Balkhanu

Balkhanu head

**Balkhanu** is a Central Asian fan-made tribe created by Nyrrv#4841 on the FMT Discord server.

## Description

*"The Balkhanu were originally a group of nomads that wandered their empty terrain relatively peacefully. One day they saw members of a group called the Xin-Xi tribe coming into their territory and claiming Balkhanu villages for their own. This put the Balkhanu into a fury, and they decided they would take back what was rightfully theirs and teach the Xin-Xi (and other threatening tribes) a lesson as well. The Balkhanu kept pieces of their nomadic lifestyle alive, establishing temporary outposts to attack empires from where they would least expect, and also perfected a new combat unit that would strike fear in the eyes of enemies.*

*Balkhanu starts with a level one capital and the Free Civilization tech."*

## Modified Technologies

Free Spirit > Free Civilization. Now also unlocks the creation of Bastions.

Chivalry -> Brutality. Allows for the Burn Forest ability and for the creation of warhorse units, replacing knights

## Special Building (Bastion)

Bastions cost 14 stars to build. They function very similarly to cities, except for a few key exceptions. Unlike their permanent counterparts, Bastions are built (they can be built anywhere other than inside enemy cities), don't level up like cities, and also if an enemy unit stays on a Bastion for more than a turn it is destroyed, giving them five stars. You can only have 3 Bastions in existence at a time, and they do give a defense bonus to units with fortify.

If you happen to lose all of your cities and you still have some Bastions, your tribe will not be eradicated. Its actually possible to reclaim your empire because of another feature of the Bastion. The Bastion generates 1 star per turn (two if they are connected to your capitol, represented by heavier fortification on the texture), and can use those stars to train units of any kind they can other than super units. Bastions don't have city borders either, meaning they can be placed next to villages and cities you control. If an enemy captures a city or village next to a bastion, or gets border growth that engulfs the bastion, they have to destroy it before placing anything on the tile it is on.

## Special Unit (Warhorse)

* 12 stars to train
* 2 defense
* 20 health
* 3 attack
* 3 movement
* Dash
* Piercing Shot
* Escape (1/3)

The Warhorse is like a super beefy rider, with a unique ability. The Piercing Shot skill can be used instead of any other combination of actions to deal a 3 attack hit from a distance of up to two tiles away. This attack ignores defense bonuses from Fortify, Archery, City Walls, Meditation and Aquatism. The button to activate the piercing shot ability is next to the heal button and disband button, and the attack indicator for the shot is green. They can also escape after a melee attack, but only one tile away, one third of their movement value (represented by the 1/3 after Escape)

They are very useful units, and often times can siege cities all on their own.

## Appearance

* Animal: Mungalu - a brownish, white spotted horse-like with shorter legs than the Xin-Xi and Imperius Variants
* Fruit: Casil - four large, black, berries that resemble Black Currant fruit
* Mountain: A winding mountain of crooked shape that has a small stream that flows through it
* Forest: Large trees (3 in a tile) resembling Ulmus macrocarpa
* Terrain: Yellow-green (not quite as yellow as Zebasi's)
* Color: Steely grey

## Spawn Rates

* +mountain
* --forest
* +land
* The Balkhanu cannot start with any water tiles in their first city unless the map is a Water World map in Moonrise.