Reaver Fixes – Artillery, War Spoils, and Focused Aggression

We’re revamping Reaver cannons and researchable siege projects which are lackluster or completely unviable. Let’s reward the player for taking the time to explore cool things that explode.

Previously known as ‘Reaver Fixes – Artillery, War Spoils, and Focused Aggression’, WE HAVE SUCCEEDED. The community has brought so much attention to the Reavers’ plight that the devs have officially patched the Reavers! The new official changes reflect much of what was done here AS WELL as creating an entire new subculture! This was a perfect outcome, and we as a community should absolutely celebrate this. Thank you to everyone here, and thank you very much dev team <3

However, before we can retire the mod, there still remains some Reaver-related areas that can use viability. So we’re pivoting the existing ‘Reaver Fixes’ mod to ‘Reaver Artillery’, where we make everything designed to go boom (a core Reaver gameplay philosophy) actually somewhat useful to play.

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• Range increased to 10, accuracy dropping after 6 hexes
• Damage reduced to 24 (previously 40) to compensate
• Applies ‘Marked’, incentivizing the player to use cannons as a setup tool
• Health reduced from 85 to 60 HP. This is a nice intermediary between the frail Onagers (35 HP) and the hefty Great Bombard (100 HP). They also get a +10 hp per rank by default, so they’ll get tankier over time.

Reaver combat feels bad because they have nothing long-range to threaten the enemy with and force them to run into to your gunlines. So the Reavers are the ones moving up, chronically putting themselves in bad situations because they can’t take advantage of being a ranged faction with bonuses for not moving.

Likewise, sieges are unnecessarily difficult with vanilla cannons having a range of 5 – once again forcing your team to walk right up to the enemy walls as the ranged gunpowder faction.

These changes make cannons fulfill that roll, sets up the enemy to engage on your own terms, and doesn’t screw over your early sieges. The cannons act like cannons now.

• Now includes siegecraft

• Added ‘Expendable’ trait to remove morale penalty for blowing them up.
• Tripled the damage from a piddling 15/15 1x burning, to 45/45 3x burning.

"Devastator Spheres are Siegecraft Units that can detonate themselves into target obstacles or Unit to deal massive damage and destroy obstacles."
They hit like a wet noodle.
They debuff your entire army for using them.
You had to pay to unlock and research them from a tier 3 tome.

We’re fixing the harm done to the player for trying to use devastator spheres, as well as giving them a niche usecase with stronger damage (see big thing -> blow it up).

• Radius increased to 2 hexes. This feels fantastic, unique, and matches the other spells unlocked in the same tome which are also 2-hex radius.
• Can now fire on the first turn. Because that’s more fun.
• Fixed the tooltip to properly show ‘2x Sundered Defense’ (the targetter had a sundered defense modifier that layered on top of the standard ability modifier, but only one would show even though both applied)

There was very little that set the Great Bombard apart from a standard onager – certainly not enough to justify the research cost. Now Great Bombards are closer to being ‘Great’ and are uniquely effective at destroying walls.

• Now breaks all walls, not just damages. This is because it’s a Tier 5 Tome Siege Project, obtained long after we already can terraform entire mountains ranges into pancake flat plains. Stone walls are a tier 2 building – they shouldn’t pose any problem by the time this is unlocked.
• Movement speed increased to 5 from 4, so they can manuever a little more gracefully on the battlefield and not be behind your forces.
• Repeating attack instead of Single attack, which helps their combat presence greatly.
• Their attack now additionally applies 2x Sundered Defense, giving them utility.

For a Tier 5 tome, the highest end-game magic you can research, two tiers after you’re able to flatten entire mountains… all it can do is SLIGHTLY DAMAGE walls and give you a unit that floats slowly around the battlefield with less damage than an onager?! This siege project is greatly underwhelming. Now the siege project erases all walls, and the Earthshatter Engine can actually do something consistently useful on the battlefield.

• Can now fire in melee

Ironclads are delightful, until a stray pig or crow gets close to them and shuts them down. That is NOT mythic behavior and frankly rather embarassing for the gargantuan metal hulk it is. This change makes them feel more ‘juggernaut-y’ (jugger-naughty?)

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And there you have it! We’re incredibly happy and amazed that the devs took notice of the problems highlighted in Reaver Fixes, and hopefully some of that same love can be spread to the researchable siege projects. Thanks for coming by <3