Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I kind of wondered too. I don't see any reason to nerf their strength, but boosting the cost to 2 gems seems fair.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think he boosted their prot since big vines are basically like bark and bark has prot of 10. As for the increased defence, I don't know. Not like it makes a heck of a lot of difference.

Finally, I totally agree that a cost of 2 gems would help balance them out.

*or*

We could simply mod casters to be more expensive ( as Saber Cherry was talking about ), perhaps x2 or x3 as expensive. That way mage turns would be far more precious and the cost would be balanced at 1 gem.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I still don't see why people are so concerned about vine ogres? They are slow to summon, take huge amounts of the most valuable gem type, and are slow strategically. Unlike skeletons, which have a similar power level on the battlefield, they aren't lifeless, so you can't even swamp a SC with them.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Most valuable gem type? I consider Death, Earth (esp. for hammers or alchemy), Fire (for alchemy), Astral (very useful and transmutable), Water (clams), and Slaves (summons, contracts, earth-blood stones) more useful. I mainly use Nature for winebags, summer swords, totem shields, vine ogres, lamia queens, the occasional swarm, and some Fairy Queens if the game gets that far. Of those, I'd rate winebags, ogres (rarely vinemen), and lamia queens the best. Am I missing something?

In any case, I'd almost always want 10 vine ogres (good strength, HP, attack, need-not-eat, 2 attacks, poison-immune, no upkeep, no magical leadership, no morale failure) rather than 5 nature gems.

You don't have to use them for swamping SCs, because you can use them to swamp many other things, considering they only need research-3 (and cons-4, for thistle mace). They are great as garrisons or bodyguards, needing no food, upkeep, or special leadership. They have better strategic mobility than undead (IMO), with 2 moves and forest survival. They cannot effectively be trampled. Best of all, cheap, common Druids can summon them (with thistle maces and ivy crowns, both of which Druids can make). Overall... they rock! And they're the only good low-level summon outside of Death and Blood.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Basically it comes down to rings of regeneration, gift of health, and haunted forest. Gift of health and haunted forest can both be game-winners.

Wouldn't you rather have 5-12 Lamia's for that cost?

Once you've built up enough of a force to take on your opponents, it will likely be past turn 20-30 and into the mid-game where you can expect to see battlefield spells, elemental royalty, and blood commanders.

True, but that hardly makes them overpowered.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Graeme,
I'm not convinced by your arguments :
Nature *has* some good spells, sure, but that does not make green gems more valuable than the others. IMHO they are often pretty much useless unless you play a nature-oriented nation, which is not the case with Astral, Earth, Death or Fire gems. The only less useful gems are Water...
As for Vine Ogres being inferior to Lamias, true again, but Ogres are a lesser summon and rather make better damage-absorbers than Lamias. Lamias require a higher level to cast effectively, Vine stuff having easy "improving" items.

Eventually I don't think Ogres need a boost - or rather all other low level summons require a much more serious boost !

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Are you saying this mod didn't boost the other summons enough, or are you referring to the unmodded game?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

How is getting 2 per turn with just about any mage, even a common indy mage (druid), slow?

2 ogres per one gem isnt 'huge', and nature isnt any more valuable than any other gem type.

What do you mean by 'slow'? They have 2/12 movement, so you cant mean that.

... and they cant be banished and arent susceptable to solar brilliance and other undead killing type things.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Why are these so much better than tartarians, wish, and clams?

I would absolutely rather 10 vine ogres than 3 lamias, and it would take a level 12 mage to get 12 for that cost.

...and they make great tanks for your own mages. 106 HP for 1 gem is hard to beat. And by turn 20-30, you will have ivy kings making 4 for 1 gem (212 HP), which is impossible to match with any other summon.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Mostly because you are getting only two per turn, instead of a minimum of 4 points of research.

Two ogres are hardly a significant force. You'll need to spend 30 gems or more before you have a force that's anywhere near dangerous, and that will fall to a single battlefield spell.

They can't be made to fly. As such, they are slow on the strategic map.

Yet they are still just as susceptible to all other mass killing spells. They also don't come in groups of thousands, unlike undead.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I was referring to the unmodded game, where the Vine stuff are the only worthwhile low level summons. I've to have a closer look at the mod to see the other changes done http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif, I didn't check since at least a couple versions...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Tartarians are useless without gift of health or the chalice to support their creation, and oddly enough, both of those cost nature gems. Wish is a fun toy, but it is rare to find a wish that is more effective than wishing for gems or blood slaves. Clams are powerful, yes, but overrated in aggressive games.

Then you are, quite frankly, ignorant of just how much better Lamia's are than vine ogres.

Your mages are going to be killed by the same battlefield spells that are killing the vine ogres. Also, who really cares that they have 56 hitpoints? That's something like three-six hits by standard national troops.

If you are summoning ivy kings, then it takes 15 turns for their gem cost to pay off compared to using two N2 mages both with ivy crowns. If you are willing to spend that long, that late in the game, then I'll be quite happy to use my own nature gems to put up the various nature globals. I take it that you've never seen the haunted forest chain reaction in action?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

And if you think you can hold ANY decent global (nature or otherwise) more than 1-3 turns in the face of any opponent with 200+ clams or the Nexus (both pearl income which you claim is worth less then nature), then you must have never gotten very deep into a competetive MP game.

Ivy King's are a powerful summons indeed. After the relatively short payback time due to getting the four ogres per turn, you have a bunch of level 3 (or 4 with the mace) nature mages ready to charm the leaders of your huge undead army and dissolve the troops.

Ivy King = 20 nature, no upkeep, 4 ogres per turn
Druid = 140 gold plus 4.67 upkeep, 15 (10 with hammers) nature gems for mace + crown, 2 ogres per turn.
This is a no-brainer from any angle. The only reason to use the Druids is because you don't have high enough research to make the Kings plus you must somehow summon your first Ivy King to start the process.

I am still wondering how you are getting your undead army to fly easier than your vine ogre army. The Ivy King + vine ogre army is better strategically in my mind because of Fairy Trod.

Finally, it seems to me that mechanical men (using inferior earth gems) are superior to both vine ogres and lamias in every possible way.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'm going to have to disagree with your Vine Ogre/Ivy King point.

I almost exclusively use my gems for: Lamias (great after about 40+ groups). Lamia Queens (I often have 4D or 3S Queens) and Mandragoras (this is usually the hammer that drops in the mid/lategame) and in distant 4th, depending on the circumstance/map/pretender Faerie Queens, especially if you have someone not ready for some Pangaean WS and good for summoning SCkillers)

I can't say I've seriously used Vine Ogres or Ivy Kings (outside of Charming) for offensive force *before* I have what I want from the above 4.

Re: Haunted Forest.

You only need 2 turns of this to win wars/games. It's sickeningly powerful *especially* if you are poised to drop a strong nation with stealth/teleport teams and eat up everything this will turn the tide in your favor that is usually irreversible to the targeted nation.

Being able to leave every province in your dominion defended with a single 1N Caster and pouring everything else into attack is a significant advantage.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

If your opponent has 200+ clams, then you are well past turn 70-100. Most crowded games have their first defeats around turn 15-20, and start to wrap up around turn 40, which is about the earliest that anybody can have 100 clams.

You really can't count on having many hammers to forge cheap items with a nature nation, so the payback time in terms of gems only is 15 turns. It is only after that point that the ivy king pays off.

Ermorian armies don't tend to need to fly as much because there tend to be no provinces inside the empire where they don't have at least a hundred troops.

Other than their fragility to physical attacks of course.

As for vine ogres being good meat shields, they are inferior to sea trolls for that role. A single ice devil or any other unit with breath of winter can kill very many sea trolls after a few turns.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Well, I guess Ill bow to the Wisdom of Zen.

However, I have two questions for you:
Do you think that the 2W clams are overpowered?
and Are you going to nerf them in your artifact mod? (assuming you are making one...)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Don't bow to my wisdom. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I have found that, across my gaming time. Death gems, blood slaves, air gems, etc. They all seem somewhat similiar with the exception of Fire Gems and Water Gems in terms of raw quality of potential uses (Summons/Items/etc).

Death certainly has no weakness in the variety it can use it's gems, but I wouldn't consider it the 'best'. I have found nature to be the same way, if only for the fact that it has a good, semi-unobtrusive global (Mother Oak) a few game-winner globals (Gift of Health with Tartarians, Haunted Forest) and a plethora of good items for gems (even if it's only Hydra Armor and Rings of Regeneration for magic items).

I have certainly had a great amount of successes with nature gems and in fact I have found it as 'needed' a type as Death/Blood for my strategies.

Clams: I don't particularly think that 2W is too cheap for Clams, the feeling or desire to make an Astral income from Water really comes from the lack of good gem uses for Water as much as Astral is a great and versatile gem type that can be fitted to a need at any particular time.

There is a change to them in my Magic Item mod, if only to make potential 'hoarding' investment less attractive while keeping a 'small Astral gem income with Water Gems' availiable. It's not a complete fix, but I think that particular debate has gone round and round and there is no good answer. Some people will always horde and will always try to set their strategies around it, seeing it as a potential payoff while other people will not let their weakness be so easily exploited in the early game.

I can certainly say it's boring hording (making clams is a sucky version of micromanagement some *feel* compeled to do in order to feel competitive) and it's boring fighting a hording war (Way too magical for my taste) that is less about how your fighting and more about how often can you go back and forth with your army-destroying-SC-killing-hyperempowered-Pretender-God-Too-many-path lameness that tends to degenerate into a stalemate. Stalemates tend to suck the fun out of Dominions 2 I have found. Even though you agree end the game, there is no sense of closure, which tends to irk me especially if I have devoted alot of time to the game (as Dominions games tend to).

Either way I'm rambling. I have revised some changes, I will release the final Pretender Mod (some minor typo corrections, slight change to a few Pretenders, nothing crazy), v1 Summons Mod (only adjusts summons statistics, not spell costs) v1 Spell Mod (only affects costs and spell effects), v1 Nations Mod (welcome to an attempt in variability and to make nations have gold be a factor in the late game outside of building mages and castles a pretty hefty task considering capitol only limitations) and the v1 Magic Items mod by the end of next week, if I'm lucky.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Zen, you have written a long time ago a sticky post about dominion links.
It seems that your website has been forgotten in this list.
I think you should add it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Here is a readme file I hammered out for the spell mod (it looked like a lot of games were not using it due to lack of one).

Some things that occurred to me while creating it:

*Do the treelords really need the #clearspec command? Because it would be nice if they had thier vine ogre ability back.

*You increased the vine ogre defense by more than the vine men. It seems vine men should have the defense advantage since they are so much smaller.

*One command makes the haunted forest research level 8, which it is already at.

*Why is fate of oedipus research level 9?

*Consider making looming hell lower research and cheaper?

*What about making dark skies a fire (and maybe a point or two of air or earth) spell? Then you could reduce the cost/research without making air even better.

*Blood rain is never used at it's current position on the tech tree. Either make in no blood slaves, or lower research.

*With so many good uses for earth gems, Melancholia is never used. Again, lower research or cheaper would be nice.

*Get cracking on the other mods! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Thanks a million quantum.

Since we'll now (probably) be using this mod for Yarnspinners2 do you mind if I post the readme at the Yarnspinners2 Wiki for easy reference?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Sure, I don't see why not. Oh, and here is a readme for scales while I'm at it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Here is the Latest Version of the Pretender Mod. I am currently nowhere where I can upload to my little page, so it will be availiable for download here at Shrapnel until I can host the files.

Conceptual Balance Pretenders 2.2

Edit: I think I have fixed all the grammatical and spelling errors. If you see any thought, feel free to point them out.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Here is the first release of the Item Mod.

Please remember that this is a first release and anything you feel absolutely went in the wrong direction, please explain why.

No graphic at the moment, I will put one together when I can. File is availiable here to download until I can upload to the page Gandalf has so graciously provided space for during this whole time.

Conceptual Balance Magic Items 1.0

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

What changes did you make to magic items? It's hard to tell without documentation.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

You left out the banner from the archive.

All of your mods are also available for download from my site.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Changes to the cost of items:

- The Elixir of Life requires Nature 2 and Fire 2 (was Nature 3 and Fire 3)
- The Staff of Storms require Air 4 and Construction 6 (was Air 3 and Construction 4)
- The Frost Brand requires Water 1 and Earth 1 (was Water 1)
- The Serpent Kryss requires Nature 2 (was Nature 1)
- The Wraith Sword requires Death 3 (was Death 2)
- The Hell Sword requires Blood 4 and Fire 2 (was Blood 2)
- The Woundflame requires Death 3 (was Death 4)
- The Horned Helmet requires Nature 2 (was Nature 1)
- The Shambler Skin Armor requires Water 2 (was Water 1)
- The Hydra Skin Armor requires Nature 3 (was Nature 2)
- The Winged Shoes require Air 2 (was Air 1)
- The Clam of Pearls requires Water 2 and Astral 2 (was Water 2)
- The Fever Fetish requires Fire 2 and Nature 2 (was Fire 1 and Nature 1)
- The Blood Stone requires Blood 4 and Earth 1 (was Blood 3 and Earth 1)
- The Soul Contract requires Blood 5 and Fire 3 (was Blood 5)
- The Champion's Skull requires Death 1 (was Death 2)
- The Water Bracelet requires Water 2 (was Water 1)
- The Spell Focus requires Astral 2 (was Astral 1)
- The Lucky Coin requires Astral 2 (was Astral 1)
- The Lightning Spear requires Air 1 and Earth 1 (was Air 1)
- The Star of Heroes requires Earth 1 and Water 1 (was Earth 1)
- The Snake Bladder Stick requires Nature 2 (was Nature 1)
- The Rat Tail requires Nature 1 and Death 1 (was Nature 2)
- The Star of Thraldom requires Air 1 and Water 1 (was Air 1)
- The Demon Whip requires Fire 2 (was Fire 1 and Blood 1)
- The Standard of the Damned requires Death 3 and Astral 2 (was Death 3)
- The Ice Pebble Staff requires Water 2 (was Water 3)
- The Bow of War requires Air 1 and Fire 1 (was Air 1)

All the other changes affect the stats of various items, and repeating those here would probably not help much.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Bugs and typoes:
- It's instead of its (that is, when the possessive form is needed, and not the shortened form of it is), in the Pretenders mod and in the description of all the mods.
- The description of the Items mod is the one from the Scales mod.

- Elixir of Life is spelt Elixer of Life
- Horned Helm is used instead of Horned Helmet
- Rat Tail Whip is used instead of Rat Tail

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I=Noob but..
Why did you nerf Water Braclet? It is not like water magic in general or the braclet its self is overpowered. I think(unless you improved water magic else where)that you should keep Water braclet water one so that nations with one water can forge it easily.
I think bloodstone should be blood 3 earth 2/3.
And also, I very much disagree with forst brand water 1 earth 1, because rather then fixing it, you just make it harder to get and make getting it rely on luck or getting a water 1 earth 1 mage.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The Frost Brand (along with other weapons) has also been given an aoe of 1, so it should be stronger now than before; that alone probably warrants the cost increase, but I am no expert on weaponry.

One reason for raising the cost of the Water Bracelet might be to make it harder for non-water nations: as it stands now, any nation with random mages can reach Water 2 fairly easy, and that level gives access to some of the best stuff in Water (Boots of Quickness and Clams in particular). With the Bracelet requiring Water 2, those nations will need to get to Water 2 via other means to begin with.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

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

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

I think a more reasonable change, such as increasing the cost to 20 death gems/blood slaves and/or reducing the damage to 4-5 instead of 9 would have been the way to go. Zen's choice was far too extreme..."
-------------------------------------------------------

This is what I posted in Boron's Faerun game. I like your other mods, Zen, but not this one. Why not try small steps first before making such drastic changes?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think if you make water bracelet Water 2, you should also change helm which gives +1 Fire to Fire 2. Or leave both intact. Symmetry is good, but I don't think that Water 1 bracelet crashes the balance...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The Blood Thorn didn't get nerfed ?
Strange, it's the most overabused item ... :?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

PDF => The Blood Thorn has kept the same cost, but the stats of the weapon itself were slightly nerfed. It became a 0 damage no strength added weapon... in other words, it isn't a weapon any longer.

Dimaz => I am not sure if my explanation is the reason why Zen made the change. I am not arguing for or against the change though, but merely explaining a possible rationale for it. The Fire Helmet is a bit different however, as it requires Fire 1 and Death 1, and not Fire 1 alone, so it is harder to raise Fire than Water.

CUnknown => Another problem with the current lifedraining weapons is that they will have a very tough time doing any real damage, as protections around 30 can be obtained without too much difficulty. To overcome a protection of 30, you will need a creature with a strength of 40 (before the 2d6oe dice kick in), and those aren't exactly the most common thing in the game.

I know I would much rather go the Gatebreaker way, a mighty weapon dealing 29 armour-negating damage and adding strength. That thing can kill in a single blow, and its cost is more or less on par with the new lifestealing weapons, and it helps a lot in sieges. The Soul Vortex body armour is likely a much better choice too, but only of use when facing a horde of units (where other choices are available).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Alneyan,
Ok about the Thorn, making it just a Blood boost is good.

Instead of GateCleaver, go for DuskDagger http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

EDIT:This post has become obsolete. It was based on a misunderstanding of mine

What is the reasoning behind 0 damage? I think it is quite clever to prevent strength from being added to the damage of a lifedrain weapon, but where is the problem with some base damage for the blood thorn? How could, e.g. a 1-damage no strength life draining weapon be abused? I can hardly imagine that a quickened Nataraja with 4 of those modified blood thorns would be any remote choice. So having some minor damage score might yield more choice for players...

Or is the drained fatigue independent from the damage score?

(How about turning the blood thorn into throwing knife (ammo:1, range str, damage 10,...) to explain the lack of strength? Is that possible mod-wise?)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Go ask Zen Chazar, I cannot speak for him. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif At most, I can provide with possible explanations, but my word should *not* be considered as being "official". In this case, I do not really have an idea about the damage of the Blood Thorn.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The question in my post was not specifically addressed to you, Alneyan, but rather to anybody who might offer an explanation why a 1-damage blood thorn would be a bad idea, despite quoting you... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Nerfing life-drain weapons is good and I understand that the blood thorn still yields a blood bonus, but where is the reason to disallow its use as a crappy weapon entirely?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif Oops, i now see that i misunderstood the issue entirely: The current blood thorn still does 0+2d6(oe) draining damage, right? I thought that "0-damage/no strength" really meant 0 damage always, but this is wrong, right? So I reast my case, sorry for bothering!
(Nevertheless I would like the throwing-knife blood thorn...)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

It wasn't clear indeed; I wouldn't want to usurp Zen's position. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Very good point about the damage; I had completely forgotten about the dice part myself. You will still need a lot of luck to actually do some damage however, as protection will get that 2d6oe as well, and virtually everyone has a protection value higher than 0. Still, it should be possible to deal *some* damage, with a bit of luck.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think the wraith sword and hellsword changes are interesting. They still are usable against mid to lightly armored troops (perhaps -10 is too much, maybe -5?), but they are no longer good weapons to fight other thugs/scs/etc. with. Well, unless you can cast astral weapon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

So instead of life draining weapons being the best choice for the majority of situations, they have more of a niche. Some of the comments from others (rather use gate cleaver, etc.) seems to back this up.

Of course, this is just my guess. I'd like to hear from Zen what his aim was.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Chazar had a very good idea imho.

You could make the Hellsword a No-Strength Weapon but 20 Weapondamage.
So you can field it vs. troops but some elite troops (Black Knights e.g.) have a good enough protection to make life draining them difficult.
Vs. other SCs you can forget the lifedrainweapon then with only 20 + 2d6 oe damage.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Basically, that would mean making the sword better for anyone with STR<11, and progressivly worse for anyone STR>11.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think Zen did entirely the correct thing. The only other solution with life draining weapons is to remove them entirely. In a test increasing cost did not have much of an effect on people usage of life draining weapons due to their effect wrt. fatigue.

Zen's changes keep them in the game but make them useful only in limited circumstances.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'm not unhappy with the changes, although there are other games you could play with them. Keep the -10 damage but make them armor piercing. Or keep the dmg the same but give them a really bad att and/or def modifier. Or the high dmg nostr suggestion.

I'd like to see how games are with the current changes before trying to 'fix it' http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

One quick suggestion Zen about the Item Mod:

Consider adding #bonus to chi kick? It makes no sense that the kick would count against DW penalties when for example the Gore Attack from the Horned Helm is considerd #bonus.

Resok

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Hmm.

Lets start with the Lifedrain Weapons:

The reasoning for the change in costs was to create more scarcity. It's bad enough that the best weapons in the game give you hp and fatigue that allows general use of about 80% of the game (non-lifeless unit), but they also are priced so reasonably that even if you did want to choose another weapon, for another 5 gems or 5 slaves you could pick yourself up the all-in-one use weapon.

With that said. The Hellsword is supposed to be priced to 2B2F it went one too high in a late test game and didn't get changed back.

For the Damage portion. I wanted to create only situational use of the life drain weapons and for them to be statistically _worse_ than other weapons of the same construction and path requirement levels.

-10 Damage still allows use for anything over 25 Str to lifedrain about half as well as it does in an unmodded game (where you could simply equip a lifedraining weapon and a ring of regen and virtually no amount of recruitable troops surrounding a SC will be able to outdamage the lifedrain and regen)

This also still allows Astral Weapon and Weapons of Sharpness to play into the equation and not be overly powerful. I was debating between the -6 and the -10 damage variables and ended up going with the -10 in order to see the reaction. Even with -6 (Which is a -15 Total Damage removed from Lifedrain weapons) the lifedrains are more in consideration than with -10 (where you might *not* consider them on your ID's or BL's simply because an AOE weapon might let you live longer).

This is the first version and as such I'd rather have -10 Damage try to be exploited rather than the -6 that I know can be exploited to what extent.

Final Note about Lifedrain Weapons: I don't hate them at all. But I do consider them so good that there is no reason in an unmodded game to not pick one unless you are taking a herald lance (for the only thing that your lifedrain weapon doesn't work on). And with the limit of the modding tools the only answer is to mod the base stats in order to create a sense of equilibrium between magical weaponry. Just upping the cost wouldn't change the game to a great extent except making the person with the most Death/Blood Slaves able to play the game the exact same way as in an unmodded game (I.E. winning with the same tired tactics), which is not the direction I chose to go because I feel that lifedrain in an unmodded game is so good and renders too much so suboptimal that it isn't chosen when considering something for efficency.

Re: Bloodthorn: The weapon is no longer considered a threat and you can't get lifedraining and a shield by any reasonable combination (Astral Weapon, etc). That was my intent.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Good Idea Resnok. I thought it was already but apparently not.

I will be releasing a new mod in the next day or two.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I like the reasoning of your changes to the lifedrain weapons, Zen. Looking forward to playing some games with the mod.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Just out of curiousity: What was the reasoning behind switching the Atlantis/Ryleh Pretender "Son of the Sea" to 2W 1D? I thought it was much more thematic before to have 1E and the 1D seems completely out of place. Then again that's just my opinion so feel free to ignore me, I'm just curious to hear the reasoning. There are many spells like fire ward and the like that make alot of sense thematically for a water nation to have. Water being the elemental opposite of fire after all... but anyway, I'm babbling.

Just my opinion on the matter as I found thematically a water/earth pretender made sense whereas a supposed "Son of the Sea" being having death magic just doesn't. There are plenty of other death magic pretenders for both water nations (liches/ghosts and such).

Resok

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Regarding the Dragon pretenders - seems that either the red and green dragon should be cheaper, or have their alternate form changed.

The reason I say this is that the blue dragon gets the benefit of its alternate form : sailing and cold resistance. By contrast, the red dragon's "Great Sage" counterpart doesn't get a sage bonus ( 2F = 4 research; great sage with 2F = 12 research).

Similarly, the Green Dragon's Druid form doesn't get stealth or forest survival, nor does it get 2 extra vine men per casting.

I suspect this is a bug, because the dragons are supposed to benefit from the alternate form's abilities, but in fact only the blue dragon does.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I agree I liked the son of the sea a little better with earth. I'm not sure thematically if it matters to me but I did like the variety.