Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

Oh yes, no doubt it does. Ghost raiders at level 0 would also make Helheim and CTis a lot more interesting to play.
P.S.
My own pretender has death and nature, and very good scales. I fail to see the 'sacrifice'.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

Dominions II had a theme in which Pangaea started the game with Carrion Woods as a dominion effect. They had Nature/Death mages and level 0 national spells for summoning the Carrion lords and ladies and critters that now have to be researched. I don't remember how good it was considered, but I doubt level 0 Carrion Woods is as big of a problem as you think. It kills off population, reducing your income and your capability to recruit normal troops or mages.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

Playing Mid Marignon, I had the AI cast wild hunt against me, and if I recall correctly, it only works in forests, so it's not that hard to avoid having your mage priests killed (quite annoying though).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

Isn't it a bug with lvl0 Carron Woods? I think they should be lvl 7 or 8.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

It is intended, so as to make the casting of carrion woods easier and more of a thematic choice. (never used it, so I don't know if it is worth the gems)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

It's worse in the forests, but attacks can happen absolutely anywhere, including your own capitol. There are no domain or terrain restrictions afaik, except for attackers strength maybe.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

On carrion woods: This spell only carries the vaguest resemblance to haunted woods, which I agree is extremely powerful. Carrion woods gives you a few manikins and gems in exchange for your population dying, haunted woods turns every singe unit that dies (friend or foe) in battles in your dominion into a manikin. I'm honestly not sure I'd cast carrion woods right away if I had the gems and pretender to cast it from turn 1.

On wild hunt: It is indeed forest only, or at the very least it was in dom2 and I've never seen it occur anywhere else in dom3. Given that, it seems rather niche, unless someone you are at war with has a capital in a forest. Still, I wouldn't mind bumping up research a bit if other's share your opinion.

On longbows replacing lances: That was a bug, I thought I fixed it in 1.21, but it may have slipped though.

On the trident: I send pretenders and mages into the arena mp, though I know I'm in the minority. I wouldn't mind boosting it a bit though.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

Have you considered giving lance bonus to magical spears?

Also, I like CB more and more. I haven't played Dominions in a while, and when I started looking at it again I noticed how few pretenders really were useful. Anything compared to Prince of Death seemed so weak... I guess I'll try CB games when I get back to actually playing again.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

Maybe you should restore Bone Grinding, my 8D mages spam it a lot and butchered there own army, unless there is a hint for prevent that ?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.21
 

I have to say that while making LA Agartha's top level necromancers capital only is perfectly fine because those guys are completely nuts, the second tier mages should be stepped up a bit because as it stands you're paying something like another 40 gold and taking a unit with old age for all of one level of priest magic, which is pretty situational. Something to make the choice between the two non-capital only necromancers a little less obvious would make sense I think, maybe more death/earth so that they could summon nearly as well as a ktonian necromancer, but no fire so they couldn't bust out the crazy evocations as much.