Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

Those spells really are only there to save you mage time.

Jazzepi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. One factor is the time saving for mages. Also, they do not require the secondary paths of magic for Ritual of Five Gates.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

Saving time of Blood mages can (at least theoretically) be transformed into increased slave income. I believe 4 B2 mages hunting instead of casting wcouldn't have much trouble catching more than 13 slaves per turn.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

Ehhh, in Vanilla, a Fiend of Darkness costs 5, I believe all others cost you 7 slaves apiece. Adding a couple of extra boosters, then pushes efficiency for the high end spells significantly higher than the single cast spells.

2-3 slaves I believe is really much too cheap, I mean over a 50% discount from Vanilla, on units that see a lot of play even at full price.....?

Yeah sure, you can open up other blood hunting provinces, of course. But, most people would want to saturate to the point that the rate of blood income to gold income gives them the most satisfactory results. In many cases, this would indicate it to be easier to just Monthly cast the low level versions of the spells. This warps the blood economy a bit, making the big spells a very big trade-off, rather than a no-brainer.

Can't believe I didn't notice this myself. o.O

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

Sure devils see a lot of play at full price, but where do those units come from? Usually from the higher levels spells: ritual of the five gates, the level 9 spells, and soul contracts. I think that making these lower level summon cheap was a brilliant move by QM as it adds new strategies.

I also don't think it is overpowered at all. In the early game mage turns are at a premium and dedicating a decent mage (in many, but not all, cases a capital only mage to monthly casting a ritual is expensive).

I do have one question though, and it is not directly related to the change in blood summons (although it is in a way). It seems, that even with these changes, that people still prefer to use their gems to forge items for thugs than summon troops. Perhaps it is time to go back to addressing the cost of some of the really popular items in the game, such as:

Dwarven Hammer
Frost Brand
Vine Shield
Eye Shield
Anti-magic amulet
Lucky pendant

(I am sure that there are many more). These items are forged, in great quantity, in most games. For good reason, they are fantastic bargains. Maybe that needs to be addressed? I know that QM tried to fix the cost on the dwarven hammer and people rebelled, but now that them mod is so very good maybe now is the time to try it again?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

Ref boosters:

One of the interesting aspects of the game is that empowering is so expensive, and booster items so cheap. AND booster items can be handed around.

Changing that has long been a pet idea of mine - but the game implications are really strong - not that strong is a bad thing - but it may be the thing with the biggest single change to the game.

Boosting the cost of all boosters (say by 50), changes the value of cross path mages. Changes the relative strengths of nations; increases the value of gems, delays the onset into mid and late game.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

I'd agree about a Frost Brand. I'm making it myself, but it still feels criminal. I'd say that 10 gems and possibly Water 2 requirement would be OK...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

I've always thought the difference between fire brands and frost brands was fine. Ice resistance is usually the worst of the three since favored thugs are likely to be undead and thus already immune, and more deadly/common evocation magics are straight up fire damage then straight up cold damage.

Also, the firebrand loses 4 points of damage and 1 point of defense over the frost brand, but gains armor piercing which makes a difference against high level SCs which regularly will have 25-30 armor.

Jazzepi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

yeah, but fire brands are a lot tougher to make

I think dwarven hammers are worse than frost brands though, seriously how many players that survive a year or 2 in a game don't have at least 1 hammer? They are exceptionally powerful in how much they can save - a hammer probably saves on average at least 3 gems per turn, so is 3x+ better than a clam, which people generally agree make for overpowering stategies. Yet a hammer is so easy to obtain, single path of 2.

10% reduction in forge cost is probably a lot more reasonable. It can gain a 2x bonus against constructs as a thematic compensation

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41
 

On the one hand, increasing the cost of frost brands would nerf (slightly) Niefle. But generally water is already noncompetitive with death and astral...