Thank you for the suggestions! I'm curious to hear what other players have to say about this. Do others think that golems are underpowered, or that enemies scale too slowly relative to the player?

I would suggest to have two types of spaces for golems when starting in arena. One is for normal space and the other one is for golem only, it depends on the players which one they want to use for their golems if they want to gamble their golem and be swarmed or slowly moving up to the enemies.

I can't comment on late-campaign scaling, but I think golems are pretty good. While some melee may be able to achieve comparable survivability with better mobility, golems have better skills for damaging multiple enemies/objects. They also have the very nice meta advantage of never requiring a salary or food, freeing up resources for other uses over the long term. The golem merchant has usually shown up very early in the campaign for me though, maybe my opinion would be different if they showed up later.

I think Golems are really powerfull units. After i found out how powerfull at throwing and tossing the Stone Golem is, he is insanely dangerous. Had killed some of my units too when i wasn´t cautious and to close to the end of a map. The Bronzegolem is fine too, i think. But if you buff one it should be the bronze one, at least in my opinion. While i would love to always get in a playthrough the event with the golem merchant it would take a bit of the special feeling of golems. If i get Golems i was most often lucky to get them really early on, but i guess thats just a lucky coincidence?

Really would love interactions from Golems with Engineers, even if they would only special dialogue.

P.s.: Really love your games.

I have to agree with Blauerbrummer. Stone Golems are extremely powerful, especially if you toss enemies into the walls at the edges of maps (this typically will one shot classes like swordfighters, spearmen, and both golem types). Plus the "Smash" skill does good damage, knockback and has a solid chance to stun. The slow movement is necessary for balance.

As for Bronze Golems, they're decent too but they take longer to get going. Like, they can do serious damage to lightly armored or unarmored targets but armored ones give them some trouble (unlike Stone). They do get a lot better after they promote though, since they get even bulkier and get some better abilities.

The only thing I can suggest is that they should have interactions with Engineers like others have said (which makes sense due to Golems being machines and not magical constructs in this game).

To elaborate on why I think golems are relatively weak classes, I believe it's due to several factors that just end up compounding on themselves. I'll be comparing them with other melee frontlining units to better get my points across.
Issues with the class:
- Low mobility. It's most obvious and intentional weakness, 3 mov is a pretty big drawback in a game where unit positioning is crucial. Compared to Swordsman, Axefighter, and Spearman who all have base 4 mov, it may not seem like that much of a drawback, but a single extra point of mov really does make a unit much more flexible. Golems do naturally learn Engine Boost to increase their mov by 2 for a single turn, but this brings us to the next problem...
- Low base energy. Both golems have comparable base energy to Cavaliers. That is to say, their base energy tends to be abysmal. Whereas Sprint's measly 2 energy cost is typically an afterthought for units that have access to it (i.e. Swordsman, Barudit, anyone with the Runner's Cleats; these units will typically have high energy values), Engine Boost's relatively substantial 5 energy cost combined with golems' low base energy makes actually using the skill more limiting than one might expect. Mercifully, all of the golem class skills have extremely low energy costs. The issue of low base energy can also be bypassed by recruiting a golem with higher-than-average base energy, or one with New Engine, but in standard recruitment, you're not guaranteed to roll these traits.
- Mediocre availability. By the time golems start becoming recruitable (right after completing the first League Match), the player's current physical units would likely have already come online. At this point in the game, golems typically have little advantages over their melee contemporaries.
- Mediocre ability to incapacitate enemies. Bronze Golems rely purely on damage to incapacitate enemies. Compared to other melee physical units, their damage tends to be on the lower side due to their inability to equip weapons, lack of counterattacks before promotion, inability to gain Morale use its benefits, and worse mobility making it more difficult for them to get into position to take out enemies (e.g. reaching enemies to attack them, positioning them on terrain to increase damage). Bronze Golems do have some notable advantages, such as being able to take out several foes at once with their attacks if enemies are positioned correctly, and being able to trigger Backstab attacks without needing to be directly behind the enemy, However, these advantages are generally not enough to set them apart from the competition. Stone Golems fair better, instead relying on displacing enemies around the map to incapacitate them rather than raw damage. This might mean throwing them into water, lava, or eventually killing them outright by throwing them into a crevice. Of course, their capacity to incapacitate enemies in this manner is restricted by their poor mobility inhibiting their ability to position. Stone Golems do have the notable benefit of being able to promote into Avalanche to achieve an additional action after using Toss, allowing them to reliably incapacitate two enemies per turn with the right positioning. Stone Golems do also have access to attacks that may inflict stun, giving them an additional manner to incapacitate foes if displacing them does not yield results.
- Inability to counterattack. Though mentioned earlier, it still needs to be stressed that their lack of counterattacks generally make them inferior frontliners to engage in combat compared to other melee units who can not only position more easily but also deal damage in return. Depending on the circumstances (e.g. terrain, Preemptive Stance), these counterattacks may be enough to outright kill enemies.
- Inability to use equipment. While golems can use modules that boost their stats, their inability to equip certain items do limit their options compared to other classes. While weapons are the obvious one (particularly ones that increase attributes such as hit, counterattack, reflexes, range), not being able to equip items such as the Grappling Hook or the Runner's Cleats are another drawback. What equipment Golems have available to them are generally inferior to what more standard classes have to offer.

Thanks for the feedback, folks! Good food for thought here. I'll give the matter some more thought.

IMO to me it looked like the golems I saw were under leveled compared to my party.

I think I was level 8 and the initial Golems were 8 but the reinforcement golems were only level 4. (the battle map where we had to run past them).

I instead stayed there and enjoy killing the reinforcements.
I like having the option stay if you are strong enough to do so.
(don't change that :D). It was a nice reward for being a good player to get more XP and the nice gold on the side. Also FUN. LOL it was just fun to have to battle reinforcment golems. I think that is a good way to challenge a strong party.

But the reinforcement golems could be also at a equal level.

So hard to judge until I experience the same battle map with equal level golems.

But they are cool that is for sure. Their physical attacks were strong and hit multiple squares.

They seemed kinda tanky.

After I experience a full team of golems at the same level as me I will have a better idea.

Originally posted by Sephiroth:

IMO to me it looked like the golems I saw were under leveled compared to my party.

I think I was level 8 and the initial Golems were 8 but the reinforcement golems were only level 4. (the battle map where we had to run past them).

I instead stayed there and enjoy killing the reinforcements.
I like having the option stay if you are strong enough to do so.
(don't change that :D). It was a nice reward for being a good player to get more XP and the nice gold on the side. Also FUN. LOL it was just fun to have to battle reinforcment golems. I think that is a good way to challenge a strong party.

But the reinforcement golems could be also at a equal level.

So hard to judge until I experience the same battle map with equal level golems.

But they are cool that is for sure. Their physical attacks were strong and hit multiple squares.

They seemed kinda tanky.

After I experience a full team of golems at the same level as me I will have a better idea.

There are two frequent events. Either, you will end up with 'mechanic' being ambushed and your army swarmed by an army of Golems which is pretty easy if you didn't go full physical.

Then, you can meet mechanic who sells golems. I think it was an update following this post.

Golems are definitely strong. Even Bronze golem. Besides tossing enemies to cause instant death, they don't require an upkeep or food.

And folks, don't forget that you can toss your own units. In a mission where you need to protect a royal guardsman, on max difficulty, if you don't toss anything that can cover his back + heal nor have a cavalryman, he will just die causing you to lose the game in a moment.

Adrenaline helps but may not be sufficient.