Morgawr Cat's Paw and its shortcomings. (Includes a few suggestions)

[queenelise9830]

It's a great concept for a faction trait, but it falls short in the fact that none of the armies eligible to be Cat's Pawed are even in the slightest combat-viable after a short while playing because everyone is going to have military tech that far outclasses minor faction villages by that point. Even with Bloodlust/Hecatomb spam, it's still not going to do anything to anyone with a decent military.

I get that you're supposed to assimilate minor factions so that you get units with good gear, but then again, literally anyone else can do the same, and everyone else has at least some decent fighting land units to back that up. Morgawr has naval superiority and thriving coastal cities, but if someone attacks them on land early game, no matter who it is, these mutant fishpeople can kiss their skins goodbye.

There are several possible solutions to this, and I'm sure someone could make a mod implementing one or two of these at some point.

If you could find a way to preserve the "quest step" tags of the armies in question, you could allow the Morgawr to control quest armies(which can be stronger), but then you'd run into problems with people abusing the Sea Monster in combination with their own Morgawr units for absolute naval dominance. This is the least balanced solution out of everything I can think of.

IDK if buffs applied to roaming Minor Faction armies(ie from the quest "Minor Faction, Major Pain") apply to catspawed units, but if not they should. Could allow for some fun strategic gameplay of finding the region that you have to pacify to get rid of that quest, and keeping everyone else out of it so that the effects stay put. If you have Shifters you could also look for winter effects that buff minor faction armies.

Also, you could give Catspawed units a tag that makes Bloodlust more effective on them, for example with a longer buff duration and increased stat gains(Leave the HP drain though, it's important to the Morgawr lore and also can be handy in combination with Hecatomb). This is probably the most balanced solution I can think of right now, as it would require a Mastermind tagging along in order for the units to benifit from this one, but at the same time Masterminds are so lousy right now it'd be nice if they actually had some use.