Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Spells like Firebolt are actually much better now that your opponents come in really big piles. A little deviation no longer counts as a miss, it still nails someone. Little Witchdoctors with fire magic dumping firedarts and the like kill many more people than they used to. The relative effect of this may be smaller, but the absolute effect is larger. And since Witch Doctors haven't changed much in price, that means that their fire pokeys are more meaningful per pound of gold spent.

It will take a lot more analysis before I could tell you if a fire mage is "worth it" now, but changes in the base gamemechanics have made him a bit better over all I think.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

No need to fear that. Don't stop unless you want to.

This is true to a very large extent. However, you have to also consider the path of the spells. 2Fire for Pillar of Fire makes all low-end casters able to put holes in the opposing army. Assuming you are dealing with human sized creatures (Size 2), you will kill 3 units per turn, per casting. With 10 F2 mages casting Pillar you will be killing 30 units (20 if cavalry) a turn (10% of the force).

I'm not saying these spells don't need to be looked at, because they do, but lowpath spells like Frozen Heart/Ice Strike/PoF that have visible results with lowpath casters are a nice addition. Unfortunately you usually have to wait 7-8 research levels.

Magic for the mostpart in Dom3 has much less of an earlygame impact and hold consistant to the midgame then comes full force in the lategame. Definitely something I am waiting to see the full spellmodding capabilities to address. Especially considering the nature of "magetime" or RP's being a huge factor of balance.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Actually Ive successfully played MP games where I lost my castle fairly early in the game. Not on a small 2-player map but mid-sized with 3 players and up its not impossible.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

In that case it might be good to report those slot problems in the bug thread as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'm sure that some of them have been reported but many more bugs of that type (and some of them definitely qualify as bugs, not preference) come to the surface when one systematically mods a game than arise in random bug reports. Doesn't guarantee that the dynamic duo of amateur developers will actually fix it, but who knows? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Also, remember that along with doing huge AoE1 damage pillar of fire can set many other units on fire.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Here is a suggestion for improving light calvary. It makes sense that light calvary has lower precision values. But because they are on fast horses they should also be a lot harder to be hit by arrows in return. The easiest way to do that would be to give them an automatic air shield. If there defense isn't high enough, that could get raised as well. Light calvary then would still be less effective at straight archery then archers, but at the same time they would be much harder to kill. Plus they have the speed advantage. You would be able to do hit and runs with them, and use them as light calvary are meant to be used.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

When people talk about what's happened to battlemages you can't neglect the improved AI. All ranged units target noticeably better than they used to, and cause much less friendly fire damage, so you get more "bang for your buck" for battlemages. The flip is that most of the gain comes when battlemages combine with a meaningful groundpounder army. That encourages combined arms - which I think was a goal of the redesign. But, boy, even a little artillery makes quite the difference.

I doubt the aging system can be modded. Starting ages probably will be moddable and that obviously can fix most problems. If you can mod the mechanism, a good calc for deterioration chance which is based on how organisms age in the real world is 100/years to get old)*2^(age-(years to get old) (possibly with a scaling factor - I can't test). It captures the exponential harm from aging and the slower exponential growth for long-lived species.

IMO workhorse mages - researchers, some forgers, and artillery mages - shouldn't start old unless there's an important game balance or thematic reason. It's just too much of a micro hassle - I was going bonkers with my Witch Hunters in MA Marignon and I understand Pythium and Arco at least are similar and Abyssia worse. IMO if LA mages are supposed to be really weak it's better to nerf workhorse mages rather than make them old. I'm OK with top rank mages being old - I can stand having to pay attention to each one of them.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I can definetly see that happening, especially if you make a good last stand in your castle, then can manage to convince one of your enemies neighbours to attack the guy who just took over your castle. Or you can sue for peace and create a game-long allience. One of my favourite games was one where I took over for Zen's Abysia, and worked with his Pangaean ally (Sorry, but I forgot who was playing that nation.) that he had nearly defeated early on. Pangaea's earth mages, and his ability to make fever fetishes combined to make both of our armies much stronger than they ever would have been otherwise.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Yes, but in midgame where you wont'see Pillars but rather Fireballs, Fire Clouds or Falling Fires, all things equal a given number of Fire mages will be *less* effective than they were in Dom2 because they'll face 2x the number of troops ! Same for Air, and to a lesser extent Earth.
Later in game the BF area spells make Elem magic rules again.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

In any case, I thought mages were supposed to be less dominant in Dom 3 than Dom 2.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

staff of storms, spirit helms, shield of valor =) To be honest, air gems are quite awesome but globals isn't one of them. I don't think I've casted a single air global beyond the temptation at times to save up for gale gate.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Ive cast air globals a few times, i would use them more if i played air nations. I dont use staff's of storms often and i find spirit helms too costly but i agree shields of valor are rather kickass.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Fata Morgana looks good on paper, increases income by lowering unrest and gives your PD a huge boost. I've never actually cast it that I can recall, but it seems like a better version of Mechanical Militia.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I am unsure if this is really a balance complaint, but some of the supposedly strong mages are kinda crappy. Things like Celestial Masters. Ignoring the fact that they drop like flies to magic duel, The fact that they have a lot of magic isn't all that relevant. Their magic being spread out over so many paths means that they are unable to cast any high level spells, and unable to even forge boosters, except for water bracelets, and a few two path boosters. Similarly, Eagle Kings. What is with the earth magic? unless it's free, why would you EVER want to have it? Air 4 is good enough thank you. They can cast flying shards. Wheee! Oh, Wait! They can cast orb lightning and shoot 4 bolts. Nevermind. They can't even forge earth boots. It's not that eagle kings suck (they don't - air 4 is awesome) but that they seems, at least to me, to be overpriced, since they pay for something that is totally worthless. Also, their magic is a bit weird, aren't they supposed to be high mages of the storms? Or weather? Or something like that? And what about mind lords? Ok, enslave mind as an attack is cool, but it's not really all that usefull, and I'm pretty sure it's not free. It's not bad if you order them to quicken and fire, but if you want to cast with them, which I think is what most people will do, it's not great, especially since you need more then one to be truely effective. Yeah, like you can spam capital only 420 gold mages.
I've been playing Dom3 one nation at a time, so my observations are limited to a few races, but I think that they are fairly accurate. I'm not entirely sure whether paying extra for things you don't need is bad for balance, but it certainly seems that way to me.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Having multiple low paths opens up site searching for gems and eventually empowerment so you can forge boosters. Of course, then you run into problems when your scripting runs out and they start casting oddball buffs instead of better spells. It's not totally useless and IMO it's better to have it than not even if you have to pay a little more.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

My thought on "power of magic" by Twan and Zen's response.

The size of armies increased, but not because of units being cheaper, but because of more gold in the world. That means number of mages increases proportionally as well. And due to large armies, penalty for low precision is somewhat reduced.

The less effect of magic in early-mid game is more related to slower research, I think (in early game it's also related to the cost of setting up extra forts and labs).

In the late game more mage means more equipment for them (considering that you can't siege anything without being flamed/frozen/rain-of-stoned or lightning bombed and few mages can survive those without protection). However, amount of magic gems has not been increased, so it makes harder to use battlefield mages in the later game. Those are my projections, I haven't yet played late game vs human opponent.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

It's not true anymore in Dom3 : the "pure" Fire and Air boosters are at level 4 now, and Elem Staves also are at level 4.
So no way for CM to get at them...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Well, you'd have to empower them quite a bit, but at least you can find the gems to do so if you find it that important.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

heh. It's your gems.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

EA Tien Chi has 1/4 chance of getting a F2 Celestial Master, and 1/4 chance of getting F1D1 Celestial Master. Skull of Fire is a Fire booster. It wouldn't be 100 gems, and it wouldn't be just one mage. One empower and one Skull of Fire would let the lucky one forge boosters for the rest of the Celestial Masters. Of course, there's not really need for that, as 1/4 Celestial Masters have F2 and can both cast Phoenix Power without gems AND use a Skull of Fire.

EA Tien Chi also has Masters of the Five Elements, of course.

Other eras of Tien Chi don't have Fire, even as randoms.



MA Tien Chi doesn't have any Earth randoms. That's bad. It might also be a bug, because LA Tien Chi Celestial Masters DO have an Earth random, even though they don't have an Earth pick.
However, if one of the Celestial Masters is empowered to Earth 2 (30 gems), he can forge Earth Boots, and Dwarven Hammer with the boots.

LA Tien Chi has access to D2, E2 and N2, but not 3 in any one of these. They also have access to what MA Tien had: A2 and S2 via 100% randoms and W2 without random. The only thing MA Tien Chi has in addition is an E1 pick on the Celestial Masters, which is worse than being able to recruit E2D1 mages from all your castles, and access to W3 via a 100% random instead of just 10% random.

Tien Chi can't forge Air boosters. They can forge Astral boosters (Starshine Skullcap). With Skullcap, an E2 Celestial Master can forge Crystal Coins. Tien Chi can forge both Water boosters. Empowerment lets a Celestial Master forge Thistle Maces, and with N3S1 they can make a further Moonvine Bracelet.

Single empowerment can still be worth it for Tien Chi. However, it seems MA Tien Chi is very, very weak magic-wise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

MA Tien needs at least to get Earth randoms. Then we can at least open a way for them to use Gifts from Heaven.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Seems odd (and is definately frustrating) that LA TC's randoms can never go on the mages strengths. (D2 can't get D, E2 can't get E, etc.) Also that the one mage who starts with N2 - gets a nice extra 50 years of age, to ensure that he's dying despite having N2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Celestial masters aren't good battlemages but they are still great units. Battlemages want high ratings in single paths rather than a wide range of paths, because of the way spells get better with higher path ratings and the limited ability to use spell diversity. However, they are excellent site-searchers, good forgers, and are good at casting the excellent Tien Chi specialist summons. You can also often boost individuals to cast hard-to-access multipath spells. Having access to them is an excellent boost to Tien Chi even if you don't want a bank of them doing artillery work.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Splendid initiative Zen!

With the new spell mod commands you can have a go at making spells, changing dmg, range, effects, and whatever.


Good luck!

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Yes, based on the last patch progress report the 3.01 patch is almost ready.
Looks like I'll take Friday as a day off from work.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Is no one else insane enough to think about Summon Hellpower on Celestial Masters ?

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

You...can!!?? OMU, does this mean that I can make my Astral 1 Blood 1 Astral Taint that causes Horror Marks??

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Was referring to this actually to be specific. I'm well aware of S&A's CM's I assure you. I have no real complaints about LA CM's and the only qualm about EA CM is that they start with old age and s1.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

About old age, it seems that growth scale has a big effect. In a few demo games I've had many old people without any afflictions for the entire 40 turns with growth 3.

It seems growth scale is much more useful now, and that's a good thing, right? Of course, some things like Abysia probably could use some fiddling with but you shouldn't be too quick to just throw old age out.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I will say that Abyssia's reduced effects from Death Scales are all bad. They are old and need to find little girls for their powers, so Growth scales are good, but they don't get extra supplies from it.

On the flip side, while they avoid starving from Death scales, they still still suffer the worst effects (increased age effects and reduced blood hunting). That means that they get hosed coming and going.

Abyssia would be happy if their death scale "resistance" was taken away.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Wouldn'it be simpler to just alleviate old age from Aby mages (ie make them younger)? Still they'd suffer from reduced hunt, but 80 or 120 design points is still no thing to sneer at...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

That sounds like a plan. Especially Warlock Apperentices and Anathemant Salamanders need to have their age dropped. It's ridiculous that every single one of their mages starts as old. Demonbreds, Anointeds of Rhuax and the latter-day humanbred mages excluded.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Hmm, whats the problem of being old? I tried a test game with abysia. During 2 years noone have died. If they drop old the mages would be more expensive (like the mictlan non-old good mage). Both late Era.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

In my test games with Abysia, using growth 1 or 0, the mages swiftly racked up afflictions and died.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

It's the problem. Short term effects of old age are a pure random factor. With the same nation/settings you can have all your good mages feebleminded or mute in a year or none affected. The aging system is good for long term, but may or not have big consequences in the early game and it's not very good for balance.
The problem is the same for bad random events (in fact the "very bad random events in early game" problem is worse... plague in turn 2 with luck !? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Don't forget that Abysia already get 120 free design points in the form of Heat scales (OK, slightly less than that 'cause they need a strong dominion to push the scales as fast as possible, but still, strong Dom is typically something desirable).

Hmm, actually, this all might be why I'm so bad with Abysia - I like Growth scales, or at least I dislike Death. (The other thing being that I tried it, EA, before I got your patchlike-mod)

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Fantastic! Now we will be able to make really decent mods. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Disclaimer: I've never played Abysia.

For the record, I like old age. The only additional micromangement old age incurs seems to be that you need to send additional mages along for trips to avoid having the odd army without mage support all of a sudden. Playing Arco, yes, I loose a fair amounts of the old 'ones (crones?), but hey, gold is plentiful, so I just recruit some more. It just means that we won't have those insane stacks of researches hanging around, which I think is a good thing. Also, it makes the younger, less powerful mages more interesting than they were in dom2, where I virtually never hired anything but crones.

As the battlemages... the number of mages should increase along with the number of troops, so no change there. As the number of gems has decreased, the relative costs of battlefield (gemrequiring) spells has increased a bit, so that's alright. It is true that the troop buffs are more powerful now, but then, you can only have so many mages buffs troops.

One thing I would like nerfed a bit is independent archers. They are often better than the nationals, which I find a bit of a shame.

I also looooovvvvveee the new horror mark... makes it possible to bring down any SC if you are willing to sac the mages for it. Perfect!

Also, definitely move the summons around a bit so that the poor value summons are lowered to in path/research requirements and the good one the other way around, so that more summons are useful. I don't have much experience here, though. The only summon I have had any luck with are behemoths and skeletons.

Have fun everyone!

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Abysia's problem with aging is twofold:

- Almost all mages start as old, even Anathem. Salamanders and Warlock Apperentics
- Abysians have tiny miny lifespans and are old at age of ~32. This makes them to be propotionaly more likely to rack afflictions from old age. Warlocks start with age of 38 IIRC.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

From what I recall from this weekend's game in which I played Abysia, the lower-ranked Abysian priests, the Warlock Apprentices, and the Annointed of Rhuax all begin "young". You can't say "almost all" when a full half of them don't. The choice in that nation is a hard one -- you can choose cheaper, weaker versions of each type of mage/priest without old age or you can choose more expensive, old units. The Annointed is the exception and comes with his own issue (i.e. his size, which makes him a target for AI scripting.)

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Let me fire up the game and check...

Yes, you are correct, but A. Salamanders have age of 28(33) and will occasionaly start with old age. So that leaves us with Blood 1 Warlock Apperentices and the 440 Gold Anointeds of Rhuax as the only reliably young mages. Anointeds are great though.

This is EA Abysia. Let me see the other ages...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

MA Abysia's A. Salamanders start Old with the age of 34(33). Their Warlock Apperentices also start Old with age of 35(35)...Their only reliable young mage is the Demonbred.

Late Era Abysia, I think that the Newst and Sanguine Apperentices are only ones who don't start as Old.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Yeah, I agree that their old age might be a bit overboard, especially with the Death Resistance that I saw discussed earlier and the way it minimizes the use of the Growth scale to protect against. I know that some part of me was wondering why I was investing so heavily in mages when a full half of them were going to die sooner than later.

The other downside there is that Abysia really is an inflexible nation in terms of unit choices. Really, what else are you supposed to buy if NOT their mages?

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Demonbreds (who are good) and, uh, Newts and Sanguine Acos who can cast, errrr, Combustion and Bleed... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

If I'm not mistaken, Fire path substracts exactly 5 years per level from max age. Demo doesn't let me examine Abysia unless I play against it...

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Perhaps Fire magic is one reason for Abysia's age craziness, I'm not sure.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Aging with Abysia MA isn't really that huge of a problem IMO. First thing is they can forge Boots of Youth, but not for a while, so mid/late game age can be a non-issue for Abysia but not most other nations. Second thing is if you're going to play them you should be blood hunting, and with blood nations you'd usually take Growth anyway which makes a noticable impact in age afflictions, although you're still going to be seeing mages die. The last thing is you'll probably be taking Order as well since their troops are so expensive, so replacing mages isn't a big deal between that and all the fire gems you get every turn and the lack of things to do with them.

Does Old Age need a bit of adjusting? Probably, I don't find it that awful except for not taking Growth bar the occasional guy who gets diseased the turn you recruit it, but in general in my experience mages last a few years.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Well, judging from the flavour text at least the Warlock Apperentices should be young since they are said to be "young Abysians".

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

EA Warlocks also start with 35/35 years and Anathemant Dragons 35/32 years old, so using this logic EA Abysia could also be said to have no "reliably old" mages. They could always start young! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif




I think it's only 2, at least for human-types with 50 years of maxage. I think it is 5 years for e.g. Agarthans, though.

This doesn't affect Abysians, though. Maxage of Anathemant mages seems to be 32, despite the amount of Fire magic they have.