Re: Balance opinions
 

Oops =(

Re: Balance opinions
 

I chose 'but conceptual balance mods makes specific changes that outweigh any improvements'. I believe we had a talk at Mirc about magic crafting changes - making boosters more expensive and thus only available to certain nations reduces diversification possibilities, which is a bad thing. Not only does it mean that many nations are stuck with semi-useless astral 2, less strategic options means less fun. And buffs to the least used spells etc dont compensate for that loss, no way.
Which is a shame, for I liked some of your changes. Jaguar warriors being more expensive, for example.

Re: Balance opinions
 

"Reducing diversification possibilities" was one of the major changes from Dom2 -> Dom3. This was just taken further by the CB mod. If you consider it a bad thing, it's your opinion - I like playing SP with a huge magic diversity, but I understand why it was done for this mod. In any case, with empowerment and alchemy there's always the possibility to expand to other paths.

Re: Balance opinions
 

Some restriction on the ability to diversify into other magic paths is good - if everyone gets all 8 paths, everyone is the same.

On the other hand, this does not mean that more restriction on diversification is always an improvment.

By the end of the game, everyone is going to diversify into every path - this does not mean that everyone's access to every path will be *equal*, or that all paths should be equally hard to diversify into, etc. etc.

But isn't this a moot point as the increases to booster item costs are gone?

Re: Balance opinions
 

Right, like I said earlier, keep in mind CB mod is a continuing evolving project. Changes to site searching, booster increases were negatively received and most likely will make future appearances of cbmod. The main great thing about cb mod is essentially it updates itself a lot quicker than patches will, not to mention is able to receive feedback a lot quicker than the current version updates.

Re: Balance opinions
 

Well, if path/cost increase to boosters is gone, I'm more inclined to try CB again.
Btw. When I played Tien Chi in a CB blitz, I had a problem with old celestial masters. They kept dying like flies, which was especially painful when the one I empowered to astral 3 (to forge expensive CB boosters) bited the dust. Then I played Tien Chi without CB and realised that masters dont start with old age most of the time.
Is it another change introduced by CB?

Re: Balance opinions
 

If so, it's probably unintended. More magic -> higher start age -> Celestial Masters start old.

Re: Balance opinions
 

Tsk tsk. My celestial masters didnt have more magic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif They were just old, all of them.

Re: Balance opinions
 

internal alchemy?

Re: Balance opinions
 

I don't think anyone really understands how the age mechanics work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Do the CBM Celestial Masters have a higher *average* age (which is the age displayed when you click on their fatigue in the recruitment screen)? It's possible that you were just unlucky.

Internal ALchemy is very cool but should be much cheaper in CBM, would be my suggestion.