32]

Do not worry.
Megas will also be much more costly.
More costly than building a kingdom under mountain with single worker of kobolds.

[MrLich]

Seems good, im tired of waiting till my siege units are ready, it takes ages, especially on dwarfes

[makazuwr32]

On the other hand i must admit that many megas will receive huuuuuge buff to their defencive abilities.
Even the most thin mega building will have at least 7000 hp.

All of them will get extra abilities to protech themselves one way or another.
For example great tree of elves will have passive regen, necropolis of undeads (replacement of mansion) will get ability to incorporate skeletons to improve its stats and heal, volcano will get extra aoe ability that will affect at once all units in melee range of it, castle of humans will get an anti-siege trebuchet (alas will require research), and ability to change weapon effect — none but higher attack/fire/poison/ballista attack but more action-consuming...

[MrLich]

Only hope ud will get siege to match that kind of megas, they cant destroy even a 4 k hp castle, let alone a 8 k monstrosity like kingdom under the mountains, if it gets even buffed, its gonna be a hurdle to destroy it, even more than it was

[makazuwr32]

Well who cares how to survive when you are immune to damage?
Even 999999999 magic damage will not be able to kill unit so you need to concentrate not on surviving but on clearing the path.

Unholy armor will affect wrecking ball, just in case.

Unholy armor spell will affect every unit. Literally.
Undeads and mechanical units it will affect for 5 turns, alive units for 3.
You only need to research it for 6 turns and it has cd of 2 turns.

[MrLich]

There is a price to IT, or it only limits movement?

[makazuwr32]

The only price to it is that when effect dies unit dies with it.

[MrLich]

Thats hardly any price if unit would be dead 3 or more times over

[makazuwr32]

Yep.
That is exactly the point.
Alas when i mean "dies" it would be more precise to say "erased" — for example hydra when effect dies will die for good and will not drop its less headed variant. And not even corpse.
Alive units will not drop corpses and phantoms will not drop corpses as well.

This is somewhat balancing this ability (along with being only available on costly unit which is why you can't simply get it fast).

Alas death knight, who has this ability, is rather costly unit, being second most costly unit among all trainable units of undeads (first one is fel knight), and has cost of 9 turns (in addition to being locked behind embassy and requiring additional tech to unlock this ability).

And by the way. Some other races also will have their own variants of absolute protection ability that nullifies all possible damage.
For example human paladin will have divine shield that has no problems at all with exception of length — for 1 turn only — and cooldown of 5 turns.
And elves will have a caster (somewhat thin one) with Ritual of Yggdrassil protection with same effect but giving to all units except caster (including other casters with the same ability) in some range. Caster can't move when effect is active but can activate other abilities.

[MrLich]

Ritual of yggdrasil seems the most powerful one, you simply put him inside buildings and units with carry capacity, unless the protection from it is like a small aura like 4 or 8 armor for all units inside it, then its balanced

[MrLich]

I think the fact caster cant move isnt a issue if it can be put into a wagon, Defender muskeeter shielded also cant move, yet ram with a Defender shooter can(literally a sniper ram)

[makazuwr32]

For ritual you must be outdoors — unit won't be able to act while inside any carrier including towers.
And ofc won't be able to even activate ritual while inside any carrier.

Yes you can put him into for example ent or battering ram but you won' be able to activate the ritual.

[MrLich]

So only question is how will it work with two rituals overlapping on each other, i assume the protection has a flat armor value, or theres a flaw that doesnt enable room for immortal casters

[makazuwr32]

1. This ritual will literally make units immune to damage. Any damage. Same as with unholy armor of death knight.
2. This ritual will not be able to affect at all units with this spell — they will be removed from effect's possible targets. So the caster always will be vulnerable.

[MrLich]

Seems pretty op compared to unholy armor, like you just set it far from enemy range, and voila, immortal tanks, would even say its broken lategame, where killing several units that could get in range for caster is rather easy, i guess well See how playtesting works out

[makazuwr32]

I must remind that during this ritual caster is completely disabled. Can't neither move nor cast anything else.
And if unit leaves ritual range it becomes vulnerable.

Also we might restrict it to affect only some specific type of units. For example only plants or only melee.

Not that this will be given anytime soon though — elves have lots of units (including casters — nymph, dryad, sylph, oread, naiad, druid of the claw, druid of the wind, bow singer, wind dragon (update of current elven dragon), fruit ent, sorceress stats remake, ent shaman, keeper of the grove — 13 caster units in plans already!) whom we need to implement firstly. Some of them even have ready stats — wind dragon, fruit ent for example — and need only images and jsoning (including new abilities).

This ritual probably will be delayed long after magic update.

[Stratego (dev)]

can this also be closed with the recent ram changes that rams can not be in TC-s anymore? (in unpacked powerful form)
or still needs to open as other change requested?

[makazuwr32]

I'd say yes.

[Stratego (dev)]

ok, i close it, ifg anyone have any objection please say.