Vampire Coast suggestions

#387083

After just recently getting the VCoast DLC despite quite a bit of TW:WH hours, I'm quite enjoying it more than most campaigns, yet I have some gripes. Some of these have been mentioned in other posts but these are just the ones I feel are important.

1. Confederation. The lack of confederation is annoying. How can you be a "Pirate King" if all other pirates won't join under you? I've had to use a mod to recruit them after they've been defeated, which isn't quite what I think makes sense. Another post mentioned allowing confederation after all 3 shanties are collected, which I find would be quite nice.

2. Lack of units. I think the VCoast units could be buffered by a small dip into Ogres. They're a full DLC purchase, yet they have the one of the fewest units out there. This could be combined with #3. The Black Spot (gunnery mob) RoR is Anti-Large but only in melee.

3. Lack of special buildings. I know these are planned to be expanded on later, but there's a tiny selection of VCoast-specific unique buildings. You could use #2 and make these Ogre "diplomacy camps" which would be a building that allows you to recruit Ogres, or increase the unit count you could recruit should CA want to limit the amount of ogres you can get.

4. Aranessa Saltspite. The 3 other lords are quite honestly very strong in their own ways:

• Noctilus gets a Necrofex (no yellow line for ranged but still) as well as the best from the Lore of Shadows and Vampires. Also gets regen through a skill. Faction effects are probably the best of all VCoast imo, Lord effects let him get Necrofexes that are both stronger and much cheaper.
  
• Luthor gets a Terrorgheist which grants regen, a pistol shot (combined with a flying mount too!) that may only get 1 skill buffing it, but it has the Disrupted effect which is amazing. Not only does he get the regen through the Terrorgheist, he also gets The Hunger. Faction effects are decent since they let you get allied TK units including some from VCounts, Lord effects are probably the best due to the 25% spell resist on the army which money can't buy unlike Noctilus's upkeep reduction.
  
• Cylostra has a Leviathan mount which is okay, certainly optional though but it's functional. Quite good physical resistance on a caster, Lore of the Deep with a huge upcasted spell benefits from her item and skills, and summon-able ethereal cavalry. +40% magic item drop chance too on the item. Faction effect is kind of meh since it's all about money but it does allow you to staff Syreen as cheap front-lines, Lord effect is again meh, since she buffs Syreen costs but they have magic already, 5% physical resist for the army is kind of... decent I guess.
  
• Aranessa gets a Promethean mount, which is a joke. In general, she's better off the mount. Despite her defeat trait, she gets no regen of any sort. Her entry level skill into her special yellow line is easy to achieve as VCoast as you're travelling far from your capital anyways. The last skill in that line is good. Creatures of Manan should also benefit Rotting Promethean Gunnery Mobs, and Gifted Sailor is quite weak. Her item is decent but nothing to write home about. Her starting territory is a single region province but only 8 slots despite 3 special buildings, meaning you're extremely limited on what to build here. She's also not undead so can't benefit from Lore of Vampires. Faction effects are good, Lord effects are meh considering 2/3 are for units that are mid-range at best, and the other isn't that useful for high-end units either.
  

My suggestions for Aranessa is to switch her mount to either a Fell Bat or a Scurvy Dog, at least to allow her to take out the ranged back line since VCoast lacks any ground-based units that aren't artillery for that (I don't count Scurvy Dogs as their stats are trash). Mournguls kind of work I guess but they're still moderately slow. The Mutant trait could easily switch Perfect Vigor for some form of regeneration. I also think she should be able to get reduced Raiding penalties through a skill somewhere, seeing as how that's one of her main things. I'd also bump Sartosa to a 10 slot city, seeing as it's the only region in its province.

5. Hero caps. Lack of ways to increase Gunnery Wight and Mourngul Haunter hero caps. You can get 1 through your LL (or 4 if you could confederate), and then the only other source is coves, which you can't put in your own territory, and for which you have to sacrifice income buildings. I'd allow two buildings to be built in coves, one of each of the pairs.

6. Infamy. Aside from triggering shanties, and 4 one-time purchases of "Legendary" admirals, it serves no purpose. Finding another use for Infamy as a recurring expense would be great, which would also allow you to delay shanties if you're in a tight spot already. There is the Commandment to lower Infamy but that's basically it.

7. Stance issues. Flagship Expansion now allows you to increase your WoM at sea, except you have to manually turn it on from normal stance. Sea travel is already lengthy, I shouldn't have to manually make my moves to refill my WoM. Then there's attacking settlements. You should be able to attack from sea like Black Arks. If you sack or establish a cove, it puts you on land, and if you establish a cove you can't get back into the water usually. Next turn the garrison is back, forcing you to detour to get back at sea. Razing should put you on land though. As mentioned in another post, armies that are also ships are unable to move while in ambush stance.

8. Rites. All-in-all, they are quite weak. Sea Mist is the only decent one, though the limitation on vanguard is odd. Eternal Service is short for having a 50% chance, and Control is never really an issue for VCoast. Queen's Cannon implies you'll get more Queen Bess, and Casualty replenishment isn't an issue after Short Victory is achieved. Bountiful Treasure should consider the level of Buried Treasure buildings, as well as amount of coves.

9. Treasure maps. It's nice, but I shouldn't have to click out to see if it's a Miserly hoard or a Great one. There also should be some sort of hint system if you've attempted to dig a number of times near the few pixels you need to be on to find it.

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Again this is easily in my top 3 factions, and I know there are a number of issues here but I'm greatly enjoying them despite their flaws.