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It used to be you could have unlimited names with the respec mod , but that got fixed xD
Same tbh aristocratic names are kinda broken when you get the right ones.
Edit: Also supreme sorceress iirc can get a black dragon mount and when coupled with soulstealer becomes insanely good. Throw in a good aristocratic name of power, and you’ve got a lord that’s actually better than like 50% of the LLs in the game as a commander.
Besides, the traits for he are random as well, big difference ofc is you know in advance and can simply not buy undesirable ones. In that the DE names of power are lacking
both have arcane conduit
both are your cheap caster lord options
both have dragons "though i do prefer high elf ones personally"
and dark elf ones can have soul stealer
both are nearly equal with eachother though have there differences its the classic "swordmaster vs executioner" all over again
2) Some generic traits like 'strong' or 'weapon master' are very nice. The only melee-oriented traits archmages get are 'incendiary' and 'limber'. You may not get the trait for the lores you want. I don't see how 'protected' is that good, unless you expect to only fight skaven.
3) Supreme sorceress still get their name of power, which coupled with the fact that...
4) Dark elves get their increased lord rank from a building that improves PO, so it's a buiding you'll want in almost every province, meaning that by mid-game onwards you'll be able to recruit high-ranking lords, so if you don't get the name of power you wanted that turn you can re-roll next turn without too much trouble. This is less likely as high elves, because they get increased rank from a building that doesn't bring any other benefit, recruiting good lords cost influence -less of a problem nowadays- and you may still get the very same trait for several turns.
comparing it to dark elf leaders, who can be recruited for a little bit of gold, is disingenuous
1) I don't know about that, never made a direct comparison... You might be right.
2) I don't send Archmages into direct battle unless I have to. Same with Supreme Sorceresses. Only if Archmages have Incendiary trait will do that and I prefer Life Archmages to get them because of that. Protected trait is extremely good because of all the resistances, dragon mounts get shot at by all manners of things all the time. What I noticed with two heroes with Guardian trait is they buff each other - but no more. Basically, a lord with no Guardian trait will get 15% physical resistance from another unit with the trait; but a lord with the Guardian trait will get 15% physical resistance from himself, and if you put another unit with Guardian next to him, he'll get an additional 15% which totals to 30% physical resistance. When the lord has 30% phy resist, 20% missile resist and 20% magic resist - try telling me that's not OP. And HE have an abundance of healers too, Loremasters of Hoeth and Life Mages...
3) The names of power are very RNG, which is why they should be more powerful because let's say if you play on Legendary difficulty, you can end up with a ♥♥♥♥ name of power on a lord with the traits you want. Sure, once you have 10 provinces you can hire a lord and if they don't have the right name of power you can instantly fire them but I don't want 100 crap lords on my list. (Maybe it's time I install the execute lord mod... I've been swearing by no mods for the past 1-2 years now...)
4) Fair enough. But Archmages have very powerful traits regardless of which you're talking about. There are some that are not as good, e.g. the one that only adds two spells and nothing else but that's just one trait. Most of them are decent and applicable to everything. I can't remember what Limber does because I don't use it often, but I already explained Incendiary with Life Mages and whatnot. Protected is for additional security in case AI tries to snipe your lord. Entrepreneur is mostly defensive since the lord doesn't get +3% global tax unlike the hero version, and only has 15% income in the region/province (can't remember which is it), but 15% income is still something.
Compare that to names of power... If you're running a Hydra doomstack, the name of power you want is Beastbinder. But what if you get the one that either buffs Sisters of Slaughter or Executioners? What if you get the Corsairs version - which is ♥♥♥♥ as they can't perform well late game. Like I said, we need to reload save each time...
Archmage traits are not as limited because you have so many lores of magic, and each of those traits are mostly applicable regardless of what you choose. Best thing is you get to choose. Why on earth would you go gamble for something trash when you can just choose the best of the best...? And Archmages aren't the only lords out there. I didn't mention the Prince and Princess but they're quite powerful too, it's just that Influence used to be rare so that was balanced. Now it's not...
I always have something like 200 Influence even without Noble skill spams.
The addition of archmages struck me as a desperate attempt at padding out the DLC.
DE have close to no ambush defense. Sure they have some in the blue trait but 20%? Sure they have Sorceresses with Intelligent trait but how many of those do you need? HE get Wary skill so much earlier, 30% ambush defense in the first 4 skill points into the blue tree, not to mention a unique item that appears all the time (something to do with Chrace) gives 30% ambush defense right off the bat. I think they cap at 60% ambush defense because of that as their Mages don't get Intelligent trait but you can defend against ambushes if you have monster doomstacks; and both HE and DE have monster doomstacks. But you can't ambush unless you have high ambush chance... DE are supposed to be the ones to ambush, and HE are supposed to be the ones to defend against it.
I'm honestly not that bothered by this but when you take the Archmages into consideration, this is a big deal. Some of these traits need to be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ toned down, seriously.
There is one HE Archmage trait that gives -15% miscast chance and +10 WoM. That's a big, big deal... It means one less skill point into Earthing skill, which means one more skill point elsewhere. And we always need points into the blue skill tree...
Caster lords only need 2 skill points to max out a skill, instead of 3. When there are 5 spells, that's 5 skill points. You can even just put one point into each skill and get overcast ability for them already, and use other means to reduce miscast chance.
That instantly saves 10 skill points.
You don't need that many skills into the red skill tree if you know what army you're going for. 10 to 11 skill points needed in there. You can splurge any amount of skill points into the yellow tree but they can be made up with items. The blue tree is the most generic but most OP tree... which any general can get.
You might say there are a lot of caster heroes, but Archmages have Greater Arcane Conduit, even better than the usual Arcane Conduit. That puts them head and shoulders above Supreme Sorceresses, even making them just as powerful as Morathi.
With 39 skill points for each lord, I plan all the builds out before I put those points in. Caster lords are no longer crap, it's been that way for a long time. They're supposed to be squishy, but the dragon mount changed some things. Now, OP traits entirely tipped the balance.
good for you, but it's still a premium resource, it can be a pain to get if you need it quickly, and requires nobles to farm, which requires high tier settlements, which is not always easy to amass, lol. some people find this game actually difficult ro play vs AI.
DE lords and HE premium influence lords are very different entities, which is good, part of what makes the game fun is the variety.
Very few general types are actually bad, but a mage general is objectively inferior to a traditional commander + mage lieutenant. Both can focus on their strongpoints without having to split skill points down multiple trees. With an archmage, you're forced to pair a noble / loremaster to fight enemy generals, both of whom suffer from some horrible flaws (noble blows in combat / slowpoke loremaster)
If variety and flavor is the intent, I can't fault that, I build flavor armies all the time. I'm just totally unimpressed with Asur archmages, they bring nothing to the table. Edit: Also, they look stupid, but that's a tragic flaw of all Asur generals.
You don't really need Influence quickly other than at the start of the game. You need Influence to peace out other factions and buy time before they declare war on you and invite others to do so.
But there is a difference between "you get good stuff later" and "you might never get good stuff at all". Influence is still a premium resource, getting them is much, much easier now. You don't need more than 1, maybe 2 Nobles at the start to farm enough to get by, it's just that you can get amass them much earlier now and I like that change.
What I don't like is how this game is *now* actually difficult to play vs AI if you're fighting the HE, and they're the ones who declare war on you right from the start because they hate your guts, and then invite their friends to come gangbang you.
I like the challenge but I play on Normal difficulty where everything should be balanced around. This is clearly not. I'm not hating on the fact that DE can't get OP lords; they can, but I need to save scum. However, even save scumming will only make DE lords just about on par with HE lords, at least in this case caster lord vs caster lord.
Someone here said why would you get caster lords; simple, you have a limit to mages at the start of the game, caster lords change that. So, I recruit Supreme Sorceresses a lot, especially since I can get the same names of power with them compared to if I get Dreadlords. But in the same way, some names of power are useful to Dreadlords, and useless to Supreme Sorceresses.
Meanwhile, the HE Archmages get different traits, but more powerful by comparison. Nothing in the names of power - absolutely nothing at all - gives you 20% magic resistance, 20% missile resistance and 15% physical resistance. Not even an item can give you all three at once, barring ward saves.
The reason why HE melee lords don't have traits like this other than one that gives 15% ward save and Perfect Vigour, is because the DE melee lords don't have anything barring names of power that give them that too. This is balanced.
Archmages clearly aren't balanced. They're supposed to be squishy, need protection. The Protected Archmage now protects herself and her bodyguards. Again, 15% phy resist isn't as big a deal on heroes, I'm talking about the lord here. A lord that can't be sniped out despite having the capability to make hundreds of kills via spells is what you call unbalanced.
I mean sure, Mage heroes can do the same, I don't disagree. Those can be sniped though... Same with the DE Sorceresses, they can be easily sniped.
This is a comparison between DE Supreme Sorceresses and HE Archmages and there is clearly a difference here. And let's not forget the HE now have all the lores of magic that the DE have, barring Lore of Dark Magic.
HE Archmages have Greater Arcane Conduit, something that supposedly only some LLs get. For example, Malekith doesn't have it and he casts magic, although not a lot unless you build him as a caster.
Rarely in battle will you ever get a 1v1 duel between lords and heroes. It's usually a gank. For example, early on I only had Morathi and 2 Masters with her, and 1 Khainite Assassin and 1 Death Hag. I sent Morathi, the Death Hag and the two Masters straight at the enemy melee lord, he got owned so quickly it wasn't even funny. Later on, I had Morathi with 4 Masters all on flying mounts, rush in to the enemy lord. A few hits and killed the lord, Morathi wasn't even skilled in melee combat nor did I use support magic on her, other than Soulstealer if you count that as support magic.
My point being, ganks happen, and the AI does it too.
The AI is stupid in that they don't really protect their lords. I mean, they know the basics, they even know how to gank your heroes. In fact, I noticed recently now that enemies know how to spam attack on your hero/lord to keep them stuck in a blob, in case your hero/lord is getting beat up. It's very visible, they just keep goon-swarming around your lord/hero similar to how you spam click on an enemy unit yourself. Except the AI can do that as well as issue other commands.
Having a melee lord now is just going to put your precious general in direct danger. Caster lords are good in that they just cast from range, and the dragon mount makes it so that they can at least disrupt some archers and aren't that easy to take down.