Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I don't think that's the main issue with gem gens. IMO, The main issues are:
A. invisible income -> other players don't know if you're a sheep or a wolf in sheep's skin
B. Worse: clams+wish -> economy model is broken

Last fort + strong army is a different issue in dominions root caused by defender-go-first rule.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

It's intrinsic to strategy games that resources come from territory, and that territory can be attacked and must be defended. If you're able to put virtually all of your economy inside a single nigh-invincible fortress, a huge part of the game is essentially thrown out the window.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

> Last fort + strong army is a different issue in dominions root caused by defender-go-first rule.

+100
Now, it would be just GREAT if Illwinter could make at least one more patch with just one more change: sieging army can put some extra effort after the walls are breached and destroy the castle completely. That way, defenders will actually attack ex-siegers who control the province now. Attackers dont get the castle (less benefit etc), but they actually have an edge in combat.

>> Out of the window etc.

It's also normal for strategies to have different ways of multiplying resources: through conquest or through investments in economy. By banning the investments strategy you throw a huge part of the game out of the window. ^^

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Was this intentional or a mistake?

...now back to your regularly scheduled gemgen whining...

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Good spot. Also the name of his sword is wrong (Nikatu's instead of Niklatu's).

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I don't think the issue with gem gens is the invisible income, frankly I love that part, it's like turning off score graphs. And blood hunting doesn't show up on graphs either.

The problem is like stated above more clams more wishing part, which eventually ends up with a nation getting like 1000 free gems per turn.

Heheh, doe clams Are limited in a way, you can only forge 50 gem gens a turn. :)

Seriously doe, I love clams, but I consider them broken in certain games. I agree they should somehow be limited, which doesn't sound possible to be honest.

The other things that is grossly broken is invading a fort full of immortals, to be specific vampires. That just isn't possible. :)

It would be interesting if clams had horror mark ability, I wonder how that would affect their production..?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I would like to say I have been paying extensively with 1.71 and I nowthink QM is correct to nuke hammers in the sense that they make lots of things obligatory in a bad way. Quite brave and he deserves kudos.

But until we can item mod to make things 25% cheaper across the board, I don't know how balance is going to work. Right now it doesn't particularly.

Looking forward to 1.8


In other news I think the archery nerf is annoying and selectively applied. It seems to have missed Sauromantia's poison archers for example. They have been upgraded to LB range? That seems fair.

I found what appears to be a bug in worthy heroes where do I send it?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Might as well just post it here. On that note, the Fianna hero for Eriu (MN 1806) has 2 shields.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Bug: Bane blades - if the leader does not have undead leadership, the created soulless have to be left in the province. They should get some undead leadership, and it might make the item a bit more useful.

Some suggestions on Oceania:

EA Oceania Triton kings should be made amphibian (or have a land shape), and kitted out with some equipment, so they could be thugged cheaper.
Landshape on the Triton princes might also help.

Both EA and MA Oceania could also use some recruitable (even if cap-only) S1 astral mage.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

EA Rlyeh's what's their name - mind lords (?) should have tentacle attack, it's thematic, implied by their sprite and will fix the absurd route to one mindless undead near bug. This should come with a small price increase.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I'd like to say I disagree with nerfing the forge lord from 50 to 25 forge bonus. It was the hammers that made the forgelord overpowered, since you could get 75 forge bonus guaranteed from very early on + a pile of almost free hammers.

Without the hammers the situation in very different, and 50% forge bonus seems quite balanced for the price you pay, not overpowered but still a reasonable choice for certain nations that craves more boosters than others.

With 25% forge bonus and no hammers the forge lord is pretty useless.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Speaking of useless pretenders... Did anyone find a use to Prince of Death at 125 points?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

??

It's still a flying, 0-encumbrance, high-fear, full-slots chassis with high dominion and high death. Maybe a *slight* reduction in cost, but if it goes too far, it quickly gets ubiquitous for anyone that wants a death + expansion pretender.

If you wanted to balance it via indirect cost modifications, you could instead reduce the base dominion to 1 (as most players want to give it awe as an expansion pretender) and drop the base cost, which would still leave it open as a death chassis that happens to generate low levels of undead chaff...of course there it's competing vs. the immortal liches, so it probably loses out.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

And just how often did you see that chassis picked lately? With any success?
Its just a combat pretender with death magic now. Even Wyrm can offer better diversification, I think, and he's a better expander.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Gath (and Ashdod) have the evocation spell Strange Fire - AoE 3 Damage 8+ AP (3x undead/demon) at Evoc 4.
It won't get any use because of the forbidding path requirements (2S1F). It should be reduced to 1S so out-of-capital mages could cast it, maybe 2S.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Light of the Northern Star.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

And how does that help with having no cross-path FS mages besides the 1 in 50 chance in the capital?

I should have been more clear. The F requirement (or the S one) should be removed. S1 to S2 can be dealt with.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

When I played Gath I had 3 sources of FS mages. They are pretty common. LoTS allows them to cast it.
With S only it will be too powerful imo.
Also, national spells not castable by national mages are not that uncommon.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

EA Ermor needs some sort of mage buff. maybe an extra s or a on the elders. (s more thematic,Air more useful) as the 1/160th chance of an a2 elder I have never seen and I like the nationa lot in SP... and/or a small chance of d1 on the regular augurs. they cant site search efficiently in death, as only the elders get it. Would leave the elder price the same as with mm1 and old they are still horrifying. could bump the regular augur to 90-100 depending on death chance.

Giving a nation healers with nothing to heal (old wont work, sacreds already recup) and putting recuperation on old people (which does nothing!) is just mean. You don't have to change it, I'm just saying.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

That's interesting never actually made a bane blade, but I was going to post how much I <3 the change to bane blades.

Summon bane.
Equip with boots of quickness and pendant of luck.
Give a wight retinue.

And off they go making a retarded amount of undead. Quite fun against the ai. :up: The banes and wights close in then make undead on the spot and the ai then cuts up the undead meaning the wights and banes are pretty much free and clear. :D

Something is a bit off though and not just with the undead leadership.

Bane = 4D
Wight = 2D
Bane Blade = 5D

I guess if BB were 4D that would work.

Also thematically I don't necessarily agree with BB giving UD leadership. And if it was granted to what end? That talisman that summons a skell only gives UD leadership 1 if I recall. Match that to the BB and you can cart around one of the newly dead which is useless. Leave the BB for undead and/or death/blood thugs.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

You can't mass large amount of undead with BB, so UD leadership is pointless.
The soulless get killed in the first round they get reanimated in by the enemy, so you're left with only maybe a dozen at the end of the battle.
That's from my tests.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I think that MA Shynuyama got overpowered in CBMs with size 1 goblins.
With size 2 goblins the strategy of Shynuyana was logical: with low resources, spent gold on army recruiting less effective goblins, with many resources, recruite effective dai bakemonos; with that palyer should survive untill research in construction and buffing spells would allow to make thugs and SKs from bakemono sorceres. Bakemono sorceres has good range of magic skills, and just enough hitpoints to cut enemy ranks opponents single-handly. Low attack skill? Any brand is forgeable. Earth, fire and water allow both usefull buffs and forgeable equipment, so shynuyama can strike at full force right when buffing sorcerers with soul vortex is available (with rare +1 death random, with skullface, with 1 death gem booster, probably it is possible to give skullstaff and equip with other items to compensate the absense of shield - soul vortex is castable), before magic research for all nations will go high and cheap bacemono sourceres mage-fighters will receive competitors.
With size one goblins shynuyama also don't have problems with initial expansion: low-resource cost goblins are competitors to any heavy infantry. So, for me it looks like size one goblins in terms of difficulty at early, mid, and late game turn shynuyama from average - easy - average to easy - easy - average. I don't think it is good.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Why not just put gemgens on summonable creatures like that sea troll thing that cost money in upkeep? Also, make them desert if there is no money left (this might be impossible to implement). That way gemgens are capped by income/territory and can't be spammed indefinitely (well up to 50).

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Good idea IMHO. Way to convert gold into gems.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Found a bug:

#selectspell "Infernal Disease"
#fatiguecost 7
#end

7 should be 700.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

While putting the gem gen on a specific unit does help somewhat, it doesn't solve the problem of gems being turned into ever greater numbers of gems. Also, commanders _can't_ desert, so even if you were operating at a deficit you wouldn't need to worry about losing your gem supply. Non-commanders can't have gem generating abilities of course since they don't have an inventory. Thus, you still aren't limited by income/territory.

Before you ask, no you can't set a specific number of summons like the ele royalty, and no you can't make it so you can only have 1 summon per province. Simple price adjustments won't really solve the problem, since the cost/benefit is based on the size of the game. Not to mention that gem gens didn't really make "underpowered" nations all that much better since many power nations had little difficulty forging them themselves. If you really want to hash over gem gens again then search the forums for the 1.6 thread, there was plenty of drama over them in that thread IIRC.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Nobody uses sea troll kings as gemgens. I think it means that it's possible to find some golden mean when such creatures become good, but not dominant.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Just because the Trolls take 55 turns to break even. In very large games I think I would use them as gen gems. And use all the "free" trolls to attack. (The additional troops add 50 gp upkeep, the sea king only 10).

But most mp games are rather small games.

I would support gengems as units with large costs (and perhaps additional units). Or immobile creatures. So you have point which can be attacked to destroy the gengems.

Question, do gems generated by units show up in the score charts?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

No, this is also part of the problem, as it is possible for the graphs to be very misleading in terms of true gem income w/gem gens in the game. This is also a problem with blood, but that is far less easily fixed.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

True, but blood is counterable in other ways. Raiding to put the unrest up/kill the hunters, armageddon to destroy the population. Remote attack spells to increase unrest.

Removal of the SDR also decreases blood power.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

>> Removal of the SDR also decreases blood power.

Mostly for non-blood nations.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Not really that much. Non-blood nations couldn't really do blood as much more than a sideshow, and having your main bloodhunter go from >50% chance to find a slave to <50% is significant (mictlan/lanka/hinnom/gath). However, Vanheim is a very sad panda now. Its true though that nief/aby/mari/ulm don't really lose out on much.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Also add Jotunheim to the list.

You could get b1 Vaetti hags, with a SDR effective hunters. Without, not so much.

Sure they also have 250 gold possible hunters. But that is the more expensive option.

Another thing with the SDR was that is gave "free" blood slaves after 3(hammer)/5 turns. So after 5 turns each hunter with a SDR would get an additional slave. So you would even put SDR's on high blood level hunters.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Dont put Jotunheim in. The more expensive option is still an option.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Sure, the more expensive option is an option. But it still decreases their power.

Just like the increase in gold for the Niefel Giant decreases the power of Niefelheim.

You need to spend more gold in upkeep to get the same amount of slaves as Jotun. So it decreases their blood power.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

During CBM 1.6 there was talk about reducing the Carrion Woods global for LA Pangaea (while keeping the price thematically high for EA and MA). Seems it is however still 90 gems even for LA Pangaea, which is so high that LA Pangaea will never (be able to) cast it. Carrion Woods is an early game spell which is useless in mid-late game, and it could take ~60 turns to collect the gems for for Carrion Woods in LA (in EA and MA much faster; if you take a pretender that can get CW up, it will be up at around turn 15), because it is much more important to get up Mother Oak up first for LA Pan.