Personally, I play with AI, which means that I'm more concerned with factions being fun than good. The greatest thing about Broken Lords is gameplay variety relative to other factions, and personally I think that's pretty OP

myrec wrote:
Ryders are weak, cause they "healing" is like 1 HP per level per attack. So at max level it is 10 HP per attack. TOO LOW. I hope they will fix it to something like 30 HP per level per attack. Then they will become force to be afraid of. Their best thing is they can carry stun weapon. No other cavalry can do that. It's insane if you give him high movement and high initiative. They will go first run and stun most important target. And if their healing will work they will always will heal from attacks of weaker units.



I have to admit I love Broken Lords and I cannot wait for Amplitude to fix them. I don't mean mods or so. I want official fix.

Because haling 50% of life every attack wouldn't be broken. If it was a flat 10% of life at all levels it would be fine.

I am not sure they are broken to be honest... They have a big strength and a big weakness, that is all. You have to adapt your play to them. The only way I can see them as broken is if you start away from dust tiles and have to waste many turns finding some, it can be a rough start. Other than that they start slow and pick up speed at mid game, and that will be your moment to move / attack / get big.



However there is one thing, I heard that their total points for their faction don't add up to the full number. That might need to get fixed.

Ryders are weak, cause they "healing" is like 1 HP per level per attack. So at max level it is 10 HP per attack. TOO LOW. I hope they will fix it to something like 30 HP per level per attack. Then they will become force to be afraid of. Their best thing is they can carry stun weapon. No other cavalry can do that. It's insane if you give him high movement and high initiative. They will go first run and stun most important target. And if their healing will work they will always will heal from attacks of weaker units.



I have to admit I love Broken Lords and I cannot wait for Amplitude to fix them. I don't mean mods or so. I want official fix.

Their food/dust farming rates can go nuts. Coastal + river tiles can get quite carried away very early on.



My advice for a stronger start is to 'hot swap' your starting hero about - have them spend quite a lot of time in town. The resource upgrades for them (T1 = +dust from rivers, T2 = +dust from dust tiles - up to an extra 3) can get really quite insane. I tend to prioritise getting a ranged hero to lead my army and turn the starting guy into a full time city leader.





One thing I really like is being able to insta-grow new cities. Last night I founded my second city and bought it up to size 4 on the same turn. Gets really silly.



IMO, a huge mid-later game bonus is being able to treat food (dust) stockpiling at an empire wide level. It's effectively moves food to a national mechanic rather than local to the city.



It's entirely possible to stick cities into places with low dust but huge production or research potential and get them up to speed in very short order...

Healing with dust might seem small, but it is very powerful. No one can go back to full health every battle like the broken lords. If you like running with a small expert army this is the faction for you.



Compare them to the necros for example, necros can't heal as efficiently, meaning they have to spam units as they lose and replace them to keep the aggression going. Broken lords on the other hand can make a couple of armies and take the whole map with them. As for growth, you don't need to buy workers as much when you are taking the superbuff AIs cities that are already fully built and populated. You just need to get by early game until you go on the offensive.



As for the bishops they are amazing. I use what I call the lotus formation : One bishop (preferably on high ground) surrounded by 5 melee units on "hold your ground" formation so nobody can attack him except 1 enemy (you can completely surround him but that would be AI abuse as it can't handle it and some times it will just stand there and do nothing because the bishop will be their priority and they can't get to him). With 5 units around him (even without high ground) he gets big bonuses to attack through morale (and morale goes up the more friendly units are next to you), so he can hit and heal every turn. Even if not all your units are in a position to attack, the bonuses from morale and healing makes it so you can outlive the enemy and win the battle with little to no losses.

JetJaguar wrote:
Researching them now. Thanks



their base rating for both attack and initiative of 6 had me concerned

They scale up nice. Make sure you also equip them, and keep them in the back.

Nasarog wrote:
Non of the support units are good at first... except the dust bishops. Basically they heal adjacent units by taking life out of enemy units with a range of 3 I believe. Think about that for a second. As they get stronger, they siphon more life out of the enemy units to dispense to yours (multiples) and they become more resilient.



Like that? I know I did.

Researching them now. Thanks



their base rating for both attack and initiative of 6 had me concerned

JetJaguar wrote:
I looked at the Dust Bishop base stats and they don't seem very good. What am I missing? Thanks again

Non of the support units are good at first... except the dust bishops. Basically they heal adjacent units by taking life out of enemy units with a range of 3 I believe. Think about that for a second. As they get stronger, they siphon more life out of the enemy units to dispense to yours (multiples) and they become more resilient.



Like that? I know I did.

I looked at the Dust Bishop base stats and they don't seem very good. What am I missing? Thanks again

JetJaguar wrote:
So they're a good faction to 'turtle' with? at least for the first half of the game? Thanks in advance

Yea. I played maybe a dozen games with them before moving on to the Necrophages. Of the dozen, the only ones I won was through extensive use of the turtle method. Maybe I'm a conservative player, but I'm now learning the Necrophages, and I'm just going buck wild with aggression, and it work for the Necros, it didn't for the Broekn Lords. the Cavalry unit is absolutely useless (to me at least).

Nasarog wrote:
Yes, with the new population rebalance, they are good for growing tall. 3-4 cities can carry the game. An upgraded dust bishop is boss. Insta healing your units in enemy territory is boss... but you know that. Not having a food crutch can really help in early and mid game during winter. The have a lot to tech that helps money grow, especially if you do the main quest.

So they're a good faction to 'turtle' with? at least for the first half of the game? Thanks in advance

Yes, with the new population rebalance, they are good for growing tall. 3-4 cities can carry the game. An upgraded dust bishop is boss. Insta healing your units in enemy territory is boss... but you know that. Not having a food crutch can really help in early and mid game during winter. The have a lot to tech that helps money grow, especially if you do the main quest.