Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

This is another custom game to test a mod.

Description

Every mage you can recruit has only 1RP. You can still research with them, although it won't be exactly cost efficient.
Instead you will be given two special researcher units with RPs detailed in the tables below.
You can turn your researchers off (they will still produce a small amount of RP at no upkeep) via shapechange command.
Additionally your researchers will have level 9 in every path, so they can serve as an in game reference for forging/rituals.
Each tick on the magic scale is 5RP, this will only affect your researchers and god, though.
Each god gets +15RP.
If I can fix some problem with skull mentors etc they are in, otherwise they are out. You will know before designing your god.

You will not see how much RP they really produce, what you see in your research screen is only how your rps are distributed - you'll have to work the actual values out yourself from the RPs you produce (consult the descriptions of the researchers to look that up) and the distribition you see.
So say you see 120 RP total and put 80 into con and 40 into evo in your research screen and you really get 320 RP total - this means you research 213(=320*80/120) into con and 107(=320*40/120) into evo.

You'll also not have a starting army

Rules

Have your researchers researching all the time. A script will check if you do.

Mods: CBM 1.5 + Researchers

Hosting interval: 24h for the first 12 turns, 48h afterwards, I hope we don't need a longer hosting interval but I'll change it if the majority wants. Delays are grated upon request.
I will host the game per hand so you'll have to send your turns to my email, which you will get via pm. I will announce the deadlines for the turns in this thread.
Be aware, that the game may be halted or even canceled if there arise any problems.

Victory conditions: This is just for fun/experimenting so no HoH victory. Ingame victory can be achieved by concession through majority vote.
Everyone has as many votes as capitals.

Players: 8 to 10


Settings

Early Age

Map: I'd like Land of Legends, but I'll go with the majority

Starting provinces 1

Sites 45

Gold 75

Resources 125

All others vanilla


.................................................. .................................................. .......................



Total Research output per turn

• Turns.......Good......Med.......Bad.......Default Upkeep
• 1...........200.......100.......40........0
• 2 to 11.....50........40........30........50
• 12 to 23....100.......80........60........200
• 24 to 35....180.......150.......120.......500
• 36 to 48....280.......260.......240.......900
• 49+.........380.......370.......360.......1400

Nation Research Strength

• Nation.........Research.......Upkeep
• Arco...........Good...........-25%
• Ermor..........Med............default
• Ulm............Med............-25%
• Marve..........Good...........default
• Sauro..........Med............+25%
• Tien...........Med............-25%
• Mictl..........Bad............-25%
• Abysi..........Good...........+25%
• Caelu..........Med............+25%
• Ctis...........Med............default
• Pange..........Bad............-25%
• Agart..........Med............-25%
• Tirna..........Med............default
• Fomor..........Med............+25%
• Van............Med............+25%
• Hel............Med............+25%
• Niefel.........Bad............default
• Kail...........Good...........+25%
• Yomi...........Bad............-25%
• Hinnom.........Med............+25%
• Lanka..........Med............+25%
• Atlantis.......Med............-25%
• Ozeania........Med............default
• R'lyeh.........Good...........+25%

Players

Lanka: viccio
Abysia: kianduatha
C'tis: Squirrelloid
Something that's left: Illuminated One

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I'm interesting to play with Lanka

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Can I please ask what the thinking is behind the research strength distribution? Is it thematic, for balance, .....?

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Not for balance, I suspect. Yomi with bad research on top of its other problems?

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

That's one of the things that made me ask the question. As Yomi certainly doesn't need any more handicaps. But if it's thematic to give demons bad reserach, then why do Niefelheim and Mictlan have it as well? The latter two suggest it might have been done to act as a balance to their blesses.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I suggest reading this thread for more insight into his decision-making process.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I'm trying to balance the nations while keeping to the theme.
I know that's somehow arbitrarily and I might change the list in the future.
But especially in Yomi's case the manual says they are bad at research. I've given them a 25% upkeep reduction which allows you to swap income scales for magic scales.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Tentatively interested as one of Kailasa, Tir Na Og, or Marveni, but unhappy about the stealth nerf of the Great Sage.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I'd be interested in Abysia. Seems like fun. Question, though: would no starting army include no starting commanders other than the researcher?

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Its an interesting concept. I'll be curious to watch how the game progresses.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Something that's bugging me is there's no starting army, yet upkeep kicks in right away at turn 2 to the tune of *100* gold just for your researchers. That's a lot of money when all you have is a couple territories, much less when gold is a mere 75% standard. Don't get me wrong, it'll seem cheap by turn 11, assuming nations can even get going at that price.

I also don't have much experience with starting with more than 1 territory? Whats the variance on territory quality?

There are other problems with 75% gold/125% resources. Namely, this vastly favors some races at the expense of others. For example, Tir Na Og at 75% gold is going to feel penalized, especially since their standard army commander is also a caster and thus they don't actually get to save money not buying mages. Whats the rationale behind 75/125 gold/resources?

Edit: Is it possible to dl this mod somewhere? I don't see a link in this thread or the thread linked by rdonj.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

So, i did some checking with test games. 3 starting provinces with the 75% gold setting can generate a starting income discrepancy of over 100 gold trivially between two powers based solely on the quality of the bonus provinces. This doesn't strike me as a good way to test anything, unless starts are going to be forced to be equal somehow (and then equal at what level?)

Also, why is Kailasa at +25% upkeep for research. IIRC, Kailasa has a bunch of sacred mages which let them research reasonably cheaply otherwise - shouldn't that reflect itself here with a -25% upkeep bonus rather than a +25% penalty? (Also, the scaling of upkeep over time strikes me as rather bizarre. For a good research nation, that last 500gp jump for an additional 80RP/turn nets out to 50 gold *upkeep* per 8RP researcher equivalent, which is insane even without sacred mages. 8RPs cost somewhere around 250 gold up front, which is in the ballpark of a 25 gold upkeep cost iirc, ie, about half as expensive, 1/4 as expensive for nations whose mages are sacred).

With the game settings the way they are (75% gold), and research hugely overcosted in upkeep, the game is effectively forcing everyone to take a pretender with great scales just to be able to actually play the game. This is rather lame. If settings and mod remain as advertised I'm no longer interested in playing.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I will upload the mod when all nation slots are full (I don't want to add 70*x units into the game).

Hmm, you are right about the 3 provinces.
The main reason I chose that and the boosted resources is that you don't get a starting army (and no starting commanders), which hurts resource hungry nations alot. Still I think it's better to start with one province now.

The point about the income reduction and the large upkeep is that you don't have to buy researchers.
100 gold at start is higher than the upkeep that you pay, but if you account for not having to buy researchers every turn and getting labs up asap you have quite some breathing room.
I've made short tests with Mictlan (w9f6 bless, bad scales), Ulm (e9n4 bless, ok scales), Marverni (minor rainbow bless, good scales), Niefelheim (e9n8 bless, ok scales) and no nation had crippling gold problems. Niefel struggled a bit and might get boosted later.
I can't test all nations, especially not in the later stages, hence this game. If something turns out to be out of balance I'll fix that later, but I'll have to start at some point.
I'd really be glad if you still tried.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Ok, lets talk about the things that do get skewed by how things are currently set up.

(1) you're double-whammying everyone with reduced gold and high upkeep. Ie, not only do they pay upkeep to account for the mage they theoretically buy right away, they also get less gold per turn than they would normally (theoretically to account for mages they aren't buying?)

(2) Many nations are gold intensive rather than resource intensive - giving bonus resources only skews the game (and most importantly the start) in favor of nations which are gold efficient. Some of these nations also benefit heavily from your good/med/bad divisions and upkeep modifiers. For example, not only is arcocephale a good researcher who saves 25% on upkeep costs, they also have many gold-efficient units. I'd have to say they are overpowered with these settings because everything favors them.

(3) The mod premise takes away some element of choice in the pacing of your 'research', and then makes you pay for it. Many nations do not hire a mage round 1 and sometimes not even round 2. Many of those might rely on an awake research pretender for their early research. Those nations are not paying to buy and keep a mage in those early rounds, and can put that money to other essential things (like their army). Some of those may buy a nominal 'mage', but he's really the military leader. (One of Tir Na Og's first commanders is going to be a Sidhe Lord for leading an expansion army - a commander who also has mage capability and can provide research while not leading an army). Some of these nations really can't afford to be forced to lose money this way, since they need to buy those commanders anyway.

I know Tir Na Og felt somewhat crippled just at 75% gold even without the upkeep money for the researchers factored in when i ran some tests. That's ~300 gold/turn from the home province (before dominion effects), which will be -100 upkeep - upkeep for other units. Ow. They can't even afford to buy a Sidhe Lord in a given turn, much less a Lord and some units for him to command.

And not every nation rushes to get labs up. Certainly not in the first 5 turns, say. In fact, while i've certainly started fortresses as early as turn 5, i don't think i've built a lab before turn ~8.

(4) The low gold plus crippling upkeep forces choice of good scales for any nation that's not gold-efficient, and possibly even for those that are. I don't think the proposed conditions are even playable without Order 3, and taking any hits on cash generation at all is probably inadvisable (which means Death, Sloth, and Heat/Cold (unless favored) are all likely bad and possibly crippling decisions).

This has a ripple effect, because needing good scales means either pretenders will have little magical ability, be asleep/imprisoned, or both. That dramatically cuts the playable space for pretender gods to a rather small portion (low magic awake SCs and imprisoned bless chasses really), which dramatically favors some nations at the expense of others.

(5) The good/med/bad researcher distinction totally ignores most of the existing research advantages and disadvantages nations have. Nations with sacred researchers should be able to research cheaper than those that don't. Ie, arcocephale should have more expensive research than a nation like kailasa, who in a normal game will spend far less overall because their upkeep is dramatically lower. Instead, you seem to have reversed that particular example, and i'm sure that's not the only inconsistency.

You've also enforced a unified tempo to how research grows, something which isn't true for all nations (some nations have efficient researchers but you buy small increments so its hard to get lots of research up early, others have researchers which individually provide a lot of RP, but are less efficient per RP). I'm not convinced your good/med/bad distinction really covers these distinctions well, and of course those distinctions are part of how the game is currently balanced. Now, where the externalities are isn't as immediately apparent to me as the sacred/non-sacred researcher distinction is, but i bet there are clear winners and losers in your proposal if someone more experienced than i thought it through. So I can't tell you what the problems are here, but i'm sure they exist.

Edit:
(6) We might also consider how long do you have to pay an exorbitant price to pay off the non-payed cost of the mage who would have provided those RPs. In the hypothetical 8RP mage for 250 gold example, assuming he costs exactly 25 gold in upkeep, then it only takes 10 turns at 50 gold/8RP to pay off his initial cost as well. Except in your model you keep paying that extra 25 gold indefinitely. And heaven help you if your nation's research mages are sacred - now you're paying 4x as much in upkeep as you should be, and will have payed off the initial cost of the mage in ~7 rounds.

Further, your progression grows faster than linearly, while the cost of RPs grows linearly. (Each mage costs as much as the mage before him, assuming same mage type).

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

A limited list of winners and losers based on those nations i know something about. I could speculate on some more, but I won't for now.

Winners:
Arcocephale - cheap upkeep, improved research tempo, gold-efficient units.
Marveni - good research much earlier than it would ever be able to afford it normally. Solid gold-efficient troops.

Losers:
Atlantis - primary commanders (BK/BQ) are impossible to afford. Units that actually do anything are also prohibitively expensive.
Kailasa - hideously penalized on research upkeep. Is a strong researcher in standard play because its research chasses have cheap upkeep and cheap initial costs.
Hinnom - maybe they deserve it, but can they even buy a commander, much less units for him to lead?
Caelum - Both of its two expansion strategies are prohibitively expensive, and one of them is fiscally impossible without amazing scales.
Tir Na Og - virtually impossible to get going, too gold intensive. Can't even afford what is generally used as its 'standard' commander without amazing scales.
Rlyeh - all its units that actually do anything are gold-intensive.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Why do people even write posts this long? Does anyone actually read more than the first paragraph or two?

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I read posts that long. Not everything can be reduced to a sound bite and be intelligible.

Why bother making such a comment? If your ADD is so bad, go find something else to occupy your time.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I read it. But then I read everything.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I read it as well. I'd also like to think Illuminated One appreciated the feedback :)

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Yeah, sure, as I said this is not going to be the finish version, however I do want to get a feeling for it before going further, so I appreciate any comments.
However it would be better to have them in the mod thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43679
If any of the mods can move them, I'd be grateful.

Regarding national disadvantages

I didn't intend to copy normal nation research progression.
I tried to stick to some guidelines while making the list

a) Good/Bad research depending on how progressive/traditionalistic and cultured the nations is
Arco is thematically about the rise of philosophy and science so good res
Niefel is revisionistic (awake the old giants that tyrannized us at the dawn of time) - so bad res

b) Cost of research is based on the status/accessibility of the mages
Kailasa has a caste system with the mages in the highest caste - you don't expect them to work for a peasant's wage
In Ulm mages are distrusted yet plentyful because of the widespread superstition. A shaman could just a wise man or woman brewing potions (oh god, this is RPG talk, isn't it?) or improving their tribesmens' weapons without demanding much except a place by the fire and a beer.

Of course this is subject to interpretation (and I've used that to boost or penalize some nations were I felt more free to interpret) and the list isn't set in stone. It's more a sketch with which I intended to playtest things out.
If it favors some nations, so what? Vanilla isn't excactly balanced, too, and the winners are not generally feared as uber rush nations. Some of the loosers (Atlantis, Yomi, Rlyeh, Tir, Niefel) trouble me, too, and if anything turns out to be out of balance I'll try to fix that, although I'd rather give it a try before deciding.


About upkeep issues

Well, lets suppose I took a lower upkeep (say 1000) for the late game and higher gold settings. Let's say you're getting 6000 gold = 4500 gold netto, give or take a few, so you are recruiting 10 mages and 200 troops each turn. I want to get away from mage and troop spamming and this isn't really it. I don't think it really undermines bad scale strategies, in fact I've been always thinking the opposite way - the higher the gold the more good scales pay of and vice versa.
I can see your point about early problems, though, and have updated it to 60 gp upkeep.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Well, its here because my comments are pertinent to the combination of game settings + mod effects, not just mod effects in isolation. Some of them certainly do apply as such though.

Here's the thing - yes, Kailasa is a Caste system, but (and correct me if i'm wrong) - my interpretation of Hindu castes has it that while the religious caste is at the top, they don't collect that much of the society's wealth (the warrior caste does). And in the case of EA Kailasa, the deific commanders are hardly going to care about base mortal currency. Also, despite being nominally Hindu, the mages have a decidedly buddhist feel, which means they'd tend towards asceticism - even more reason why they aren't expensive to maintain.

Caste system doesn't necessarily make a statement about who has all the money (although one of the elite castes is going to end up with it - in this case its almost certainly the warrior caste, which is near the top), it makes a statement about who can fulfill which roles, who can marry whom, and how that society values those roles. Kailasa's top caste being apparently ascetic mystics underscores this point - they are reverred by their society but it seems out of flavor to say they demand large cash rewards for their role.

Lets run with this idea of 250 gold for 8 RPs is standard for good researchers for a moment.

Turns.......Good.......Upkeep.......#Researcher Equiv
1...........200..........0............NA
2 to 11.....80...........60...........10
12 to 23....140..........200..........17.5
24 to 35....200..........600..........25
36 to 48....270..........1000.........33.75
49+.........350..........1500.........43.75

Ok, first of all, we have to conceed that turn 1 is a special case with no good analog.

We're also going to have to conceed that, if we stick with the research progression you've outlined, you're underpaying early.

Turns.....#Mages.....Mages Actual Cost.....Cost Payed.....Remain
2-11........10..........2500+2750upk..........600... ......4650
12-23.......17.5........1875+5250upk..........2400... .....4775
24-35.......25..........1875+7500upk..........7200... .....2175
36-48.......33.75.......2187.5+10968.75.......13000.. .....155.25
49..........43.75.......2500+1093.75..........1500 ........2093.75
50+.........43.75.......1093.75upk/trn........1500/trn....-406.25

Total remaining to be payed as of turn 49 end: 13849
Time to pay it off: 13849/406.25 = 34 turns

Note that the mage actual cost is the cost to purchase the number of additional mages plus the upkeep of the total number of mages for the given number of turns.

The first thing you'll notice is that it isn't until turns 36-48 that you're almost paying for everything you're getting in that time period.

Which isn't too bad. But what if the nation's mage's are sacred?

Turns.....#Mages.....Mages Actual Cost.....Cost Payed.....Remain
2-11........10..........2500+1375upk..........600... ......3275
12-23.......17.5........1875+2625upk..........2400... .....2100
24-35.......25..........1875+3750upk..........7200... .....-1575
36-48.......33.75.......2187.5+5484.375.......13000.. ...-5328.125
49..........43.75.......2500+546.875..........1500 .......1546.875
50+.........43.75.......546.875upk/trn........1500/trn...-953.125

Total remaining to be payed as of turn 49 end: 18.75
Time to pay it off: <1 turn

Ouch. Seriously ouch. Every turn after 49 they're paying 1000 gold they wouldn't normally have to. (953.125, but whatever). That's painful.

Think 250gold for 8RPs sacred is unreasonable? That's identical to MA Shinuyama's 300 gold 10RP mages in terms of gold efficiency. And those mages are sacred.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

On mage and troop spamming (Separated out because its a rather different subject):

So what do you want combat to be? Nothing but thugs and SCs? This is an army scale game and you want to play it without armies?

I'm honestly quite confused. I actually find the tendency of the lategame to be about ubersummons and crazy kitted individuals rather than armies to be a let down.

I mean, yes, it'll be nice to have less than 30 mages in your capitol on any given turn. But that'll just translate into more mages roaming the map i imagine. And i haven't found troops to be all that micromanagement intensive compared to mages...

And there is no way around spamming mages - everyone needs to do some amount of site searching/forging, and everyone needs battle mages. And if you insist on closing the purse strings as much as you are I imagine people will forsake troops in favor of more mages after the early game, since troops are becoming less effective.

One important point here is that playing with less than 100% gold is a bad idea when you're adding a large fixed cost.

Predictions:
Once enchantment 3 comes online, nations which can efficiently skelly spam will be big winners, so long as they can afford to buy mages at all, because they don't even need armies, and their skelly spam is even better than usual since other nations can't afford the armies they'd normally be able to.

Awake SC Pretenders will be overpowered because they'll permit excessively rapid early expansion relative to other nations. I'd be surprised if anyone can expand before turn 4 without an SC, while SCs will start expanding on turn *2*. That 2 turn advantage will turn into more money for troops, which will turn into even more accelerated expansion and a bigger province gap. (While an awake SC is always an advantage, its not normally nearly so much of one).

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

ok, i suppose i'm still tentatively interested, but as C'Tis. Lets see if the Lizard Kings are really as awesome as i think they'll be under these conditions.

May i recommend setting renaming to On rather than accepting the default (not being able to find the right commander quickly is the most annoying thing in the world).

I might also suggest HoF of 15 instead of 10, but its not a big deal.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I made the comment because its legitimate - of course not everything can be reduced to a sound clip. But this is just a game... and if you have to write like a two page essay to get your point across on it then it would seem that you are being too obsessive. Surely if you put your mind to it you could get across the same point without all the bulk.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I had 6 points. It helps declutter the thread to make a single post rather than 6 separate posts, especially when they are all broadly on the same topic. I even numbered them for ease of reading.

Anyway, this is distracting from the thread, and definitely off topic.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

It's my intention to boost capabilities early and reduce them late. And I think you are giving one answer yourself - just making spamming mages not necessary isn't enough to stop it. Ideally imo every unit, mage or soldier, should be recruited for a particular reason, not just for a very generic and obvious reason (mage=research=good in any case). For that to work there must be a cost associated with recruiting and gold shouldn't be aplenty.

There are some problems I need to tackle still (forges and rituals as you say for example) but this won't happen in the course of this game.

Now, to the nations. I think what matters is concerning balance, where did the nation stand in vanilla and where does it stand now.
The point about the differences between sacred and nonsacred research as a hidden boost is very important, thanks for working that out.
There's one thing, though. In vanilla cheap research=powerful research in the long run, while in this mod it's two-dimensional. If I were to copy consistently along the lines of Kailasa was cheap and good some nations would just reap it all and others be f*****.
And of course it gets a bit chaotic when weighting costs against the benefit of having higher research.
I would see this as problematic if a nation would get both hidden and obviously boosted/penalized, but except Arco I don't see any.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

i would argue that the relevant factor is not total number of troops bought, its the ratio of mages to non-mages purchased that matters. Ie, the thing of importance here is scale independent - it doesn't matter if there's 100 troops or 1000, what matters if 10% or 40% of cash resources are spent on mages.

I would argue that ideally mages would be made to represent a smaller fraction of your total purchases. Making gold scarce does the opposite, because it makes the number of commander buys relatively larger to available cash.

The two ways to decrease mage purchases relative to unit purchases are as follows:
(1) increase available cash (Ie, the larger the players cash pool is relative to his #commander buys, the more money he'll probably spend on units)
Issue: build more fortresses to buy more mages
(2) make all mages capitol only (hard limit of one/turn)
Issue: nations with better mages are big winners here

supplemental to 1, making fortresses/labs more expensive will stop mage production facility spamming. Actually, making fortresses cheaper and labs much more expensive will make unit recruitment centers cheaper while making mage recruitment centers more expensive.

Say 1/2 price fortresses, triple price labs (and no nation gets cheap labs). At 400/fortress and 1500/lab, players might think twice before building multiple sites for recruiting mages.

(Note: such a price change would make the 'lab burns down' event unacceptable - since you're already running a script, perhaps a script that checks to see if the event occurred, and reruns the turn if it did).

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

The only problem with this idea is that some casters/researchers don't require a lab. Of course you could make them cost more. But if you're doing that, why not just make every caster cost more, if all you're worried about is the proportion of mages to normal troops?

I think the real thing we're trying to fix here is the "fifty mages sitting around in your capital" issue. The point is that you'll only buy a mage if you have a particular use for them.

Take Sauromatia as an example. You won't have 50 enaries if you aren't going to research with them. It's just not practical. You'll have 3, maybe, for remote site-searching. Because there's no point making a bunch of them if they're just sitting there useless for half the game. Better to spam castles with the money, make more troops, then once research has ramped up to the point where they're actually useful, you'll start cranking out combat mages. But you might not even tech to Nether Darts at all under this mod--because you don't already have the mages sitting there.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

I've released a first version of the mod for SP games/testing.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43679

There are a few differences in research strength between the mod and the table here, the values in the mod are the correct ones, except for some nations that might get a penalized a bit (Marverni, Arco, Ctis, Ermor).
For the early expansion remember - you have spells. This helps to expand quickly despite the settings. For example Kailasa. Get a bless, research alt 3 first turn, alchemize an earth gem to buy a Yaksha and own.



@Squirrelloid

kianduatha is correct. The main goal is to avoid the growth of micro, which is intolerable imo.
1) Increasing gold goes against that.
2 and the labs suggestion) Well, I had some ideas to limit recruitment centers but cap-only is to much as it will practically remove 100s of mages from the game. It will probably mean that recruitment centers can only be built in certain provinces. Not yet there, though.

I doubt thought that all in all it will increase the mage to troop ratio.
In vanilla sure, but there a mage is also a researcher, although if it does I'm not going to fix that with this first part of the full mod.

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

Does anyone else see a contradiction between these two statements?

Statement 1: You don't need armies to play the game.
Statement 2: mage:troop ratio will stay constant between this and normal play.

But wait, we already concluded we don't need *any* troops. How many normal games do you know of that play like that?

Yes, you don't recruit tons of crappy research mages. You recruit as many top tier mages as you can afford and own independents/other players with nothing but pure magery or SC bad-assery. This actually sounds like more micro rather than less.

But as I said, i'm tentatively interested as C'tis. I'll even make a pre-game prediction: I will never buy a single non-mage (barring an indie commander or two for castle-building)

Re: Experimental Game - Outofthelab
 

The statement that Kailasa can expand very effectively without troops does neither entail, that
a) Kailasa can't expand better with troops
b) Kailasa won't need troops later in the game
c) Other nations don't need armies

Therefore I fail to see where your statement 1 comes from.

Besides there is no contradiction between statement 1 and 2.
Only that you don't need something doesn't mean that you don't want it.

I'm fine with any discussion or critique (and some of your comments have already been taken aboard) but I don't like it if someone tries to get all smartass on me. Sorry if I interpreted that into your post.

Most of the things in this mod are in for a reason. Yep, it will change a lot, and it might go against my intention. But I don't like to jump to conclusions especially in a game like dominions and will wait until I see it work out before doing radical changes.
I don't believe in the less money=more mages argument. If you end up in a game with less provinces do you conquer your equally small neighbour only with mages? In any case what do you propose? More money? For having less micro?

SCs will be more powerful, yes, but totally overpowered? Let's see.