I can confidently say that the Primal Culture became my favorite. Not only are the men not afraid to rip their shirts off, it's also grants the most (so far) control over your starting magic types.
Really glad to see another AoW4 playthrough and especially with a dragon. Hope you feel better soon too :) Definitely remember to clear the Gold Vein just below The Great Swamp, you already have the territory annexed and you really need Gold. You can also get some treaties with the Moles, there's one that allows you to build on Claimed Provinces without a Relationship or Grievance penalty which will very very helpful for Thicket's expansion. That Balor is going to really hurt so be careful with your Tier 1 units. Also those Gargoyles did a ton of damage to your Primal Darters also because they have a charge attack, the closer your Darters are then the less damage they'd take from a single hit.
Primal Darters are unironically better if you mostly spam their Disengaging Shot. It deals better damage than their main attack, doesn't miss, and has a one turn cool down. It does mean getting them closer to their target, but as long as you're not using them on something with First Strike and they have space to leap back, they shouldn't get hit. Still probably the worst archer units in the game so far, but at least they've got one worthwhile move.
It gets cheaper/easier to get free city units to move the better your relation with them is, it's expensive for you because you just met them. At the highest vassalage level it's free
Nice, I just finished play through of my swamp gators, there's a fun gator skull helmet too, it's kind of messed up to use it with the gator lizard people, but I guess that's just like the Imperium putting skulls on everything. Hope everything is alright with you though, life is hard, fun games makes it a bit easier.
Hi Sir Indrid, i'm quite excited to see you playing this new expansion, and i absolutely love the faction you've made, really thematic, hope for naga in future... i see lots of scales and forked tongues here, lovely!!! If you have noticed, now the item are no longer all the same of all the previous campaign, now seems they are randomly generated in skills with relatives names, awesome, more diversity!!! Also, if i can give a slight suggestion, now you can forge a new claw weapon for your dragon too, so you can change it't damage type in melee and adding more effects and abilities to you dragon!!!
I watched the Primal Fury firstlook, I recall them saying that the darters were too strong and needed to be nerfed. Seems they overdid it, disengaging from melee loses all of its functionality when the unit can't even survive the initial engagement.
It feels like a waste to use it that way, if it does more damage than a ranged repeating attack, then I suppose it's worth the opportunity cost. It doesn't feel right to me thematically, but at least it's functional.