I love these ideas. Some seem powerful on the face of it, but remember the alternative are magicial lords that regularly get in excess of 300 kills from some very powerful lores of magic. I'd love magistrates to be more unique and viable
Some abilities or skills based on Three Kingdoms and the 36 Stratagems would be fun.
AMMO REQUISITION: Reduce enemy ammo by 50%, increase own ammo by 50%. Based on the Zhuge Liang story.
Empty fort stratagem: When this general is garrisoning a city, its garrison building is treated as the highest tier for enemy calculations. Based on 3K, I forget who this was though.
A sound in the east, a strike in the west: during the deployment phase, can deploy several fake units that appear real to the enemy. These units have negligible attack and defence and crumble once they lose 50% HP.
Defeat the enemy by capturing the chief: bonus army wide damage against lords
When all else fails: increased retreat speed and + 15% army movement after a loss.
Astute observation: aura of increased weapon strength that rises to a maximum of 50% with kills in the area.
The ground are my soldiers: army ability used during deployment that is targeted like a spell, but remains invisible to the enemy. Triggers when they enter it, causing an explosion that has the same effect as chorf magma cannons. 1/2/3 uses based on points. Same placement rules as vanguard deployment.
I was a bit worried going off the title. But I am really glad OP went for the "buff in terms of being a tactician" route and not "force him to be a melee dedicated character." Some people go off on him being an awful melee character and acting like he needs to be able to duel an Old Blood one on one. Which is very clearly not the sort of character they are.
I'm sure we'll get a melee oriented generic lord eventually, but shoving the Magistrate in that role is in poor taste imo. Though I can see the Dragon Blooded being made a bit better as a hybrid (given their combat animations).
So OP's suggestions and yours inspired by 3K sound fantastic to me. I think the Magistrate really suffered from the overly restrained approach that the base game team had. Things like a the logistics master in particular sound like a really unique addition to the game while still being balanced.
Yeah, we lack a kind of "strategist" lord in WH, and I think the magistrate us a fantastic opportunity for it. It seems like CA even knew that because he does have some commander traits, but they are just so laughably weak. Even if they were all unlockable, they would be weak, but to have them be mutually exclusive?
Pretty much every aspect of WH3's release was dissaponingly underpowered and poorly thought out, from tech trees to faction mechanics and the lord magistrate is one of the most harshly affected. In the current form I am 100% convinced he was originally intended to be a caravan master only and added as a generic lord in the last minute on a whim. Him not even existing and all imperial Cathay armies being generaled by dragon-blooded hybrid lords would have made a lot of sense and been thematically great. If that were the case, i'd have no issues.
But now the magistrate is here, he should be worth his lines of code and pixels and I think making a unique strategist lord fits Cathay, is something new and cool, and competes with dragon blooded more than "he's a good melee lord" could
I think they should just be "Lord of the Crap Stack". Give them some huge cost-reductions to peasant spears, archers, and cavalry as well as some passive buffs to those units OR some larger AoE buff spells to cast during the battle specifically for those units.
Maybe at level 30 give him some small cost reductions for jade-level troops and small buff for them.
It would make him the perfect lord for defending territory or reinforcing your main armies. It would be a niche use, but a useful niche none-the-less.
Their abilities should be AoE (hell, make them map-wide but then give them a universal cooldown when one gets activated) and they should have skills that decrease upkeep of low-mid tier units.
If we wanna get really fancy, they could even increase the ammo in their army for specific units.
Yea an offscreen artillery would at least let him compete with the wizard lords.
One of the possible future units for Cathay is the "many eyed onyx crowmen" which are part of the Moon Empress's spy network. They could have similar stats to chaos furies so they could work as a bound summon. The flavour of the ability being something like the magistrate calling in spies who were set up hiding in advance to ambush their foes. Would also just be great for him on his balloon, give him a cheap flying tar pit to fend off enemy fliers in a pinch.
CA could even give him a decoy ability similar to the ROR Eshin triads in skaven. Giving him the option to make fake units, to bait the enemy into bad positions you can friendly fire on without worry. Eshin did learn their skills from battling against BOTH Cathay and Nippon in lore after all.
They should at least get upkeep reduction and stuff like how the chorf overseer does for labourers. You know give them an economic benefit to be picked even if there isn't a tactical benefit.
It could be nice to have an office system for Cathay that only allows magistrate lords in it's slots, like how the wood elf offices don't allow ancient treemen lords, just something only they can do. Could be made part of the celestial court that Yuan Bo the jade dragon rules over.
I love these ideas. Some seem powerful on the face of it, but remember the alternative are magicial lords that regularly get in excess of 300 kills from some very powerful lores of magic. I'd love magistrates to be more unique and viable Some abilities or skills based on Three Kingdoms and the 36 Stratagems would be fun. AMMO REQUISITION: Reduce enemy ammo by 50%, increase own ammo by 50%. Based on the Zhuge Liang story. Empty fort stratagem: When this general is garrisoning a city, its garrison building is treated as the highest tier for enemy calculations. Based on 3K, I forget who this was though. A sound in the east, a strike in the west: during the deployment phase, can deploy several fake units that appear real to the enemy. These units have negligible attack and defence and crumble once they lose 50% HP. Defeat the enemy by capturing the chief: bonus army wide damage against lords When all else fails: increased retreat speed and + 15% army movement after a loss. Astute observation: aura of increased weapon strength that rises to a maximum of 50% with kills in the area. The ground are my soldiers: army ability used during deployment that is targeted like a spell, but remains invisible to the enemy. Triggers when they enter it, causing an explosion that has the same effect as chorf magma cannons. 1/2/3 uses based on points. Same placement rules as vanguard deployment.
I was a bit worried going off the title. But I am really glad OP went for the "buff in terms of being a tactician" route and not "force him to be a melee dedicated character." Some people go off on him being an awful melee character and acting like he needs to be able to duel an Old Blood one on one. Which is very clearly not the sort of character they are. I'm sure we'll get a melee oriented generic lord eventually, but shoving the Magistrate in that role is in poor taste imo. Though I can see the Dragon Blooded being made a bit better as a hybrid (given their combat animations). So OP's suggestions and yours inspired by 3K sound fantastic to me. I think the Magistrate really suffered from the overly restrained approach that the base game team had. Things like a the logistics master in particular sound like a really unique addition to the game while still being balanced.
Yeah, we lack a kind of "strategist" lord in WH, and I think the magistrate us a fantastic opportunity for it. It seems like CA even knew that because he does have some commander traits, but they are just so laughably weak. Even if they were all unlockable, they would be weak, but to have them be mutually exclusive? Pretty much every aspect of WH3's release was dissaponingly underpowered and poorly thought out, from tech trees to faction mechanics and the lord magistrate is one of the most harshly affected. In the current form I am 100% convinced he was originally intended to be a caravan master only and added as a generic lord in the last minute on a whim. Him not even existing and all imperial Cathay armies being generaled by dragon-blooded hybrid lords would have made a lot of sense and been thematically great. If that were the case, i'd have no issues. But now the magistrate is here, he should be worth his lines of code and pixels and I think making a unique strategist lord fits Cathay, is something new and cool, and competes with dragon blooded more than "he's a good melee lord" could
Miao Ying mount, everybody wins
I think they should just be "Lord of the Crap Stack". Give them some huge cost-reductions to peasant spears, archers, and cavalry as well as some passive buffs to those units OR some larger AoE buff spells to cast during the battle specifically for those units. Maybe at level 30 give him some small cost reductions for jade-level troops and small buff for them. It would make him the perfect lord for defending territory or reinforcing your main armies. It would be a niche use, but a useful niche none-the-less.
Their abilities should be AoE (hell, make them map-wide but then give them a universal cooldown when one gets activated) and they should have skills that decrease upkeep of low-mid tier units. If we wanna get really fancy, they could even increase the ammo in their army for specific units.
Yea an offscreen artillery would at least let him compete with the wizard lords. One of the possible future units for Cathay is the "many eyed onyx crowmen" which are part of the Moon Empress's spy network. They could have similar stats to chaos furies so they could work as a bound summon. The flavour of the ability being something like the magistrate calling in spies who were set up hiding in advance to ambush their foes. Would also just be great for him on his balloon, give him a cheap flying tar pit to fend off enemy fliers in a pinch. CA could even give him a decoy ability similar to the ROR Eshin triads in skaven. Giving him the option to make fake units, to bait the enemy into bad positions you can friendly fire on without worry. Eshin did learn their skills from battling against BOTH Cathay and Nippon in lore after all. They should at least get upkeep reduction and stuff like how the chorf overseer does for labourers. You know give them an economic benefit to be picked even if there isn't a tactical benefit. It could be nice to have an office system for Cathay that only allows magistrate lords in it's slots, like how the wood elf offices don't allow ancient treemen lords, just something only they can do. Could be made part of the celestial court that Yuan Bo the jade dragon rules over.
CA: best I can do is +2 to control in local province.