What about improvements for medals like I suggested considering they require twice as much exp to medal as a human crossbow unit, 50% more upkeep, give twice as much experience when killed to the enemy, and are less mighty meek friendly etc?
Mighty meek is something to consider too, since level 1 might meek units will have +1attk, +1dam on it. If you were to cast mighty meek on it, it would do minus -1 att & dam on anything level 2 and up.
You want to compare it to a ballista unit? Dwarven def and resist is only 1 point in each higher. Its health is 4 less. It has a retaliation, which means if attacked it can lose its crossbow attack that turn. Speaking of, its range attack without medal is 2 less, damage 6 less, and range one notch less. (only long instead of extra long, the difference between hitting units when they first appear and waiting for them to get closer, also the difference between reaching the enemy cannon etc)
What ever you compare it to, human crossbow unit, ballista, longbowman or wildblade. It comes up as a little less.(especially for something that needs a warhall too) Its only useful for rushing in a defense of a walled town when you can't afford to rush in anything better.(like ballista) And worth considering disbanding when you do get something better and gold income is less then great.
With something decent at medals, its a fair reward for having the units survive that long (they die easy, especially in autoresolve) and reason to keep around after rushing in for emergency defense.
You telling me that if crossbowman had UG concealment at silver they'd be too powerful? That EW at gold would make them terrors of the UG? I agree the unit doesn't need "dramatic" improvement. But it does need some from my experience, if its to be a level 2 unit that requires warhall. Please explain whats "dramatic" about my suggestions. As medal rewards, especially gold medal rewards it won't even come up that much.
Oh, and crash gates a bit too cheap. 14 is too little, I'd say 16 at least.(if not 20 or more)
[This message has been edited by TruePurple (edited 05-26-2006 @ 07:12 AM).]