Tactical Rework – Draconians

My Tactical Rework series aims to improve races that feel inconsistent or lacking in flavor. Numbers-wise, Draconian racial units always struck me as being artificially worse than the equivalents of other races — low defense, unarmored, no shields and few noteworthy abilities. If this is supposed to be the price for their innate Fast Healing, it can’t be called a bonus anymore.

While reading up on the flavor, some interesting pieces of lore came up, but it feels like it hasn’t been very well-translated into the gameplay. Therefore, after playing with a few possibilities, I decided to base this rework on the following themes: survival, growth, pride.

Draconian units now have stats comparable to other races, with some abilities focused on defense, so that they can actually survive to use their fast healing. Players are rewarded for keeping their units alive (a balanced army composition greatly helps in auto-combat). As a tradeoff, draconian units now have a higher upkeep, and some also have a higher starting cost as well.

Looks like Steam is not allowing google docs links anymore. I’ll try to find a way to circumvent this, but for now it looks like the only way to access the document is to copy-paste the link into your browser :/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1igzkrNzjiI3rkC_MPBxT39XnBq1HmjOhVwCtZCArz_8/edit?usp=sharing

This mod makes changes to Shrines, Observatories, the draconian race settings, draconian governance, draconian racial units and many draconian class units (listed in the above documentation). It also slightly alters the Global Assault spell, to avoid an Evolve exploit. Lastly, the Red Raptor mount has been tweaked for convenience.

If you’re using a mod that alters those resources, it will likely be overritten, but only in the entries where there are conflicts, so it should be compatible with most other mods out there. If you use it with the Empire Building Mod, you’ll run into the odd scenario of having a couple of units that look a bit similar, but the mods shouldn’t be incompatible per se except as mentioned above. Let me know if you find any issues.

v1.0: We exist and have been playtested.

v1.1: Balance changes.
– Lowborn base damage reduced by 1, cost reduced to 50.
– Aspirant cost reduced to 50. Has Expert Flanker (+2 flanking damage) and projectile resistance in place of shield.
– Elite Aspirant starts with expert flanker II (+4 flanking damage) in place of bleeding wounds, gains inflict crippling wounds on veteran and bleeding wounds on elite.
– Challenger is now Armored, but no longer gaisn first strike on silver medal. Goad now is usable only once per combat and allows retaliation if the target is in melee range.
– Elder’s bolt damage reduced by 2, but now they can inflict fire weakness through a new ability called Primordial Fire.
– Awaken Ancestry fire damage bonus reduced to +2 from +3.
– Tales of Pride morale bonus reduced to +100.
– Tier 4 military governance now also gives +4 Speed to support units.
– Tier 5 military governance now gives +10 Health in place of +1 Armor and Resistance.
– Tier 1 economic governance now algo gives +3 Mana generation to shrines.
– Many previously untouched class units got buffs to compensate for their increased upkeep (see documentation for the specifics).

v1.2: More balance changes.
– Hatchling base cost reduced to 45 gold and 3 mana.
– Lowborn now evolves into Challenger on elite.
– Aspirant no longer evolves upon reaching elite. Now gains +5 hp on silver and Vigilant on elite.
– Flametamer no longer evolves upon reaching elite. Now gains Inflict Immolation on elite.
– Challenger no longer gains extra stat bonuses per challenger rank after elite. Armor reduced by 1, base hp increased by 5. Lastly, now they have Lava Walking, so they can escort Elders through lava.

v1.3: Even more balance changes.
– The recruit cost of racial units has been changed to reflect their actual gold cost, so now they can be slightly slower to train in low level cities.
– Lowborn now starts with Overwhelm instead of Charge. No longer starts with Demolisher. Gains Demolisher on veteran. Lowborns that evolve now have same stats they had prior to evolving (instead of getting a downgrade) and get to keep their Overwhelm and Demolisher abilities.
– Flametamer now starts with Immolating Touch. Base defense reduced by 1 (is now 8). Gains Projectile Resistance on veteran (in place of Immolating Touch).
– Elder now has true sight. Gold cost increased by 10.

If you find any bugs or issues, please report. Constructive feedback is always welcome. Feel free to PM me on steam.

* If you would like to translate this mod (or any of my mods), please add me on steam and PM.

* For my Goblin Rework mod, see: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=875086885

* For my Halfling Rework, see: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1115235227