The balancing of puppets

[Jules.lt]

Wouldn't it also be good to be able to get their Hero without researching machinery?
I posted an idea, but there can be others. I think it's sad that the War Machine happens in such an un-Dovielloish way right now.
And lore-wise Dentaro built this thing on his own, there wasn't a Doviello caste of engineers who knew all about machinery and were also beginning to build crossbows and nearing the discovery of gunpowder...

 

[Cliftor]

Ok, I guess you're right. As I play the other civs I'm sure I'll find something in each of them to get a handle on and leverage. I was just shocked at how quickly that particular game went.

If the problem really is just Keelyn's puppets + Summoner, then I go back to my original suggestion: why not just give her a trait other than Summoner and balance the puppets in isolation? That will introduce stronger differences between the civs (making the Sheaim the only summoners), and the Balseraphs still have their very impressive puppets.

If puppets are too weak on their own (but overpowered with Summoner), than wouldn't it be simpler to try and buff puppets on their own rather than try to continue a balancing act between these two separate abilities which simply seem to be synergizing a tad too well? If Keelyn is causing problems by being far more than the sum of her parts, isn't it easier to chop one part away and buff the other rather than risking fiddling with one part which will also impact other, unrelated Civs?

 

[DaleKing]

What if puppets took 1 turn to cast? (you know, like representing it taking a little time to carve and build the puppet) and the delay would limit keelyn to 2 puppets per mage but keep the 3 turn summoning duration for summoning trait leaders.

 

[popejubal]

Weirdly, I just had Loki summon a Puppet and the Puppet did not have Mobility I even though Loki has Spell Extension I. It had Spell Extension I itself, but it did not have the Mobility I that it should have had.

 

[Blackmantle]

For mobile puppets (which technically seem to use a tweaked summon code and not the same one...) just promote your Mages to mobility. The puppets will start with mobility 1 then. (they start with the exact copy of their summoners promotions.)
Otherwise Puppets would even be worse and extension probably unbalanced for Keelyn (since extension 2 whould grant move 2 and! +2 Mobility to your puppets. Making them possibly more powerful casters / summoners than even the Puppeteer. ).