Balance Mod: Newest Nation - TC
 

So, I'm starting to get back into my balance mod. So I'm still testing but I'm posting up eight components.

Balance Generators: Turns off Clams, Blood Stones, and Fever Fetishes.
Balance Boosters: Makes most boosters 10 gems more expensive.This directly lengthens the mid game, where armies are relevent.
Balance Age: Removes old age from many of the weaker nations secondary units.
BalanceCBMFix: Modifies CBM. Apply after CBM.
Balance Agartha: Some improvements to Agartha
Balance Abysia: Some improvements to Abysia
Balance Yomi: Lots of new national spells for yomi; a cult of eye eaters (multihero), theme changes which make them demonic and forbidding. Still too strong, I removed the sleeth unit.
BNoGenComp: Provides compensation to Abysia, Agartha, and Oceania, when there are no gem generators.
BalanceTien: Gives TC a multihero Thug Chassis. National Spells for Master of the way makes them useful.

I'm also working on a batch file that will allow you to select what modifications you want to play with, and use (or not use) other people mods as well.

BalanceGame: Combines all these mods + CBM 1.41, mostly for the game called: Balance.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I award this mod five PETA-approved sea-kittens :fish2::fish2::fish2::fish2::fish2:

Why not do away with blood stones and fever fetishes if you do away with clams?

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

There's irc talk of all gem gens either being removed or unique in the next cbm. Nothing decided though I think.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Er, actually, I did away with blood stones and clams. I just got a brain fart when I posted.

As for fever fetishes.... I'm not convinced <yet> that they are abusive. They have a cost the other mods don't: namely tons of micromanagement and at least the prospect of losing the commander.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Is it possible to leave bloodstone as an earth booster?

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Can't mod away the gem gen part of it, no. It could be replaced with another booster however.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Bloodstones are the only thing that gives MA Agartha any viability - take them away and they are knackered.

Same with clams. No clams = no help for Marverni Competitiveness - Golems are the only thing going for them with any bite, you take away their means to forge clams and you take away their ability to summon Golems in numbers that matter.

Why not experiment with the cost of these items rather than wholesale removal?

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I'd say all gem gens promote an unhealthy game state, almost regardless of cost. The fact they are more useful/attainable for certain nations should be considered, but it certainly shouldn't impede their removal. If the only thing a nation has going for it is spamming gen gems then that nation needs a change because gen hoarding kinda sucks for all involved. I'm looking at you MA Oceania.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Well it says nothing about the item then and every thing about national balance.

A couple of possible options to consider then:

1. Examine the nations that rely on gem gens and compensate accordingly. There is no chance for Ag to field an army of stone if they can't get the blood stones. They are not a blood nation, so getting them is the pretenders job initially, so it is hardly spam. Make the cost of a Marble Oracle 15 earth gems and the player may welcome the removal of the bloodstone headache.

MA Oceania, with out clams what else has it got? Is it really conceptually different than say Ermors ability to spam undead? Its Ermors national advantage - so why cant Oceania's national advantage be amassing Astral pearls?

2. Adjust the cost of gens. Either make them more expensive in gems to produce or increase their magic path costs so they are only forgeable by a specific pretender build.

Either way, they just can't be cut with out consequence.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Any consideration for making them unique?
That way they are still in the game, useful but not abusable (or no more than any other unique)

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Ok. To answer a few questions or comments.

a). I made the No Generators mod, in order to give people options in games. Sure, I could make the clam or blood stone unique.

However, I absolutely hate the rush to Con-8 that characterizes almost every game. So this was one small blow against that.

b). I absolutely agree that some nations are *truly* hosed by this.
What I am looking at doing is compensating some nations.

My ideas so far, for Oceania, for example one of the following
1. Use burnsaber's Oceania mod.
2. Azatoths viceroy: Give Oceania some access to a Sea Troll
3. Craft a spell that summons a unit that creates pearls, or comes with a clam. Thats the advantage of con level 12. Not removed from the game, can still be given to nations where its an integral part of the game.

So either something like ravensfeast (unlikely), or Blessing of Pearl. This spell would summon a Sacred Marytyr equipped with a clam. It would be a holy spell, only castable on sacred, h3 requirement. And have a cost of 20 water. It would also kill the caster, by chaining "kill me".

Off the top of my head, it makes oceania think about its capitol only(?) production. It limits abuse by killing the caster, and requiring an h3 casting level. And yes, I know it requires adding water to bishop fishes. Reasonable, I think.

c). Also, I may make a mode where the cost of generators are merely increased. 20/10 for a clam. This means the return is 3% rather than 5%. Same cost for blood stones.

Off the top of my head, nations that really require these items are:

MA, LA Agartha
LA Ulm
MA Oceania

If you think others do, let me know.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Well, if you use my mod for Oceania, there won't be no need for the complicated martyr spell or magical bishop fishes. The whole mod was sort of designed for a enviroment without clams.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Machaka (2 fever fetishes >= 1 clam, more micro is only worse)? Marverni, Bandar Log?

The point is not imo that the nation can't do anything except gem gens (with the exception of Oceania maybe), but that they eat a lot of gems to stay competitive. Which can still be fun.
I don't view it as very unbalancing, on its own it's not even very powerful compared to rushing someone or getting a global up until late in the game. The main problem is that it lenghtens the game, where turns are getting unfun. But then I'd rather fix that.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Actually, illuminated, I think that is a compelling answer for why fever fetishes ought to be nerfed as well.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I am not sure why there is even a problem with clams, stones etc? Why is there a beef with their inclusion in the game?

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I think the complaint stems from two sources:
1) they make the endgame even stupider than it would be otherwise.
2) the micromanagement they force upon one to compete is obscene.

#2 could have been solved by a better interface. (Like, I dunno, a button or command which told the game to move all gems at a location from commanders to the lab)

#1 can only be solved by removing or making unique the items.

I have not experienced #1. I have experienced #2 and I must say I loathe gem generation items because of micromanagement, while at the same time I feel compelled to use them because of how ridiculously disproportionate the power they provide is.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Speaking from a newbie perspective. Anything that reduces micromanagement should be encouraged.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I am actually neutral on the issue. However, I'm all in favor of giving someone the option to play with them or not play with them.

So, I'll fix fever fetishes today or tomorow. I'll also come up with compensations for the affected nations, day or two after that

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I like a good compensation, same as the next guy, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you pull out of the bag. :)

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Great idea Chris. I agree with taking them out and giving compensation. Would be great if there was a replacement earth booster though. I don't think giving alternate ways to create gems is the way to go, need to strengthen the nation through what they should be good at rather than loading them with astral gems.

Note that EA Abysia is on the list for heavily affected, I find bloodstones are critical for the earth boost on the anointed and are about the only way to leverage their meagre blood capability.

The earth generation is currently the only way to have a hope at casting their lvl 8 scorpion men summons in any kind of decent numbers, and is particularly used for gate cleavers to cover how wwoeful they are at sieging and how difficult it is to combine indies with abysians.

Suggested compensations would be:
1. Earth booster with same path requirements but lower cost (5 earth 10 blood) to account for no gem generation
2. Halve Scorpion Men cost from 12 to 6

That should be enough, the loss of gem generation would be covered by the cheaper cost to get the anointeds the earth boost. It would work for the other abysia eras too

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

I know. If it's done there shouldn't be holes. ;)
Maybe you should nerf blood magic as well then, don't know.

That's not true, at least not for me.
Making 5 clams, creating 5 scouts, moving them and handing them out + clicking on pool gems is done in two minutes.
Well, pooling forces you to redistribute the gems against assassins, but I'm often pooling anyway to have max gems for casting. There's only little point in protecting a mage that isn't valuable and unfortunately this can change depending on where your items are.
It's the 400 mages and 100 normal items, that you are forced to build to compete, that take hours to manage. Seriously, recruiting mages for combat and forging only would cut down useless micro by 90% imo.

That's a good point. There should be at least some limitations in using them.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Hrm. I'll add abysia to the list. I don't think abysia is hosed by the lack of bloodstones. I think abysia is hosed, and bloodstones were their best way out.

Considering that abysias are creatures of molten lava, I think having some familiarity with earth is reasonable.

Can someone run a test for me? If you give a unit a gemprod value of -1 does it work?

I'd like to give abysia an alchemist unit that has the additional ability of consuming fire gems and creating earth gems.

I do think that the scorpion men are too high in level, and will look at the cost.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Ok, so I have to clean up the descriptions, balance check, and add strabo's new sprites (thanks strabo)!

But I am pretty pleased with the result. Try it out!
I view agartha (especially ma argatha) as pretty weak.

Load in this order:
CBM 1.5
Balance No Gen
BNoGenComp
Balance Argatha

No gen Comp adds some capability to replace the possibility of bloodstones.

Balance argartha strengthes agartha slightly, and thematically.
To whit: Since you are facile with constructs and do not eat, the death scale affects you less. Since you live underground, you are never subjected to extremes of cold - so your preference is heat +1. (Helps with points, and with cold blooded encumbrance)

Your Water oracles are 25 cold res (again helping with cold fatigue) and your fire oracles are 25 fire res .. helping with heat fatigue.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Doesn't.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Actually... Agartha should be immune to heat scale. I mean, at all. In the underground caves, its always about +10 Celsium or so, even when its -30 on the surface. Logically, same applies to extreme heat; temperature just doesnt change in the underground tunnels.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

That would make sense if all provinces with agarthans in were caves and we were talking about a world without powerful fields generated by godlike beings which flow through provinces changing their very nature.

But yeah, perhaps caves should always have netural heat scale. Still wouldn't make much difference to agartha. And I'd prefer to darkness bug was fixed first.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Well you could have a site in caves that spawned 1 hp units every turn.. that autocast darkness in combat....

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Anyway...

The compensation package is finished. Agartha, Abysia, and oceania have a module BNoGenComp, so that you can give compensation for these nations if you run with no generators.

These nations only got compensation, as it was thought they were especially poorly affected. I am still awaiting sprites... but I'd like feedback in the interrim.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

This isn't moddable (afaik) and would be a fairly horrible solution anyway.

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Yomi update done. And it looks nice, thanks to Strabo!

Re: Balance Mod No Generators
 

Tien Update done. (Next up: Machaka!)