Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

v0.9

*Order scale income lessened, luck scale luck effect increased.

*Growth from growth scale increased.

*Pretenders ideal for blessing increased in cost. This was a hard change to commit to, since it makes such pretenders even less suited for roles other than blessing. However, that seems a necessary side effect to making blesses more expensive.

*Bows (shortbows, composite bows, longbows and crossbows) all slightly reduced range, and some increased in resource cost. This is not really enough to counteract their prevalence, but every bit counts.

*All cavalry given hoof attack, cavalry that already had it given warhorse hoof attack. This is bound to be a controversial change, due to it admittedly somewhat stretching realism. However, I see it as the lesser of several evils (such as useless light cavalry, or ridiculously cheap light cavalry) which strike me as even less realistic. More ideas on the issue are welcome, keeping in mind the limits of modding.

*Barding cost drastically reduced on all cavalry. Barding cost is another sticky balance vs realism issue, due to the fact it amounts to, in game terms, paying something for nothing. There doesn't seem a good way to mod in the benefit of barding, so instead I simply reduced the cost's impact.

*Some new factors in unit gold cost. Units wielding spears get a training cost discount. Units wielding a single one handed weapon and no shield get a training cost discount. Units with only leather armour given a discount (the idea being cheaper upkeep, but the way the game is set up that also means lower recruit cost). These are not necessarily universally applied, but then the old unit pricing wasn't exactly 100% consistent either.

*Independent commanders made poor leaders to encourage using national leaders. Independent scouts increased in price for the same reason.

*Some prominent sacred troops increased in price.

*Some primitive archers given a new crude shortbow weapon.

*Some site search spells and booster items more difficult to forge/cast, in order to improve magic diversity between nations. As it stands base game, it is not too hard by the time you have level 9 research in a school, to have dom2-like access to almost all paths.

*Many mediocre summon spells made cheaper.

*Falling frost/fires and similar spells got their range back in exchange for fatigue, and research cost.

*Other evocation spells moved in research and/or changed to allow more niches.

*Many rarely used globals made cheaper.

*No gem battlefield summons made more difficult to cast.

*Several blood battlefield spells improved.

*Treelords given increased magic.

*Many weak items made cheaper/easier to forge.

v0.91

*Marignon friar recruitment fixed

*Bladewind no longer costs a gem.

*Remote seach spells and earthpower/phoenix power have increased research/fatigue instead of path requirements.

*Cave of the pale ones allows recruitment of pale ones.

*Quickness (aoe) and numbness lower research.

v. 0.92

*Fixes vine arrow bug.

*Fixes recruitment bugs for Vanhiem and Bandar Log.

*Fixes dragon point cost bug.

*Fixes crude short bow animation bug.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

A dragon still shows 75 points but only substract 50 points when choosing him.

EDIT: Ok, the blue dragon doesn't work. The red and green dragon works correct!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

bandar log is still broken.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Seems some bug fixes weren't working as advertised, download replaced with a slightly updated version.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

::delurking::

Did anyone notice that the war hoof attack gets replaced by "Skills of the Gladiator" ingame?

http://img156.imagevenue.com/loc486/..._122_486lo.jpg
http://img149.imagevenue.com/loc473/..._122_473lo.jpg

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

This is actually a conflict with the worthy heroes mod. However, last I knew the reverse occured- with warhorse hoof replacing skills of the gladiator.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Ok, I see it now. I guess Worthy Heroes loaded first in my case. I suppose just changing the warhorse hoof weapon number up to 773 would work?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Changing the skills of the gladiator weapon number will have to happen at some point. It is better than changing the warhorse hoof number since there are lots of units with that and only one with the gladiator attack. But if it can happen to all units with warhorse hoof attack instead, depending on who knows what, then it needs to be fixed sooner rather than later.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

I asked quantum to change his mod, because he needed to release a new version anyway and the needed effort is pretty much zero if you just do a simple find and replace for 770 to 760 or whatever. Seems he hasn´t done so.

So I don´t really feel like releasing a new version of my mod just to fit qm´s, especially since qm still hasn´t even made a list of newmonsters/weapons he has used in his mod.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>#newweapon 768
#name "Crude Shortbow"

#newweapon 710
#name "Warhorse Hoof"

#newweapon 769
#name "Druid Blessed Axe"


#newmonster 2890


#newmonster 2892

#newmonster 2891

#newmonster 2877

#newmonster 2893

#newmonster 2894

</pre><hr />

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Any news ?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Conflict with worthy hero mod resloved.

I've been uploading new beta versions of the mod here and getting feedback about them from people on the dominions IRC channel. In a several weeks/months I plan to release version 1.00 with a readme file.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

So, will the version you have attached in post #1 work with the hero mod ? Because im using the hero mod as well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Yes, the version attached to post #1 in this thread will work with worthy heroes.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

I really enjoyed using the CB mod for Dominions II for three reasons: 1) It implemented balance concepts the majority of the community agreed were beneficial, 2) It helped reduce bugginess or other gameplay oversights that were never touched in a patch, 3) It took a few overlooked elements in the game and made them slightly more effective so that people would use them when they would otherwise logically be required to overlook them to be competitive.

I will not be playing with this Doms 3 CB mod, however, and I truly hope that not a single person downloads it merely under the assumption that it will auomatically be as good as the Dom II mod. I hope I can find online games with people who are willing to play Vanilla.

I've looked at the changes, and it seems to me that this time around, we are too hasty to make balance decisions. The truth is that the community is NOT ready for a mod this intense yet. It is far too extensive already. If this mod wants to have the credibility of the last one, I suggest it slow down and be more prudent about making altercations to Doms 3. I think the best example are the scale changes. There is no need, after only mere months of this game's release that anyone has the crediblity to say that Doms 3 scales are not ideal. Now I know that QM, you played in the beta, but I truly hope you aren't going to turn the CB mod into "Quantum Mechani's CB Mod" becuase that's certainly not the mod I want to play.

Most of the changes I see on the list up there are pure opinions that are far to drastic; and yet not even all of the opinions up there I disagree with. I like the idea of a hoof attack, and I think making the growth scale better sounds cool, but those cannot possibly be issues that are ready to be tackled yet.

The only obvious change I see is the barding, and I agree that it's always good to try making some of the spells and items cheaper since it's so easy to simply increase the price of those spells/items again if they prove to be uber. Of course all the bug fixes are welcome.

"*Some site search spells and booster items more difficult to forge/cast, in order to improve magic diversity between nations. As it stands base game, it is not too hard by the time you have level 9 research in a school, to have dom2-like access to almost all paths."

This is a good one too, I suppose, because it works for the spirit of Doms 3, and seems to address an oversight. One reminder I'll throw in here is about all the low-level summons that allow you to branch into other magic paths so easily. (ie. Death)

I hope this isn't taken as a rant, but I want it to be known that I have a hard time taking this iteration of the CB mod seriously with these changes so early on, yet I still think the value of there being a Conceptual Balance mod (not a Conceptual Opinions mod) is indisputable. My $0.02.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

The thing is, when it comes to balance, there is no real objective way to separate what is opinion and what is balance.

Part of the problem I think is that people have played dominions at all different paces. For people who have only played a few MP games since Dom3 came out, the changes can seem very sudden and come out of nowhere. Even worse for those who never played Dom2 MP (where many of the issues changed are carried over from). This is not to say some of the changes here might not indeed be imbalanced, but I don't think there is any greater chance of that than for any given change in Dom2 cb. Infact, I consider it actually easier to balance Dom3, given how much about balance has already been uncovered from Dom2.

I'm always willing to listen to criticism of specific changes, I've already gotten a lot of such feedback and it's been useful for polishing the mod. For the specific issue of scales, that is actually the most popular change among veteran players. I have yet to talk to one who didn't have issue with base game scales, and most of the input about them has actually been to ramp up the changes.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Yeah - scales and pretenders were the most popular changes with the Dom2 version, in part because they're the simplest to analyze. I understand that pretenders are now more complicated because of the awake/dormant/imprisoned uber-bless fiasco, but these two areas are still the easiest to make corrections to, imo. With pretenders, there's still absolutely worthless chassis's that no sane player would take in a MP game unless they purposely were handicapping themselves by doing so.

With scales, the base game still has no-brainer choices (okay, _little_ brainer choices, since there are a few nations / setups you might want to veer from them for).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

The hoof attack for the light cav bugs me thematically. What about giving them a supply (and/or Need Not Eat) and patrol bonus to represent foraging and mobility capabilities instead? Not enough? How about Wasteland Survival? The other terrain survivals don't make sense to me, unless, for Mountain or Forest, on the theory that they can use passes or trails to quickly traverse these terrain types.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Well, as for the scales balance, I'll just have to be trusting. If X amount of players are playing with CB and they swear it makes the game better for overall strategic versatility, I'll just have to trust it. From now on, if I have anything to say, I'll be more specific. I suppose I should also actually try playing with the mod.

=$=

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Unfortunately, there isn't a patrol bonus modding command. In theory the ability could be copied from another monster, but the only units I can think of have either other odd abilities, or an extremely high bonus. I don't think supply bonus/survivals by themselves are really enough, and they fit more with barbarian LC than LC in general.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

I've been playing with the CB mod with Ulm on middle era. I have only SP experience, so bear this in mind in my comments below.

Pretenders:
I usually choose a rainbow pretender. Is there a rationale for the distribution of magic paths/abbilities to the human pretenders? If I recall correctly, the archmage in the CB mod for domII had a level in every magic path and a point cost of 150. I think something like this should be done with the archmage. The word arch is there for something. I suggest one level in every path except blood and a cost of at the very least 50 to cover the 5 additional magic paths. I leave blood out, because blood is a whole different story and does not really mesh well, thematically speaking, with the concept of an archmage, IMHO. A similar change should be done to the water version of the archmage.

And though I have never used the Vampire Queen, from what I have gathered the nerf on her was probably too much, so how about putting ethereality back in?

Units:
I have no great qualms with the changes in the knights and sapper's cost in both gold and resources. But isn't 40 g/1 res too cheap for the siege engineer? Although he has no armour or weapons, the siege bonus should cost something in resources? Just an idea.

From an Ulm user perspective, their master smiths could *really, really* use a boost in their random picks. I do not know if this is moddable, but an increase to 20-50% in their random pick seems reasonable, thematic and balanced.

Spells:
I dislike the national Ulm spell in the thaumaturgy, since thaumaturgy is next to useless to Ulm. Putting it in level 4 makes it a little better. OTOH I do not have any better solution to offer.

Summons:
This is not Ulm specific, but isn't 5N2D excessive as a path requirement for the summon lamia queen ritual?

Oh and before I forget, congrats for the work!
Best regards

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

The rationale for the added paths for rainbows is just taking Illwinter's Dom3 boosts to them in and taking it up a level. Mind you, many veteran players still consider them too weak even as they stand in CB. The Archmage change has been requested by others too, so it's pretty likely I will add it back in. Most likely it would include blood though.

I already cut the VQ's price by 25, adding ethereal would mean going against Illwinter's presumably thematic decision.

The siege engineer I cut the resource cost just to be consistent with EA Arco engineers. I should also note that even as they stand I haven't seriously considered wasting a commander slot on them, given that spies are available.

More magic for Ulm is another case of just not seeming thematic. Besides, I'm not so convinced they are as weak as many people are used to from Dom2, they have done quite well in most MP games I've played.

I don't agree the thaumaturgy national spell is useless, and in fact I like that it encourages an alternate research path.

Lamia queens do take a lot of magic in Dom3, but I already made them gem cheaper, and I like that death isn't as amazingly easy to get from nature as it was in Dom2.

Thanks for input, it's always welcome.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

Removing ethereal always seemed like a good, thematic, nerf for vampires to me.

I wonder, though, if people have been picking VQ in CB games for anything other than LE Ulm? She seems sooo weak to me now, even at 150, and I wonder if her pathcost might be dropped to make her more attractive?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92
 

All vampires lost ethereal in dom3, and I never really liked them having it anyway. But without it, the VQ is much weaker, and I think she's worth maybe 100 now.