A Few Minor Questions/Ideas

[halifix]

These are more balancing issues. Heavy infantrymen and their advancements generally don't benefit much from traits, except intelligent and quick, but all units benefit (somewhat) from this. Can fearless be added to the trait pool for them?

[halifix]

Heh. I guess my last idea has been added to 1.5.6. I'm assuming that with the dread bat, all default factions now have a unit with 10 default movement points?

Every faction except Klangans has a unit with 60% dodge in swamp. Seeing as Klangans already are one of the weakest factions in swamp, can the lvl 3 trappers have 60% dodge in swamp as well, seeing as their damage output is fairly low?

Can the merman hoplite get a 16-2 attack? He only gets 2 more HP than a warrior, and actually has a weaker attack than a warrior. While steadfast and crazy 20%+ resistances guarantee he can last a long time, I wish he wasn't actually weaker than the unit he lvled from. Also, the triton should have an 11-4 attack instead of a 14-3 attack... He only gets 10 more HP than a warrior, and I'd prefer being allowed to use a merman's strong trait more often.

[KingdomAmericaCMG]

...Every faction except Klangans has a unit with 60% dodge in swamp. Seeing as Klangans already are one of the weakest factions in swamp...

Klangans have a unit with 50% dodge in swamp

[Rex Umbrarum]

Klangans have a unit with 50% dodge in swamp

2 of them!

[Skizzaltix]

...actually, now that I think about it, you could also have something which prevents curing (preventing heal +4, heal +8, regenerates from working, but not cures; or some other choice). Sort of like poison, but not constantly sapping your hp (i.e., less effective). This could be part of the bug special, or something completely else. This would be most effective in maps where the villages are sparse, which usually forces people to use units with regenerate or healing. It might be removable by not taking any action, so that it's removed instead of gaining 2 hp. Just tossing the idea out there at the moment.

AFAIK the devs are against abilities which cancel each other out, because it will inevitably lead to different "levels" of the ability...
However, I agree with Turuk in that this could be interesting, depending on how you did it. Why don't you give it a shot?

[halifix]

It's my style to not actually code, and instead lavish praise on anyone willing to take my ideas. It hasn't really worked so far, but that won't stop me!

I still think the damage of the merman hoplite should be increased. And my comments on giving level 3's of the poacher/trapper branch 60% dodge in swamp... seems to already be in there. I have no idea what unit description I was looking at then. Although I still have some issues with water units, the factions are basically balanced now.

As for the specials, I don't intend for them to be superpowered. I actually thought of them as slightly weaker alternatives that would have an interesting strategic effect. For example, I'm still interested in how the special (let's call it Bleed) that prevents healing/curing from working except by a village. It's not meant to be stronger than poison (which hurts more); it just prevents healing. This could be effective to use on certain scenarios.

I'm also thinking of a unit trait that prevents healing, period. Like it could start off with 50 hp, and just lose it without gaining any back. Perhaps we could have the only way to heal be through leveling up/ALMA. Although, xp % level would really affect this unit.

A third I idea I have is "Slippery." It's simply skirmisher, but you lose your ZoC (probably in trade for some stat bonus). Perhaps in an era, footpads could get a branch that has this ability.

I've also seen the arguments against giving mermen submerge. So, why not give it to walking (swimming) corpses? They'll still move slowly (mermen and nagas take 2 movement points to move through deep water, I believe). Although, this might be unbalanced, because while submerged skeletons have 10% dodge, submerged mermen corpses would have 50%...

Oh ya. Rangers have... 40% defence in shallow water, while everyone else in that tree has 20%?

[Skizzaltix]

Uh... I think you'd get a lot more of this done if you actually tried doing it yourself
I mean, for the submerge stuff, all you need to do is copy-paste three lines of code and then play a couple games to see how it works. Same goes for damage and defense-% values.

>>unit with no healing
So, it would be a ridiculously strong unit... But you'd need to be careful not to throw it into a huge fight first thing? Sort of like the Titans in Age of Mythology--Could work quite nicely, depending on how you did it.
Though, I worry that people would soon learn to throw all their ranged units or whatever at it, because then they disable it in a turn or two
Also, you'd definitely want to prevent poisoning on that one, too.

[halifix]

Your avatars are random as hell

Anyways, I'm going to put these ideas into storage for a while, and possibly try to make an era out of it. I am actually still getting some new ideas. Anyone is still free to use any ideas in this thread.

Also, I've noticed in 1.5.9 that the "feeding" ability still only gives +1 max HP per kill. A few months ago, I remember seeing a thread about it (that, or ALMA). Anyways, what if "feeding" was changed to give +n max HP, where n is the level of the unit killed? It balances out the ability a bit. At the same time, it could give (2n+1) HP healing; although I think people suggested giving more hp, I don't want it to be too overpowered, especially since they get max HP anyways.

[Skizzaltix]

Whose? Mine?

Sounds pretty good--I imagine it should be pretty easy to knock together with WML, how about giving it a shot?