Age of Strategy Forums

Right now this unit is very underused, making technician who produces it underused as well. While the idea of laying down tnt that can be exploded is a nice concept, in practice it never gets any value. The reason is that its damage and bonuses are too low to have any impact, and it almost kills the technician itself (and damages other allies) if triggered immediately. But if not, enemy troops kill it easily as it only has 5 hp. Also it has an cooldown of wamping 6 turns(!).
How could explosive materials be changed to make them viable? Plenty of options, some of which could be chosen:
- frankly buff the damage, e.g. 20 dmg (still wouldn't kill a normal prod building or infantry) - or buff the bonuses so it becomes a real strategical feature
- remove affecting allies - artillery doesn't splash allies either
- half the cooldown (3 turns)
- buff the hp, orienting towards mines, e.g. 20 hp, so it can't be removed this easily

Topic just got overlooked?

It's not a pressing issue so it has low priority.

I think decreasing cooldown to 4 (I don't want this to become spamable) and increasing hp to 20 would be ok, but then let's classify it as mines so "sapper" units can remove it easily.

Sounds good!
Alas, even with what you suggest, I fear it won't make it really viable. So, I'd recommend one of the following two additional changes :

A ) Removing the ally damage upon trigger. Would help making it more of a dynamic weapon at least vs infantry.

B ) Buffing the damage oh so slightly - even an additional +2 base dmg would already make the difference between unimpressive or actually considerable.

(ofc also possible to first implement your change then wait and see if more action is needed)

I don't really understand why this unit cannot be made spam, the reptiles have a stealth anti-infantry unit that walks through the mountains and kills almost any infantry under poison, in 2 turns and this is cool (this is the first cool and useful stealth unit that I see in Ao games), against the background of these reptiles, demolitionists look, if not useless, then extremely situational.

We are talking about explosive materials, they can be used not just by saboteurs, but also technicians.

Chemeleons cost 3 now btw. They were very not fair with 2 cost.

I don't want it to be spamable because it will look stupid if explosive materials just lay all over the ground.

kingofgalaxies wrote: ↑Thu Nov 11, 2021 12:14 am B ) Buffing the damage oh so slightly - even an additional +2 base dmg would already make the difference between unimpressive or actually considerable.

Btw, this would help vilebomber as well who seems to be a bit on the weak side (same ability) .