Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Lacking what though? It's only real weakness is that it has only 1 miscellaneous slot, and everything else can be easily made up for with the extra weapons and the base cost of 0.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Yeah makes the natarajas imo a serious option to be wished for in lategame http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . With 4 arms you can make a combo which has both lifedrain weapon , an - weapon or flamebeau and a shield http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif This way you are a normal SC as well as an Anti-SC http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Voila. The Spell portion of the Mod series is complete enough for me to release.

The following post will be a semi-explaination of some of the changes, the reasoning and a few other tidbits.

Find the mod here: www.techno-mage.com/~zen/concepts14.zip or as an attatchment to the post.

For feedback, please use the Pretender God's formula for it, and it's best if you prequalify your feedback with which mod you are giving feedback for (Pretender Gods or Spells).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Nicely done Zen. I like a lot of the changes. Kudos.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Zen, a couple of things about the readme: I added the commentary to the beginning you had snipped, because it explains the notation just in case it isn't self-explanatory to everyone. Also, I changed the tab-separation you had used in your additions to single space separations (it's better to use contiguous spaces instead of tabs, or there will be display problems in different text editors), and I switched the national special summon monster modifications to the monster section where all the other monsters reside, so the format of both the readme and the mod file are internally consistent.

I replaced the files into the zip, and the updated ones are attached to this post.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

A little "thematic" note about CBS-Spells1.4:
For me is not appropriate to give to (981) Dying Treelord some death levels and to take a nature level. Dying Treelords have much experience and big nature power, but in no case they should be attuned to death. They are dying becuse they are very old (thus very experienced) not because they are death liking. Lastly, for me are obviously very appropriate the Forest Survival and NeedNotEat properties for all the TL.
My two cents.
I forgot to thank you for your wonderful support for this wonderful game.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Reasons for:

Celestial Soldier - To allow the Celestial Masters to cast this T'ien Ch'i specific spell without relying on the random system or having your pretender cast this spell.

Celestial Servant - These things are hard to cast in the first place, but are quickly a misuse of Earth gems as the game progresses. Even though you will (probably) not cast them when you get Mechanical Men, Clockworks or any other variety of Earth summons when you can get them, they are efficent with a blessing if you so choose.

Summon Sea Serpent/Cave Drake/Ice Drake/Fire Drake - These spells were not on par with the other reasonable use of gems in the "Summon Wyvern" spell. Now each has been adjusted to not be 'skipped' over and consideration for using these for early armies is a temptation. Inlcuded with this is an increase in Att and AP.

Summon Animals - A blatant misuse of nature gems. Animals in and of themselves are not very attractive, but paying 2 Nature gem per animal is even less attractive.

Summon /Elementals/ - This spell caused alot of contraversy in Dom1, it was also, I feel, nerfed into oblivion. While it does still retain some of it's granduer, the micromanagment of putting gems on casters that will or will not use your gems in the best fashion, even when you script their spells, makes this line of spells either a "Do it in communion or waste alot of gems" mentality that, more often than not, is ignored. I have kept the micromanagement of the one troublesome and most powerful elemental (Air) but I have reduced the micromanagement of all other elementals so that they can be (ab)used without nearly the hassle.

Bane Lord - He was too cheap and too prevalant. He is rarely used for his command ability so his primary role, as a SC he was reevaluated and cost was upgraded to reflect that.

Raven Feast - This was a loss of gems 90% of the time, the new cost is to allow the Raven Feast to have more of a niche use. Note: This also helps out Return of the Raptors in a slight degree.

Contact Harbinger, Angelic Host, Ether Gate - Astral Conjuration Summons have been lowered to reflect their use. I am still unsure if Ether Gate is a real investment, but that is to be determined.

Corpse Candle - See Elementals

Aim - I couldn't increase the AoE or make the caster target himself first, so I just made it accurate enough to hit where the caster wanted it.

Soul Vortex - Due to it's power, generic usefulness and widescope use, it was changed to reflect that. Since those that use this are mostly SC's in a melee fighting role, the gem use doesn't tremendously impact them.

Quickening - It's AoE is only 5. It was reduced from Gem use in order to allow armies more of a punch.

False Horror - Horror Spam still exists, just not in it's previously glorious form. By changing the fatigue I was able to stop low end casters from being able to horror spam, but let high end casters do so if they wish.

Iron Pigs - All the love of being animals with all the cost of earth gems. What's not to avoid? The Pigs are now more magic resistant and cost less per pig. Due to their smaller size and primary attack of oinking and trampling, this is a change that might garner a little interest for those looking for 'wacky' things.

Transformation - Without the real ability to change the forms assumed, chance of feeblemindedness or anything in the nature of the spell, I have changed it's cost so that if you do happen to try it there will not be as much of a loss of investment.

Army of Gold, Army of Lead - This change was in order to give the game more of a "Army with high powered Magic" feel to it. These spells have been made more accessible and less "Out of control pretender only can cast these spells". The gem cost and research level have been lowered as well to allow Armies to play a more significant role with the proper support of battle magic in the late game.

Magic Duel - Not a fix, but this can't really be fixed. Oh well, this increases micromanagment if you want to Mind Duel spam upper astral casters.

Breath of the Dragon - Minor Precision increase. When combined with Eagle eyes, might be semi-accurate.

Wrathful Skies - The big one. Put more in line with the other Battlefield spells. Not all nations can bootstrap up a Battlefield caster now, thus allowing armies to be semi-safer from instakilling. Air primary nations are still nasty with it, however I hope you will see a decline in the wrathing squads.

Bane Fire - A great spell with a huge range. Due to the targeting of the AI and the range of this spell it's rarely accurage. While this doesn't change this at long range, it gives midrange a slight boost and close range SC's should feel the burn while not too many friendly units are fried.

Stream of Life - This is another 'quirky' spell that can have a huge impact or go raw on you. Luckily most SC's have high MR and so it is patently less useful against them with that in account it's precision has been remarkably improved for use against units.

Shimmering Field - With Wrath's increase Shimmering Fields (which is a more devastating spell, but requires more magic) was lowered slightly as well as given a lower gem cost.

Niefel Flames - Modified to be comparable to it's opposite fire spell.

Heal - The fatigue cost was lowered so you might see the AI chose this spell significantly more when near only friendly injured units

Faery Trod - Modified to fit into the "Treelord" theme. See Treelords for more information.

Arrow Fend - Raised a Level in order to give Missile Units a little more shelf-life.

Ward(s) - The Ward spells only provide partial resistance. When gems were required they were rarely cast because of the micromanagment of carrying around extra gems then the magical attack/burn gems tactic that rendered them almost totally useless in the lategame. They are now castable and usable to protect armies at least partially from elements and poison. Expect armies to have a little more umph with proper magical backup.

Relief - The Fatigue change here was to trigger the effect of casting Fatigue for the AI. With the change the AI will have a greater chance to cast Relief without having to create and build special trigger troops to get your caster to cast his spell.

Serpent's Blessing, Storm Warriors, Muspelheim/Niefelheim, Gaea's Blessing - These were lowered in Research in order to provide a quicker counter to the army wrecking battlefield spells. Another change in order to try to make normal or elite armies more attractive and less likely to fall due to poor AI.

Sailors' Death - See Stream of Life

Touch of Madness - Growing Fury is 1 research level up and 1 Nature more. Yet costs the same as Touch of Madness while doing the Entire battlefield. While I can see why Touch of Madness might be more useful in certain situations (Like not wanting your mages to be Berserked, but if you could control where the bugger cast the spell, it'd work even better). Touch of Madness was reduced to allow it's effect to be cast without gem-managment.

Blood Boil - Less Fatigue for one of the only Blood battlefield spells. The AI actually tries to cast it once in a while.

Sabbath Slave/Master - Another effort to reduce micromanagment. Blood shuffling is a very real issue and Blood (from my perspective) is supposed to have the same type of Communion ability as Astral but more of a cost associated with it. I tried changing to straight 99's for fatigue but it didn't really change the dynamic of Sabbath. Sabbath is now twice as fatiguing as Communion but no longer requires you to give each slave and master a slave in order to cast it.

Bind Devil - A slight increase, I doubt you'll see this affect Devil Production at all. However it does make the lower devils slightly more attractive costwise, even if they are not abilitywise.

Hellfire - The only other spell to not require blood slaves to be cast. This might actually see some use as well, watch out!

Bind Ice Devil - Cost raised to be akin to Arch Devils. While already superior in Paths, stats and cost, they are now on equal terms. No more Turn 12 Ice Devils (I hope) and blood investment is more biting requiring more of a decision around them. Ice Devils have also been given an inherent weakness to fire akin to the Arch Devil. I never understood why they didn't have one in the first place. While still probably cast first, at least they share some of the same costs and vulnerabilities as their counterpart the Arch Devils.

Curse of Blood - Same cost as the Devil Commanders. This probably won't stop anyone from 'hoarding' them, but it does make their cost with Summon Allies vs the normal Curse of Blood spell seem in line.

Angels - All Angelic Beings have been given armor worth 9 Prot, this is in order to try to find a happy balance between what Angels should 'thematically' be strong against and what they are currently strong against. There is less of a trouncing that Devils will do to Angels (and with a half-decent blessing Angels will trounce Devils of equal or greater numbers depending on the situation). Hordes of undead will still kill an Angel, though they Last significantly longer than they used to (I.E. 1 round)

Trolls - Trolls have been given more attack in order to allow them to perform the role of SC mauler at least to a semi-decent degree.

Hama Dryad - In theme with charming unsuspecting souls, the Hama Dryads have become a little more attractive for their 'stay at home' abilities. I doubt they will see much play, but could be situationally very useful.

Vine Creatures - Given a free Barkskin.

Seasonal Spirits - Another overnerf of Dom1 days. The seasonal spirits without the Mod are extremely ineffecient use of gems. The only one being situationally useful being spring hawks because of their mobility and lightning attacks (stun damage and AP). Now Seasonal Spirits might have more of a place in your armies and cannot be countered with only a volley of arrows.

Corpse Construct - Hey, I tried, maybe you'll cast 'em.

Heliophagi - The poor weaker-than-the-other-two-devil-commanders heliophagi. Now they might be worth their extra cost. I had a hard time imagining the Commander Devil patterned after Fiends of Darkness being placed higher in the Research chain, more costly and being more unique (I.E. fewer summons) being weaker than the two spells in the previous research levels. Rather than moving it down I increased their power.

King's of Elemental Fire - More attractive. They still can't fly and they only have one spell in their primary path (fire) that they can cast as a SC (Phoenix Pyre).

King's of Elemental Earth - Reduced their Enc to 0, same as all the other Elemental Royalty.

Devil Troops - Reduced their morale to 18 for A.) Being under the effects of Awe and B.) Not fighting to the Last man. Even in myth, legend and folklore devils and such never seemed to take their stubborness to this extreme. Even now they won't break very often, you can mix them with normal troops (if you want) in order to increase the group morale.

Treelords - AH, the treelord. They have been totally revamped in order to put them into the "Ooooh, a Treelord, I want one" instead of "Hum, Treelord, I'll spend my Nature gems on something useful instead". There are alot of changes here, Most of them to allow Treelords to provide dominance of the treelands. Their gem income is there in order to allow them to chance to use their strengths (They can now Faery Trod if they wish) summon beings to help them and if/when they get into a fight, put up a decent fight.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Ah, Beorne. I forgot to add in the part about Forest Survival and Need not Eat. I had to clear them in order to make the Treelords able to be able to cast Faery Trod so I forgot to replace them in the original readme. 1.4 should have NNE and Forest Survival (if I didn't change them).

For the Dying Treelord:

I had a tough time with him. I think his name is mainly the factor here. I think a better name might be "Vengful" or perhaps "Angry". If you look through the spell lists you'll find some of references and uses of the Nature/Death Combo (Haunted Forest, Manikins, Mandragora). This was the feel I was trying to capture instead of the "Old" Treelord. Perhaps I should rename it to the "the Dead Treelord". Akin to Anthrax and Pedoseion, one who was either killed or has turned evil some how.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Or the "Undying Treelord", albeit given how long it takes trees to die, I can see how a Treelord dying for centuries would become attuned to death from being on the threshold for so long.

Trees and Forests are both life and death, so I think it is perfect thematically to have one of them with death, without being undead, thematically evil, etc.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Say Zen, couldn't you throw up a webpage at www.techno-mage.com/~zen/ listing the files that you have there? WIth all the different Versions and soon-to-be many modules, it can get kind of confusing to find what we need...

Edit: I like the list of changes! Haha, no more cheap false horror spam, no more easy ice devil SCs massacring entire armies...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Typographic error in the 1.72 Version of the pretender mod in the description of Son of the Sun (Fire)

It reads:

"The Son of the Sun is a demigod of immense size claiming the divine heritage of teh sun. Possessing considerable magical and physical might, the Son of the Sun is surrounded by an aura of splendor that strikes mortals with awe. The sun has gifted it's heir with such heat that once per season he recieves two Fire gems."

It should be "the" instead of "teh" and "receives" instead of "recieves".

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Any changes to "Burden of Time"?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Not at current, no.

I actually stayed away from Globals since my personal experience is that Globals, their effect, and their 'strength' really depends on the players you are playing with.

I've been in situations where any global go up was brought down in a matter of a handful of turns, regardless.

I've also been in a situations where certain globals have stayed up much longer than I feel it should and am pulling my hair out that people are letting them stay up.

So with the variability of this I don't have the personal experience to adjust them one way or the other (the exception being Purgatory which is, to me, less of a game factor).

If you have suggestions, reasoning and such, please post them. As I said before this isn't just a pure "MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY" type of mod, I'm looking for reasonable feedback to create a better sense of balance. I just merely took the first step.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Zen,

I love a lot of the changes. Here are a couple of I am a couple of questions about:

1. Soul Vortex. The new cost makes casting it from a wraith lord or a vampire lords very difficult. I assume this was the idea. However I now have a hard time thinking of why Wraith Lords are worth 40 gems ( perhaps the immortality is worth far more than I give it credit for ).

2. False Horror. I guess this is sufficient. I don't know. It's still not too hard to spam the crud out of them if you are Caelum. But perhaps that is more of a Caelum problem than a problem with the spell cost.

3. Love the Bane Lord fix. However I *do* use him for his leadership http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Not like it matters 15 gems is perfect.

4. Wrathful Skies/FireStorm/Battlefield spells. I'm still drawn to these spells even with the current costs. More play testing will be required ( and I will try to start one this weekend ) but I think that people will still attempt to blow armies up at this cost. Perhaps the requirements have to be boosted across the board for all battle field spells by 2 or so making them pretender only ( basically ). They are all far more powerful than the Shimmering Fields/Nifel Flames/FireSomething yet they are lower on the tech chart and they have similar requirements ( but lower gem costs it is true ).

5. I think that the angels may whomp on humans a little too much, but I think that the change is ( over all ) much for the better.

I have no other negative observations. This Mod is, IMO, fantastic. You have done a bang up job. I mean that. And no, I'm not sucking up I really think that you have done some good work here.

There are now so many good spells and so few less than useful spells it's freaking great.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Did you talk after the game with the players ?
I just brought up a thread asking about ppls favourite global strats cause i am curious as well .

So when ppl brought down globals always i guess they wasted at least quite some amounts of gems by dispelling .

There is at least 1 global that you should change imo :
The forge of the ancients .

Maybe i am blind but i didn't find a weapon mod so far . So if you already modded artifacts then sorry http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


But with forge : If you play a blood nation and can bring up the forge of ancients with the current bloodstone EVERY B2 mage can forge a bloodstone .
Abysia / DF marignon can even forge a few bloodstones with their mages with good randoms .
If they time the forge a bit they will be able to forge 20-30 bloodstones / turn in midgame .
So if the opponents don't react immedeately and the forge is up only 3-5 turns Abysia / Marignon DF / Mictlan will have already 50-200 bloodstones .
Then they can bring the forge up again almost 1:1 in cost vs. pearls .

I remember that you wanted to change clams + fetishes to higher requirements that they can't be massproduced so much anymore .

So if you keep the Forge of Ancients as it is then you need either to make bloodstones harder to forge as well ( Maybe B5E ) or change something with the forge of ancients .

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

A little typo in the pretender mod. Asynja is described as having air magic but now she has no more air.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

That is either quite a lot of slaves saved ahead of time for this purpose or an immense empire being bloodhunted dry, but no matter - assume the slaves are available. Even with the half-price FoA, the price to get 20 bloodstones is a respectable 200 slaves - enough to cast Astral Corruption, summon a Demon Lord, several Ice Devils, 28+ Storm Demons or to forge five FoA soul contracts for that matter.

Anybody who is unable to prevent an enemy from having the Forge of the Ancients up for 3-5 rounds deserves what is coming.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

This seems an odd thing to say. A lot of nations aren't likely to have either an Astral 3 mage for dispelling, or enough of their own gems lying around to overwrite a Forge.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Well, as far as my MP games go, I have yet to see Burden of Time being cast. It’s probably due to the fact that such spell would turn EVERYONE in the game against you, which is next best thing to a suicide.

I was thinking that BoT needs fixing for SP since, apparently, AI still likes to cast it when he can. A simple increase in casting requirements (from death 5 to death 7-9) would be good, or making it higher-level spell (from 5 to 8-9) level would fix this in SP.

Personally I like the first method since it would limit the casting of the spell to powerful Death nations, which is quite thematic.

However, I have no idea how this would impact MP, so I'll leave it to your judgement.

BTW nice changes so far. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Honestly, I was thinking that people would cooperate immediately to get it dispelled. Admittedly, I have only played MP in games with few people rather than the 10-17 big games, but Forge of the Ancients is something like the ultimate war declaration since anybody who has it up for a significant amount of time is quite likely to win the game due to his access to cheap path-boosters, construction of most of the artefacts not already made, good weapons and armour, much that you could not even forge before FoA - it all adds up to greatly enhanced power. Under the standard rules, Fever Fetishes (everybody), Clams (W1), and Blood Stones (B2) are just one aspect of its power, and I find Blood Stones to be the least abusive of the three as it requires a specialise mages (no random sage is going to do this), still has a non-negligible cost even with FoA, and the output (gems) cannot be converted to its input (primarily slaves) easily.

It is one thing to argue that Fever Fetishes/Clams of Pearl should be more restricted because they can provide an easy ramping up of power from the very beginning of the game due to reinvestment and low pathcost; it is another to argue that Blood Stones should be restricted because they become economic to make when one of the best global enchantments in the game is in play.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Peter: I think the point was that with the bloodstones, the caster of the FoA can recast it almost immediately. Enough bloodstones, and you can screw the extra gems and just cast it every turn.

This of cource is a huge investment, and not something made lightly. But it's still possible.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Unless somebody else has filled out the fifth slot or the FoA was taken down by another FoA rather than a dispel... I grant you that it is possible, but, honestly, I don't see that the danger of somebody using FoA to forge 80 bloodstones for 800 stored bloodslaves (enough for 20 Soul Contracts under FoA to put the price in perspective, or even 80 Lifelong Protection, for those who want to swamp the opposition with imps in battle LOL) and 80 B2 mage-turns of work (at least two rounds given the size of the magic item repository) is great enough that it should warrant making the bloodstone even harder to acquire in general.

If somebody does manage to pull it off, the more power to him. The fact that something can potentially pay off very well under the right circumstances is not in itself justification for preventing it from happening.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Yeah .

And with dispelling it requires some effort .
If you play in a game with 10-15 ppl and are at friendly relations with 2-3 while most others are engaged already in a war i think the chances are not bad that the forge stays up some time .

You still have to invest something like 60-80 pearls for the dispel attempt normally at least normally .
On turn 30-40 the forge is normally cast first .
If you are a clamhoarder (Pythium , Arco , Atlantis , Ryleh) you have probably an astral gem income of 15-40 .
If you are another nation your astral gem income though is probably much lower and used for forging .

So the chances are normally really good that your forge stays up a few turns cause at this stage of the game probably a lot of players don't want to invest a still rather big amount of their gem income to dispel the forge .

For a forge cast with 120 gems ( = 40 extra ) you could forge 7 2/3 dwarfen hammers or cast e.g. 6 times enliven statues / 8 times mechanical men .

Especially the items which cost only 5 gems are nice with the forge cause they only cost 2 gems then .

As i said if you are a blood nation then you forge as quick as possible as many bloodstones as you can .
Then you have probably soon higher earth gem income then others have pearl income .

Blood + Forge is imo Abuse .
On turn 30-40 when the blood nation first casts forge it has normally already a bloodincome of 100-200/turn so really enough to forge lots of stuff + profit from the forge immediately .

A nonbloodnation has probably not enough resources to profit from the forge when it is up only 1-3 turns but a blood nation has .

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Boron, you argue that the combination of FoA+bloodstones is so powerful that bloodstones should be increased in cost, yet, at the same time, you argue that people will not band together to take the FoA down, because they have better things to do with their astral gem income. While one should never underestimate the power of conservatism and the "let the others bleed to take care of the common nuisance", that does tend to argue that player mentality is a very real issue here rather than an inherently overpowered or easy to get bloodstone.

Moreover, your mathematics do not quite add up. Originally, you were talking about 20-30 bloodstones per turn in the middle game (turns 30-40), which adds up to 200-300 slaves per turn (you may get some reduction for dwarven hammers but you are unlikely to have mass produced them prior to the FOA). In your most recent post, you mention that it is not uncommon to have a slave income of 100-200 in the middle game - which is not enough. Now, I appreciate that it is possible that you have been saving up blood slaves for several rounds prior to casting the FoA, which in itself puts you in a weaker position for that period of time as you are playing a waiting game, but even so this will require the dedication of the majority of your mage force for a good number of rounds: both the B2 mages and all your bloodhunters. That is a very serious investment of resources, which will only really pay off in a long game. Doing it is a gamble that you do not need an army now, but gems later. An attractive result, no doubt, but not in itself overpowered.

Finally, as I have pointed out, there are several other very attractive investments you could be making with the same bloodslaves with the FoA. (1 extra Soul Contract for every 4 bloodstones, if you have B2 mages equipped with blood path boosters, and, given that this requires fewer mages to forge on a round by round basis, it is likely that you have dwarven hammers influencing a greater percentage of the total blood slave cost. E.g. Each dwarven hammer while forging bloodstones will save you 3 bloodslaves, while forging Soul Contracts each will save you 10 bloodslaves)

The real question, I guess, is one I should adress to those of you who play MP in large games: How often do you see a blood nation perform this FoA+ 20-30 bloodstones per turn feat in the midgame? If it is rare, then it would appear to be more of a theoretical worry than something that needs to be addressed. There are many good combinations in Dominions 2, and it is to my mind only if one of them becomes obligatory to use that one should worry about weakening it. If it is common, but it does not seem to exert a great influence on the actual game outcome, likewise.

If, however, it turns out that FoA+bloodstones is a great problem then perhaps one should increase the cost of the FoA rather than the bloodstone. After all, the FoA is an extremely powerful global enchantment, one of the most powerful in the game. It costs the same as the enchantments that give you +20 gems/turn, but no matter which theme you play, if you put it up you will be saving much, much, more than that each and every turn until you run out of gems or things to neat things to forge.

For every theme, blood and non-blood alike, favourite FoA forging for me is Jade Armour, Rainbow Armour, Lightless Laterns, amulets of luck and anti-magic, rings of regeneration, boots of flying, and, of course, artefacts and relevant path boosters. I strongly disagree with the sentiment that a non-blood nation will not profit from having a FoA up for just 1-3 turns. When I use it, I forge 40-50 useful objects the first round, typically cleaning out my gem storage or a very significant fraction thereof. It is very, very, difficult not to make a huge profit on it. Anything after round #1 is just an added bonus.

I am just bemused that you attach such an importance to the bloodstone issue, when (to my mind), the interesting FoA point is that the FoA is very cheap for what it does for everybody. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

They are all excellent things to build. I find though that building the gem producting items ( in particular fever fetishes since anyone can build them, and of course all of the clams I can make ) are particularly abusive.

*if* you think you can keep the the forge up for a couple of turns then going for the investment items really rocks. Oh and lightless lanterns of course!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Clams and fetishes were meant to be put on commanders so they could carry a few gems with them to battle when needed. I say you higher the cost so they don't get mass produced and give them a bonus so they are worth carrying and so they are still worth building for the higher cost. The clam could be like 15 water, +2 MR... Fever Fetish 10 fire 5 death, +2 fear? something like that? I dunno.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Why should Fever Fetish require fire and DEATH? At the moment it is 1N1F. The fact that it works with undead is probably a bug, but even if it is not it should not be made any easier to use those two together. Even if the cost is increased. Also, because Fever Fetishes give you fire gems the increase shouldn't go to fire, but the nature cost. 1F2N or 5 fire and 10 nature gems would be more costly, and it would also make Fever Fetish not forgeable by all mages under the effect of FoA.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

woops, I meant... egh, haven't played Dom2 in a while. Yeah, I meant what it's original cost was + 5 gems.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'd agree with Endorpez in fact 2N1F should be the right price.
I see gem generating items with the need to give essentially a different kind of gems of what you need to forge them. And this was my attitude as everyone can see from my post before someone point at me as thief =)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think 1N 1F and a disease is a great price for an item that generates only 1 fire gem.
Note that one commander can carry only 1 of gem generators now (of the same type).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

really?... I think the whole concept of these gem generating items have been totally screwed up with the way they are. Gem generating was meant as a way to generate a few gems before a battle, not extra gem income.

I think we should focus on making gem generating items for that strategy. I think it shold cost more gems but wearing it gives you a non-stackable bonus (because only one can be worn per commander) or both should give a non-stackable negative effect.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

While it's a silly solution I put all gem generating items in the unique Category. It's not a good fix but it seemed to work fairly well in the Last MP session.

The only trouble was that noone got to keep the items for very long, since people kept pushing for control of them.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

so you're saying only 1 clam and 1 fever fetish was allowed in the game and people kept losing it?

I'd like to know how people knew what to kill to take it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Were they? Are you sure that that was what they were meant to be? I have always seen them as primarily a way to generate extra gem income for certain nations, specifically Atlantis, Caelum, and Jotunheim.

I mean, take a look at which nations can actually make clams fairly painlessly (i.e. have 2W)... The nations that have easiest access to Clams are Atlantis (strong capital-only astral), Caelum (non-astral), Jotunheim (non-astral), T'ien Ch'i (weak capital-only astral), and Pytium (strong astral), while astral nations like Arcoscephale (strong astral), Ermor (default, strong astral), Marignon (strong astral), and C'this (weak astral) have trouble making them.

The evidence suggests that the primary use is not providing astral nations with a few astral gems before battle, since the main beneficiaries of Clams are non-astral nations that cannot use the gems in battle and weak astral nations. Only Pythium of the strong astral nations that are likely to field astral mages on the battlefield get to make their own clams easily.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

To make FEW clams one doesn't need many W2 mages. There are some Astral spells that are nice and require gem, but until the late game they mainly consist of Astral Healing and Antimagic, and maybe Power of the Spheres. And you don't need many mages casting those... Well, Arcos and Pythium could use PotS as their mages have many kinds of magic, but making clams is easy for both.

I also think that for the Astral nations you gave Arcos certainly is able to easily make clams, or atleast has a good change for it. Even without Constr.6 they will probably have W2 mage without anything better to do quite soon. Mystics are great! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

This leaves Ermor and Marignon as strong astral nations without clams. The strong astral nations *with* ability to do clams are Pythium, Arcos and Atlantis. The weak/non astral nations that can do clams are Caelum, Jotunheim and Tien Chi. 3 Astral nations that can do clams (easily) and three non-astral nations that can do them easily doesn't seem to be in favour of the non-astral ones.

Also, I think that clams were just added as a cool item without thinking how, exactly, they would be useful, and for whom. Maybe one of the developers was annoyed with micromanaging gems for his mages.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I can sort of see the argument that Clams and Bloodstones "ought" to be primarily for the purpose of giving commanders on the move a steady supply of gems. But Fever Fetishes? C'mon man, they give your commanders Disease! If Fever Fetishes were changed so that they were somehow only useful for battlefield magic, who would use them? For that matter, who would invest in Bloodstones, or even in Clams, which I'd say are the cheapest of all gem producing items, if their purpose was for giving mages gems to use in battlefield magic?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

It's been posted that Clams, in particular, were a strong component of Atlantis' design (as in, doing away with / tweaking clams would screw Atlantis, so it wasn't going to happen.) That rather conflicts with the "clams and fetishes were made so commanders could have a few gems with them" theory.

In particular since it's pretty easy to take gems (and not clams/fetishes) with armies - either on the commander, or on scouts.

Finally, it seems strange (given that most nations' mages aren't undead and would die from the diseases) to suggest that fever fetishes were meant to reduce micromanagement or allow the commanders to have a few gems with them, since the mage would _DIE_ from disease within a very short period of time.

I suspect the people advancing this theory of what the designers had intended are instead merely pushing their own theory of how the gems should be used.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Why does Atlantis need clams so? They can find astral sites as well or even better than many other nations...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I would http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The gem-producing items can serve both puposes. I find it very useful to equip Astral mages who are out conquering with a Clam - it sure beats the micro-management of trying to get Pearls to them in any other way. And just about the only reason I ever build Bloodstones is to provide a steady supply of Earth gems for an Earth caster. After all, mages who can forge them are rather rare, unless you want to count special circumstances like Forge of the Ancients http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Alright. There will be an update of the Conceptual Balance Series this weekend. If you have any feedback before I update it, I'd appreciate it. (In order to better serve those who don't like the rash of updates.)

The Spellmod will be adjusted due to a few issues. Most specifically with Fire Elementals, Wards, Angels.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The only thing that I noticed in my new Niefelheim game is that the Son of Niefel pretender is a fair amount more powerful, at least against independents, because of the improvement in the Winter Wolf, which he gets one per turn in cold dominion.

(511) Winter Wolf +7 HP, +10 Prot, +2 Str, +Stealth

The extra protection and hit points make them pretty powerful while remaining ethereal. I am not saying they should be adjusted, but just wanted to mention that it was a result of improving the winter wolf. In games past I tended to lose my Winter Wolves in battles and never really did get them in big numbers. In my recent game, I have yet to lose one and have a group of 15 of them now on turn 19 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

First Pretender under the spellmod I tried myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The seasonal spirits do bear some watching, IMO. I have summoned them in the unmodded game, despite a vague feeling that I was wasting gems. In the mod, they are probably very worthwhile, and possibly too much so. I need to try Abysia with fire-shielded Summer Lions...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Newest Version of the Spell and Pretender Mod can be found here: www.techno-mage.com/~zen/

There have been some quality changes that you can find in the Readme's. All typos are fixed AFAIK.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'll check the readmes for you, Zen. Let me know in advance when the item stuff is coming, so I can work on that, unless you prefer to do it yourself?

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'll let you know, so you can form them up. I'm no good at that portion of it. I just update the readme's you make and you can fix them how they need if they are wrong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Also, note the acknowledgements.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I've noticed, thanks. Just change the "Esko" to "Edi", I'll feel more comfortable that way. Or use my whole name, Esko Halttunen. But please, NOT just my first name! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

In any case, check your email, there were some errors in both mod files, and the readmes have now been changed to eliminate all instances of tab-spacing, those have been replaced with single-space spacing and will now show up correctly in all plain text editors, regardless of settings. Suggest renaming the fixed Versions to 1.81 and 1.51.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Changed to 1.81 See latest Version on the Index

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The 1.81 readme file says that the Father of Serpents now has a Poison Cloud, but it doesn't show up as an attack, nor as a cloud around the pretender in battle. Not sure if this is an error in the readme or in the mod (the .dm file doesn't appear to have any poison cloud either).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Oh yeah, forgot to remove that part. Yes. The Father of Serpents doesn't have a Poison Cloud anymore. It was found to be more of a hamper than a benefit (which I had hoped). I'm afraid I will have to feel that the Father of Serpents and the Lord of the Desert Sun are slightly expensive for their benefit but unable to change them to my 'thematic' desire.

Suggestions that are moddable at the current time would be accepted for those two. Suggestions should not include: Get more paths or Change the Path/cost but something to do with the "SC"ish role that they seem to be apart of. Also I can't mod in +summons for rituals or Summon Allies, otherwise I might have added a bonus to Summer Lions or all animals or something with them.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I gave the Father of Serpents the breathweapon of the Green Dragon. It's not much since, as for the dragons, spells quickly become more powerful as artillery support. But it gets him started a bit quicker as an SC.

I don't think I ever used Lord of the Desert sun. He's the lionheaded feller right? I guess one could remove his Bite attack and give him Consume Soul instead. He's a demigod predator after all. Or perhaps give him stealth and assassin abilities like Mictlans Batman? Would be lionish enough and would be a powerboost. Perhaps lowering his stats a bit since an autosummoning assassin is like a kick in the teeth (curse you Batman!).