Bakies are in an odd place. Their true desired terrain is towns, but they are uniquely bad at using Mercenaries. Meanwhile, their mine-squatting kit provides mostly strategic value. You wind up hungry for a late game iron sink. I don't think they need a broad buff, but they could gain an option or two without getting OP.

O Bakemono are a fun unit type that falls off pretty quickly. It's struck me as odd that the bakies are so well equipped--except their biggest lads. It would be cool if you could upgrade them to an armored version in citadels. Say, 5 Iron to to give 1 O Bakie armor 1 and a slightly better mace.

I could also see it being restricted to only Castles or something. They might get Armor 2 for 10 iron in this version, to represent them using Empire armor tech. I like this because it plays into their identity as being born in mines but gaining their real power from conquering human locations-like the Dai Same with ports.

Thanks! That seems like a reasonable suggestion and I'll give that some thought.

OK. This one is more...biggly. But maybe you'll appreciate hearing something you weren't already thinking of.
Even though they are more a faceless goonsquad than the Senate, looking at all that samurai armor leaves me craving for something invoking wandering samurai fiction. So I have imagined something in the vein of the Imperial Hero. Rituals as follows:

Lv.1 Trained by a Master (Abandoned Mine) (upgrade) 9 AP

Lv.2 Find the Swordsmith (Iron Bog) (upgrade) 3 AP, 25 G, 25 Iron

Drive out Pirates (Pirate Port) (Turns to Port) 50 Gold

Best the Kappa (Ford w/no Sentinel Kappa Boss) (Gain Sentinel Kappas on Ford—Kappa Boss has farsight and 1 G/turn) 25 Gold

Lv.3 Forge the Legendary Sword (Crater or Deep Earth Iron Deposit) (upgrade) 3 AP, 50 Iron

Claim the Forest’s Heart (Ancient Forest) (Turns to Shadow Wood, spawn big pack of Ugulu Onis) 3 AP

Swear Fealty (Must share tile with Dragon Emperor) (Becomes Stupid and summons an army of Dragon Hybrids to lead. Aggressively moves on capturable terrain)


At recruitment, the hero would be much like a Bakimono General, but with Stealth and inability to lead troops. After Trained by a Master, he would gain some HP, the ability to lead, and Evasion.
After Finding the Swordsmith, he gets more HP, Armor 2, and more weapon damage.
His final form, with the meteorite sword, changes only his weapon profile, gaining the (magic) tag, a higher initiative, and a large amount of damage.

Thanks for sharing a very in depth and creative concept! I'm not sure I'd want to add an equivalent to the Imperial Hero to the Bakemono since they are already a robust summoner faction centered around their powerful Sorcerer. However, I think there could be room for the Bakemono Generals to have a few utility rituals, Dragon Emperor to have a unique ritual, and for the Sorcerer to have a unique interaction with Ancient Forests.

Bakemono is a very interesting hybrid. If your era is pop low (Dark Ages for example), there will probably be a lot of greater mines, meaning you will have a ton of free spawn, potential citadels, and resources to gather legions of decent troops, now augumented by your generals upgrading the freespawn to armored troops (the Sho now shines, from the weakest to the strongest, the Swodsman. The damage is nice, but the extra HP makes a difference for the sturdyness of the unit). If it is pop high, there will be less mines, but more blood, so your summons come in to clutch. So you can be a warlord or a ritual class, depending on the hand you are dealt. You are not the strongest warlord, or even strongest hybrid warlord, but having access to decent magic and hirable tier 2 casters (although rare, but you can make them immortal if you save up enough blood), makes you relevant in low blood maps.

From the recent additions, I would also like to say the gates are interesting. It is probably a wise choice to give them to the Uba, who was otherwise kinda pointless compared to the shaman. That mobility tool means your immortal sorcerors can now get right back to action after reforming. 25 blood is cheap for an army teleport, but as it requires quite a bit to get it set and have an upfront cost of the gates, I think it is fine.

PS: The armored Os are nuts. It was already a good troop and ok meat shield, specially for 25 gold, but with 2 armor they are nuts.

Not much to suggest, but I just realized you can use the gates teleport to go to other realms, most importantly Hades. I am not sure how well prepared you are to go there (perhaps a full Oni army if you moded them to have hades immunity, wink wink?), but a quick teleport there and making the Uba build a gate for return asap before she dies could work. Just need to have vision there, so I would suggest a basic hades vision ritual, perhaps seeing the location coresponding to the one the mage cast the ritual from, so you can see the Hades shadow woods that match yours.

That would give a little bit of more Oni flavor. I think leaning too heavily into the Oni stuff could hamper the concept of an already very unique class, they are Bakemono after all, so I won't suggest more necromancy stuff. That would be better left for a Oni only class.

PS 2: Do have a suggestion. Bow Dai are objectively superior to Sword Dai, having just 1 less HP but otherwise being the exact same unit. I suggest changing the sweeping Great Sword of the Bow Dai to a Broad Sword, I imagine then carrying katana rater than odashi.

Nice! Glad to hear the new "Training" rituals are hitting the mark.

I think Hades vision being tied to the Spirit Gate is a good addition. Traveling to/invading Hades would be a pretty substantial feat even with Oni gaining Hades Immunity, so I think that's a totally fine suggestion for the few games where extra planar excursions become warranted.

The Bakemono "Archery General" melee attack change is a good suggestion and I would actually take it one step further and have it apply to the "Dai Bakemono" as well, as the same dynamic exists where the Dai Bakemono Archers also carry sweeping greatswords in the base game.

Armor Training for the O'Bakemono may gain a small gold cost, but not quite decided on that yet.

Summon King is the baki's only tier 3 ritual, and it kind of lacks texture.

It has this unique gimmick where each fortified citadel is an opportunity to cast it. But in practice this usually just means your sorceror needs to walk around a bit in between casts.

My idea is, make certain types of citadels always spawn certain kings. Ports will always produce lucky gods. Towers and sky cities will always result in Tengu Kings. Cities for Dai Oni. And the capital and the King's Castle will both result in a Dragon Emperor...

Ruined Castles can result in a new, ninja-themed king, perhaps throwing shadow magic 2?

I've had a few bones to pick with the Bakemono rituals lately. For Summon King specifically, the Dai Oni is significantly more powerful than the other summons, the 1 "King" per citadel restriction is almost there but the inclusion of ALL citadels makes it a bit trivial, and it's just another "summons a big guy" ritual.

Currently I plan on a few adjustments to make this a bit more interesting. The cost will reduce from 500 to 300 with the amount of extra troops summoned in with the "king" reduced appropriately, the terrain requirement adjusted to a custom list of "greater citadels" that notably excludes Guard Towers and Ports, and the Dai Oni moved to a different ritual entirely.

However, each "King" will now be a mini-warlord that will enable/boost recruitment offers for their corresponding troops. There will also be 3 new "Kings" added for more variety, with one basically following/inspired by your suggestion (a Shinigami that boosts ninja recruitment, and it will be a special string that appears exclusively in Old Castle Ruins). The Dai Oni will appear in a separate level 3 ritual for 500, and will now be a unique commander. The Dai Oni will also have his own version of the "Summon King" ritual where Oni Generals are summoned and claim specifically Guard Towers.

That sounds awesome!

Unit spotlight: The Tanuki.
You summon them up, they have sage magic 2, you roll them into your army and forget about them. They can lead troops alone, if you really wanted. It's not bad, they aren't underpowered. Just boring. I say they need an alternative use, not to make them stronger at what they do already, just more versatile.

Tanuki are classic woodland tricksters! So I think you should be able to have them hide in forests and jungles, just like the Selkie does in swamps. In their stationary, invisible form, they'd have an assassination attack that blasts the enemy army with confusion in a massive aoe.

This is a stealth buff to ninjas, who are the only ones who can help turn this suicide attack into a survivable ambush.

This is a great suggestion. Once again, the Tanuki was a unit I was already eyeing as being kind of a less interesting/flat out redundant summon with the Kitsune, but a confusion assassination attack is a very unique way to capture their theme.

My one concern with the summon kings change is a disagreement on which is most powerful. Sure, the Dai oni might be the most powerful combatant, but by far the most important king to have is the dai tengu, since the gold-recruited tengu it provides are the core of the bakemono lategame

The short answer for this is that both will be balanced to meet their new roles and the goal is to make the Bakemono endgame feel more varied. Dai Oni is getting more features rather than simply being a single strong unit to meet its new status as the top-tier unique summon, while Dai Tengus will summon in with a much smaller force of tengus with the focus shifted towards their enabling of new recruitment in the long term. Additionally, Tengu units are a little more varied with warriors serving as melee swordsmen with airshield instead of them all just having the same winds attack.

Progress overall has been in a slump for a while due to my schedule becoming extremely hectic, but that should be clearing up in a few weeks. However, Bakemono was a class I had a chance to dive in to recently and I ended up drafting up way more changes than I had anticipated. I'll just dump a bunch of WIP notes below for some food for thought/feedback...

Bakemono shamans are cut, replaced by an expansion on Uba and Chunari as recruitment offers.

Uba can now promote into Nushi. At level 1 they have a "healing potion" spell (similar to Witch Brew), at level 2 they gain a new and relatively inexpensive ritual, "Invoke Thirst". This summons stationary "Jubokko" units at ancient forests and flag the forest for ownership preventing further animal spawns. Jubokko are similar to Shadow Trees but possess more powerful life steal attacks and can ghoulify defeated enemies. Bakemono are shifting from "destroys ancient forests" to "pacifies ancient forests"

Chunari are now offered for recruitment instead of summoned, they have Bakemono rituals + "Build Spirit Gate" at level 2 when promoted to a Hannya.

Spirit Gates have a few changes: Built at Old Battlefields instead of Shadow Woods, spawn packs of semi-stupid Shikome instead of full stupid ugulu oni, Spirit Walk ritual is now a Stygian Paths "move quickly in Hades" effect that must be cast from a Spirit Gate. Additionally, Spirit Gates serve as a prerequisite for the Dai Oni summon.

Ninjas are a bit cheaper, and rare free spawn at bandit lairs is replaced with Dai Ninja being able to promote Bakemono Sho into Ninja for a moderate gold cost.

Port recruits are rebalanced a bit with Ebi getting weaker, but Kani getting stronger and recruited in sets of 3 like Dai Bakemono.

Structure of summoning rituals is changed with Lesser/Greater beings cut and some of their exclusive units either combined into Summon Oni, or now being a recruitment enabled by a commander in Summon Warlord.

Oni Summoning can have stronger potential summons on an Old Battlefield but it isn't a requirement, and the small % chance of getting stupid units is cut.

"Summon Lesser Oni" "(19) indicates old battlefield exclusive"
"(19)c*Mujina"
"Wanyudo" New Unit - Ethereal frontline trampler/fireaura.
"Ko Oni"
"Shikome"
"Ao Oni"
"Aka Oni"
"Bakeneko"

"Summon Greater Oni"
"(19)c*Jorogumo"
"(19)c*Shuten Doji"
"(19)Gozu & Mezu" - Now Unique, buffed to be immortal.
"(19)Shinigami" New Unit - Frontline with single target deathtouch + fear aura
"Nogitsune" New Unit - Frontline that can spread disease and curses to weak enemies.
"Wanyudo"
"Ao Oni"
"Aka Oni"
"Omukade"

Summon King, now re-named Summon Warlord, has reduced cost, stricter terrain guidelines as to what qualifies as a "Greater Citadel", and summons are generally a little toned down in regards to the amount of troops they come with and overall spell casting level. But on the flip side they all enable several new types of recruitment and further boost existing recruitments when duplicates of the same warlord are controlled.

"Dai Tengu" - Lvl 3 caster - Enables Konoha Tengu, Tengu Warriors, and Tengu Weaponmaster Commanders.
"Lucky God" - Lvl 2 caster with a global gold buff - Enables Kappa, Kappa Shaman Commanders, and Komainu.
"Dynasty Alchemist" - Lvl 2 caster with immortality - Enables new Firelancer troops, Rocket Battery siege weapons, and lantern farsight scouts.
"Dynasty Prince" - Mounted/fast Lvl 2/2 caster - Enables "Dynasty troops" for roles of: Heavy Infantry, "Repeater Crossbows", and Cavalry(with a rarer cavalry commander variant).
"Tanuki Rascal" - Stealthy Lvl 2 caster with a mass confusion assassination attack (creative credit to Gobby for this suggestion) - Enables Tanuki Ninjas and boost recruitment for normal ninjas
"Emperor Tatsu" - Lvl 3 caster with powerful stats - Only Warlord summoned with no guards, enable recruitment for non-commander lvl 1 mages, and expensive Tatsu commanders.


Dai Oni is now unique and moved to its own "Summon Oni King" ritual. It can be cast anywhere but will have a requirement of Spirit Gates owned, probably 2-3 so it's not exceedingly difficult, but also doesn't fall into your lap on certain ages. The Dai Oni will enable direct recruitment of many new oni troops and commanders, and those commanders will in turn further boost the oni troops recruitment chances. I had previously pitched the oni commanders would be summoned at guard towers, but I'm rethinking it's a better perk and ties into the new "warlord" mechanic that they are added as gold recruits instead. The Dai Oni will also have means to transport his armies to both Hades and Infernal planes.

My knee jerked when you said you were axing the little casters, but I can see how they might be unnecessary with Chunari muscling in on their niche. The change distinguishes the class from the Troll king a little, which is cool (Bakimono Shaman and goblin Shaman have the same sprite, right?)
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The tanuki warlord is an interesting take. I imagined the confusion blast would be so strong it would only be balanced as a stationary "ambush only" gimmick. A tanuki warlord would need one that isn't so devastating, maybe on par with lv. 2 confusion spells... But at that point, it's just a tiny tweak on your standard mind magic.

Here's a tweak to salvage my old idea into the new concept: The tanuki Rascal loses the ambush weapon. Instead, he has a ritual that lets him permanently promote some lesser tanuki into a stationary Trickster, that wields the big honking confusion blast. Only in forests and jungles!
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The new look for Dai Oni is flavorful! But VERY dependent on map generation. My advice: Make Summon Warlord the automatic free ritual for the sorcerers. That way, a savvy player need only opt in to the Dai Oni ritual if it is feasible in their game.
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Here's some more general feedback: this a lot of new content, mostly surrounding late-game stuff. That IS where the class needed it the most, but all this new stuff sort of worsens the jarring thematic shift the class has. Will these new troops have bakimono sprites instead of the old "dragon-blooded humans?"

- Yeah, dropping the shamans was more of a balance decision to support the new Uba/Chunari dynamic without their recruit chance being abysmal, but ultimately I think it's a rather negligible loss for the class.

- So far in my testing the confusion ambush being on par with a level 2 spell (25 radius) seems to be the best fit, while Tanuki Ninjas have a 1 strike confusion in place of a shuriken attack. This way the rascal starts as a stealthy assassin/caster hybrid with the confusion effect replacing a traditional assassination, while this can be ramped up the more tanuki ninjas are added to the army. A level 3 confusion burst puts the ambusher somewhere on par with Belial's Corruption attack and needs a steep cost to justify it's potential to completely wipe an army. Stationary ambush units have definitely proven difficult to implement since it's very much an all or nothing gamble on a single tile, which the Selkie is a good example where this doesn't quite hit the mark. I'm definitely leaning more towards cheap inexpensive ambushers like the Enchanter's mimic where the very act of making an army unexpectedly halt it's movement for a battle can justify the cost and any casualties are a bonus. So to that end I think there will be potential for simply leaving behind Tanuki ninjas to fulfill that role, but I'm not strictly opposed to a unique effect where a more potent stationary unit could be created, I'm just not sure a battlefield wide blast will be on the table.

- Yes, I didn't specify but currently my plan is to have "Summon Oni King" be free so that it and "Summon Warlord" will be learned at level 3. The Spirit Gate/Old Battlefield prerequisites are definitely variable enough where having the potential to roll this ritual over Warlord would be too punishing and I'd like it to feel like a reward to work towards rather than getting railroaded into a overly difficult objective by RNG.

- So this is where I think some description text on my part for new units and the ritual will go a long way, and this is purely my own headcanon at this point. This thematic disparity already kind of existed with having a wide variety of spirits/creatures lumped into the same faction as Oni, and being separated only by two different sets of rituals that mechanically are pretty much redundant with each other aside from the different pools of units.

How I'm envisioning this new setup is that "traditional summoning" only grants Oni + malevolent spirits that directly serve the Oni King, but none of them really reach the same levels of power as say, demonic lieutenants. The Oni King is basically a god, but it's difficult to summon him without preparation and there's only one. So, "Summon Warlord" thematically is representing that the Bakemono is paying tribute to a leader of another "faction" and gifting them a fortress on Elysium in return for their services and the loyalty of their followers. Among the six new summons there's 2 groups: Tanuki, Lucky God, Emperor Tatsu, and Tengu represent the powerful but still lesser rulers of non-Oni spirits/beings that can be swayed into an alliance, where the Dynasty units are implied to be from basically fantasy/Elysium China and are warlords from a nation bordering where the Bakemono originate. The only remaining "dragon blooded" unit is the non-commander mages enabled by the Emperor Tatsu (formerly Dragon-Blooded Maiden summoned with Dragon Emperor). The Dynasty Alchemist represents bringing over inventions rather than an army, so both the fire lancers and the sky lantern (balloon scout) are represented with bakemono. The Prince is now the only source of human troops and they're a new style of sprite with distinctly Three Kingdoms China looking armor.