Mod: Haida Gwaii Complete! version 3.0 (lots of changes)

[Foodstamp]

That surprises me. I would think minimal to no access to death/astral/blood would put the nation at a disadvantage, especially late game. I've always thought of the nation as being strong early to early mid game, excelling at early expansion and battle magic until SCs hit the scene, kinda like MA Man.

Admittedly, I haven't played many mod nations, so I am not sure how the ones for MP are specced out, but I would be really surprised if they didn't shine better in certain places, especially if they have access to the important MP magic paths I listed before.

[Executor]

Hello Foodstamp,
Giving your nation a go and I though I'd give a few quick observation.

The nation has easy access to stealthy troops but no commanders to lead those troops. The stealthy commanders have only leadership 10 which will suffice only for 1 PD provinces sadly.
There's always the option of giving magic item leadership boosts, but the nation has no access to death for the rod of the leper king, and only access to S1 (with no nation astral gem income), thus making it hard to forge crown of command for this purpose, even for those who'd consider this option since forging items for this purpose is wasteful..
I suggest boosting leadership to 40 for one of the stealthy commanders. Stealthy troops seem rather unusable given the current state.

And second, Thunderbirds. At first they seemed awesome to me. Sacred, stormflyers, immortal, even their price seemed great cause of the added number due to magic path however they are a huge disappointment.
They have terrible stats and no protection, any single hit kills them. Eventually after dozens of battles they'd get some extra attack and defence due to immortality but that's not enough.
They have higher somewhat strength but a no strength attack which is quite weak, so they can't kill anything in the first (and only) round they live.
They are sacred, but a bless approach is a bad way to go for them. The nation has no need for a bless given the lack of sacred troops and the only bless that seems viable for them is a water bless which is contradictory to your bears given their berserk. So bless is not an option either.

At first I thought I'd abuse them with having an A9 pretender spamming them from the start, but given that 40 thunderbirds lose easily to militia I'd say even that is a bad option.
So IMO, they are extremely overpriced at 12 for 2+ ( they're not worth even summoning with a boosted mage or a high level pretender) and have quite terrible stats.

Just compare them to vampires. High strenght with a drain attack, fliers, regeneration, more than double HP.
Vampires are even cheaper than Thunderbirds, incredibly better, stronger, better stats and much more easily massed.

I can provide more feedback as I go along, these is just something I noticed first.

[Valerius]

Executor, I played Haida Gwaii in the Tourmaline game a couple of years ago. Below is a troop summary I sent over to Foodstamp as early feedback when I was testing builds (didn't post it in the forums since the game was in progress and then I forgot to post it later).

Though I didn't take a heavy bless I did become too distracted with focusing on Thunderbirds. Like you say, they aren't nearly as good as vampires. I never considered summoning them as they are too expensive but Kachinas can summon one per turn. Of course there's an opportunity cost so you'll have to choose how many you want summoning Thunderbirds. Once you finish research you can easily summons dozens per turn but at that stage there's plenty of counters to them.

Offhand I'd say it might be good to remove the Kachina's ability to summon Thunderbirds but make the summon Thunderbird spell a better deal and also make them more effective in battle.

Btw, probably the easiest way to boost leadership on Haida Gwaii's commanders is a whip of command.

Foodstamp, I really like the theme of this nation and it would be great to see it fine-tuned.

[Valerius]

UNIT OVERVIEW

Raven: these fueled my expansion. They are kind of like harpies ... but much better. Twice the hit points, much better morale and attack and with a strength of 12 and two attacks they can do respectable damage to lightly armored troops. With a resource cost of 1 you can mass these much quicker than any of your other melee troops. The thing that really helps them is that flight gives them the first strike against their opponents. Within the first two rounds of combat they frequently inflict enough losses to cause routing (again, against lightly armored opponents). I found though that if they don't do a lot of damage quickly their low protection will put them in a bad situation. Basically I rely on numerical superiority with these guys.

Bear Warrior - When I first looked at these I was impressed with their regeneration, two attacks per round and recuperation. If they were sacred I probably would have gone for a major bless. But as it is, I didn't use them much in expansion. On a gold basis I can get 50% more Ravens than Bear Warriors. Since I actually found resources to be a limiting factor the multiple was much larger. I think they will have a role, though - they seem like a unit that can benefit greatly from buffs like strength of giants, legions of steel and protection. During initial expansion I think they are best suited for handling higher protection opponents that might cause Ravens problems.

Sgaana Warriors - I didn't border water so I couldn't make use of their real talent. However my starting army performed respectably. The main reason I didn't make more use of them is their resource cost. I took Sloth 1 and I could just get Ravens in bulk much quicker. Having said that, I'm interested in running some more tests with them. The Atlatl's have an ammunition of 4 and decent range to boot. Tossing strength of giants on a group of these would seem to make for some powerful missile fire... I'm not sure how harpoon mechanics work but if they can handle large targets it seems like there's potential to break up trampling formations or keep elite units still long enough for melee troops to do some damage.

Raven Warriors - Stealthy and have some protection but I'd much prefer Ravens for stealth work. I don't think I'll use these.

Eagle Archers and Raven Archers - Eagle archers have good precision but I think I'd go for Raven Archers since the stealth can make for a nice surprise for an unwary opponent. If I get some fire mages then I'll definitely be using these.

Raven Scout - continuing my Raven obsession I have to say this is an awesome unit. I love flying scouts but a flying scout with Stealth 20, leadership 10, and A1 with a chance at D1 (a path you otherwise don't have access to)? Heck, yes! In addition to providing a cheap sacred researcher at 60 gold, I thought of some fun ideas to test with these guys. Give one a barkskin amulet and air gem and have them cast mistform and then try to take out very low level PD. Or maybe give them skull talismans and have a couple cast air shield and then summon skeletons to take out low level PD. Used in combination with a mage casting Storm they can cast summon storm power and then cast lightning bolts. Great unit.

Sgaana Tyee - Another excellent unit. Can lead large numbers of troops, sail, and is amphibious. Given the low leadership on most of your mages this will be your standard leader. BTW, I ran some tests trying to thug out their killer whale water form and was disappointed. I don't think they are meant for thugging.

Bear Tyee - Your only access to earth, this is a crucial unit for buffing troops and getting an initial earth gem income going. Though not solo operators they seem like they can have potential as mini-thugs inside armies. E1N1 will buff them nicely and with recuperation they can get experience without being crippled. Also are decent leaders.

Coyote Mother - As the Bear Tyee gives you your only E access, the Coyote Mother gives you your only S access. A few thoughts come to mind: communions, forging moonvine bracelets, stealthy thugging and feebleminding mind hunters who go after your thugs. Also, having them cast magic duel to take out enemy astral mages. Another very useful unit.

Kachina - This is your bread-and-butter mage. Half have A3 (thunderstrike spam!), half have N1 (thug potential). Something I didn't realize at first is that Kachina can summon one Thunderbird per round. While there's an opportunity cost in lost research it does save gems and once research is completed you can have dozens of Kachina's summoning huge numbers of Thunderbirds.

Voice of the Killer Whales - Recruit these if you want to throw down some falling frost or high level water spells. All of them can clam out of the box and if you are not in a non-gem generator game you will want to do this. 1 of 3 can cast bone melter; the others can cast it with a thistle mace. Foul vapors is also an option.

Eagle Talon - 1 of 3 will have A4 to forge A boosters. A4's are also useful for casting things like Fog Warriors without a booster.

[Executor]

Thanks Valerius,
The nation has a lot of interesting possibilities and build. At first look I thought that the national units were meh and kinda Mictlan like, but they are extremely good actually.
The harpooning infantry seems really good, and so far I'm loving them the most. They can certainly stop or slow a charge sufficiently enough for the archers (which are quite nice ) to take them out.

Bear warriors are expensive and die too easily due to very low defense (even with regeneration), so I wouldn't consider using them too much, but they seem perfect for buffing (strength of giants, quickness) and dealing with tougher, heavily protected troops.

Ravens are splendid. I doubt anyone would dare use archers when you bring these to the battle. From what I tested a small amount of ravens can tear enemy archers apart, and hopefully some unlucky mage too.

Raven warriors seem rather fragile. Medium infantry with no shields meaning that any sort of ranged weapon will kill them, hence you must use them in numbers if you are to sneak capture enemy provinces, but you can't since the stealthy leaders aren't adequate. If there was a better leader I'd use them, but given the fact that you need to use at least a vine whip on a mage to lead them, they seem unusable to me.
And using them for regular armies seems silly to me.

Now the archers, stealthy vs high precision archer? I think I'd use stealthy more over the regular due to short range mostly.
Short bows can be easily countered with just some good battle formation, they fall out of rank, start chasing the enemy forward while the rest of the army sits, etc. So raven archers might be a better choice since they enemy might not see them coming, not that eagle archers are bad, they are great for their price, about same as those white amazon archers right?

Now, there's one thing in particular that caught my eye, the bear summons.
2+ for 12 gems, sacred, ethereal, high HP, regeneration, trample! And they're only level 1. So, no doubt about this, I'd spend every single one of my nature gems on these pets. The best option seems to take a heavy nature pretender so get more, and go straight for mother oak to boost your nature income. Than you trample everything...

Still checking the mages, they seem good, cheap researchers but I'm not sure who to use as my main research force. I'm interested to know which one you used the most?

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Executor

At first look I thought that the national units were meh and kinda Mictlan like, but they are extremely good actually.

Good assessment of the troops. I like the first half of the lineup (ravens, Sganna warriors), not so much the second half.

The archers are ok but with the exception of the stealthy raven archers I don't know that I'd recruit them over indie tribal archers. I wonder if it would be thematic to give at least the ravens forest survival?

The only unit I don't think I'd ever use are the raven warriors. Even if Haida Gwaii had a stealthy commander that could lead large numbers of troops I'd prefer to use ravens.

I was also disappointed that I didn't come up with a way to use the bear warriors effectively. But I think that was partly due to the circumstances of the game. They don't fare well without buffs and I was at peace for a long time (clamming of course) so by the time they could be buffed it was already late game.

Still, like you say, it's not a bad troop lineup. But it's not as exciting to me as the commander lineup - each of whom I find interesting and can find uses for.

Originally Posted by Executor

Now, there's one thing in particular that caught my eye, the bear summons.
2+ for 12 gems, sacred, ethereal, high HP, regeneration, trample! And they're only level 1. So, no doubt about this, I'd spend every single one of my nature gems on these pets. The best option seems to take a heavy nature pretender so get more, and go straight for mother oak to boost your nature income. Than you trample everything...

I have to admit that while I summoned them in a test game to check them out I didn't summon any in the actual game (that thunderbird tunnel vision again ). But this is an interesting idea, especially if a high N pretender can get you large numbers of them early on.

Originally Posted by Executor

Still checking the mages, they seem good, cheap researchers but I'm not sure who to use as my main research force. I'm interested to know which one you used the most?

I opened up turn 50 from Tourmaline and looking over my nation I see row after row of kachinas. I guess at that point I decided it was time to summon thunderbirds en masse because most of them are set to summon allies. I had such large numbers of kachinas in large part with the idea of generating huge numbers of thunderbirds once key research was completed but also because a map move 3, flying, thunderstriking mage is very appealing.

But thinking it over, with my Magic 1 scales I could have gotten over double the research that each kachina provided by using that gold for ravens instead. So I don't think that many kachinas is optimal. Though in fact my research wasn't bad and I see the Chalice in my inventory which iirc was from forging, not wishing for it (I think I was also helped in this by most other nations getting involved in early wars).