Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Medallions of vengeance are now on the 'attack' line and can be used to cause a massive area of effect fire damage effect. not sure if its meant to be like that but it definitely seems broken. am i wrong? Its a construction zero item that has a five gem construction cost and it works even without the user dying now? or twice if the user does die?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Is there a way to run only a part of CBM? I am a relatively noob player (coming back to the game after a couple years off). I want to correct the balance of the pretenders but leave the spells and units vanilla as I have a terrible time figuring out what spells and units are good without referring to the manual and with CBM it's all different.

Anyway I seem to recall the ability to download or use only the pretender part of CBM, but that was a number of patches and versions ago.

Thanks!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

It is indeed meant to be like that. Do you have interesting tales of someone winning a game with it?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

i am getting my *** kicked by it- seems very powerful for 5g and construction zero.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Could you give some actual details? What nation are you? Who is using them against you? With what commanders?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Yea I assume its harder to actually make decoys for it. If someone has fire resistant army + 2-3 commanders wielding it attacking from the back. 16 AP on a AOE-8 seems to be quite a lot. (a possible suggestion tune it down to 8AP(as much as flaming weapons iirc) instead of 16) this way its not gonna be an army killed just a chaff killer.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

A demonbred with one of these (available third turn???) can destroy almost any PD or initial expansion party. It is VERY hard to counter and VERY cheap. The problem i have especially is that it can be crafted without any research for only 5 gems. Its a great item but it should not be available so early or for so cheap.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

isnt it a suicide mission for the 270 gold cap-only demonbred?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

And how useful is it if you're not Abysia? Judging any single thing from a single point of view in Dominions is very wrong.

Spending 5 gems to (possibly) get a double explosion is not that great mind you, I'd go as far as saying it's a waist.

What would you say about LA Agartha Flame corpse constructs than? Those cost only 1 gem.

If the medallion is finally getting some use after being overlooked since it was introduced into the game than I say great.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

actually its 260 gold, but the EA version is only 60.

now i have run some test, with the ma demonbred. without bless - according to my tests - and only equipped with a medallion he loses to 21 (independent) light infantry+heavy infantry nearly always. i didnt use any spells, but we are talking about early game, arent we? and he doesnt have much buffs to use with F2B2H2.

if i research a little to get to constr 2 and fire plate and helmet, then he becomes a little more succesful, about half the time he beats the 21 heavy inf+light inf. how are u (or ur opponent) doing ur thing?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

yea same tests here, they don't seem to be too overwhelming.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Okay, maybe i was just upset to be facing it unexpectedly. I did play-test them though and they seemed very powerful. Lots of stuff runs when they lose so many of their buddies. Routs were very common.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Could you give details on what exactly you were facing(and how it worked against you)? If you commented in a game thread, feel free to link to your post there(or just copy-paste!)

I know it looks really powerful on paper. We need actual MP game experiences to use as examples, though, and the more detail we get, the better.

Sure, EA Abysia can use them fairly effectively. But in the end...they already have recruitable salamanders and guys with heat auras, so getting yet another way to deal fire damage isn't terribly a big deal for them.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I'd say hinnom can use these quite effectively.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

two demonbreds use them on my commanders during assinations and the amulet kills all my bodyguards and my guy runs. thats not too OP... well, yeah, sometimes it is... but its my SP experience that made it look pretty tough.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Remember that every Demonbred he makes is one non-fire caster he will never see, which is huge for EA Abysia.

I think some fancy scripting on your part can also help to deal with this--don't have one group of bodyguards then. Arrange it so the demonbred will hit a single target first to deal with his aoe and you will suddenly stop having problems.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I am curious, do people use the Ryujin a lot as the LA Jomon. We have a MA Mod which allows people to hire them from the capital, and people argue that they don't see much need for them. I'd like to point out, that the MA Jomon also has only slow moving mages, like LA Jomon, and are similar in many way, so the Ryujin play the same role for the MA Jomon as the LA Jomon.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

It's harder to use them as LA Jomon because of the UW fort requirement, but they're absolutely used and useful, in both nations. Having super-mobile battlemages is a Big Deal, and ryujin give you access to a couple of powerful spells that are difficult for you elsewise. Saigu are a better deal for you for just plain path access, but make no mistake that Ryujin are a powerful, if pricy, aspect of the jomonese arsenal.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Acutally, how does the amulet interact with Phonix pyre?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

.02: I 've always thought that gem generating globals that give bonuses in the same gem type were destabilizing.

ie., the Oak costs nature gems and returns nature gems -- if you keep it up for a few turns, you are strongly likely to be able to keep it up.

Has any thought been made to making global gem generators cross typed.. Ie., a casting a 30 water global might generate you air....

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

wow, i find it a helluva idea!

(edit: not sure it would make the game "better", but its kinda idea that spawns interesting discussions)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Funny you should mention that Bat/man, because the water global: "The Maelstrom" already works like that. Although most gems(15) you get are water gems, you also get 5 astral pearls and one of each other gem types I think.

Also gem gen globals are not as destabilizing as gem gen items as they are not anonymous and they can be stopped much easier. Furthermore, a nation with many globals might get ganged upon because of it. And because there can only be one global of the same kind in a game it can shake up a stalemate.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

It is a design principle of dom3 (as opposed to dom2), and of CBM in turn, that diversification should in general not be trivial. This helps to maintain the thematic differences between nations.

A gem generator which required one gem type to produce another would undermine this design principle.

The same principle also explains the generally limited paths available to EDM summons.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Seems like a good principal, but it doesn't really seem to be applied consistently. Why is it that diversity is hard, except for death nations? The only summon-able mages in the game with any diversity are all down death or have some death component.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I think the key word is "non-trivial". Diversification is still present, just non-trivial. most path more or less have some and it's definitely non-trivial.

Diversity summons are mostly combinations of high research, high cost, cross path. Death's diversification specialty definitely have these elements in spades.

For example, Spectral mage, which can be verrry expensive rolling paths you need for a relatively low path level. The hiddens are all cross path and a bit out of the way. Tarts which are probably foremost in people's mind is both cross path (nature), end research, and somewhat expensive to get paths you want (all them restore soul and rolling good titans add up). Still, I see that as death's specialty, raising the dead with knowledge of other paths.

That's one aspect of dom3 I really like, that the 8 paths are so diverse from each other and each with useful/meaningful specialties of their own.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I guess its just sort of a pet peeve of mine regarding dom 3. I wouldn't mind it if this was death's specialty, raising makes with knowledge of other paths. The problem is that it's not like death can do it particularly well, and the other paths just have middling success at it. Its that death is the only way to do it, period. There is no cross path magic diversity outside of death (or a spell with death as some component). It forces a bunch of nations that otherwise would have really no reason to go into death down that path. It often forces you to put death on a pretender when if there were even the barest of options outside of death you'd never take it. Heck a nature summons with even a 50% chance of an astral pick would cover a lot of the reasons that many nations need to pick up death in some way.

Take a nation like tir na nog. About as close as you come to a 'good' nation in dominions and thematically they definitely shouldn't be summoning up dead mages from beyond the grave and awakening dead gods. However, unless you want to be shooting gallery for mind hunts you'd better find some way to get astral mages. If you're lucky you'll find some lizard men or crystal amazons. But if you get an unlucky indi roll, you find yourself having to (rather un-thematically) crawl up death for a few specters for AMA and mind hunt cover.

I'm not saying that the other paths need tartarians or even specters. But it would be nice if they got a couple summons that would give them a couple random picks here or there that didn't require a pretender with D-magic.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I guess its just sort of a pet peeve of mine regarding dom 3. I wouldn't mind it if this was death's specialty: raising mages with knowledge of other paths. The problem is that it's not like death can do it particularly well, and the other paths just have middling success at it. Its that death is the only way to do it, period. There is no cross path magic diversity outside of death (or a spell with death as some component). It forces a bunch of nations that otherwise would have really no reason to go into death down that path. It often forces you to put death on a pretender when if there were even the barest of options outside of death you'd never take it. Heck a nature summons with even a 50% chance of an astral pick would cover a lot of the reasons that many nations need to pick up death in some way.

Take a nation like tir na nog. About as close as you come to a 'good' nation in dominions and thematically they definitely shouldn't be summoning up dead mages from beyond the grave and awakening dead gods. However, unless you want to be shooting gallery for mind hunts you'd better find some way to get astral mages. If you're lucky you'll find some lizard men or crystal amazons. But if you get an unlucky indi roll, you find yourself having to (rather un-thematically) crawl up death for a few specters for AMA and mind hunt cover.

I'm not saying that the other paths need tartarians or even specters. But it would be nice if they got a couple summons that would give them a couple random picks here or there that didn't require a pretender with D-magic.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The thing is nations like T'ir Na N'og are not supposed to be sending mind hunts every where, so while they are brave soldiers I don't really see them as Nation that gazes at the stars to gain power:). Also what about golems? E2S3 You need as little as S2 on your pretender and you are sorted. Heck even S1 works if you can get someone to forge you one astral cap.And voila you get your mind hunter. Also none of the paths doesnt require Death to get them. Yea death can be a way of achieving all of them at once, but as It was said you have high research requirement and its at high risk (not getting the chalice) and nature as cross path.

Also back on T'ir Na N'og, you get a really strong middle game nation, that has decent expansion rate(fir blogs are amazing) so you don't even need an awake pretender, for the 100 extra design points you get from that, you can get f4 e2 s2 d2- those paths are enough for you to get into fire astral and death. While at the moment the fire bless attack +2 is a bit redundant due to the fact that Ri's lances always hit hopefully that will change in the future(cough cough):).

If every single nations was mind hunting, summoning zmeys, and use Fog warriors everywhere, then they wouldn't be different at all. And the diversity is what I love most in Dominions, because every nation has a different way it is played(and heck it even has 20 different ways it can be played). If you give every nation a spell to diversify them into the paths they don't have using as you suggested their natural income. Then you reduce the strategical depth of the game. If everyone could use the best Sc's the best assassination spells, the most cost-effective troops, why bother with other spells? The way it is at the moment: you are not strong in astral but you have strong earth what can you do instead of mind hunt - Earth attack ,sure it takes 5E gems and its less cost effective than mind hunt but to compensate, on the field of battle you get army of lead/gold weapons of sharpness pertrify and loads of other nice buffs.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

The Faery queen hates you for forgetting her. As do the demon lords and heliophagi.

And tarts are not a good diversification strategy. Way to random, you need a level of death that is almost impossible to get. research level 9, etc. (The earlier you get access to secondary paths the better (why is left as an exercise to the reader))

If you want diversity, play patala or kailasa, or get a rainbow mage.

Not every nation should play like every other nation. (Which was the objectives of CBM, not all games should end in tart fests with armageddons sprinkled in).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Is there a list somewhere of all the changes CBM 1.92 makes to all spells/units/items etc. as compared to vanilla? The changelog seems to me to be referring to changes 1.92 made from the last version, but tracking all changes back through the versions is hard.

I've been away from Dom3 for a while and I don't want to devise a research strategy etc. that leads to a spell that has been moved or whatever.

Thanks!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Unfortunately not Snacktime - the list would be extremely long. However, browsing spells in-game is quite easy and probably quicker than a changelog anyway.

Items are easily viewable using Momfreek's excellent browser: http://dom3-mod-inspector.googlecode...?mod=CB1.92.dm . Also there's the PDF packaged with CBM 1.92.

Units: I'm afraid there's no easy way, sorry. The best thing is to quickly test out your strategies in single player games.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Aha, the famous list of changes question.

No there has not. People have started it, feel free to help them out.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Never said that Tir should be spamming mind hunts. Said mind hunt cover, meaning protection from mind hunts. And yes, tir does need this. As tir, or man, or pan, etc. if you're not thinking about how to protect yourself from mind hunts at a very early stage you'll get fried. Unfortunately, as it stands now the only way to reliably get cover (outside or lucky indi mages) is death.

I have no desire to give every nation access to the best spells in the game, and don't want to see everyone spamming mind hunts and banes. Thats sort of my point, and I thought sort of one of the point of CBM, to make thematic national paths viable options, and open up alternative strategies for nations to pursue. I'm saying that I think that one barrier to this goal is the fact that death remains the only path with any sort of magical diversity. Once again, exactly what I don't want is every nation spamming tarts, I don't even want tarts for the other paths. What would be nice however is a summons that got a couple random picks here or there outside of death.

And no I'm not forgetting about the Fairy Queens, Demon lords, and Heliophagi. Heliophagi and Demon lords are both limited in number so not really reliable. Fairy queens actually do provide some diversity and probably should be discussed. But I'd actually say that they're the singular example of what I wish were more common. A way, even if its difficult (and fairy queens are difficult) to diversify in some way using national paths. A nation that summons a fairy queen is never going to be an air power. They'll still play very differently than Caelum or Tir. But the queen at least gives someone the option to get into air using nature, even if its in a very small way and late in the game. Aesir are another good example and a good unit. Just wish this design principal were taken a little further.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

And I think this is good design principal. I'm just saying that I think it should be extended.

What you are saying is exactly right. Sure earth doesn't have mind hunt, but it does have an assassination spell. Its not as efficient, has different counters than mind hunt, etc. But it does have some way of remotely attacking commanders. If you really need to assassinate someone you have the option within earth. Most of the paths, and thus most of the nations have some way of pulling a remote assassination off. They all do it differently, with different strengths and weaknesses, but they all have the option.

All paths have thugs in some way, shape, or form. Some are better than others, some are more efficient than others. But they exist in each national path.

Most of the paths now have SC in some form. EDM makes a good effort at given all of the paths some sort of SC or equivalent, and does a great job of it. Once again, they're all different, with different role and that's great.

All paths can throw out evocs in some way. Sure, fire and air do it better and differently than water or nature. But Water and nature, if the the need arises, have options for throwing out battlefield damage. One thing CBM has explicitly tried to do is bump up nature in this regard.

All paths have troop summons of some sort. Some are better than others, some more efficient than others. But every path has some way to summon up stuff that hits things with swords, teeth, or other. It seems like one thing CBM has tried to do is to enhance the parity on this factor.

Then we come to summons with magical diversity. Which I'll argue is just as important as the other dimensions I've listed above. Not so that everyone can just beeline for the best of the best, but for key forgings, a few key spells, etc. If you want to use a summons to diversity magically you only have death. Its not that death does it better than the other paths, its not that death does it more efficiently, or that death does it differently in some way. Its that death is the only path that has the option. Giving a little magic diversity to other paths isn't going to turn Caelum into a fire nation, or Tir into an astral nation. It would simply give them the option for a little diversity without having to conjure up mages from beyond the grave.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

EDM summons with paths outside the summon paths include at least Ember Lords, Treants, Asynjas and Krakens (I will admit Krakens are rubbish).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Is Ulm's encumbrance in heavy plate 2?

Is Mictlan's encumbrance in furs 3?

Does this make sense to anyone?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

No. Ulm's encumberance naked is two. To that they add whatever encumberance their equipment gives.

Yes. (if you mean the two very specific sacreds who wear furs, since their regular warriors don't.)

I agree it wouldn't make sense if it was true. Luckily, it isn't.



Now, because I'm a kind person I'll expand a bit and also address the issue you were trying to point out with that false argument:

Partly for balance reasons*, partly bacause of "thematic reasons"** the base encumberance for Ulmish units was decreased from 3 (standard for most humans) to two. On top of that MA Ulm's heavy armors were also reduced in encumberance, as Ulm's armorsmiths were supposed to be some of the best ever. (Again balance and theme go hand in hand here.) This does mean that MA Ulm heavy infantry has 4 encumberance, (or 5 with shield.) which is indeed very good for heavy infantry. Did those two changes at the same time overdo things? I don't know. I haven't played Ulm (with or against) since. If you think it's unbalanced make an arguement as to why, preferably with a concrete ingame excample, and I'm sure Llama will look at it.

*Ulm's heavy infantry was really poor, and in fact easier to kill them in regular melee engagements than more lightly armored troops & the heavy infantry of many other nations, this while their heavy infantry was supposed to be their strength.

** From EA Ulm's Barbarians, to MA/LA professional soldiers and LA forresters all mention or at least imply great strength and endurance, so giving them 1 point less endurance (again, naked) than the average human seemed to make sense.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Which units are you talking about? Please give exact unit numbers, as what you wrote doesn't provide enough info.

(open the unit window and press Shift+I, and make note of the monster number of the units you refer to)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Going in the opposite direction had occurred to me at one point. Currently 3 of 7 tarts have fixed paths, with the lightning cyclops getting the prize for the excellent AE combo. What about limiting the randoms on the other four? Maybe they would have access to all paths, maybe they wouldn't. But they wouldn't have access to all combination of crosspaths as they do now. I'm not really suggesting this be done but I do think a variety of summons, each with their own limited sets of magic, is more interesting than giving units a chance at any path/path combination.

In any case, it seems to me your concern is with the thematic side of things. You don't want to have to use death to get access to S magic (though in all fairness, golems wouldn't be in contradiction to TNN's theme - of course you'd have to have your pretender be able to summon them). I can understand wanting to play within a nation's theme but it's a difficult thing to do.

For instance, TNN has two national heroes with D magic (one with D3, the other with D4 and immortal to boot). Will you use them to site search if you get them? If you do and you turn out to have a surprisingly strong D income will you use it? Even if you don't site search for D sites, if you conquer a nation that has will you make use of those D gems?

If gem income were tied to a nation's paths it would be one thing but that isn't the case (aside from the fact that you'll have some starting income from your cap and this will give you a jump on getting a gem generating global) so in each game you have to make do with what you get, even though it may not be thematic.

An idea that had occurred to me was to try a game where magic site frequency was set very low and compensate for that by a series of gem generating national summons such that your gem income would largely match your national paths. Such settings would emphasize playing within a nation's theme without putting you at a disadvantage by doing so.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I was considering a game where there were 7 free or almost free remote commander summon spells, one for each gem type. The resulting commander would produce a gem of the appropriate type. A house rule would limit players to one such commander per province. However there would be 0% site frequency, or at least very low.

The effect: Each player could choose their own gem income, with the limitation that their total gem income would equal their number of provinces. Completely removes some of the main reasons to diversify and allows highly specialised nations. I reckon it might be fun.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Potential difficulty - would you intend to have to put them out into each individual province, or to allow them to hide in forts? In the former case, it would mean huge networks of scouts running around your lands every turn delivering gems to labs, or building a laboratory in as many of your provinces as possible to avoid having to run the scout network.

Alternatively, you get a similar situation to gem gens where you can hide all of your gem producers in one or two forts and keep your extra gem income from being raidable, and still relatively difficult to assassinate (but at least a lot more possible than it would be in a gemgen environment). It would be pretty hard to police either way as well, due to scout reporting inaccuracy, especially inside of forts. You could let players police each other, or just play with trustworthy people, but it does seem like a lot of work either way.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Uh... I guess you could fill the map with labs using map commands to avoid the scout network.

The producers couldn't move and would be distributed one per province, so they could easily be killed by raiding.

You raise some good points. Maybe not such a great idea! But still I think it might be interesting.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I think your idea sounds really interesting, but definitely some balance issues. In addition to what rdonj said, I also wonder if it wouldn't give an extra advantage to blood. Because your gem-gen summons would only produce 1/gem per turn, but many magic sites produce 2 or more, players in this game would have overall lower gem income than normal, even though they have higher than normal income in certain paths. Blood income wouldn't be affected, though, so it would be proportionately higher than gem income in your game.

Or at least that's what I think :confused:. Does that make sense?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

It does make sense, *although* actually it turns out that blood hunting income is related to site frequency (clever Illwinter!). So actually probably blood nations would do unusually badly if the site frequency was set very low. That could be compensated for by making a blood slave-generating special commander as well.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

Wow, I had no idea that blood income was affected by site frequency. I had always thought that population and unrest were the only determinants. I tried briefly to test it, and sure enough blood hunting success does seem to be higher at higher site frequency, but I couldn't really be sure. But I'll take your word for it. However, you can still get slaves with magic sites set to zero, so the ratio doesnt correlate perfectly. Anyway, good to know!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

You actually can still get magic sites with magic site settings at 0, too IIRC from when we did Overlords. They're just quite a lot more rare, so your cap income matters a lot more. And you really can't remote search at those settings, it's manual or you're just throwing gems away.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I know.

Bottom line is that I wish there was something equivalent to the specters in paths other than death. Somewhat high research level but not too far out of the way, expensive for what he is as just as chassis, but provides a limited amount of magic diversity. If you really want to get into another path you'll need more than just him, but if you really need some rings of lighting, or some AMAs, or frost brands, or crystal shields, etc. You have some way of pulling it off without getting lucky on indi mages. It will cost you a lot, the results will be random, buy you at least have a shot at getting what you need.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

I think this is because some terrain types count as having a higher magic setting than the one you chose for the game. Notably wastes and swamps will get + 20. Forests and mountains are thought to get +10 and farmland is though to get -20. Dont think this affect bloodhunting but you never know.

Anyway, does anyone know at what magic setting bloodhunting is considered to be neutral? This is important in order to calculate return rates from bloodhunting bloodsummons and such.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

While it is certainly true the different ages get different amount of blood slaves. I was never able to determine how much the site settings influenced blood hunting.

So while there are effects, how much it is effected is not known. (Setting the settings to 75% does not increase the amount of blood slaves by a huge amount, and iirc it also doesn't increase the chance of finding slaves, but I might be wrong there).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92
 

also altering the finding chance for blood slaves doesnt alter the slave income the same way as gem income, since it is dependent on other factors, number of "huntable" provinces being a prominent one. for instance if the frequency setting changes only the number of slaves a hunter gets a turn, one can just send more hunters to that province to achieve the same income as with a different frequency setting.