What I was thinking was that there would be:

A: each unit/spell would cost a certian amount to put into your tech tree (If you've played fire emblem radiant dawn im thinking like how you equiped the skills, each unit costs points to put into your tech tree, as stated).

B: each faction would have their own unique units to download or whatever.

I was thinking along the line of that. so somebody can have a really good unit but it would take away from the rest of there army and spells.

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The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.

This sounds less like a DLC idea, and more like a sequel idea. I really like it, but I just kind of wonder if it would take away the Swords and Soldiers "feel"...

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If the moon was made of barbecued spare ribs, would you eat it?

IMO thors hammer is fine, dragon just needs a nerf. Boulder is good but it becomes very useless once towers are up.

Sounds interesting, but I think a new faction is more likely to happen.

david_A: I've never seen anyone use Thor's Hammer against me online (Viking players are very rare, and if you beat them they usuallyt pick Chinese in the rematch) and the only time I've used it is for humiliation/a coup de grace at a point when I have already won the match.

6/10 of the top 10 players main Chinese (also notice: no Viking at all). Almost every match I face an opponent who is using Chinese. You would think the devs would catch on, but no. Sword/terracotta nerf is a start, and I'm hoping that it will balance things out fairly enough, but I really doubt it will see a decline in Chinese users at all (and they'll still be the strongest faction).

I agree with your view of thors hammer but I think boulder is not to far from that same role the exception bieng if there are no towers up then boulder becomes a lot better. I don't think buffing thors hammer will make vikings any better unless they completly make it broken, I like the catapult changes I think that's a step in the right direction. The other problem I have with vikings is that rage and thors hammer are the only spells the damage multiple targets, rage requires the you have a good amount of units to deal good damage and that your opponents are stacked or else its not gonna do much and since it stacks your units it puts you at risk of a counter rage, poison cloud or fire arrows. Thors hammer is a better aoe spell but its expensive on research and mana cost.

I think we can all agree that the vikings are at a disadvantage right now, but the Chinese are not significantly better than the Aztecs if both are played well. It is true the 6 of the top 10 are main Chinese, but you failed to mention that the top player, and 2 of the top 3 (last time I checked) are main Aztecs. To me, this seems to indicate that if looking at the top 10 is a good gauge of balance, which isn't unreasonable, the Chinese and Aztecs are pretty much tied. Complaining solely about the Chinese because you happen to like the Aztecs is hardly fair. All three races have good/cheap tactics. Dart rushing and mass sacrifice/mind control come to mind if I wanted to pick on the Aztecs for example. If they make swords/terracotta worse than they are now what are the Chinese supposed to start with, especially against the Vikings? A good berserker rush is tough to stop as it is. To really improve balance, all that needs to be done is give the vikings a better chance if the game lasts beyond the first few minutes, in my opinion (I don't play vikings).

I think one way Vikings could be improved is tweaking the Heal spell. I don't really see this spell used very often, despite how essential it seems. I think the mechanics are fine, but the price may need to be changed. Since the Chinese Shield spell costs 70 gold to research, maybe Heal should cost 70 gold as well? Shield used to cost 120 gold, like Heal does now. So maybe Heal needs to be put in a similar price range?

I think the easiest way to help the heal spell would be to make it aoe. I find it odd that vikings don't have an aoe spell till tier 3, which may help in the reason why they are weak past the first few mins of the game as BusterK stated. If they made their tier 2 spell, heal, a little bit weaker in heal but aoe much like the opposite of Aztecs Poison, I believe this would help them considerably without making it potentially broken, if they adjust the heal amount to correspond with the new aoe property.

maybe they can add a small amount of damage to the snowstorm spell. it would be good if the vikings had an other aoe spell to complement it, but if it gave out a small amount of damage (maybe just under half a dart blowers hp?) it would give the vikings some survive ability during the time you dont have thors hammer and when your wait for it to recharge. correct me if im wrong but didnt snowstorm get nocked down in price teir or something? if so tell me plz. tis to lazy to check for myself

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The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights.

Compare Chinese options to Aztec. Chinese have a lot more ways of dealing with other races than Aztec do (and for Vikings, even more). They also have a LOT better ways of pushing, whereas Aztec only have necro (which Chinese can either stone OR arrow) and maybe MC. Dragon wins over boulder almost always (people usually have at least 1 tower by late game) since the former can go straight for the opponent's economy.

Unit for unit Chinese will ALWAYS win. The ONLY way Aztec can win (against Chinese) is through Mind Control+giant sacrifice, and there is no other alternative! The fact that Chinese have so many easy ways to win kind of makes your Aztec argument a moot point. Oh let's not forget how late game Chinese can just Dragon you, and the only time I've successfully recovered from a dragon is guess what, Mind Control, and I had a lot of mana too luckily.

It has less to do with the fact that I main Aztec (it's not like I only play as them, you know) and more to do with my experience playing S&S on the PSN (600+games and counting)... and lol, DART rushing is only effective vs Viking (cause guess what? Chinese swords can reflect), and MC only comes late game when Chinese most likely already have the upper hand. Berserker rushing can be stopped by Zen Master rushing or stalling with stone/swords and getting rockets. Or you can use swords+shield and arrow. Monkeys might even work too.

How many Aztec players do you face compared to Chinese on an average basis? For me it's maybe 2/10 times (non-chinese), maybe 1/10. Fact is they are a broken faction and it shows both on the leaderboards and the frequency they get picked. Hopefully with the nerfs it might make using jaguars vs swords viable now, but like I said previously I really doubt it will see a decline in Chi users.

Dragon needs a nerf, and we need more maps!!!!
Nerf Dragon, boost Viking a bit, and it might be fine.