Why did you limit the Ceremony ritual to only 1 Shed? This is one of my favorite civilizations to play, and those are very useful against other civilizations that are hard to counter except with lightning magic.

The original Shed summon numbers stuck out a bit as a little too good for the ritual cost without any really justifiable modifiers like a chance to summon a stupid unit/fail, rare required terrain, etc. A demon with level 2 storm magic for 75 Sacrifices is already a fantastic summons, so having the potential to explode to 3 summoned at once made this a bit too swingy for a very accessible early game ritual IMO.

I do appreciate the feedback regarding the importance of lightning damage for High Priestess. If I do keep Shed summons as is I'll definitely consider adding in another source of lightning damage elsewhere.

I love the Hands of Baal as they add some breadth to a pretty a narrowly focused faction. I suggest reworking access to them with a special commander that focuses on producing them--that way you can use this commander as a buy-in cost to opt into more consistently producing them.

I'm imagining a "assassin trainer/guildmaster" kinda flavor. I call her "Mistress of Stingers" Here's a simple version:

She would have a standard mage statline, maybe 5 hp. Sets up in the Rear. A poisoned dagger, with an basic assassination strike. Nothing fancy.

Strategy layer traits:
ArmyTrainer+1
Stealth

Rituals: All cost Sacrifices and 3 AP
Transform Captain->Assassin

Transform up to 5 Baalite infantry->Baalite Murderers (Mid+, assassinates with shortsword, Javelin, glass cannon melee)

Transform Assassin->Hand of Ba'al
...


Originally I was thinking about her turning lots of baalite infantry into fewer upgraded units, to represent deadly training/initiation where only the strong survive. BUT I worry that's not possible without giving all Baalite infantry "Expendable" which seems like a big change just for this one mechanic.

Glad to hear you're liking the new content. I think that's a pretty solid concept you have as well so I'll give this some serious consideration next time I gear up to add some new content.

So I tried out the dark matron! I love what you came up with for her statline and flavor text, very thematic. It's an interesting choice to make the upgrade from assassin to hand a citadel recruitment.

This IS stronger than a ritual, since you can do it all over the map. Well... I disagree with it, honestly.

I'm not going to use my expensive hand of baal as a lone stealthy scout... So i don't need them out in the boonies. Spreading them to all my armies is an option! So there's that. But honestly, it's always seemed better to group them up. Grouped assassins are more likely to get last hits after all, and with no stealthy troops to lead, you need them all in one spot to make stealthed activities viable. (Small gripe, it clutters the menu).

The cost is also an issue. 100 Sacs, AND an assassin is a LOT. Hands of Baal are great, sure, but for 75 sacs I can cast the crucial Ceremony of Baal, and get a shed or lammashta...

You need to buy a Matron AND an assassin before you even THINK about paying this cost. So I think it could stand to be a little more efficient. Heck, even if it was must-buy cheap, it would still be throttled by the assassin spawn rate.

I don't think that 50 Sacs would be too low for this effect in ANY implementation. But turning it into a ritual on the Matron could be a small nerf to go with. It makes more thematic sense to me, too...

Thanks for the feedback! I was already slating the Hand of Ba'al promotion to be reduced to 50 sacrifices, so validating to hear you reached the same conclusion. For the promotion at citadel vs. ritual method, I'm leaning towards just having both available but with a slight catch for the citadel promotion.

I have currently removed this classes unique relationship with Ziggurats, and I've been exploring a way to reintroduce that but with a more complex mechanic other than a few summon strings. The matron will be receiving a new ritual to build new Ziggurats on City Ruins, giving the class a bit of slack to rebuild over the rubble of the settlements sacrificed for their rituals. Additionally they will now uniquely be able to use Ziggurats as citadels, and the Hand of Ba'al promotion will be available only there. So it starts as it did before, only available via the Matron, but as settlements are destroyed and Ziggurats built, Hand of Ba'al promotion spots spread as well.