Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I was referring to the unmodded game, where the Vine stuff are the only worthwhile low level summons. I've to have a closer look at the mod to see the other changes done http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif, I didn't check since at least a couple versions...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Tartarians are useless without gift of health or the chalice to support their creation, and oddly enough, both of those cost nature gems. Wish is a fun toy, but it is rare to find a wish that is more effective than wishing for gems or blood slaves. Clams are powerful, yes, but overrated in aggressive games.

Then you are, quite frankly, ignorant of just how much better Lamia's are than vine ogres.

Your mages are going to be killed by the same battlefield spells that are killing the vine ogres. Also, who really cares that they have 56 hitpoints? That's something like three-six hits by standard national troops.

If you are summoning ivy kings, then it takes 15 turns for their gem cost to pay off compared to using two N2 mages both with ivy crowns. If you are willing to spend that long, that late in the game, then I'll be quite happy to use my own nature gems to put up the various nature globals. I take it that you've never seen the haunted forest chain reaction in action?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

And if you think you can hold ANY decent global (nature or otherwise) more than 1-3 turns in the face of any opponent with 200+ clams or the Nexus (both pearl income which you claim is worth less then nature), then you must have never gotten very deep into a competetive MP game.

Ivy King's are a powerful summons indeed. After the relatively short payback time due to getting the four ogres per turn, you have a bunch of level 3 (or 4 with the mace) nature mages ready to charm the leaders of your huge undead army and dissolve the troops.

Ivy King = 20 nature, no upkeep, 4 ogres per turn
Druid = 140 gold plus 4.67 upkeep, 15 (10 with hammers) nature gems for mace + crown, 2 ogres per turn.
This is a no-brainer from any angle. The only reason to use the Druids is because you don't have high enough research to make the Kings plus you must somehow summon your first Ivy King to start the process.

I am still wondering how you are getting your undead army to fly easier than your vine ogre army. The Ivy King + vine ogre army is better strategically in my mind because of Fairy Trod.

Finally, it seems to me that mechanical men (using inferior earth gems) are superior to both vine ogres and lamias in every possible way.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'm going to have to disagree with your Vine Ogre/Ivy King point.

I almost exclusively use my gems for: Lamias (great after about 40+ groups). Lamia Queens (I often have 4D or 3S Queens) and Mandragoras (this is usually the hammer that drops in the mid/lategame) and in distant 4th, depending on the circumstance/map/pretender Faerie Queens, especially if you have someone not ready for some Pangaean WS and good for summoning SCkillers)

I can't say I've seriously used Vine Ogres or Ivy Kings (outside of Charming) for offensive force *before* I have what I want from the above 4.

Re: Haunted Forest.

You only need 2 turns of this to win wars/games. It's sickeningly powerful *especially* if you are poised to drop a strong nation with stealth/teleport teams and eat up everything this will turn the tide in your favor that is usually irreversible to the targeted nation.

Being able to leave every province in your dominion defended with a single 1N Caster and pouring everything else into attack is a significant advantage.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

If your opponent has 200+ clams, then you are well past turn 70-100. Most crowded games have their first defeats around turn 15-20, and start to wrap up around turn 40, which is about the earliest that anybody can have 100 clams.

You really can't count on having many hammers to forge cheap items with a nature nation, so the payback time in terms of gems only is 15 turns. It is only after that point that the ivy king pays off.

Ermorian armies don't tend to need to fly as much because there tend to be no provinces inside the empire where they don't have at least a hundred troops.

Other than their fragility to physical attacks of course.

As for vine ogres being good meat shields, they are inferior to sea trolls for that role. A single ice devil or any other unit with breath of winter can kill very many sea trolls after a few turns.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Well, I guess Ill bow to the Wisdom of Zen.

However, I have two questions for you:
Do you think that the 2W clams are overpowered?
and Are you going to nerf them in your artifact mod? (assuming you are making one...)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Don't bow to my wisdom. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I have found that, across my gaming time. Death gems, blood slaves, air gems, etc. They all seem somewhat similiar with the exception of Fire Gems and Water Gems in terms of raw quality of potential uses (Summons/Items/etc).

Death certainly has no weakness in the variety it can use it's gems, but I wouldn't consider it the 'best'. I have found nature to be the same way, if only for the fact that it has a good, semi-unobtrusive global (Mother Oak) a few game-winner globals (Gift of Health with Tartarians, Haunted Forest) and a plethora of good items for gems (even if it's only Hydra Armor and Rings of Regeneration for magic items).

I have certainly had a great amount of successes with nature gems and in fact I have found it as 'needed' a type as Death/Blood for my strategies.

Clams: I don't particularly think that 2W is too cheap for Clams, the feeling or desire to make an Astral income from Water really comes from the lack of good gem uses for Water as much as Astral is a great and versatile gem type that can be fitted to a need at any particular time.

There is a change to them in my Magic Item mod, if only to make potential 'hoarding' investment less attractive while keeping a 'small Astral gem income with Water Gems' availiable. It's not a complete fix, but I think that particular debate has gone round and round and there is no good answer. Some people will always horde and will always try to set their strategies around it, seeing it as a potential payoff while other people will not let their weakness be so easily exploited in the early game.

I can certainly say it's boring hording (making clams is a sucky version of micromanagement some *feel* compeled to do in order to feel competitive) and it's boring fighting a hording war (Way too magical for my taste) that is less about how your fighting and more about how often can you go back and forth with your army-destroying-SC-killing-hyperempowered-Pretender-God-Too-many-path lameness that tends to degenerate into a stalemate. Stalemates tend to suck the fun out of Dominions 2 I have found. Even though you agree end the game, there is no sense of closure, which tends to irk me especially if I have devoted alot of time to the game (as Dominions games tend to).

Either way I'm rambling. I have revised some changes, I will release the final Pretender Mod (some minor typo corrections, slight change to a few Pretenders, nothing crazy), v1 Summons Mod (only adjusts summons statistics, not spell costs) v1 Spell Mod (only affects costs and spell effects), v1 Nations Mod (welcome to an attempt in variability and to make nations have gold be a factor in the late game outside of building mages and castles a pretty hefty task considering capitol only limitations) and the v1 Magic Items mod by the end of next week, if I'm lucky.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Zen, you have written a long time ago a sticky post about dominion links.
It seems that your website has been forgotten in this list.
I think you should add it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Here is a readme file I hammered out for the spell mod (it looked like a lot of games were not using it due to lack of one).

Some things that occurred to me while creating it:

*Do the treelords really need the #clearspec command? Because it would be nice if they had thier vine ogre ability back.

*You increased the vine ogre defense by more than the vine men. It seems vine men should have the defense advantage since they are so much smaller.

*One command makes the haunted forest research level 8, which it is already at.

*Why is fate of oedipus research level 9?

*Consider making looming hell lower research and cheaper?

*What about making dark skies a fire (and maybe a point or two of air or earth) spell? Then you could reduce the cost/research without making air even better.

*Blood rain is never used at it's current position on the tech tree. Either make in no blood slaves, or lower research.

*With so many good uses for earth gems, Melancholia is never used. Again, lower research or cheaper would be nice.

*Get cracking on the other mods! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Thanks a million quantum.

Since we'll now (probably) be using this mod for Yarnspinners2 do you mind if I post the readme at the Yarnspinners2 Wiki for easy reference?