Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'd think water/air would actually be more thematic - air for wind, storms, etc, things all associated with the sea and oceans. But there isn't a lot of synergism between the two, whereas water/earth at least has claymen (and I think the stone of Atlantis).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Regarding the False Horror, why not increase the path required to cast it, make it multipath (Air/Astral) or add a gem cost to it? Or maybe all three if it is that potent spell.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

It's no so potent that it should have a gem cost. But I am all for increasing the path requirement. A3 sounds nice. Or heck A2S1 that would be nice ( that would put it out of reach of everyone but Marignon which would be nice ).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

A2S1 could do it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Also within reach of Caelum, Man, Vanheim - air mages with a random, and somewhat better than 1/16 of Arco's mystics, with their astral with 3 random elementals.

I'm not so big a fan of going out of the way to restrict a spell to one nation, but then again it'd be nice to not deal so often with masses of cheap mages spamming those things.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I vote for A2 S1!!!!! Yes power to the marignon of the sea. THe SEA I SAY The Sea. Fere the power of the SEA. THe Blue Crusaders of the Ocean of Turmoil Rise up to cast Flase HOrrers!!! Run!!! Scary!!!

Re:
 

Proposed tweaking to the Shedu :

Remove "Wing Buffet" and give it a head butt, or a stronger non-AoE wing buffet. My rationale for this is that the Shedu is a size-6 trampler : it will thus never use the wing buffet unless fighting something size-6, in which case a wing buffet with an area of effect of 1 is pointless - it can only hit the single size 6 target.

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The point of the wing buffet is both to do damage, and to repel attackers. Perhaps it should get a length 5 head butt?

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Also, how about making the Clam cost more in water and add some astral to the requirement too?

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Then it can't get poisoned, hurt, or repelled from head-butting. Only things with length, or armored things (like horns and scorpion stingers) should have length > 0.

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That would be the point, if it's going to be as good as wing buffet currently is.

Or wing buffet, which repels pretty much everything other than pikes and lances.

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I have made a modified blackunitview map containing all the units zen has changed in his spell mod. That hopefully helps to make comparisons easier.

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I tried it out but I don't see any difference in Zen's units and the unmodded units, at least on the Devil and Vine Ogre that I checked.

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Too tired to jot down the stats on devils from unmodded to modded, but the vine ogre has 10 protection instead of 5.

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Did you enable Zen's mod first...

I forgot to enable the heroes upgrade mod when viewing that map, so you wouldn't be the only one... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

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Uh, Doh! That was it, thanks.

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Regarding the conceptual pretender mod, I get the feeling that almost all the human pretenders are still pretty useless. Spending 50-100(1-2 scales) points more and actually getting a decent combat chassis(naga) seems to be a dominant strategy.

In addition most humans seem to be pretty generic. a rime mariner/master druid/freak lord is just an archmage with cold resistance and one path preplaced.

So I´ve modified zen´s mod for myself, so that it raises their skill in their primary path to 2, gives the archmage 1 in every path and raises his cost, gives glamour to the arch seraph, gives the great sage a researchbonus of 20 and raises death on the bog mummy to 2(because you´d much rather take the dracolich or a normal lich than her).

But even with those changes I don´t feel that they are particularly good choices, because specialists are usually simply better than rainbows.

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I'd hi...take Archmage in that mod. Definedly.

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Hmm. Just looking at it, seems to me the Blood Thorn has been nerfed rather too much. Damage 0 and strength not added??? It's not an athame, it's a stick of jello.

I can see damage 0; I could even see a negative damage on it (the ceremonial decorations, gold construction, etc) but not the bit about strength not being added. With a negative damage and strength, there would be very few commanders using it - some pretenders, giants, units that receive heroic strength; oh, and ones that could cast Astral Weapon of course. (Admittedly it would be okay against many independents for other commanders, but still relatively useless against late game commanders, summoned units, etc.)

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I think the idea with the blood thorn is to keep it as a path booster which uses a hand slot but remove it use as a weapon.

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That, and the other lifedraining weapons have been weakened quite a lot too: the Wraithsword and the Bloodsword are a lot more expensive (I don't have the figures under my eyes right now though), and their basic damage is -10.

In this situation, the Bloodthorn cannot act as a decent weapon, at least not without a price increase: otherwise, it would be much better than the other two "real" lifedraining weapons.

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I think that in the next version of Zen's Conceptual Balance mods, the ones where the recruitable mundane units are rebalanced, that Hoburg militia should be nerfed. They are just TOO TOUGH for their measely 6 gold price.

P.S. If there were any point to this post, it would have been that playing a two-vs.-two format makes things previously considered to be weak into things that serious players do occasionally use. Or maybe Tauren wasn't being serious. But his damn Hoburg militia did indeed win the battle for him. Also, this format is fun! But to try to be relevant to the topic of this thread, it seems that what is "balanced" for an all-vs.-all format is different than what is "balanced" for a two-vs.-two format.

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When you have to nerf something to the point of doing *-10* damage; that, my friends, is what we like to call down he'ah good ol' fashioned imbalance with a lick o' the cream gravy. Sho' 'nuff.

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You don't have a clue, do you?
A typical SC has STR 30+, therefore even when using a weapon with DAM -10 they still do 20+ points of damage.

Enough to get through every units armor, but not enough to get +10HP leeched by every successfull attack.

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Mmmh, combine Cherry's Recruitable Rebalance with Zen's Conceptual Balance series? I allready use them together.

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Myself I just don't like the -10 damage "trick". Instead of being exceptionnally good Lifedrain weapons become near useless, and everyone will switch to Duskdagger+Sword of Quickness or whatever combo instead. Up to the time when someone will mod Duskdagger to be dam 2 nostr and Sword of quickness 4W http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif !
Bloodthorn as a Blood booster but useless weapon is fine.

Arralen, I'm not that sure STR30+ SC are that common.
In fact only few Pretenders have that level, even Demons/Devils are in the 20s...

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SoQ is good but I don't think it is overpowered. It only does damage and attacks only as many times as a common flail.

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Yeah, right. I was thinking that SoQ gave Quickness, that could be used to get an extra second-hand attack, but it's not the case (in Zen MIQR at least http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ). My mistake.

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I've said it before, but common life-drain weapons should only have a 50% draining effect. Can't be modded, though.

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I'm not sure what you mean by a 50% draining effect. Life-drain weapons return half the damage done in hitpoints, and twice the damage done in fatigue.

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Half of that then.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Are you ever going to upload the item mod and the latest pretenders mod onto your webpage?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think the -10 is a pretty good solution. I can't think of a better solution that can actually be modded.

You can always cast +str spells or use +str items (bear claw talisman, boots of giant strength), etc. Alternatively, cast astral weapons or even weapons of sharpness. Plus now you have something to do with heroic strength.

Life drain weapons are very powerful in the unmodded game. I don't think that they are near useless with this mod. You can still wipe out a ton of troops with the right SC. I agree that people will switch to other tactics, but isn't that the point?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Hi Zen.
We're using your mods in a Faerun game which started last month. I have Luck +3 scales -3 Turmoil and am wondering about the statistical odds of all these bad events. Over 20 turns we're looking at like 4:1 bad v/s good events with no (none, zippo, ziltch) bonus gold events, and no invasion events. Two or three events each turn, so the events are coming, but.....
Could this be a MOdding problem, or am I simply experiencing an outlaying anomoly of [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon04.gif[/img] luck?
-Yc

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Are you sure you've got the mod turned on? An 11 turn test I just ran for something I was writing about CW, I had as many as 3 events in a turn while I only had 1 province. Probably 20 events in all, and I got only 1 bad event out of those 20 : about 6 or so gave gold in amounts ranging from 75 to 500, 4 or 5 gave gems, 1 gave a magic item, 2 gave (feh) militia and a priest.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I'm using Scales Mod 1.02 a.k.a. 1.2 and I have Turmoil 3 and Luck 3 and I would say that I'm reasonably lucky. I have gotten two Immortal Heroes of Tien Chi and a Necromancer, for example. :-)

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Hmm...Guess I'll have to just tough it out!
-yc

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Can anyone tell me where can I find the info on the new scales (the new numbers that is)?

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it´s in the dm file:

#deathincome 4 -------> means one scale of growth(death) raises(lowers) income by 4%.

#deathdeath 3 --------> means you get 0.3% more pop per turn per growth scale.

#slothincome 4 --------->means one scale of productivity(sloth) raises(lowers) income by 4%.

#slothresources 15--------->means one scale of productivity(sloth) raises(lowers) resources by 15%.

#misfortune 13------> one scale of luck makes a good event 13% more likely.

#eventisrare 20------> raises the chance that an event becomes a rare event.

Re: spell mod and elementals
 

About the spell mod and elementals:

I like the fact that elementals have been made cheaper to summon in combat; they're viable battlefield spells now. However, I worry that they may be too good, especially "living clouds/earth/water/fire" (the one that summons 4 elementals for still only 1 gem).

I think the normal elemental summoning should stay at 1 gem, but that living earth should be moved to 2 gems. That's still cheaper than it was in the original game. Also, it's still worthwile compared to the normal elemental summoning: that one summons 1 elemental for 1 gem. Living Earth summons 4 elementals for 2 gems, a nice x2 effect for your research investment. Right now in Zen's mod, it's a x4 effect, and that seems a little unbalanced.

But, I don't mind if it stays the way it is, if so I'll just continue to cast the crap out of it when I get the research level.

Re: spell mod and elementals
 

Seems about right - a level 8 research spell is supposed to have some oomph, not to mention that most nations aren't going to have a whole lot of mages that can cast it. The lower level versions, I generally wouldn't cast at all, unless maybe something desperate was going down : just not efficient to burn 1 gem per elemental.

Re: spell mod and elementals
 

What about Draconians? Would it not be thematical for the size 4 Draconians to have the "Wing Buffet"-Weapon as well in addition to their bite attack?

The two added nature skills for the chief is nice, but I feel that they are still inferior as compared to sea trolls (same level, same cost) who regenerate and are not cold blooded...just wondering.

Re: spell mod and elementals
 

But Draconians OMG HAX

FLY! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Oracle doesn't seem to be spawning astral gems. How does this work exactly?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Normally, they apear in the oracle's gem box. However, there is a bug in the current version where it no longer produces them.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

But the Great Enchantress (in Zen's pretender mod) does produce her one per turn. Seems it should be fixable via mod?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

As far as I understand, the bug is in the current version of Zen's mod. Greath Enchantress generates an astral pearl pper turn in the base game, but the Oracle's ability is added in the mod.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Bummer. 2 pearls per turn is the Oracle's most redeeming quality!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

It shouldn't be that hard to fix if it really is a bug in the most recent version of the mod... But as there have been gem-generating units since Dom:PPP and the newest patch is old, there is little possibility of the game having the bug.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The oracle doesn´t generate the gems, because Zen put a #clearspec command after the #gemprod command. So it gains the ability to produce gems and loses it immediately.