Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The small jotun mages do get screwed, and a few of these with SDR's are way more economical than a Skratti.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Is there any particular reason that the heims couldn't just be given a dousing bonus to make up for the lack of blood magic? It seems a simple enough fix without introducing complicated and weird new mechanics.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I agree with Valerius. But I also think the dousing bonus really needs an icon.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind: make the gem generating summons unique so you can limit them in a way you can't with item modding (where it's either unique or unlimited).

Btw, while you could certainly replicate the way everyone can get equal access to clams, I had in mind that this would be a game balance mechanism. So, for example, Bandar might have eight gem generating summons while Jotun only had one or two (or none). And aside from the number of summons their value could also be different. Want to give Bandar a mid-game boost? Give them a unit that only costs 5 gems to summon and generates 5S gems a turn (or N or W or whatever you think would be useful). Unlike with magic items, or for that matter non-unique summons, you don't have to worry that this discounted cost will be abused.

It's also worth mentioning that the value of these summons in the end game will vary depending on the size of the game. The larger the game, the smaller a percentage of your total gem income these gem generating summons will provide.

I wouldn't really say I'm pushing for this, just that if you like the idea of gem gems this would be an approach with a lot more options than item modding provides since you could limit the scale of it and apply it where needed.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

FWIW, there's an alternative to the now unique dousing rod, even if a bit more expensive. Empower B1 for 30 slaves - instead of 6 or 10. It would take about 10 turns to pay for itself.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

SDRs give +40% chance, +1 level of B gives +20%

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

That's not true earcaraxe, they exactly the same effect.

That's a good point about the empowering, might well be worth it sometimes.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

are u sure llama?

i have found this: http://www.freewebs.com/sunraybe/faq.html
(it may be outdated, but if it is, then what is the real formulae?)

i made some testing with bloodhunting abysian warlocks.

form: for instance "23db 11db B5 sdr =100" means 11 warlocks with sdr averages 100 slaves on 23 tries.

20db 2db B4 sdr =16,35

20db 2db B4 =15,1

20db 2db B3 sdr =17,05

10db 2db B2 sdr =13,6

10db 2db B2 =10,5

10db 2db B3 =13,8

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Vanheim (EA+MA) have expensive (though sacred) and crappy mages. B1 easily achievable at high price. It doesn't seem that they were meant to be a heavy blood nation, more like dabble in it for additional benefit - but the problem probably is that air itself is quite crappy, and the van troops are not actually top tier cost/effectiveness wise while not bad per se. They'd benefit from heavy investment in blood, which would require the aforementioned dousing bonus added to vanjarls/vanadrotts, or another way to boost them might be to add a cheap-ish nonsacred human mage (n1e1 witches, n1+0.1 forest wizards or w/e) to help them with research and diversity.

Also I agree with Squirreloid about MA Ulm @ cbm 1.7. Who wouldn't want easy +5e from early-midgame for themselves? It's not like Ulm can defend themselves in the late game either though with their national troops and mages. Black priests drain immune + recruit everywhere might help the problem (iron darts/blizzard casters), as would boosting up the master smith random to 25% or even 50%.

edit: and also boosting the stats of the normal troops. Make them base enc1 or 2, add in 1-2 attack for all of them. They're supposed to be THE human troops of the game who don't tire from combat and are exceptionally good at it. Armor revamp was a good step forward, but it (almost) equally boosts all other heavy armor nations in the game.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Give Ulm some time. Their troops are not really bad - Ulm has got these knights for early expansion, and their troops are cheap and tough, so with several castles to recruit from you can actually build good military.
In Kings of Drama Ulm seems to do just fine at the moment.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

and so you hire more bloodhunters without SDRs... I'm sure Mictlan is going to cry about it with its 60g sacred B1 mages... Seriously, this is not a tragedy.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Did you consider that they had the elephant corps from turn 1 for themselves. Did you also consider that it's an expert playing the nation instead of a mediocre player? Did you also consider that while we don't know what's going on in there, he might've had easy start. One game does not make statistics. Especially the first 4 turns of one.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

That's exactly why I am saying 'give Ulm some time before declaring it too weak'. :)

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Well they've had 4 years so far, how much more time do you reckon they need?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

4 years since CBM 1.7? ^^

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Ah, apologies NooBliss, I thought you were arguing against the changes that CBM 1.7 made to Ulm. (since you were talking about them having decent troops etc, which they still haven't really got even with the 1.7 changes. Still no MR and a troop roster mostly full of 10's on base stats).

The hammer nerf hurts them the most though, as what hasn't been considered yet (or I haven't seen it) is how much the hammer nerf destroys some nation's diplomacy powers. As the likes of MA Ulm and EA Agartha can often survive the early game by grabbing some NAP's, along with the added "I'll give you a few free hammers if you sign a NAP" sweetener. I used this very successfully in the Legends of Faerun game (around 18 monts ago) to survive as EA Agartha when I started next to Lanka, Hinnom and Helheim (ie. I'd have been dead in 10 turns if I didn't have the option to give my neighbours several free hammers, which is the item they'd want the most in the first 20 turns).

So without hammers as bargaining tools, the weak Earth nations are more boned than ever. And each nation will likely require a complete re-write to make them competitive again in a hammer free world. As no amount of small tweaks will do it IMO. Neither will a forge bonus on mages, as it was the ability to "give hammers" that was the key to their early diplomacy options against uber neighbours. All IMO of course

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Can you use both 1.6 and 1.7 in the same install?

I want to start a new game but I have old games running 1.6 right now, I don't want to have to fight with things to make them all work together.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I'm doing it, and it works fine.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

As long as both mods are not enabled simultaneously you will be just fine. Mods in dominions are only switched on and off inside the game, so it's really easy to avoid conflicts... just make sure you switch off all mods other than the ones you want on before starting a new game.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

i don't understand this change: :confused:

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Unique as in requires Constr 8 and you can only have one.

Or did you mean you don't understand why?

Jade Knife: blood sacrifice is already twice as effective as its supposed to be, so in effect you sort of get a free jade knife with every priest anyway. Letting you compound that with an actual jade knife was just crazy town.

SDR: its a gem gen, and like other gem gens, not good for the game.

Hammers: QM argues its because hammers were necessary to play the game, forced many nation's pretenders to look sort of similar (need E3 capability somewhere), and caused E gems to be over-valued and used on hammers to the exclusion of everything else - and on top of that they add a lot of micromanagement for forging. I only really dispute the undesirability of the last part, but that's why he did it.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

SDRs being a gemgen is just bs and even qm admitted in irc that they're just "have similar properties". Gemgens reproduce exponentially without upper bound while SDRs don't produce anything by themselves and have upper bound of approx 3*number of provinces suitable for hunting, so their effect is proportional to your gem income from sites (both are proportional to total number of provs you own), unlike true gemgens.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Well, it's a gem generator with a limit. It's still something you put gems into and get more gems back in the long run.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The biggest problems with gemgens as I understand are 1) they can grow unbounded (well, limited to producing 50/turn in the end) which encourages turtling 2) their income is hidden. Both of them don't exist for SDRs. Thus SDRs are not gemgens, both by their effect (previous post) and by their issues.
And summoning units/casting spells with gems during conquest is definitely gem generator by your definition. You put gems into it and gain more gems in the long run from captured provinces. Let's ban capturing provinces, then.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

That's ridiculous and you know its ridiculous. :P

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

He's right that they're not really gem gens though, which is the main point. I think the more important reason for making the SDR unique is that blood is a bit too strong, and that's the easiest way to nerf it. I can't blame QM for preferring to unique dousing rods than to change and balance the costs of all blood spells to try and balance blood out.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I agree, removing SDRs in such widely used and important for the community mod without warning is ridiculous. Gemgens were removed after much debate AFAIK and they were considered broken by vast majority back then which the vote in another thread shows, not so with SDRs.
Seriously, it really irritates when people call something only remotely close "WARNING! GEMGENS" and use it as an excuse to remove it from game. I feel that options should be removed from the game only if they are seriously broken.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Um, if it's not a gem generator, what is it? It has no purpose but generating gems over time. It's just much more limited in potential and use than the others, which is presumably why it lasted so much longer before getting nerfed.

Noone is against things just because they are gemgens. I.E. Eternal Pyre and similar spells are blatantly gem generators but noone is saying to take them out.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Actually Dimaz, I think the community was a bit outraged about the loss of gem gens at the time, but gradually came to see it as a change for the better.

I think basically, blood and blood sacrificing are both severely overpowered. Removing SDRs (and Jade Knives) is an effective way to mitigate that, while having the added side effect of removing some micro, and allowing Blood nations to start their research with something other than Const 4.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The game that Xanatos (IIRC) tried to start with CBM 1.5 short after the 1.6 release never started because there were only 4 or 5 players who wanted to join (including me). I think that shows the level of acceptance. I know some people that were against the change but it was sort of impossible to start the game with gemgens here at the time.
Blood being op is completely different matter than SDRs being gemgens or not. Actually I'm not sure that it needs external balancing even if it is op as usually it more or less balances itself in the game (especially with diplomacy). Also banning gemgens effectively made blood stronger so it's just the conseqence of previous decisions. And removing SDRs of cause nerfs blood but 1) unequally for different nations 2) it removes just another "investment" part of the game which is bad imo. They are sort of cheap for what they do I agree, 10B seems more adequate.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The fact that apparently there is still around 25% support for gem gens certainly supports the idea there was even greater division over them then.

I actually would not be that opposed to 10b SDRs instead of unique ones, but I think most of the issues would remain the same. Investment options are only interesting so long as they are just that, options. They make a lot more sense in a game designed to make strategic choices of that sort- and dominions is not that game. Investment options are so few, that they seem to either become mandatory choices or trivial effects. I tend to think this is because marginal resource advantages are not really what make or break rushes in general, you are almost never making the choice of much needed offensive options to expand vs. investment. Because there are so few investment options (even base game), you can easily soak the cost of all available investments and still be in very nearly as strong of a military position.

Anyway, that's my theory for why investment options always seem to be unavoidable or too marginal to consider in dominions, but it also seems a pretty unavoidable conclusion empirically.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I agree with quantum_mechani on this that the problem was not exponential investments, so much as it was the no brainer situation. Because lets face it: In a strategy game, EVERYTHING you spend resources on is an investment. You invest in troops to get provinces, you get provinces to get gold, you get gold to get troops.
The gem gens was too cheap and gave too good a return on the investment. It became far superior too more conventional early game strategies, like spamming low level summonings.

In the early game there is not a lot of spells that will put you in a better position, than hoarding gems, for casting higher level spells later, will do.

Also, clamming was not obvious to your neighbors, unlike a high province or gem income count. Witch would be the result of other kinds of investments. Therefore it prevented people from gauging your threat level and gang up on you before it was to late.

All of these things could be fixed by reducing the profit of the investment. In vanilla, a clam of pearl will pay for itself in 14 turns and could be made with hammers after researching const 2.

My solution is to make the gemgens worse investments. Lets change the cost of the clams from 15W 5N to 20W 5N and also change the construction requirements to const 6. Also if you are going to return the hammers, give it the "No forge discount" tag. This would change the rate of return from 14 to 25 turns. And by the time you reach const 6 there will be other high level spells to compete for the gems.

It will still pay for itself eventually, but it is no longer a no brain investment and will probably only be done by well entrenched turtlers, like underwater nations. Or by people that wanted const 6 for other reasons.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The trouble with that is that the appropriate cost depends on the size of game. For a small 4-player game, vey cheap clams would be appropriate, while for a huge game they should be very expensive in order to avoid being no-brainers. There's no cost which is appropriate for all games.

Apart from that, I think it's horrid that a player can be reduced to one sieged fortress, but still be effectively at full power because the fortress is full of clam bearers. It completely disconnects power from provinces and armies.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Having trouble opening one of my 1.71 MP turns.

says myloadmalloc: cant open ./mods/./Worthy_heroes/Loki_1.tga with a nagot gick fel.

This can be a real problem with fortress battles, since I have no idea what happened. Advice? I tried putting the relevant .tga in with the cbm1.71 tga, but it had no effect.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

In fact clams were only 2w 10 gems in d2, and so the cost and trouble to get them was hugely increased but still they remained very important part of winning strategies despite that, so I don't think any reasonable cost increase can change that. They should be somehow limited to the actual size of player's lands or gem income from sites to make them comparable with other investment options, unfortunately it can't be done with modding tools we have.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I think you will have to to put the tga in the correct path (meaning create a worthy_heroes folder and put it there)... if the tga is not there automatically, it is definitely a bug.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

No it means that these who opposed your gemgen-purge initially still dont like it, and sometimes visit these boards out of nostalgy or something like that.
You seem to take it for granted that these who have played your mod for a while come to love all its features. Well, it's not necessary true. Make another poll if you wish - 'Did you change your opinion about gemgens over the last year?' - with answers like 'No / Yes, I like it without gemgens now / Yes, I have decided that removing gemgens was a lame solution.' Perhaps you will be surprised... perhaps I will. Seriously, that would be interesting.

Now, for the 'obligatory investments' thing. Yes, you need hammers to compete. Is it a bad thing? No. Is having fewer magic items a bad thing? Yes, in my opinion.
Need for hammers encourages either diplomacy or creativity. Initially, you just need one or two; later, any nation can forge them. Added micromanagement is also marginal.
You oversimplify the game.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I was looking at TC summons, esp. Celestial soldiers. They are sacred and nice, however, being a 6th level national summon, IMHO they merit some magic weapon. E.g. Obsidian glaive.

Second, TC only have troop summons. Perhaps the same Celestial soldiers could come with a commander -same unit, perhaps with H1 for self-bless. Or a separate summon.

All these would merit an increase of the spell cost and level.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

This point I disagree with. Why? Because big games and small games also play very different in every other way. All actions in strategy games are investments. You can usually chose between quick investments that have a bad but fast payoff. Or you can make long, slow, investments that will make slower but greater payoff. A clam is a long term investment that is safe. It will always pay of after long enough time. The drawback is that it has a opportunity cost. The research points needed to get to const 6 could be spent elsewhere. Those gems and research points could free some unfrozen that could win you wars.

The clam is only a good investment if you live long enough for it to break even. (25 turns in my scenario.) You sacrifice part of your current power in order to gain a greater power down the line. Assuming you survive. And it is not certain that you could not have gained greater power by using your current power to take your neighbors provinces and gem income.

So what does this have to do with small games? Well small games are quick! Late game strategies like tarts and wish will be useless. Anyone that sacrifices short term power, in order to gain even more long term power, will be crushed by people that build troops and battle mages. By increasing the cost and research required to use clams, you delay the repayment and makes it a late game plan. Or rather a plan that come into fruitaition in the late game.



If that is your problem then you must hate Late Age C'tis.
I am playing them in a newbie game on the other forum. I have been at war with two other players for proximately two and a half year. I have been loosing that war for almost as long..... They can't kill me though because even though I only had two provinces left at the worst, I still had all my undead reanimators left. And because I had found quite a few death sites in the first year, they were quite many.

The enemy could raid away all my lands, take my gem and gold income, and yet none of that mattered. Because my upkeep-free priests could reanimate 42 upkeep-free tomb chariots each and every turn! My war making abilities are still on top and I could probably hod out at least another year against two enemies that control all my lands. Possibly two! :D

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

They do have the Huli Jing. Well they are pretty forgettable.

And also remember that the soldiers are sacred. You only need to bless the with a fire or death bless and they become magical.


What?..... Am I the only one that plays T'ien Ch'i as a sacred rush nation?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Actually, an almost perfect solution to the investment problem would be to limit the number of gemgens according to the number of provinces. For example, instead of being magic items, gemgens could be spells (simular to Domes and limited to one of a kind per province), or immobile summons, or even buildings.

But any of this is probably impossible to mod in. Too bad.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Trust me, if we weren't restricted by mod commands, we would have solved it ages ago. but we are. so no point thinking of more solutions which cant be implemented.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Well, sea trolls (kings) are gem-gens, but they aren't much used that way since 55 gems is a quite steep price, and waiting 54 turns to get an investment back is quite long. I doubt people would clam with such long investments. Of course, astral pearls > water gems, but still.

And I agree with llamabeast that such things are game-size-dependant. Early game is way more important in a 4 player game than in a 12 player game.

Do you imply they could be played differently??? But in EA the earlier summons are just better because they can be summoned faster.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

MA Ermor is the worst, maybe a bit more likely to spam Clams too... in the pre-1.7 days.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I put the word reasonable for a reason. Of course you can make clams cost 65 water and 40 nature, but nobody will make them then. I meant that I don't think it's possible to balance them by ajusting the cost, they are either too powerful or useless, because of their mechanics. The only real solution is to limit their maximum number, but the only way to do it without house rules is to make them unique.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

LA C'tis is a bit different. Sure it would be annoying trying to crush a fortress containing an endless supply of longdead. But eventually you'd just get better research and bring along an SC or group of mages that could kill unlimited undead. Massed longdead are only a problem in the early and mid games, so eventually the player who has provinces will win. Also there is no versatility - you cannot turn longdead into more mages or anything like that.

Massed clams, however, only become more valuable as the game moves into late game, and you can use the pearls to get more wish casters and make more clams and so on - there's no limit to how powerful you can get, trapped in your little fort.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Well, come to think of it isn't it the same with a player that summoned lots of tarts and equipped them as SCs and now has all of his summoned and equipped ubber army hiding in his last VP?- Yes, he has no income to speak of but he is a power to be reckoned with although holding just that one fort. In that sense this scenario is born out of previous greatness - meaning a player can't get there w/o being a substantial power in the game to begin with.

Naturally the fact that clams generate income is what makes the difference but in light of the example I gave I find that one fort + gem gens argument somewhat weaker (though still solid :) )

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Tartarians arn't any kind of economic power, you can't continue to generate armies with tarts. I suppose you could fort up with tons of Wraith Lords or other unit-generators, but the cost of building enough to actually build a worthwhile army in a reasonable # of turns is prohibitive.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

With tarts, you can hope to break siege and try to re-conquer some land. With gemgens, you can keep summoning, but you are still losing because your opponent has BOTH gemgens and the land (hence money and recruitables). Am I missing something?

Just bring some siege golems to breach the walls.
When it comes to unbreakable castles, Pangaea is much more annoying (to the point of being unfair, in my opinion). Pangaean Pans are so gaean.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

... the whole point of it was that you retain economic power with gemgens, and in fact you remain almost 100% of your economic power with gemgens. Noone has any problems with a strong army forting up so that it can come out later.