Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Hello old and new friends alike!

I'm sure you were either fearing or wanting this to happen, but I am taking it once more upon myself to put together the Dominions 3 Conceptual Balance mod. I will be waiting until after the first patch to not only see the direction of balance that IW chooses, but to also see the full extent of the modding capabilities.

If you have gripes or concerns about the "Balance" of Dom3, this might be the best place to do so, not only so that good and valuable suggestions can be added to the groupthink of Conceptual Balance, but also to give a good indicator of all *real* issues.

Now remember, Balance is a question of a few things. My concept of balance is for everything to have some sort of use, however minor. And even if it alreay has a use, it fits in line with the cost/efficency that will allow you to use multiple strategies with each nation/era/pretender.

Further, you should know from the CB Mod in Dom2, there are unique balance problems to the Dominions universe and game. A number of these stem from the lategame so you may see some conceptual changes that will make Dom3 less likely as the game progresses to become the "same ol' endgame".

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Whoa, zen. Good to see you

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

*applause*

• I'd like to see air magic as a random possibility for EA Ry'leh Slave Mages or Mind Lords.
• I'd like to see the devastating effect of old age lessened. It feels like old commanders always die off 1-2 years after recruitment, regardless of their actual age. A 1001/1000 aged commander is just as likely to die as a 100/50 aged commander. Also, the whole "Fire magic reduces lifespan" mechanic, while thematically interesting, is too crippling to fire-heavy nations.

Just throwing some ideas on the table.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I would like to also request a toning down of old age. I dislike it alot, u spend a huge amount of gold on a powerful mage, only to watch the mage waste away...yea great fun...not.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

This is the perfect way to go with ideas. I would ask everyone to be cordial, even if you disagree with a change or discussion. Obviously I would prefer that you also have a reason, just like the good Potatoman did, for your thoughts on change. Reasons like "This sucks" will probably be not given as much weight as something with a well thought out reasoning.

Also, please remember that balance will occur first in the things that affect all Ages/Games. This can greatly impact how each nation is played. Dominions 3 is so big that these Mod releases will be done as soon as possible with as much testing as possible to ensure quality.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Abysia suffers really excessively from old age.

Some of the not so good pretenders got actually nerfed out of all things. Namely Son of the Sun, both varieties as they lost their Awe, and they weren't that great before. Vampire Queen is useless now. No ethereality, no nothing, 175 point cost. Propably a lot of other things.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

After several games here are the balance issues I noticed:

1) Eater of the Dead = The price of this creature has doubled(!50_gems!) yet it's effect and value have changed very little. Considering it's very difficult magic path of 4D and 4S, the 50 gem cost, conjuration_8 and the creature eventually turns independent... it needs an overhaul. Approach the change any way you wish, but it would be most interesting if the creature was improved to the point where players would consider the spell. Currently even for 8 astral I doubt anyone would summon the creature... so I say boost the value of the creature.


... at work so the rest will need to wait.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I have mixed feelings about your Dom2 balance mod. We feel the same about many units, and differ sharply on others. However I think this is a good discussion to have.

Upon entering the game one is presented with Gods. So let's talk about them first:

Drakaina She's a Titan, and she costs 75 with just 2 picks. That's pretty standard territory - but she only has a Dominion of 1. That seems like a bug, because other creatures in that tax bracket (Lord of Fertility, Earth Mother, Son of Niefel) have a Dominon of 2 or 3.

Lord of War Where to start? He's worse than a Cyclops in every meaningful way and the cost savings isn't even there with an Earth Magic of 6+. He isn't even available to positions that don't get a Cyclops. He's just a crap god. He should have a Dominion of 4 or more magic or anything to make him less of a loser.

Titan (Female) She' just not... good. She doesn't do anything and has less magic than a Lady of Fortune who does. You seem to be paying real magic for an Owl, and we know that aint right. She should get better magic in one path or take on a third path. Something. Anything.

And while we're on the subject of those 2 picks 75 cost titans, what is up with them anyway? The cost savings for having a high initial pick in something are really big. Buying a 9 in a path for a god with a 50 pathcost is discounted by 114 points by having a 1 in the path to start with, discounted by 178 for having a 2 to start, and discounted by 234 for starting with a 3.

What does that mean? It means that having a 1 in two paths actually saves you less points than having a 3 in one path if you intend to purchase both up to 9. Getting bonus protection and berserking is cheaper on a Cyclops than it is on an Earth Mother. That means that the characters with 3 in one path (Solar Disc, Cyclops, Prince of Death, Lord of the Sky, etc.) are much better than the guys with 2 picks in one path and one pick in another (Titan, Mother of Serpents, Daughter of the Dawn).

A better split for pretenders like that would be to give them 2 picks in two categories. They'd be meaningfully encouraged to focus on the two categories of magic that they come with. A 2 Nature/2 Death Mother of Serpents would be worth considering to a degree that she really isn't now.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Hi Zen, we've never spoke so I thought I'd tell you that I liked the mod you made for Dom 2.

I think either Ubas or Bakemono Sorcerors should get at least a 10% chance for an Air pick so Shinuyama can make use of their sacreds a little more effectively. Or at least the little priest guys should get a 100% chance so you can actually find some air sites.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Lord of War is economic for Marverni IMO. But it isn't that great on stats, magic etc etc.

Also, one might consider to take a look into Risen Oracle's downright obscene HP.

Also, in EA Vanheim/Helheim are overpowered with their easy to acces to lots of different troops with Glamour.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I'd like to see a revisit of the Dom2 CB idea of lesser summons showing up sooner on the resource tree. Also, perhaps archers should be more expensive than infantry (in gold, not resources). After all, it takes more skill to fire an arrow than to run around in armor and get hit with arrows. I often find myself only hiring archers after I get a couple good tanks to protect them, and this just doesn't feel right.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

If your Earth wants to be 6+, a Cyclops costs less points.

If your Fire wants to be 4+ (or 3 with a Dominion of 4+), a Forge Lord is cheaper.

If your Nature wants to be 2+ and you want a Dominion of 4+, a Lord of he Forest is cheaper.

All three of those titans have better stats than the Lord of War and some have better abilities as well. If you weren't interested in stats, then a Great Enchantress is chepaer for almost any set of magical picks and generate magical income.

I have no idea what Maverni could be doing that would involve a Lord of War being economical for anything. It's just a bad god.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Water Magic:

I find Water Mages to be annoyingly useless under water early in the game.

Solution: Why not have Water Strike available at Evocation 0? The indeps are using it from the start of the game, why shouldn't player armies do so as well?

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Huhu, what about nerfing Horror Mark ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Else :

Agreed on excessive nerfing/cost of VQ.
All the new big "Greek Pantheon" gods are very costly and not that great.
I'm still not convinced with the "human" pretenders, yet they now have the advantage of being easily awake, so it needs more testing/discussion.

Both Air boost items are now A4, it's really hard to have mages able to make them. It means you need base A4 to be able to progress, it's too harsh a requirement. I'd make the Winged Helmet back to A3 and let the bag A4.
All other path have at least one lvl-3 boost or less (including those requiring dual-path).

I have issues with Bless effects, but these aren't moddable...

About archers, it's not that logical that lowly goblinoids make as much damage with a bow that a human or better - after all the bow effectiveness is related to archer strength and skill, as well as bow quality isn't it ?
So why not split the current "bows" in 2-3 categories with different range, prec and damage ?
For example Short Bow could be "inferior" with 8 dam/rg 25, standard at 10/30, or superior at 11/35/+1 prec.

Thus the too-easy hordes of cheap archers will at least be less effective that better, more expensives ones.

Issue is that I'm not sure we can *add* weapons in mods ?

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Waiting on the first patch to see if this is done for me. If not it will have to be moved on the research tree and cost evaluated.

Yes, you can. Which is a big part of nation balance. The only command that doesn't work and hasn't for a while is the number of attacks.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Um, no. Lord of War is 75 points cheaper than Forge Lord or Cyclops. At least the last time I checked. =|

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Also, move Boil to...like Alteration 2 or 3 and make it Fire 2 Water 1 or perhaps Water 2/3 Fire 1. An underwater only combat spell that has awkward paths and appears at Alteration 6? No thanks.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

It sure is. However, a Forge Lord has an extra point of dominion and a point of Fire Magic. If you have a Fire Magic of 3, that costs your Forge Lord 24 points and your Lord of War 98 points. If you have a dominion of 4 it costs your Forge Lord 7 points and your Lord of War 21 points.

So that's 156 points of Forge Lord and 169 points of Lord of War.

And if the Lord of War gets anything else, the Forge Lord can get it for the same price or less.

It's cut and dried. The Lord of War is crap.

-Frank

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I'll second the Vampire Queen and Corpse Eater being boosted, as well as making the seniors take longer to die. Also perhaps have Old Age work by the percentage of the 'in his prime' time period, due to the also-aforementioned '51(50)/1001(1000) issue. Fire boosting aging would probably be much less of a problem itself if aging worked reasonably.

Seduction also feels like it doesn't work nearly often enough. I could swear it's literally impossible to seduce an enemy with the Oriad, though I haven't gotten the chance to try with Succubus. Some even consider it a glitch. Perhaps also add a way for such characters to improve their seduction ability.

EDIT: Also, not sure if this applies, but I could swear the AI will always go for you first before fighting other AIs. Doesn't really make sense.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

A fiend of darkness is about equally strong as a devil. Which is effed up, seeing that devils take a better mage, are more expensive, and higher research.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

With one Wish, you can get enough Astral Pearls to make it pay for itself with intrest. This means that one Mage with Wish can cast the spell, for non-pearl reasons, at least once every third turn while losing no astral gems at all. I understand it's level 9, but this strikes me as sort of overpowered. It might be better to prevent wishing for Astral Pearls, or decrease the amount of Pearls you can wish for.

Unless my calculations are wrong, in which case I apologize.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Just so long as any gems you get are more than what you'd get with Alchemy I think it's fair. After all, genies don't allow you to wish for more wishes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Zen, it's good you've decided to do this again for Dom3. I greatly appreciated your CB work for Dom2.

I have feeling that in Dom3 there're too many design points (due to dormant option and no need to spend points on fortresses). The indication is that I often find that I have spare points (meaning that I already got everything I need to get the nation working but I still have plenty of points left) that I spend on some minor improvements (like taking awake pretender, just for extra research and earlier searching) or couple of growth scales (extra gold won't hurt even though I'd have enough). That is in contrast with Dom2, where the pretender setup was usually full of difficult compromises. I think there're several contributing factors:
1) There's more money in the world, so it's easier to come up with required amount despite worse scales;
2) Magic scale seems somewhat weaker. +1 research for 80 points? Together with fewer cheap mages Magic+3 seems to offer little advantage over Magic+1;
3) Uber pretenders were somewhat weakened and I think that makes fewer reasons to invest a lot of points into powerful multi-path SC.

This issue is also somewhat related with the bless issues on small (and not-so-small maps).

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Why would I want Fire magic? All that Marverni needs is an E4 bless for the druids and good scales the I don't think any pretender does it cheaper to Lord of War.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

1. Light cavalry archers

Ok, so it makes sense from realism point of view that cavalry can't shoot bows as accurately as infantry. But there seems to be consensus that light infantry is already poor enough and doesn't have a purpose. Why nerf already overpriced unit with lower precision ? I say make their precision 10 for gameplay's sake. It will at least allow to use 'fire and reatreat' tactic with some success, and enable attrition war. Even with precision10, light cavalry with bows:
- costs much more than regular archers. At least twice as much
- bigger size, bigger targets, you can't pack as much firepower into small area
- bigger size probably means they eat twice as much. Bigger base price means higher upkeep cost, as well (correct me if I'm wrong)
- if I wanted archers with acceptable melee ability, I'd take indy archers 10/8, ones with shortbow, short sword, ring mail. 8 morale, but still.
- only advantage light cavalry has is speed, and speed is not THAT big advantage on Dominions battlefield. I think both flyers and heavy cavalry on flank are better for attacking commanders.
... so light cavalry deserves something to make it useful. Even leaving precision out of this, it's already much worse at archery. Increase in precision could be justified by saying they shoot only when all horse's hooves are above earth, or stop before shooting ,etc.

2. I understand reasons for nerving independent mages(to make nationals more important), but they're somewhat too pricey for what they do. Is it intentional ? Two examples (can't remember name) - 1N 1H 10% random mage costs 180 gold. Crystal Sorceress - 1A 1S 10%random costs 180 gold, too. I would decrease the price for many indy mages by 20. Or are they intentionally overpriced ? Is Forest Survival sooo valuable or what ?

3. Slings (damage) aren't affected by strength. Why ? If slings were changed to be affected by strenth, perhaps Blood bless would be marginally more useful, althrough I can't think of a single holy unit with sling. Or are slings already too powerful ?

4. Air9 bless. It certainly has its uses, but they're very narrow. Niche, tricky, combo-ish. Air9 bless basically requires a combo to work. Some people probably are attached to it, but how about replacing Air9 bonus with +2 precision ? I'd be afraid to make it any bigger. But people would have much more to choose from. Precision would help mages as well as archers. I don't think it would overpower archers, because you can't mass sacred archers so easily. Alternatively, it would make a little bit of sense to replace shock resistance with poison resistance (fumes, breath etc; air could help with that). Poison attacks are much more common.
My goal should be clear: not to make air bless simply stronger, but rather give it more general purpose.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Devils are Fire Immune, have a Heat Aura and get a 7 dmh Trident for the extra cost of what, 2-3 blood slave?

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Heh Zen, I think you know my issues about dom III. Celestial Masters s2 and no old age across the board. Also maybe have mid age TC be able to do something battlemage wise. Make spears not suck. Order scales is too good. ABYSIA NEEDS HELP. I'll think of more sometimes. =)

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Zen - I hope you don't mind me commenting on these suggestions. Also, as Potatoman said, *applause*. I Wish you Luck on your quest. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon23.gif[/img]




Actually, this isn't the case. A commander with 1000 maxage is less likely to die than a maxage 50 commander, regardless of how big maluses they get from old age. 10 000/500 commander is less likely to get an affliction than a 32/28 commander. Of course, the first might actually be close to dying from the age percentage malus to HP.



Drakaina is a monster. In Dom3, monsters like Dragons and Drakaina get Dominion of only 1. So there's a reason for it, but the reason isn't enough to keep anyone from changing it if it doesn't work.

I'd like to see Lord of War as a Nataraja equivalent: 0 cost chassis, with perhaps 40-point paths. You could take ANY path, but not high. Water for defense and Quickness, or Earth for some protection and Earth Power/reinvigoration, etc.

Female Titan is an excellent warrior, with attack and defense of 15. This is very good. However, she actually has fewer hitpoints than other size 6 titans, both male and female. Her Owl is a nice addition, because Length 6 #bonus attack gives her a chance of Repel regardless of her actual weapons. However, she has Nature and Astral, neither of which are good paths for a warrior. Astral makes her weak against Magic Duel, and I don't think she's available to any non-Astral nations, while Nature only gives Regeneration, forcing her to Enchantment. If she had a (new) helmet called Magic Crown or Magic Tiara as a helmet, she'd only need some armor, and if she had Water instead of either Nature or Astral, or Astral 2/3 instead of Nature, she'd be better.

Also, even while it's true that it's easier to take high level magic with expensive pretender that starts with more magic in a path, levels 9 and 6 aren't always needed. For combat pretenders, another path at just 3-4 might be good enough, and for e.g. weak Air nation A4 is actually a very nice choice (see below).


Son of the Sun was also mentioned. The S1 version, at least, could benefit from beings S2-3 and 75 points instead of S1 and 50 points. If he had some other path instead of Astral, he could be used as a combatant, but Astral makes him vulnerable.




1) Horror Mark isn't the problem, but Horrors with Horror Marking attacks, and the fact that Doom Horror attacks are currently too common. When weapons can be #cleared, I'll do a test mod which removes Horror Mark effect from all Horrors' attacks. I'll try if adding another #specialeffect or #specialeffectalways works, or if the horror mark effect of their attacks can be made resistable, or something.

2) There are two Air boosters that only require Air, and both are available at Constr 4. At that level, Water has one booster, Robe of the Sea. Fire has one, Flame Helmet, which isn't good in battles. Earth, Death and Nature have good and cheap boosters, but Earth has no boosters after that, and Nature only Treelord's Staff at Nat 5. Death has Skullface, which is good. Blood has access to three boosters at this point, but Armor of Souls requires Blood 5, Blood Stone some Earth and Brazen Vessel Blood 4.

In short, Air is different, but not much worse than other. One Air 4 mage can forge two boosters, and then even an Air 2 can forge more, and the hand slots are left free for a Dwarven Hammer if you can get your hands on one.


3) This is a very good point. Bless effects cannot be modded. While it's nice to throw ideas around, don't expect anything to happen via the Conceptual Balance mod.

4) Why would Goblinoids be inferior to humans? I think you mean Bakemonos with this. They are size 2, as humans, and some kind of lowly demons.
Dominions doesn't model hit locations, so archer's skill doesn't affect damage. Currently, Precision is the only stat that affects archers. It's good enough, of course, and Precision could differentiate different archers from each other, but why should independent human archers be made more viable instead of national ones?

Also, weapons can be added, but currently not #cleared. This means that weapons' damage can be changed, but it can be impossible to change some of their features, including #nostr.



A Wish for gems gives amount of pearls that can be almost alchemized back into 100 pearls. 97 pearls and 1 gem in each of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Nature, Death. With two Wishes, you could alchemize it back into 200 pearls. It'd ONLY be profitable if you had Alteration bonus site.






1 - Ligh Cavalry.
Their movement bonus isn't as good as it could be, because most archers of the various tribes have mapmove 2, and some of them have one or several terrain survival abilities. If all independent, non-mounted archers had mapmove 1, Light Cavalry would have some use.
There is more gold in circulation, so LC could be afforded when ANY archers are better than no archers.
LC should be better in battle than LI or archers. Light Lance would help, but that'd make Tien Chi LC weaker when compared to normal indy LC.

2 - Indy mages
Random picks were made more rare, and new paths from independent mages were made more rare. It's inentional.

3 - Slings
There isn't a #clear command for weapons yet. If there was, I'd mod slings so that they deal the same damage when used by str 10 units, more with higher strength, make normal slingers a bit cheaper, and make some slingers Elite with 12 gp cost and str 12, precision 13 (still lowered by sling's negative prec - they're hard to use properly). I'm still considering whether or not their range should be few grids more than for shortbows or not. I wouldn't mind my idea being incorporated into CB mod.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

My complaint about indy mages isn't that they're too weak, but that they're somewhat too expensive for what they do. I know they're meant to be weaker, but why make them so pricey ?

Crystal Sorceress (indy)
180 gold 5 res
shortbow, prec 14
mapmove 2
1A 1S 10% random
Other stats don't really matter, but generally lower (other than precision)

Gutuater (Marverni)
120 gold 1 res
1N 1H 100%random
prec 11
mapmove2 + forest survival
can perform blood sacrifices
Many stats, including attack, defence, morale higher than those of Crystal Sorceress

I'm fine with quality, but somewhat confused by price. Now they're not worth buying unless you really need some obscure item forged,
Hmm. I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

About pretenders I'd like to see more misc slots added to the actually very weak ones (and/or perhaps some 1 in one path become 2) like it was done for dom2.

I also think that indie mages and shamans are overpriced (the question is less if it's intentional but if it's a good idea if you want to have all units useful ; in most paths 1 isn't sufficient to make a booster and diversity doesn't really worth to pay 180++ gold for a -sometimes old- mage you'll have to empower anyway).

For light cavalry I would reduce the price instead of making it more effective (say 15-18 gp if the standard archers stay at 10). Reducing the cost would make fast defensive armies (sufficiently big to inflict signifiant casualties to a normal one) a viable strategy without reducing the friendly fire if you use light cavalry as a reinforcement for other troops.

I think the price of light infantry should be reduced a little too (say worse militia 5-6, ultralight/tribesmen/light without javelins 7, most light 8). With more ressources to build heavies the light troops become even more useless than in dom 2 (of course you have more gold, but who will make prot 6 soldiers instead of keeping it for castles and mages ?). And reducing prices for weak units is globally a better idea IMO than raising prices for usefull ones, as it gives more utility to national leaders (with smaller armies the actually rarely used generals would never be used).

PS : about horror marking I also support a big nerf. As it is you just need 3-4 S2 mages, a level 1 research and about 20 gems, to condemn a SC to chain death (see the sad story of my pretender here)

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

1) Because they are ways for nations without access to the paths that the indy mages have to actually get access. Gaining access to paths that your nation is not "thematically" supposed to focus on has got to be expensive.

2) Because, if you already have national mages that can do what the indy mages can do, it is preferable from a game perspective, as well as more fun in the long run, if the "profitable" thing to do is to use your national mages. More differentiation between nations that way, when they don't all run around recruiting the same independents.

For both reasons it is without shadow of a doubt better that independent mages are both more expensive than equivalent (low-powered) national mages and less powerful than the powerful national mages. In other words, it is best if they "suck" in all situations but one: namely the one in which you really need their sort of magic.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I quite like the Horror Mark as it makes people think more than 0 times before they roll out an SC.

Then again, I also understand the concerns about it's power. Perhaps the Thaum 1 spell should be MR resistable (vaguely useful before Antimagic items are mass-produced) and there could be a higher-level Horror Mark that can't be resisted by MR. A Blood/astral Horror Mark spell would also be funky.

But then again, you can't create new spells. Saddness.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Agreed on the ideas on
Lt Cav : it's hopeless at current prices. Either some more prec or some less gold, or a mix of both

Indy mages are very crappy now, expensive and weak. One of the other could be ok but not both...I'd rather go for somewhat boost them (50% path instead of 10 for example....) rather than making them cheaper but useless anyway !

@Endo
About archers I don't ask to have better "humans" or whatever race, my idea would be to have more variety and balance amongst archers where current only difference is prec.
So creating new bow "sub types" (inferior shortbow, etc..) could help differentiating poor troops such as Atavi or Bakemoni vs better ones, be they Ulmish or whatever.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

We do get Small Bows now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And Bakemono Archer's usefulness isn't related to the power of their bows but the sheer affordability. Cheap price = Volume of fire + easy acces to Flaming Arrows = Mass Destruction.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I havent read thru all of this thread but...
my peoblem with balance mods is that they tend to balance toward one persons playing style. One persons balance of Pangaea is to make it more like LA Ulm (armored, using more resources, more able to fight an Ulm army of equal size) while if I were ever interested in "balancing" Ulm to Pangaea Id make it less armored, less use of resources, add more stealth and give them flying units. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But Zen has done great work in the past so I will wait and see what comes from this.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Another thing is that EA Van/Hel units should propably cost more resources, at least Helhirdlings. IIRC those units even use magic armor, so it could be even justified (other than them being too easily massable now). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

And Ulm, hmmmm, I think the randoms on the smiths should be 25% instead of the 10% we get now. Ulm is not supposed to be a mage power, but even in the rank of mago-phobic empires (LA Man, Marignon etc etc) they are really weak on the mage departament and while the randoms are interesting the 10% chance to get them is a consolation prize. I'd add capital only Grandmaster Smiths who get a 100% random, but that's just me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

This might warrant a separate thread, but there are commanders with special default ranged weapons that they lose when equipped with melee items. I'd like to see the #bonus tag added to the Lord of the Summer Plague's Plague Bow and to the Harbinger's Horn, so that they are not forced to use "fist" in melee if we want them to use their ranged weapon.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

This is something I will be doing as well. There are a number of commanders with wierd slot problems. They are easy enough to fix.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Well, one thing to remember is that it's almost always possible to force somebody to have to deal with your large, powerful army. Siege a castle, and unless they break the siege, they'll lose that castle, and give you a recruiting centre right in their empire. If a nation can't deal with a frontal assault by the troops of another nation, there's likely a balance problem, as you can't guarantee that every battle will be fought on your terms.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Heres another request:
Improve the national (marignon and pythium) spell heavenly choir, the commander it gives you (seraph) is amazing but the troops are really bad (magicless harbingers suck except vrs undead and angels of the choir just plain suck).

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

A general impression about magical balance : with the new spell ranges, size of armies etc... Elemental magic (except earth thanks to summons in addition to good battle spells) has become weaker outside of spells affecting the entire battlefield (which cost gems and generally need old mages to be used... and old fire mages don't last long). I don't know if it's bad for the balance between nations or a part of a new one, but my impression is : having earth or death magic is more useful than fire/water/air with the dom3 settings as common artillery spells don't have the same power (fewer/more expensive mages against bigger armies) and all magics have good end game battle spells. Also water with quickness and clam hoarding nerfed may need more utility for non-cold non-aquatic nations (Ct'is miasma ie... the former kings of quickened skeleton-spaming http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

Don't know if I'm right and if it's worth doing lots of changes at this stage (to wait for some finished big games is probably better) but making the death(+astral) and earth good battle spells harder to cast may make the paths giving fewer summons more attractive (or perhaps making the rare fire and air summons better/cheaper) ; and water magic desserves some attention too.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Well, it may have been you didn't ever use the CB mod for Dom2, but it's intention was never to create the same playing style for all nations, but rather allow more choices for each and every scale/nation/pretender/spellpath/item.

Obviously everyone will have to wait for the first version of the Mod to make a conclusion in either direction, but I can tell you my intention is to allow every style of play effective use.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

@Twan:
Do you really think elemental magic has been nerfed? Fire magic (other than old age problems) is great, plenty of high damage AP spells with good AoEs (and later on pillar of fire is amazing) although the summons and items arent great.

Water isnt too great (dosnt have much in the way of summons or items either) but quickness is a very useful buff and falling frost and frozen heart are great battle spells

Air is pretty hard to defend. It has very nice battlefield buffs and some battle summons but almost all its battle magic, while having good precision and damage, just cant hit enough units.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Air has some of the best items in the game, and a couple of nice global spells too, but it really shines in self buffs.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Winged shoes, chainmail of displacement, tempest and what? None really come to mind (although yes, the globals are nice and the buffs are even better)

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Spirit Helm, Barrel of Air, Amulet/Robe of Missile Protection, Weightless Shileds, Eye of Aiming, Bow of War, Thunder Bow, Flying Carpet, I guess that's about it and some of them are debatable but it's definately better than a lot of other schools items, like Fire or Earth.

ETA: Owl Quills too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

Apart from a bow of war on some cheap commander for extra oomph or maybe some of the breathing items i wouldnt really consider them to be the best of items but to each his own i guess.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

What I mean is you get a lot of the better items at all research levels in the game using Air. I guess they're not the best items for building the ultimate unit, but at Const 6 and below especially Air offers a lot of good items for a lot of your units.

My fault though, "best" was bad word choice initially.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

And hopefully there'll once again be an early version that simply deals with the pretenders - those are the least debatable, as there are simply way too many pretenders that one would never choose because there's another that's much much better for the same cost, and other pretenders that are once again no-brainers because they're so great for the cost.

So, some balancing of the pretenders could come fairly quickly, while other things (units, magic, etc) might warrant more play and analysis.

Re: Conceptual Balance (Discussion)
 

I don't want to hijack the thread with my impressions so I'll stop after this explanation.

My analysis was mostly based on common/no gem consuming battle magic. With the kind of very big armies you encounter in dom 3 (at least in sp against mighty+ AIs, as my mp games are around turn 10 I can't say how players will use their extra gold, perhaps armies in mp games will stay closer to what they were in dom2), a spell like pillar of fire (aoe 1) is not that good (especially with precision 0, and your nation perhaps not having access to precision buffs), as well as all lower levels elemental damage spells (falling fire/frost with their bigger AoE being the most useful).

In a battle between two 300+ soldiers armies, to use an earth buff spell with all the AoE full of troops (say legion of steel, SoG etc...) looks better than to make a little hole in ennemy ranks with an AoE 1 spell of air or fire (spell you have with the same path and research level and not using gems). And in early era, earth is also one of the best schools for killing armies (blade wind power).

But as the new army sizes make spells affecting the entire battlefield more powerful too, the balance may be preserved after mid game, especially in mp games. So better to forget my message after all.