Seems like mostly good changes. I don't know if I'll be using swordsman ++ anymore if he's just a lot worse. It was already pretty interchangeable with axeman or pikeman in many cases.
I doubt the bat change will see much use but it is pretty funny and flavorful. It might be possible to see a Taurus or Tombstone after the patch. Rook being reduced in cost is... A little strange. I don't agree with it but it won't make a huge difference balance-wise.
I think spider promote will be too good on spiders that move more than 2 squares, some of them can really scoot a long ways right now. That's the main concern I have so far.
Also frog into slime ghostlyness wasn't a balance change. As a matter of principal, now that it's called ghostlyness I want it to stay in.
it is quite hard to get rook upgrades that leave normal lines intact, don't add diagonal attacks, don't spam move only, and have a decent cost. I think it will throw base rook into being slightly too strong and drag the others for the ride to some degree, but a classic unit being a little OP is actually kinda nice - good ammo against anyone saying the game is super unbalanced or p2w when zeropride can just beat them down with pawns and such. :)
everyone says this, so it's probably true. I thought it would be the best test against the idea of having all the radial minions promote like templar->paladin, apprentice->wizard, drake->dragon, mephit->demon, etc. but spider is among those and possibly the most hazardous. I was inclined to see what an OP spider looks like, but maybe it should stay the way it is... although for some reason I really want to know what an OP spider looks like lol.
Hmm... I was thinking about Spider promotion possibilities, and how a spider really should be eating its victim, and I came up with this.
Considering Spider is colourbound, not very useful (but "Attack Poisoned unit" could always go on Knight squares or something?), but just to illustrate the idea...
How bad could an OP spider really be...?
Here's some years-old pictures of what I would make for Bishop/Rook (ignore the undercosts, movesets are important)... I'm pretty sure I brought them up because I think they look especially elegant for upgrades. I remember you denying them for some reason (not in the sarcastic 'for some reason' sense, I really don't remember why - although probably if I remembered it, it would be the sarcastic meaning tbh).
Anyway, I like these a lot because I think a classic unit with the theme being that it is diagonal (bishop) or axial (rook) getting like 20000 move squares into the other direction is ugly, getting TELEPORTS is ugly, and the two not being the same upgrade path but rotated 45 degrees is also ugly. They're all aesthetic disagreements but that's my view on it, you may consider getting attacks like what I suggested 'ugly' probably.
-main_gi
hey now, bishop gaining 'angelic' teleports is super sneaky and cool.
but those movesets do look quite appealing, I just feel like there is something wrong with a diagonal attacking rook for anyone that has it deeply encoded into their mind, maybe in the same way that teleports and such look to you, and in the same way, overwriting the normal moves they start with using unblockables and such has the same effect on me.
Very hard to retain some semblance of 'purity' on these units across tiers, but yours actually manage to notice that as important which makes them a lot more appealing to me.
shogi has diagonal-attacking rooks. granted, they're the result of promoting, but the idea does exist in actual chess lore. Bishops do the same thing, but orthogonal instead.
If spider promoted on poisoning as sylph on pushing, to just higher tier of self, and spider+++ into base arachnid, I think this would be completely fine. Maybe not even enough to make all spider tiers appealing enough, but I can see trying at least spider+++, and maybe base competes with base sylph for spot ? Anyway, it would be the theme of your original intention, far from too good, and some way to boost spider for at least experimenting with it.
This is a good sugestion.