Alazkan: The Terminator

[Zechnophobe]

Mr "the Assassin" needs some serious toning down. As it is, he is literally a one man army, that only requries Poisons to build. He starts off as a statistical monster, which helps him quickly snow ball to Blitz. Blitz + Mirror + Mobility 2 = 4 to 8 kills a turn, with him and his mirror, though the mirror needs a few other assassin's to pitch in (Which just gets them easy levels).

The Svartalfar are already really close to strictly better than the Ljosalfar, which are already one of the stronger civ's. And being able to switch on 'kill' mode with their hero, it just feels like cheating.

My Fix Suggestions.

1) An Easy fix would be to make Alazkan require a later tech, such as Guilds (The same tech that enables shadows). In such a case, you could even give him another point of strength.

2) Alternatively, don't give him Hidden Nationality. Part of what makes him so consistent, is being able to 'feed' off of week neighbors. Most HN units are relatively weak in strength, but Alazkan is a hero.

3) Another option is the obvious stat tweak. If he had the exact same stats as a normal assassin, he'd still be a 7/4 Hero with HN and an Archmage strength summon ability.

 

[El_Duderino]

well id say that hidden nationality war elephants are pretty tough... but i guess i see your point

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

Boo! He's fine. If caught on the defensive, he's not hard to kill, but yes he is a bad ass when on the attack.

 

[mahazel]

Hmm, I think he could be more like Cuali hero in FF - powerfull but later unit, without HN, but with invisible.

 

[AljayBoy]

I don't think he's that strong, playing as the Svartalfar for the 1st time, I was quite excited at using Alazkan, but thought he was relatively poor.

Yes he is good on the offensive, but after his turn he is left vulnerable with his low defence, so isn't really that useful to send off into other nations when a couple of champions or even axemen could take him down.

 

[TheGreatSteve]

Alazkan himself is fine. What needs to be addressed is the AI's almost nonreaction to HN units and the way they refuse to attack an enemy parked outside their city even when they can kill him. Alazkan wouldn't be half as powerful if he couldn't roll up to a city with 5 defenders and kill them one after another with no reaction from the computer.

 

[Blackmantle]

I thinks hes strong and fine that way. (Also he can kill 'only' 4 at max on his own since his mirror can't kill because its an illusion. Even though its not a problem because bringing additional assasins is no big deal and very worthwhile.)

But i agree, that the AI needs some serious work. As allways. But that is beeing adressed now, so its only a matter of time...

 

[MiKa523]

I'm just playing with Alazkan and I sort of agree that he might be/become too powerfull.
If you know how to use the unit and how the AI reacts, it's pretty simple to exploit his uniqueness and hide his weakness.
The AI attacks and probably kills Alazkan, if it has an attack stack in that city your are close to. Couple of catapults and units even Alazkan can't beat in defense.
In this case you just stay in your border (CoE Shrine helps a lot here) and keep sending your Illusion over to weaken one unit and defeat up to multiple units in defence, before disappearing after the round.
After most of the stack died or is weakened you can go in with the real Ala and mop up.

Reaching 100XP means that you have Strength V, Drill IV and are close to Blitz and Mobility and then even the Illusion is that strong in defence that it can kill Hyborem, if using the proper tile with most bonus.
Maybe Illusions shouldn't be able to kill, when attacked, or should even die after being attacked.

The only real weakness can be annoying though, because, as already mentioned by others, Ala is very weak in defence at the beginning, which seems like a balance reason to the monster he might become, but I rather like to see him a little less powerful and then be a bit more safer to keep him.

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

Illusions cant kill now, as far as I know.

 

[MiKa523]

They can kill while defending just like Catapults or whatever..
Which I meant by the multiple times I mentioned defence in my post.

 

[Amerigo Arturo]

Oh, sorry.

 

[uberfish]

You can defend Alazkan quite well by using Veil of Night and stacking him with other HN recon units.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I don't think he's that strong, playing as the Svartalfar for the 1st time, I was quite excited at using Alazkan, but thought he was relatively poor.

Yes he is good on the offensive, but after his turn he is left vulnerable with his low defence, so isn't really that useful to send off into other nations when a couple of champions or even axemen could take him down.

So... you've played them once, and this is your opinion?

Give him Mobility 2, and then you never have to leave him in harms way. Stack him with his Illusion, which always fully heals after combat (Or at least, back to where it was before combat) and it will defend him until your next turn starts.

 

[Zechnophobe]

I'm just playing with Alazkan and I sort of agree that he might be/become too powerfull.
If you know how to use the unit and how the AI reacts, it's pretty simple to exploit his uniqueness and hide his weakness.
The AI attacks and probably kills Alazkan, if it has an attack stack in that city your are close to. Couple of catapults and units even Alazkan can't beat in defense.
In this case you just stay in your border (CoE Shrine helps a lot here) and keep sending your Illusion over to weaken one unit and defeat up to multiple units in defence, before disappearing after the round.
After most of the stack died or is weakened you can go in with the real Ala and mop up.

Reaching 100XP means that you have Strength V, Drill IV and are close to Blitz and Mobility and then even the Illusion is that strong in defence that it can kill Hyborem, if using the proper tile with most bonus.
Maybe Illusions shouldn't be able to kill, when attacked, or should even die after being attacked.

The only real weakness can be annoying though, because, as already mentioned by others, Ala is very weak in defence at the beginning, which seems like a balance reason to the monster he might become, but I rather like to see him a little less powerful and then be a bit more safer to keep him.

He's a Defensive strength of 6 in the beginning, greater than basically any other unit at that stage. How do you get 'weak' out of that? And of course being a hero, he virtually starts with 40 to 60% bonus on top of that. Factor in an attack strength of 9, for a little 'proactive' defense, and that you can use the Raider trait to keep at distance fairly easy and... I just don't see how you can call him defensively weak.

 

[MiKa523]

Like I've described he might die to an AI Attackstack, which is nearby/in the city you are attacking in order to get more xp ("Couple of Catapults and units").
You don't always see the additional, nearby AI units, which aren't assigned to defend a city and all of a sudden he gets attacked by more units than you've expected.

Of course, if you consider the usual situation, where the AI has only 2-4 units defending the city, then they won't all attack Alazkan, although they might kill him together, and defensive strength isn't that much of an issues.

Adjusting Illusions might help since you can kill whole Attackstacks without any risk in this case.
I mean, they are Illusions after all; make them vanish after one fight or after being attacked once.

Also I'm not sure where you are getting this from:

Stack him with his Illusion, which always fully heals after combat (Or at least, back to where it was before combat) and it will defend him until your next turn starts.

I had multiple fights, where the real Alazkan was defending first or at least took the 2nd attacker after the Illusion took the first, so it's not that simple, at least if the AI has more than just some defenders in the city.

 

[Zechnophobe]

Like I've described he might die to an AI Attackstack, which is nearby/in the city you are attacking in order to get more xp ("Couple of Catapults and units").
You don't always see the additional, nearby AI units

I've got Alazkan, I can afford a hawk ;P.

I had multiple fights, where the real Alazkan was defending first or at least took the 2nd attacker after the Illusion took the first, so it's not that simple, at least if the AI has more than just some defenders in the city.

I admit I'm not 100% certain the illusion fully heals on defense, since the combat stats are no longer readily available, and it might still take the normal damage ifthe attacker retreats (AKA, a catapult).

However, I think the most important part is that while 1 Alazkan is a fair challenge, 2 are even worse.

And even then, just scouting out your enemy with a hawk and never leaving him in significant harms way is all that's required.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

His balance is fine because he belongs to what is essentially a 1-trait civ. (No, Arcane never counts) With a handicap like that you need something like a really strong hero.

 

[MiKa523]

Yeah..those poor ancient wood cottaged/mined/farmed elves and their handicaps...it's a pity

@Zechno: Heh, never thought about the Hawk. I think we agree that Alazkan is pretty evil, if played save and correct and his Illusion is contributing a lot to this.

 

[·Imhotep·]

I literally love the Svartalfar since I started playing them. If you go FoL - as you should - you got a very strong hero line. What I love to do is to team up Kythra Kyriel and Alazkan and give his mirror to Kythra once he has the Blitz promotion. Kythra then can create an illusion of himself, but the advantage to Alazkan is that he lacks the Marksman promotion - and that means his mirror will attack any unit no matter of it's strength! With a blitz and mobilty II illusion that's really neat. This way you can easily tear down even bigger garrisons. As for HN I always remove it the turn Alazkan is created since I got him killed in my city by a neighbor I had OB with...

 

[El_Duderino]

i know i always try to build alkazan in a city with COE so he has a chance of getting that religion and the mask promotion