Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

wow, i find it a helluva idea!

(edit: not sure it would make the game "better", but its kinda idea that spawns interesting discussions)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Funny you should mention that Bat/man, because the water global: "The Maelstrom" already works like that. Although most gems(15) you get are water gems, you also get 5 astral pearls and one of each other gem types I think.

Also gem gen globals are not as destabilizing as gem gen items as they are not anonymous and they can be stopped much easier. Furthermore, a nation with many globals might get ganged upon because of it. And because there can only be one global of the same kind in a game it can shake up a stalemate.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

It is a design principle of dom3 (as opposed to dom2), and of CBM in turn, that diversification should in general not be trivial. This helps to maintain the thematic differences between nations.

A gem generator which required one gem type to produce another would undermine this design principle.

The same principle also explains the generally limited paths available to EDM summons.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Seems like a good principal, but it doesn't really seem to be applied consistently. Why is it that diversity is hard, except for death nations? The only summon-able mages in the game with any diversity are all down death or have some death component.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I think the key word is "non-trivial". Diversification is still present, just non-trivial. most path more or less have some and it's definitely non-trivial.

Diversity summons are mostly combinations of high research, high cost, cross path. Death's diversification specialty definitely have these elements in spades.

For example, Spectral mage, which can be verrry expensive rolling paths you need for a relatively low path level. The hiddens are all cross path and a bit out of the way. Tarts which are probably foremost in people's mind is both cross path (nature), end research, and somewhat expensive to get paths you want (all them restore soul and rolling good titans add up). Still, I see that as death's specialty, raising the dead with knowledge of other paths.

That's one aspect of dom3 I really like, that the 8 paths are so diverse from each other and each with useful/meaningful specialties of their own.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I guess its just sort of a pet peeve of mine regarding dom 3. I wouldn't mind it if this was death's specialty, raising makes with knowledge of other paths. The problem is that it's not like death can do it particularly well, and the other paths just have middling success at it. Its that death is the only way to do it, period. There is no cross path magic diversity outside of death (or a spell with death as some component). It forces a bunch of nations that otherwise would have really no reason to go into death down that path. It often forces you to put death on a pretender when if there were even the barest of options outside of death you'd never take it. Heck a nature summons with even a 50% chance of an astral pick would cover a lot of the reasons that many nations need to pick up death in some way.

Take a nation like tir na nog. About as close as you come to a 'good' nation in dominions and thematically they definitely shouldn't be summoning up dead mages from beyond the grave and awakening dead gods. However, unless you want to be shooting gallery for mind hunts you'd better find some way to get astral mages. If you're lucky you'll find some lizard men or crystal amazons. But if you get an unlucky indi roll, you find yourself having to (rather un-thematically) crawl up death for a few specters for AMA and mind hunt cover.

I'm not saying that the other paths need tartarians or even specters. But it would be nice if they got a couple summons that would give them a couple random picks here or there that didn't require a pretender with D-magic.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I guess its just sort of a pet peeve of mine regarding dom 3. I wouldn't mind it if this was death's specialty: raising mages with knowledge of other paths. The problem is that it's not like death can do it particularly well, and the other paths just have middling success at it. Its that death is the only way to do it, period. There is no cross path magic diversity outside of death (or a spell with death as some component). It forces a bunch of nations that otherwise would have really no reason to go into death down that path. It often forces you to put death on a pretender when if there were even the barest of options outside of death you'd never take it. Heck a nature summons with even a 50% chance of an astral pick would cover a lot of the reasons that many nations need to pick up death in some way.

Take a nation like tir na nog. About as close as you come to a 'good' nation in dominions and thematically they definitely shouldn't be summoning up dead mages from beyond the grave and awakening dead gods. However, unless you want to be shooting gallery for mind hunts you'd better find some way to get astral mages. If you're lucky you'll find some lizard men or crystal amazons. But if you get an unlucky indi roll, you find yourself having to (rather un-thematically) crawl up death for a few specters for AMA and mind hunt cover.

I'm not saying that the other paths need tartarians or even specters. But it would be nice if they got a couple summons that would give them a couple random picks here or there that didn't require a pretender with D-magic.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The thing is nations like T'ir Na N'og are not supposed to be sending mind hunts every where, so while they are brave soldiers I don't really see them as Nation that gazes at the stars to gain power:). Also what about golems? E2S3 You need as little as S2 on your pretender and you are sorted. Heck even S1 works if you can get someone to forge you one astral cap.And voila you get your mind hunter. Also none of the paths doesnt require Death to get them. Yea death can be a way of achieving all of them at once, but as It was said you have high research requirement and its at high risk (not getting the chalice) and nature as cross path.

Also back on T'ir Na N'og, you get a really strong middle game nation, that has decent expansion rate(fir blogs are amazing) so you don't even need an awake pretender, for the 100 extra design points you get from that, you can get f4 e2 s2 d2- those paths are enough for you to get into fire astral and death. While at the moment the fire bless attack +2 is a bit redundant due to the fact that Ri's lances always hit hopefully that will change in the future(cough cough):).

If every single nations was mind hunting, summoning zmeys, and use Fog warriors everywhere, then they wouldn't be different at all. And the diversity is what I love most in Dominions, because every nation has a different way it is played(and heck it even has 20 different ways it can be played). If you give every nation a spell to diversify them into the paths they don't have using as you suggested their natural income. Then you reduce the strategical depth of the game. If everyone could use the best Sc's the best assassination spells, the most cost-effective troops, why bother with other spells? The way it is at the moment: you are not strong in astral but you have strong earth what can you do instead of mind hunt - Earth attack ,sure it takes 5E gems and its less cost effective than mind hunt but to compensate, on the field of battle you get army of lead/gold weapons of sharpness pertrify and loads of other nice buffs.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The Faery queen hates you for forgetting her. As do the demon lords and heliophagi.

And tarts are not a good diversification strategy. Way to random, you need a level of death that is almost impossible to get. research level 9, etc. (The earlier you get access to secondary paths the better (why is left as an exercise to the reader))

If you want diversity, play patala or kailasa, or get a rainbow mage.

Not every nation should play like every other nation. (Which was the objectives of CBM, not all games should end in tart fests with armageddons sprinkled in).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Is there a list somewhere of all the changes CBM 1.92 makes to all spells/units/items etc. as compared to vanilla? The changelog seems to me to be referring to changes 1.92 made from the last version, but tracking all changes back through the versions is hard.

I've been away from Dom3 for a while and I don't want to devise a research strategy etc. that leads to a spell that has been moved or whatever.

Thanks!