Lanun suggestions(they need a buff)!

[Matsume]

Hi everyone.
As i've told before im a great lanun fan, but seriously they need a buff...
Im gonna explain why and also give some suggestion so lets start.

1 - After some games with other civs (Bannor, Balserapsh, and so on...) i realize that their hero Guybrush its relatively weak in comparisson to the others heros in general.
Its not that the hero its weak "per se" , its more like that the others heros have more powerfull and usefull habilities to rely on.
Donal Lugh have recruiter (GREAT), Loki can capture cities without declaring war(feels almost like a cheat...) and so on for the heroes.Now, lets take a look at him: he have str 7, hero , boarding and sing! ( the best ability for me...). He's a pirate and dont even have amphibious??? How is he the suposed to attack from the sea without it?And there's more: the boarding promotion its almost uselles in most my games ( The AI simple dont build ships! ) and the pirates are my friends so basicaly all ships in the world are mine or the allied pirates.

ok, now the suggestion : why not give him amphibious to start, and then another usefull agressive promotion, like +1 water affinity for example ( if Harmat can have +1 wind affinity why he couldn't?). This will balance his current lack of usefull habilities and will allow him to fight the other civs heroes and still mantain balance.

2 - Now lets talk seriously about their "melee line". I know they are the "kings of the sea" and everything, BUT their champions, the infamous Boarding Parties are a joke.
The default champion have str 6 and +25% bonus aggainst melee(good), now lets have a look on our friends : str 5 and +25% bonus aggainst naval units ( does the AI build them? NO!) and the boarding promotion ( the same here...).
So basically their're a joke version of a champion, or a upgraded swordsman(+1 str)...

Now the suggestion - How about giving them the amphibious promotion too ( For me the lanun UB should give All the melee units it) so that they can join the new "Guybrush Powered" and really became the terror off the seas and coastal cities too. And ONE of the following : up their str again to 6, OR give them the +25% against melee too (but keeping their str 5).

3 - Their leaders: They are good but as the description says and the leaders alike " ...Leave the islands to us..." this means that, for a lanun civ to grow theirs cities need to be scattered arround all the coast and island possible, and that means that their will suffer of very low production or none at all ( one tile islands).
So its extremely necessary to them to have a good TRADER leader, the trader trait compensates the lack of hammer productive lands and actually it makes sense to me that a whealty island, rich of commerce, can build things. Didnt Rhodes build The Colossus??? HOW?? (I doubt it was in civ 4 bts,auhhuahuahuauh).

Now the suggestion - Please, i say again, Please. Give them a good TRADER/Something leader. Modmorgan have trader, but just it??? Why all others traders have very good others traits? (Swit Neil for example, of the balserapsh, thats OP!!!). Its because their are latin and talk spanish??(uhahuahuahua, Im brazilian, so maybe im a "latin" too).
But Seriously, why not make Casin loveles Financial/Trader, or make mordmorgan Trader/Emergent? Just look the others leaders and you will see that they are missing it so bad.

And the last one its not just a Lanun suggestion but a mana ability:
Why cant the water mana give a stackable chance to find water resources??? (If the earth can...).

Well thats my point of view, tell me what you think.
Thanks anyway.
PS: Will continue to play Lanun anyway...Just love it(the music is great, the models).

 

[wapamingo]

Lanun are usually one of the better in the games I play, either in the hands of human or AI.

They may be weak militarly, but their economic output is very high (starts next to sea, bonus from sea tiles - no problem for growth) - not as good as the Malakim economic output but they do not have the production issues Malakim have.

Giving their hero and champion unit amphibious, and i think you are refering to water walking, is over-powered. There is no way to defend against this, particularly for the AI and especially coupled with OO. To be honest, they usually run for OO and the OO unique unit has water walking already, so why give them more?

Some "corrections" may be required, like you identified that the bonus against naval units is useless with the current naval AI. But, when this is fixed they would become that much better for having it.

However, I am all for giving them more flavor but not more power.

I, however, do not have any concrete suggestions as to how to provide this flavor. Maybe something more on the pirate line, maybe unique recon line with hidden nationallity? Land-based pirates and bucanners? Maybe give these land based units the ability to blockade trade routes, similar to how naval units do it? So a whole bunch of these briggands whom may or may not be hard to remove can cause some economic hardship?

 

[Aline]

Hannah is one of my fav leaders (lore and gameplay wise)
I dare say they do not need a buff, you get epic everything but hammers, you can use slaves or gold to hurry stuff to make up for that.
Also make sure you get the heron throne and end up with a city that has epic everything including hammers.
Outteching your enemys should be piece of cake, once you have a stack of stygian guards and some tier2 priests(forgot the name) you can take every costal city at any time you like, the ai cannot do anything about it, i have not played ffh in mp but i guess it should be one of the more fearsome tactics there aswell.
You can either cripple your enemys like that and overrunn them later or just get all the mana you need for a mastery victory and your all set.

I do like your idea of discovering water resorces by water mana.

 

[Tholal]

I think they are actually fairly well balanced. What they don't have in raw power, they make up for with insane commerce. Give a Lanun player a chance to settle a few cities along the coast and fill it with Pirate Ports and you have an early tech monster that almost always takes an early lead.

 

[Matsume]

Giving their hero and champion unit amphibious, and i think you are refering to water walking, is over-powered.

No, i was not refering to water walking. I said Amphibious promotion "Unit dosent receive penalty from attacking from the sea, unit dosent receive penalty from crossing river..."

Anyway, pirates arent Jesus to walter walk.

once you have a stack of stygian guards and some tier2 priests(forgot the name) you can take every costal city at any time you like

Give a Lanun player a chance to settle a few cities along the coast and fill it with Pirate Ports and you have an early tech monster that almost always takes an early lead.

You all are saying what we all know : They are superb for turtling ( is this the word?). I know they are economicaly great but their early military cant protect theirs whealty coastal cities from a CONTINENTAL invasion!
You build some coastal cities, let the magic ocean fill you treasure, spend it all in research and then conquer the world with yours mithril phalanx. BUT this only happens if there isnt a agresive AI leader nearby (or a decent human player) who knows that almost all your early/mid melee units ***** and your cities except the capital(heron throne) usualy have very low production = few units defending it. And this is the general purpose of the topic, improve their chance to fight back early on (Cause if left alone, surely they became unstopable in mid/late game).

Try playing in a continental map standard size with 10+ civs with chalenge-aggresive AI selected like i do and tell me it was easy to win. ( i cant play without aggresive AI, the leaders seems to be little girls without it).
PS: i didnt say it was impossible, but the game became alive, very.

 

[tesb]

I think it is intended that some civilizations are only strong under certain conditions. On maps with some water the lanun are insanely strong considering they are allied with the pirate barbarians that spawn once optics is researched. Buffing them, so they could take on a land power would be unwise imho. I am of the opinion that civilization should have distinctive strengths and weaknesses.
You can find this theme in other civilizations as well.

Edit: I agree with you on the amphibious promotion.

 

[Seven05]

Just take Loveless and research Optics before replacing your minor trait and all your melee units will have the Amphib promotion.

For me, the Lanun are basically a cakewalk in games with plenty of agressive leaders. They're tougher without a financial leader but with one... damn. You don't need much defense, you should have coastal cities, a cultist in each city can pretty well wipe out anybody trying to attack you unless they can manage to rush in from 3 tiles away and take the city all in the same turn. Longbows and city walls easily prevent that from happening, and since you'll have longbows before they have champions even though you also managed to grab most (maybe even all) of the holy cities... yeah, I know, the perfect storm and it happens almost every game for me. The Lanun are the one civ that I can play and not feel bad if I don't get a single tech from a goody hut or graveyard.

If you're getting taken out early you're taking to long to get your pirate coves. Once you have cultists you can put one on a ship and shut down an enemy coastal city or a coastal route they have to use to get to you. Put them on an arcane barge for even more fun, not like the wandering pirates will attack you.

If you need to fight most of your war(s) away from the coast, get AV and spam ring of fire instead of tsunami. Of course, if you take advantage of their amazing synergy with the Foreign Trade civic you won't have all of your cities on the same landmass and losing a few won't hurt you at all.

 

[Transcendental]

In my games, the Lanun (if played by the AI) always tend to end up as one of the top 3 best civs in the game, and in my last game they topped my gold production when I was playing as Malakim. So, yeah...

 

[aimlessgun]

Lanun usually seemed to have a solid economy and were a top AI civ in base FFH, and I can't see them being anything but better in WM with hammers and food from trade routes (which I think somewhat adresses your issue of them having low hammer cities on islands).

I think their worldspell is also my least favorite to play vs. because it destroys Towns down to nothing. Makes me incredibly angry, should just bust them down to Villages.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

good point about the worldspell killing towns thing.

 

[Lord Katana]

I think it is intended that some civilizations are only strong under certain conditions. On maps with some water the lanun are insanely strong considering they are allied with the pirate barbarians that spawn once optics is researched. Buffing them, so they could take on a land power would be unwise imho. I am of the opinion that civilization should have distinctive strengths and weaknesses.
You can find this theme in other civilizations as well.

Edit: I agree with you on the amphibious promotion.

I completely agree here.... Even if the world is divided in two islands they are insanely strong. With all the pirates running amok its almost impossible to keep your own waterresources intact. And i was by far the stongest player (had a rating of about 13 to the person i wanted to attack) but couldn't cause i could not fight my way through the pirates. Only positive thing was that the Black Wind was killed by the barb pirate faction (HN wasn't a good thing for the blackwind at that moment )

So some more flavor, no probs, but nothing that makes them too powerfull as they already rule the see (which means they can invade everywhere anytime all the time).

 

[Breez]

I do think Guy and their Champions should have Amphibious. Makes sense to me, but I would not suggest Making boarding parties stronger or any kind of mana affinity.

Water mana increasing chance of Pirate Harbor discovering a resource makes sense to me. That would be a tiny tiny change, but a neat one.


Two things I don't like about the Lanun.

One: they have such great synergy with OO it becomes almost required you go that route just to get up to where you need to be. Removes actual choice

Two: On land maps they are at a real disadvantage, to the point of not being worth playing at all. I know not many people play Great Plains etc... but on those types the Lanun are at a huge disadvantage. Not sure anything can be done about that. its a trade off for dominating the sea.

 

[Brokenbone]

It is too bad that the Pirate faction is at peace with all the Lanun except for their HN Pirates. I've had the Black Wind killed more than once by Pirates of the Eureabean Sea, I spam Pirate Coves so much it's a huge risk. Only after doing an Adventurer's Guild did I realize I could grab a "Letter of Marque" item for the Black Wind, declare nationality to get rid of the traditional HN promotion, and just keep raising or lowering the flag (the power of the Letter item), depending on my needs.

I am not sure the Lanun are underpowered overall though, it depends on map and game settings. Lot of water and a lot of pirate barbarians, they'll do fine. Limited naval opportunities or hazards, they do less fine.

Boarding parties are pretty limited in their utility though. +25% vs naval means you better be attacking ships. If we really need a mechanic for capturing ships, maybe borrow from other modules like Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn... there is a "war prizes" mechanic which gives some percent chance to capture rather than sink a naval vessel you might have won a combat against, much like in the real world, you win a battle and tow the "war prize" home. Or scuttle it if it's not worthwhile, but that's your choice. If we had that, Boarding Parties could just be champions with that Boarding promotion in case you wanted to guarantee a ship capture, the rare times it could ever happen (like in multiplayer, unless AI ever learns good naval use).

 

[scutarii]

One: they have such great synergy with OO it becomes almost required you go that route just to get up to where you need to be. Removes actual choice

for many civs there in FF2 is practically no point to play anything but one certain religion. That is intended feature by Kael.

 

[Matsume]

As I can see, most people agree with the amphibious promotion for guy and the boarding parties, and the stackable chance to water mana find water resources. Then i will reformulate my suggestions.

1- In order to not make him OP, lower a little the starting str of Guybrush from 7 to 6/5 and then give him the +1 water affinity. Of course giving him too the amphibious promotion that most people agree.
Doing this and giving the water mana the chance to discover water resources will completely extends the flavour of the civ! Lanun players will be compelled to stack the now precious water mana, what do you guys think?

2- To complete theirs "new flavour" give the boardings parties the amphibious promotion too!!! Pirates should be good at attacking from ships the coastal cities , dont they?

3- Making a decent trader/something leader is not asking to much, i think.
Is there a way to get the trader trait for a Emergent leader? ( Casin Loveless).

Well this is my "buff" suggestion, read carefully and then vote, as you all can see its not making them OP, just expanding even more the flavour. (THis is what ffh is all about, isnt it?)

PS: I think Tsunamis should destroy cities defenses too, i remember the videos and if that isnt city destruction, I dont know what is. ( Ring of flame damage units, and dont have to be near walter to do it!)

 

[Valkrionn]

One: they have such great synergy with OO it becomes almost required you go that route just to get up to where you need to be. Removes actual choice

I completely agree. It's why I added Kelp Forests, and advise people to play on ErebusContinent (Oceanic Kelp was added to it after I asked Seven05 to do it. ). Basically, if you go FoL your kelp will improve, the same way that Forests will.

Added this mainly because one of the two aquatic civs I plan to add will be FoL focused (view OO as an aberration), but it helps the Lanun out too.

 

[Matsume]

One: they have such great synergy with OO it becomes almost required you go that route just to get up to where you need to be. Removes actual choice

The same can be said for the 2 elfs civs, khazad, sheiam...
You can chose another state religion, but will be missing a great synergy.

And you Valk, what you think about my reformulated suggestions?

Edit: Maybe I have made the wrong question in the poll, the correct one would be : What you think of these suggestions? and then list the sugestions

 

[hbar]

Yeah, I only agree with adding amphibious to boarding parties and Guybrush. They are like the Malakim - OP'd economy, UP'd military. That is by design and should stay that way.


Oh, and I also agree with water mana increasing fishpop chance.

 

[Sephi]

amphibious ability for boarding parties and Guybrush sounds fine to me.

 

[Matsume]

amphibious ability for boarding parties and Guybrush sounds fine to me.

ok, but how about the trader/something leader? It will not make them op.Just give some other trait to Mordmorgan or the emergent trait...

And the water mana giving stackable chance to find water resources? Everybody liked the idea, and its not a lanun only improvement.