High Men

**High Men**

*High Men are a quite unique race in Caster of Magic, as they offer by far the worst early game potential, but have great economy and superior military units for the late game. This race is desiged to be the most powerful in both military and economy, at the cost of being the most difficult to play well, with severe early game drawbacks - pretty much the opposite of the common design where they are the most generic race in the game. They don't specialize in magic like Elves do, and don't suffer from slow growth, but remaining in play until they can realize their potential can be a struggle. High Men are very freedom loving and generally dislike being ruled by anyone, especially other races, making it much harder to take advantage of their potential for rulers who do not start the game with this race. This also applies in the reverse - most other races won't like being ruled by High Men, resulting in high unrest, but High Men players might find an unexpected salvation in Barbarian cities, reducing the overall economy potential but filling out the gap in early military power. The rebelling nature of High Men is so high, they have slightly increased unrest rates even when ruled by their own kind. Due to this, High Men players will find unrest reducing effects especially important, and early game economy difficult to manage. Additionally, High Men basic units have horrible magic resistance and no benefits whatsoever. However with great difficulties comes great benefits, as this race can build any building faster than other races, and their mid to late units are among the best. The race also offers by far the most choices for unit production in the game. Unlike Elves, High Men can build roads and clean corruption.*

**+60 Growth**

**+10 Outpost growth**

**-15% building costs.**

**+1 Unrest on High Men cities**

Spearmen, Swordsmen, Bowmen, Magicians, Cavalry, Catapult, Trireme, Galley, Warship, Engineers

-2 Resistance.

+2 Figures on Magicians

Pikemen (75, Fighter's Guild) : 4 Melee, 4 Defense, 4 Resistance, 2 Movement, 8 Figures, 2 Health. Negate First Strike, Armor Piercing.

Crusaders (60, Shrine, Fighter's Guild) : 5 Melee, 4 Defense, 6 Resistance, 2 Movement, 8 Figures, 2 Health. Large Shield, Healing Spell.

Knights (60, Stables, Fighter's Guild) : 6 Melee, 5 Defense, 5 Resistance, 5 Movement, 4 Figures, 3 Health. First Strike.

Paladins (240, Cathedral, Armorer's Guild) : 6 Melee, 5 Defense, 8 Resistance, 4 Movement, 4 Figures, 5 Health. First Strike, Armor Piercing, Holy Bonus 1, Death Immunity, Illusion Immunity.

Priests (100, Parthenon) : 3 Melee, 5 Magical Ranged, 4 Defense, 6 Resistance, 2 Movement, 4 Figures, 2 Health. Healer, Healing Spell, Purify, Resistance to All +1.

*First of all, Paladins received a major overhaul. Magic Immunity had to go - in a game with magic being the most important game element, that ability has no room to exist on a mass producable normal unit. It was also extremely unfair as the unit is superior in melee combat due to the First Strike and Armor Piercing abilities, and being immune to magical ranged attacks and spells on top of that pretty much makes it a unit with no counters in the game. Bow attacks simply don't do enough damage to hurt a top tier unit like this effectively, and the high movement of the unit made them worthless against them anyway. Paladins are now the unit that serves the role of providing your armies with Holy Bonus +1, which is an extremely potent ability well worth the unit cost by itself. On top of that, they are still a good melee fighter with the aforementioned first strike and armor piercing, have a very high magic resistance, and have the unique Death Immunity and Illusion Immunity abilities no other unit on Arcanus has, allowing High Men players to fight against Sorcery and Death wizard effectively, despite the low unit resistance which would make other units from the race pretty bad at that. High Men Priests can boost the resistance of their entire army, partially negating the low resistance of the race. Magicians have additional figures, as well as Pikemen - a perk retained from the original game. Unfortunately, Pikemen will not always be effective - while they dish out good damage, they are slow and fragile, making them inefficient against ranged enemies. For that purpose, the new Knight and Crusader unit has been added, both of which being excellent at fighting against lower tier ranged units. Crusader also offer decent fighting power which Shaman or Priests usually lack, allowing the player to build an army that can both use healing magic to prevent losing units and still be capable of having reasonable fighting capacity. At 8 figures, Crusaders are also excellent targets for buffing, like Pikemen, benefitting highly from attack boosting magic and level gains.*