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But I would still like to comment on the general playability. My friends and I have played a fair amount of Seven and have come to a disappointing conclusion: the Factions are balanced terribly. Three strong ones stand out: Necropolis, Dungeon, and Stronghold; Tower occupies a middle ground, and the rest are outsiders. Briefly, here are the strengths and weaknesses:
1. Necropolis. This one is obvious—the ability to get huge stacks of skeletons and ghosts, which is what the center perk is designed for, by the way. Builds are primarily focused on attack and initial magic (immediate teleport for two numerous squads, resulting in -2 enemy stacks). The ability to necro-convert creatures obtained through various means, including those accepted via diplomacy, which, by the way, works quite decently in Seven. The units themselves are good, especially spiders and liches.
2. Stronghold. A cheesy ability for 50% magic resistance, which gives them a huge advantage over Tower (regardless of whether Tower plays through Air or Water—it doesn't matter). A racial ability with obvious utility in battle. The building for doubling growth is insane (it's unclear why one would want to crush tons of kentaurs or behemoths with Castle, for example). Wild Orcs with massive damage, and for some reason, they were buffed even further in the patch. But the most important part is, of course, the Behemoths, which wipe out half an army in one jump with 95 damage (I don't know if the -50 defense ability applies here). Moreover, they can jump even when the field size is above average; it's strange that Behemoths didn't have a jump in Three or Four, as it's very logical)) The only partial counter to this is placing additional small squads in front of important stacks using advanced tactics. At levels 20+, Stronghold dismantles almost anyone, except for Necropolis and—if the opponent has high initiative—Dungeon. The latter's troops must act very quickly, but after hundreds of "final" battles between them, one could say it's practically a balance (depending on the battlefield size).
3. Dungeon. With high initiative, they dismantle "good" race troops before various marks, metamagic levels, runes, etc., can accumulate. For Dungeon with its double damage, all these long-term abilities matter little, because assassins, dragons, and constructs on small fields reach/shoot and destroy everything immediately. If luck procs, then you're completely doomed. The presence of an artifact market allows buying items, primarily for initiative and damage. Unreasonably strong Minotaurs—yes, they aren't very fast, but because of the first strike, they don't really need to be.
Regarding Tower, it should be noted that if it develops through Air (since building through Light is useless—magic with minuscule damage and equally laughable heal/res, they deal thousands of damage to a stack, while it heals for 200-400 HP)) it can win against Dungeon on large fields, and on small maps, it is quite capable of tearing apart Necropolis via Vortex, but serious problems arise with Stronghold. At the same time, Tower wins relatively easily against Fortress, Castle, and Rampart, because when the opponent has a defensive setup, the metamagic damage becomes colossal.
In our experience, the weakest are Castle and Rampart. No matter what builds we tried, people just can't cope with Orcs; the situation is practically a mirror of what happened in Three. Two downgraded units (monks and knights). The latter are a total horror—they have never been this weak, not even in Four. The same Minotaurs have 1.5 times more HP, better skills, and more damage. Cavalry run up to them, get hit by an axe—immediately minus a significant part of the stack—while they themselves deal little damage (attack accumulated due to distance, not damage like the champions of a healthy person). Monks were replaced in Six and it immediately became better. Shots at their level of attack and damage are simply laughable. Of the entire army, only wolves and justiciars are more or less normal. Archangels are also some kind of incoherent—slow, with low damage and fairly low skills. Things aren't any better for Rampart. Let's take two units again—dancers and deer. The former are slow DDs with average stats who get torn apart on the counter-attack, and the latter are completely incomprehensible. Deer HP is average, skills are low, no combat skills. They barely serve as meat, but using expensive penultimate-tier creatures as meat is a questionable idea. Some Orcs or Troglodytes can handle taking hits, but from level 6 units, a clear impact is expected. Again, by the time those marks accumulate on one unit, half your army will be gone. The situation could have been slightly improved by buffing Earth and Light magic, although the general rule that both magical and physical builds of any faction should reasonably withstand similar builds from other factions still applies. For example, whose idea was it to make AoE buffs, which have always been mass-effect? Probably the same person who introduced the zek rule "don't turn your back")) How can an army under a mage's leadership withstand a force oriented toward offense and fast closing with the enemy without strong mass heal, mass slow, or mass stone skin? Granted, magic smooths out the imbalance slightly; in a Fortress-Stronghold match, for example, berserk for Dwarves helps. A little, though.
However, Castle-Rampart, Rampart-Fortress, and Castle-Fortress matches can be interesting. That is, there are essentially two tiers of factions: strong and weak. Consequently, the game balance between them requires a fundamental overhaul.
AstralLein
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