Round 5
Good will get a replacement next round.

Requirements for race to be replaced:
• 10hr returns
  
• Has been around for a decent amount of time.

Shinobi is the race most likely to get the boot.

Requirements for race to enter:
• 12 hr returns
• Already play-tested (not new).
• Can be played fast.
• Hasn't been in the game for a decent amount of time.

Coven is the race most likely to enter next round.

If any person can show just cause why this race replacement shouldn't happen – let them speak now or forever hold their peace.

Sounds good to me.
What is the expectation for round length?

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Oh Eighty
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Wonderland says
he is pwning you with a wooden spoon!
Immor says
i use chopstick

Coven: http://www.elveron.com/elveron/archive/ ... html#race5
I'm not sure if this is the last time they were in the game or not.

Coven

Alignment: Good

Main Overview:
The Coven is a loose alliance of magicians, channelers, spirtualists, and others who commune with the spirit world. The Coven strives to keep all of Elveron in balance with its spiritual world, and stands opposed to the Vampires and their undead armies.

Bonuses and Penalties:

• All population eats 0.1md per hour, no food

Military:

Code:
Name            OP   DP  RET  TRN  CAS  MAG SPY  COST
Maven            3    1   12    9  100           335g
Illusionist           3         9  100           350g
Spirit Hunter    6    6   12   12  100           1,000g, 75m
Feykith          3    3   12   12   80           1,000g, 75m
Frost Sprite     3    3   12   12  100           1,000g, 75m
Wizard                          9       0.8 0.8  1,800g
Apprentice                                       50g, 25m
• Feykith gain +1 offense per 15% grasslands, max +4; able to gain fraction.
  
• Frost Sprite gain +1 defense per 15% tundra, max +4; able to gain fraction.

Spells:

• Arcane Conservation (Self): Eliminates 90% of magic dust decay. (MD cost ?? x Landsize)
• Paralysis (OFFENSIVE, INSTANT, WAR ONLY): Injure enemy kingdom's ruler hero for 2 hours.(MD cost ?? x Landsize)

Building Differences:

• Farm: Covens cannot build Farms.
• Gold Mine: Covens cannot build Gold Mines.
• Home: Swamp

Covens got homes on swamps, like grassland for offense and tundra for defense.

All I can say right now is that I am not liking it. Beside why make it harder for people to calculate defense and offense?

This race looks like an over-complication with no real gain just like animators. Here you have to balance your income with the amount of offense and defense you can get on each unit. With some toying around you might even make a secret big push by destroying and rezoning.

Personally I do not think the game gain much by introducing races that are hard to play and therefore also hard to balance.

Expected round length is between 5 and 6 weeks. So, like 38.5 or 40 or 41.5 days.

They are not difficult to calculate. You just need a land spy op.


Q. This race looks like an over-complication with no real gain just like animators.
A. WTF does this mean?

The race is already set up balanced. There are very minor changes that would need to be made.

What would this "secret" push entail? If you are playing the race correctly you will have your OP or DP units at 7 already.

_________________
Oh Eighty
____________________
Wonderland says
he is pwning you with a wooden spoon!
Immor says
i use chopstick

@Nost Gam
Coven is a pretty simple race to understand, and play! Yes, you will need a land spy to calculate their military properly.

The race has a few distinct play styles early in the round. Both include using primarily Spirit Hunters for defense. A kingdom looking to get a lot of land early on would use a high amount of Mavens for offense, while a kingdom looking to stay efficient would use almost all Spirit Hunters. Illusionists can be mixed into either route to gain some additional military.

The key to Coven is to get your diamond mines up fast and plentiful. This really slows down a Coven's mid-round, but is necessary. This stage of Coven is tough to determine and requires patience. If you've chosen to make lots of specs (Maven or Illusionists), it's usually around this time you would decide to sacrifice them. As you sit and have safe all-in, train off your corruption with Feykith or Frost Sprites. A Coven that goes about this stage of their kingdom poorly will not do well in the end.

Once you've reached a healthy amount of improvements, you rezone buildings into either 60% Grasslands (heavy Alchemies) or 60% Tundra (heavy Laboratories). A Coven is very powerful the moment it converts into Feykith or Frost Sprites. Strangely enough, they actually get weaker as they grow if you choose not to upkeep your improvements. And at the very, very end of the round, your Tavern numbers are limited due to the amount of Grasslands and/or Tundra you are forced into.

Overall, it's a solid race and provides Good with a strong early-round option and strong late-round option.

_________________
The Age of Despair :: Round 2 :: 1 El Norte
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 4 :: 1 SmoochyWoochyPoochy
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 6 :: 1 Goblin Rings
The Age of Achievements :: Round 1 :: 1 Hufflepuff's Cup

i vote keep shinobi's in

they are actually easier to play than humans for noobs
as no lumber, ore or spy strength to worry about

and humans bore me - not fantasy enough

beaten up enough humans in my time...



on a side note i like the way that the biggest thread for ages was on the overpowering of mage whores, so elveron introduced a new race that gives free mages every train and is now re-entering a race that has crap loads of excess dust and like no md decay.

you guys make me laugh

i dont mind - i'll play with anything. Except for humans. Been there, done that

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What has nobody else done? Lets do that but different :)

Feykith and Frost Sprite are the same cost as the Spirit Hunter but only half the power. In order to gain an extra 15% in either Def or Off you have to utilize 60% of your land in either grassland or tundra. Seems like alot of adjusting and maneuvering (with rezoning, destruction, land warps, and so forth) just to gain the extra 1 point. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see the value of Feykiths or Frost Sprites. The 6/6 troop seems more versatile, safer, and all around better than either a 3/7 or 7/3 troop. What if you get hit and you get knocked down 15%?. Now you have a 3/6 or a 6/3 troop. It seems like the boost should be more significant then +1. Am I missing something here?

The other thing that I plainly see is the removal of possibly the most popular XP race and replacing it with an Anti- XP race. This is an indirect nerf to XP, because it has the ability to slow down XP play as a whole. It seems that through the ages XP play just gets weaker and weaker in comparison to land play. Contrary to popular opinion, XP play does not need to be countered anymore. Ok...I'll just say it: ECON BASED LAND BUILDS ARE OVERPOWERED. I realize that may ruffle some feathers, as some may think it ludicrous to hear, but I think it needs to be said. Not to stray off topic, but hero based builds (as well as other types) could add so much more to the game (if balanced properly); instead it seems they were just nerfed to high hell and now many only see it, as a bunch of "lessor" KD's that try to rack up the most XP points, as they rightfully get the beat down by "Top-tier" land KD's. I realize many of you think the only thing that XP are good for is realm support (and maybe that's true now) but if "XP" were more so balanced I think it would bring back diversity and dimension to this game. Weakening the play style out of existence so that's its not even part of the game and into a separate "lessor" game is/was the easy way out of proper balancing imo.

On a good note, I do see the the injury spell adding to the dynamics of XP play; as it gives this race a powerful weapon for XPers to use against each other, but any land player playing this race has that same weapon and over all, XP play will be slowed down each time this spell is successfully used. So I would ask that if you introduce this counter, do something to strengthen XP play back into comparison with land.

In addition, I would suggest that the injury spell be tied to academy only and make it so that the time of injury is dependent on the % of academy. It's fine if XP'ers want to spam it on each other, but make it so that land players can't. Or is this the underlying reason for introducing this race/counter: to weaken XP play some more as a whole? LOL

There are 12 races in the game. If Shinobi leaves and you don't want to play Coven, then don't play Coven.

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The Age of Despair :: Round 2 :: 1 El Norte
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 4 :: 1 SmoochyWoochyPoochy
The Age of Wisdom :: Round 6 :: 1 Goblin Rings
The Age of Achievements :: Round 1 :: 1 Hufflepuff's Cup

Hey Quaffle, not sure if you are referring to me, but if you are then that does nothing at all to address my points or the issue of balancing. Also, I am just giving you guys something to think about (or maybe you already have thought about?) with the introduction of Coven and I'm just calling it as I see it.

I don't post much but i do play xp and i would just like to say that I hope the WAR spell to cripple someones ruler hero for 2 hours is very expensive. If you had a group playing xp with a bunch of Coven id feel really sorry for any xper they are going up against. If a group takes turns casting it you could possibly not be able to attack for 36 hours and with no way to combat it that seems a little unfair to me. I think if it stays the same I'm going to try and convince my pack to all play coven and we will just War with any realm with a threating xper and see how long we can keep the spell going lol. I'd prefer to not play like that but im not going to wait for that to happen to me lol. I've had the bad luck of being a lone xper and been destroyed in the last week from WAR spells i can see this being even worse for some. As far as land play obviously this doesn't have nearly as much impact. I've never seen them in game was this ever a problem before. And lastly after all the whinning id just like to add thank you to everyone that works on the game i love playing it.

Cor-El: Academies are on grasslands. You'll be running really cheap 7/3 troops as an xper. The race is quite suitable for xp. If I remember correctly, coven has won xp in the past.

Also, spirit hunters are way worse than frost sprites or feykiths. That 1 point makes a huge difference to their cost. Spirit Hunters are 186gpp (average price), 60% grassland/tundra make feykith/fs 160gpp (cheap). 24 gold per point makes all the difference, when you account for the fact that you'll be running ~300k raw op at the end of a 5-6 weeker. That is a 7.2 million gold difference between SHs and the "elites", not even counting the gold saved from the bigger efficiency.

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www.ceekayed.com

Shin is a good learning race. I would vote against removing it too. if removing humans is not possible remove ele's and get shin to evil.