I've posted this under an existing topic under General Suggestions, but I believe that a) this is a more Lothorien-specific, and b) is unique enough that it merits its own topic.
As discussed on that thread, the trees are generally very sparse, and terrain abilities tend to remove these trees, even
Elven Wood upon expiration. While I wouldn't say this puts Lothlorien at that huge a disadvantage, it results in the stealth mechanic, which all of Lothlorien's basic units make use of, being unfortunately underused outside of the fortress' mist upgrade which stealths any unit, not just the stealth-by-tree units.
Regarding the Spellbook, Lorien, as of 4.4, only has
Light of the White Lady as a passive spell, and while Galadriel is without a doubt very important to the elves of the golden wood, I'm not sure if the spell has a good enough thematic fit in the spellbook to merit the position of faction spell.
Note, I wrote the above paragraph in ignorance of the Edain Team's plans for Lorien and its spellbook. I hope that my idea is worth considering, at the very least, even if they have already decided.
So here is my proposed solution to both problems. Note that I am ignorant of the coding involved and of its possibility in the game.
Elven Wood is rebranded as
Reforestation, a passive spell with the following effect:
Each allied Mallorn Tree, Ent Moot, Lothlorien Outpost, and Mirkwood Outpost regularly spawns new trees in a radius around the structure.
If feasible, I would like there to be differentiation in spawn radius and spawn rate between the different buildings.
But if there's no differentiation, I'm thinking that this spell spawns a tree every three minutes and that the radius is similar to that of the
Earthquake spell.
Now, what are the implications of using this new spell?
- The stealth-by-trees mechanic of all relevant units, but especially the units of Lorien, have increased strategic value.
- All tree-removing mechanics such as terrain changing spells such as Devastation or buildings such as Lumber Mills increase in strategic value.
- The strategic potential of the fire mechanic increases, allowing a player to burn the elves out of their forests.
- Lorien's role as a stealth/forest based faction is reinforced.
- While other factions have stealth-by-tree units (Gondor/Arnor, Imladris) Lorien retains an advantage over them due to a) larger diversity of stealth-based units in the case of Gondor/Arnor, and b) Galadriel's Power of the Seer ability, allowing Lorien access to permanent vision and stealth detection over a portion of the map.
I hope you find this concept worthy of discussion and look forward to your responses.