Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Cunknown,

I'm going to bite my tounge here and be as nice as possible.

Who, exactly, are you to pass judgement that it does not hurt me "that badly." I have explained at far greater length than I should have needed to how it hurts blood nations.

I do not think that being upset about one of the most important parameters in the game being set by the host without the knowledge of the players in the game is being a "wuss" by any stretch.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

And I explained to you why it doesn't hurt you that badly. It may be more costly to blood hunt, but you have more money. So, it's pretty much a wash. Money is less valuable per gold piece when playing on a rich world. It's irrelevant that blood slaves cost more gold pieces.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

We are going to restart the game soon. Zen just announced his new Itemmod for today/tomorrow and also a new Pretender Mod.

I will update the settings later today, hopefully this time i don't forget any special setting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Did the prices of what you guy with gold suddenly go up? No. Did the prices of what is bought with slaves go down? No. All that changed was the exchange rate. Thus if the decision used to be 8 crossbowmen or 1 devil it is now 16 crossbowmen or 1 devil. Thus, blood was heavily nerfed.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Well, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that with a rich world blood nations can get blood slaves faster. More initial capital and more income means that more provinces can be hunted earlier, as the necessary mages can be recruited at a higher frequency than normal. Also, the labs and the castles are relatively cheaper so mage-production can be further enhanced (for those nations with non-capital-only hunters) Now consider a non-blood nation. It won't see a significant increase in gem income, since money doesn't translate into gems other than in the form of site-searchers, and usually the amount of these used won't differ much no matter the richness setting. And it isn't a function of research either.

Now, at an early point of the game the value of gems and slaves start to soar. In a rich world even faster, since research is faster. (This is because more money equates to more forts and hence more mages.) Thus blood nations gain a significant advantage with regards to magic in a rich world.

Well, that wasn't a particularly clear explanation, but I hope it conveys my point. In any case it's just my opinion and by no means will I be saying how you should play the game, please don't be offended.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Where do I get the new mods?

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Zen will publish them soon.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Jurri,

I have to disagree with you. More money for most nations means more mages which means more site searching ( at least for me ).

Anyway, if the whole group want to keep going I'll live with it. Although it's bad form to not announce this change.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Thanks pashaDawg for the mods notice -- I don't check in here as much as I should.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

The mods zen put up in his thread.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...rt=25&vc=1

Zen pretenders 2.2 and his new mod...items 1.0!!!

The item mod is very interesting...i am still looking at the file.

Dont worry we will give time for everyone to look over the files before we restart the game.

Notable changes ive seen are dragons going from 23 prot to 19 prot and life drain wpns and hoarding getting nerfed.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Dragonfire and I are playing a practice game right now with the new mods so we can sharpen our claws before going up against all you thugs and rats!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon04.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon04.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon04.gif[/img] http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Good, Dragons were pretty insane http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I wonder if Vampire Queens changed?

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

why are we not using the scales mod?

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

I've tried out the new Dragons and they are not nearly as powerful as they used to be, which is a good thing I guess. They filled their role a little too well.

The item mod is swell. The nerf to life drain weapons works *perfectly* imo. There are now scads of AOE 1 melee weapons which makes for nice anti-infantry weapons, the ranged weapons are better which is nice, and there are anti-thug weapons too. It's a nice mix.

The hoarding items were nerfed somewhat. I don't know if it is sufficient nerfing but it is a start.

The problem is: now that dragons are nerfed what the heck is going to be my default pretender choice?!

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

We are! We're using all 4 zen mods now, together with Saber Cherry's mod.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

This is flawed reasoning. Increasing the value of provinces does not nerf blood in any way, so long as the % income devoted to blood stays the same. Imagine if all provinces gave you 1000x more gold than they do now. Would you be scared to play a blood race? Hell no you wouldn't! Would it matter that blood slaves now costed an absolutely rediculous amount to get, costing you what would in other (normal) games be your whole -game's- worth of income??--of course not.

The thing is, if all provinces gave you 1000x more gold than they do now, you -won't freaking care- that you're losing tens of thousands of gold to blood hunting. You're going to have more gold than you can spend anyway!

That is the extreme case, but it scales back as well. It's all about % of gold devoted to blood hunting. Increasing the inflation of the game does just that -- gold is worth less than it was before.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Only the pretenders got a new version and we are adding the items mod from zen.

So its:

Pretender mod 2.2
Magic mod 1.8
Scales mod 1.2
Item mod 1.0
Saber Cherry mod 7.51

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

CUnknown,

I don't honestly know if you are joking or not. I guess I have to assume that you are not.

The game decision is as follows. There is a given province that you wish to blood hunt and assuming that you wish to manage the unrest via setting the tax rate to 0.

In game ( a ) this province yeilds 40 gold at 100% taxes. This could be converted into 4 crossbowmen.

In game ( b ) this province yeilds 60 gold at 100% taxes. This could be converted into 6 crossbowmen.

In both cases the number of blood slaves yeiled is the same, let's say 9, enough for one devil.

Clearly there is more incentive in game ( a ) to blood hunt than there is in game ( b ).

I hope this was clear.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

So, I assume that we are uploading new pretenders, yes? Because I want to change mine. I got inspired last night.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

The blood discussion should be over since we are making pretenders again.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

I will upload my new pretender tonight

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Wait a bit longer Alynan just discovered Typos in Zen's Itemmod might be likely that there will be a new version in 1-2 days with the Typos/Bugs fixed.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

On the subject of blood hunting. I certainly understand both sides of that argument. So, I will mention my own experience on the subject.

I am playing a Faerun game using Soapy's mods, which (among other things) made the growth scale 0.5% per point. Taking growth 3 was like playing on a rich world, probably even more so after Turn 50 or so. I am playing Atlantis.

Now, Atlantis is not a good blood hunting nation because the King of the Deeps cost a lot of gold, can only be built in the water, and only 1/8 are blood 2 random. Combined with the fact that you cannot blood hunt in water, Atlantis is clearly one of the lesser blood nations. Only R'lyeh and those themes that cannot get a blood random mage are worse at blood hunting than Atlantis.

However, beacuse of the extreme growth scale in that map, I have unlimited gold income on Turn 125. I noticed earlier this week that I went past 20,000 gold per turn. Totally insane. I am building and losing shamblers (30 gold each!) by the thousands just to spend my gold. They are starving all over the place and I don't even care. I even put 90 PD in several key provinces just to hold them for a few turns!

So, what about the blood?

Well, I am blood hunting like crazy! My blood income is rising far faster than my gem income. I am blood hunting in provinces with 10K population and 80 gold income because I simply don't care about gold anymore. I am even using only 2 blood hunters per province at zero tax rate just to minimize the micro-management. In the past few turns, I have sent probably 600 blood slaves to my Man ally who is getting overrun by the lizard juggernaut.

And C'tis (a much better blood hunting nation than Atlantis) has far more blood income than do I on this very rich Faerun world. Of course, C'tis has more provinces (maybe 220 to my 130) so this is also part of the equation.

So, by my own behavior in this one game, I would have to say that a rich world does not hurt blood hunting at all.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Ryleh is a better Bloodhunter as Atlantis http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif because the Starspawns have 2 randoms so you get about 1/4 with blood 1 random.
So Ryleh gets more bloodhunters than Atlantis and the Cost for a Starspawn and a Seaking is about the same.
With a SDR a blood 1 Starspawn is almost as good as your blood 2 Seaking for bloodhunting.

And you will also have a lot of spectres with blood random and once the blood flows you can summon a few fallen angels or similiar for further speeding up the bloodhunting.


I wonder if you get some kind of Overflow in your game soon.
There should be a maximum population per province and that might turn into a gamecrashing error in your game soon.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Don't worry about maximum population, the limit is *high*. Very high. The theorical number would be 650,000 inhabitants or so, but I haven't tested the exact value.

If you go above the limit, you will go into negative numbers instead, so the game won't crash due to that: in a silly test game, I had about -32,000 blood slaves, after having put too many mages on monthly Wish for Blood Slaves. I am not sure where the limit is here too, but again, 65000 is the usual suspect.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

Sorry to cause trouble but I have an objection to zen's item mod. Clams now require 2 water 2 astral to make. This will pretty much stop Ermor from doing any hoarding while other nations (mainly Rlyeh and Atlantis) can still hoard very effectively. I don't enjoy hoarding much but if it is in the game, I need have the same access to clams as other nations. Ermor lives and dies by gem production.

There are three basic solutions that I can see.

Ban all gem producing items
Or don't use zen's item mod
Or let me switch over to Ryleh where I can hoard to my heart's content.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

You mean you need to have the same access to clams as Atlantis and Rlyeh, yeah?

Should we also give all nations should have an unkeep free recruitable undead to put fever fetish's on?

Edit: well I don't really want to start another argument. As atlantis I'd like to have clams so that I can get a better than 2 for 1 conversion from all the water gems I'll have, but I'll just let everyone else decide what is fair, and deal with that.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

The upkeep of those "upkeep free" undead is 100% of the gold Ermor would have gotten from having a population to tax.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

I have to voice my disapproval of the Item mod, too. I vote we don't use it. The changes to lifedrain weapons are totally rediculous, imo, and I don't like the hoard item changes either, although in such a large game as we're playing it may be a decent idea.

Re: Game\'s Going!
 

if by ridiculous you mean awesome then I totally agree. They are now for use on heros with exceptional strength. Perfect. Thematic.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

If you want to clam hoard as Ermor under Zen's mods, you can! If you want the extra income from a rich world as Ermor, you can!

No problem at all. Just pick the Broken Empire theme, and you can have both these things very easily.

In fact, I would NEVER consider taking anything but Broken Empire on a map as large as Faerun for the following reasons:

1. Because of the zillions of troops you will have if you are AE or SG and survive to the late game, the micromanagement of trying to shuffle those wimps to the front lines would be horrid. Your best bet would then be to try to get eliminated early to avoid this insane problem.
2. Your neighbors know where you start on Faerun. If you take a 10-dominion population-killing Ermor theme, they WILL gang up on you to try to get rid of the nastiness as soon as possible. At the very best, they will try to contain you from all sides. Especailly since you will be building temples much faster on a rich world than normal.
3. Your living neighbors will have lots more troops than normal, thus taking away a big advantage of AE or SG. Those Ermor themes will not be generating troops any faster on the rich world, but they will be.


If I were you Catquiet, I would take BE and announce that fact to the world. I did that in slugfest and my neighbors treated me as a normal nation. I even spread growth into Mictlan's territories and he was vey happy about it.

If you want some advice on BE, just ask as one cat to another. Broken Empire is not a bad theme at all. Probably less strong that the pop-killer themes, but it is FAR more enjoyable to play than those time-consuming themes...

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Human nations don't hold much attraction for me. It's like playing D&D and rolling up an accountant as your character.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Panther is right.
AE/SG get more gems from their starting site but no other boni.

As Panther said your neighbors will realize soon that you are AE/SG Ermor. They will team up against you.
You might get killed until turn 30-40 probably because ppl exactly know what to do vs. AE/SG Ermor.
Should be very difficult to survive that.

And if you survive you might get affected by the Unitlimit against which AE/SG Ermor can do nothing.

So taking BE Ermor would probably be a good idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Lifedrain weapons may still be useful in very unusual cases (your ice devil or tartarian with heroic ability: increased strength), but for the vast majority of cases, they are completely worthless. Hell swords especially: 40 blood slaves and 10 fire gems for a -10 damage weapons? What was Zen smoking?

And even in those unusual cases, I'd bet that a standard sword of sharpness might still be the better choice given the cost difference. Basically Zen made lifedraining weapons the absolute worst weapons in the game. If he hated them so much, why not just get rid of them completely?

I think a more reasonable change, such as increasing the cost to 20 death gems/blood slaves and/or reducing the damage to 4-5 instead of 9 would have been the way to go. Zen's choice was far too extreme, especially when combined with Cherry's mod--armies will own the map under these settings, and will be impossible to stop without an army of your own. Perhaps that's what people want, though.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Personally, I would get a kick out of playing D&D as an accountant. While everyone else is plotting and scheming to rob the dragon of his treasure hoard, I just audit him. What's that? You don't pay taxes!? CALL IN THE ARMY! Captured by bandits? A little creative bookkeeping, and I have a small fortune to bribe the guards with! There are so many more possibilities to work with than the "hit things with swords" guy.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I think this particular game (set of mods) is just about it.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Hardy Har Har. I can't give you a gold star, so: [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon43.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon43.gif[/img]

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Bogus and his band will complain of this changes.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

On the subject of life drain weapons, they are MUCH too cheap in the base game. The reason is not so much the life stealing as the fatigue stealing! You never get fatigued when using life drain but the enemy trops get fatigued very quickly. That makes life drain far stronger than the mere damage it delivers. Dropping the strength of the weapon thus does not fix this mistake.

Zen nerfed them because all the top players built mostly life drain weapons for all their SCs and even mini-SCs. Making the weapons more expensive would open up a lot more options for other weapons, just as it should be.

Ever notice that Gaap is the best Ice Devil simply because he comes with a Hell Sword? And the guy with the no hand slots (can't remember his name) is not very good because you can't give him a Blood Thorn? I have...

I am pretty sure the devs will correct this problem in Dom 3.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Yeah if life drain weapons didnt steal fatigue, they'd be fine.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I'm going to bow out. The combination of rich setting and the super buff to Abysia are too much of an advantage.

I am glad that the game was set to rich though. I never would have tested some of the nations ( Abysia in particular ) unless something like that had happened.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I'm going to bow out also. I don't think I could stay interested during a long game playing BE Ermor.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

This map is just too big for these settings. Even if you can find 17 people willing to start the game, I would predict that at least 8 will drop out by elimination or quitting before Turn 50. It always happens that way on big maps when the game becomes tedious.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I would hope that at least 8 people would be eliminated by turn 50! Turn 50 is pretty late into the game.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Not on Faerun! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I seem to recall in our Faerun game that the only the people eliminated by turn 50 were the ones who had quit. Heck, even Graeme Dice survived longer than that despite being ganged up in a 3 on 1. Ulm lasted to almost turn 80 despite going AI around turn 40. Marignon lasted even longer than that as an AI. You yourself lasted past turn 50 with two different nations!

I am currently in a game on Inland with 9 players full of rich diplomacy where nobody is eliminated as yet on turn 49. And this is despite the game being full of endless bloody wars! But inland is wraparound and you can always find an ally somewhere to maybe help you against any random enemy, no matter where they are located.

Faerun is a horse of a different color, for it encourages extended peace plus lots of mass hoarding.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I find boring that people quit on the first difficulty. If we play 17 players there cannot be 17 winners. I don´t mind if i lose if I can get the fun of fighting epic battles.

Man has been nerfed too, so what? I beleive I have a chance.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Actually I had destroyed 2 nations that were being played ( Arcosphale and Mictlan ) by turn 50! Further I had taken out or was in the process of taking out T'ien Ch'i, Abysia, and Jotunhiem ( although all 3 has just started to stale around that point ). I think all of them were gone by turn 55. Although I'm not exactly sure.

I can not take all of the credit for the Mictlan conquering though. He had been weaken by the constant attacks of Matchaka and then when their war was over I swooped in and took his lands.

C'tis in that game got almost all of it's gains through war and has been at war since ~ turn 25. It's been a bloodbath!

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I have not read the whole thread, but I would be interested in taking marignon if this spot is for a NEW game, not a empire of a player who left.
If this is a new game, I would like to know the settings, and any mods that are being used and what map it is on.
Also, this would be my 2nd multiplayer game if you don't mind though.

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

Sure Welcome RibbonBlue.
All settings and mods are listed on the first page.
We are starting the game again so you design your own god.
Hf in your first faerun, it will be a nice experience most likely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Ermor on Faerun
 

I am not worried about the epic size of this game... I never make it past turn 25, because my evil opponents usually don't take kindly to my defensive-totally-justified police actions into their territory.