Conceptual Balance Mod 5.4
 

Despite the rapidly ascending version numbers, the last several versions of the conceptual balance mod have been less and less different from each other, as it approaches a final version. The biggest difference between this version and the last, in fact, is that it comes with a complete readme (well, almost, some hero changes are still not in the readme).

Update: Replaced with 5.4.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.4
 

Here is the same conceptual balance v5.4 mod, separated out into pretenders, items, etc.. It also includes the latest Oceania mod.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Thanks, QM.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Thanks! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif We will use it now!

A Question: Balance is a tricky thing, so I would like to know the mod's makers opinions on the game-settings on which this balance mod was evaluated. Did you balance with respect to default settings? Or with resepect to the popular MP game settings (i.e. high independent strength, increased magic site frequency, etc.). Well, I don't want to discuss what is perceived as popular, so what are the setting for

• Magic Site Frequency
• World Richness
• Map Size
• Research difficulty
• Independent Strength

which were predominately used for working out this mod? What are things to consider when altering those with respect to this mod? (...and please do not tell me to use whatever I prefer, I do anyway, but I just seek help to estimate the consequences beforhand).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Well, I honestly can't think of any settings you might choose that would really upset balance. The only thing that might qualify is magic sites below 20-30, otherwise blood gets very strong.

If you really want to know what the settings were of most test games with it, though:

Indy 6
Normal World
Normal Research
Default Sites
Smallish world (Urgaia, Aran)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

These modifications should work out really well in larger games as well, especially if larger maps use site frequency between 25 and 35. PErsoanlly, I prefer indy strength 7, but I play a lot of games vs the AI. Right now Kaljamaha and I have a v3.0 co-op Ulm-Vanheim game on the small Faerun where Marignon and C'tis are running all over the map and one of them might very well win the game because of the province victory condition.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

I've been trying the new mods (combined version) in anticipation of getting some MP in some time, and figured it would be good to practice using them. I came across something odd though... I can't find out why the Winged Shoes now require water gems. Is this a balance issue, or a bug? Or am I out of my mind? It kinda doesn't make sense thematically, anyway. I'm using the Odin-guy as my pretender, so I'm not huring for flying... but still...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

That is certainly a bug, they should take two air.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Is it supposed to be 2 Air, as in 10 gems and Air 2 requirement, or 2 Air, as in 2 times 1 pick of Air, 10 gems and Air 1 requirement?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Air 2 requirement. The other way was simply too weird and did not fit with all the other magic items.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

It's supposed to be air 2, 10 gems. The problem with the mod is that it says #mainpath 2 when it should say #mainpath 1 (the numbering beginning at 0 for fire, 1 for air and so on). Incompetent of me to have missed that when I did the readme...

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

So I changed "#mainpath 2" to "#mainlevel 2". Should this make it do what was intended? I figure the path should be default. This is my first (mod)ification, so sorry if I sound n00bish.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Uh, I understand why the Wraith sword has no strength added (since it's ethereal and everything), but doesn't 1 attack power make it completely nerfed? I guess if lifedraining was completely bah-roken in the game, it makes sense to obliterate it, if that was the intention. I'd hate to make one without knowing it was completely useless.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

attack power is just the added attack skill, which can be further boosted with burning pearl etc. .The damage is still 9, but it´s armornegating now, so you are guaranted to do 9 lifedraining damage with each attack if you hit. Makes the wraith sword a nice situational weapon in my opinion.

Your fix for the winged boots should be correct.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

What precautions must be taken for ongoing MP games? Is it just enough to fix the .dm file on the server?

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About Balance: My perception is Magic Difficulty and Independent Strength shift the Balance between Nations like Ulm and Caelum, say. Difficult Research and High Independent Strength helps Magic-Weak nations, so a nerfed Caelum might be at too much of a disadvantge.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

I think everyone would need the fixed mod. I would have released the tiny fix myself but I was waiting to see if more issues would crop up.

I'm not sure high independents really helps magic weak nations, or even difficult research in many cases. In any case, I would not worry about even the nerfed Caelum being weaker than Ulm no matter what settings you choose.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Thats very very cool, now the dokumentation i really like the mods - before it was a kind of "mass randomasation" to me!

I really like it!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

I just took the time to look over the hero part of the mod and there are quite a few differences to my version of the mod.

Those probably got accidently in when the redundant lines(which I left in for better visualization of the unit) in my mod were removed.
I noticed some oddities in my version too, apparently the nullmod.dm which I took as the source for the unmodified heroes doesn´t account for the effects of magic schools(like fire giving +1 attack and earth giving +1 prot).
This results for example in some earth mages having natural protection even if there is no thematic reason for that.

So I will update my mod to version 1.3 in a couple of days and will then incorporate it in the complete mod.

The missing changes in this version of the complete mod are mostly hardly noticeable( like a few missing hps/prot/atk points etc) , but the abysian hero lost its s3 magic and vanlade the vanheim hero is back to d2.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

There is an issue for the item mod, not related to the Winged Boots.

With the way the Wave Breaker has been improved to be a good weapon, the Trident from Beyond artifact needs some serious beefing up. As it is right now, the artifact is next to useless as a weapon and the only reason you might want to build one is for the water magic boost. Jump its defense and attack up to the same levels as (or even a bit higher than) the wave breaker.

No other issues, though.

Turin, if you really want to make sure that your new version of the heroes mod uses the absolutely correct stats, toss me an email to edirr(at)welho(dot)com. I'll email you an updated version of the Unit DB that lets you see the default values for defense, attack, prot, encumbrance etc regardless of magic, armor, weapons and so forth.

That way you can get things right from the start and we won't have to debug it several times. The reason why redundant lines are missing from the current mod is because when documenting changes from the unmodded game, I hate seeing redundancy in the mod. Too easy to just put those into the readme and make the hero entries unwieldy. It's a pain in the arse trying to see what has been changed and what has not.

Word to the wise: Relying on the old Unit DB file (even with the updates) for encumbrance and defense values is a BAD idea without double checking the BASE values from the game. When I get the reworked one out for public consumption in a few days, it will be the final version, barring any (unlikely) patches to the game itself.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Son of the Sea has been left with W2 D1 ? Death is IMHO pretty unthematic for him, why give him that (and not, say, N1..) ??

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Two reasons, the nerid is already water/nature, and I feel death fits well with sea god's traditional role as capricious and vindictive. Not that I feel it is set in stone, but I don't really have a better idea for making him interesting.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

From Wikipedia on Greek sea gods (points to support for either death or nature, IMO):

The sea - at once barren and prosperity-bringing, loomed large and ambivalently in the Greek mind. Aside from the ebb and flow of piracy sea-travel was fraught with superhuman hazard and uncertainty until the Industrial Revolution. It is impossible to assess the spiritual crisis in Aegean cultures' relations with the sea's dangers and the capacity of its divinities that must have been engendered by the tsunamis that accompanied the volcanic explosion and collapse of Thera, ca. 1650 – 1600 BCE. Can the sense of the sea and its deities have survived the cataclysm unchanged? It seems unlikely. The sea could therefore stand as a powerful symbol of the unknown and otherwordly.

Thus Cape Tanaerum, the point at which mainland Greece juts most sharply into the Mediterranean, was at once an important sailor's landmark, a shrine of Poseidon, and the point at which Orpheus and Heracles were said to have entered Hades.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

As I have said in the past, water and air would really make thematic sense for a pretender like the Son of the Sea. Waves, winds, storms : the oceans may take many lives, but that's merely incidental, collateral damage if you will. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Agreed. I admit Poseidon was not overly a nice dude [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Envy.gif[/img], but he has no tie to necromancy either - and THAT'S Death magic. Water+Air is the way to go to have an Ocean/Storm/Wind pretender God.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Air could be argued to fit better... but there are very few air spells that can be cast underwater, while death has many.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Re Flying boots up to A2 : this is IMHO a very bad decision : to me it's not a balance issue if everyone and his mother gets cheap Flying Boots, it will become one with a mod that restrict them this way..
As a result, only the already-powerful Air nations will have easy access to Flying Boots, letting the other ones on the ground, whereas they're already lacking from less mobility !!!

I'm sad to say that, but it looks like this mod is going overboard : Magic items mod makes useful stuff get nerfed whatever the balance effect is, and practically nothing gets any better.
Yet real balance issues are either not really addressed (ID/AD and Bane Lords still dominate mid-late game, still noone never summons crap-drakes), or even worsened (ah the Vine Ogres are *better* now !! Get the factory rollling !!).. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Just so we're clear, look at the readme, how many things got improved vs. how many things got nerfed?

Indeed SCs are still powerful in the mid and late game, I don't see any around that and still have a use for 90% of items. With drakes, I actually see them used quite a bit now, not in the the mid and late much, but that is not what they were intended to be. Vine ogres are not, in my opinion, better or worse. They make better shields than ever, but now have another weakness. Additionally, a lot of other nature summons were improved, making ogres not so much of a no-brainer.

With flying boots, I think putting them at a2 has a number of positive points. A bit harder to do SCs, and less in my opinion unthematic, with as you say everyone and their mother using them. I don't believe it is enough to really tip the balance in favor of air nations, particularly compared to the base game where they have easy wrathing, false horrors and a cheaper staff of storms.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

I think that the problem with the vine ogre isn´t the vine ogre himself, but rather the ivy kings. I doubt anyone complains about precious n3 mages forging an ivy crown and then using their time getting 2 ogres per turn. Especially when you compare them to lamias.

The ivy king on the other hand doubles that efficiency and is already a bargain summon. A very high hp, no encumbrance n3 mage for only 20 gems is really sweet.

Regarding the drakes, I find all of them to costly with the exception of the cave drake, which makes an excellent tank. The others should drop to 6 gems in price.

As for Scs/thugs, the nerf to lifedrain weapons makes them a bit less dominant, Ice and arch devils are fine now imho, but banelords are still to cheap. I would raise the price to 20 gems.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

I actually don't see the Ivy Kings as so supremely useful, most of the time I prefer lamia queens.

The cave drake is indeed a nice tank, and the ice drake sees quite a bit of action too. The fire drake not so much, because of alchemy, but still used sometimes. The wyvern is actually still pretty bad, particularly compared to black hawks, I will probably improve it slightly next version.

Bane lords I have seen a lot fewer of since they went to 15 gems, together with life drain nerfs. Now it is mostly just the uniques, pretenders and later on tartartains that become army crushers.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Unfortunately, Water has even less spells castable underwater than Air:

Water-based Evocations:
Cold Bolt/Blast -no
Slime -no
Rain -no
Water Strike -yes
Falling Frost -no
Ice Strike -no
Niefel Flames -no
Murdering Winter -yes (castable, but not targettable)

Total: 1 castable combat spell. Of the Water/Fire combination, only Geyser works underwater.

Air-based Evocations:
Lightning bolt -yes
Shock Wave -yes
Mist -no
Thunder Strike -yes
Orb Lightning -yes
Storm -no
Wrathful Skies -no
Shimmering Field -yes

total: Mist is negated, but archers can't be used underwater. Besides that, Air only loses Storm and Wrathful Skies; all 5 other Air evocations can be cast underwater.

Water/Air Freezing Mist can't be cast underwater. And I forgot Globals, it seems. On combat boosts, Water gets Water Shield (+5? def), but neither loses anything. Even Mistform works underwater.

Googling define:poseidon yielded an interesting idea:
"God of the sea and earthquakes. Horses and bulls are sacred to him. Originally the god of earth tremors, of vegetation and fecundity, Poseidon fought for the Olympians against the Titans, and his reward after the victory was dominion over the seas, lakes and rivers. Poseidon's fits of rage manifest as storms"

Water-Earth, anyone? Besides Water, only earth, mud and rocks are easily found under water. And Death, for some. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Mechanical Men, Iron Dragons and Enlivened Statues can go underwater, even though MMs have to be constructed on land. Earth and Water/Earth Evocations don't work underwater, but all the boosts do.

It would also make Shrouds of the Saint an interesting option for both Atlantis and R'lyeh. 50% Quickness, reinvigoration 5 and natural prot +5 (maybe +9 with +5 armour of Shroud?) for no extra encumberance seems like a good deal for mages. And the fun I would have with Enchantment-driven Claymen - Enlivened Statues fest with W9E9... I considered modding a Head of Clay pretender god just to try out crazy Pythium blessing goodness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Isn't frozen heart castable underwater? I think you overlooked that one. Numbness, and sailors death, too. I'm not sure why you restricted it to evocation only...

He already was water-earth. I'm not really sure why people wanted to change it, I guess to be more interesting.

I'd say that earth or air make for a better SC than death or nature, although nature wouldn't be that awful.

---

I see drakes used more as well. I think the buffs are great for them. Not sure about the gem cost. Since they are such a low level summon, usually people get better options and so don't summon many of them.

--

Anyways I'll be happy with whatever is done. I think this mod is a great improvement over the base game.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

To tell the truth, I was being lazy.

I haven't yet used this mod much, but it does add a new level of experimentation to the whole game. That alone is worth it, and with the addition of more gold/gem-efficient choices... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Great fun!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

About Ivy Kings and Ogres, it's exactly the problem.
And Ivy Kings should *not* be able to "reproduce" so easily, so have N2 instead of 3 and cost a little more.
Ogres should be back to their base stats and costs 2 or 3 gems.
I don't see any Drakes in my games, and IMHO they should cost 4 to 6, no more. Who'll care to have such high-cost, one-per-summoning, sort of critters except in the very early game - where gems are quite scarce ?

ID/AD are still very powerful, and too easy to get by non blood nations, I suggest to make them B4W3/B4F3.
Also Devils are still too strong : "real" devils should have some less HP (32, like a Jotun) and morale 15 for all kind of devils, 18 still makes them rather unbreakable.

Maybe I'm going to make my own mod ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Hmm... I'm not sure I understand, I thought you were criticizing the mod for being _too_ extreme?

I don't know why you don't see drakes in your games, probably play to big of maps? When you are in conflict around turn 20 or before they are highly useful.

Your suggested nerf to the ivy king would nerf him to oblivion, and the ogres would be rarely if ever used.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

QM,
I criticized the mod for having nerfed things that did'nt require it/were not unbalancing. OTOH I've noticed that some things were still too strong, mostly Blood Summons (Elem Rulers went up to Conj7/path7, ID only to Blood6/B3W3)

As for my nerfs, why would having IK only nature-2 and not capable of summoning easily their own kind so bad as to make them useless ? (and BTW, another, less nerfing, way to make it would be to make the summon Nat5 )
And even at 3 gems/spell, VO summoned by batches of 3-4 would still make very cheap and good chaff. What can you have in such great number for such a low price ?
About drakes, maybe they're useful on turns 15-20, but as I wrote, how many will you make with the poor gem income you get at that stage ? And noone will make them anymore once they have a decent research/gem income ...

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

As the matter of fact, elemental royalty is back to 5, while IDs remain nerfed. And yes, making ivy kings more expensive and n2 would make them pretty much useless. Making them take an n5 mage would by ok, but if you see it as an abuse it would just restrict/delay the abuse for a few nations. I would not pay 1 gem for a vine ogre most of the time, when you figure in the difficulty of getting an n3 mage and an ivy crown. Though, I suppose I could make the ogre spell 2 gems and see how that works out.

Gem income may be relatively low early in the game, but by turn ten your start site has usually produced 50 gems that remain unspent. If you are in an early war it very much pays to pour those into drakes and similar summons. And yes, they will be rarely used once you research better spells, but what would be the point of research if you did not get better things? I believe the low research niche was all thy were intended to fill in the first place.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

I actually like the cave drakes least of all of them. High prot and lots of HP, yes, but low defense and not such a spectacular damage. The frost and fire drakes, on the other hand, ain't nothing like them early on to blast away the dirt and chaff. Just a few with a screen of infantry out front will be murder on indies or even early armies of other players. Though gem cost 6 or 7 would make them slightly more attractive than they are even now.

The elem royals could perhaps be at #6 if they need adjustment?

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

i'd up the ivy kings to 25 maybe, but that's all

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Why do so many people think that vine ogres are so dangerous when they are only slightly more useful than the infinite skeletons from raise skeleton?

A SC without effective lifedraining can be taken out quite easily by your elite national troops. The devil commanders can never be made 0 encumbrance, so they will always tire out eventually.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Not quite, properly equipped (including regeneration and reinvigorating), few national troops alone would be capable of defeating them.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

hordes of mindblast ......

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

You would have some trouble covering both regeneration and reinvigoration without leaving them open to elemental or MR based attacks attacks though.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Certainly, but still, elite troops alone won't usually cut it.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Btw:

Milita #18 still has 2 shields in CBM 5.0 !!
Obviously, there's some ordering of the slots involved, and equipment seemingly does not have a 'type': The shield from the mod overwrote the helmet, but didn't erase the shield already there. So, if you wish to alter the equipment of a given unit, list all of it's intended equipment in the mod. Maybe even clear the unit completely...

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...-militia18.png

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

About Vine Ogres : I don't find them ultra-powerful, but
1/ They are an incredible bargain at 1 to 4 Ogres PER GEM ! Cite me anything even marginally useful costing that little... For example you can get 32 of them for the cost of those famous Drakes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

2/ The whole Ogre Factory stuff is totally gamey. With say 10 natures/turn, every 2 turns you get an Ivy King (summoned by a previous IK with a Mace), all kings set to Ogre summoning, you get ridiculous masses of Ogres. Kind of same than clam-hoarding, gamey ... So it has to be addressed, the most obvious way being to prevent auto-summoning of IK so at least you've to devote some mage(s) to do the work !!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Clams and Fetishes do not burn that well, though ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Spirit Mastery comes to mind in the "cheap bunch of troops" department. Spirits are about as expensive as Ogres, are a lot easier to summon, and can still be useful (Stealthy+Ethereal+sheer numbers for annoyance).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Well, you learn something new everyday. I didn't know this could happen.


Clearing the unit completely is not usually necessary. However, weapons and armor must be reassigned. This assumes that there is going to be the same or greater number of weapons or armor, or this sort of thing results.

I'm not sure about the weapons, but it certainly seems that way for armor. I had assumed that the first #armor command for a specific monster nullifies previous armor assignments, but apparently the #clear command must be used. This is again something that the modding manual is silent on.

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

The #armor command seems to work in the following way:

When modifying a unit the first #armor command overrides the first slot(usually a helmet), the second command the second armor slot(usually the armor), the third command the third slot( the shield usually).

It doesn´t matter what kind of armor it is, you can easily give a unit three helmets.You can´t assign more than 3 armor s though.

So for modding purposes you always have to list all the intended armor, except when you only want to modify the helmet, or you only want to modify the helmet and the armor.
But to avoid mistakes I´d always list the full intended equipment.

#Weapon seems to work the same way, but you can assign 4 weapons to a unit.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 5.0
 

Hrm. Any news on a 5.1? A week or two back it sounded like one might be coming soon......