Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Crystal shield on prophet. That or one of two artifacts + shield on Black priest. Or are the artifacts two handed?

Hmm, I guess a synthetic priest communion could work also.

All of these methods require quite a bit of effort so you could only afford to protect important armies this way. And only after some construction research. I like it!


As for LA Man, they seem scholastic to me, what with all their mages graduating college. Maybe they should have a research bonus on their ministers?

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

corinthian, u are truly a fountain of knowledge. i did not know u could bonus up priests. thanks

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Magisters are already good researchers for the cost, I dont think they need a research boost.

What I would like to see as a theme for LA Man is something related to "The Curse". It's all over their flavor text, but it doesnt have much effect other than explaining their immunity to drain scales.

There are a lot of references to keeping The Curse "contained". Maybe they could get some kind of national spell where they release it, spreading drain scales and weakening magic beings across the world? It would be easy to make the latter part overpowered, but I think that it fits well with the theme of dying magic, and gives Man a shot at the lategame by leveling the playing field a bit.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I'd love to see a reverse gem gen global for them: as long as it's up, every nation loses X gems of each type every day. Unleash the Curse !

Sadly out of the realm of available modding AFAIK, but it'd be such a cool trolling spell :D

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

Yeah, elaborating on the Curse theme would be the way to go, though it's difficult I understand to do that, just given how vague and nebulous it is. My suggestion would also be to perhaps give LA Man some more unique conjuration for some mid/Late-game thug/SC chassis, like an undead Tuatha Lord. They already have an undead Bean Sidhe with E1A1D1 (very expensive costs for the magic though, 15 death gems on a nation without native death income and only a 25% chance of death on a judge). Perhaps tie together LA Man with Eriu/Tir'Na'Nog themes, albeit with dead Sidhe/Tuatha? The Curse could be the Curse of the Sidhe for despoiling the land and disturbing their tombs, or somesuch. The Bean Sidhe I was talking about would make for a nice chassis in and of itself with ethereal, glamor, stealth, and cold & poison resistance built in and access to some earth/air alterations (but not high enough for either: no access to either Soul Vortex or Cloud Trapeze or Mistform hurts that, plus undeath). Bargarests are, with a cursory glance, quite decent, plus stealthy (though again the price is rather high for a nation without native death gems and no native way of summoning them [D2]). So give them an undead Ri chassis with ethereal and glamor (like the Bean Sidhe) with A2E1D3, and Man has a mini-SC right there, with Cloud Trapeze into Mistform+Soul Vortex+Iron skin+Resist Lightning+blessing (essentially a better version of the Wraith Lord with Stealth, though still undead and no immortal). All of it also fits the theme that you kind of get out of the summons LA Man has already. Perhaps Morrigans too, since Fomoria can also be leveraged with Baragests already in. I would also suggest increasing some of the chances of magic on judges (or take out the fire portion and just give it 50% death), so they have a route to leverage those summons (and/or also up the patrol bonus, so they can go the Bogarus or T'ien C'hi route more effectively with Judges). Perhaps think about giving Magisters Arcane some more randoms to allow them to diversify? Hesitant to touch on regular Magisters because of how cheap they are and how awesome some of their bonuses are (Spy, 15 siege/defense bonus, 70 gold?!?!?!), but perhaps rethink their paths/chances abit (because I don't know, A1 or E1 by themselves don't stand out to me, unless you also get the S1 random [and in that case, you're probably going to be using them to fuel a Magister Arcane communion], who already provide you with the Wind Guide/Flaming Arrows [with a F1 random+Crystal shield+Phoenix+2 slaves, and can case Earth Evos with E2 earth powering and communioning]).

Perhaps give them more stealth/glamor in a manner similar to Tir'Na'Nog or EA Helheim? Magisters are spies naturally (though don't have much magic paths to allow them to do much with it besides), and their unique summons (Bargarests and Bean Sidhe) are also stealthy. Would also give spy Magisters a use (an S one running with the rest of the stealthy army to prevent mind-hunts and the like, etc,). Combine that with the missile spam that is Man's midgame and you have an extremely impressive midgame right there (counterable quite easily however), with some better late game potential with a good chassis or two. Undead Formorian giants in addition to undead Tuatha? Maybe give Wardens a bigger thematic touch to them, beyond being the same ported over from MA. Sorta like Ghoul Guardians. Defenders are already pretty nice (though high resource costs: still, crossbows on kite shield infantry with decent stats, nice blockers/additions to longbow spam), and Knights are still good in small amounts. Perhaps give them another stealth troop other than Wardens that can be leveraged early on for raiding?

/end random LA Man spiel: I don't even play them that much so not sure if any of this is a good idea/potentially OP

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

A want to state opinion on balance between early mid and late game.

For me a nation should consist of three things, it should be really good at some point of the game, it should be weak at some point of a game and it should be middle of the road at the last point. Say have strong early game, crap middle game and decent late game. Or crap early game, decent middle game, and strong late game.

For me personally, if a nation has a really good early game (say Nifelheilm) and then has a decend middle game then heck it should be weak late game, because while you have been steamrolling some people(especially with the removal of gems) you gain a bit advantage, something oter nations(late game nations struggle to do on their own say bogarus although there have been found decent starts for them to try and defend themselves its still hard against stronger early games).

So what it means for a person to pick an early game nation. You get twice the expansion rate than weak early-game nations you get to steamroll someone so by the middle game. So say Ulm by middle game you get one of your more powerful weapons -Iron Angels. Add to that the fact that you should have twice the gem income of some nations with weak early game(just because you can afford and you have to take rainbow while others cannot do that). On top of the gem income you get national mages with forging bonus so you gem income is worth more.

By middle game, all those nations that were really weak early game can either shine or be decent to make up for the lack of early game. So at that point an early-game nations should start struggling to keep their provinces, but still be able to defend them against nations with strong late game and average middle game. The middle game nations (Like Machaka lets say) should shine now since its well "the middle game". So it should be relatively easy for them to try and get and accumulate advantages before the late game comes because they shouldnt be that strong late game, thus they need some advantage to compensate for that. (I sort of see those nations as good at everything and at nothing nations:)) Lets say nations like machaka should be taking territories from weak middle game nations with ease, and be taking territories from middle of the road nations if they don't play scourched land taktic.(so it still should be easier for you to gain one or two territories off those nations so that you can get a better advantage) but I shouldnt be so easy to defeat them.

Now, at the late game, what the situation is, you should have
the strong early game nations (that have decend but not perfect middle game ) and the strong middle game nations (that have decend early game) relatively equal in terms of territories, wheres the weak at early or middle game nations lacking behind. So now its the time for those nations to try and leverge their national strengths. And those strengths shouldnt be balanced say/ If two nations have the same ammount of territories a late game nation can win, but at the cost of a lot of effort. Now the game is technically 2 v 1 for them. Because by then the early/mid game nations should have twice the size and gem income of a weak early/mid game nations, if you don't then you are doing something wrong and you dont play your nation to your strengths.

So if its late game now you should make tose late game powers be able to beat anyone less than twice their size(in terms of production/gem income etc) quite confortably. If they can't(if it isnt easy for them to do that than you dont have a balanced game). And for the strong early/mid game nations with twice the size of a late game nation it should be a fair fight between that late game nation and them(taking into account their advantage in territories and gem income).

So thats why when you try to make competitive for late game a nation like Ulm that has good early and decent mid game, you should be thinking more of the lines of: "by now they should be competitive only if they have twise the size of a late game nation" and not : "well given same size Ulm should be able to defend themselves against late game nations" I think that the definition of competitive should be based on the game situation(or what it should be) and not on " all things being equal " that is because the game progresses, and if you are for example Niefelheim and by the beginning of the late game you dont sit on top of twice as many territories as Bogarus or Pythium then heck you dont deserve to be competitive against them and you should loose badly if you didnt play to your strengths.

P.s. sorry for the long and confusing post.

(And a short way of saying the post beforehand : Early-game nations should only be competitive with late game nations if they have twice or more than twice the ammount of territories by late game) And even then late game nations should have the upper hand(so be on the attack)

Also for Ulm if you take rainbow(and there is no reason not to take one) with the EDM mod incorporated if you have twice the ammount of gem income of some late game nation, you shouldnt be able to be stronger than them. Things should be equal.

I made this post because it seem that the preception of some people about the game is different so I wanted to know if anyone thinks the way I do.

How people see things in dominions is: A nation is weak if it has a strong late game but no early game or late game. To get the game balanced, if that nation survives by the late game(even having a territories/gem disadvantage) they should be able to shine late game, and it should be easy for them to win now against anyone less then or equal to twice their size.
What happnes in practice: Early-mid game nations get a huge advantage early on, then by late game have twice the gem income of some late game nation(say Patala) and then because of the options that rainbow pretenders present then they beat the crap out of the poor Patalans unless the nagas somehow by a miracle manage to get equal in size at those early game nations.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

I think, I see a problem in Bbz`s approach: Nations with weak early game will be simply devoured earl on without a chance to defend themselves.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

i suppose that would be a question of degree. weak early game might mean not that easy to expand, not necessarily easy to eliminate.

bbz's ideas have merit. but shard, you are right, they could be tricky to implement.

but i guess ultimately, he was saying ulm shouldn't get stuff to make them strong late game cus they are good early.

i agree with the idea, but i hate it. cus i LOVE MA Ulm, and i SUCK as a player, so i want all the help i can get. but that is just me.

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

No, but even if they don't get devoured(by some miracle) and you manage to persuade your opponents that its not going to be cost effective for him to attack you, if your early game is **** you start to rely on your neighbouring nations to be at war (or some wierd luck)so that you can get to expand enough (rather than just being marginalized to insignificance), with a late game nation you need to use every dirty trick in the book and fight like a lion early on (taking advantage of being the defender most of the time since you wont get the chance to attack someone that often) so that you can survive. So I just thought that that shuld pay off a bit more that it does now. And making early game nations "competitive" late game on a all things equal basis isnt the way to get there.


P.s This is not intended to be a rant, I am trying to show my opinion on what should be considered balanced. Since thing such as perfect balance don't exist. A game can only be balanced for certain settings.(take a 1v1 game against Niefelheim and lets say Patala who is going to win??:) )
So I think that the community should come together and either vote for or agree upon certain standardised settings for which the game should be balanced. This should make llamabeast's job a bit easier (But since that is not going to happen) and it might make the game unfun. I just though that It might be resonable to share my views on the matter thats all:)

Re: Ulmish Drain magic spell
 

That's where diplomacy and the map itself come in.

Take Bogarus for example: they are a ridiculously good late game power with both access to more or less everything in the book, the research to get to it quickly, and the best taxation system in the game.
They also have a weak early game because their national units are cheap crap for the most part.

Some games they get ganged up and destroyed before they can really get going, some games they manage to speed through to fire arrows or thunderspam and have the means to defend themselves. Some games people just leave them alone until they suddenly flip the lid off and murder everyone at once.

In the one game I played with them, they weren't attacked at all in the early game, even as I neighboured them. And I played Mictlan. So, um, yeah :).
But I had other fishes to fry (or rather, other neighbours to kill) and of their other neighbours, Midgard had decided to rush C'tis (a wise decision, since LA C'tis has a terrific middle game) while T'ien C'hi was rushed by Atlantis and Man+Ulm allied to face Pythium's aggression.
Bogarus ended up being the runner up for victory (My nation won, but I wasn't at the helm by then).

Bottom line: having a weak early game doesn't mean you'll get instaganked, even if you start next to the most rushiest of nations.
And if you are instakilled, well, that's one game quickly over with and you can start a new one before having invested a lot of time in the former :D