Lord Thane The Rider seems to have been originally built just as a placeholder
Does this mean that you're going to revamp them into something useful?
I think @Mack10 is right about needing the housing bonus. Just to afford a constant supply of cats and bals they need to have 2 or 2.5 mills, and to be able to run that you need almost 5:1 houses. To get the gold bonus you need to run 1:1 markets. that leaves very little room for much else.
I have found that you don't need the armory bonus nearly as much as the ability to get wood, either through buying it with gold, or with a wood production bonus.
DougE and Mack are right about the armory being impossible to build up fodder if you're in a war or constant state of fighting, which is essentially the point of the game. So for that, I believe that the fodder units could simply use a balanced tweak by cutting their production in half, or even more. Make 5 or 3 per TC, but make them units that are worth having. Double their stats, halve their production rate. This would also solve the armory problem if done right.
Now considering there are 8 gnomes in the game, and 3 of them are inactive, it does seem they need a buff. I'm getting killed by humans that bf me which feels like the mechanic for hitting lower kingdoms isn't working, but I'll chalk that up to me being salty.
I hope some solution can be found because I love playing them, but it's hard to find them viable in their current state.
