Blood of humans theme
 

I made a full game with Abysia - Blood of Humans, and another one with the standard theme. Here is my opinion. Yours is very welcome.

First, a disclaimer : I know that themes are not supposed to be stronger, unless perhaps if you pay a lot of points (Desert Tombs for Ctis perhaps). They are supposed to play differently the race. BUT they are supposed to be as balanced in interest in power. So far, my conclusion is that the Blood of Human theme is weaker than standard Abysia : it needs a small boost.

So, about BoH theme (cost zero) versus standard Abysia :

You get 2 more humanbreds. The pro attached to humanbreds is that they cost 2 gold less than before (from 15 to 13). Also, you get 2 which are rather heavy on prot, namely 18 prot, and they move at 2 strategically.
The move 2 is rather interesting, because in standard Abysia, your only troops moving at 2 is the light Humanbreds which are prot 9 (and the salamander beast, but you wont have many!).
This is the main advantage of the theme, IMO. But I made some testbeds, letting Abysian armies face group of hypaspsysts (because their high morale ensure you have a fight to the end, and not from morale break, and because they are rather tough opponent for their cost). For the same price, an army of pure Abysian always perform better than an army of Humanbreds, even at 13 gp. This is why I think that Humanbreds should even cost less in BoH theme, to keep thing in pace. Perhaps something like 12 or even 11 (lets say 12 for the 2 heavy HB, and 11 for the light ones).

What other advantage, aside from reduced cost and heavier HB we get in Blood of Human?

We loose demonbred, but gain the Newt. The Newt is a fire 1 / priest 2 human priest for 90 gold. What can you do with him? Well, as a battle mage not much (blindness perhaps?). As a researcher, he is somehow equal to a warlock apprentice (newt : 3 RP for 90 gold, apprentice 5 RP for 150 gold, A. salamander, 4 RP for 200 gold). True, the Newt is blessed, so cost less in upkeep. True, he can be produced anywhere, and not the apprentice. But with the reduced gold income, seldomly you will be able to recruit at full speed in your capital, AND recruit mages elsewhere. The downside is that anathemant salamanders/dragons can only be produced in capital, so compete for slot usage with the apprentice or warlock.

Another downside, and I think the reduction is too drastic here too, is that you cant take a magical dominions in the BoH theme. I think the restriction is too hard. At least with a magical dominions, you could have tried to get the most of newts as researcher, but even this strategy is not allowed.

So in essence, the Newt is somehow better in research, but not by much, from standard Abysia.

What do we get next : we exchange the Lava Warrior and replace him with Guardian of Pyre. I think they are rather equal, some advantages of one being compensated by other advantages of the other. So here, no difference in interest (they are used differently on the other hand).

And thats all. BoH superiorities over standard Abysia are really minors, in my opinion. Humanbred costing less, but still inferior, fighting value wise, compared to pure blood Abysian, gold price being equal.
A light advantage in research, perhaps...

now the cons... they are more numerous !

first BoH cost you 40 design points. Yes, you can only take heat +2, versus heat +3. So it costs you 40 DP.

You loose the demonbred, which is rather interesting (priest, fire mage, blood mage, can fly, good HP, blessed).

You can only recruit anathemant (dragon or salamander) in your capital. Problematic, as you can also only recruit your blood mages here. You have a big bottleneck here.

You only have 4 fires gem a turn, compared to 5. Minor, but its something less anyway.

my conclusion : Not that weak, but several minor reductions and weaknesses, and no clear superiority in a domain compared to standard Abysia. They could benefit from a small boost.

my suggestions, choose some, not necessarly all :
- allow magical scale, so that Newt can be used as good researcher.
- add an astral gem to the 4 fires.
- reduce by 1 or 2 gold the humanbred cost
- give 40 additional DP, or let heat 3 possible.
- give a new unit, a level 1 blood human mage, recruitable everywhere.
- give 1-2 free slaves a turn (the human virgins are more available now)

thank you for your attention. Discussion welcome (but please test the 2 themes before!).

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

Blood of humans might very well be weaker, most themes are on the cautious side, the idea being that it hurts balance less if an alternative to a nation is weaker then the orginal than it does if it is stronger.

Another point that strengthens you case is that themes that requires a scale setting of the optimum will still recieve income penalties for the scale. So blood of humans are stuck with a -5% income. As is Niefelheim. The idea being that they do not live under optimum conditions for most of the inhabitants, most Jotuns are uncomfortable under the cold preferred by the Niefel Giants etc.

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">yes I know you said that it was safer to start theme tweaking with this approach. I just put a small contrib so you can start to check if something ought to be done or not for Blood of Human (I hope other players will try to compare themes of other nations). Nothing too drastic should be done, but I think it is safe to say that they are somehow weaker, and it would be better if they were differents, but not weaker than standard Abysia => I'm attracted by novelty, and will play them in SP, but in MP I'm unsure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

The idea I like the most to give them a little boost while remaining on topic is the +2 slaves a turn because of more numerous humans. (IMHO anyway)

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Didnt knew that. Make sense, but yes it weaken them with an additional little touch of feebleness http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

However Joutunhiem gains 40 design points for making the +3 cold/niefelheim choice while the human abysians lose 40 points.

The Niefelheim theme adds very distincive and potent stuff to Jotunheim for an effective cost of 10. The blood of humans adds little, at an effective cost of 40. I must concur with Pocus in that Abysia got a weak theme. Unless there is some hidden potency we have yet to discover...

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

What hasn't been mentioned is that +2 heat rather than +3 heat also weakens Abyssia, and not just in design points and income. Abyssia relies on heat for these things:

Weaken/fatigue opponents in battle
Strengthen heat auras
Strengthen fire magic
Weaken water magic
Weaken cold auras
Weaken cold-based units (e.g. Caelians)
Strengthen magic summons (summer lions, probably some demons)
Combat cold domains
Combat cold from winter
Combat cold from ritual spells
Create fire gems from luck
Reduce supply to make attacks more difficult (I think heat/cold reduce supply)

Choosing +2 heat instead of +3 heat vastly weakens Abyssia, due to these factors. Blood of Hunams allow a max of +2 heat, since that makes sense for the theme. But I also think that there have to be fairly major perks for going +2 heat as Abyssia. Possibly a new, powerful multipath mage, possibly a new site that generates free humanbred soldiers every turn, and possibly the theme costing -50 design points.

-1 fire gem per turn is also -15 gold per turn, which is the difference in price between 7 default humanbreds and 7 BoH humanbreds.

Jotun's +3 cold theme is the exact opposite - every disadvantage I mentioned above for Blood of Humans is an advantage for Niefelheim. So they aren't really comparable... I always go +3 cold as Jotunheim with the default theme, just for those reasons...

-Cherry

[ November 04, 2003, 17:09: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

I would concur with Saber, Alex and Pocus. Particularily on the issue of heat 3.As an Abyssian player giving up heat three is big and Sabers spelt that out well. I also would voluntarily take cold 3 for the giants so the Niefelheim theme is pretty tight.

Cool to read that Niefelheim get an income loss due to the discomfort of the Jotun with the cold - this fits my Back to the Ice Age theme so perfectly. By creating the precondition for the return to the Ice Age the Jotuns will destroy their own civilisation and lay the basis for the coming thaw.

I found the Blood of Humans theme expanded slower as the Abyssian infantry may cost more but you can build the same amount due to resource restrictions. Abyssia produces deadly early armies, who in my experiance, can achieve all the gains an early SC can. This has always been the basis of my abyssia play and I think alot of people underestimate the power and efficiency of killer HI armies lead by fanatacism. If you play them right you don't lose a battle vs an independant, take few casualties, and you conquer at an excellent rate. Battle afflications becomes one of the major concerns your guys live so long.

I agree with Pocus that it would nice if you could at least have a magic scale for the newts or else improve them.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

Just saw another thing : Abysian Slayer are also only recruitable in the capital.

So you have to choose between : assassin, high priest or blood mage each time. The bottleneck is even bigger than I thought!

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hmm, I agree. Blood of humans was the Last added and least tested theme. Thus it has not been tweaked to compensate for the thematic losses of the theme.

Of your suggestions I am more in favor of the changes that goes with the theme (more humans, diluted essence of the fire magic). DP i find less attractive as it is a mechanical tweak, the same goes for the HB cost, although this is a more thematic change. Greater focus on blood magic is not bad, as this could be a way to compensate for lost fire magic, but a cheap blood mage is a very powerful thing to add if it is recruitable everywhere.

It takes some pondering.

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

Thanks for listening.

About the blood mage, I think Chris Byler suggested he can be blood1/fire1, thus rising his cost to perhaps 110 gp. That would be then more problematic to recruit him en masse (though still possible if the focus of the player is blood at all cost).

Also I think forbbiding the taking of a magic scale (perhaps not to 3, but 1 or 2 would be cool) is not necessary, as it closes the strategy to use newts as fast researchers (the goblin them of Jotun is rather powerful with this setting by the way).

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

thinking a bit more on the theme, I think this would not be sufficient to equilibrate it. The problem of assassin only in capital (and thus the only sneak unit with scouting capacity) is also a bit problematic.

some suggestion again :

the aforementioned humanbred blood mage transformed into a 'Blood Cultist', blood 1 with assassination power. Now that would give a very strong distinct flavor to the BoH theme, as this assassin would be rather powerful.

powerful => not cheap, so could fix the problem of having a cheap blood mage too (thinking of the starpawn with some increase in gold cost)

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

BoH is a weak theme, there are lot better themes for various nations.
I guess themes are fun, but sometime the original setup is better.

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Isn't really much of an issue with just having a sneak unit in capital, since indep scouts are plentiful, and if it were an expenisve sneaking mage wouldn't answer the problem anyway.

Not that I am against the idea as such, but for the assasin/bloodmage to use his magic in battle he requires bloodslaves, and it would look a little funny when the assasin mage performs his assasination with his harem of nubile young bloodslaves tagging along.

[ November 07, 2003, 15:01: Message edited by: johan osterman ]

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

[quote]Originally posted by johan osterman:

Quote:

Not that I am against the idea as such, but for the assasin/bloodmage to use his magic in battle he requires bloodslaves, and it would look a little funny when the assasin mage performs his assasination with his harem of nubile young bloodslaves tagging along.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ooooh one of my most favorite tactics. I often create assassins (with that heart) out of blood mages that can sneak (pandemoniac, heliophagus). I love them casting Hellbind heart to force the target to change sides, then the next event in that province is a combat between that commander and the troops still in the province. Sometimes he even wins the province for me. Then I collect a few blood slaves and move on.

For non-blood assassins I often give them the skull talisman because the skeletons that show up often distract long enough for the assassin to do its job. Blood slaves serve the same purpose.

I especially love the Helophagus. Flying all over the map doing his assassinantions until the Last commander takes the province (no guessing when to attack). The sneaking demons he creates make a great backup for any time he happens to get spotted and attacked.

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">well the main problem is that in BoH Abysia can only produce assassins in the same province as his good mages and priests. I concur that for spying indep scouts would be fine.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I thought of that, and discarded the fact as of few importance. Because in dom1 we have already blood commanders which are used as assassins, and nobody find that they have slaves attached silly (heliophagus as deluxe assassins with black heart), and most importantly because I think that the 'realism' is already detrimental enough in some game features (too low growth rate partly because of realism, just an example)

Re: Blood of humans theme
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">What commanders do they have that aren't capitol only?

Well, I guess every province has an independent commander of some sort. But those aren't heat resistant.

I think people who are talking about "recruitable everywhere" are neglecting the fact that it is actually everywhere with a fortress. And it looks like BoH is even more capitol dependent than Dom I Man, thus fortified city seems a likely choice for them. So "every fortress" isn't really that many places.

I really can't think of many uses for the Newt. He's not that good a researcher without a magic scale (which you aren't allowed to take). He can't cast any rituals. With a gem he can cast Flame Bolt (and probably miss). He can preach - but not very well. He can sacrifice blood slaves - if someone else finds them for him. Basically he's an Inquisitor with less priest powers (who builds Inquisitors to use them as mages, anyway?) and without the bonus to suppress enemy dominion - for almost the same cost as a real Inquisitor.

The one thing he is good for is building - he can build both labs and temples, and doesn't cost very much. But you don't need that many commanders for building.

In fact, I don't think BoH needs a new mage: they need Newts to gain 1 Blood so they can be junior Demonbreds (to replace the loss of the real Demonbreds). Increase cost to 110-120 (he is a better mage than an Inquisitor but an inferior priest). Now he can find and sacrifice his own blood slaves, find blood slaves for someone else, research better (especially with no magic scale), forge Fire/Blood items (like the demon whip), and perhaps most importantly, be a sabbath slave.

Maybe I'm just dissatisfied because I didn't get the Warlock Apprentice I wanted (as an Abysia player): I was expecting Blood-1 for 60-70 (like the Marignon and Atlantis initiates), recruitable at any fortress/lab (the proposed Newt would need a temple too, but make up for it by being sacred and having fire too). That would have put Abysia in the communion race with C'tis and even Pythium. The powerful Abysian mages are expensive, so I want them to be really powerful, and communion is one of the ways to do that.


In case you really don't want to give BoH a hand in blood magic (but they will be handicapped in research compared to most magic-focused nations because they can't take a magic scale), I just had another new idea for BoH: standard Abysia doesn't use bows because "they would turn to cinders in the hands of the Abysians", right? So why not a Humanbred Archer or Humanbred Crossbowman? Humanbreds wouldn't have the same problems with lighting their bows on fire (and in fact, some Humanbreds already use wooden equipment such as spears). This might make up for the decreased availability of mages on the battlefield (although it doesn't do much for the research problem). I think this is very thematically appropriate for BoH - they're more like humans, and all human nations (that I can think of) use some sort of missile troops.

Giving javelins to the BoH humanbreds would be another interesting option.