Re: map problem
 

We are just going to live with the size 2 elephants. They are a rare dom summon, there will not be many of them, and I am not sure whether the lack of trample is a blessing or curse. likely a blessing to arcos. because the elephants in question get 2 attacks headbutt and trunk.

Re: map problem
 

No, changing a mod midgame shouldn't make any trouble unless you break stuff. But you gotta fear those hoburg elephants!

Re: map problem
 

Yeah, it should actually be possible to change a mod midgame - the problems in Alpaca were due to some bungling on my part. Still, I think Xietor's plan is to continue using the current version of the mod for the moment.

Re: map problem
 

well, the elephants have 72 hps. I am at a loss as to why the game mechanic gave them size 2. Shrug.

Re: map problem
 

I finally had a look at all the heroes and summons. I'm sorry to say, I feel
like quiting. I thought we were play testing a mod, but at this time, I think
that the mod was not ready to be playtested.

There is no balance whatsoever.

Some heroes bring very little to the nation. Vanheim's guy, for example, brings
two levels of nature, and not much else. He is never going to be worth much as a
combatant, and his summons will not sway balance. Pythium has an angel.
Crunchy early, common later. All he brings is fire magic. Marignon's hero
does not bring _anything_ to his nation.

Some heroes simply have the power of a pretender. The magic paths of the Tien
Chi hero make him into a rainbow searcher combined with an immortal
supercombatant. He is not as good as the original Vampire Queen in Dom II, but
once a bit or research is done, he is no worse that anything seen since. As for
the Pangaea treant, give me a break. A death helmet, soul vortex, personal
regeneration, and a few earth spells, and he will sneer at anything short of
Petrify.

As for the summons, what were you thinking? Take Ulm, for example. Ultra high
defense, insane protection, and no encumbrance to speak of. A weapon that puts
many construction 4 weapons to shame. A few per turn. Hello?

As for Mictlan? Jaguar warriors in crazy numbers. I pity the guy who ends up
next to him, if Mictlan has a fire blessing.

Overall, there is puzzling lack of consistency. Some heroes get very low
encumbrance, with no justification whatsoever. Some are left with the stats
and slots of the unit that inspired them (Pythium) other get revamped (Arco).
Units that have no reason to have high magic resistance do, artifact level
weapons get assigned to some, other are left with common crap. Creatures that
have traditionally had low defense end up with basic defense 15.

Etc... I will stay and fight, but the mod needs a rebalance for sure.

Re: map problem
 

Bit harsh Tuidjy, the game is to test the balance of the mod in relation to the nations not hero to hero.

MA Mictlan sucks, gets an overpowered hero. MA Marignon doesn't suck, and therefore gets a less powerful hero.

When first trying them out I had a lot of the same impressions, but the few I've tried haven't been terrible. I'd say let the playtesting do its job and help balance them.

Suggestions are great, I just see no reason for harsh criticism this early in the process.

Re: map problem
 

I actually agree with you that the mod needs to be tested. But I disagree that it is not ready for play testing. And I welcome all forms of constructive criticism.

Mictlan's Hero was overpowered on purpose, because their race is awful. Vanheim's and Pythium, 2 of the toughest earlier expanders in mp, were deliberately given heroes that do not aid much in early expansion.

I took existing nation balance into account-not all heroes were created equal. And that was intentional. But I may well need to make many balance adjustments.

Machaka has the immortal assassin. The inspiration for him is MP experience has shown that they are vulnerable to an early rush. It will be very hard to rush Machaka when they have an immortal assassin.

Tien Chi-i did not design this epic hero, and in fact nerfed him a good deal already. I clipped his wings, and removed a bit of his magic, and reduced his h4 to h3.

I strongly disagree with you about vanheim's hero. But I may be proved wrong. While he will never be an sc, he does bring nature magic, spy ability, and he has 2 summons.

The clockworks, while not great, come in great numbers in a strong dominion. And the Watchers? What is not to like about a free lightning bolt caster that has a 50 patrol bonus? Ulm and Man's spies will never be able to instill uprising in vanheim's capital!

Marignon's pretender is able to dominion summon a sacred statue that raises dominion the same as a prophet. The name of the game is dominion, and having a very strong dominion is nothing to sneer at. Also, while the statues cannot fight back, try destroying one and inspect your units that hit one after!

Marignon's Epic hero also has a rare double of awe/fear, 4f, 2astral, 1h, inquisitor, mapmove 3, and good stats. recuperates and no old age issue. While he may not be an sc candidate with 13 hps, he will not need bodyguards either.
Finally,

Marignon's epic hero also raises the dominion of the province in which he dwells the same as a prophet(a new ability that can be modded as of 3.08). Plus he is an inquisitor, make him a prophet and preach and he is unequaled in ability to raise dominion in a province. To say he brings nothing to the table, i think, is wrong.

But I am open to suggestions, and the best place for the suggestions are on the mod forums so other people can add their thoughts.

Turin(author of worthy heroes) reviewed the heroes, and he agreed about tien chi, but was not as pessimistic about the others.

A flying h4 prophet with no old age issues is not bad for Pythium. And she has 49 hps! And can be augmented with a full compliment of items. And the Angel does have a good dose of fire magic as well. The Angel can be a terror by mid game properly outfitted.

Of course Pythium can summon angels later in the game, for a price, but having one on turn 1 is not bad either. She has awe, fire and lightning prot, insane stats. All she lacks is protection, and the fact she has none is intentional. And she has many valuable uses even on turn 1. She was actually 1 of the few heroes turin said was overpowerd.

The treant of pangaea(and i selected Pangaea after others picked-my 1st choice Man was taken) is tough early. But he has issues. He has a defense of zero! zero. he is susceptible to fire, and he has limited slots. If he is a prophet, with a strong bless, he can be a sc out of the gate, but so can a niefel giant, or even a ma jarl.

Try taking a province with the treant solo if he is not the prophet. Many of the epic heroes, with a strong bless pretender and made a prophet, can be an sc out of the gate.

But there really is no way to design a good melee hero that will not be an sc as a prophet and a strong bless. But the drawback of making your epic hero a prophet, is he is limited outside your dominion.

Take Beowulf. He has 27 hps. I would not make him a prophet because he is too valuable a battle commander. As a prophet he could not be used to spearhead an army deep into enemy dominion. Same as the black Duke of Ulm.

The summons of the Black Duke of Ulm are insanely tough. That is a reflection on the weakness of MA Ulm in mp games. With a mr of 9, in a world where the best mp players snag the astral races 1st, Ulm is just helpless late game against races like arcos that have cheap high level astral mages spamming soul slay.

Ulm is given the capability to finsh people off early, because once mid game rolls around, they are really vulnerable to the astral races.

Anyway, these heroes were not just popped up. Much thought went into their design, and many different people that had extensive multi playing experience helped tweak them.

And if you look at some of the worthy heroes, like the hydra commanders of ctis and pythium, i challenge you to say the treant is tougher.

Re: map problem
 

I guess we disagree on basic principles.

For example, I do not think that the way to balance a race that is strong early,
and weak late, is to give them 3-5 thugs per turn since turn 1. The Ulm summons
have no counter at least until turn 15. None. Ninety percent of the nations
have nothing that can touch them. Ultra high defense, insane protection,
respectable attack, ridiculously low encumberance. They group well, they swarm,
they do not tire. They can destroy ten times their number of anything but
knights, as bodyguards they can negate assassins, and they can easily swarm
any supercombatant. Ulm never had a problem expanding early. Now, once they
make contact, all they have to do is send the 15-20 summons towards the enemy.
NOTHING can stop them. You have ruined the game for Ulm's early victims. If
the Ulm player knows what he is doing, his neighbors stand no chance. Only
Mictlan with a fire bless and his doubled jaguar warriors will have a prayer.
Of course, he will be probably raping his own victims. Once again, you have
given a GREAT early expander a boost. Can you please explain to me what
enjoyment an Ulm neighbor will derive from this game, when he is faced with
twenty thugs on turn 6?

The black treant is scary early, but he will be unstoppable late. I guess
you did not understand what I meant. Defense means little when you are swarmed.
You gave him earth (protection, reinvigoration, magic res), death (soul vortex),
and nature (regeneration) With his high HPs, he becomes unkillable. Petrify
may kill him and will freeze him, but the soul vortex and invulnerability will
keep him alive. Oh, I know ways of hurting him, but he is just out of this
world. In Dominions treants DO NOT MOVE except through fairy trod! We have
Conjuration 8 unique summons which PALE compared to your turn 1 superhero.
EDN is just a scary combo.

I do not know Turin. He was not one of the top players in Dominion II when I
considered myself one (I won the first FFA tournament, resigned the solo
final against Norfleet when I became convinced that he had cheated, and had won
five 6+ player games in a row before I quit) I do not understand how he can
consider owerpowered a virtue-wanna-be that becomes obsolete at Conjuration 6,
and which needs support before Construction 4. As for insane stats, may I say
HUH? You gave humans attack 15/defense 17, and you left her at 14/14. You gave
the Arco hero 72 hps (elephant) and left him with human slots. You gave Ulm
summons such that three turns worth can shred her. You gave nearly everyone
else artifact level toys and multiple attacks, and left her with a flambeau.
You gave everyfrickingone magic resistance 16+ (usually 18). Her only strength
are her hps, and they are nothing to write home about.

Once again I will recap my problems with your mod. It is a fun way to add a
lot of flavor to single player, when you want an epic struggle against impossible
AIs. But in multiplayer, you have given two of the best early expanders a
great EARLY boost, and have given at least two nations a second pretender class
toy. Other nations have received thematic heroes that give flavor, but only
enhance existing strengths, for example, Marignon. If Tien Chi has been
toned down, I do not want to know what he used to be. And worst of all, many
heroes/summons have stats and items that make no sense in the world of Dominions.

How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

Ok, because I have nothing to do, I did the following. I started a game
with Ulm, and set the hero to summon. Every two turns, I would send a
smith with two turns worth of the summons out. In ten turns, I have
had 18 battles, AND NOT ONE OF THE FREAKING SUMMONS HAS DIED. In the
eighteenth battle, a smith and his eight thugs ran into a pretender -
Cyclops 9EA6N, and ate him for breakfast.

Screw this. I am asking for a restart.

----

Just because I like beating a dead horse, I took that game to the end.
It was played against 3 impossible AIs, on the Silent seas map. By
turn 24, all the enemy capitals are besieged, and the AIs cannot break
the siege. My masterful strategy has consisted of sending summons
on the straightest road to their capitals. A sample battle result:

Ulm - 1 smith (E+, legions of steel x2, cast), 28 black duke soldiers (3 dead)
Tien Chi - 11 commanders (1 dead), 274 troops (142 dead), 20 magic (20 dead)

The only lost battles were those in which the enemy got to my smith. I never
bothered to position anyone properly. Hell, who needs attention to detail when
one gets 4 thugs and a few knights for free every turn. I am not proud of
beating the AIs. I just wonder what a player could do better by the time the
thugs show up at his door. Oh, by the way, by turn 24, I have 4 castles, 7
temples, all pumping out smiths and Ulm infantries. My pretender was a rainbow
(2-3 everything). My gem income is 31, as she did not start searching until the
Summon Earthpower->Legions of steel combo was ready.

And please. I do not need to be told that stuff like mind burn can be available
early, or that area spells can hurt Ulm later on. This has alwasy been true.
I am arguing that fighting Ulm's thugs in the very early game is fruitless and
frustrating.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

I share your concern about Ulm. Turin also said the plate armor, without the enc and def negatives were too unbalancing.
Though chain mail of displacement is better, obviously you have to forge that at a gem cost.

In no way do i share your concern about any epic hero that is tough later in the game. you mention soul vortex and other spells for pangaea, a magically impaired research race(and i took 2 drain on top of the expensive research mages).

By the time the Treant has access to spells that make him into something truly feared, other races will be summoning queens ele air, kings fire etc.

Late in the game no sc whose strength is melee should be too much of a concern to a good player. regardless of mr, 3-4 astrologers casting paralyze, soul slay, horror mark will cripple any pretender, even a gorgon with petrification fears astral mages.

My goal with the mod was to provide tough, by worthy heroes standards, epic heroes. I am assuming you are aware of the worthy heroes that can appear at your gate(if you did not take mis 3) and how powerful they are compared to the heroes that come with the base game?

I would prefer not to restart, despite sharing your concerns about Ulm-to a degree. I was actually thinking of leaving their weapons and stats in place, but reducing slightly the summon to 3 per turn, while adding a small def penalty and some enc to the plate.

As pangaea, I do not fear being next to ulm, as those black order soldiers have no shield and i can mass produce longbows. While they hit insanely hard they can be trampled easily as they are only size 2. So races with ap missile weapons or longbows can hurt them with missile weapons, and races with tramplers can trample them. They are not unbeatable.

They go into ctis domain, they get diseased. etc.

In short, what i was likely going to do, based on turin's criticism(which you mirror) in 1.4, was reduce the summons in number to 3, like man's, increase their enc from 2 to 3, and increase the enc of the Duke Black Plate from 0 to 2, and add -2 def.

testing may require more tweaks to ulm(and other races), but that is the purpose of this game. But I had hoped to make the changes, and others, in 1.4. Please go look on my mod thread at the many changes already planned.

I understand you took 3 misfortune, and maybe you did not understand the significance of that choice with these mods, as it denies you some very powerful worthy heroes. And maybe you want to try Mictlan, since you think they are overpowered now(i do not).

In any event, a restart would allow me to introduce 1.4 which helps vanheim's hero tremendously. It would also allow me to change Tien chis pretender the way dr p wants it changed (and it is his design, so i am being as lenient as possible here).

I am not willing to nerf ulm, before i have matched his black order soldiers against a live opponent, more than outlined. If that is unacceptable to you, then i understand.

But since there appears to be a strong consensus that Ulm is overpowered, most particularly the black order solider,
I am willing to reduce the summons from 4 to 3, increase their enc by 3(1 to their stats, 2 to their armor), and lower their defense by 2.

Again, I had hoped to implement 1.4 AFTER a game has been played, so it might encompass stuff unforeseen by any of us,
but the fact is some of Vanheim's stuff really should be in this game, and it is hard to test Dr. P's hero if it is going to change radically anyway.

So as much as i would hate to restart again, are there any objections? I will implement the changes to Ulm, as well as the changes that can be viewed in the epic hero thread in the mod forum.

Ctis also gets some combat boosts and an extra slot, but loses assassinate/spy ability, and the croaker's melee ability is reduced a bit.

Probably the hero that receives the biggest boost in 1.4 will be shinuyama. I will scrap the treant's extra misc slot that i was going to give him and ctis since their is concern that treant is not killable late game-something i disagree with, but am willing to test.

If we do restart, anyone can chose a new race/pretender. If we restart, we will not do it again.

I had received a complaint about the angel not having "angel magic" from someone in this game not playing pythium, so despite my personal misgivings about boosting an already overpowered race(in my opinion), i will give Pythium's angel back her air magic, and we will see how it goes. With smite, fire, and air magic, and an army of hydras, surely pythium can find some way to defend itself from hostile neighbors.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

I will have 1.4 available for download shortly.

I am extremely sorry, we will have to restart again. And I thank everyone for their patience. But 1.4 contains many changes and tweaks, just a couple that are raised in this thread.

Since the purpose/goal of this game is to test for balance, i decided to make the change. I have already made all the changes, but i am going through each hero and his summons to make sure there are no mistakes.

I will not be playing pangaea upon reroll. After hearing, rightly or wrongly, that its hero is overpowered, and since 1.4 adds 100 percent pr and a 3rd misc slot, i did not want anyone to think i was taking an overpowered race.

Everyone is welcome to keep their original races. Vanheim and Ctis should be pleased with 1.4. Arcos. summoned elephants are now size 6, and their attack was lowered, but arcos is really not affected much, since they trample anyway.

Ulm gets a nerf. there is no way to sugar coat that. They only get 3 insanely tough guys instead of 4, and they have a tad more enc and 2 less defense.

But they are still the cream of the crop, even with the slight adjustment to their enc/def. It is the loss of the extra summoned troop that has the most effect.

Black phoenix has 3 misc slots now, and received 1 more fire(4).

Marignon got some armor.

Caelum had his makemonster increased to 2(winter wolves), but lost his stealth ability, and his yeti slam lost its aoe fear effect. Big nerf there on yeti, but the aoe fear attack stacked with his high natural fear was overpowered.

Tien chi got the changes the dr. asked for, but i decided not add back wings yet.

Man, agartha, machaka and the water races were completely unchanged.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

Everyone will need to download version 1.4 before we restart the game:

http://www.mediafire.com/?e99ud3xxhng

You can just delete the old version before you download the new. As before, you are free to change races/pretenders.

But the people have dibs on the races they already have obviously. And in the case of a change to a new race, the 1st person to post on this thread gets the new race.

I will have to talk to Llamabeast about setting up the game again. Let me know if there are any issues with the download-or your race with version 1.4.

By all means take a long look at your race before making any decisions. You cannot resend your pretenders until llama gets version 1.4 onto his server and gives the green light.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

I'd like to stick with C'tis.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

The nerf to Ulm's soldiers may or not be enough. What bothers me is that you are
creating free summons that are comparable to Conj4 thugs equipped with Const4
items. I had devised a strategy for dealing with them, and yes, it did involve
poisoning them. It would have been a pointless endeavor though, because when
you are spending money on special purpose units to fight free summons, you are
losing the game.

I did not choose misfortune 3 because I was unaware of the consequences. I
thought I made that clear earlier.

Oh and for Pangaea's treant, you still do not get it. You keep talking about
a melee SC or defense. Once someone is capable of Soul Vortex, paralizis does
not matter. In one of my latest games, I was insanely lucky to roll a EDB
tartarian naga. The B is worthless, by the way. I gave her a charcoal shield,
an S cap, ring of regeneration and a ring of tamed lightning. She took on an
army of 20 astral/air mages and 400 assorted bowmen, but she managed to get
invulnerability and soul vortex off before she was paralized. After that, it was
all over. The chafe died easy, the (cross)bow guys ran out of arrows, got into
hand to hand, got broiled/drained and routed. But that was on turn 64 with a
VERY lucky magic roll. All Pangaea needs is Alt/Const 6... and once again, you
have created a creature that is grossly more powerful than unique conj 8 summons,
and which does not have the restrictions traditionally associated with treants.

As for making Pythium angel's 3a3f3h, yes, that would make her quite powerful.
Not powerful enough to deal with 18 free thugs on turn 8-9 though. I am tempted
to actually run your thugs against other nations' troops and see the results. If
I get 30 minutes, I will do it.

And you should call your Heroes mod a balance mod, so that people know what they
are getting into. You have admitted that you originally shafted Pythium and
Vanheim because you believed they were overpowered, and that you gave Ulm the
insane summons because you think it is underpowered. And hey, I agree about
Ulm and Vanheim, and may agree about Pythium after I try them in Dom III.
Not that I agree with the way you solved the issue, but it is your mod.

Still you need to tell people that. I expect most people to assume that heroes
are in similar power categories. This is absolutely not the case.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but if you read the mod forum under Epic heroes, it makes that fact crystal clear in the very first post.

I understand that it is a huge thread though, and i am not faulting anyone for not taking an hour to read the whole thing. But I do state the mod's intent early on.

While I have done very well in my multiplayer games, I know that better players than me exist-and maybe you are one of them. I certainly invite you to play overpowered pangaea, and show us why it is overpowered if you like playing that race.

I will wait until everyone else has selected a race, and maybe even play one of the "underpowered" ones like marignon or Pythium. But now that doubt has been cast on Pangaea, i will not be playing that race.

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

I would be interested to see 18 of ulms fight 18 of mans summons if you get the opportunity.

Also, I do appreciate the input, it is only through challenge, discourse, and argument that the mod can be improved.

If everyone is politely silent, nothing will get changed. This upcoming game will be fun. Play any race that you think you will enjoy. There are some capable players in this game, as well as some newer players.

I designed all the heroes so that no race should be susceptible to a bum rush by Ulm or anyone else-if the players are equal in ability.

Out of curiousity, if the treant is so overpowered, why could the same result not be achieved with a titan pretender taking the same magic, and having all the slots to equip(treant has no hands, body, or feet).

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

Oh, it is very much achievable :-) I do not remember the last time that I
played a pretender that did not have Water, Death and Nature and at least
one of Air or Earth :-) The problem is that it cost tons in scales. When
you receive the monster SC for free, you are allowed to get better scales
and let the pretender sleep a bit.

As for Man's summons, they are quite tough. But they are perfectly plausible
lore-wise. They have human stats, and well crafted equipment. Ulm's soldiers
have the stats of thugs and about 35 gems worth of equipment each.

---------

Results of testing. Ten times Ulm attacks, Man defends, no PD, Man gets to fire
twice before the squads are engaged. The commanders are on HOLDx5, stay behind.

10 battles, 10 victories for Ulm.
In six cases, no casualties for Ulm, full casualties for Man.
In two cases, no casualties for Ulm, three Man survivors.
In one case, one casualty for Ulm (lucky shot), no Man survivors.
In one case, Man got a lucky militia event. No casualties for Ulm, 59 dead Men.

The results speak for themselves. This was before the nerf. I'll test it
with v1.4 in a second...

---------------

With v1.4

casualties
4x 20 / 0
4x 20 / 1
1x 20 / 2
1x 19 / 1

What can I say? These guys have divine attack/defense/encumbrance.
Don't you think that you may want to nerf them a bit more, and buff the hero?

Re: How good are Ulm\'s summons?
 

Appreciate the feedback once again. I did actually expect Ulm would win, but I did expect Man to fare a tad better. Of course in a real showdown, even early, between Ulm and Man, Man would be bolstered by lighting casting mages, and Ulm by flying shards. Man would also have longbows, and i think they could dent even 21 protection.

And Beowulf is no slouch himself, though even your Treant likely would likely not survive 10 of Ulm's Black Order Soldiers. And to be quite frank, most prudent players would not risk an sc against Ulm's Black Order Soldiers unless their back was against the wall.

But I have done what i can for now, with respect to Ulm and other nations. If Ulm swallows the world in our game, then you will be proved correct. While i have yet to pick a race,
it is my belief that i can slow those babies down somehow!

Re: Game has been restarted
 

Please confirm that you are using the same race and pretender, or that you are going to send in a new pretender(no rush).

I just want to make sure everyone is on board with the restart.

If you are using the same race and pretender, you need do nothing except post that fact so llama can use your pretender he has on file.

My goal is to have the restart Monday Morning(earlier if everyone gets their confirmation or new picks sent in).

If you have a new pretender, you can mail it in. Llama emailed me to let me know he is aware of the restart and has reset the game.

Re: Game has been restarted
 

I'll be using the same pretender as Agartha!

I so love flogging a dead horse
 

v1.4
Man: 40 summons, 62 longbowmen.
Ulm: 20 summons.
All commanders were supposed to stay out of the fight, but I had forgotten
Beowulf had an armour negating longbow and I needed him to lead the army.

Ulm wins with 9 casualties. Five of these courtesy of Beowulf's longbow.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Well, that's pretty brutal. If you've got a good test bed, can you try against F9W9 blessed Vans? or E9N9 blessed giants?

Brutal results, but its still unit to unit. If they handily defeat dual blessed troops then a change is needed. Yes its free points, but that's almost the point of the exercise... MA Ulm kind of sucks - maybe the extra points are needed, maybe they need a free "blessed" unit. If 20 dual blessed vans demolish 20 ulm summons, I still don't see a problem. Hell, if they're even I still don't see a problem. On the other hand, if the vans get demolished, it needs a change. I'd probably say 1:1 vans 2:1 giants 1:3 jags.

Do you have a specific test bed set up, or just using a basic map editor?

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Ok, 10 F9W9 Vans go down with few losses to the ulm summons..repeatedly. I'll check with giants/jags later.

Triple blessed jags (FWS) go down much too easy, in large #'s as well

dual blessed jotuns (EN) go down way too easy.

So, here's what I'd do (still noobish on stats)

Glass cannon
Drop HP down to 5
Give them old age
Drop magic on weapon
Go the retired veterans route

Lazy/untrained
Drop attack to 10
Raise enc to 4-6
Drop magic on weapon
(Tried this with Mict trip blessed. Attack made a huge huge difference, fatigue - not so much, they lost 20v20 twice, which makes sense against a trip bless/dual life unit)
go the clockwork route, or levies given a limited supply of magical armor

Weak/untrained
Drop attack to 12
Raise enc to 8
Drop magic on the weapon
go with weak levies with limited supply

General Nerf
Drop attack to 12
Drop Basic Def to 8
Drop HP to 10-12
Raise enc to 4-6
Drop magic on weapon

Protection - even with atk 15 flaming jags these guys were getting hit for 1's and 2's with the occasional higher. Same with Vans, and the jot's could barely do any damage.

HP - with the high prot and low damage they were taking they stood up forever

Def - with the high prot this is almost like having a luck charm... 18 def, a bit too high

Magic weps - not very pertinent in the early expansion, but very valuable against mid-late game. I'd either drop it or work the description around it. Starting with magic wep troops is big. Description says greatsword, wep says halberd.

As it is, groups of 10 of these can expand easier than Van at a much cheaper cost. They would make mincemeat of most bless rushes. I still think they should be very powerful, but more = to a good dual blessed chassis. Then the extra points could be used for better scales then a bless nation or more magic/SC. They are limited to 3/turn now which is more limited then a bless nation, so maybe 2 soldiers should = 3 dual bless units (Vans in my mind).

Just my opinion, but keep em uber - just knock em down a notch.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

There is going to be no more nerfing before the game starts.

The problem with these tests is that it does not take into account that human opponents will supplement their troops with battle mages that cast lighting, fireball etc.

And Ulm cannot effectively supplement their troops in battle. Because Smiths are generally not good battle mages early on. Also, Ulm is limited to 3 Black Order Soldiers per turn, and that means the Black Duke is not out searching for death magic sites, forging items, or leading in battle. There is a price to pay to have the Black Duke sitting there producing 3 troops a turn, however tough.

I saw 20 Black order Soldiers dispose of Bogus and his heroes with few or no losses. I know they are tough. But most human opponents will take advantage of their weaknesses. Something the Ai may not be smart enough to do.

And they do have weaknesses. But I am grateful for the analysis, as that is extremely useful and much appreciated.
And it was because of that analysis that they are being produced at 3 rather than 4 per turn, and are easier to hit, move slower, and get tired more readily.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Im still going to play. I will still be playing Atlantis.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Once more into the breach, for England and Saint James!

I still want to try my poet (T'ien Ch'i).

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

And I'm still going to try using my Obsidian Statue, even though he seems quite malnourished compared to everyone else... hint hint ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Endoperez designed the Obsidian medium. I helped on his descr and added a research bonus of 5, but i would not tinker with him without endoperez' permission.

He loves his hero though, and if you feel he is squishy, he would be the one to speak to. He is very cautious about overpowering heroes, so i doubt he will add anything to the hero for agartha.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

I think I am going to try Abysia. The Black Phoenix is one of my favorites Heroes. But, believe it or not, it is a race i have never played. Most of my dom II battles were against a good friend of mine that always played Abysia or Ermor, and I was not permitted to play "his" races.

I have no clue what pretender i will use. i am sort of experimenting now.

Re: Game has been restarted
 

Uploaded new pretender for C'tis.

Re: Game has been restarted
 

I see that Pythium is taken. Has someone claimed them, or is it my
old pretender loaded? I entered this game because I wanted to try
Pythium in Dominions III while able to downplay a potential loss :-)

I would not mind trying something else if someone wants Pythium.
I am about to run two more tests with Ulm. If the results turn
as I expect, you'll see me propose alliance to Ulm on turn 1...

----------------------

Oh, and to maintain my reputation as a argumentative bastard:

> Because Smiths are generally not good battle mages early on.

When expansion is conducted with the starting troops and the free
thugs, and a starting SC pretender is not needed, Ulm can concentrate
on rapid infrastructure development. With Conj 3 and Const 3,
smiths are able to cast legions of steel, which makes many of
their troops nigh invulnerable to physical damage.

> Also, Ulm is limited to 3 Black Order Soldiers per turn,

Three free thugs which I would value at 10 gems a piece as troops,
and 25 gems a piece as commanders. If that's limited...

> and that means the Black Duke is not out searching for death magic
> sites,

The black duke has no business going out to search for sites.
Once Dark knowledge is researched (because of Summon Earthpower)
Ulm should trade for death gems, and spellsearch for death sites in
the likely provinces. With the expected rapid rate of expension,
they should have provinces where the scales indicate a death site.

> forging items

That comes later.

> or leading in battle.

Risking him in battle is insane. He should stay inside a patrolled
castle, with five thugs as bodyguards. He should be producing thugs
every turn he's not searching, forging or empowering.

Re: Game has been restarted
 

you have dibs on pythium.

That pretender you see is your own! If you are keeping the same pretender, you need do nothing. If you want to change, just resend and it should send you a message telling you it will use your most recent one.

Re: Game has been restarted
 

I understand that you want us to test your mod Xietor, and I appreciate that you give us the opportunity. But obviously it isn't ready for multiplayer beta testing just yet.
So my thought is that maybe we should just play a standard game on your excellent map for a while. In the meantime you and others who are willing can do some tests on your mod in SP. Else we are just gonna keep restarting the game all the time. What do you say?

Re: Game has been restarted
 

This will be our last restart. I understand your frustration dedas, especially as you are playing ulm. If you can live with Ulm getting 3 rather than 4 Black Order Soldiers, I actually would like to see Ulm in the game.

Re: Game has been restarted
 

It is okay. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I can actually live with having no black order soldiers at all. In my opinion they just make the early game too easy and unchallenging. They may be cool and all that when playing SP... but in MP, nah. Nice work anyhow.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

20 dual blessed Helhirdings cost 20*75 = 1500 gold (don't know the numbers for Vans by heart) and thus 100 gold upkeep per turn aswell. Plus their recruitment is limited by dominion level. Do the free Ulm summons even take any upkeep?

I agree with Tuidjy, whenever you introduce something to the game you can't think "oh, those are pretty nice units, users would like to play with these", but "how bad is the chance for abuse if a user exploits this to the fullest?"
Looks like an Ulm player could just keep a low profile for a couple of turns and then bulldoze over anybody with a horde of free summons. That hardly sounds like fun.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Okay, the game is indeed waiting for pretenders again, and I've removed Ulm and Pangaea.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

Hi. Darrel here. I changed my user name to a nickname I had developed on msn messenger. I will be using this one now.(that is if more then one Dr is allowed on this forum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)

I will be sticking with my current Machaka pretender.( And so everyone is warned, the Immortal Assasin does have a long distance decay attack, which can be deadly to SC's)

Xieter I appreciate what you have done with the epic heroes. They are fun. But I do have some comments.

1) In creating them you should be concerned about making them fun, rather then using them to balance the game. It would be more fun for me if each nation had their hero equal in relative power, rather then some being strong and some being weak. That makes playing a nation with a weak epic boring, and having an epic that can easily clobber everything isn't fun either. And if people want to balance the game they can play with CB, or another balance mod, and epic heroes should be used to have fun heroes in the game. The fact that you use Epic heroes for balance means that a person cannot play with both mods togther.

2) I don't like the idea of these Ulm summons either. Lets never mind the balance between Ulm and other nations, this unbalances everything within ulm itself. Every other unit ulm has, now becomes pointless.Those summoned units become what Ulm is, instead of just being an accessory.

3) Just for other ideas. I have no idea if the following can be modded or not, but as an alternative to having Epic heroes summon allies , you can have them very slowly accumulate allies over time like a VQ gets vampires, or have them start off each battle with a set of extra units like Oni get wolves. As is, why would anybody use the Mictlan hero for anything other then summon Jaguars. If instead of this they got 6 or 7 automatic Jaguar warriors each battle, then you can actually use this epic hero to expand (which is much more heroish and fun). This will also balance the Epic Heroes better among themsleves.


P.S. This Immortal Assasin is fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Epic Hero Mod MA game
 

2 types of summons - dom summons and summon allies. Quite a few of the epic heros have dom summons (automatic summons which occur in a positive dom area), while fewer have the summon allies version it seems.

I believe Dedas dropped, so I might be joining again as Mict...and I'll definitely be using the hero to expand (at least early). I've played a few games with it and MA Mict is BORING without blood. The hero really spices things up, my problem is that even in SP i keep getting him killed due to overconfidence...usually right around turn 20.

In terms of fun, most MA nations were just as fun as any other dom game and some just weren't. The non-fun/viable nations needed a bit more oomph IMO and the heros provide that. I'm really curious to see how it affects a full game. I fully expect to lose about mid-late game with Mict..but if its fun while before it happens and theres a bit more mid game potential... mission accomplished.

Why can't you use CB and epic heroes together? I'm missing something.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

I love the idea that melee heroes have summons-and that is not going away, but I do think Ulm's(in the next version and not in time for this game) will be balanced for mp purposes).

The black order soldiers do have an upkeep cost btw. And I did not try to "balance" the races through the Epic Heroes Mod. What I did was keep in mind how tough the various races were in designing their Hero-a subtle but important difference i think.

And I tried to give every race a hero that would benefit that race, even if it was not on the field of battle(Vanheim, Marignon).

But getting a mp game going is the best way for me to receive input and make changes. Look at my thread on the forums-i have received tons of input. When people are actually selecting races to play in mp, and looking at their neighbors with an eye to how to fight them, i think they take a very hard look at the mod, something they may not be inclined to do when commenting on it generally or after a sp game.

Re: I so love flogging a dead horse
 

It is supposed to be an epic heros mod - if the heroes don't change the course of the game by themselves, they're hardly epic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

That is not to say that I don't think they shouldn't be balanced - but I think the epic heroes should be balanced towards all being excellent, rather than balanced towards all being a slightly-above-average bonus commander.

Re: Update game status
 

Update:

I just tried to send in a pretender for Abysia-and received a message the game is already full. So you may be able to change your pretender if you are playing the same race, but we may have to wait until Llama returns home on Monday to be able to add my abysia pretender and the mictlan pretender in place of Ulm.

Still have yet to hear from Man, Ryleh or Vanheim. I am assuming they are sticking with their present races, but would love to hear from them for confirmation. Vanheim's hero received a lot of love, so at least for him i cannot see the restart as anything but good. Man and Ryleh were unaffected by the 1.4 changes, except having a dangerous neighbor removed.

Re: Update game status
 

So I'm out of this game or what is happening?

Re: Update game status
 

My bad Dedas,

I inferred, perhaps incorrectly, that you did not want to play in the game if the Epic Heroes Mod was being used?

We are still going to go forward with the game, with Epic Heroes 1.4, the Worthy Heroes, and hot bless fix mods.

Did you want to play Ulm as it is in 1.4, or a new race?

Re: Update game status
 

If Dedas is back no worries, I can wait for the next one.

Re: Update game status
 

I'd like to get the game started to be honest. It can take a long time for a mod to get to the point where most people are happy with it; it is probably just best to discuss balancing the mod over in the mod forum in the long thread on this mod.

This game was advertised as being a fun game to test out a new mod, no one is presenting the mod as completely balanced. I still want to play as R'lyeh, but would like to get the game under way and focus on making changes to the mod in the mod's thread over in the mod forum instead of in the game thread.

Re: Update game status
 

Likewise - I attempted to replace my pretender and got a game-full message.

--TNDP

Re: Update game status
 

While I appreciate feedback on mod balance, let us move any balance issues to this thread:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=1

and preserve this thread for the upcoming game discussion.

Re: Update game status
 

If anyone's been having difficulties replacing pretenders - hopefully it will work fine now. Sorry, I'm away and keep on only being online briefly, so I'm doing things in a bit of a rush.

Oh - if you're replacing your pretender you need to use the same e-mail address as before otherwise it will tell you someone else has taken the slot.

Re: Update game status
 

And Xietor, you should be fine to upload Abysia now, as should whoever's playing Ulm.