ABM (if I can figure out how to make that work ).
 

I used to call this mod cCBM, with the last version of that name cCBM1.44. As that was confusing, I am continuing with this sequence.

Aging was my focus mostly on this version. Unless a nation is 'strong', old age was removed from acolytes. Also, from a few nations top mages, if there were no specific age references in the description.

Machaka, Abysia, Pythium, and many others benefitted.
Small improvements to Arco philosophers, Jomon Priests. MA oceania got a few small improvements which might help it expand on shore.

Cost of fires from afar and seeking arrow reduced.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I don't oppose your changes, but having two competing balance mods around doesn't sound like a good idea. Since the old age fixes are the most important change between your and Quantum's conceptual balance mods, I'd like to see a CBM-compatible mod that only changes ages, and incorporated other changes that don't clash with CBM.

I did that with my Charge! mod that changes weapons. It'd have been nice to be able to change Pike, but keeping the mod CBM-compatible is more important than Pike's resource cost and its spesific attack value.

Since a mod can't decide whether it happens before or after another mod, you couldn't include all of your changes into a CBM-compatible mod.:(

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Well, as far as I know, there are no conflicts with CBM.
The version I used was 1.41 - the only changes since then were the 8-9 bug fixes which are duplicated. Everything else is an extension.

Well, what I might do is make two versions. Complete and an extension version. Maybe next version.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

What Endo says is that you should make something that can be loaded together with CBM, instead of just editing the original CBM and putting your own emphases on things that you like.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I think doing it as a fully stand-alone mod would make the changes more likely to be adopted (or at least closely scrutinized) by QM - which is a win-win.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

How would QM closely scrutinize the difference between two huge mods (assuming he wanted to)?

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

You have a point there, Jim. Of course, that'd only work if Quantum could see what was changed (that's covered by the readme) and Chris's changes got discussed and/or tried. I would've thought it would be easier to just discuss these changes with Quantum, but whatever...

Are you going to remove old age altogether? If not, what kind of commanders will you leave old?

How did you change Black Bull and Blindfighters?

Why should wolves be as effective patrollers as humans? Wolves are 1) free and 2) autosummoned by Werewolves and Wolfherds. Those abilities make wolfpacks better patrollers than humans, even if a single wolf is worse than a single human.

Are Cat Charm, Fires from Afar and Seeking Arrow now at the same research level they were in vanilla, or did you make them available earlier? No manual, no game, can't check myself.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Llama - that's the point, if Chris bundles his changes with all of CBM, there is no way to look at those changes. But much of this was stuff that Chris wanted to see in the full version of CBM, so since QM is very interested in what people want to see made more "balanced", it seems this would be a good aid to that communication process.


As far as the wolves go, I just figured that human history has shown us that 1 canine is superior to 1 man in hunting/tracking ability, in general terms. So I thought that was a nice change (even though odds of me personally using Wolves for anything in Dom3 <1%). Maybe that's not Chris' reasoning, but I thought it was good. :p

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

diff -u

(-u, because the normal output isn't particularly human-readable)

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I know that Ornedan, but it's not available (is it?) in Windows, and it seems ridiculous to make QM go to the lengths of downloading a diff program just to find out chris' opinions on balance.

Jim, I can't understand your point.

What?

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

∃ cygwin, mingw

Or stuff like UltraCompare if one doesn't want to touch a command shell. Since diff is a GNU tool, it's pretty much not been ported only to some embedded platforms.

Also, the diff isn't just for finding balance changes. You get all the modifications that way, including bugfixes.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I guess if chris wants QM to consider his suggestions, he should just write them out in a list along with the rationale for the changes.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

It was exactly my reasoning. If you have wolves that are units (like any other unit) - you get to use the talents of they unit. Flying units fly, stealthy units stealth.

Wolves do have great noses, hence the small patrol ability.

Personally, I am not at all likely to use them either as is, but I might be *more* likely now. Honestly, I thought they needed a bigger boost - I mean many units have pbs of 10 or more - but I tend to want to err on the side of caution.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Generally, I favor incrementalism. Many nations top line mages have specific references to old. All of those nations remained old (iirc) for thematic reasons.

In general however, many nations had 'acolytes'. None of the acolytes contained text saying old - and yet many of them were.
So I believe I removed old age from all acolytes.

I don't believe many people build them, but they might be someone more attractive now.

A few nations were old where I thought it was unthematic. Abysia's slayers are no longer old. Sorry, they idea of a geriatric assassin (stay put while I gum you to death)...

Also, a few nations where I thought they shouldn't be old, where alreadly very strong, so I did not change the nation. The idea to my mind is to increase balance, as well as make units and spells that are not currently viable, more so. So anyway, for this reason nations like EA-Mictlan - a low tech, low lifespan nation, did not get old age tags removed.

Generally, the nations affected are in the readme.

I also *do* like the idea of removing old age entirely, however I figured old age was part of the general balancing act and hence removing it entirely was not appropriate for a balancing mod. However someday I may write an "old age" mod where all old age is removed. A golden time of magic, indeed.


Black bull had a bug in CBM that gave him stats and text from the fenris wolf (or vice versa). I merely removed the bug.
Blind fighters had 8 levels of air, the numbers were juxtaposed. I merely changed 8 1 / 1 8 ie., giving them one level of holy.



Cat charm I restored to vanilla level. Fires from afar and seeking arrow I did not change level - I lowered the casting cost.

Seeking arrow got 1 gem cheaper, and fires from afar now costs 4 fire gems.

It is my general thought that Astral and death schools are the strongest. Air is pretty good. Water, Nature and fire are somewhat weak.

But additionally, I would like to see additional options open up for play. Much of the current game focuses on summons, magic item construction, SC's, and in some cases globals. I'd like to make using magic on a strategic level a more viable option.At 10 gems I think there was no serious use of fires from afar; certainly not in the mid game.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Here is my 2 cents on the issue:

I still think having CB can lead to confusion (talking about CB 'flavors' rather than actually different mods). In particular it would be nice if you'd start with your own whateveryourmodname 1.00 rather than having one apparently added on to the current CB version. I do understand I share some blame with the confusion, having left some largish bugs in the last CB version, but hopefully the confusion (and bugs) can be eliminated when I release a new version soon.

As for some the specific changes brought up here, several have specific reasons they were nor included in CB. Old age ranges I considerer entirely in the department of IW's thematic call. In particular they have made clear Abysia ages are as they intended them.

The change out of the list that strikes me as oddest though is lowering the cost on seeking arrow. I do not think I have seen a game with air nations where this was not put to huge use. The obvious use is early game where taking out mages and people leading troops can utterly change the tide of a war. But it has an arguably even deadlier side. First just a few of them can make sure to give enemy SCs a chest wound- usually a death sentence in itself for SC vulnerable to it. And more than this, given enough gems and mages it can kill even the best equipped and best chassied SCs. Admittedly this is less efficient than mind hunting , but given the low tech, it's many other uses, and the fact very few scs will have the equipment to counter it, it's already an awfully powerful spell.

I'd also point out that by making early artillery like fires from afar and seeking arrow cheaper you are giving giant nations an even larger leg up.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Rather than continue to hijaak a thread, I moved my response here; so the first points are not directly in answer to this thread.

First, I originally called it cCBM because I considered it a variation of what QM did and I wanted to give him credit.

I have discussed the mod a couple of times with QM; he said he did not mind me making the mod, but he and llama asked that I name it something else. Llama suggested ChrisCBM so that is what I did, per request.

As for advertising, you are right: I am trying to promote interest in the mod; and trying to get people to look at it and consider it as an option for games. But also to consider the changes, and the reasons for them.

For example the most recent changes are removing a lot of old age tags. But it was a minor point in a list of points that were otherwise quite topical to EA-Arcocephale.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
As for this thread:

Interesting comment QM: Do you think the boost to giant nations is bigger than the boost to fire nations?

Also, Absolutely I will defer on the questions of version numbers. It would be funny to go back to version one, and cause confusion. How about I use 2.0 for the next one?
As for the name, at this point I would happily take suggestions.

I do like calling it a balance mod - for much the reasons you did originally. I don't like putting my name on it - it does seem like bragging. The only thing I can think of now is Balance2.0 but considering the firestorm of protest, I'm going to wait for comment.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Yeah, I shouldn't have suggested ChrisCBM actually, that was obviously not the best plan. Sorry about that Chris.

I think Balance2.0 isn't a great idea either (it implies its more balanced than everything that's gone before). Maybe just come up with a random word? Obsidian? Tangerine? (They're serious suggestions, lots of famous mods for other games have odd names.)

Also, are you sure you really need your own mod chris?

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Stone Soup, or some variation thereof, would be a fine name.

I think it's worthwhile to have at least the old age mod independent of the rest of your mod, because that's something that some people might want to use with normal CB even if they disagreed with your other changes. It does not compete with Quantum's CB on mechanical level.

It might be worthwhile to mention the whys of your changes as well as the whats in your readme.

- Great Bull bugfix (remove Son of Fenris stats)
- LA Agartha Blindfighter bugfix (remove Air magic)
- Seeking Arrow, Fires from Afar made cheaper (to make rituals more useful in the strategic level)

... and so on.

I am wary of your change to Seeking Arrow, but I like your reasons for changing it. I wouldn't mind seeing more arcane bombardment-style magics in the game. What about making Fires From Afar scale with caster level? Basically, anything that has a good chance of taking out mages is useful, but things that mostly target units are more rare. Spells that cause unrest are used to lock research centers and Wolven Winter is a staple for Cold nations, but Melancholy could use a boost, and Ravens' Feast...

Can Ravens' Feast be given a nice #secondspell effect? Undead reanimation, additional gem generation, second Ravens' Feast, summoning some ethereal hawks (like the Jomon summons, what are they called... I guess they're in the progress page list, WHOA! I'll have to post THAT somewhere...)

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Thanks endo, will do (on the why's).


I am currently working on a spell called:

Call Jack Thaum 3. 2e1s

"Jack never got over his dislike of giants - and never figured out the mage that sold him the magic beans was a member of the Shadow Seer league."

What Call Jack does, is summon a remote indepentent commander (Jack). Jack comes equipped with a magic harp (giant sleep), and three magic beans. He's lucky and stealthy.

Jack when he enters combat casts Gift of Heavens (1). Which chains to Gift of Heavens (2). Which chains "kill caster".

Sadly, so far its killing the guy who summons jack - which I haven't figured out *at all*. And has the chance of leaving a harp. Soo my next test was adding ritual of returning, and then kill caster. Thats what I'm working on now. It has a chance of giving you a harp, I guess... so the next attempt will be sending him to the inferno, if I can figure out how to copy that effect.

But the idea is to have a bombardment spell that actually *can* kill giants. I couldn't figure a way to create the remote effect I wanted directly, I invented Jack.

I guess you really could say I don't know Jack = ). Sides, I like the opportunities for puns.

The other thing I'm working on is Assassins!
I find the current assassins almost completely pointless. Sooo I've come up with a bunch of thematic assassins.

LA Ermor is shade that can move through the shadow plane and hence has a huge move. Ctis has a skelly spammer. Bandar log has recruitable everywhere monkeys with pearls of vengeance. Mictlan gets special sacred summons, in battle. Ulm gets a bunch of antimagic weapons etc. Tien chi gets an ancestor vessel assassin... etc. Someone else comes equipped with bane venom charms.

Again the idea is to make assassination a more useful tool, and again provide a boost to some of the weaker nations

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Well some parts, like the Old Age, QM has a firm and understandable stance, and isn't going to change his mind.

Some other parts, are easily defined (bugfixes, etc).

It just seemed that some other changes, might be more easily conveyed by simply having the mod available, and saying "I tweaked this", and the actual mod could be skimmed over, and a greater level of detail conveyed more easily than describing it point by point - with the added benefit that the code is right there, so any snippets that QM chose to adopt could be copy/pasted over, and done.


But I was just adding that it is just one more reason that it makes more sense to have a separate mod that is compatible with CBM, rather than one that includes and is competitive with CBM.


So how about EBM (Enhanced Balance Mod) or BMP (Balance Mod Plus)? Since it's intended to use the whole of CBM, but has additional changes.....

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

How about the Alternative Balance Mod? That'd be fine.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Well, with no objections I'll probably go with EBM - Extended Balance Mod.

What I will do in the next release is break out CBM; so far my changes roughly fall into

Assassins
Fixes,
MA-Oceania
Old-Age
Pretenders
New Weapons
New Spells

And I will incorporate these parts into EBM, but again I'll wait for comment from QM.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Well, I guess the question is, what do you envision this mod being?

It kind of looks to me like there are two mods here, balance changes that don't agree with CB (the 'Alternate Balance Mod'), and and a general ad-on feature mod which probably doesn't even need balance in the name.

I objected!

My concern really is just that noobies who come to the forum briefly and don't get too into the community might get a bit confused. At the moment there's one balance mod, and a ton of other mods with fairly clear features (e.g. Skaven adds Skaven, Dead Seas makes the seas dead and so on). Nice and easy for new players, despite the extraordinary number of mods. I think an "Extended Balance Mod" is just vastly confusing, quite apart from the fact that "Extended" has an implicit indication that it's better than QM's version ("What do you want, the normal edition or the extended edition?").

I really wish you'd make a little add-on mod to be honest, unless you really feel that the community needs your balance changes. Lots of people have feelings about aspects of balance, and the normal approach is to write on the CBM thread and hope that the changes will be incorporated into the next version, once they've been filtered through QM's extraordinary experience.

Edit: P.S. No offense Chris, I hope you don't feel too I'm being too mean. I just thought I should be more straightforward with my thoughts.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I second Llamabeasts opinion. I´m fairly new here, and I found this very confusing right from the start.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Chris, if I may comment :)

I think you should call your mod ABM (Alternate Balance Mod), to make it clear it is an alternative. Also, because it is called "balance mod", I would suggest you leave out the new spells and items and make a separate mod for them. Personally I like your bug-fixes and old-age fixes, but I do not feel that comfortable with the new thingies in the mod. I hope it would be possible to cherry pick and just take the fixes, because they are IMO sorely needed :)

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I am glad this mod fixes the agartha Blindfighters but I can't get it to run with the cbm mod. I am new to using mods. do I need to do anything special beyond putting it in the mod folder?
Thanks

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Ok. ABM it is. (yay!). And I will be modularizing things in the next version.

Mor: I'll try to help you offline if you want. The last released version did not work *with* CBM it incorporated CBM into it - so all you needed was the one mod file chrisCBM1.482 (or whatever one you had).

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

:up:
Nice! :)

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Original observation by Executor (thanks Ex).

Comment for discussion: I believe 13 fiends for 3 blood is too cheap; with the low casting cost and relatively high hitpoints it spams too easily. I am inclined to increase the blood level required to cast.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I think it'd need to be something like Blood 4-5 to be a serious discouragement. B2 is fairly common for Blood nations, and forging 2 boosters isn't a serious cost. At B4, the cost would be 41 gems for the first 13 bone fiends (2x boosters, hammer), and then 3 for every 13 thereafter.

How about getting something like 8 fiends for 3 gems?

Maybe drop the MR on the bone fiends, to weaken them against banish?

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I think they have too many hit points to make the MR change effective.

CBM lowered the hp for skels etc to 4 (from 5) as I recall for the same balance reasons. Fiends (from memory ) are up in the 13-19 point range - so they will generally take 2-3 banishes connecting to destroy them. Which is probably 4-5 after you take into effect missing.

Perhaps 6 bone fiends for 3 slaves. The balance comes in that there are so many demands for mictlans commanders time.

I like the number 6 as well.. seems themeatic.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

Llama, Qm.

I have started modularizing this. But I run into a problem, I don't know the answers to.

I have a bunch of changes grouped into what I call CBMChanges.dm
However, is there anyway to make sure it gets applied.

In other words, suppose

CBM.dm
#select... Scorpion King
#descr "This hsa a tpyo"
#gcost 10
#end

CBMfix.dm
#descr "This has a typo"
#gcost 15
#end


Does this work...? Isn't it fairly subject to load order? And how would dominions determine?

Idea: Lch has written a module that reports on module numbers. Is there any way someone could make a .dm patcher or compiler?

What the compiler would do is assemble one .dm file from several components. So for example, if you wanted to use CBM with my ABM[Age] - the compiler would have you load the first module, and then apply the patches to make a CBM+Age.dm.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

As llama already wrote a couple of pages back, no, the loading sequence of mods isn't going to be enforceable by you. I'd suppose that it depends on the file system which mod gets loaded first, depending on its inode or file creation timestamp.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

The load order is decided by the order the mods are enabled in preferences though, so if you tell people clearly that should work.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

This order is pretty obscure, though. It can be really difficult to change if the order is wrong. IIRC, when I tested it I had to move all .dm files away from the /mods/, then put in the mod I wanted to make first, and then put the mods back.

It might be easier to ensure that your mod is loaded last, but I have never tried that.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I thought it was simple,.. the order you actually click to enable them is the order they are loaded.

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

And this thread is sill titled ChrisCBM, not ABM. :p

Re: ChrisCBM1.482
 

I'm posting in this thread to answer your question in this one.

Yes, DMG will do what you want here because it can put multiple mods together as one and the order which you add .dm files to the mod is the order they end up in the mod. It is not well tested yet so it may take additional work to ensure it does everything correctly.