Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)
 

Current Release: SqBM v0.05
Status: Alpha, unstable
Changelog History: Complete text (with CBM context as applicable) is included as a text file.

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v0.05 Highlights
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------General------
Blood got hit with a substantial nerf bat. The overall goal here is to make the cost of blood summons (and occasionally other blood spells) better match the value you get from those summons. Many blood spells doubled in cost or more. And the scary part is I'm not sure I went far enough.

I would be happy to discuss proper price points for any or all of these spells, but an important point is that blood slaves cost gold to acquire and then get spent like gems for gem-quality summons. Since its in addition to your other gem income, blood summons should never be cheap. And its not like Bloodsummons are subpar summons - the best troop summons in the game are blood summons!

------Nations------
-EA Mictlan
Capital only mage prices increased across the board. The various H2s are only a little more expensive (and still a good deal for what you get), the H3 HPotSun increased in price substantially because Mictlan is a bloodsacrifice nation. Additionally, the recruit anywhere Mictlan Priest has had its cost increased 33% (call it a stupid cheap bloodhunter tax).

-EA Lanka
Rakshasa cost increased to 320g so its no longer cheap for a pure mage, much less a thug chassis.

-EA Marveni
New national spell "Entice Blood Henge Acolyte", which summons a poor mage (B1H1) who is an exceptional bloodhunter, but at a substantial cost in nature gems (20n). Also note he costs upkeep (4g/trn).

Basically, Marveni is frustratingly dependent on getting its multihero to do anything with the fact it is sort of a blood nation. The new option is expensive, but it does give Marveni limited guaranteed access to blood mages.

-EA/MA Vanheim, LA Midgard, EA Helheim
Vanjarls are now A2B2 to make up for the loss of dousing rods.

-LA Mictlan
Priests similarly more expensive, especially King of Rain, which is now priced more like the thug it is, in addition to being H3.

-MA Agartha
I know, nothing to do with blood, but I did increase the Golem Crafter's 10% random to 50%.

------Spells------
Reorganized the Blood spells in CBM so they are more logically arranged and easier to browse.

Almost every non-national blood summon spell had its cost increased, with the sole exceptions of Demon Lords and Succubi. Most notable, the various elemental demons are much more expensive (they were stupid cheap before), and the Vampire Lord is now at 100b. Succubi were actually substantially reduced in price, because they were seriously overcosted.

Lanka's national blood summons increased in price. Especially notable: Dakini at 100b, Davanas at 105b for 3, and Mandeha at 175b. The lower level troop summons weren't too bad at their price, so cost increases weren't especially substantial.

Mictlan's national blood summons increased in price to varying degrees. Most notable are its commander summons which were increased to 40b and 60b for civateteo and tlahuelpulchi respectively. (Upkeep-free bloodhunters should not be cheap).

A few other spells received cost increases, most notably Rain of Toads (now 25b).

------Items-------
Sanguine Dousing Rod and Jade Knife are now artifacts.
-The dousing rod was basically a gem gen, and should be treated similarly. It is also harder to forge now (15b, B3 mage required).
-Blood Sacrifice is too good relative to the cost of acquiring blood slaves. Unfortunately, neither the real cost of slaves nor the effectiveness of blood sacking can be modded, but making the dagger unique reduces the ability to concentrate blood sacrifice as much, and thus helps address the problem.

------Sprites------
Blood Henge Acolyte has new sprites (recolored and slightly modified Blood Henge Druid). (Preview not updated yet).

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Future Update Plan
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v0.06: Item Tweaks, possibly tweaks for UW nations who need help. Also expect to do something with Jomon.
v0.10: 1st Stable Release. Likely very close to v0.06.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

In addition to raising the weak nations to average do you also plan on nerfing the OP nations? Also, do you plan on including the Diversity mod?

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

I do not plan on specifically including the diversity mod, although I will certainly look at how it interacts with this.

I may nerf overpowered nations, depending on if I have any good ideas for doing so or not.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Ok, if the mod isn't going to assume the use of the Diversity mod then I'll suggest fixing the tart problem by making them affliction-free summons (and remove that annoying shattered soul while you're at it). This eliminates the necessity of getting the Chalice/GoH in order to take advantage of tarts. Tarts become the default non-unique end-game summon for those nations without national SCs. Then I'd suggest balancing the pricing of tarts and national SC summons so that tarts aren't a more cost effective option (if anything it should be the other way around). And these changes work just as well for games using the Diversity mod as those without.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Hrm, interesting. I'd love to hear more specifically what you're planning on doing with the nations you have plans for, especially Jomon.

I'm sorta curious as to what purpose the Fairy king is supposed to have--why go to all the bother/what niche is it supposed to have that wasn't present already?

The Gift of Reason change it seems would have a lot of ramifications we haven't terribly thought about yet--some crazy things might start happening when it's only 5 gems. People might start GoR-ing Ghosts en-mass as stealthy raiders(total cost of the chassis 2D 5N to get a stealthy ethereal fear-causing life-draining guy) or something else just as wacky. I haven't really thought through the national summons yet to see if there's anything terribly imbalanced, but it would for sure drive all the Agarthas even harder to GoR-ed Umbrals. I'm not sure you can do anything else to them if you give them that.

Well, I kind of support wacky uses for Gift of Reason. I'm not totally sure all the effects it will have, but it will get people to use it on something other than tartarians, which imho will be a major improvement. It feels like the spell as it currently exists should be called 'make tartarian useful'. That's boring.

So is 5n GoR crazy? Probably. Will it make for a lot more interesting choices? Certainly.

Btw, a naked ghost wouldn't make *that* good of a raider. After gear would it be cheaper than a minimally geared black servant? I dunno, but that would be the basis for comparison.

The Faerie King aims to add another caster to the tart line-up. Mostly, I needed something to replace Monstrum because I really want to take the Monstrum out of the Tart Gate spell - they'd be plenty useful if you were choosing to summon them, but they aren't what you're looking for when you're casting tartarian gate. I had a flavor idea for a Faerie King tartarian. If you wish to provide a better idea (and a sprite!), I'm certainly willing to listen. But I do need something (something has to take over the Monstrum's old monster number so it doesn't appear in tart gate).

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

You could just use a different sort of tartarian.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

But rdonj, where's the fun in that?

I confess, this might be a little too divergent compared to other tartarians. So it might be back to the drawing board, and I'll use this elsewhere...

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

This is a great idea and Im eager to see it happen.

Something I heard elsewhere which seemed worth considering. The tartans problem would be handled, but still fun, if each tartan was unique.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Tartan problems? Go ask a book! PUN ERROR Yes I'm a nitpicker, but why do you people have to make this so easy?

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...1&d=1276178489

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

It would not. The existence of only unique SC summons would make them tremendously overpowered because there'd be no counter SCs. The whole game would come down to who could take possession of the most SC summons (assuming approximately equally skilled opponents).

Basically, absolutely limited quantities never made anything balanced. They only make the option more powerful.

There needs to be non-unique SC summons available to everyone, or no SC summons at all (which means no elemental royalty either). But if its going to be balanced, they should also be appropriately costed, and not dirt cheap like Tartarians currently are. I'll probably have increased their cost more than I have so far by the time I'm through. (Currently looking at 30d even with shattered soul and afflictions.)

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Well I've always been impressed by the balance of squirrels... put olympic gymnasts to shame. Couple of questions: If this is a fork of CBM, is there any goal/hope of integration with CBM? It seems so far you are only considering boosting some of the underpowered nations, but what about bringing down some of the overpowered nations?

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

If you want to replace Monstra, perhaps you could use the dracolich sprite and make a tartarian dragon? Although it would likely have some of the same problems as the monstra (lack of slots mostly), they could be solved by allowing the dragon to shapechange into a bog mummy or something.

Also, about EA Agartha. Why do they use bronze? They are an underground nation with a good connection to the element earth. The fact that they haven't discovered iron is stupid. It would be a trivial job to recolor their armor grey and it would improve the horrible infantry (and perhaps make it useful when combined with some stat changes).

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

The lack of slots is definitely a problem. Also, the limited magic (I can't imagine a Dragon doing much better than a Monstrum in terms of magic paths).

Good point. We do have an iron-clad normal-sized agarthan even (from MA!), so making some changes should be easy. Although historically bronze is actually better than iron for a number of purposes - the real problem is that tine supplies were too limited, and iron was thus cheaper.

You know, not only should they have found iron, but they should have abundant access to elements that are pretty rare before modern extraction techniques. Aluminum and Titanium are the ones that come to mind, not to mention better access to Tin. In the EA, at least, Agartha should have access to armor and weapons superior to anything ever produced by the later Ulms, at least in terms of metallurgy.

I suppose part of the issue here is how exactly we view Agartha. The thematic material from which Agartha (actually Agartta in most instances) is derived posits a hollow earth, so there is no molten core or anything like that. The game treatment seems to add them to a very much solid earth where they are burrowers rather than occupiers of a hollow interior. At which point I suppose we can claim Agartha's theme is whatever we make it.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

I assume you mean thematically? You can of course assign whatever magic you want to it. The same applies to the Monstrum, who I actually like and think could be boosted to be useful. Some possibilities: add a misc slot, add another set of linked randoms, grant one or more magical attacks, give regeneration. Really all kinds of options depending on whether you want to boost combat potential or spell casting ability.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

if you truly want to achieve balance I think you should also address the commonly banned nations, mainly Hinnom, Ashdod and to a lesser extent LA Ermor and LA R'lyeh.

also for your underpowered nations, you have Eriu and Man there, why not TNN? also, MA Man but no LA Man? is LA Man that much better, if at all? also what about EA and to a lesser extent MA Vanheim? and perhaps EA Abysia too? not too huge of a change needed for them, but should you really reach a balance those too would probably be needed to slightly look into.

and well, Imho such a balance mod cannot truly achieve balance until those high end astral spells(angels, monkey uniques, Chayot, Seraph, etc) finally get their costs reduced now that pearls are no more. this would perhaps bring back MA Marignon into a solid nation choice instead of a KotC bless rush or be impotent sort, and will of course give a much needed boost to the monkey nations, but mainly Kailasa that doesn't have access to Lanka's evil blood summons.

and 1 last thing, a lot of players mention/complain that blood is too powerful, especially pure blood nations as Mictlan and Lanka but also others.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Valerius:
Monstrum is perfectly useful as is, but its not something you want to GoR, and you want to be able to summon it predictably. When I've had the luxury of a squadron of Monstrum, I've been quite happy with them. Which is why I'm moving them to their own summon - so you *can* have the luxury of a squadron of them at your choosing. (Basically, its useless if you can't mass it, and its on a vastly different power scale than the rest of the tarts - it makes sense to split it out).

BG:
-LA Rlyeh is not OP, if anything its a little weak.
-LA Ermor does not seem to be OP to me. People just hate playing with it because it makes its lands worthless. MA Ermor probably has a better claim to being OP, but I'm not even convinced of that.

-TNN is better than Eriu by a significant amount. Thus they aren't a priority yet.
-If I have any clever ideas for Hinnom, Ashdod, or Nieflheim, I might do something. Clearly just increasing the price of their recruitable SCs hasn't been sufficient, which probably means its insufficiently clever.
-LA Man is a perfectly fine nation with good magic diversity (and paths), interesting special abilities, and is tailor-made for over-taxing as a strategy. If anything, the only change that needs to be made is to its national gem income.
-I could look at the Vanheims. As I recall its MA that is the weak one.
-EA Abysia is not a priority because I don't have any clever ideas on where to even start. Quite possibly, the problem is that fire is too easy to counter, which is a much more general problem. It wouldn't be very thematic to make them not be about fire... even I can't really justify that.

(Don't get me wrong, I'm ok with changing themes as necessary. But that means I need a thematic idea I'm embracing to replace the old one).

I will be happy to look at national summons (Dai Oni is already on the plate because its overcosted). Rudra aren't getting cheaper though, sorry. They're well-costed at 55 pearls.

(Lanka's blood summons are probably undercosted. If nothing else Davana are far too cheap. Mictlan's blood summons are almost certainly undercosted. If some people who are true afficianos of blood nations could make some comment about typical #s of slaves harvested/turn in early, mid, and late game, that would help. Most of my experience with blood is via nations who are dabbling in it, so i don't have a good benchmark for 'typical' behavior in an MP game).

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

I know your views on LA R'lyeh and Ermor, hence I said "to a lesser extent" because while you and some others don't view them as OP, they're still banned from the majority of MP games. it certainly has something to do with their destructive dominion effect but than MA C'tis' Miasma is also a similar effect, and nobody seems to have a problem with MA C'tis. therefore I don't warrant a large change needed there, but at least something... for R'lyeh 1 good move would be to delete the aquatic spawns that are just so trouble some and choke your upkeep without a good way to get rid of them. yes, that's a buff if you were wondering, cause yes, LA R'lyeh's micromanagement hell is even worse than LA Ermor's, and that says a lot...

well, don't have that much experience with TNN or LA Man but it just seems like they aren't nations that are usually doing well in MPs, at least those that I've seen around here. for EA Abysia, I don't think you should change their theme, just allow easier access to the alternative(B+S) make it a bit stronger on EA, similar to what MA Abysia has, or something along those lines.

MA Vanheim has Skinshifters, so that's a huge boon already. the problem is that their magic is still so limited, unlike Midgard who is a very fine nation. they also have the ridiculously overpriced Vans, and with the glamour nerf they're no longer the F9W9 heaven they used to be, now most MA Vanheim players use Skinshifters instead. EA Vanheim has neither Vans nor Skinshifters. both are considered as blood nations but have terrible inefficient blood hunters, way too high a cost for B1, and it's not like there's an easily summoned/indy B1 mage that you can use instead, so its either sticking to those overpriced Vanjarls or those even more ridiculously expensive Vandarrots so at least you don't need 3 Vanjarls hunting in each province. there's also the option of eventually using Vampire Lord hunters, but you need a lot of blood slaves for that to begin with, and either way it's terrible cost inefficient as well...

yes, Rudras are still very good at 55 pearls, but they outshine all the alternative summons by so much that those almost never get to see play. so maybe lowering the others' prices to make a choice between the still very very strong yet expensive Rudras to its cheaper alternatives for quality vs quantity.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Difference there is that MA C'Tis's effect can be removed by conquering them. The population loss from LA Ermor and LA R'lyeh is effectively permanent.

I personally think that warlock apprentices should be recruit anywhere for both MA and EA Abysia. It would make a huge, huge difference in their long-term viability.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

Squirrel I inluded fixes for
agartha, abysia, jomon, yomi, man, arco, machaka in my balance mod

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod
 

First Version release - see OP for details

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

It seems like there are five separate changes to EA Agartha when one or two might be sufficient to bring it to middle-of-the-road as far as balance goes. I think most people would be content with things if they just had the lower enc and heat preference 1(though a bit higher stats on the Ancient Lord is a nice touch which I like)

One major thing to note is that the rebalance violates the mage costing guidelines pretty badly--in general mages cost 40 gold for each magic path they have(including priest levels). It's somewhat troubling that you're comparing Agartha's mages to Bakemono Sorcerers, arguably the most undercosted mages in the game. Try looking at...any other mage. Maybe King of the Deeps. After all, they're about the same size and get Amphibious plus Darkvision. All things told, Oracles are pretty cheap for what you get. It's really the high encumbrance that makes people not build them as thugs, I think.

Tartarian Monstrums are way too good in this incarnation--they don't have any afflictions and still get tasty magic. It's essentially quartered their 'real' cost to not require the Chalice or GoH--at this point they're the most cost-effective caster summons in the game...and that doesn't seem right, especially on a flying 232 hp chassis. It seems like a step back from making Death the end-all lategame option. As an aside, Monstrum are great anti-SCs if you script them to fun things like Fists of Iron or Hand of Death or all those other spells which are normally suicide for things with fewer than 200 hp to cast.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

Monstrums are a really bad caster chassis. That said, the afflictions are a feature of tart gate and not governed by '#aff (%)' attribute of the creature? Interesting. Did you actually test that? They're still less efficient *as a caster chassis* than Lamia Queens. And the magic is totally random. But they might require some tweaking - i was thinking of them as a troop summon and not a target for GoR, so maybe i'll just clearmagic them. That should solve any balance problem. They do still have shattered soul, fwiw, that's a feature of teh creature.

At 40 gold for every magical path they have, the *new* Oracle is only slightly undercosted (2x + 3e + 2.1r + 3H = 10.1x4 = 404, so we're a whole 54 gold shy of your ideal). He's also capital only, which should carry with it a cost reduction. And he's also literally the only thing Agartha has going for them. He should be better than a Bakemono Sorceror by any logic (Both because the Bakemono Sorceror is recruit anywhere, and because Shinuyama has other things going for them). But if people think they should be 400g, I'll also make them recruit anywhere.

We can compare to other mages too.
*Marveni Druids are probably about as useful as Agarthan Oracles despite having fewer total paths (now). (Similarly, Ermor's Augur Elders, when you consider they're 100g cheaper, pull about the same weight as the Oracle in terms of battlefield/lab/remote usefulness, and they're also recruit anywhere). Total paths is not always the best metric of 'usefulness'.
*Lanka has the sacred 270g raksharaja with 8.1 total paths, a base encumbrance of *2*, and actually good stats - making him a good thug and slightly more efficient in gp/path. (And Lanka actually has good units too, and can afford to use its pretender for a big blessing). Other thug units aren't nearly so efficient, but again, actually good stats are a significant difference, and they often have other really useful attributes like *not being cold-blooded* or *Awe*.
*TC has the 250g Celestial Master with 9.1 total paths. The Oracle just gets blown out of the water on efficiency when it comes to other mages that are both capital only and are primarily used for non-thuggery.

I mean, yes, a lot of thuggable mages are less efficient magically. But the ones that actually do get thugged also have good to great stats. Oracles will never be good thugs because their stats are bad. The proper comparisons are casters, not thugs. And in fact, its hard to find a capital-only non-thug/SC mage in EA near the same price range as the Oracle whose stats are anywhere near as bad. Closest is Mictlan's High Priest of the Sun clocks in at only 8 total paths for 300g, which is still below 40 per (its 37.5 per), and well, its *Mictlan*, they have quite possibly the best sacred troop in the game and those sacreds are *recruit anywhere*. If they get to clock in under 40/path for a capital-only mage, then the nation with the absolute worst troop line-up in any age (with the possible exception of MA Ulm) should get even more 'consideration'. (And fwiw, Mictlan's other cap-only mages clock in at ~29g/path and ~26g/path, ie, really cheap).

The stat bumps just make Agartha's infantry not totally suck against indies. They're still useless against *players*, and they still have no shields. Even *Marveni* has better troops than Agartha *after* the improvements. And that's saying something.

Honestly, I'm not convinced I went far enough in boosting Agartha. They still have no good answers to many early bless rushes (Lanka and Mictlan will absolutely destroy them), and they still depend on their pretender for far too many things.

Basically, inter-nation balance has to be considered holistically as well as on straight-up unit comparisons. But even in the straight mage-mage comparisons, the currently statted and costed Oracle looks pretty reasonable when you're comparing it against the stuff it should be compared against.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

But...why are you trying to argue that Oracles should be costed as non-thugs when your own Agartha strategy guide is more or less centered around using Oracles as thugs? And they're way way way better thugs with 2 more free magic paths, higher attack and defense, and lower encumbrance.

And it's not like you're jonesing for thugs in the first place, anyways. The Gift of Reason change makes Umbral thugs cost what, 8 gems?

All that being said, there's a certain charm to at least giving the Ancient Ones slightly higher attack/def--there's no reason why an Ancient One is not more skilled at arms than a Cavern Guard. If Ancient Ones were 10 att 10 def, Seal Guards were 11 att 11 def, and then Ancient Lords were 12 att 12 def, it would make a lot of sense but still not take away from their flavor.

I'd also argue that if you're gonna lower the encumbrance of the big guys, that it should go down to 2 like all the other 'giant' races.

Finally, I'd like to point out that the Golem is a standard thug chassis and has even worse att/def stats.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

If I get it right, instead of 1 oracle in 2 having E4, there's less than one in 40? So bye bye Earth attack spammers.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

Nah, you still get your 1 in 2 E4 guys. 1 in 80 as opposed to 1 in 40 for E5, but honestly...noone was counting on that anyways.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

Here's the thing about that guide - it worked fine against indies and against the AI. It fails horribly against players. Tried it. Tried some other things too. The other things worked marginally better. I seem to also remember having advocated Ancient Ones... yeah, that was a mistake.

Even if you want to compare to other thugs, lets compare to LA Mictlan's cap-only Atlantian thug. Same cost, vastly better stats, not too dissimilar on total paths (9.1 iirc), and of course belongs to Mictlan, so you're going to have a big bless to go with him. And have a good troop line-up, and so on.

And lets not forget Agarthan Oracles have cold-blooded. #1 reason to never use them as thugs against a player. Alt 4 and a handful of w gems => dead Oracle (once he fatigues out trivially).

Golems work because of (1) astral storm for offense, (2) Enc. 0, and (3) returning for escaping from retribution. Without them they're just poor and extremely vulnerable thugs. Astral makes everything better.

And honestly, I never found it worthwhile to GoR an umbral when GoR was 15n. Umbrals make pretty good troops, but the n was better saved for tarts (who probably weren't too many turns behind the umbrals), and 18 gems for a thug + gear... you might as well use banelords.

Is 8 gems too few? Maybe. Of course, you're still talking about using pretender time for it, since Agartha has no nature mages.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

Ok, its becoming increasing clear that the union of 'sucks at magic' and 'sucks at resisting magic' is just a bad idea for nation balance. Would people feel it terribly unthematic if I made the Ulms 'sucks at magic' and 'amazingly resistant to magic'? Because there's only so much I can do to save the fail that is Ulm otherwise.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.01)
 

I would like to propose a radical new idea. Instead of changing ulm to "incredibly good at resisting magic" why not make them have incredibly awful recruitable troops instead? With this trifecta of awesome achieved, none will be able to stand in the face of ulm's armies (they'll be too busy laughing).

I'm not sure you have to make them incredibly good at resisting magic though. Maybe slightly above average... it would be a good start anyway. You can consider other changes after this, but I think amazingly resistant isn't quite necessary.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

v0.02 is released, focusing on MA Ulm.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

Hum, I think that maybe you increased Ulm MR too much.

Would'nt a base 12 (instead of 9) be enough for magic-resistant humans ?

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

So, I chose the number that gave MA Ulm's mages mr19 and increased everyone else by the same amount (in MA). Then I noticed EA had slightly lower mr in general, so i arranged this to be true.

Anyway, MR12 is pretty typical for slightly magical humans. Ulm's people are severely anti-magical, they should be really resistant. Remember, sucking at magic is a *big* disadvantage. The advantage in MR should also be big. Or possibly more relevantly, there are a large number of other troops with MR12 out there. I can't think of many with MR14 off the top of my head - the super high MR sets them apart as something special, especially since its nationwide.

Now, how much is too much? I don't know. Ironhawk proposed MR18 across the board for the whole Ulm line-up on IRC. That's probably too much =). Will MR14 be unbalancing? I sort of doubt it, but this is an alpha, I expect to playtest it before it goes to beta.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

Version 0.03 is in the works, stuff to expect:

LA Ulm - consistency update. Since LA Ulm is cursed, i've given them much more modest mr (baseline mr 11 for basic troops/commanders) - their resistance to magic is fading as they pursue blood magic. (Also, LA Ulm is vastly superior to its predecessors, so it didn't really need much of a boost).

Machaka - Two things become apparent when you look at Machaka. First, its theme is 'Giant Spider!', which is a pretty lame theme when you think about it. Second, there is almost no African mythology or traditional belief here, nor any historical basis, its some weird exoticized idea of 'darkest africa'. This is pretty shameful. That the nation is pretty thin is no surprise based on this - there's only so much you can do with 'Giant Spider!' (although there *could* be a national summon or something...). I'm really tempted to do a content update. (Honestly, I'd almost prefer to scrap the whole nation and start over!) And there are parts of the theme I simply can't figure out, like what 'darkest africa' is doing with platemail... seriously, can anyone explain that to me?

However, for v0.03, expect some slight tweaks to Machaka, but there's only so much that can be done with what's currently available.

Summons - The healer ability is made easier to access. Faerie Queen's have theirs improved to 100, Treelords find a use as Healer 100s as well, and Naiads (who have lost focus in the post-clam world) gain Healer 50.

Spells
Fate of Oedipus - removed from the game. It creates a bad play dynamic and causes Eyes of God to never be cast.

Gift of Health - I was going to make it harder to cast and substantially increase the cost, but some discussion on IRC led me to decide to only slightly increase the cost (to 60n). In play terms, this might delay the casting of GoH slightly, but the major effect will be to make it more vulnerable to Dispel. It really was too cheap for what it did, however, even if you ignore the interaction with Tartarian Gate.

Awaken Treelord - reduced to 30n. Even with the improved healing they still aren't that good. Compare to other things you could be spending your nature gems on: lamia queens and faerie queens.

Dispel - reduced to 10s. Dispel is already a bad mechanic, and the only way to fix that is to make dispel cheap enough that it might be worth tossing one off to test a global. At 10s it will tend to discourage minimal globals (because someone might just choose to test a global at that price), but won't really effect globals with any real investment in them (say >+10 gems) since the investment in the Dispel necessary to test that becomes really expensive. Especially in the post-clam world where pearls are much less common.

Thinking about tweaking another nation or two before considering it finished. Please do take this opportunity to share your thoughts on the above.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

Well, while you're removing spells..

I'd like to suggest combining the Hand of Dust & Hand of Death into a single spell. Hand of Dust just plain sucks and gets instantly overwritten by a spell 40 research points above it. It's just a plain damn waste of a spell slot (especially since frighten gives a actually useable spell for D1 mages to cast with no research any way). You could use the now free spell slot to make some national spells or something. Heck, you could probably go for a spell slot neutral mod.

Sea of Ice -> How is the presence of this spell good for the gameplay?
It's also bugged up it's *ss.

The next one is a bit controversial, but I'd also like to suggest BoT to be removed or at least nerfed. It's a instant, no saves, no way to defend yourself way to kill and or cripple several nations (Abysia, Man, LA T'ien C'hi for example) even in the best case scenario that it gets dispelled immediately (fat chance) it still takes effect for the first turn and likely afflicts most of your mages that were already old. It's a pretty situational global, but the fact that there is absolutely nothing you can do to defend yourself when it is up is just pure murder for some nations.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

Squirrelloid, I like most of your changes. There's two that stand out to me as possible problems.

GoR is a fun spell and I'd like to see it used more. But making it this cheap can raise problems and I think the cost of GoRing an umbral is one of them. I'd prefer them over a bane lord even at the same cost. At only two thirds the cost ... well, I think that's going to be abused. Obviously Agartha needs help but I'm always wary of changes that create loopholes. As far as a solution, you could raise the cost of GoR to 10 gems or price umbrals assuming they'll be GoRed. And of course, I don't think you'll need your pretender to GoR each one given how easy N is to branch into (maybe your pretender will forge some boosters but that's a one time thing).

I do have one suggestion that would help Agartha across the board - remove the cold blooded attribute.

I'd also like to echo the previous comments about Ulm's MR increase. Perhaps it won't prove to be a problem but I'd be more inclined to go with a 3 point increase and see how it goes.

I like the idea of the improved/more available healing units. It ties in very nicely with the diversity mod. If you are relying on those summons instead of tarts you may not have the Chalice/GoH - this way you can heal them more easily if they receive an affliction. It also helps national troops who can now gain experience without likely being crippled eventually. Though this does to some extent take away from the uniqueness of Pan's recuperation ability on all its troops.

The Treelords become a lot more worthwhile with the healing ability but, as you point out, you're still better off getting a Faerie Queen. What about having them generate N gems? This way you get your investment back over time.

Do you plan on making any changes to Eriu? I'm sure I could come up with some borderline OP suggestions if you want.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

I do plan on doing something to Eriu. If nothing else, making Bean Sidhe recruit everywhere. I need to think more about what can be done to *fix* Eriu specifically, and I welcome suggestions, although I'm not sure there's much I can do that would be true to theme, even broadly construed.

Pan's recuperation lets them heal wounds while they're off fighting - they don't have to join up with a healer and sit there while they get tended. That's a pretty big advantage, even with more common healing.

Treelords do generate vinemen right now. Between that and being 10n less than Faerie Queens, I think I'm ok with Treelords at the moment. Maybe their cost should come down to 25n?

I am opposed to removing cold-blooded from Agartha at the moment, because it is vaguely thematic, and it justifies the temperature preference.

I know some people think the MR for Ulm is too much. Others suggested much higher, and might see a mere 14 as insufficiently good. I'm happy with where it is and think its distinctive and worthwhile. Remember, sucking at magic is a really powerful disadvantage, a mild MR advantage wouldn't even begin to make up for that. Enough MR to make master enslave look like a poor idea is enough MR to matter. The reaction to fighting Ulm should be 'put away your MR-resists magic and use something else'.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

Making Bean Sidhe recruit everywhere was also my main thought. That helps Eriu in a number of ways.

A few more ideas (all trying to stay thematic):

Cu Sidhe - I really like the idea of national summons and always think they should be encouraged over generic summons. I want to summon these but can't really justify it when I could spend those gems on a vine shield to equip a thug (assumes a dwarven hammer for forging of course).

Some ideas to make them more appealing:

* The easiest fix would be to just increase the number of units per summon. CBM already improved this but I still don't think it's enough to justify summoning them.

* Change the gem types needed for summoning. When playing Eriu I always have a high demand for N gems. If the cost of the summoning were split between N and W gems it would be more appealing.

* Make them a cap only recruitable unit in addition to a summon.

* Make them a better unit by giving them two attacks per round. But this may be too much, especially with recruit everywhere Bean Sidhe's giving you a much better chance to have enough W2s for casting quickness.

Another bonus to improving Cu Sidhe is that it helps Man as well.

Healing - You've made healing much more accessible so this isn't as high a priority but it could still be useful to have a summon with some degree of healing ability. My thought was to give healing to Tuatha Sorceresses. So TNN would have a recruitable healer; Eriu would have to summon one.

Nemedian Sorceress - One of the few remaining Nemedian Sorceresses signs a pact with the Tuatha to serve the awakening god. Formoria is no longer around in the MA so I don't think this contradicts Dominions history. Also, TNN/Eriu have two very nice national heroes with D magic so it doesn't seem to be completely unthematic to have this summon. It could either be castable by national mages, thus providing access to D, or require D magic to summon and thus require a pretender or perhaps national hero.

Enchanter - In exchange for knowledge a mortal enchanter agrees to serve the Sidhe. S1 mages and even N1S1 mages, in the form of lizard shaman, are not uncommon. In the event Eriu has bad luck this would give them access to forging basic S items as well as some mind hunt protection. Notably, the N2 would give easy access to moonvine bracelets. Probably the least thematic suggestion here and is really just a way to give them some S access and moonvine bracelets.

------------------

Also, I'd definitely agree with bringing Treelords down to 25N. If they still don't get summoned when you test the mod, then do something else to help them.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

You can only have a spell take one gem type for casting.

Note that there are different types of Cu Sidhe, Black Dog, and Barghest. I didn't think that Man's units overlapped, but I could be wrong...

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Cu_Sidhe
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Cu_Sidhe_(summon)
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Barghest
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Black_Dog

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

Barghests and Black Dogs are both Fomorian summons. Cu Sidhe are TNN/Eriu and Man.

Anyway, I'll definitely take a look at Cu Sidhe. I'll confess I've never summoned them either.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.02)
 

:doh: Don't know how I forgot about that... Thanks for the correction.

Man (MA and LA) and TNN/Eriu are definitely both summoning unit 1770. Not sure if the other unit is currently being used.

Man also gets access to the same Barghest and Black Dog summons as Fomoria.

Also, another (thematic!) idea that just occured to me for improving Eriu/Man is improving the spell songs.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.03)
 

v0.03 released. See OP.

I had meant to bundle WH1.9 in this release, but it slipped my mind. Look for it in v0.04.

-------------------------
And since I've deleted this from the OP, I figured this deserved to be preserved somewhere:

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.03)
 

Ooh, very nice. I like especially the Hide Shield changes--you incidentally also made them have a higher parry value and therefore they're better against missile fire than before, but honestly they suck so bad anyways at it.

I'm not sure about the 1 gold militia if just because I can't imagine something that cheap. Nevertheless, I can't think of anything you could actually *do* with 1gp Machaka militia that is actually useful. Maybe crazy Life After Death/Earthquake shenanigans with 500 militia?

I might suggest the ages on Black Sorcerers and Sorceresses to be 90 and 75 respectively to keep their age the same in their spider and human forms. It just seems to make sense.

Have you also considered giving the Machaka Commander a standard effect?

v0.04 released. Lots of tweaks, plus new sprites.

I thought I'd comment specifically on the base encumbrance changes. So, base encumbrance should be related to how much energy you have to spend to move yourself around. We'll use humans as a baseline. They have base encumbrance 3, generally, and have a certain amount of strength relative to their mass. (In game terms, this is roughly saying they have a particular strength to size ratio - 10 : 2).

Now, as strength to mass improves, less exertion is required to move yourself because that mass isn't as significant relative to your strength. So Bandar, who have a higher strength to size ratio (16 : 3 is only slightly better, but remember that Bandar are actually intermediate between size 2-3, since they're smaller than all other size 3 creatures in the game, so they're more accurately a 2.5), should be less encumbered than a human. Now, the base encumrance scale isn't especially finely divided, so its a judgement call whether this actually warrants dropping to a base enc of 2, but since Bandar aren't exactly spectacular units, I felt it was suitable and might make them more appealing.

Now, anyone who knows anything about scaling in biology knows that given an identical bodyplan that's simply scaled in size (say Giants are scaled up humans), the muscle strength scales as L^2 but the body mass scales as L^3. (L for a human-type individual is height). Remember we cared about strength to mass scaling? Since mass grows faster than strength, giants should actually be more encumbered than humans! But does the game agree with us? Consider the Niefl Giant. Str 25, size 5. Well, the game actually thinks he's got the same relative strength as a human. So why do size 5-6 Giants uniformly have base encumbrance of 2?

And of course, giant units have been rather problematic from a game balance perspective. A large part of the problem is they have base encumbrance 2, which tends to mean an E9 bless lets any large sacred giant be fatigue neutral. Combined with their generally good to great protection and large sack of hp, this leads to them being 'too good'. So for reasons of both internal consistency (relative strength as measured by the game) and game balance, virtually all recruitable giant units have had their base encumbrance set to 3. (The Yomi Dai Oni hasn't because its a demon, and all Oni have base encumbrance 1, so there seems to be some internal Oni (and possibly Demon) logic at work here. Its also not a particular balance concern at this time. So I left it as it was).

For completeness sake, do note that apes, giants, and humans are all roughly comparable because they share the same body plan. The Naga has a vastly more efficient bodyplan from a muscle strength point of view (the snake form is remarkably efficient), and can't be compared directly by game numbers to justify the change. (Although if we assume naga actually have muscles, the change is certainly justified. And it might cause people to actually use those patala sacreds...).

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.04)
 

That not quite accurate. Gorillas are much stronger than humans proportional to their mass - but become fatigued much more quickly. A human can chase down a gazelle, which is mostly muscle, and the gazelle will die of exhaustion. There's a power to endurance tradoff in how muscles work, and other features related to bodymass (such as heat elimination) which play a large role as well.

None of this should discourage you from fiddling with the encumberance scores for bandar or for giants, but don't pretend that it makes any physical sense, because it doesn't :).

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.04)
 

Become more quickly fatigued doing what? I mean, no, Gorillas aren't built to run, I agree. That's not the only measure of activity. (And indeed, you don't acquire fatigue in dom3 for moving...) Humans are 'built' to run pretty efficiently. (Not notably fast - conversely, the gazelle is built for speed but not efficiency). I mean, the theory does depend on the same body plan. Apes and Humans are kind of close, but when you start talking about a performance area that humans are evolved to do well in and other apes aren't, well, now the assumptions no longer hold.

So yes, there's definitely an effect of body structure and what you're good at doing. However, I'm pretty sure a human isn't any better evolved for swinging a sword or wearing armor. I mean, in reality we do it better because we have superior intelligence and capability to learn (and can have an interest in doing so for these things), but if you imagine an ape with equal mental faculty, I'd be willing to bet he gets less fatigued wearing similar armor and swinging the same weapon. This is a case where the body plans are likely similar enough relative to the activity to merely talk about relative strength.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.04)
 

Unfortunately, I didn't have chance this week to test the changes to Eriu in the previous version, let alone this one, but looking at the change log there's a lot of good stuff here.

Bean Sidhe - making them recruit everywhere is the big change and will help Eriu a lot.

Cu Sidhe - 4 gems for 7 is cheap enough that I'd consider them. The main emphasis would still be equipping thugs but in some situations I'd summon a couple dozen.

Nemedian Spirit-Warriors and Spectral Nemedian Sorceress - These are the ones I'd like to playtest. I really like the fact that they work thematically. The nice thing is that the Nemedian Sorceress is summonable by your national mages and branches you into death, allowing you to then summon the Spirit Warriors. The cost of the Sorceress seems reasonable considering the magic, unit abilities and the fact that it branches you into a new path of magic.

All in all some nice changes for Eriu!

A quick note about Abysia. While I actually think MA Abysia is a decent nation, having a recruit everywhere blood hunter is certainly a nice boost. But it really helps EA Aby - who I think does need it badly.

I'm also glad to see you are taking on some nerfs to OP nations. Particularly when looking at EA nations, every one I'd put on my personal OP list is either a giant or blood nation (and often both) so I think you're on the right track.

I'm not sure if the changes to giants go far enough. An increase in encumbrance is welcome but I'd go further. As an example I'd like to see Skratti priced higher.

Nerfing blood magic can be approached several ways but I think the key thing to keep in mind is that blood nations are forgoing gold income - not gem income - to get their blood summons. They'll have just as much gem income as a non-blood nation. But while the non-blood nation will most likely have to use its gems to both summon and equip its units, the blood nation need only use them to equip its units. So I think the formula to use in pricing blood summons isn't one of gems vs. blood slaves but gold vs. blood slaves. If a 5k province generates x gold/turn, which could buy me y number of units, and blood hunting that province generates z number of slaves, how many blood summons should that buy me (keeping in mind that blood summons tend to be better than national units and have no upkeep - and somewhat offset by the fact that you have to assign commanders to blood hunt)?

As an aside, I'd also take a look at eliminating the Onaqui's auto-spawning of beast bats. The idea that you can suffer enormous losses and not have it matter because you'll have a new batch of free (and sacred of course) units soon enough is, to me, not a good thing. Yes, I know there's other nations that can do this but since we're discussing blood I'm limiting my comments to that path.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)
 

v0.05 is released. Major blood nerf, and some other tweaking related to blood nations.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.04)
 

This is flawed. Humans made swords. Therefore swords are beautifully evolved to use humans. Not the other way around. Same with armour. Frankly, giants should have nearly zero encumbrance for armour if fighting humans if you want to be practical. The reason is that they only need leggings and groin. And if you really want to take that business all the way a giant should be using a 18 foot long great sword and therefore is killing pikemen before armour even becomes relevant. How is a 6 foot tall human with an 18 foot pike supposed to deal with a sword as long as his pike? Frankly, he can't. If I was chosing weapons for giants vs. humans I'd just pick giant scythes. Cut off all the feet of the humans with a 12 foot scythe blade and completely ignore their weapons.

And so on and so forth. Which also doesn't take into account the simple cube/square problem that the femurs of giants would be so insanely large in ratio to height that they could completely ignore attacks to their legs. A human femur is about 2" diameter. Let's apply the cube/square law of structural design. An 18 foot tall giant in humanoid form would weigh 200 lbs * 18/6 cubed = 1800 lbs. This would require a femur of 6" diameter. Introduce me to the man who could cut through a 6" bone with an axe. I'd love to meet him.

Or lets take another example. I have a big bowie knife. You are a 2 foot tall midget with a scalpel. What on earth are you going to do to the parts of my body you can even reach that I would care about? Slice off my toenails? I stick on some greaves and a groin protector and let you slice little 1/2 inch deep cuts into my thighs and just shrug it off. In the meantime, my reach is 36 inch plus the knife so I've been smacking on you when you are still 24 inch from even touching me.

Of course, someone is going to say give the midget a pike. So he's got a pike with a tip the size of a screwdriver and 6 feet long. I've a pike with a tip the size of his entire head and 18 feet long. Let's face it. In almost all melee combat, the taller guy with longer arms wins. There are exceptions but they are rare.

An 18 foot humanoid creature would have a totally different height to width shape. Mythical giants are frankly nonsense. So why bother trying to be realistic? Just balance it.

All this changes with bows but there's a really cool thread I found on the main page about that. I wonder what bow that 2 foot midget uses? It probably shoots something like 2 inch common nails.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.04)
 

Off-topic digression is off topic. More or less. I'd rather talk about what the mod has done in game terms, but hey, I can take the time to respond about the physical basis of some of the changes.

For someone who seems to have heard of scaling laws, you're really missing some important parts.

First, you don't understand how scaling actually works. If a human at 6' tall weighs 200lbs, that implies k*6^3 = 200. we also have a giant standing 18' tall, k*18^3 = x lbs. k = 200/6^3 = 200/216 ~= 0.926. Therefore, the 18' tall giant weighs approximately 5400lbs, and that's assuming he's proportional to a human. This same answer can be gotten by (18^3)/(6^3) * 200, which is the proper way to do what you tried to do (not (18/6)^3). I don't even know where your femur estimate comes from, but its horribly horribly wrong and vastly underestimates the necessary bone strength. Bone strength should grow as cross-sectional area. We've increased mass by a factor of 27, so we need to increase cross-sectional area by a factor of 27. Assuming humans do have a 2" diameter femur, that's pi*2^2 = 4pi x-sectional area for a human. Our giant needs 27*4pi = 108pi x-sectional area, which is >10" diameter femur.

Second, an 18' tall giant can't actually exist if we're adhering to scaling laws because he collapses under his own weight. He simply doesn't have the muscle strength to support himself. Even getting the required structural support from bones means he doesn't look much like a human anymore (3x taller but his femur is 5x as wide, to start with). To look anything like human you'd have to make the joints rigid and locked to get the necessary structural support at that size, otherwise the skeleton flies apart when the muscles fail. And of course, that 5400lbs becomes a low-ball estimate when we start allowing his body shape to vary, because that estimate was assuming he was proportioned like a human (which clearly fails!).

So yes, mass grows as size^3, but muscle strength only grows as size^2. (Muscle strength *is* determined by muscle cross-sectional area.) That slow growth of muscle strength does mean giants should fatigue out faster than humans doing just about anything, because they have less strength per mass, and therefore require more effort to just move around, much less fight.

Since we've already postulated human-like giants exist, something funky is going on. The game tells us the funky thing going on is that giants are as strong relative to their size as humans. This means they should fatigue just as fast.

As far as what a smaller opponent is going to hit... how does the achilles heel sound. Lethal in minutes, perfectly reachable from ground level, and the vein is near the skin surface at that spot. There's also of course an available vein in the groin area too, but the ankle is harder to protect adequately without interfering with movement.

Swords are designed for use by creatures with opposable thumbs. If we had apes with human intelligence, i see little reason why they couldn't learn to use a sword. I don't even know what point you're trying to make there. Humans have made armor for other animals (horses, elephants, etc...), so the concept of armor does not depend on a human wearing it. Nothing about the concept of 'a weapon you swing' or 'metal protection' is specific to human physiology. I mean, I agree, we have designed versions for our use. But you have to also show that versions could not be designed (as well) for a hypothetical intelligent ape in order to prove that said intelligent ape could not be as or more capable with them. Gear can be redesigned as necessary (although i doubt it would be necessary for a sword), the creature using it... not so much. One thing actual evolution teaches us is that innovations can be repurposed for different tasks than they were selected for. Its not enough to show what purpose it is good at because it was selected to be that way, its also necessary to show that it can't be used in some different way to claim that a use is unsuitable or less suitable. I mean, bird feathers likely originally evolved as a method to cool the body (much like sweat glands and hair follicles), that didn't stop that innovation from becoming coopted for flying.

Re: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)
 

My general point is:

Why bother trying for realism? Fantasy cliche is inherently unrealistic. And besides, the entire medieval combat system in every game I've ever played is flawed. Although this one is not bad.