[0.80] Racial Uniqueness

I have a lot of problems with the "blood" traits. I like the distinction they create but think a lot of them are either unpolished or just plain underpowered.

Compare Quendarian blood giving you a nearly useless elemental resistance (and weakness!) to the Mancer ability to BUILD ROADS, currently the most overpowered ability that exists, in my opinion. Top the road-building off with +1 accuracy per level and bam! unbalanced bloods.

I agree with the unpolished-ness of some of the factions and a lack of distinction between many. I support the introduction of more and more widely varied faction traits.

Was building roads from Legacy of Serrane or Mancer Blood? I usually play with both so I can't remember. Though it doesn't seem over powered to me, roads are basically their special unit. Compared to some of the other crazy things you can do with blood traits. Or just outright better performance in battle from two equally equipped and lead forces.

It's from the mancer blood.

I think LE is taking steps in the right direction, and I look forward to future changes.

As it stands, I agree that it feels unpolished. The road building is something which can be balanced into a really cool racial trait.

Also, they get +1 moves. It's kind of silly when compared to my favorite underpowered bloodline, Quendar.

One way to balance road building is to make building a road in one square take the whole turn (and possibly also costing a gold or 2).  Building 3 road segments in one turn is rather silly.

Or more! Later after I got horses I mounted my scout on a horse. A horse! I was spamming roads like there was no tomorrow. It's great how building a road doesn't even slow you down. If the Romans had had some of that Mancer blood, their empire *would* have been built in a day.

Blood traits have always bugged me as underdeveloped and unbalanced.

Basically I think that each race needs a base bonus and a ability that increases per level. Quendar actually fits this as they get fire resistance and the ability to do increasing fire damage per level. Gilden also is great as they get 1 hp per level and base spell resistance.

An example of a blood trait that seems shallow is Altair's experience bonus and rush. Its great to increase levels quickly but the leveling system just feels so shallow with only hp gained. Its why the veteran trait is so bad, a single level for most races is only a single hp and slower leveling.

Especially for sovs, as your sov will get his/her first level anyway within a couple battles, often after just thier first one.

Quendar are still good. Fire for Ice is a good trade off, damaging fire spells are more common that other elements, and dragon breath (which would save me all my crystal!). Thorns is nice but maybe they should get defense/level as well?

Building the road should cost at least 1Mv Point. Or even 2Mv Points. Mancer inbuilt +1 Mv, would then let them move forward one square, build a road, then end that units turn. On a horse they would still be limited. Build Move Build (5), Move Build Move (4), allowing them to only cover 2 tiles a turn when mounted.

I like Capitar as they are because they let you cover a large amount of ground, almost cloud walk like with enough infrastructure. Having 1 or 2 quality over quantity armies (usually led by the sovereign, the other tailing along to replenish units or fight multiple battles) which when mounted can cover my whole empire fairly well. Then a bunch of quantity based groups which are used more for boosting my numbers, fighting trash mobs, defending towns, scouting. +1 ACC isn't imbalanced though, at level 15 its only +15, with Precision you get +10 at level 1 if you really need accuracy, and using a fortress you can make accuracy almost a non-issue. It would be Lucky that makes the big difference if comparing default Capitar. Their blood perks aren't that good though aside from road building, more expensive version of Veteran? Build units at level 3 with +2 accuracy for an additional 43 Labor per unit (FE numbers) awwyeah.

There should be more focus on individualizing the different blood traits as suggested by OP. LH is in beta still so I'd like to see more changes outside of balance while development is still hot.

While I generally agree. It is okay for some blood traits to be stronger at certain points of the game. Low scaling but powerful early vs high scaling but weak early, etc. E.g. Mancer Accuracy late game is relatively small compared to producing units from a fortress, or if you are suffering heavy loses and have mostly low level units.

That's my point though, at the moment, this isn't the case. As the blood traits stand, they are stupidly unbalanced, in my opinion.

I would very much like more faction traits. And yes the faction 'spells' tend to suck horribly but alot of that has to do with weapon damage being so over the top with trained units.

Life leech seems masssively underpowered.  I would suggest instead of life drain give them a vampiric strike ability, half damage dealt returned as hp, this way its not a lower powered ability at end game and beginning it is still more applicable.