Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Ok, I ran some tests and here are the results.

First Test

Sidhe Lord
Equipment: Frost Brand, Eye Shield, Dragon Helmet, Rainbow Armor, Bracers, Pendant of Luck
Script: Bless, Barkskin, Mistform, hold, hold, attack
vs.
Female Shishi
Equipment: Girdle of Might, AoMR, Pendant of Luck
Script: Mirror Image, Mistform, hold, hold, hold, attack

battle 1 - Shishi killed
battle 2 - Shishi routed
battle 3 - Shishi routed


Second Test

Sidhe Lord
Equipment: Frost Brand, Vine Shield, Dragon Helmet, Rainbow Armor, Bracers, Pendant of Luck
Script: Bless, Barkskin, Mistform, hold, hold, attack
vs.
Female Shishi
Equipment: Girdle of Might, AoMR, Pendant of Luck
Script: Mirror Image, Mistform, Flight, hold, hold, attack

battle 1 - Shishi routed
battle 2 - Shishi killed
battle 3 - Shishi routed


Third Test

Sidhe Lord
Equipment: Frost Brand, Vine Shield, Dragon Helmet, Rainbow Armor, Bracers, Pendant of Luck
Script: Bless, Mistform, hold, hold, hold, attack
vs.
Female Shishi
Equipment: Girdle of Might, AoMR, Pendant of Luck
Script: Mirror Image, Mistform, hold, hold, hold, attack

battle 1 - Sidhe lord killed
battle 2 - Sidhe lord killed
battle 3 - Shishi killed

The one win for the Sidhe Lord was very lucky - he was down to 1 HP but managed to survive and all of a sudden started scoring hits on the Shishi. The lesson here is that without barkskin the Sidhe Lords protection is too low.


Fourth Test

Skratti
Equipment: Sword of Swiftness, Eye Shield, Horned Helmet, Green Dragon Scale Mail, Boots of the Messenger, Pendant of Luck
Script: Quicken self, hold, hold, hold, hold, attack
vs.
Female Shishi
Equipment: Girdle of Might, AoMR, Pendant of Luck
Script: Mirror Image, Mistform, hold, hold, hold, attack

battle 1 - Shishi killed
battle 2 - Shishi killed
battle 3 - Shishi killed

No surprise on these results. General pattern was that the Shishi scores some hits but soon enough the Skratti kills it.


If anyone wants to run their own tests on Shishi's or other diversity summons I've attached a saved game and the mod I used for testing. The mod is a CBM 1.6 base, with changes made for the ThreeFort game (the relevant one being that most spells are level 0), Diversity mod added with summons costing 1 gem, and several globals and wish set to cost 1 N gem so you can easily summon and equip units.

Edit: Shishi's, Sidhe Lords and Skratti are positioned on the left of the map, ready for battle.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Why mistform? It absorbs only one hit before popping because both sides have magic weapons.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Now give that shishi a ring of frost resistance against frost brand for a change. :)

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Sure, here are the results.

Fifth Test

Sidhe Lord
Equipment: Frost Brand, Eye Shield, Dragon Helmet, Rainbow Armor, Bracers, Pendant of Luck
Script: Bless, Barkskin, Mistform, hold, hold, attack
vs.
Female Shishi
Equipment: Girdle of Might, AoMR, Ring of CR
Script: Mirror Image, Mistform, hold, hold, hold, attack

battle 1 - Shishi killed
battle 2 - Shishi killed
battle 3 - Shishi killed

This is where the Shishi's limited slots become a real disadvantage since I gave up the Pendant of Luck in order to get Cold Resistance. Note that in two out of three of the above battles the Shishi was blinded relatively quickly, despite still having the AoMR.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

True, and I have sometimes gone without it when facing troops with magic weapons. But in a 1 vs. 1 situation I'd be inclined to use it. 15 HP doesn't leave much margin for error and mistform can save you from that first hit that the RNG rolls huge damage for. So it was more for the benefit of the Sidhe Lord than the Shishi.

The other thing is of course that I have both parties waiting 5 rounds before attacking and attacking without fatigue. I did try a test where I had the Shishi cast Flight and immediately attack. This disrupted the Sidhe Lord/Tuatha's (not sure which it was) buff routine and caused damage several times but the Shishi still lost. I was kind of surprised at that.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

And what's the bless for these sidhe lords? Judging by bracers, its heavy earth bless + something else.

I wonder how would they fare without heavy blessing; imho Eriu cant really afford a heavy bless strategy with such a limited magic on nationals. Same goes for MA Vanheim - at least I think so.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

As far as blesses for Eriu go, read this. For that matter, E9/Xx works pretty well for Vanir too.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Since nobody managed to win with Eriu using this guide nor this bless yet, I guess having no endgame magic paths doesnt pay off around turn 60 or so after all. :)
I have no doubt it works like a charm on Sidhe Lords tho.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Eriu has issues. I don't think anyone would contest that.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Thanks very much everyone for the comments, and thanks especially Valerius for the tests. It looks like the Shishi is still eminently killable, but perhaps it is true that he is applicable in an overly wide range of situations without any modification to his kit, given the low cost.

Okay, my current inclination is to reduce the Shishi attack by, say, 6. Possibly by 8 if it was considered necessary.

The alternative is to reduce their magic to A1 and give them #onebattlespell Mistform. Of course I could do both - maybe they should be cheaper then?

They weren't originally intended to be cloud trapeze assassins. I wanted them to be very flexible and mobile army support, able to take on a chunk of enemy troops (especially demons) as a valuable part of an army. Obviously they are also suited to raiding, which is fine. Of course, you can't really control what people use things for.

I quite like them having 6 attacks. It makes them into a really flurry-of-blows army killer. I could reduce this but it would not be my preferred option.

zzcat: I can see why you think the Zmey is overpowered, but I don't think he is. I did quite a lot of tests against a mundane army of Man knights, without mage support. Before I added the tail (which provides repel), the zmey (with current stats) was always killed, after killing maybe 6-10 knights. I want the Zmey to be a MONSTER - it should be the scariest animal-type monster in the entire game, hence it should be able to take on large numbers of mortal troops (I don't think it will ever compete with a true SC with full slots). The previous incarnation was always killed almost immediately after killing hardly anyone.

However, I would not be averse to reducing the attack on the tail by a couple of points (makes a surprisingly large difference), or to increasing the cost a little. I should perhaps do some tests against an army with mage support. My feeling is that the Zmey would still be killed, but at least he now provides some threat, as desired.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

So far in Lunar Sea they were successful at stopping demonic solo raiders (and lightning attack raiders) while going down quickly faced with groups of ordinary demons (I think the absense of shield plays huge part here). So it seems they can't fill your initial idea currently, as both their stats and Trapeze possibility suggests to use them as anti-raiders, while sending them on demonic armies is not very effective.
But in the new role they are amazingly effective, cutting down entire strategy for Lanka (sure, solo Raksharajas can be killed in a number of ways, but this seems to be one of the cheapest and most effective one).

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Lanka is overpowered anyway, I'm not going to cry if their raiders have a relatively cheap counter...

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I'm not going to cry either as I'm playing Lanka for the first time there, made tons of wrong decisions but still think I have pretty good position and clearly see that Lanka is one of the strongest EA nations. However, I think that in Dom every counter should have another counter, and for Shishi, trapezing LfL casters looks almost like no-brainer (as Shishi themselves against demon thugs), except that they have more HP than one LfL cast removes. Which means, with luck pendant you should cast it at least 3 times to get reliable result (better 4). That's why I suggested 40 hp instead of 50. As for the gems cost, well, I think 40 is more appropriate, but it's hard for me to find obvious reasons why 40 and not 30 and not 35. Just my impression of their effectiveness in our game.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Have you equiped them? In my test a zmey with body ethereal/lucky pendant/girdle of might/Lycanthropos' Amulet is virtually unkillable for regular troops w/o mage support. In attachment I used a nerfed version of Zmey(with old stat but more hp and tail and making fire breath its primary attack) but it still routed 100 knights quite easily and killed half of them.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Well keep in mind it doesn't have to be an absolute thing: you can get an E9N4 bless and still have magic diversity if you choose something like an Arch Druid (in CBM). Vanheim is a different situation and the idea of skipping a bless is quite possible with troops like Skinshifters and Einheres and access to blood magic. Alternate approaches are certainly possible but I'd recommend at least an E4N4 bless. All your mages are sacred and even if you don't think a major bless worthwhile Sidhe Lords are your best recruit everywhere mage and thugging is what they're designed for.

Having said that, I ran a test with the Sidhe Lord not casting bless. I had to swap out some of the equipment; Black Steel Plate to help with protection and an Amulet of Reinvigoration in the now open slot where the Bracers were. I actually tried to really help the Shishi with this test: the Sidhe Lord used a Vine Shield instead of an Eye Shield, the Shishi cast flight, and the Sidhe Lord didn't have even minor regeneration.

Sixth Test

Sidhe Lord
Equipment: Frost Brand, Vine Shield, Dragon Helmet, Black Steel Plate, Amulet of Resilience, Pendant of Luck
Script: Barkskin, Mistform, hold, hold, hold, attack
vs.
Female Shishi
Equipment: Girdle of Might, AoMR, Ring of CR
Script: Mirror Image, Mistform, Flight, hold, hold, attack

battle 1 - Shishi routed
battle 2 - Sidhe Lord routed
battle 3 - Shishi routed

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Okay, I am going to reduce the attack of the Shishi by either 6 or 8. Place your votes now.

zzcat, I think you are right - I will nerf the Zmey somewhat, although he will finish closer to his new power level than his old (which was quite useless). I will incorporate the shapechange fixes you noticed, and put the firebreath first as suggested. I'll also fix the shishi's 175 SR while I'm at it.

I think I may increase the cost of the Grendelkin from 40 to 50 gems.

I'm saying all this because I've run out of time to actually do it tonight, and won't get a chance for a few days, so there is some opportunity for people to comment on the proposed changes.

I would also really appreciate it if people had a look at the other summons to see if there are any other concerns. I would like the next version to stand for some time as I think it's best if things don't change too much (how is anyone ever meant to learn tactics if things change all the time?).

I've noticed that comments come thick and fast in response to bold claims by people. Hence I make these bold claims:

ASYNJA IS OP, HOW ARE YOU MEANT TO CATCH A GLAMOUR SC?

WENDIGO IS SLOW TO GROW AND CONSEQUENTLY USELESS

NO USE CAN BE FOUND FOR THE STUPID ROC

TREANT IS TOO SLOW AND IS WORSE THAN MONKEY PD

GRENDELKIN CANNOT BE KILLED

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I vote to reduce Shishi attack by 6.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I still think that Shishis are not OP at all, as Valerius tests show. I wouldn't complain if there were a bit weaker vs undead/demons and stronger than now against normal stuff. I almost lost one to some markata PD + B1 mages last turn :P And you can always drop on them with proper gear and they cannot even run away really...

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I disagree on any lowering of Shishi attack before we get some real data. Valerius's data is the best we have and points to there being no real problem.

Also, a fricking air mage who is summonable with air gems is a godsend for magic diversifying off a pretender. Rocs are fricking awesome - they aren't for air powers, they're for nations diversifying into air. Its like saying Kokythiads are useless because its a WD mage that requires WD to summon - NO.

Edit:
Zzzcat: Llama's point is a Zmey should kill arbitrarily large armies if the armies don't have mage support. The fact that they actually do so is not a problem. Ie, 'virtually unkillable for normal troops without mage support' is what they're supposed to be. WAD.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I guess if you are going to reduce the attack skill of shishis, 6 is probably the maximum that is doable (otherwise they will be not much use against demon thugs/SCs, and I like that they have a niche there). 8 definitely seems excessive, even with 6 attacks to whittle defense down. EDIT: I've just realized shishi currently have 17 attack skill. I remembered reading that they had 20. My vote is thus changed to not lowering the attack skill to below 14.

I think Asynja should probably be left alone for a bit. They are a bit frail as SCs, and though stealth+glamour means it's really hard to catch one, right now in MP games it's looking like they may be sidelined a bit as SCs and end up more as casters.

The wendigo right now is in an interesting spot, as an SC available with only 6 in a school. They take a while to grow, but they are still useful before fully grown and while it's a bit painful to have to wait for them, you can have a decent number of them before other people have access to real SCs. I think these need more testing before changes are made to them.

Rocs provide access to air magic, as squirrel said, and that definitely makes them not useless! Especially with the siege bonus 30, they should be excellent army support midgame casting fog warriors/wrathful skies/etc in battle, and helping break down walls on the strategic map. The patrol bonus could also be useful in certain situations, though it's not really what I'd buy them for. More of a useful bonus. They are also certainly usable as light raiders earlier on, and counter raiders, which should be able to kill lower end thugs. By the way it is these with the 175 shock resist, not shishis.

I think the Treant needs to lose the rooted form, but have the rooted bonuses transferred to the walking form. It is more cool presently in my opinion, but it would be much more usable with this change. Having to root to be an effective fighter could lead to some verious silly scenarios, like the treant trying to rout but not being able to move, so it dies even if it could kill what's attacking it. Also it should probably gain a little AP, or possibly instead 1 more mapmove. One or the other IMO.

Grendelkin are awesome but don't have great skill and have no magic or resists. They're definitely killable, it is just very hard. They could maybe lose some strength. Go down by 10 or so. They should be very killable by armies though, and it's hard for them to catch SCs. I'd like to see people use these more before they're changed too much :)

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

By the way, sidhe thugs should never be going up against shishi without an ideal weapon at minimum, because they just plain have no need not to. They can't be jumped on by the shishi, but they can return the favor easily. So all these tests where the sidhe were using frost brands were really suboptimal. Something like a sword of sharpness would make much more sense for these tests.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Shishi's have an effective attack skill of 20, as they gain +3 from quickness the moment they enter battle. This isn't factored in to the base value of 17 attack you see displayed outside of battles.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

/headdesk!

I guess you've gotten me back, calahan, after all those times I've taunted you. But I will have my revenge!

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Well, it's not that bad. The frost brand does 16 damage, the sword of sharpness 8. With the Sidhe Lords strength of 13 and the Shishi's protection of 20 that's an 11 point difference for the sword of sharpness and a 9 point difference for the frost brand. When you factor in the 3 point advantage in attack of the frost brand I think it comes out ahead. I also think there's a value in having the weapon with an AOE attack in case you unexpectedly need to deal with a crowd or just want to immediately move on to the next fight without having to change equipment. Having said that, a Fire Brand would beat both the Frost Brand and Sword of Sharpness handily - the only drawback being that with this build you won't be able to equip a CR 50+ item so that you can get to CR 100 with elemental fortitude.

But you bring up a good point that these aren't real in-game situations. The Sidhe Lords can choose when to fight and when to sneak away. The Shishi's will have to deal with a counterattack. And I think this is when their limited slots come into play since you won't be able to cover both MR and elemental weaknesses.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Hmm, you have a point also. I should have said an axe of sharpness, or possibly an axe of hate. I would definitely have gone with fire brand, but was trying to stick to national paths. A fire brand equipped sidhe would easily carve its way through a shishi. Anyway I suppose the initial tests weren't so bad, in retrospect!

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

My concern is with 28 str and 7 attacks it is not only an amry cleaner but also an awesome SC killer. They can tear most SC apart in round 1 if you buff them with quickness/strength of giants/wpn of sharpness and let them attack large monster. Anyway I agree with llama that they don't need too many nerfs. Just lower their strength to ~22 and reduce def/prot slightly maybe enough for them.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

No, you're right about that. I was trying to do the same: the Skratti's equipment was all stuff Jotun could forge but I bent the rules a bit on the Sidhe Lord by giving him the Luck Pendant (I usually try to give them one but of course need indies to forge them). Anyway, the Fire Brand came to mind when I was thinking about multi-purpose weapons.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Valerius, thank you for sharing the results of your tests.

I was expecting that there would be more discussion on the impact of the mod on various nations, and the degree to which some nations may benefit more than others. What do folks think about this? Does the mod significantly alter the balance of power between nations?

Please note, I'm not suggesting that anything should be changed in an attempt to "balance" power (I like the mod as it is).

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Worse than a golem scripted with returning? I don't think so...

I personally dislike rocs since they provide a cheap and reliable way to fog warriors for non-air nations. IMO reducing their path to A2 and giving them more defensive ability(awe?) is the way to go.

Fully agree with Rdonj. A mapmove 1 SC who can't retreat in battlefield is a sitting duck for your opponents.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Regarding nation balance. This mod greatly boosts air nations like Caelum and earth nations (Ulm, Agartha) Who now gets viable midgame thugs in the shishi and mechanical giant.

I can see a whole MA ulm strategy based on mechanical giant + forge bonus. And a similar one with MA agartha with mechanichal giant leading squads of statues.

The Caelums can just summon as many shishis as possible and send them against anything with lightning resistance.

I tried the treeant. I find it very cool actually, though it might be a bit hard to leverage. It can root and cast bone melter, mossbody and foul vapors, which is some pretty damn cool and underused spells. I think it should be given increased map move in forests. The built in vine shield effect and reinvig makes it possible to weild dual weapons and cast personal quickness. You can get good resistances with items + elemental fortitude, extra reinvig from earthpower, staying power from personal regeneration (24hp regen when rooted!). I really see a lot of cool possibilities. Flying carpets come to mind for these (just imagine a anthropomorphic tree on a flying carpet)

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

During my tests with the Shishi, I found the burning pearl helped a fair bit when attacking against high defence. Better than luck quite often. (no point negating half of the hits against you if you still can't hit yourself)


Plus it's not just about a one-on-one match-up, as you have to consider what would actually happen during a game. As in that scenario the PD comes into the equation. Since if you have a Shishi in the field and expect it to be ambushed, paying just 60g for 10PD often either interrupts the attacking Shishi killer during buffing, or provides other targets for the Shishi killer to focus on, meaning the Shishi has a number of free hits. And of course the attacks by the PD help lower the defence of the Shishi killer.


Either way I think lowering the attack value on the Shishi by 6 will achieve the desired result for now. As 17 really is at the top end of natural attack scores, and that's without adding the +3 from quickness and +1 from experience (which they'd likely get from their first raid).

The attack value of the Shishi really is critical IMO, as whatever value it is will automatically go through a big force multiplier because of the six attacks. And any extra attack points the Shishi gets from any source is going to be boosted comparatively more for the Shishi than for other units, because of this force multiplier.


Giving the Shishi a natural attack value of 11 (14 in battle) = Good idea in my book.

You know where to find me rdonj. So you're welcome to try whenever you're ready :)

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

The Treant retreat problem is a very good point, thanks for pointing it out. Concerns:

1) When brought close to death a Treant can't retreat. Not desperately worried about this.

2) At the turn limit if the Treant isn't killing fast enough, it will try to retreat at zero speed and just sit there for 25 turns before disappearing.

3) Most serious: If a player sees a Treant coming, they will plant something immobile in its path (e.g. that Earth/Astral holy summon). The resulting battle will be a draw and the Treant will die.

Possible solutions:

a) Give the immobile form a #secondshape of a damaged mobile form. So when brought close to death the Treant will uproot and run away. This is thematically pleasing, but only solves the first and least concerning of the problems.

b) Give the rooted form a very slow walking speed (e.g. two or three squares). This is slightly unthematic but could be justified. Probably solves most problems? The rooted form would still be immobile on the map, which hardly matters but is thematically pleasing.

c) Abolish the rooted form as suggested, applying the rooted stats to the non-rooted form. I don't want to do this as I like the rooting thing. However I guess it would be preferable to the current situation.

Also on the subject of the Roc, it is true that I've created an easy Fog Warriors caster, which is a more powerful addition than intended. I think that, with regret, I will therefore reduce it to A2 unless people can think of any other solution. Ideas for compensatory buffs gratefully received. Awe is an option I guess, not desperately thematic but possibly justifiable (most beautiful bird in the WORLD).

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Roc is nice sieger with an option to cast some army buffs, so he should stay like that, otherwise everyone will use Asynjas only.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I don't see why Rocs are a problem. Why should the go-to air caster summon be a *nature* spell? So its a fog warriors caster. That's fine.

No one complains the Troll King is a good AoG platform...

I'd like to see more caster summons for paths that are required to summon them (fire notably has no midgame commander summon which is a fire caster).

Water has a few, death has a few, astral has one, earth has one, nature has one, air and fire didn't. Now air does. I don't see the problem.

Re: Treants - i prefer the slow movement speed option. Even treelords have a combat move of 2 iirc.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Well, the treant already only has 6 ap, so it can only move three squares as it is. I guess you could make it move even slower when rooted....

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I think more than any of the paths represented in the Diversity mod, air nations experience a "get something, lose something" reaction. You get thugs and SCs, you lose in the fact that a path that was among the more difficult to branch into is now easy to enter.

Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion but the difficulty of entering air magic was a relative advantage for A nations and if easier access to air is given to everyone I think the same should be done for other paths. As Squirrelloid mentioned, fire is one of them. Something along the lines of a Conj. 6, F2/3 unit that only requires a single path to summon would be good.

I think astral is another candidate for this. The current options all involve some combination of getting lucky with randoms, having dual paths for summoning or spending a huge amount of gems. I'm talking about something simple: a single path summon where you spend x number of gems and get a guaranteed S mage. Doesn't have to be thug or SC, just a mage. But I realize astral is not a focus of the Diversity mod so this may not be the place to add such a unit.

Regarding the Roc, the value of gems is effected by the nation you're playing. For a non-air nation A gems don't have a high value; for an A nation they are very important to fuel cloud trapezing. N gems on the other hand would be valuable to the non-air nation, especially under the Diversity mod where you'll have more thugs/SCs to equip. Keeping this in mind when comparing the Faery Queen at Conj. 8 with the Roc at Conj. 6 I'd say for a non-air nation (the ones who will be summoning Rocs) I'd usually go for the Roc, even with both available (there's plenty of other ways to get N magic) since both the absolute, and even more so the relative, cost to me of the A gems would be less than the N gems. The Asynja is another matter; for only 10 gems more I get a reasonable chance of A3, full slots, possibly other magic paths and glamour (the last of which I think will prove to be a problem). So she does overshadow the Roc. OTOH the Granite Cyclops overshadows the Troll King (though not by as much).

Having said all that, I think reducing the Roc's A magic to level 2 would hurt them too much. What about leaving them at A3 but moving them to Conj. 7? In order to try to keep them as an option even after the Asynja becomes available they could get a further boost to siege bonus or map move.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Did anyone think that Asynja is a method too convenient to access to blood? For a difficult level of summon air queens and the gems cost equel to a lamia queen(not to mention that for most nations,N gems are more useful than A gems), you have a greater chance to get a blood mage, much easier than lamia queen or tarts.

And if not lucky to get blood, she is still a great SC and raider(or caster of rain of stone)that almost can't be hunted down——golems with returning are good raiders, but they need enemy attack to return, they have poor statistic that hardly competent as SC hunter, and enemy could set a trap with S mage to duel them upon their arrival as I have done before, any success is a great loss to the enemy.

So maybe cut down the Blood random chance of Asynja, and increase the spell requirement and cost will be better ?

As SC, though cyclops have a statistic even better that the pretender version, they are not shining like Asynja. But as a E mage, no doubt they have overshadowed troll kings. So why not gurantee it as SC rather than mage? Like change its path to E2F1?(EF)1 or even(EFAD)1?

Ember Lords are pretty powerful, although without capacity of deep strike make it less versatile comparing tarts. But shouldn't such powerful beings unique? Not one, but.... several or even a dozen different Ember Lords? That will be funny,but maybe too hard,though.....

Some say treant will be easily killed by immobile enemy, so I'd say, it is quite unwise for a sneak sc to attack a province without sneak—— sneak into target province,make sure there's no dangerous enemy, then turn into rooted form, and he will attack that province next turn. As for tree lord, I don't think a caster could have overlap with a sc exept their themes. But combine tree lord and treant into one kind of creature sounds interesting~~

Roc seems better be used as a cheap A3 mage, if not, lower A and plus some random might be an alternate.

Shishi seems interesting, and has been debated alot, but I'd say I can hardly connect this stone-hard air spirit with the stone lion decorated at the gate of some Chinese traditional buildings:D

Great Krakens are great, but B2 random at first seems useless since no one can cast blood magic beneath the wave and great kraken are not amphibian. But on a second thought, since there is amulet of fish exist, kraken became a quite handy access to blood even better than Asynja.....S2 kraken are excellent raiders, but they are also a convenient access to astral for non-astral nation like oceania, maybe too convenient since it only need W4 and 30 gems? Oh, by the way, in vanilla, no one can access death path if he do not already have it or through blood, yet in this mod, we have Ember Lord, Asynja and Great Kraken to access death via fire, air or water, I'm not sure if it is wise enough.....

grendelkin seems powerful enough yet not overpowered, but it seems a little unconvincible that a mere monster can be much stronger and tougher than titans and demons......

Some say zmey are too powerful against SCs, then why not reduce its attack so that it can be effective against troops yet hard to hit a SC?

Ettin and mechanical giant are not so exiting since they are either not very powerful or have critical flaws. But they are really cheap, so still worth using.

I didn't see any special usefulness or uselessness on fire bird and wendigo, they fit their desingh well,though "any" fire nation may be able to completely negate the strategy of undead/dark vision/demon plus darkness, too easy maybe?

That's all I can imagine, hope it will be useful^^

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Lamia Queens are only 15n. This mod assumes CBM for balance purposes.

And you're going to build up tarts anyway if you're summoning tarts, so the cost of tarts is not the relevant factor here - you'll just get blood mages automatically as a consequence of building up your tart forces. Indeed, if you focus your GoR uses on tarts with decent random paths (Monstra, titans), I think you'll get more blood mages from tarts than Asynja. Certainly you'll get better blood mages.

Why is blood magic such a big deal anyway? Its the easiest magic path to get into... If you want blood mages, you can use scouts to hunt up 50+ slaves well before you can cast an Asynja and empower your own blood mages.

Who cares if it overshadows teh troll king. It should. It comes what, 3 research levels later? No one complains that Liches are better death mages than wraithlords of moundkings...

Ok, i'll agree B2 as a random on a Kraken is kind of weird.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Oh，I forgot cbm make lamia queen cheaper, then the only disadvantage of lamia queen will be its N5D1 summon requirement. But you are right, though Asynja become the easiest way to access to blood, it's not break(but I never have the gut to start blood economy from scout...). Yet I insist that a SC with deep strike, stealth, glamour and more hp deserve at least same cost of an air queen.

Demi-lich overshadow wraith lord and mound fiend? of course not. Wraith lord can be a immortal thug or a SC, and mound fiend can reanimate or cast some national magic such as ashdod's. Demilich can perform non of above action, they are just superior death mages. So what about cyclops and troll king? cyclops are cheaper than troll king, can be a better sc than troll king, and have better path than troll king. Troll king's only advantage is his court, yet I'm afraid they are not worth 25E or more. Beside, cyclops make earth kings much less useful, too.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

False.
I had one killed, despite being kitted, etc. because it just crawled underwater and got stuck first with some mermen, second with ice encasings. When he routed due to turn limit, he wasn't fast enough to actually get out of the battlefield and eventually died. My bane lords fared much better...
I still say grendelkin needs amphibious.
Did people actually use it in MP before saying it's overpowered?

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

The troll king's court also only requires three earth to cast, compared to six earth for the cyclops. Six earth is hard to reach without both a ring of wizardry and a staff of elemental mastery. Three earth is reachable by anyone with earth two.

Making the unique summons less useful is part of the point. Personally, I'd make them all non-unique if I could do it so that there isn't such a race to get the very large power boost from being the first to reach their research levels. Of course, I'd also make the global spell limit moddable so that a 24 person game isn't stuck with the same total number of global spells as a 2 person game.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Why limit that comment to just Grendelkin? It applies to virtually every complaint in this thread. The mod has been used in like 4 MP games, none of which is using its current form. People just have this strong 'OMG' reaction, because they're comparing them to the wrong things or just don't understand the mechanics or can't be bothered to actually playtest. I mean, some of these are meant to be alternatives to *tartarians*, they need to be pretty amazing.

Anyone comparing Cyclops, Asynja, Grendelkin, and Emberlords (and probably a few others) to anything but Tartarians is comparing them to the wrong things. Your analysis is worthless because you've missed the point. Asynja's being 'easy blood access?' Oh for the love of pete, you're at Conjuration ~8, seriously, whatever, totally irrelevant. Stop failing to see the forest for the trees.

And anyone complaining about overpowered without actually playing games, especially MP games, with them is just whining. Stop that.

Llama, can I ask you hold off on making any changes until you hear back from real MP games how things actually worked?

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

llamabeast:

You are making chaotic changes, based on I don't know what. You should stick with your ideas and do changes based on how you see things + just on reliable data. My data is not very reliable and quite specific [which I explained on IRC], the best thing you have is Valerius stats. And you have almost no data about other summons.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Llama, I agree with you that it's a good idea to have a stable release and not change things too frequently. It's also tempting to make changes now before games start using the newest release. But the games that began with the first release of the mod are now reaching the point where feedback on the in-game performance of these units is arriving. Of course it's just fragments at the moment. The fact that a certain unit excels against another unit or that a given summon doesn't do well in certain situations is only a partial picture. It will take more time to see what the overall performance of these summons in a variety of situations is. And even more importantly, to see if the Diversity summons are a viable alternative to tarts. So I think it's worth holding off on making changes for now and using the feedback from the current games to create the stable release you mentioned.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Llama, I absolutely concur with Squirrell, Zeldor, and Valerius. I'm in FastBlitz3 now, and I hope to have some feedback for you soon. ;)

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I absolutely agree that only by real test in MP can we make a true conclusion on those summons, especially creatures like shishi or zmey——creature that can tear down fully equiped thugs alone with their nature weapon are pretty unfamiliar to all of us, thus a quick judgement usually proven wrong.

But cyclops and asynja are another case: They are classic SC template with full slot, just comparing them with other SC, either general summons like elemental royalty or national summons like angels, and a pre-conclusion can be made without too much error.

After all, this mod is to provide an alterate to tarts, not to replace all other summons.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

For the record, I still don't think it matters if a cyclops is just *better* than a troll king. They are used for very different things, and the troll soldiers *can* be very useful. Especially as soul vortex batteries :P Further, tarts have ridiculous magic paths and can already easily beat troll kings as earth mages.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

I tested them again, and my conclusion is:
Grendelkin are worthless.
Yes, worthless. A waste of gems.
For hardly more gems, I can get a sea troll king with his retinue. He's able to pack some punch underwater. Grendelkin underwater suck. Why do they cost that many WATER gems then?
They're a waste of gems. I'd rather use water gems to summon stuff that can be used underwater.
Either give them amphibious or make them require anything but water gems to summon.
Right now I have found in my MP game 2 units to be better than grendelkin: Bane lords (yes, seriously) and sea troll kings.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Soo, you're saying that Grendelkin should be full amphibians?

I do admit, my first foray into using a Grendelkin in an actual MP game resulted in tragedy. That's much more the fault of the RNG than anything else, though. Anything can be charmed if some lucky Pan gets off a successful Charm against 21MR.

Re: Endgame Diversity Mod - Lategame summons, released at last!
 

Sorry you've had no luck with the Grendelkin LDiCesare. The thing is they're not amphibious, and that's deliberate. They may live in wet caves, but they can't breathe underwater (think Gollum).

I agree that there are situations (underwater combat) where a Troll King is a better buy. However I'm also reasonably confident that there are some situations (e.g. if you want a land SC) where a Grendelkin is a better buy - so, things have different niches, which is good.

If you want to use water gems to summon underwater power, have you tried the kraken?