Re: Recruitable Rebalance Version 6, non-beta, is
 

It is pretty easy to mod out (or up) the spells. I agree it'd be fun. I've been working on a Hard Magic mod for a long time (taking forever mainly due to lack of spare time).

PvK

Re: Recruitable Rebalance Version 6, non-beta, is
 

Be sure to check out the "Null Spell Mod " I just put out. It lists all the spells with unaltered paths and costs, in mod format. Could save you some time...

Re: Recruitable Rebalance Version 6, non-beta, is
 

1) you forgot holy-3 ...
2) having water-2 on them acutally makes sense (Acid-Spells, which are rarely used otherwise), while having another nation with lightning-tossing mages is rather boring.
3) S&A CM is FAWS 3R .. that's not what I read from above...

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And if you take away water from the CM, or if you really want to beef up S&A magic, replace Master of The Way's water with astral, so he can form communion with the CM, and summon water daemons.

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And "Spirit Mastery" is starting spell of S&A. There's little that S&A has in the first turns, and now with 8 instead of 4 gems it won't even have Disposessed (sp?) Spirits ..

Bugs to be fixed...
 

...ahhh... I hope I didn't similarly break any other nations... I can sort of feel my reputation falling into a black hole... makes me want to play Space Empires IV... but I'll live http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

I realize water-2 plus fire is more interesting that air-2, but I was trying to make their national spells accessable. Having never played SA, I didn't realize the national sites gave water gems...

So that's fixed in version 7.1 (available at the first post). Thanks for noting the problems! As for giving MotFE astral, that seems sort of wierd (violating their name). You can do communions with only Celestial Masters, anyway, which (with this mod) cost about the same.

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

Don't confuse "Master of The Way" (100gp/WR2H) with "Master of Five Elements"(whatever) ...

Re: Bugs to be fixed...
 

Oh, hmm, I did exactly that. At any rate, I will take that suggestion under consideration (and probably accept it, considering how worthless Master of the Way is) for the recruitable rebalance mod v8, but I'm going to lock the current iteration (7.x) to balance changes unless bugs or major problems (like national spells becoming inadvertently nerfed) are noted... to avoid additional confusion. Hopefully TC has been boosted enough to compete in MP without communion, but we'll see...

Test game spot(s) open
 

Mod test game recruitment phase ended. Hopefully, valuable balance data will be gleaned for version 8 of this mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Recruitable Rebalance Version 6, non-beta, is
 

That is extremely useful - thanks!

PvK

Re: Recruitable Unit Rebalance Officially Complete
 

I've been thinking about Ulm's MR problem for a while, and various other things, like why armor is totally ineffective against many of the game's spells. And I had an idea...

I'm sort of morally opposed to giving Ulmians a high base magic resistance in their default theme, because the goal of this mod is to change the balance of Dominions II while keeping Illwinter's themes and races intact. However, Ulmians are afraid of magic, and wear specially smithed armor... and now, in my mod, they wear black steel full helms, too. Wouldn't it make sense for the Smiths to use special materials, and inscribe special runes into the helms blocked harmful magic from soldiers' brains?

So, I'm thinking of keeping Ulm's base magic resistance at 9, but giving +1 or +2 MR to all Black Plate units (Full Plate of Ulm and Full Helmet of Ulm), bringing them up to 10 or 11. The description would be altered, of course, to mention that costly materials and laborious techniques are used... justifying a price hike. At 10 MR, 12g sounds reasonable, and at 11 MR... 13 or 14g, possibly with a resource hike as well. Black Plate units are currently 11g by virtue of having higher morale, HP, and more armor compared to Chain units.

This change would essentially divide Ulm Infantry into two distinct lines:

Cheaper Chainmail units (10g / 20-25 resource / 12 HP / 10 MOR / 9 MR), good against indies, Lightning (armor-negating) and Water magic (which is either armor-negating, in which case cheaper units are always better, non-armor-negating, and unlikely to kill any Ulm units), and Nature magic (again, poison is armor negating).

Elite Black Plate units (12-14g / 35+ resource / 13 HP / 11 MOR / 10-11 MR), good against Heavy Cavalry (absorbing lances), Crossbows, Fire (armor-piercing, but unlikely to kill Ulm units), Astral and Death (both MR-save) magic.

I could even make Black Plate Armor more special, with protective runes against elemental magics (+ 25, 25, 25 or + 35, 35, 35), making them some of the most battlemage-resistant troops around.

Do these sound like good changes for Ulm? They're pretty major, but still completely thematic for a nation that fears magic and entrusts both magic and forging to masterful smiths.

Re: Recruitable Unit Rebalance Officially Complete
 

I also think that having extra magic resistance would help Ulm, but that just increasing their magic resistance would make them play very differently from what Illwinter meant.

I could agree on the magic resistance, or elemental resistances, but not both. I also think elemental resistances would suit them better, but that would be quite a large jump in game balance.