Hello all,

I was curious what other gamers experience playing the Allayi with the Tempest expansion was.  All my comments refer to single player.

My own experience is that is very difficult.  Prior to Tempest I thought their ability to quickly move over water was a big help. It gave them an advantage in exploration as well as for picking up pearls and getting to ruins faster then others. This has been greatly hindered since they now become transport ships. I never found it easy to win with them before Tempest, now I find it seems like they might have become the toughest to play

What do you think?

I honestly think right now the allayi are by far the weakest faction among with the forgotten. Unlike other races, their strenghts simply do not balance their weaknesses.
The only trait that really has a good impact is battlefield symbiosis. The winter shift makes controlling the way your army works hard until you can afford to manually switch stances with pearls. The ability to gather more pearls simply allows you to keep your armies/cities on par with the other faction, provided you can afford it. One of their unit is basically a dedicated harvester/pearl hoarder, which weakens their army versatility HARD early game.
They are really cool, the idea of a faction that turtles during good season and goes on a rampage during winter is really fun, but i feel like they become really strong late game when u can control your armies better with pearls and expansion disapproval becomes a bit less of a problem with the quest reseach that lowers it, but imo it's too late: you have less cities, with less population, which means an overall weaker economy and production. You end up inferior.
Throw in what you just said and u lose even more of the uniqueness that helped them early/mid game.
So yes, they are in bad shape.

Yeah playing with them on Endless is a serious handicap in the current patch.

You are further gimping your ability to compete with the insane bonuses that the AI picks up. Further, the naval situation really negates the benefit of Skyfins as they cannot Aspirate in the ocean. 

I think that the Allayi were pretty good as a race before Tempest, and now have too many cons to justify some of the weaker parts of their design. I'm sure that it's very difficult to balance independent expansion packs, so maybe that's why the devs are treading lightly at the moment.

It seems kind of popular to post suggestions on this forum, so maybe we can post some here if the devs want some ideas. 

I still believe that the Skyfin needs some work... It had the major exploration abilities pre-Tempest, but the ocean is a bit too dangerous and there isn't much land. 

If it is a pseudo-Guardian, then maybe up its' Defense and Attack just a bit? That way fighting one with a 1 unit army may be a slight risk to the other person? Or maybe make exploration more valuable by giving Skyfins +10% on Ruin finds per unit level?

I already suggested that they get casting abilities in another thread. Either way, I think having your whole economy rest on this rather weak unit is too much of a risk. They either need to make them pay off quicker, or just allow them to stand and fight when challenged.

The Monk seems like he's actually pretty perfect. The only thing that I would do for them is slightly buff the "Ward of Vros Therman" item that you get from the quest.

I did the math on its' potential damage increase, and it's pretty good. However, it is VERY much JUST potential. If the Monk dies relatively early, then he'd have been better off building the Improved Damage item and just going full hog into the enemy. 

Maybe other Allayi players can tell me if that sounds like an unnecessary buff, but I think that quest items SHOULD be powerful. They require a ton of work to get! 

Maybe the item can give a buff to defense in the winter and a buff to Attack in Summer? Making them a bit more rounded and increasing the value of Shifting Rage by making the survivable form into a damage dealer, and making the damage dealer into a more survivable form. 

 I don't know, but this and the Broken Lords item that gives a flat buff to DEF both feel like they could use a little love. They're by no means the free HERO that some other races get. 

The Seeker is actually very well designed in my opinion. It functions very well as an early game unit, and can still transition to the late game. Really the only weakness in the army is the absence of a 3rd unit.... 

Hopefully with some buffs, and the changes to Strategics, the Allayi will be in a more competitive state.

I feel that putting Skyfin on the ocean too early, without movement boost from item/empire plan, results in very high risks. I have lost quite some Skyfin that way. The problem is that early on Skyfin are slow enough to be caught successive times by navies. If only they flew over the ocean instead of getting inside a transport ship, things would be very different.

Slashkoln wrote:

I feel that putting Skyfin on the ocean too early, without movement boost from item/empire plan, results in very high risks. I have lost quite some Skyfin that way. The problem is that early on Skyfin are slow enough to be caught successive times by navies. If only they flew over the ocean instead of getting inside a transport ship, things would be very different.

I think that flying as opposed to embarking would be a nice buff for them as well. 

Lore wise, they don't share the bipedal look of a Monk, so it makes sense that they'd remain in flight over the sea. 

Also, once again, it would fit in with that "greater than a normal unit" feel that the quest and the design seemed to emphasize pre-Tempest. 

It's a chore playing on Endless with these guys unfortunately. The design seems to encourage a small but powerful nation, but a few changes to their design could make that a little more feasible. 

I also would love something to combat a bad start, but they just don't have it. 

I like the idea of the Skyfin being able to fly over oceans, that would certainly help. But the fact that their stacks of units become transports is still a big negative that I don't have a ready solution for.

Prior to Tempest, between the SkyFin and stacks I could explore the world in a fraction of the time it took other races. This allowed me to pile up rewards/pearls from ruins very quickly. Also with the Allayi I liked to pick out the best regions in the world to start a city, I worried a lot less about them being near each other. These benefits are effectively gone.

In my unpublished mod, i have given the ability : Tidal Mastery

to all units and hero of the Allayi faction.

I think it suit them ...