Armored Princess Unit Analysis Part 1: Humans

Before we get started: general notes.


Although Armored Princess now displays crit chance in the interface, I'm still not incorporating it into my listings. Just like in The Legend, the values always stay in a very low range that cannot be counted on, bar assorted Abilities and the occasional Talent, many of which make the base number entirely irrelevant. As such, it's not worth paying significant attention to it, not even if you're eg trying to stack crit boosters in hopes of getting to 100%.

Crit damage itself has been overhauled so that your current Rage no longer factors into the damage amount. A crit is simply always 150% of maximum damage -if your highest damage roll against a target is 200 damage, you do 300 damage on a crit. Simple as that.

As previously stated, I'm going by Orcs on the March for everything, and mostly not bothering to note the differences between it and base Armored Princess. As such, if you do play the base campaign, you may find that my analysis is inconsistent with your experience -Favorite Enemy being a kind of Human racial trait, for example, is not in the base campaign.

Some changed number points for general illumination:

Morale still operates in seven tiers, but now its effects go like this:


-3 Morale or worse: -50% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is 0.


-2 Morale: -35% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is halved.


-1 Morale: -20% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is reduced by 25%.


0 Morale: Base values.


+1 Morale: +10% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 20%.


+2 Morale: +20% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 30%.


+3 Morale: +30% to Attack and Defense, and crit chance is increased by 40%.

Short version: positive Morale has a less pronounced impact on crit chance, while negative Morale has a much more pronounced impact on Attack and Defense. (Armored Princess' -1 Morale is just as effective there as The Legend's -2, and AP's -2 is more pronounced than The Legend's -3!) This makes it more important than ever to avoid eg splashing Cannoneers into your Elven army.

Another change to Morale in Armored Princess is that it now interacts with positive effects and negative effects. Negative effects impose -1 Morale per each effect, to a limit of -2, while positive effects can be used to cancel this Morale penalty out, with each positive effect canceling a negative effect's Morale penalty. Note that they only cancel out the Morale penalty from negative effects; they can't be used to compensate for Morale penalties caused by racial tensions, and they also can't be used to improve Morale in a more general sense. (ie a positive effect is not +1 Morale: it's just canceling the -1 from a negative effect)

Concrete example: say we have a Beholder stack that's on fire. This makes it unhappy, lowering its Attack, Defense, and crit chance. If we apply a positive effect to the Beholder stack -Battle Cry, say- now the Beholder stack returns to its previous Morale, most likely of 0. Huzzah! They are no longer sad! Then the fire goes out, but the Battle Cry is still benefiting the Beholders -they remain at 0 Morale, instead of appreciating our hard work in making them move earlier in the turn. (Though of course they do still get the Initiative boost) Alternatively, maybe an Evil Gremlin drops Doom on them while Battle Cry and the Burning are still applying -now the Beholders are back to being unhappy. Or, if we failed to ever use Battle Cry in the first place, our flaming and Doomed Beholder stack is now very unhappy.

A third negative effect won't worsen the Morale any further (Unless it's Curse, whose specific effect is -1 Morale), regardless of whether we say it's stacked on top of two others with no positive effect or with one or more positive effects. This isn't a tug-of-war game that scales infinitely: once a unit has two negative effects, their Morale will never get worse unless it's by losing the protection from a positive effect, and once a unit has two positive effects... well, same thing: it's Morale can't get worse. (Aside from Curse, again) It's a weird, somewhat unintuitive dynamic, but it adds some nuance to the game.

On top of all that? Morale now applies to enemies!... with one caveat. Enemy forces can benefit from racial Morale bonuses (ie an army of pure Elves will get +1 to Morale), but they don't have to worry about unit-imposed Morale penalties. (ie Undead will never offend their allies in enemy forces, nor will Robbers bother Peasants or the like)

Another broad mechanical change is to Burn and Poisoning: back in The Legend, these did low, flat damage values that stopped mattering outside of the extremely early portion of the game. In Armored Princess, the damage is up to 5-10% of the entire stack's Health. This keeps them relevant all the way into the endgame, and encourages trying to apply them to the largest enemy stacks to maximize damage. It's designed so that it's not exploitable, as Leadership of the applying unit is factored in (With a few exceptions) to be compared against the afflicted unit at time of application. (ie if a 4000 Leadership stack Burns an 8000 Leadership stack, the Burning stack will only take 2.5%-5% damage) This can only reduce the damage below the maximum, not increase it; a stack inflicting Burning on a stack half its Leadership will still only get 5-10% damage occurring on the target.

Spells are effectively treated as infinite Leadership for this purpose. This makes Spells capable of inflicting Burn or Poisoning particularly worth noting for eg the Warrior, who may find it useful to fish for Burn/Poisoning even though the Spell's impact damage will be poor. It also means that you should generally try to aim Burn/Poison-inflicting Spells at the largest stacks in an enemy group, to maximize the percentile damage's actual value.

A final point of note that, while true in The Legend, is far more relevant in Armored Princess: Burn damage is modified by Fire resistance (eg Plants can take up to 10-20% damage from a Burn, while Demons will only take 2.5%-5% at most), while Poisoning damage is modified by Poison resistance. (eg Undead as a whole take at most 2.5%-5%) This is most consistently relevant in terms of eg if you're considering fishing for over-time damage, you should use Flaming Arrow on Plants instead of Poison Skull, even if you don't care about the up-front damage.



So, Humans.

First of all, they've picked up a near-universal distinctive racial ability! Like I did with the Undead and Demons back in The Legend, let's cover it here, to somewhat shorten this post:

Favorite Enemy
The first unit that this unit attacks becomes the 'favorite enemy' of all units of this type. When attacking its favorite enemy, this unit does 15% more damage.

Favorite Enemy is a weird Ability whose mechanics are explained incorrectly by the game -it instead claims that being attacked triggers the Favorite Enemy bonus- and whose impact is sufficiently low you can easily fail to notice it in action. 'Units of this type' means that, for example, if there are two enemy Priest stacks, and one of them attacks your Guardsmen stack, both Priest stacks now consider Guardsmen to be their favorite enemy. It does not mean this is some bonus that gets applied to all units with the Favorite Enemy ability -a Priest and a Bowmen can have different favorite enemies.

Also note that favorite enemy is defined by the broad type: if your Archmage stack attacks a Pirate stack, the Archmage stack will get the favorite enemy damage boost even if they target a different Pirate stack.

This all adds a little bit of nuance to the consideration of who to have a given Human unit attack first. Not a ton, but it means that for example you'll ideally have a Human unit attack whatever is the largest proportion of Leadership value in the enemy formation, even if you would like to deal with the smallest proportion first, so you'll maximize the Favorite Enemy damage boost over the course of the battle. You can absolutely ignore it and often benefit kind of incidentally -for example, if an enemy formation is made of one type of Undead and a bunch of non-Undead, you probably pointed any Priests or Inquisitors at the Undead continuously- but maximizing it is beneficial and not completely mindless.

It's ultimately not very defining a factional trait, but given Humans are supposed to be something of an easy intro to the game (If a bit less strongly so than in The Legend), it's probably for the best they aren't made too wild. It's not the most compelling thing, but it works okay, and that's probably the best that can be hoped for in context.

Race relations for Humans haven't really changed. They go like this:

-1 Morale from Demonic presence in allies.
-1 Morale from Undead presence in allies.

Note that since Morale's affects have been strengthened, this works out to basically the same result as The Legend's -2 to each, just you keep some crit chance compared to The Legend. I meant it when I said they hadn't really changed.

The most interesting part of this is that Humans are the only species in the game that interacts with the racial Morale mechanic without being offended by Lizardmen. Orcs were the chillest species in The Legend. In Armored Princess, Humans have taken their place.

Alas, Humans still don't have a mono-Human racial bonus. It's still there in the code, still commented out, alongside the Human+Elf one, but no. You can effectively achieve one by using Royal Griffins, at least, so their situation is a bit better than in The Legend, and indeed if you want to run Royal Griffins alongside one or more Human units without running 4 Human units that's actually better, but the actual mono-race bonus isn't a thing.


Peasant
Level: 1
Hiring Cost: 10
Leadership: 5
Attack/Defense: 1 / 1
Initiative/Speed: 3 / 2
Health: 6
Damage (Default): 1-2 Physical
Damage (Grubber): 2-4 Physical
Resistances: Generic.
Talents: None
Abilities: Team Spirit (+1 Attack for every 30 members of the stack, to a maximum of +10), Grubber (Calls the Grubber attack against Plants), Favorite Enemy

They've gained a whole Health point over The Legend! Okay and also Grubber and Favorite Enemy.

Grubber, though oddly named, is a bit neat, giving Peasants a notable niche, kinda. Unfortunately, they're automatically overshadowed by literally anything that does Fire damage. Still, I appreciate the effort, and there's something amusing about having farmers be extra-good at killing plant monsters because they... farm? I guess? That seems kind of backward, actually, but sure why not.

They've also changed their graphic, and I approve. Firstly, the old graphic was somewhat easy to lose track of if you were distracted or overly focused, where the new graphic tends to 'pop' on most battlefields. Secondly, there's the more subtle point of color theming; in The Legend, each faction had a proprietary color scheme, which was generally held to except when the game reskinned an existing model, and in the case of Humans, that theme was blue and silver. Switching Peasants to blue brings them more in line with their faction's color scheme, which aids learning and is just visually nice when doing a mono-species army, so long as it's not too repetitive.

Also worth noting is that this 'new' graphic is actually more-or-less recycled from a Hero in The Legend. I actually approve of that kind of recycling; using what you have on hand more effectively is always preferable to spending time, money, and effort into even more art assets, and most players probably completely forgot about the Hero in question and don't realize it's recycled art anyway. I know I didn't notice until I went back to The Legend after playing a lot of Armored Princess.

Gameplay-wise, what I said about Peasants back in The Legend hasn't substantially changed. They're less thoroughly awful than they were, but they're still fairly generic 2-Speed melee. This basically automatically makes them a bit underwhelming. Grubber hasn't really changed this. (Nor has Favorite Enemy) The additional Health does make them even better as Sacrifice fodder, I suppose, but that's about it.


Robber
Level: 1
Hiring Cost: 50
Leadership: 20
Attack/Defense: 10 / 6
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 20
Damage: 2-4 Physical
Resistances: Generic.
Talents: Swift Stroke (Reload: 1. Attacks across an empty tile for 3-4 Physical damage, with no risk of retaliation), Greed (Charge: 1. Instantly teleports the Robber adjacent to a chosen chest. Does not end the turn or consume AP)
Abilities: Robber (Allied Humans of Level 1-2 that lack Robber suffer -1 to Morale)

+5 Health over The Legend! That's a good third again tougher, making them a lot more useful. Also Biting Strike has been renamed to Swift Stroke for whatever reason, and gained a point of minimum damage, making them a little more effective with it.

Note that Robbers and Marauders don't get Favorite Enemy, as an example of how the series tends to place them somewhat outside the Human faction.

Also note that Robbers have been graphically overhauled from boring browns to a spiffy new blue that, as with Peasants, brings them more in line with their faction's color scheme. I approve!

Gameplay-wise, they still suffer from overlapping heavily with Snakes. While Robbers got more bolstered by Armored Princess than Snakes did, they still don't have a real niche. This is particularly bad given Armored Princess' main scenario (Plus Orcs on the March) guarantees a source of the various snakes on the first island! Robbers have no equally-early or even-earlier guarantee, and so where in The Legend's scenario you might use Robbers for lack of access to Snakes, in Armored Princess... not so much, unless you burn through your entire supply of them. Which is fairly unlikely, especially not before you've got access to other, even better units.

That said, one other point in Robbers' favor is the new rage move Treasure Searcher, which generates a treasure chest somewhere on the battlefield. This dramatically spikes Greed's probability of being relevant to a battle, whether through using the Robber stack to collect the chest or using the chest as an incidental method of teleporting the Robbers closer to the enemy. There's also the flipside that it's important to pay more attention to whether the enemy group contains Robbers or not: if it doesn't, Treasure Searcher can dig up a chest on your side of the battlefield without worrying overly much on exactly when your troops are going to pick it up. If they do contain a Robber, you need to make sure the Robber never gets a chance to use the chest as a jumping-off point. It's not a huge thing, but it does make Robbers more memorable of enemies, at least.


Marauder
Level: 2
Hiring Cost: 80
Leadership: 30
Attack/Defense: 12 / 8
Initiative/Speed: 6 / 2
Health: 30
Damage: 3-6 Physical
Resistances: Generic.
Talents: Swift Stroke (Reload: 1. Attacks across an empty tile for 3-6 Physical damage, with no risk of retaliation), Search (Charges: 2. Destroys a corpse the Marauder is standing on, and gives the owner Gold), Running (Charge: 1. +2 Action Points)
Abilities: Robber (Allied Humans of Level 1-2 that lack Robber suffer -1 to Morale)

An additional Initiative over The Legend makes Marauders more appealing if you're wanting casting/Rage priority, and they've gained a couple of Health to boot, which is a nice little boost to their performance. Also the Talent rename again.

Their graphic has also been overhauled from the gray/black thing they had going on to a bright red with a snazzy blue cape, helping bring them more in line with their faction's color scheme. (Via the cape, though red already gets used on some Human elites, such as Inquisitors, so the red arguably counts too) Huzzah! They also just look a lot spiffier in general as a result. I suspect the bland colors of the original were strictly more realistic, but I don't care!

While we're on the topic of their graphics, their UI art here strangely fails to reflect another change to their actual graphic: where Robbers still wield some kind of flail, Marauders actually now wield a pair of knives, and have an overhauled animation for their distant strike Talent to suit it. It makes it that little bit easier to remember which is which, even if in practice the knives are bit easy to overlook when playing the game.

Gameplay-wise, Marauders jumping up to 6 Initiative is actually a shockingly huge boost to their utility in general. There's very little in the game that goes above 6 Initiative, and while most of the units they share the tier with have higher Speed (And Level, often), there remains some decent sources of support for criminal humans, such as Jimmy Craud, who is extremely early in the game and there's basically no reason to not immediately recruit him. As such, Marauders can actually be exceptionally useful in the early game, especially if you luck into gear support like Jackboots. Swift Stroke lets them contribute without costing you Gold -not to mention helping with Grand Strategy progress- and their great Initiative and potentially high Speed allows them to collect chests, dance around enemies, shut down ranged attackers, and of course give you turn control. I've had a fair amount of fun with them in one run. They'll still tend to lose their luster at some point, but they're actually worth seriously considering fielding in a run.

So Marauders are a lot more interesting and fun than they were back in The Legend.


Swordsman
Level: 2
Hiring Cost: 70
Leadership: 35
Attack/Defense: 10 / 16
Initiative/Speed: 3 / 3
Health: 35
Damage: 4-5 Physical
Resistances: 20% Physical
Talents: Smashing Blow (Reload: 2. Does 6-10 Physical damage to a single target unit in melee)
Abilities: Armor (20% Physical resistance), Cautious (Once 30% of the stack has died, the stack has a 30% chance to evade when attacked), Favorite Enemy

+3 Health is a little nice. More importantly, Smashing Blow is no longer locked behind a Skill (Though admittedly Training 1 was something you were always going to take, so mostly this makes enemy Swordsmen better) as well as gained a point of max damage, and they've picked up Cautious... which mostly makes them more obnoxious as enemies, rather than particularly enhancing their utility as player units. Especially since Armored Princess introduces Medals, and more specifically introduces Grand Strategy, discouraging the player from taking advantage of loss-centric advantages until midway or so in the game. On a unit that you get access to early on. Inconvenient, to say the least.

Cautious also ties neatly into my single biggest criticism of Armored Princess; it's the worst entry in the series about spiking the random factor of battles. (I know some people would expect Warriors of the North to be worse, but I'll cover that when we get there) Now, The Legend already had Beautiful and Death's Deception, so Miss-inducing abilities aren't a new thing, but Beautiful and to a lesser extent Death's Deception could both be worked around with army choices and tactics. You'd never Miss a Dryad or Demoness if your army was composed of animals and/or women, while Ancient Vampires could be baited into Bat form (where they lacked Death's Deception) as well as fought with units with extremely low crit odds. (Priests, conveniently enough, had a 1% chance to crit, while doing doubled damage against Undead with their ranged attack)


Cautious is much harder to actually play around. To a certain extent you can arrange to, for instance, use Charge-based Talents (The ones that can't Miss, that is: they can dodge Imp and Scoffer Imp fireballs, for example) early on, try to drop massive damage all at once when the stack is close to the threshold, and then endeavor to finish the stack with Spells and/or Rage (Direct damage Spells and Rage effects can't Miss), but your unit options for working around Cautious are fairly limited. A shocking number of effects you'd intuitively think would bypass Cautious actually don't, and a lot of the unit Talents that do are non-damaging or fairly dubious for trying to actually take down a moderately healthy stack. (eg Totem of Death's damage is poor, and without shenanigans any Swordsman at risk of damage from it is in range to instantly destroy the Totem) The only fairly consistent answer is to Sheep a target (Which completely shuts off evasion, just like in The Legend), and you're not likely to have Sheep early in the game when you're first fighting Swordsmen and getting irritated by their random dodges.

I'll be covering this general issue more as we go on, because Cautious is not remotely the worst implementation of this approach to randomness. It's just the first one that's cropping up in the order I'm going.

That said, I do at least appreciate that Swordsmen are no longer fairly forgettable as enemies. In The Legend they were just a decently fast melee unit that tanked Physical damage reasonably well, but they weren't particularly noteworthy unless you were dead-set on killing them with Physical damage and you completely lacked speed control tools. In which case there were still many other units that were much more noteworthy/threatening. Armored Princess' version actually requires I pay some attention to them and account for them properly, and Smashing Blow spikes their initial damage drastically, which is more significant than it might sound given that good play tends to involve little opportunity for enemies to get into melee in the first place. If they'd only get one attack in anyway, that one attack hitting much harder matters quite a lot!


Guardsman
Level: 3
Hiring Cost: 120
Leadership: 50
Attack/Defense: 15 / 17
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 3
Health: 50
Damage: 6-8 Physical
Resistances: 20% Physical
Talents: Smashing Blow (Reload: 1. Melee attacks a single enemy for 9-12 Physical damage)
Abilities: Armor (20% Physical resistance), Commander (+1 Morale for allied Swordsmen and Bowmen), Cautious (Once 30% of the stack has died, the stack has a 30% chance to evade when attacked), Favorite Enemy

+5 more Health over The Legend, as well as picking up Cautious, Favorite Enemy, and Smashing Blow now being automatic. Like with Swordsmen, this... mostly serves to make them more annoying as enemies. Unfortunate.

See the Swordsmen analysis above, but attach the note that now Commander actually benefits enemy units, making Guardsmen a little more meaningful as enemies than in The Legend from another angle. Honestly, they're sufficiently similar in practice I tend to get mixed up on which is which, and not really distinguish between them when fighting them. It's a minor disappointment of mine that Swordsmen and Guardsmen are never really separated by any game in the series, too. Still, the boost to their performance is appreciated.


Knight
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 1000
Leadership: 160
Attack/Defense: 27 / 27
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 2
Health: 160
Damage (Default): 16-18 Physical
Damage (Dragon Slayer): 21-27 Physical
Resistances: 30% Physical, 30% Fire
Talents: Circle Attack (Reload: 2. A Physical melee attack that also strikes all enemies around the Knight. The 'target' unit retaliates, if possible)
Abilities: Steel Armor (30% Physical resistance), Valor (+1 Morale), Dragon Slayer (30% Fire resist, and calls the Dragon Slayer attack against Dragons), Mastery (Defense increases by 30% of base every time the Knight takes damage, to a maximum of 90% more than base), Favorite Enemy

+2 to Initiative, +2 to their minimum damage, and their Leadership cost being cut by 20 points, alongside Circle Attack being innate and Mastery being introduced? Awesome! Knights have gone from being a really terrible unit that requires significant investment in specific Skills to be worth considering at all to being a really solid unit at what they do. They're also really obnoxious as enemies, but I'm okay with that given they're actually worth using now!

Unfortunately, they tend to be outshined by a new Human unit: the Paladin. Knights do have some things Paladins lack, but they just don't really compare to the powerful utility Paladins bring to the table, so even though Knights are no longer unusable through awfulness that doesn't necessarily mean you'll want to use them.

The series does eventually get Knights right, but not yet. They're at least actually good in their own right now, among other points worth using if you don't yet have access to Paladins but want a broadly similar unit, and their anti-dragon utility might sway you to take them over Paladins to deal with dragon-centric forces, especially Black Dragons and Red Dragons, as Paladins are only slightly resistant to Fire.

Though speaking of their anti-dragon utility: Dragon Slayer doesn't actually boost Circle Attack. Which is weird given it did boost it in The Legend, but admittedly it wasn't particularly relevant, since purchasing Training 3 was a dubious decision and Knights were awful even with Circle Attack purchased. Knights in Armored Princess aren't actually bad units, they're just largely inferior to Paladins, and the game is actually more consistent about providing Paladin sources than providing Knight sources, but they're actually worth considering, and it's an unfortunate flaw that reduces Knight utility even further.

Note that when I say Knights are hard to kill, I mean it. I tend to talk like Defense bonuses don't really matter, and honestly a few points here and there are drowned out by damage variance easily enough, but Mastery rapidly escalates their Defense. Trying to kill Knights with units is always a slow affair, and you're usually best off trying to slow them down and focus on killing everything else before you get to them. This was true in The Legend, but in The Legend it was true because they didn't matter. In Armored Princess it's true because it will take as much firepower to down a single Knight stack as it took to take out literally all their allies, thanks almost entirely to Mastery's incredible scaling. (A Mage finds Knights less troublesome to deal with, thanks to her reliance on Spell damage not caring about Mastery, but they're still shockingly durable)

Also, although I'm ragging on how Paladins tend to beat them out in practice, one point in the Knight's favor is that they are more or less uniquely effective for being Teleported into the middle of a bunch of enemy units and immediately trashing 4-6 units with Circle Attack. There's other units with similar area-of-effect, but they usually have worse damage output in practice (eg Bone Dragons) or some other limitation. (eg Paladins can do similar area damage, but only to Demons and Undead. And only once per battle without shenanigans) The Mage would rather just nuke everything herself, but for a Paladin or Warrior it's a nifty option.

It does also make them a little bit more noteworthy as enemies, in that one of the reasons they were so forgettable in The Legend as foes was because it was trivial to stall them with blobs of summons like Thorns. In Armored Princess, if you try to surround them with summons, they're going to cut through them with Circle Attack, so it's a lot more important to slow them down with Slow or Freeze or something, rather than stalling them with summons.


Horseman
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 1100
Leadership: 180
Attack/Defense: 29 / 25
Initiative/Speed: 7 / 5
Health: 150
Damage: 14-18 Physical
Resistances: 20% Physical, 20% Fire
Talents: None
Abilities: Armor (20% Physical resistance), Horseman (+10% of base damage per tile traveled in a straight line when initiating an attack), Fire Resistance (20% Fire resistance)

+1 to Initiative on top of their historically amazing Initiative, +2 to minimum and maximum damage, +20 to Health, aaaand... they cost 300 more Gold, ouch. Still, Horsemen were one of the better Human units in the original game, and they're even more useful now, if pricier.

Overall Horsemen haven't changed terribly much in how you use them and fight them. There's specific matchups where their Initiative gain makes the difference, such as with Necromancers, but overall they play basically the same as in The Legend. It's actually a bit unfortunate, as Armored Princess being designed to account for how players played in The Legend means that Armored Princess is de-facto nerfing generic melee forces: in The Legend, you could get away with running such units whenever you liked, so long as you weren't overly sloppy. In Armored Princess, for a long time you genuinely just can't afford the Gold losses from running such units!

As such, it's actually notably more difficult to justify using them than in The Legend, a fact that's compounded by the Trapper Medal sometimes closing off their ability to get a straight-line charge. As enemies, they're erratic: the Trapper Medal can end up entirely incidentally neutering a Horsemen stack with no effort on your part for a turn or two, but they're also difficult to get the jump on, even more so than in The Legend. The overall result is that there's a somewhat obnoxious element of RNG to whether they end up doing unavoidable damage to your troops first turn or end up being irrelevant, much more so than most units in the game.


Bowman
Level: 2
Hiring Cost: 100
Leadership: 50
Attack/Defense: 16 / 10
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 34
Damage (Ranged): 3-4 Physical
Damage (Melee): 2-3 Physical
Resistances: Generic.
Talents: Ice Arrow (Charge: 1. 3-4 Physical damage against a single enemy at range, and Freezes the target), Flaming Arrow (Charge: 1. 4-5 Fire damage against a single enemy at range)
Abilities: Archer (Range: 6), Favorite Enemy

Innate access to Flaming Arrow without wasting Runes on a Talent is very nice, of course, but they've also gained +6 Health. Small benefits, but still appreciated. This does mean enemy Bowmen are annoying, especially with Armored Princess having overhauled Burning to do percentage damage, making Bowmen stacks a much higher priority target if you want to avoid casualties. And of course they've picked up Favorite Enemy, which is particularly appreciated for ranged units. (Though Bowmen in particular have incentives to spread their fire a bit)

In practice the big change here is the percentile damage on Burning makes Flaming Arrow not simply a way to pick on weaknesses and get high up-front damage, but also a way to wear down larger stacks. Even with the percentile damage being Leadership-scaled, inflicting a Burn on a much larger stack is still a shockingly effective way of bringing it down to a more reasonable size in short order. On the flipside, enemy Bowman can be really obnoxious in the mid-game, in terms of interfering with your ability to get Grand Strategy progress even if you almost kill them, due to the percentage damage being increasingly prone to guaranteeing a casualty simply because your own forces have grown to the point that 1% damage causes a casualty or three.

This actually has the effect of making the choice between Flaming Arrow vs Ice Arrow on the first turn harder to make, which is something I appreciate: back in The Legend, generally smart money was on using Ice Arrow first turn, then Flaming Arrow second turn, unless you were up against a Plant-heavy force in which case it went the other way. In Armored Princess, it's a much more nuanced decision, and to a certain extent it ends up being a style choice: how do you prefer to play, personally?

As such, Bowmen are actually one the Human units I most appreciate the Armored Princess overhaul to.


Priest
Level: 2
Hiring Cost: 100
Leadership: 50
Attack/Defense: 10 / 10
Initiative/Speed: 4 / 2
Health: 32
Damage: 2-4 Magic
Resistances: 10% Magic
Talents: Healing (Charges: 2. Heals a single ally for 10 hits points per Priest in the casting stack), Bless (Reload: 1. For two turns, a single target ally does maximum damage on their basic attacks, or a single target enemy Undead is afflicted with Holy Shackles for 2 turns, lowering Attack and Defense by 30% each)
Abilities: Holy Attack (Range: 6. +50% damage against Undead and Demons), True Believer (No Morale penalty for Undead allies. Attempting to use Necromancers or Necro Call to animate hostile Priests as Undead will instead resurrect them as Priests that remain members of their own side), No Melee Penalty, Favorite Enemy

+6 Health, and their 'tolerates Undead' Ability has been renamed. Holy Attack also includes Demons now and works in melee, though conversely its boost is weaker.

Nothing game-changing overall, but that's fine: Priests were a very solid unit in The Legend, whose only flaw was being just a little overly fragile. This is perfect, basically.


Inquisitor
Level: 3
Hiring Cost: 300
Leadership: 100
Attack/Defense: 16 / 16
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 2
Health: 70
Damage: 5-7 Magic
Resistances: 10% Magic
Talents: Resurrection (Charge: 1. Heals a single target ally for 7 HP per Inquisitor in the casting stack, resurrecting fallen units if 'overhealing'. Doesn't work on Undead or Demons), Holy Anger (Charges: 3. Blesses a single ally and grants the Holy Anger buff, as well as granting the Hero 3-10 Anger on use. Alternatively can be aimed at enemy Undead to inflict Holy Shackles on them for 2 turns, lowering Attack and Defense by 30%, while still giving the Hero Rage)
Abilities: Holy Attack (Range: 7. +50% damage against Undead and Demons), True Believer (No Morale penalty for Undead allies. Attempting to use Necromancers or Necro Call to animate hostile Inquisitors as Undead will instead resurrect them as Inquisitors that remain members of their own side), No Melee Penalty, Favorite Enemy

+20 Health. This is quite nice, as Inquisitors were frustratingly fragile in The Legend. Also note that Holy Anger has been modified: on the one hand, its low roll on Rage is lower than it was in The Legend (But that's okay, because Rage comes much more readily than in The Legend), on the other hand Holy Anger now bolsters damage against Demons in addition to the Undead. Holy Anger-the-Talent has also been switched to a charge-based effect rather than a Reloading effect, limiting your ability to simply ignore the 20-turn 'no more Rage generation' issue. Holy Attack has also been reworked, just like on Priests, with similar implications. The overall result is that instead of being fairly good as a Rage generator early on and rapidly losing utility, Inquisitors can now stay competitive into the endgame as a combat piece, while no longer breaking the Rage economy by existing. It's very much an appreciated set of changes!


Archmage
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 900
Leadership: 200
Attack/Defense: 20 / 24
Initiative/Speed: 6 / 2
Health: 140
Damage (Ranged): 5-8 Magic
Damage (Melee): 6 Physical
Resistances: 50% Magic
Talents: Magic Shield (Reload: 1. A single ally is takes halved damage for 3 turns), Fighting Trance (Reload: 2. Still claims to raise the Archmage's Attack and lower their Defense, still doubles ranged Damage while halving Defense. Also sets Shock chance to 50% and slightly more than doubles crit chance, but disables access to the Archmage's Talents for the two-turn duration), Telekinesis (Charge: 1. Moves a single unit, friend or foe, into an unoccupied tile adjacent to their current position. Doesn't work on objects such as Gremlins)
Abilities: Lightning (Range: Infinite. 25% chance to Shock at range), Magic Protection (50% Magic resistance), Persistence of Mind (Immunity to mental effects), Favorite Enemy

+1 to Initiative, +50 to Health, +1 to max damage on their ranged attack. The boost to Initiative is fantastic, giving them a much larger number of units they can potentially cripple with Lightning first turn instead of second, and the massive spike in Health -a more than 50% increase- means they no longer require you desperately keep them out of melee range of literally everything. Huzzah!

So remember how I talked about how Shocking a target that's already ended its turn will basically have the game lying to you, back in The Legend? Armored Princess has fixed that! Huzzah! (Conversely, it has still not fixed the part where Fighting Trance isn't supposed to add Shock chance to melee attacks but absolutely does, whoops)


There's not really much of nuance to add to that, really.

That said, while we'll be covering Medals in detail later it's worth noting now that Archmages are one of the better units for helping hurry Medals along if you feel the need. Magic Shield directly advances Guardian Angel progress; among other points, if you use Phantom on an Archmage and have the Phantom use Magic Shield immediately, it will be able to use Magic Shield again before it times out, turning one Spell cast into two chunks of Guardian Angel progress. Warrior and Paladin runs particularly appreciate this, as they don't get Higher Magic to hurry Guardian Angel along.

Less drastically, Telekinesis is helpful for hurrying Trapper along, particularly if you manage to get Trapper's first rank very early. If an enemy unit happens to circle around a Trapper-placed Trap but is still next to it, Telekinesis can pull them right into it, and it has no weird limitations to qualify this statement; Rage offers a couple options for pushing enemies into Traps, but both of them require a clear space on the opposite side from the direction you want to push, as a comparison point. Telekinesis just plain works; only stuff like Gremlins and Black Dragons are immune.

Archmages don't really help with any other Medals, but Guardian Angel and Trapper are the main Medals you might actually want the assistance on. Conveniently, Archmages are very common in Armored Princess' early game, and are perfectly usable combatants; you're not hamstringing yourself in the short term, at least not necessarily.


Paladin
Level: 4
Hiring Cost: 1500
Leadership: 220
Attack/Defense: 30 / 36
Initiative/Speed: 3 / 2
Health: 200
Damage: 16-20 Physical
Resistances: 30% Physical, 30% Magic, 10% Fire
Talents: Prayer (Charge: 1. Heals the Paladin and adjacent allies who are below Level 5 and not Undead or Demons for 24 HP per Paladin in the stack, resurrecting the dead where applicable. This can resurrect even Plants and machines. Undead and Demons -even allied ones- instead take 14-16 Magic damage, and spontaneously flee 1 tile away), Second Wind (Reload: 2. Can grant an allied troop that has already moved a second turn that occurs only after all other turns have been resolved, so long as the allied unit is below Level 5, its Leadership total is 660 times Paladin count or less, and it's not an Undead unit. Using Second Wind doesn't end the Paladin's turn or use AP)
Abilities: Steel Armor (30% Physical resistance), Mastery (Defense increases by 30% of base every time the Paladin takes damage, to a maximum of 90% more than base), True Believer (No Morale penalty for Undead allies. Attempting to use Necromancers or Necro Call to animate hostile Paladins as Undead will instead resurrect them as Paladins that remain members of their own side), Holy Warrior (30% Magic resistance, and +50% damage against Demons and Undead), Favorite Enemy

The only new Human unit in the base game. The Paladin honestly is basically a super-Knight, with Circle Attack being the only notable loss. Knights are really more about tanking attacks than they are about dishing out damage, though, and the Paladin does a better job of that -and against Undead and Demon armies it can still basically Circle Attack while bolstering your durability, and potentially allied durability as well! They're also useful in the early-to-midgame for keeping your forces alive for Grand Strategy progress, which is a big point in their favor until you have that Medal maxed.

It's worth commentary that Paladins fill the Initiative tier Knights used to fill, as well.

One notable quirk of Paladins is that they break up a bit of a design pattern/flaw from The Legend where all you really needed was good Magic damage and good Physical damage to hit everything in the game competently. Paladins resist both decently well, with minor Fire protection and no Poison protection, and the only vaguely comparable unit from The Legend was Black Dragons, whose immunity to Spells meant that Poison Skull still didn't have a good niche because it couldn't target them, that kind of thing.

As enemies, Paladins are sort of vaguely annoying, but not as big a deal as you might expect. The AI is overly-aggressive about using Prayer, doing silliness like losing three Paladins in a 100-member stack and promptly going for the Prayer even though they could get a lot more resurrection if they waited a bit longer. Worse, the AI prioritizes getting Paladins next to allies to heal them, paying zero attention to what kind of unit they are: Paladins mixed in with Demons and/or Undead will often end up contributing a good chunk of damage for you! With these AI flaws in place, Paladins tend to thus end up taking even longer than Knights do to actually get across the battlefield, and indeed you can hold off on Slow or the like until the second turn, since they'll often Prayer exactly where they are or walk a tile away from your forces to Prayer nearby more allies, especially if you're making sure to catch them in splash damage and all.

Just don't do something silly like zip your Archdemons next to them turn one, is all.

Note that Gift is missing from Armored Princess, and thus it's a bit complicated to try to abuse Prayer for mass resurrection for less Mana and all. You have to use Turn Back Time carefully, basically.

Also, Paladins actually use a different animation when attacking Undead or Demons. It's the same animation Knights use on Dragons, actually.


Rune Mage
Level: 5
Hiring Cost: 15,000
Leadership: 2000
Attack/Defense: 35 / 44
Initiative/Speed: 5 / 3
Health: 450
Damage (Ranged): 40-55 Magical
Damage (Melee): 30 Physical
Resistances: 50% Magic
Talents: Destruction (Reload: 2. Does 35-55 Astral damage to everything in a straight line, with the damage increasing by 10% for each unused Might Rune the player is carrying), Revive (Charge: 1. Heals a single allied stack for 100 HP per Rune Mage in the casting stack, gaining 9% healing power per unused Mind Rune carried by the player. Will resurrect dead units in the stack, and additionally purges all negative effects. Does not work on the Undead or inorganic units, but does work on Demons. Healing power is also bolstered if the Hero has points in Resurrection), Illusion (Reload: 3. Generates a clone of a randomly chosen enemy that is Level 1-3. If there are no such enemies, generates a stack of Angelic Guard instead. Either way, the size of the stack is 500 Leadership per Rune Mage, with Magic Runes increasing the Leadership number by 7% per unused one carried by the player)
Abilities: Persistence of Mind (Immunity to mental effects), Favorite Enemy, High Mage (+1 Morale to Priests, Inquisitors, and Archmages), Runic (50% Magic resist), Runic Armor (Base ranged damage increases by 2 per unused Might Runes. Health increases by 15 per unused Mind Runes. Additionally, the Rune Mage's ranged attack has a 30% chance to inflict a debuff on enemies, with the exact debuff inflicted being based on the number of unused Magic Runes)

Behold! One of the most complicated units in the entire series! (And the new Human unit for Orcs on the March)

Also one of the more poorly-explained units. First of all, the in-game descriptions give inconsistent numbers on some of these Rune-scaling effects; the numbers I give above are the correct numbers, for reference. Second, these Rune-scaling effects are all actually capped at 20 Talent Runes; there is no difference between 20/20/20 Might/Mind/Magic Runes and 200/200/200. This means means there's a clear maximum power on Rune Mages, which is not obvious just looking them over, and I imagine there are players who kept stockpiling past the cap without noticing no further improvement was happening. Note that the game's tracking of the 'damage bonus' will stop rising at +20, ie at 10 Might Runes, but this is another example of the UI being wrong about the Rune Mage; it will keep rising to 20 Might Runes. (Also, the 'damage bonus' does not apply to their melee attack, which is not communicated by the game at all)

Since we can give specific max strength, let's do so.

First of all, a Rune Mage's maximum Health is 750. A Mage Amelie can use Archmage-the-skill to get their Leadership down to 1500, which gives a 2-to-1 ratio on Leadership to Health, which is actually pretty high when you consider that they're Level 5 and a ranged attacker, both of which tend to lead to depressed Health ratios. That's actually a better base ratio than a Black Dragon, for example.

Second, their base ranged damage caps at 80-95 damage a hit. This is loosely comparable to a Cyclops' ranged attack when accounting for the Leadership difference -and it's worth noting that the Archmage skill will bring a Rune Mage's Leadership down to just slightly over Cyclops Leadership. A properly-supported Rune Mage is actually surprisingly good at damage output given it's both Level 5 and ranged, which tends to depress damage just like Health. Destruction in particular arrives at 105-165 per target once it has +200% damage. Note that as you gain Might Runes the game's claimed percentage boost will be as if it is +12% per Might Rune, but it is in fact +10%. Regardless, Destruction is a decent chunk of damage output at high Might Runes, where I can compare it to something like the Black Dragon's Rain of Fire Talent and we find that per head maxed Destruction can do better than Rain of Fire per target, when Rune Mages have lower Leadership and a Mage in particularly can drag it down still further.

Third, Revive caps at 280 HP healed per Archmage, except that the Paladin can raise this by 30% via ranks in Resurrection. Note that the healing-per-Leadership will be better coming from a Mage with Archmage maxed than from a Paladin with Resurrection maxed, though of course Resurrection has other benefits. This isn't a huge amount of healing regardless, but getting it capped gives you a bit more wiggle room to shrug off some casualties where they don't actually cost you anything. It's also worth pointing out that it's one of your only tools for undoing casualties on Level 5 units, and that it works on units immune to Spells -if you've always wanted to use Black Dragons but were put off by the difficulties in avoiding casualties due to most healing not working on them, Rune Mages can let you give them a try without worrying about that. It's also one of the only ways to clear what negative effects can get put on Black Dragons in the first place (eg Poison, Plague), which can be really nice.

Fourth, Illusion caps out at 1200 Leadership per head. That's more than 50% of the Rune Mage's own Leadership, so if you carry a lot of Magic Runes about that does a lot to make up for how Leadership-intense they are. A Mage can use Archmage to bring their Leadership down to 1500, at which point Illusion is 80% of their own Leadership! That's actually kind of ridiculous, and conveniently the Mage finds it easiest to stockpile Magic Runes, since she gets so many from leveling. (Admittedly, her preferred Skill tree is also very Magic Rune-hungry) It's high enough that it's even a reasonably representative way to try out units without having to spend gold on them; if you copy a unit and find it fits into your army well and/or is personally fun for you, you're free to plan around properly slotting them in, instead of having to rely on save/load shenanigans to try out units. Also note this is the actual cap on Illusion's performance, by which I mean most units that summon can have their summons boosted by the Summoner Skill; Rune Mages are the sole exception for whatever reason.

Fifth, it's time for the Spell-on-attack effects:

0 Magic Runes: No side effect whatsoever.
1-4 Magic Runes: Casts Level 1 Helplessness on the target, so a 30% Defense reduction.
5-7 Magic Runes: Casts Level 2 Slow on the target, so a 2-Speed reduction.
8-10 Magic Runes: Casts Weakness on the target, forcing minimum damage to be rolled.
11-13: Casts Curse on the target, lowering Morale by 1 step.
14-16: Casts Doom on the target, ensuring attacks against the target will be critical hits.
17 or more: Casts Sheep on the target, rendering it a helpless sheep that wanders randomly.

Note that in every case the duration is 3 turns, regardless of what the Spell's duration would be if you cast it at that Level yourself, and that these all work on any unit below Level 5. Conversely, Curse can be inflicted on units that ignore Morale, but it won't do anything useful. The interesting thing is the Doom infliction is special-cased to be replaced with Holy Shackles (-30% to Attack and Defense) if the target is a Vampire or Ancient Vampire, so you don't have to worry about your Rune Mage making an Ancient Vampire stack temporarily almost invulnerable.

This is a pretty weird progression to me, given that Slow is generally more useful than Weakness, which is generally more useful than Curse, but they at least got the ultimate possibility right -Sheep is incredibly good to inflict, completely disabling the target, and the Rune Mage's version actually lasts longer than casting it yourself. There's a decent argument, if you've got the Magic Runes stockpiled to trigger Sheep, for casting Phantom on Rune Mages instead of casting Sheep yourself; it will cost less, and the Sheep infliction will last longer... though of course you can't count on it happening, so if you need the target disabled now, it's better to just cast Sheep directly.

On the topic of the trigger chance; the game itself claims that Magic Runes boost it, but it doesn't give actual numbers and furthermore is actually just wrong. The Rune Mage always has a 30% chance of inflicting a debuff with their ranged attack. 

Speaking of incomplete explanations, the game doesn't give Rune Mages an explicit Ability to indicate they're a ranged unit, but they nonetheless are. Their effective range is 7, which can be a bit unintuitive due to being an Archmage reskin, but between their above-average Speed and 7 being a plenty good range they usually don't have to worry. Especially since they prefer to contribute with their Talents anyway.

Even stranger is that Rune Mages have another Rune-based quality the game doesn't mention at all: they get bonus resistances based on your Talent Rune makeup! Specifically:

Might is highest: +30% Physical
Mind is highest: +30% Fire and Poison
Magic is highest: +30% Magic and Astral
Might is tied for highest: +10% Physical
Mind is tied for highest: +10% Fire and Poison
Magic is tied for highest: +10% Magic and Astral

Note that for ties you combine them: Might and Mind being tied is +10% Physical, Fire, and Poison resistance. Surprisingly, there's no special-case for having all three tied; you just combine them to get +10% to all resistances. As such, if you're going to have any tied, you'll optimally have all of them tied. Further note that the game considers anything above 20 to be the same as 20 for purposes of determining what's highest; if you're sitting on 21 Might Runes, 22 Mind Runes, and 23 Magic Runes, your Rune Mages will get +10% to all resistances instead of +30% to Magic and Astral.

This mechanic is really easy to overlook. Not only is it not displayed as an ability, but the Rune Mage's resistances don't update to reflect it outside of battle; you can't open your Rune Mage's summary, look at their resistances, spend some Talent Runes, and recheck them to see this effect in action. It only displaying in battle makes it easy to think you're just forgetting a Skill or an effect on one of your equipped items or something if you do run into the effect in combat.

This is frustrating, as it's a very significant effect! If Magic Runes are your highest, Rune Mages rise from 50% Magic resistance to 80%, more than doubling their ability to shrug off Magic damage, which may let you use them as a meatshield for other units against Magic damage-heavy armies. The 30% Astral resistance is less commonly relevant, but Astral resistance is very rare; Rune Mages can justify their place in your army off just this Astral resistance.

Similarly, the 30% Physical resistance from Might being highest is actually fairly significant, especially if you've prioritized getting Stone Skin to a good level; as I've covered before, 30% is generally as high as Physical resistance is allowed to go, so they're actually potentially surprisingly good at tanking Physical damage in a pinch, especially if you've got a fair number of Mind runes to drag their Health up.

Mind as highest is the overall least notable, but still something to keep in mind, especially if you've got gear boosting one or the other resistance.

It's a bizarrely complicated mechanic given it's almost completely hidden.

I think the idea of the Rune Mage is very very interesting, but in practice it's burdened by problems. The Rune Mage is fairly opaque to use, for one, but most critical is how it's clearly scaled to only be all that great if you have a fair few unused Runes, when default play is going to be purchasing Skills pretty aggressively, leaving few or sometimes no unused Talent Runes lying around. The resistance mechanic in particular is outright obnoxious, where you may find yourself not wanting to grab a Talent Rune in the field because it would change your Rune Mage's resistances and mess up your strategy.

Also, they're heinously expensive to hire. As Armored Princess is the least generous game in the series when it comes to money, this is a pretty significant obstacle; even once you have the Leadership to lead one, you may well be unable to buy one. And even if you have the cash, they're not so obviously amazing as to be easy to justify wiping your funds to try them out. It's... all very much not ideal design.

One odd quirk of Destruction is that you inexplicably can't target Gremlins with it, but they nonetheless can be hit by its line of damage.

Regardless, as allies Rune Mages can actually be serviceable just on the basis of spamming Illusion to distract and stall enemies (Note that Illusion's summons last until destroyed, and can't be wiped with a Dispel: they're not a Phantom, in spite of the Talent graphic clearly being based on Phantom), with Destruction and so on being a nice bonus. Revive purging negative effects can also be hugely notable in the early-midgame for helping you get Grand Strategy ranks by not only undoing minor casualties but wiping Burn or Poisoning in the process and thus preventing still further casualties. Only Destruction is fairly forgettable without serious Rune backing, truthfully; they're a decent unit even if you don't stockpile Runes. If you do stockpile Runes, they're one of the better Level 5 units, arguably the best, though this is difficult to quantify precisely given it means you're putting off purchasing Skill ranks.


As enemies, Rune Mages are... sort of obnoxious in principle, as they get to benefit from Rune scaling effects with the AI shouldering no opportunity cost for this effect (They literally add Runes at random off an internal 'Location Difficulty' parameter, with each Rune type having an equal chance of being added per tier and there being an equal chance to instead add to all Rune types), but in practice they're usually not too big a deal. They don't show up very often, they're mostly restricted to the early-midgame (As late-game islands aren't Human-using islands), and the AI just doesn't use them very well. They'll frequently open with a Destruction aimed sub-optimally, they'll aggressively waste their Revive charge much like Paladins waste their Prayer charge, and the AI just doesn't play in a way that emphasizes the utility of summons so Illusion isn't a problem. The only truly problematic thing is that they're a lot more likely to have some moderately serious negative effect attached to their ranged attack than in your hands, and if they ever get around to using it before you kill them that can be really inconvenient, but it doesn't crop up often between their behavior and the fact that it's RNG-based whether they even impose such an effect.

Ultimately the most interesting thing about Rune Mages to me is more conceptual/design-level: they're the first Human unit to be Level 5. They're also the last one, as no later game adds in a new one.

Still, they're kind of a neat idea, even if the actual execution is... odd.

Quick shoutout to Slick Rounder in the comments section for doing a ton of testing to more properly determine the mechanics and limitations of Rune Mages. This was previously a much less informative section, and outright wrong on several bits, in no small part due to the UI elements being full of inaccuracies. Notably, Rune Mages look much better if you know their actual tuning than if you go by the vague and often-wrong descriptions given by the game itself -this is likely a unit a lot of players underrate relative to its actual quality.

----------------------------------

Next time, we'll cover the Dwarves of Montero.

Comments

  1. There's one use for rune mages and that is no loss impossible.
    As you probably know it involves a lot of running around and collecting stuff before finally starting to battle. And, speaking for myself here, I tend to hoard runes in that mode until I run into a situation where I *need* to learn a talent to progress. This style of play makes rune mages quite awesome honestly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've done an Impossible Mage in Armored Princess, and while I didn't achieve perfect no loss I rarely suffered casualties, with most of them either from Boss fights (I couldn't be bothered to do the shenanigans involved in undoing all the casualties after a Boss is dead while keeping the minions alive etc) or from me getting to the point of Just Not Caring late in the game once I had maxed out Grand Strategy and had massive piles of gold. (Plus a few Armageddon Heroes, but if I was trying for obsessive No Loss I would've skipped fighting those Heroes, at least until I was hideously overpowered compared to them)

      I never saw any reason to hoard Runes.

      Delete
  2. One thing worth mentioning regarding Rune Mages- I've noticed they get a hidden/undisclosed bonuses to resistance each battle. From my observation and testing if Magic runes are the most they get Magic + Astral boosted by 30% (so magic to 80% on top of their innate and disclosed 50% magic resistance from Runic), and from having Mind runes as primary I was getting Fire + Poison boosted by 30%. If might and magic runes are tied for the most, then Rune Mage gets +10% Physical, +10% Magic, +10% Astral (so "only" 30% extra relative to other options which grant 60% extra, but it has physical resistance). If might and mind are tied for the most, then Rune Mage gets +10% Physical, +10% Fire, +10% Poison. If Might runes are the most, than the Ruge Mage gets +30% Physical resistance and nothing else.

    There are many hidden depths to Rune Mage, but this is another thing in their favor that i haven't seen mentioned anywhere and had to do the testing on my own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooookaaaay.

      I'll test that myself before adding it in, but I believe it -I've been confused by Rune Mage resistance values before and just never dug into it enough to figure out if I was just forgetting a piece of gear or what.

      Delete
    2. Yup it's not easily discernible. but now once you confirm you can have the info in your analysis of it, so it will help others down the line that either don't realize that the Rune Mage is better than it seems due to the hidden/undisclosed resistances, or to help clear up confusion that some are having when they check their rune mage resistances and see more than they were expecting, and potentially shifting resistances over the course of the game depending on their rune composition.

      Delete
    3. Oh wow it's only mentioned in actual battle, making it even *more* hidden than I'd been figuring. This really should've been mentioned somewhere... and now I need to test if they still have this in Warriors of the North. And also need to find some enemy Rune Mages so I can see if the AI replicates this effect, as well as if it lines up with their Rune bonuses if they do get it.

      But yep, confirming that it happens and confirmed your values. Off to update the Rune Mage description.

      Delete
    4. Ah, and now I know why that resistance framework sounded familiar -it's Runic Armor's framework, aside that Runic Armor swaps Ice in over Astral. Thankfully I don't need to significantly update that page, as Runic Armor replaces this weird highest Rune mechanic.

      Though now I need to contrive to have perfectly balanced Runes in AP to see what that gives...

      Delete
    5. I don't know if I have ever seen a better update than the one you did for Rune Mages. The colors and aesthetic is pleasing as well. That might sell Rune Mage for people on its own since it looks so cool. The 15k price certainly isn't welcoming/enticing, nor is their base 2000 leadership cost, albeit getting Archmage 1/2 for 10/17% (1800/1660) discount on a Mage is worthwhile and helps it quite a bit (Archmage 3 is a bit too expensive and counterproductive to Rune Mage and their rune hoarding unless one is using more than just a couple mage types) especially to avoid being stuck early-early mid game in the Leadership hell where one is just shy of getting another Rune Mage and they fall off even further (having some otherwise sub optimal backup leadership boosting gear to help bridge the gap to acquire another one, and then removing it when another level up/surplus leadership is reached, is a helpful partial solution). It might be worth mentioning that a Mage has Archmage hero skill they can leverage to get it's otherwise cataclysmic leadership cost in check, since one is bombarded by Rune Mages everywhere they go in CW early game, but a Mage looks at 2k leadership and is dismayed.

      If I may suggest it's worth mentioning in the Archmage description that his Magic Shield helps with the top tier Guardian Angel medal. He can get by himself up to 5 Magic Shields in the 10 round battle, which is up to 5 points into Guardian Angel each battle from him alone. The ideal balance is to turn 1 Magic Shield (preferably on a unit that completed its turn already, such as a Royal Griffin that summoned, so that it gets a full extra turn with Magic Shield), into turn 2/3 Trance, followed by 4/6/8/10 Magic Shield. If one trances on turn 1, then one can only get 4 Magic Shield casts on 3/5/7/9. Also worth noting that if one wants to get the Medal even faster, instead of casting stoneskin (tier 1 at 3 mana is very efficient later in the battle), one can cast Phantom on Archmage to get 2 Magic Shields worth of casting from it, so basically the player's 1 spell= 2 points towards the medal. Just guardian angel farming alone might justify Archmage, even theoretically a single archmage, albeit with Training and endless Inquisitors as training fodder, that is no longer an issue. I do remember my initial AP run roughly a decade ago, where I was short on Archmages with no way to replenish and would have loved the Training that CW brought. Still found the short-stacked Archmage useful for Magic Shield and Telekinesis (+medal farming), eventhough I generally loathe being short stacked and would cut the unit outright if I don't have access to sacrifice, but for Archmages I made a very rare exception. Having Target also drastically increases the value of even a single Archmage that can Magic Shield, although I know from reading the comments in your Distortion AP analysis, that you haven't yet seen the light on Target. Also might be worth mentioning that Telekenesis is one of the premier (if not THE premier) method of getting a unit (including tier 4/5 or magic immune) into a Trap kill. So if one is thinking medals, it's hard to find a better unit in CW to help farm the medals. I feel that is worth mentioning in it's shockingly (pun intended) sparse analysis (perhaps since in your analysis for other KB games you were more thorough on it, but remember not everyone is seeing all that, so it's important to have some of the essentials included here) since I'm sure it would help newer players who are just getting into KB, or even for players transitioning to Impossible where medal farming is crucial.

      Unfortunately got a bit spoiled by Dark Side's Archmage with their Trance Lightning attacks being able to hit 2 more targets (really sick with Berserk to Halve stacks), and it was a bummer to remember that Archmages Trance only hits 1 target in AP/CW.. Still they shine early/mid game for medal farming alone.

      Delete
    6. Tested Perfectly Balanced Runes: it's just all three tied bonuses at once. So optimally you should have no top ties or all top ties. That's a bit silly...

      I'll probably add a bit about Medal progression, yeah. Just the 'one Phantom can equal two Stone Skins for Guardian' bit is obviously appealing, especially for the Warrior and Paladin who don't get Higher Magic to speed up the grind. Not tonight, but soon.

      Delete
    7. Yeh good job on the Archmage update, it's great now. I just tested Rune Mage at even runes on all 3 and you are right, it's +10% resistance to each which is solid (eventhough it's "just" 50% total resistance relative to two of the of the options which increase by up to 60%, it's the best distribution and the best way to get physical resistance while not severely limiting the total resistance which all might rune options entail).

      A minor thing to add on Rune Mages is that it's actually 7% per Magic rune for Illusion, the game is off when it claims 5% per. It does however correctly show that say 3 magic runes adds 21% to the power of Illusion (as opposed to the 15% one might expect if it's 5% number was correct, but it isn't thankfully). Another thing worth noting is that the boost to damage from might runes caps at 10 might runes for +20 damage to base attack. Might runes past 10 can keep contributing to Destruction (at 14 i have seen it improving still by 140%, but it's possible it caps at 20 might runes for 200% bonus damage). I have not seen there be a limit to the bonus hp from mind runes (i.e 15 mind runes are properly adding 225 max hp, but have not had 20+ stored to see if it ever reaches a limit on mind runes in terms of the bonus hp. 15 mind runes were still improving revive, however maybe at 20 mind runes it caps the revive boost. Illusion was being capped at 20 mind runes for a 140% boost to leadership, going beyond 20 magic runes still had it stuck at 140%). Also of note is that Destruction is 10% per might rune as the bottom line says, but this time the game is inaccurate in the middle line when it gives the value of 12% per might rune to destruction (so the reverse situation of Illusion).

      Regarding their spell cast on enemies, here is what i have from my testing over many dozens of battles

      0 magic runes= no spell
      1-4= Helplessness. Level 1 strength of 30% defense reduction (i checked many times), but with 3 turn duration which is level 2 duration.
      5-7= Slow . Level 2 slow, decreases speed by 2 and lasts 3 turns
      8-10= Weakness- Lasts 3 turns, so the level 2 version of it.
      11-13= Curse. Can be applied even to things like Droids, albeit it doesn't have any effect ofcourse. Works on tier 4. Lasts 3 turns
      14-16= Doom- Can affect even tier 4 units, lasts 3 turns.
      17 Magic Runes= SHEEP on attack (probably at 47% + ). Can even hit tier 4 units. Lasts THREE TURNS, more than a normal Sheep. This is insanely powerful, and it makes Phantoms on them outrageous since they can be casting a 50% longer sheep potentially with over 50% chance (if one has 20+ magic runes) on each of their attacks. Phantom mana cost is 15-25 depending on the level, and Sheep is much more expensive at the 30-35-40 range.
      None of their spells works on tier 5 units, ever.

      So that is the comprehensive tally of their spells, albeit you can check them yourself if you want to verify my testing.

      Delete
    8. Also forgot to mention that Rune Mages Revive in game claims that it's 7% per mind rune, but it's 9% as it shows correctly in the mid line (you have the correct number in your description, but the 5% per magic rune needs to be changed to 7% per magic rune for Illusion). Also confirmed that Destruction caps at 20 might runes for a 200% bonus, so instead of the base 35-55 it does 105-165. Any more might runes than 20 stored is totally useless. I haven't gotten over 20 mind runes stored, but at this point i'm like 95% sure it will also cap the max hp bonus at 300 (15 per mind rune) and will also cap the revive bonus at 20 mind runes for 180% bonus. Have to confirm those if i can reach 21 mind runes though.

      I'm starting to believe based on the pattern that eventhough the game doesn't state it, that anything above even 20 magic runes is useless (i already confirmed that for Illusion), even for the spell that the Rune Mage casts. If so, that means that the highest % that it would cast sheep is 50%, assuming 30% base + 20% extra chance from 20 magic runes. I might consider stockpiling like ~40-50 magic runes and then doing tests of a few dozen attacks and seeing if it's Sheeping at close to a 50% rate which means its capped as i suspect, or if it's closer to the 70-80% range which would mean it's uncapped (in which case going all out to store 70 magic runes for a guaranteed 3 turn sheep on Rune Mage and their Phantoms every attack, would become viable as a sorta unbeatable strategy versus non-tier 5 enemies, since you can just perma-sheep everything, and even turn 1 a mage would be able to create 2 phantoms to have 3 rune mages spewing 3 turn sheeps).

      Delete
    9. I mean, if you could get to 70-80% on Sheep, it would be absolutely worth splitting the stack into two or maybe even three slots to get the absurd perma-Sheeping going on; your army taking longer to kill things doesn't really matter if the enemy is permanently helpless. Though I'm guessing you're right that it doesn't go that high. I might see how many Magic Runes I can stockpile on my original endgame Mage and do some testing there real quick.

      I'll be double-checking stuff before I add all this in, but this seems all basically accurate. Among other things, WotN explicitly lists Rune Mage benefits capping at 20 of each Talent Rune, and so too does Rune Mastery cap at 20; Crossworlds using 20 as the cap would be consistent with this.

      Delete
    10. Nono, splitting the stack is not worthwhile. Gives up way too much in overall power. If one would want multiple Sheep generators, best way is via Phantoms (since it would be more efficient than casting Sheep, since Rune Mage has a better sheep than even the spell, and phantoms last 3 turns). Also they can keep refreshing the sheep duration even on an existing sheep which is nice.
      "your army taking longer to kill things doesn't really matter if the enemy is permanently helpless" Keepers, tier 5's, enemy heroes and the like all make this not worthwhile (it's also just unnecessary. I'll admit that it COULD be done, since sheep on a stick is obscenely powerful. An army of split Rune Mages if Sheep % isn't capped can probably beat just about anything with some initiative help- i have mask of hate for -1 initiative to enemies and Black Dragon currently, who i rarely use, and initiative has been quite good for me.). We also don't know that it's Sheep % can go beyond 50 yet (i have like ~25 magic runes stockpiled, will try to get it to 50+ tonight and will have a much better idea)
      "Though I'm guessing you're right that it doesn't go that high." Yeh probably. We shall see.
      "I might see how many Magic Runes I can stockpile on my original endgame Mage and do some testing there real quick." Yeh we are on the same page. I'm still in middle of my playthrough (lvl 39) but have already reached effectively full/unbeatable power, so i can keep stockpiling magic runes till i confirm the Sheep question.

      "I'll be double-checking stuff before I add all this in, but this seems all basically accurate." Sure, confirm the numbers are right.
      "Among other things, WotN explicitly lists Rune Mage benefits capping at 20 of each Talent Rune" Yeh i had forgotten that but it sounds right. Question still undermined is if in CW magic runes are capped for the Sheep. It probably is, but it's not certain. I'm also about to confirm if 20 mind caps max hp at 300 and revive at a whopping 180% bonus (i'm pretty sure both will, but ill know in a few hours).

      Delete
    11. Ok i bought magic runes to go well over 70 (77) just to be extra safe. I can say definitively that it's capped, likely at 20 magic runes (i wouldn't rule out 17 either, for 47%, since 17 is the sheep number). The testing was all versus Dwarfs and Cannoneers so tier 3 and tier 4 units. 8 outa 28 attacks sheeped, and when sheeped only 3/15 re-applied sheep. So when they weren't sheep it was 5/15 or 33.3%. From my observations in this battle and other battles its a bit harder to sheep an existing sheep (not exactly too important to be honest, since a 3 turn sheep is an eternity anyways. Also if they already have 3 turn sheep it may not reapply sheep since it does nothing, and i tried not to count those.) Perhaps it's too small a sample size, but from my observations over the course of many battles with ~40 magic runes (i.e well above the 20 magic runes for the supposed "50%" chance to apply the spell), i would wager its not quite 50%, or it factors in either leadership (unlikely since phantoms were performing close enough to the original so its probably margin of error range) or the tier of the unit (this is POSSIBLE, where there is a slight difference in the chances it affects tier 4 versus tier 1, with the lower tier being more likely). There is precedent with Beholders for that type of disparity, but i don't *think* it's happening, but I can't swear it isn't. Regardless at the very very best Sheep caps at 50%, if even. And if i was a betting man i'd lean towards it not actually being 50%, and instead likely a bit lower (but all but certainly it's atleast 30% or more). Regardless there is absolutely 0 benefit of stocking more than 20 magic runes, or 20 of any of the runes, so that should be noted.

      One other less testing based thing that may be worth adding regarding Rune Mage, is the value in the player's hands of Illusion, which allows them to get to "play around" with an assortment of units they may not otherwise give a chance to. This is frequently tactically relevant, since all of a sudden one might appreciate getting their Illusion to use Heal on their low hp tier 4 or tier 5 unit, eventhough they wouldn't field a lowly priest themselves, or they may get mileage out of a Spider's web to trap a unit without having to worry about the low initiative getting them trapped in melee with the dangerous enemy. They may appreciate their Illusion of Imp variants lobbying fireballs at gremlins in a tough demon based Keeper fight where otherwise the gremlins only have 1 space they can be attacked from like for the annoying and potentially challenging Mask of Hate battle and it's endless suppression requirements due to it dropping morale at at unmatched pace. Or if one gets a Dryad, suddenly your Dryad can put to sleep the enemy dryads and tier 1-3 enemy units (it will win a speed tie the following round when it can act due to being summoned by the tier 5 Rune Mage), and also can summon more thorn fodder to boot, etc etc endless examples. Basically it's like a smorgasbord sampling of a variety of tier 1-3 units, and it adds a more interesting dynamic to many a battle when the Illusion isn't solely soaking up damage or acting as fodder/distraction etc. Worse case scenario you get a better than Royal Griffin amount of Angelic Guards (assuming one has some magic runes stockpiled/leadership discount like Archmage) that's reloadable instead of 1 charge. It's hard to quantify the exact merit of this experience, but it's atleast worth noting, and nothing else can quite replicate this.

      Delete
    12. There is one more addition to the resistance chart of Rune Mage i discovered. If one has mind and magic runes at atleast 20 (doesn't matter which has more, since the game views them at capped at 20) but not might at 20 (which would result in the same +10% to each resistance you found for a tie), then one gets +10% to poison, magic, fire and astral. Ofcourse the ideal is to have 20 or more in all 3 (or to get lucky and have all 3 tied at a lower value, but that is very far from reliable).

      Delete
    13. Tested most of this, enough to be willing to run with the remainder I can't readily test, and have updated their section appropriately.

      Side note: I discovered in my own testing that Destruction is wrong and inconsistent, claiming +10% per Might Rune while raising the listed boost by 12% per Might Rune, and then its claimed/actual damage doesn't line up with either of these possibilities. I have no idea what it's actually doing, but noted the max damage it does arrive at regardless of how it arrives there.

      Delete
    14. Part 1/2
      "Side note: I discovered in my own testing that Destruction is wrong and inconsistent, claiming +10% per Might Rune while raising the listed boost by 12%"
      Yes already wrote of this above when i wrote "Also of note is that Destruction is 10% per might rune as the bottom line says, but this time the game is inaccurate in the middle line when it gives the value of 12% per might rune to destruction (so the reverse situation of Illusion)"
      From my observation the damage was consistent with the 10% per might rune. I can pay even more attention if you think it might be wonky though.
      "and then its claimed/actual damage doesn't line up with either of these possibilities" For me it's ALWAYS lined up once one factors in attack/defense and resistance (not much resists astral though). Remember it's not "pure" damage, it's considered a damaging move that gets impacted by defenses and (rarely) resistance. I'm nearly certain it's working correctly.

      I think it should say 10% per might rune not the middle line of 12% that the game says. It's also logical that the intention was that at 20 might runes the damage would be tripled (200% boost) from the base 35-55 to 105-165. I can try to see it ever does more than the 10% per might rune, but i'm pretty certain it never did in the hundreds of times I've used Destruction (i would have noticed). The way to test is simple enough, all one needs is to ensure that Rune Mage has 60 attack more than a target with 0 astral resistance. Then let's say 10 rune mages with 20 might runes should be doing
      3,150 - 4950 damage with it's Destruction, and if somehow it ever did more than 4950 that would be proof that the 12% line is correct (i'm 99% sure it isn't, but i'll do tests to confirm if possible). The easiest way would have been if talents could crit, since then one could instantly verify things as long as 60 attack over victims defense was ensured. Maybe Warriors of the North would be the ideal testing place for this, but I haven't started my new run of Wotn Ice and Fire yet, so that would be a while. If you have rune mages in wotn (and assuming their destruction works exactly like it does in CW), then that would be the easiest and quickest way to verify, since if memory serves that's where talents can crit.

      Reading your entry now you wrote "Destruction in particular arrives at 105-165 per target -I'm not sure how it arrives there, given it supposedly is getting a boost of +240%" It's simple how it arrived there, that is 200% of the base damage of 35-55. Again, I firmly believe, as I stated a few days ago, that the 12% mid line is wrong, and the 10% per might rune part is correct. In truth the burden of proof is on you to show it's ever acting above 10% per might rune, but it's your analysis, so it just depends on how accurate you want things.

      You even wrote "and the actual damage output is roughly consistent with this." and yeh, that's the important thing. It IS consistent with this number. I have NEVER seen it act outside of this, and again, i used destruction hundreds of times AND WOULD NOTICE even slightly higher damage than it should be (my instantaneous damage calculation is at a borderline prodigal level, and i study these things like a vicious hawk making sure it's Prey is operating correctly).

      "For reference, to turn the base 40 into 105 is a multiplier of just over 2.6," AHHHH so here is where you are wrong, and we can end this aspect of the discussion. Base damage of destruction is 35-55 as i stated above (so it’s different from its normal attack range. This is very commonplace with talents, not sure how this eluded you). It is correctly showing 105-165 for a 200% boost at 20 might runes. Believe it or not it's the reality.

      Delete
    15. Part 2/2
      "This isn't a huge amount of healing regardless" It is comfortably outscaling my Mage's Level 3 Resurrection with over 40 int and one point in Magic Light. So it's pretty substantial with Archmage at 3. I consider it the best Revive in the entire game (especially since it removes all debuffs and can affect things like Black Dragon etc), and also doesn't require things like specific enemies and their hp resource like demonologist do. It also synergizes incredibly well with Phantom (on top of their phantoms being useful to help regenerate rage and mana by killing them and their summons with things like Red and Black Dragon or other methods. Rage is then used for Mana Accel into more Phantoms, rinse and repeat and wholla you have the best Reviver the game has ever seen, by a serious margin. Think Repair Droid type level of reloadable repair, just instead of only affecting two subpar units, it affects every unit in the game not named Cyclops)

      Two things you forgot to add-
      1)That their revive can even resurrect Black Dragon, the only way possible in the game to do so, which is a very significant merit and makes Rune Mage all but a necessary ally with Black Dragon. Also should mention that its Revive can ressurect tier 5 units, a point in its favor over the other inferior options like Paladin and the like.

      2) Their Illusion is not boosted by Summoner (the only units summon who isn't, albeit as i said previously Demonologist tooltip doesn't update to show Summoner affects it, but it does). Would be worth mentioning how this may or may not be a bug, but it doesn't hamper Rune Mages anyways since they want to have some magic runes stockpiled (atleast 5 if possible), and as you brilliantly noted they can have 1200 leadership of reloadable summon for their 1500 leadership as a Mage, the best possible return on investment). Their summon is at a closer power level to the obnoxiously broken Dragon Rider from DS anyways, with the worst case for it usually being a strictly better version of Royal Griffins Angelic Guard summon (which is ofcourse Charge 1 relative to Rune Mages Reloadable) due to having better leadership return on investment even if the royal griffin is boosted by level 3 summoner (which requires more than the stockpiled magic runes anyways). It would be nice to have touched on the relevance of cloning an enemy unit and how that is frequently advantageous, besides adding variety and chances to play with units that one might not get a chance to use, but that is a bit deep and your Rune Mage entry is nearly perfect once you correct the Destruction part (short of the analysis being a bit blaise and doubtful towards its sheer unbridled and unmatched strength, when it is very likely in the top 5 units in CW, or at the absolute bare minimum one of the stronger units overall, which is important when one considers they are available as soon as one can get the leadership for them, and that they are ubiquitous and omnipresent in terms of ease of access and are a very viable unit to build around on Impossible and for no-loss playthrough's. The cost is more than justified honestly. Even if they were 50k a pop they would be worth it over everything besides ancient amulet/banner of true faith/gladiator's sword which are must buys when they can be afforded, so i'm glad that they have the highest price, since the Devs were wise enough to realize it's a Peak unit in terms of sheer power, even though at first glance it may not appear to be)

      Also I would appreciate a shoutout in the Rune Mage section since i helped contribute so much to the Rune Mage testing. I can now say with confidence that few, if any, understand Rune Mages better than i do, and understand the depths of their strength and power.

      Delete
    16. edit- i was a bit combative pushing back at the Destruction misinformation, since i was writing my response bit by bit, and it was only towards the end that i realized that you likely just blundered and didnt realize that destructions damage range was different which is what led to your inaccuracies regarding it. There is a good chance that you will realize that I am correct after reading my response, and won't even try to argue with the facts, so in retrospect i wouldn't have written my response in a way that was tailored to combat what was looking like a flawed argument on your part, but in actuality was just a human error mistake with your testing. That's fine, it's why I am trying to help, to set things straight. The response wasn't meant to belittle you or put you down, it was just a simple misunderstanding of Destructions damage on your part.
      Now on the off-chance that you push back on the Facts, then my response will have been merited, but let's hope you see things clearly.

      Delete
    17. Yeah, okay, double-checking Destruction's base damage again it is indeed slightly lower than the Rune Mage's base damage. I'd checked its damage earlier and was insufficiently rigorous (I got my Might Runes down to 2, not 0) that it occluded the base damage being different in conjunction with the unclear scaling. Updating the post appropriately.

      Delete
    18. I'll try to get to the other stuff later, right now I'm exhausted -fixing the Destruction error was a priority because it's actual misinformation, but the other stuff can wait.

      Though a couple semi-related questions; are any of your files able to use the Military Academy to upgrade Werewolf Elves? And by a similar token, are any of your files able to do the demonic corruption version with Peasants, Foremen, Druids, Dryads, Elves-the-unit, both fairies, and Gorguls? So far all of my files get a bugged 'requirements unrealized' for all of these, and trying to dig into it online has revealed not even a barebones GameFAQs page on the topic of the Military Academy. I've been working on a couple posts for the Military Academy, and would prefer those gaps are closed before I start working to get them ready for front-facing.

      Delete
    19. "Yeah, okay, double-checking Destruction's base damage again it is indeed slightly lower than the Rune Mage's base damage." Yup.
      "was insufficiently rigorous (I got my Might Runes down to 2, not 0)" no problem, and yeh that would explain it perfectly
      "that it occluded the base damage being different in conjunction with the unclear scaling. " makes perfect sense, sound reasonable
      " right now I'm exhausted -fixing the Destruction error was a priority because it's actual misinformation" That's perfect. Whenever you get to the rest that works, only priority was just correcting the Destruction stuff which i see you did. It looks perfect now.

      "are any of your files able to use the Military Academy to upgrade Werewolf Elves" I can check. One second.
      Ok i bought 100 werewolf elves to test them, this is what i see at Military Academy with them - i.imgur.com/6o2pY02.png
      So i am getting the option to turn them into Assassins. I have done some reading throughout the forums on Military Academy and i'm relatively knowledgeable about it, but it's not like my greatest interest ever and i stopped farming trophies at like 20k, and even then was overkill in terms of what is necessary.

      Anyways I can't name every single conversion and price off the top of my head (i didnt know that werewolf elves could become assassins). I actually benefited from your analysis of trolls because early game i wanted some more to go along with my Ogre Sandal's and i didn't yet have access to more. Lo and behold you had this super useful statement in your analysis of Troll "Trolls have some odd ways in which they get lumped in with Orcs-the-faction, such as being a promotion option for Orc Veterans, " and i was like "oh cool, that's sweet and a convenient solution". So i'll cede to your authority on matters of training, but if u need me to check stuff out for confirmation i'll try to help.

      "do the demonic corruption version with Peasants, Foremen, Druids, Dryads, Elves-the-unit, both fairies, and Gorguls?" I assume this is referring to the guy in Shterra? I'll try to check it out eventhough i only briefly looked at him (his cost for training archmages, i presume into demonologists (was so expensive at ~40k i couldnt even afford it), was actually double the price in trophies that the same stack required elsewhere, so i didn't pay much attention to him on top of training being useless to me getting towards the end game. Maybe Archmages was actually a conversion into like Demons though, which would explain the outrageous cost more. I couldnt be bothered to pay much attention when i saw such egregious rates. Still haven't really cleared out Shterra yet but i can go and see what i get for those units you listed.

      Ok so i brought 7 of the units u listed, everything besides Gorguls. And i was greeted with requirements not realized not enough trophies. I then quickly dismissed the vast majority of each stack, and here were my results-
      i.imgur.com/1BgYvYF.png
      i.imgur.com/8yLBkfR.png
      i.imgur.com/Dh0HSBF.png
      i.imgur.com/lCCV4EA.png

      So in summary, prices and trophy amounts are pretty outrageous, even if one wanted to use demon armies . Why one wouldn't just recruit them in shterra if they are already there, is beyond me. I have hordes of literally every demonic race unit. The gold cost is barely any savings, and the trophy requirements are obscene for the conversion. I really hope if you do make a Military Academy post that you consider warning players not to waste too much time with the crap patent equipped when even the damn free shark tooth you get from jimmy is otherwise strictly better. Maybe for the first ~20-25 levels or so it's fine, but beyond that one better have an incredible reason to justify using the crap patent for the sake of trophies

      Delete
    20. Werewolf Elves become *Assassins*? That's so weird... and not very helpful given you tend to get stocks of Assassins before Werewolf Elves.

      Demon conversion works differently from regular Training. Regular Training converts units by Leadership, where converting 10,000 Leadership of a unit gets you 10,000 Leadership of the target unit. (Qualifier; the game rounds down. If you converted 3800 Leadership of Archmages into Rune Mages, you'd get one Rune Mage and have thrown 1800 Leadership of Archmages into the trash) Demonic conversion is 1-to-1 on numbers; if you convert 100 units, you get 100 units, even if the target unit has much higher Leadership than the unit being converted. I haven't gotten around to gathering the cost numbers since that's a pain to accurately determine for regular Training and ultimately not that important to the primary draw of Training ("I want more of X unit, but am out of stocks. Can I Train up more copies?"), so I don't know how demon conversion works in terms of efficiency, but just a casual comparison between regular Training and demon conversion in terms of their costs is *extremely* misleading -demon conversion would look more expensive overall even if the ratio for units produced was actually moderately favorable simply because Training and demonic conversion both charge per final product and demonic conversion will usually give you a lot more copies of that final product.

      This all helps a lot though, thanks. Only Gorguls to go... and then gathering actual costs...

      Rune Mage damage-wise, I am somehow unsurprised it's just the interface being wrong AGAIN. The Rune Mage is plagued by this. Correcting post now...

      Delete
    21. Also, where would you prefer I link when I give you a shoutout?

      Delete
    22. Here is Gorgul rate- i.imgur.com/pvx4z7p.png
      Made it a simple stack of 1 so you could see it's 486 gold+trophies for 1 scoffer imp.

      Yeh weird that werewolf elves become assassins. Also really off in terms of ordering as you said.

      Yup i realize how demonic conversion works, once I dismissed enough of the faries to actually see that it's 10 of them for 10 demoness, and that's why the cost is so outrageous.

      Also i checked now and i see its archmage into demon, which explains the cost issue i had.

      "then gathering actual costs" Costs are simple enough. In retrospect i wish i had dismissed down to a single unit to make it easier for you. I was half asleep though. Foreman where i had 14 into 14 demons for 14,000 gold and trophies, means that it costs 1,000 trophies and gold. 10 Lake Faries into Demoness at 4840 means its 484 gold+trophies ratio etc

      " am somehow unsurprised it's just the interface being wrong AGAIN" Yeh the interface is right about the spell + hp amount, so i followed the " if 2 of the 3 things are right, the 3rd must be also" which is a foolish train of thought when dealing with kb. To be fair i rarely had more than 10 might runes in actual play, but it just dawned on me that i had seen damage numbers slightly off from what they should be, so had to double check. Good that i did, but bad that i didn't check in battle initially regarding if the damage kept going up (once we have established that everything else capped at 20, seemed odd for there to be a lone man out).

      "link when I give you a shoutout?" I don't need a link (have little social media anyways). Could even be a simple "SlickRounder helped discover and test alot of the murky, undisclosed aspects of Rune Mage" type thing. Don't even need any monikers or titles like "Respected" or "Veteran High Level Player" or "Renowned Tester".

      I **think** that wraps up all the relevant information regarding Rune Mage. It's pretty unlikely there is something other hidden thing, atleast in CW (not sure i'd revisit Rune Mages again in Ice and Fire to see if there was any changes, and i feel like i played with them a bit nearly a decade ago when i went through Wotn. Maybe i'll spend an hour testing there just to be sure and to complete my knowledge of rune mage, but not actually use them in practice since they are a bit oppressive and overpowered). Oh and i sorta agree with what you wrote about it being possible that magic runes don't change the % of the spell landing at all. Why the game would write "say the probably is 30%" and all that bullshit is beyond me, instead of just saying "Spell procs happen 30% of the time regardless of magic rune stock". At this point i'd lean more to it just being 30% all the time rather than scaling with amount of magic runes like our reasonable initial assumption that it gained 1% chance per rune. Testing can only do so much unless we had a sampling of atleast hundreds of attacks against every tier of unit at every rune count from 1 to 20 so we could try to pick up any divergence. It's a bit extreme to spend so many hours trying to confirm it. I'm comfortable with knowing it's likely in the ~30's range based on my sampling test of dozens of attacks against different tiered units, and obviously using it in game for hundreds of battles where that was the behavior pattern I witnessed. Rune count solely determining the spell can make enough sense, it's only the bullshit description that speculates the percentage is FLUCTUATING and not fixed that throws us off..

      I look forward to seeing whatever additions you can make to the rune mage entry regarding the other things i mentioned, once the might rune fix is done. I know your Rune Mage entry is really long, but ultimately it should be the definitive analysis on it (maybe a tiny bit more praise/favorable light for it would be ideal so that others would know it's considered extremely strong with some runes stocked).

      Delete
    23. It's costs for regular Training I'm not looking forward to doing, since that involves actually calculating things myself in terms of Leadership-slotting-in and so on. Costs for demon conversion will be tedious, but straightforward. Costs for regular Training will be tedious and easy to screw up.

      But yeah, your tests were down about 30%. The sample size was small enough it wouldn't be outrageously unlikely to get that low a rate when the internal number is 50%, but it did stand out to me, especially since WotN Rune Wizards don't mention such a mechanic at all and it turns out that a lot of their 'differences' are just better documentation. So... playing it safe, especially in conjunction with all the unambiguous 'description is just wrong' stuff.

      Okay, sure, just 'Slick Rounder' it is.

      Delete
    24. "Costs for regular Training will be tedious and easy to screw up." Oh i thought you meant that my screenshots made things tough on you due to my unit sizes or something. I was half asleep so i just did what i could.

      "The sample size was small enough it wouldn't be outrageously unlikely to get that low a rate when the internal number is 50%, but it did stand out to me" Yeh it stands out to me every battle. It's not 50% sadly, I am pretty confident (unless i have abominable luck, where my last say 200 attacks are well well below having 100 of them inflict sheep, but a bit above 50 of them). Also from more observation the tier of the enemy doesn't seem to have a noticeable difference (that was just theoretical speculation as to why 20+++ magic runes didnt seem to matter if the game claimed it should). I really don't get the insane description in game that claims "Say it's 30% probability" how about you freaking tell us!!! what the hell. And then it claims that magic runes boost that chance (implying it goes over 30%), but i feel like its much more likely to be 30% at 20 magic runes (or 77 like i had) than 50%. I also feel like even helplessness or slow was proccing close to a 30% rate, not noticeably different than Sheep, so the likelihood it's just a static number regardless of the runes is pretty real. I think there is no choice but to disregard the tooltip as misinformation. Which is really par for the course on Rune Mages tooltip stuff.

      Oh wow i see the update with the shoutout, it's awesome! Appreciate it. Also very good bit at the end explaining that on paper Rune Mages seem pretty suspect, and it's only by digging in deeper that it's strength begins to reveal itself. It's really why one needs to test units. The descriptions are almost useless and or in the worst case situation filled with lies like with Rune Mage (misinformation is a bit too kind a term). Let's look at Goblin Shaman, one wouldn't even really know that they could spam the Astral nuke without ending its turn by the description (ofcourse your analysis notes this thankfully). Even the fact that one could spam the nuke up to 3 times in a single turn isn't readily apparent from the confusing "the number of attacks per turn is equal to the adrenaline level", which happens to technically be true, but may as well be meaningless for someone reading this for the first time (i've seen Impossible Lp'ers literally read this and have no idea what it's talking about). A simple "can be used multiple times in a turn, and does not end turn" would have sufficed, but no. So my initial first impression was super low of it just looking at it (it would be much worse if that ended its turn and could only be used once a turn, which on paper it could appear to be so and one wouldnt know forsure otherwise unless one uses them or faces high level orc armies that have Goblin Shaman able to spam it multiple times and still attack). The irony is if Goblin Shamans were more balanced, the narrow and frequently useless first and third talents wouldnt end its turn, but the astral nuke would.

      Delete
    25. I'm not sure how much the wonky descriptions are on the original developers. The Legend in particular has a very well-done translation, but Armored Princess clearly has issues keeping straight some of the terminology from the original Russian, Warriors of the North has even more gaps and oddities, and Dark Side blatantly copy-pasted WotN's (already-wonky) translation and didn't update everything that needed to be updated. I've already had someone playing the Russian version of Dark Side inform me of a Skill straight-up having different (correct) numbers in the original Russian. So I suspect a lot of the incorrect descriptions are translator fails in particular.

      Though in Crossworlds case I've come to suspect it got rushed a bit and got less polish than it was supposed to get, to boot.

      But yeah, unclear descriptions was one of the things that motivated the creation of this series -so much is relatively straightforward to describe if you know how it works, but the in-game descriptions tend to range from 'muddy' to 'just unambiguously wrong'.

      Delete
    26. Yeh i read the comment in Dark Side analysis. I presume you are referring to the amazing Rage Mastery where the game falsely claims its 15/30/45, when in reality the OG Russian version had the correct values of 30/45/90.

      But yeh most of the errors are on the translators part, no doubt.

      I always take copious notes when playing KB games to note the plethora of bugs or oddly working mechanics and the like, so very little gets by me. This type of in depth, all encompassing analysis was sorely needed for KB, so i definitely respect all the effort you have put in to this resource. I consider it a Staple resource that any serious KB player should be using when checking things up.

      Delete
  3. Ok we need to make an amendment on the whole "might rune caps at 10 in terms of the damage boost for Rune Mage" I guess i was naive to trust the game's purported "+20" to damage when one hits 10 might runes, that didn't move up or budge even when one has more than 10 might runes. I was starting to doubt that was the case since i vaguely recalled when i had 12 might runes in one battle stored that my Rune Mage had over the alleged 60-75 cap. Lo and behold it was good of me to remember that, and i destroyed some items now to boost beyond 10 might runes, and boy do is keep scaling all the way up to 20 might runes.. Yikes, thats the last time i trust the game the game and its bullshit blindly. Holy crap you think i'd learn never to trust what the game says..

    Anyways here are the screenshots after destroying some items and unequipping everything just to make it clear (had on a whip of pain for the solid set and it adds 1 fire damage, which will nearly useless for my army, would complicate the numbers so its unnecessary to have anything equipped)
    -i.imgur.com/Ky7avCF.png
    -i.imgur.com/iGlYwhM.png
    So thats the money shot, a full whopping, unbelievable, +40 damage (nearly doubling its base, wow), so it becomes 80-95. So now you can update the section once again (sorry i trusted the game, thats a bit yikes on my end, luckily i quickly rectified the mistake), and Rune Mage's ceiling somehow become even higher. That damage stat on it's potential 1500 leadership after Archmage discount is actually quite solid, borderline powerful (even putting aside the probability of sheep and the good range).
    Their 1 real weakness is actually their sub-mediocre Ogre Chieftain esque attack/defense values, with just a paltry 35 base attack for their 2000 Leadership (Executioner can only shake his head), and a relatively reasonable 44 defense. If they even had 40 base attack it would go along way to cement them at the top. Regardless the fact that their base attack actually gets a whopping up to+40 from 20 might runes makes them more formidable (and freaking rune hungry..) than even i thought.

    ReplyDelete
  4. About renaming of Robber's/Marauder's strike talent - Russian name of the Legends' version referred to a lash/whip-like weapon (flail in this case). In AP and later Marauders armed with knives instead, thus talent name was changed.

    What is it with Robbers/Marauders and "Anticipating Trophies"? You do not list it in ther statblock (and indeed they will only get in WotN) but you talk about them having right after?
    Btw in Russian this ability's name is just a more evil word for greed.

    Bowman - there is no +1 attack; bowman attack is 16 in all games.

    A should have propably mention it before but in Russian version Priest's name is the word for a Christian clergyman. Only Dark Side changes it to "[Generic priest] of LIght/Dark".

    Paladins indeed are ressurected by necromancy in the same way as Priests/Inquisitors.

    "[Runa Mage] is likely a unit a lot of players underrate relative to its actual quality." - haha, not even close. They near instantly got proclaimed as utterly overpowered and one of the most insane units of the series.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, the source material changed so the translation changed, even though the original translation wasn't something affected by the motive for the change. Makes sense.

      Robbers/Marauders don't have Anticipating Trophies listed in their Abilities in-game, but if you land a kill they get the Morale boost. I probably should adjust the text to be more explicit that it's not listed in-game...

      Double-checking, yeah, Bowman have 16 Attack in The Legend. I'll be updating this post and presumably correcting The Legend's post appropriately.

      Oh, interesting. I'm not sure an English-language rendition could readily be more clearly 'priest, as in specifically a Christian priest', so I'm not sure this is more censorship per se, but certainly interesting to see that it's more explicit in the original Russian.

      Delete
    2. I checked Marauders in game and checked their scripts - nothing. After your reply I checked in game once more just in case - nope. Atleast in my game they have no hidden Anticipating Trophies. Checked a few Russian wikis/fansites (just in case) - no mention of it either.

      Delete
    3. Huh. I distinctly recall running into this in Armored Princess in the form of Robbers and Marauders killing my Royal Thorn-based summon spam and then being relieved when Warriors of the North actually made it explicit, but retesting with Robbers and Marauders now I can't get it to trigger. Not sure what happened.

      I guess I need to re-update this post to remove that stuff, in any event.

      Delete
  5. I didn't mention it before but original description of Favorite Enemy correctly tells how to trigger it.

    Peasant's Grubber is a special attack. It's damage is 2-4, as expected.
    As you surely noticed by now, it's actually pretty rare for the series to use damage modifiers with abilities. Priest, Inqusitor and AP!Paladin are pretty unusual for using them instead of special attacks.

    Robber's Swift Stroke damage is 3-4, not 2-4. It got +1 to minumum damage here, not in WotN.

    Swordsman's Smashing Blow got +1 to max damage and now is 6-10, not 6-9.

    Unlike in the Legend, Dragonslayer isn't applied to Circle Attack in AP and later games. You already mention it in your analysis, through you need to remove part about being certain that it didn't in the Legend as well.

    Bowman melee damage is 2-3 again, like in the Legend.

    Priest and Inquisitor continue to have the same melee damage as in range and getting simple +50% damage (not 100%) modifier against undead, or, in other words, they work exactly as described, without any inobvious stuff behind the screen. What a weird people.

    Archmage still has melee damage of 6, so Weakness-affected Archmage is stronger in melee, unless he activates Fighting Trance. Lightning still has 25% chance to Shock. Fighting Trance still doubles ranged damage, halves defense, rises base crit chance from 7% to 15% and sets Shock chance to 50% for both ranged and, by oversight, melee.

    Paladin will only start to use special animation against unholy in WotN, where Holy Warrior will become a separate atttack. In AP it's the same simple modifier as in Priest/Inquisitor case and thus cannot use a different animation.

    You and Slick Rounder already got most of info on Rune Mage, but let's add a little more.
    Rune Mage deals fixed 30 damage in melee. None of his special abilities affect it.
    Revive doesn't work on Undead or inorganic units but does work on Demons.
    Chance to apply debuff on ranged attack is not dependant on Runes and is always 30%.
    If you have 14-16 unspent Magic Runes and Rune Mages attack either Vampires or Ancient Vampires, chance of Doom will be replaced with chance of Holy Shackles (aka -30% to attack and defence).

    AI Rune Mages has equal chance to start with either:
    - 1-2+ Might Runes
    - 1-2+ Mind Runes
    - 1-2+ Magic Runes
    - 1-2+ of each.
    + here means additional Runes, exact number of which depends on Location Difficulty parameter. I don't know how familiar are you with it. In case "not at all", it's the parameter that affects average Leadership of enemies on the map, number of gold you'll found in chests (and the like), what scrolls can drop in random loot, power of hives/lightning rods etc. All KB games use it. In AP, for example, Debir has lowest Location Difficulty while Rehau has highest.

    Random note: Mind Runes are actially Spirit (Дух) Runes in the original.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Updated the post with all of this, aside the Mind/Spirit thing.

      The Mind/Spirit thing is interesting because WotN and Dark Side switch to calling green Runes Spirit. I'd figured that was due to the switch to Vikings and Dark Side's rushed state, not that the original translation was off. Does the original Russian have a quality akin to how in English all the Runes begin with an M? (The Might and Magic names being obvious callbacks to, well, the Might And Magic games)

      Delete
    2. No, all three start with different letters and 'might' in Might Runes is different word from HoMM.

      Delete
    3. You wrote Archmage'I guess melee damage as 7 and even noted it getting +1 to damage? Why? It's still 6, like I wrote.
      You may want point out that Priests and Inquisitors are now weaker against Undead at range but better in melee.

      Delete
    4. Adjusted the post appropriately.

      Interesting. So the M&M&M effect was entirely introduced by the translators.

      Delete
    5. Um. I wrote "they [Priests and Inquisitors] are now 'better' in melee against Undead". You wrote the opposite.
      Again: in the Legend Holy modifier was ranged-only and vs Undead only but +100%.
      Starting from AP it works in melee too and additionally works on Demons but reduced from +100% to +50%.

      I promise there is no more mix ups here. :)

      Delete
    6. Whoops, misread that. Fixed.

      Delete
    7. I just noticed that, judgung by your analysis, English version seriously screwed up Rune Mage abilities description. In Russian they have separate Protection from Magic (50% resistance to magic damage), Runic has description that you listed for Runic Armor, and Runic Armor explains about bonus resistances that is apparently completely unmentioned in English. Wow.

      Delete
    8. Double-checking, it's even worse than that: you have High Mage inform you that it's Magic Protection (That is, you hover over High Mage and the pop-up is for Magic Protection), then you have Runic inform you that it's High Mage providing the Morale bonus, then Runic Armor provides the explanation for Talent Rune stacking.

      So the translation managed to eat an Ability name/description outright and get other Abilities pointing at the wrong descriptions/the descriptions pointing at the wrong names.

      I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given how horribly botched Ice Ball's Ability list is in English...

      Delete
  6. "This can resurrect even Plants and machines'' I did playthrough with Thorns and they weren't resurrected by Paladins. Demonlogists can still target them though.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts