[0.95] The Magnar Steamroller

Something is definitely up with Magnar. Three games and in all three the AI Magnar explodes to a massive lead and kills everybody. I believe it is because of the slaves, it allows him to spam pioneers faster than everybody which snowballs into a big lead. I actually held my own against him this time for awhile using superior units, but the other AIs get smushed. Definitely needs to be looked at in view. Tomorrow I'm going to try a game as Magnar and see how abusive it is.

Which leads to the side issue of pioneer spam, on my 3rd game I clued in that you need to make a lot of pioneers very quickly and grab stuff. The problem is that it seems like pioneer spam is the only viable opening strategy. I'm not sure what can be done to address it, but it would be a shame if that proved to be the only opening strategy in the final product.

My suggestions:

1 - Place some kind of limit on pioneers.

a. Consume population or something

b. Cooldown timer on building them, say 1 per 30 seasons per faction.

c. A "pioneer" resource which all factions generate at 0.1 per turn and it takes 3-5 pioneers to produce a pioneer unit. In this way, a faction could accumulate "pioneer" resources and make a whole bunch rapidly or create a steady stream every 30-50 turns.

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I like the idea of pioneers being twice as expensive until you research a second tier civilization tech that reduces production cost by 50%. Force an expansionist to miss out on early warfare and hero techs.

I have noticed that Magnar's slaves are potentially overpowered early on. A slave with a spear, leather and some traits is cheap, effective and devastating in large numbers. The faction should take a hit to growth from not having any growth improvements, but I notice they can still build Consulates. That means you can get +3 Growth in a Magnar city very fast. Too fast for balancing purposes. So they are strong early and strong in the middle. The only thing that can really counter them is a Fire Wizard or Some Light Plate Knights. The other factions cannot generally get to that point of the game though, without falling very far behind. AI factions just don't stand a chance.

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I think a solution to the pioneer spam would be pioneers not placing down a city immediately, but rather a base improvement that would then need to be built up using their home city's build queue while consuming growth. These pre-settlements would also cause nearby monsters to attack before they were complete, so throwing up cities in frontier territory is dangerous unless you're committed to their defense.

This method thus makes expansion more gradual and the only early-on crazy land grab would be with Outposts for those trying to lay a wider claim.

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Sorry, madcatter, but i highly doubt the AI would be able to handle such a mechanic. It's a nice idea though, don't get me wrong. The AI doesn't even protect it's heroes, let alone anything else

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