Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I agree that getting an air 6 hero roughly once every ~666 turns with luck 3 is problematic and should be addressed immediately ;).

More seriously the design philosophy was that the heroes should always be at least as good as the recruitables. Getting an air4 eagle king hero when you just randomed a recruitable air 5 would be pretty boring.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I found an issue that had changed since CBM 1.5 and I didn't find it in the description on the first page.
EA R'lyeh Polypal Mother can no longer call Gibodai, but Gibodai may appear in the province with Polypal Mother. The chance increases with the dominion strength.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

QM had mentioned making that change at one point, although apparently not in this thread. I guess he decided EA Rlyeh needed a little nerfing? Not sure why - its not like they win that often.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

You've got me- I just can't feel satisfied with a CB version without a little bit of random nerfing.

Apart from that though, there is the fact that as things stood gibodai were quite silly as a recruitable, and I found giant late game swarms of them (but not other aboleth stuff apart from spawn) unthematic.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Do you mean polypal mother was silly as a recruitable?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

If you want to find a solution in line with has been done recently the Bane Spiders/Spider warriors could be made recruitable everywhere. The regular spider warriors are almost identical to man's wardens, except they aren't sacred and therefore have twice the upkeep.

The anywhere Bane Spiders might make the nation "assassination-centric", wouldn't call that entirely a bad thing - new dynamics are interesting and if the new strategy is more viable than the old one it's a "win".

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Well, the chance for getting a A5 High Seraph is 0.625%. Right now you are more likely to get A5 from an Eagle King than if you recruit 3 High Serpahs a turn (under luck 3).

It isn't much of an issue, but I feel it is an oddity, especially as it makes the MA Eagle Kings quite a bit better than the EA (okay, they are heroes, but even a baseline Eagle King is a jackpot, they are first class thugs besides the considerable magic).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

0.625% means about one in 150, no? So if you recruit 3 a turn then you should get A5 once every 50 turns or so. That is much more often than the one every 660 or so turns from the Eagle King hero.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

From what I recall, MA Caelum has three different heroes. Two of them are multiheroes, the Harab Seraphine and Eagle King, and one is a unique hero - some leader of the temple guard, I don't recall the specifics. My assumption was that you had an equal chance of getting one of the three - a 2% to get an eagle king per turn. As the MA Caelum Eagle kings have A5 unlike the EA ones, that's a 2% to get an A5 hero perturn. If you recruit three High Seraphs you have 1- (1 - 0.00625)^3 = 1.833056640625% per turn to get a A5 (or more than one) High Seraph.

The 1 in 666 turns to get an A6 hero is a separate issue, and not one I have verified the maths for. I am only discussing A5 - and where the chance of a getting a hero with is larger than if you recruit 3 High Seraphs per turn.

The Eagle King by itself is certainly good enough that it doesn't need the A5 to be competitive.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I just had to pop in to thank this wonderful stopping of clam/gem whoring in cbm 1.6

There sure has been no problem of having too few gems in our games(I've been playing in small circle of ppl outside lamaserver forumgames) or atleast I have had no gem shortages with no gemgens. There sure has been plenty of tartarians/elemental kings/queens fully kitted on our games. All it takes is just focusing yer usage of gems to "right" places.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Redeyes - right, sorry, I got confused between the A5 and A6 statistics.

:)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

As we all know, Alexander the Great did not exist and he had an infinite number of limbs. That isn't the topic for today. The proof hinges on the fact that forearmed is forewarned, so let us turn to today's topic: the 4-armed pretenders. Known by their titanic size, their 1 miscellaneous slot, their 3 strength dominion and, yes, their 4 arms.

Specifically for Lanka, which is the nation I have examined them most in in CBM, it seems there is a minor issue, but an annoying one - the thematic pretenders are completely outclassed by the generic pretenders and, even worse, by pretenders that are just about as unthematic as they can get. (Which isn't the general case: See e.g. T'ien C'hi's Jade Emperor)

The thematic ones are:
- Destroyer of Worlds (100): Whose A2D2 makes the price tag reasonable and along the general lines of cost but makes for a poor chassis for just about all occasions because just about all recruitable commanders and national summons for Lanka are air/death mages already and neither air nor death makes for strong blesses and Lanka is, usually, all about having a strong bless. He has better attack/defense values than the Nataraja (+3/+2), but for Lanka pretenders aren't chosen for their melee SC abilities as a general rule.
- Deva (75): Whose single-path B2, the single cheapest path for other pretenders to acquire when running a blood nation, seems grossly overpriced compared to the other titan sized pretenders (and especially the Nataraja, who costs 25; Ok, the Deva has 2 higher base attack skill, but she really feels overpriced). With the correct amount of blood magic to invest in on most pretenders being 0 or 1 since 1 is all that is needed to start the blood process for non-blood nations, one is actually paying 75 points for what anybody else could pick up at their basic path cost.
- Nataraja: (Who really ought to side with the opposition) has a good S2 to start with and a very cheap 25 price tag.


And the Nataraja, despite its very cheap cost, is completely overshadowed by the generic Lady of Fortune pretender that Lanka also has access to, who, for a mere 50 points (25 more than the Nataraja), gets a point of water magic and good luck events in her province thrown in. The Natarajas 2 extra hands at the cost of a miscellaneous slot is probably a wash overall - better SC melee and defense but no option to use the standard sorcery/wizardry ring combination so common for high level spellcasting.


When considering the rest of the available pretenders, the vast majority have either no magic or overlap at least in part with the national magics - out of the 29 possible pretenders for Lanka, with Lanka having only ADNB as national magics, there are 15 who bring some new path to the table but only 6 (Fountain, Nataraja, Mother of Rivers, Lady of Fortune, Cyclops, Dragon (red)) that focus on non-national paths. As the strongest blessings for Lanka tends to be two (or three) of F, W, E with optional S or N components thrown in, that means that as of 1.6, it is likely that the vast majority of pretenders made by human players for Lanka, Land of Demons, are Mothers of Rivers or Ladies of Fortune with the rare Great Mother or Cyclops thrown in.

Ideally, changes would be made to make the Nataraja competitive with the Lady of Fortune and to make the Destroyer of Worlds and Deva of some interest other than choosing a bad pretender for the nation with a whiff of flavour.

------

I'll throw some suggestions into the ring to start with, but as there are many nations I don't have a strong feel for, they are probably not the most appropriate - feel free to come up with better changes: The intention is not to make the currently rarely seen thematic ones overshadow the generic ones but to make them competitive whether by equal magic, better generic effects, or whatever:

Now, the Nataraja is shared with Arcoscephale, Kailasa, Caelum, and T'ien C'hi (if I recall all of them and in most ages of the nations), so balancing him may take a bit of work - otoh, almost all of those get the Lady of Fortune as well, so it is really a Nataraja (S2, 25) vs. Lady of Fortune (WS2, 50) balancing for those nations too in his current form; My suggestion would be to focus on his role as Lord of the Dance, Destruction leading to Creation, in the Dom3 Death and Rebirth interpretation: Have him autocast relief in battle as the world rejoices at his dancing. This won't make him a popular choice for Lanka due to the need for a heavy bless, but it will, perhaps, make him compete with the Lady of Fortune for some of the other nations - a mobile auto relief could come in quite handy for those relying on national armies. Alternatively, make him an FS2 caster to more closely mirror the destruction/creation aspect or do both and boost him to the 50 price tag (same pirace as Lady of Fortune, Jade Emperor, and many other of the non 2/2 path pretenders)

The Destroyer of Worlds sees action for Caelum and Kailasa (all ages), and Yomi - ironically, the only nation to whom he really brings something truly useful is Kailasa when the goody-two-shoes are in charge and neither air nor death are national magics (though a rainbow mage is probably more useful). His magic is entirely appropriate but it just doesn't make him a good choice for those for whom it would be thematic the job. I would suggest making him E2D2 or AED2 (just as thematic: hey, he's armed with both iron and lightning) rather than A2D2 or perhaps as an alternative, give him an autocasting battlefield wide Wind of Death... if there was a reasonable way to make him not take damage himself One day, I'd love to see a pretender autocast battle fortune in battle just for fun - a martial pretender whom soldiers love to follow, but that is probably much too strong due to its likely crippling impact on blitz games.

The Deva is shared like the Destroyer of Worlds and visits two ages of T'ien C'hi as well. Nobody likes her. Let's face it: The Deva is a zero cost throwaway combat pretender that comes with blood 2 and a 75 point cost. Perhaps the best thing to do would simply be to set her cost to zero - an equally but different terrible alternative to the terrible manticore for those who have her as an option. Now, that might be boring. As an alternative, make her a FEB2 caster and keep the current price tag. That's 3 magic paths for 75 and a possible bless chassis. For Lanka one is probably going to stick with the cheaper Lady of Fortune if going for a standard major FW bless or WE (or WN), but it might be used for blesses including minor E components and major F components or vice versa - and the ability to cheaply add a B4 bless is worth something (though not much).


So, any other opinions on the 4 armed pretenders as they exist in CBM 1.6 given the pretenders they compete against for selection choice? Am I off my rocker? Do you guys use them all the time? If I actually do have a poitn, what should be done with them to better balance them versus the competition? :)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Ive been watching for the initial post to change. But I guess since I have to restart all the games on the Dom3 server anyway, I will go ahead and ask. Has this shifted from an early version to the official one? Should I download this one and use it, or wait?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Demon Knights still use the normal "hoof" attack, it seems they should get the improved "warhorse hoof" attack that other knight type units get in CBM (or maybe something like a specific "nightmare hoof" attack as they are riding demon steeds).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I'm wondering that too, Gandalf.


I like your Nightmare Hoof idea, as long as it makes demon knights more expensive/harder to get. A lot of strategies seem to eventually boil down to "and then summon demon knights at your leisure".

Maybe the hoof attack could have a small chance of feebleminding their target? It seems rather appropriate for a kick in the head.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

The Allfather pretender seems really overpriced. Not only that, but his innate magic paths offer nothing really to any of the nations that can choose him. There was complaint about the Destroyer of Worlds above, and the DoW is a much better buy than the Allfather.

I'm tempted to recommend halving his price to 75 pts, but 100 would be a decent step in the right direction.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Is the Destroyer of Worlds really such a clear better buy at 100 (for those who can buy him) than the Allfather is at 150? (for those who can buy him). I would tend to think not, though I agree that 150 sure feels like an awful lot when creating the pretender. :)

While he is obviously inferior to the DoW in starting magic (AD vs A2D2) and thus for blessing purposes of less use, additional paths cost 30 rather, useful for those going for smaller blesses or a touch of rainbow magic. Moreover, the reason people take the Allfather (when not just in order to be thematic) is usually to get a powerful awake or dormant SC with minimal research and equipment needs, and he certainly fits that role very well, considerably better than the DoW does, operating at a very strong level early on while providing some magical coverage later in the game; while the DoW may have 4 arms, the Allfather is flying, has glamour, and gets his own extra attacks (from 2xHoof(20)) (not to mention being extremely stealthy to boot). He can also sail huge armies across oceans, which can be anything from worthless to quite good depending on map.

His eyeloss and lack of foot slot hurts, but being mounted is fairly useful, so it is not all bad news.

For me, the reason not to take him is more that he doesn't provide the sort of power bless that is common for those very few who can get him (3 ages of Vanheim and one of Helheim) than because of his price for what he does, and for that reason alone I am tempted to think that lowering his price alone isn't going to make him a more popular pretender in general: At a whopping 150 points, he remains the most powerful early-game SC of the available chassis for Vanheim and Helheim (and one of the most powerful SC chassis amongst pretenders in the game in general).

For the games I like to play (60-80+ turns), he probably ought to have a lower cost (given the general CBM changes), but what, if any, would be the impact on blitz games from having a 75 points Allfather as you suggest? (I don't know).

What is the true value of glamour on an SC chassis? (Most of us would kill for it, but what's that in points? :D) What is the true value of having path costs of 30 rather than, say, 50? What is the true cost of starting with an affliction that puts one just one eyeloss from blindness, even if the stats have been adjusted to compensate for it?

I find the Allfather devilishly hard to set a point value for because he just has way too many options available to him and several really good base abilities that everybody wants to get (such as flying) or wish they had (glamour).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Have you actually tried to play with him against real people? (everything works against the computer, after all).

He's not that exciting as an early SC. Actually, he's pretty craptastic. His starting gear is pretty bad. His stats are sort of ho-hum for a titan chassis. He has terrible early buffing potential with his innate paths. (Nothing useful until alt3 for mistform). See below for glamour. He has neither fear nor awe, so D5 and Dom9 are mandatory additional expenses on top of his 150pt pricetag. That's another 227 points *minimum* on just basic SC necessities, for a starting price of 377 points, and you haven't even tried to use that 30pt/new path yet.

Glamour is just free mirror image. Its really not all that, I don't know why people get so worked up about it. Yeah, its exciting when your basic troops have it. But your commanders with air magic can just *cast mirror image* - of course, you rarely do this because its a situational buff. (In fact, for an SC its not a very good one because they're supposed to be fighting *armies* - its most useful for anti-SCs who expect to be fighting one creature). Value of glamour on an SC chassis? Almost nothing.

That he has sailing is irrelevant. So does every fricking commander for the nations that can choose him. And if he's an SC, he's not taking an army with him. The ability is flavor and nothing more.

He flies, great. He also has no boots slot. So basically he gets free boots of flying - which costs what, 10a? 7a with a hammer? And it means you can't give him any different boots instead.

Compared to the Destroyer of Worlds, he's down a boots slot and 2 hand slots, and up 1 misc slot. Ie, net down 2 slots. As you noted, he's A1D1 instead of A2D2, so he's down 2 paths. His paths are also totally useless for Helheim or Vanheim, who have air magic and death magic already, and don't want air or death blesses - not even minor ones. And the DoW is available to Kailasa, who can actually want an A9 bless, and with sacred archers and mages a D8 bless could be entertaining. Ie, the DoW has better paths for the nations that can take it than the Allfather does, even assuming those path lengths were equal.

At 150pts awake, the fact that he can get new paths for 30pts doesn't actually mean much because you *don't have many points to spend*. Even asleep 30pts is a really expensive rainbow, and 150pts is a really expensive opening for a rainbow.

If you take him asleep he's no longer an early expander SC. Which means any advantage he might have had of having flying early is gone, because you could just make boots of flying for your other cheaper pretender at this point.

Lets compare him to some other pretenders Vanheim/Helheim/Midgard have:

Father of Winters:
Adv: Better stats (+1 defense/str), better protection (by one), better weapon out of the box, Cold Power, Chill Aura (of large), a magic path Van/hel might actually want to use for a major bless (Water), a boot slot, 6 more base hp, 50 points cheaper, +1 additional total paths (3 vs. 2)
Disad: Doesn't fly. We can fix this with his boot slot. More expensive new paths - at 50 pts cheaper the first new path is free by comparison, and we have a much better innate path for a bless anyway.

Asynja (this one's going to be embarassing):
Adv: Vastly better stats (8 more defense, 3 more att, mere 1 less str, even better precision fwiw), better weapon, much better armor (chainmail of displacement!), 3 more base hp, 2A vs. 1A1D, bootslot, 125pts less
Disad: Doesn't fly. We can fix this with boots. 50 pts/new path, but at 25 pts the first *2.5* are effectively free by comparison.

Blue Dragon
Adv: Also flies, better str/att (worse base def, but magic path will fix that), much better protection, better attack routine, breath weapon, magic path we actually care about on the pretender, 100points cheaper, innate Fear +5
Disad: Fewer slots, Much more expensive additional paths (yeah, but we saved 100 points on the chassis, and we get a good bless to boot)

Keeper of the Bridge
Adv: +1 att, much better protection, magic path we actually care about (E), 100 pts cheaper
Disad: 1 less str, 2 fewer base hp, more expensive new paths, doesn't fly (hey, these are actually comparable - too bad one's 100 pts cheaper)

Wyrm:
Adv: 78 more base hp!, Much higher str, att, prot (lower defense), regeneration of awesome, fear +0, amphibious, better attack routine, 100 pts less, extra head slot
Disad: Doesn't fly, fewer slots, no magic, more expensive paths

Totally owns Allfather as an early SC. At the point savings, can afford a magic path (or two!) trivially by comparison.

------
The allfather is worse than all of those, maybe comparable at best (the Keeper of the Bridge has E, which makes it arguable, although for the nations in question i'd say the Keeper is marginally better), and that's before even considering relative point cost. At 2-3x the point cost of the other options, the fact that he is *worse* than them is just appalling. The two things he routinely does better are flying and cheaper new paths. Of course, the first is only relevant if you take him awake (easy to solve with forging for nations that have abundant air), and the second is impossible to get any relative advantage out of because his base cost is so expensive you don't have the points left to really use it - especially if you take him awake to use the early flying.

And of course, the allfather should also be balanced against the opposition as well. Consider Moloch/PoD/Gorgon. All of which come with Fear (often powerful fear), 3 total paths, flying, full slots (no missing boot slot), and other abilities. in current CBM their point costs are 125/125/150 respectively, and they all are much better than the allfather as early SCs, and 2 of them are better as bless chasses.

He even compares unfavorably to the vampire queen, who, while physically unimpressive, does have a host of useful abilities, the same new magic path cost and flight, and is immortal.

If the allfather was as good as a gorgon (equal to it in combat potential, equally useful magical paths for the nation it belongs to), it would be worth 150 points. Neither its magic paths nor its combat ability live up to that comparison.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I'm here to talk about Glaives(and their bastard son, Coral Glaives).

I would posit that in fact, all troops who use glaives are inferior. Now, I recognize that there are sometimes instances where one really does just need to punch through 20 protection or so. Unfortunately, most high protection troops have at least average defense scores(and many even have shields). Because glaives have an attack penalty, most of the time you are better off using a different troop that has a better attack score to score more hits(and get more chances at a crit), get past shields, and soforth.

Moreover, the only nations who use glaives don't need high-damage troops, as they use 15+ strength troops.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think that the Allfather's high price is a holdover from the Dom2 days, where the differences in mechanics really did make him close to being worth that cost.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

T'ien Ch'i has 15+ strength troops? At the price of their glaive bearers?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

When people object to gem generators, do they have a problem with all of them, or just with clams?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

1) Different people object for different reasons. See any number of threads.
2) Generally - people who object for micromanagement reasons object to them all.
3) Generally - people who object for game balance/power distribution reasons are more heavily focused on clams...but that's more varied.

Feel free to choose your own reasons for liking/disliking them :-)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

All of them!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

T'ien Ch'i uses its glaive troops?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

LA Mictlan also has glaives.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

QM,

We were discussing LA Ulm strategies on IRC and I noticed what I think is a balance issue.

Black Templars are useful troops for LA Ulm especially with a rainbow light bless which also suits LA Ulm as a viable build. However, I think they are badly overpriced. The comparisons I made are Midgard Vans and TC Ancestor Vessels.

Vans at 90/16 are 10 gold more and 29 resources less. I think the gold price for vans is suitable and resources are based on equipment if I understand correctly so that suits.

Ancestor vessels at 60/31 are 20 gold cheaper and 14 resources cheaper.

Black templars at 80/45 gain a lot of protection but have generally inferior stats to the above and have no special abilities besides sacred. The resource price is for gear so makes sense but the gold price seems at least 20 too high if not 30 too high. My understanding is that protection should not be included in gold price because it's in the resource price. Also, they have terrible MR which is potentially an issue in some situations.

Clearly a build to use Black Templars must account for production and that's fair. But burning that much gold on a decent but not special sacred cavalry unit is painful. You could buy 8 infantry for that.

That's my opinion anyways. I'm not sure LA Ulm needs help in late game, but it does have a bit of a fragile expansion depending on the strategy. And also the consensus on IRC is that LA Ulm is rush bait because their late game is so good. Black templars are one of the best equilizers for stopping a rush. And I don't think they have much late game value so it's really only a boost to Ulm's expansion and early game.

Cheers,
Maer

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

"And I don't think they have much late game value so it's really only a boost to Ulm's expansion and early game."

Stronger early game translates directly into stronger late game...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Fair enough

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

That's actually one thing I have to disagree with.

Firstly, it's limiting strategies to "expand fast" (with a chance to outresearch and use research advantage in some situations).

Secondly I really don't see where Ulm can squeeze out a bless for templars.
You need d3b2-3 on your god and you need him at least dormant if you want to get into the vampires quickly, you want high dom, s4 is necessary for RoW, nature isn't.

Giving the vampires back their earlier lower cost might be better imo. They are (leaving the immortality out) weaker than the recruitable mages of many nations (Scratti and Mictlan Rain Priests for instance).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think that's a bit of taste involved. I've been playing them with a nice rainbow bless on the light side with sleeping master lich and some 4's while keeping decent scales. Obviously it includes D4 and B4 and other variations. There are a lot of options which play a bit different.

But, the point was that they compare unfavourably to other LA sacred cavalry. Not an analysis of playing style or build although I agree I brought that into the discussion myself.

Speaking of limiting strategies, assuming that Ulm can't use a bless strat is limiting. It's possible. It may not be effective. I think it works well with 4's and synergizes with the need to diversify magic.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Well, I'm not talking about limited in one nation (of course a nation must be limited or it's simply overpowered, see Hinnom, Sauromatia).
I mean that balancing nations should not be done by just giving them better sacreds imo.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Having just played LA Ulm recently, i'm not convinced the templars are unplayable. But they probably are overpriced for their stats, at least slightly. Their real problem is their bad MR - i had them dying like flies to smite spam, which for an 80 gold unit is not cool, especially when they're otherwise the only unit Ulm has that can stand against a lot of the LA bless rushes. I'd probably advise an MR boost before a drop in the gold cost.

I do think the rainbow Ulm bless is perfectly playable and fulfills a lot of Ulm's needs.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I have, and it went great. But I was really lucky in that game.
Allfather's main flaw is that he doesnt cover Vanheim's main weaknesses (which is limited magic).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think you are missing a huge contributor to their value.

If I am palying a sacred nation: Mictlan, Lanka.. etc. I choose a different target. Period.

Lowering the cost would mean ulm doesn't have to make choices. I've had a lot of experience with MP, and a fair amount of success. I just had my butt handed to me by Fantomen in a straight up fight with ulm as is.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

What would that be Chris? Don't get me wrong. I think the Black Templars have value and I buy them depending on the strategy. I just think they are overpriced. I know you have lot's of MP experience and I'm interested in your analysis.

I doubt I would play a build based on them, but it's possible.

An MR boost would sure help. A suggestion on IRC was made to use them with Legions of Steel which is great except that it's very hard for Ulm to get many LoS casters with only 1/4 of black priests having the capability and only after Conj 3 research. Still, 20 protect +3 is very very nice.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

The problem Ulm has against sacred rushes is they're likely to be accompanied by a smite spamming priest (the prophet, if nothing else).

At which point Ulm has the choice of the Templars, who might actually be able to fight the sacreds but will die horribly to smite spam, and in their rather limited numbers can't really survive that. Or they can choose regular units (none of which they can mass especially fast, but faster than templars), who will have the numbers to withstand some smite losses, but won't survive the sacreds. And it really is a one or the other choice, because even with Pr3 Ulm will always find itself resource limited.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I would say thats *a* problem with it, but its main problem is its horribly overcosted, which makes it impossible to really benefit from any of its advantages.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Hey Maerlande,

The fact that because they *can* build guardians, sacred nations don't choose ulm as a target.

I disagree completely with squirrel that bless nations tend to field large armies of smiters. In fact, very few nations field large numbers of H3 priests. Abysia comes to mind.

Secondly; Ulm has a 25% production bonus. This means that it is easier to have dump stats, and translates into a bonus on pretender design.

Finally, I *like* the low MR of ulm units. I don't believe accurate stats are tracked since the recent changes to ulm. However I definitely do not view it as one of the weak nations.

Ulm has a national spell that boosts MR. I would rather increase the AoE of that spell than make any fundamental changes to ulm units.

I won the all ulm civil war (admittedly late age), but I think many of the same principles carry through for ulm from beginning to end.

To me, ulms low MR is a guide that ulm needs to transition from national troops to other things. But due to its forge bonus, or national spells (la) ulm has pretty good options in those areas.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Ummm, they're talking about the cavalry, not the guardians Chris. LA Ulm is the one in question here.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I see quite a bit of Chris's analysis that points to the templar discussion. We've been hashing out ideas on the ghouls in IRC today.

I guess to put it simply, I'd like the templars to cost less gold to fit with the competition for sacred cavalry. I strongly agree that the low MR is thematic and fits. If the templars cost less gold it would provide another strategic option, neither the best nor worst, just another one.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Ghoul guardians are neither especially fast nor especially strong defenders. So they are likely to get attacked before attacking, and likely to die when attacked. Defense 6 is pitifully easy to hit, and Protection 19 isn't spectacular without decent defense to keep the number of hits low. Especially since many sacreds used for rushing are going to be offensively powerful, like F9W9 jags or Gibborim with ~20 strength, and so on. The best defense against many of these sacreds is the Templars because they combine good defense with good protection in addition to a good offense.

The problem, of course, is having them get eaten by the opposing prophet (or other H3 priests if they have them) while they are stymying the sacreds. The ghoul guardians might survive smite-spam, but they just keel over and die when anything with plausible offense gets near them.

It only takes one smiter to ruin an reasonable force of Templar, since they kill about 3 templar for every 4 smites, and a reasonable force is ~10.

...

Neutral production scales with *turmoil 3* and *cold 3* found me definitively resource limited. Ulm's troops individually take a lot of resources and not much gold with the exception of Templars, who take a lot of both.

Thaum 4 is kind of late to be fending off a rush, especially as Ulm is not going to be blazing fast in the research department. And only gets E2 on 25% of black priests.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Sorry. I can't imagine taking turmoil-3 with ulm. You have hearty, expensive units. Get the scales to buy them.

More or less you have units with good protection, good precision or strength, good hit points. Your weakness is mobility and magic resistance.

So unit for unit your units compare well in straight out combat against other nations.

Since all of my researchers are black priests.. E2 is never a problem. I like the lower upkeep costs. Reserve the others for blood hunting.

I also like to take an awake or dormant pretender at the worst to take care of the holes in magic paths, act as a deterrent to rushes, and to start using my forge bonus as fast as possible.


Finally, you decried the ghouls defense adn mobility. Once you're going to get hit (def 6) the point is don't try to compensate for it.

Either boost their protection up (legions of steel) or get them berserking - find a shaman.

19 protection isn't great?? huh? Barkskin em, or whatever and most usual troops will take 2-3 hits to kill em. Whereas the converse is not true.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think you missed his point. Even with turmoil 3 cold 3 limiting his gold income, he was still limited by resources in producing black templars, not their gold cost.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I got his point. I just don't agree with it.

You *shouldn't* be building black templars significantly, let alone exclusively.

For example, EA-Ermor has some of the cheapest, most cost effective cav in the game. I *still* don't buy them. Early game you want cost effective expansion. Ermors roti's, and lixard auxiliaries and other troops are much more cost effective. Likewise for Ulm, except in a handful of niches - black templars aren't it.

If you try to expand using a round peg to drive a square hole - yes, you will be limited. Villains, rangers, and various footmen are much more cost effective.

Generally ulm units cost a few gp more than other nations. So I stand by my comments that you need $$ for units, and cannot envision a setup where turmoil-3 works.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Vanheim has cold scale, and can perfectly live with some sloth, so they have free points to buy Allfather. But they cant buy him enough extra magic paths to really diversify with him.
So yeah, you can say its his high cost that is a real problem.
Make him much cheaper, and he will be terribly overpowered though. With Awe, Allfather can solo indies on turn 3 (with an earthen kite shield). Having a stealthy, awake SC-God which also diversifies you into death and, I dont know, astral may be a bit too much.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

In the game where I just beat you, Zebra, I had turmoil 3;). And if I could start over I would probably have taken some sloth too and swapped the fountain for a WQ.

I expanded using my starting army + a couple templars(!) for the weak indies and second tier mages casting call horror+retreat with indy scouts following to capture for the moderate to hard ones. Lots of micro but worked like a charm.

Extra bonus is that after initial expansion you already have those mages sprinkled out to blood hunt.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

It wasn't i was limited on templars by resources, i was limited on *any* troops by resources. With adjacent mountains.

Ulm's troops take so many resources its hard to imagine them being *gold* limited no matter what you do to your scales (except maybe take sloth 3, which sounds like a terrible idea).

Also, since 4 Black Templars + a Black Priest make a great expansion party that doesn't take losses, and you can combine these into larger parties when you need to, Black Templars would seem to be ideal for 'efficient expansion' - especially since your infantry do take losses and are less effective against things like HC (which are common in LA).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

So lets see, you're advocating 150 pt chassis + 30 pt new path + at least 72 pts boosting the new path (S4 or you'll just get mage dueled to death, and even that is somewhat risky) + 21x7=147 points on dominion, or 399 points, and that's still a pretty minimal allfather. You're also advocating awake, so we're already 2 scales in the hole from balanced (ok, so that covers C2 of the C3 you're going to take). Now, we desperately need Mg1 and O3, and you've advocated Sl3, so our points balance. We have 31 points left which is A3 or D3 or A2D2. And you know what, that's a really crappy pretender for the points we just spent. We can pile on some misfortune (2), which gives us enough to get up to D5 for fear (from D3) plus give us A3. Of course, now we'll be fending off indie barbarians all game long, with our non-existent armies since Van's troops require non-trivial amounts of resources, so we can't mass troops very fast with Sl3. And our sacreds have no bless worth caring about. And our sacred mages/thugs have no bless worth caring about. And its not even a very good allfather.

I mean, I confess, you can just play the Allfather. You have to basically give up on all your national units, but you'll get an allfather worth caring about. Of course, you'll lose since the only thing you have going for you is the Allfather, but you can do it.

The ability to solo indies on turn 3 is actually rather pathetic for a titan chassis. Most Titans can do it on turn 2, at least if they're sufficiently careful about who they attack. (I imagine he can too. But he's not as good at it as say, the Wyrm at 1/3 his cost).

-------------

Because, you know, taking a cheap SC pretender like the 25pt Asynja, and paying 50points each for new paths would also get you Astral and Death and *still* be cheaper than the Allfather... And did I mention she has better stats and equipment like a *chainmail of displacement* to start with, so she can be SCing from turn 2? And a boot slot to slap some Boots of Flying in?

And because, you know, Vanheim does get D1 randoms I'm reasonably sure. Or can just gain access to death via blood summons. So access to death is not exciting. So we can just save another 50 points and skip death on the pretender.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Well actually, I have won as MA Vanheim with Allfather. It didnt make into HoF because its not updated anymore, but I did. And I am not exactly advocating him - it was quite a relaxed game with little competition, so I took him just for the sheer beauty of taking a real Norse God, not for powerplaying. And still, I liked him even if he is not the *best* thing you can take.

First off, I didnt take Astral. I just took A3D4, domain 10. When I mentioned Astral, I meant that if you make Allfather cheaper, it will be possible to take some other endgame path as well, and that may be too much.

My scales were Order 3, Misfortune 2, Sloth 1, Cold 3 and Magic 1. Pretty decent.
Vanheim doesnt require 'nontrivial' amount of resources by the way. Skinshifters are just 7 resources each, and they form the bulk of Vanheim's armies.

Vanheim has high air and earth, they have blood hunters - and with such Allfather you also have D4, which is enough to summon demiliches etc. The only thing I really missed was an earth bless for Vanjarl thugs. And, of course, Astral.

If you dont mind, I will discard your concern about Astral Allfather being vulnerable to magic duels. Allfather picks his fights - he is stealthy, and he can teleport.

D1 is tooooooo slow to get into death magic soon enough, by the way. Its enough, sure, but its really slow. Allfather can conquer an indie province (nearly any indie province, including heavy cavalry) and search it, rinse and repeat. Once you have some death income, your D1 dwarfs can start casting dark knowledge.
A boot slot is also something you wont miss. Because, you see, Allfather has his boots of flying built-in.

So all in all, Allfather is decent. Not great, but decent. Make him much cheaper, and he might get too strong. Maybe he should cost about ~100 points instead of 150 though.