CBM 1.7 released
 

FYI. QM's latest CBM installment ver. 1.7 has been released.

For convenience here's the release notes quoting QM:
"
Changes:

*All titans (defined as size 6 humaniod pretenders with Dom 3+) spread dominion in their location much better than other pretenders

*Lord of Rebirth, Lord of Plenty and Mother of Rivers gem generation toned down

*Oracle new path cost increased.

*Soulless (from life after death) no longer have magic

*EA and MA Agartha heat preference +1, PD gives darkness at level 20

*EDM, WH 1.9, Mark of the Champion, and Armor Revamp merged into CB

*Skratti pretender boosted, minor cost tweaks to Enchantress and Great Druid

*Bane blades now reanimate those they kill as soulless

*Infernal disease 5 slaves -> 7 slaves

*MA Arco Chariot bug fix

*Virtue map move 4

*Wraith sword and hell sword cheaper

*New E booster replacing the now unique blood stone- 4e const6 Ring of Earth (unfortunately uses the slot of Boots of Antaeus)

*Jade Knife, Saguine Dousing Rod and Dwarven Hammer unique

*Forge of The Ancients now needs fire as well; MA Ulm has access to the spell at research level 0.

*Elemental Royalty all +1 to primary magic path

*Treelords autosummon vine men

*Iron angel more accessible for MA ulm

*Davana reset to base game price, Dakini 50 slaves -> 75

*Mackaka PD improved

*Unquenched sword cheaper

*EA Ulm shamen get astral (or rather, get astral back)

*Bell of Cleansing remade (more expensive, higher level, aoe but less damage)

*Blood and Conjuration sites with over 30% bonuses removed

*Kelp Fort rarer

*Frost and Fire Brand do slightly less damage

*LA Pyth reveler improved chance of blood/nature

EDM tweaks:

*Added AP to Roc beak

*Kraken, Asynja less magic

*Many small price tweaks

I'm not sure if I should call this a beta or a full release- there are some fairly radical changes here that need some testing, and no doubt some bugs as well. In any case, I'll try try to provide some justification for the more controversial changes.

On making SDRs, hammers and jade knives unique, the most obvious benefit is reduced micromanagement. Personally, I estimate around 1/4th of the time on my turns are probably a direct result of the first two items. For SDRs, they are also the most obvious way of combating the supremacy of blood in the absence of gem generators. Hammers on the other hand have the effect of making the typical 4e pretenders even more of a must. Toning down jade knives is the end mostly about nation balance, in short blood sacrifice nations already have a huge advantage, knives can really push them over the top in situations where they really should not have such an easy win.

Also, I'd like to thank all the people (Sombre, Llamabeast, Burnsaber, Endo) who made mods that were added to the CB mixture.

Download at: http://www.mediafire.com/?adyxdt2l566i6qn (sorry, I know it's full of popups)
"

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

In retrospect, I think the original thread should have been titled 'Don't Panic' in large friendly letters.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Some good things here Qm...
I'm curious what the chariot fix for arco was..

the changes to *Jade Knife, Saguine Dousing Rod and Dwarven Hammer unique".. is huge change... much more than is apparanent.

An SDR essentialy gives a 40% chance of giving d6+l slaves - and since slaves.

Essentially this is about a 40% decrease in blood production for blood nations... Thats a pretty big hit.

Also, revelers are incredibly strong and did not need the increased chance. LAPyth is fairly strong. Curious to see how you made the darkness change to agartha. Autocast on a national commander at pd level 20 I'm betting.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Why would the master druid have its cost upped to 20 when the arch druid is still 15? Arch druid has one more base magic path (air), has recuperation, and is a +1 nature gem gen... vs the master druid having poison immunity, +4 research, and 2 ivy lord. Seems odd to me.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

OOooOO Mdruid has path cost increased to 20? One of my favorites chasis! Then again it does come with EN, 2 very popular paths (and probably why it was nerfed).

I recall off the top of my head that arch druid is only available to the weaker nations (Eriu, Tir na nog ...etc)? So I guess it's kind of like a little bonus for them to get a better druid chasis? Arch dru don't have feet slots either so that's like a -1E for non-bless purposes (albeit minor, but does cost more points if you want to cast the higher lvl earth rituals).

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I understand blood magic is a problem.
Rather than nefring blood so much maybe it could be made more accessible for everyone?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Not path, just actual cost. Path cost is still 10, so the change is extremely small. I just thought it was odd, but I guess the arch druid being a rarer chassis makes sense.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

It looks like MA Vanheim will be nerfed pretty hard with these changes.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

They dual wielded Spear/Short Sword, but didn't have ambidex or bonus, so their Atk would be 4 for both weapons.

Obviously this isn't intentional.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I'm not the most experienced player, but if the reduction of micromanagment was the reason to make the dwarven hammer, the sdr and the jade knives unique wouldn't it be consistent to also make the owl quill and lightless latern unique ?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Yes, and while we're at it why don't make all items unique. Who needs forging MM anyway? ;)

As Calahan said in another thread this change actually takes away a piece of the game. It's a step in a good direction but seems to be, well, radical for one, and diminishes a good portion of the game for second.

I would have much preferred a solution involving 20 unique hammers - each with forge bonus and some flavor extra feature.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Sorry, this wasn't meant as a criticism for this step, rather it was a proposal for a further step to consequently reduce micromanagment.
The research items are the only very micromanagment intense items left.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Removing the need to research at all will definitely reduce MM.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I suggest making Claws of Cocytus and Infernal Prison 1-level spells, and introducing a 3-level astral version that banishes to the Void as well. Thus we'll finally get rid of SCs and national troops will be important all the time, even in the late game.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

That's a great idea Wraithlord, but can't be done. Item modding is very limited. It is impossible to create any new items which give a forge bonus.

Personally I am very pleased with pretty much all the changes. Lots of very difficult decisions have been taken, and certainly this will be a more controversial CBM. But personally I think that they are very good decisions.

Probably the most controversial is likely to be the Dwarven Hammer becoming unique. Quite a big change. In my opinion though, much like the removal of gem gens, this will be quite popular once we get over the shock to our strategies.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Isnt MM one of those things that falls into the "then just dont use it" category? Not that Ive ever agreed with that but I heard it said to me often enough. Is it a game breaker that needs a game fix?

BTW are the developers of the other mods planning separate downloadable versions? :target:
Endgame Diversity and Worthy Heroes and Mark of the Champion?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Btw mods, could not find any info to the armor revamp mod. What is its purpose ?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I'm not sure I agree with some of the changes. I think the dwarven hammer is a huge change that will cascade through the game.

I love some of the things that CBM has done, but I scratch my head over some of it. I wonder if some of the changes are a scale thing. If you play on large maps, many of these things are great, but if you are playing on a tight map, I wonder if some of these things were an issue to begin with.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

And vice versa. Some things seem to me to be fixes for tight games.

Of course a comeback would be "did you speak up in the CBM threads". If the suggestions come from the same people playing the same game variants with the same players then its not their fault. (and yes I acknowledge not adding to the discussions)

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Quoting Sombre:
Q: *EDM, WH 1.9, Mark of the Champion, and Armor Revamp merged into CB
Someone kindly care to summarize what Mark of the Champion and Armor Revamp do?

A: Armour revamp decreases the enc gap between the lightest and heaviest armours, shrinking it from 0-5 generally to about 0-3. This primarily makes the heavier armours better in terms of enc. It also makes weightless and lightweight scale armours a lot better. Mark of the Champion turns the reward for winning the arena into a misc item which grants quickness, a cool helmet and a flying trident, iirc.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

ahh thanks for that.
The Armor Revamp seemed new to me. Now I understand.
The only reason I didnt list it in the request for separation is that Ive never had a game request it separately yet

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Actually I'm pretty sure Mark of the Champion turns the arena reward into a helmet rather than a misc item. This is good as generally the helmet slot is not particularly useful. The Mark of the Champion, by contrast, has good protection, grants Quickness, and gives a floating trident companion as a bonus attack to the wearer.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Just tested this myself. The Mark of the Champion is indeed a helmet.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

My personal opinion is that the arena item now is too strong.
Having had to kill the wielder of it, I can tell you its real difficult in the early to mid game.

Essentially it allows many nations to field about an SC quality cmdr real early in the game. Suggest you prophetize a dai oni, or ulm lord - or even a man warden - give him 5-10 gems worth of items - and then try to bring him down.

In the armor revamps - I think Jomonese armor offers too much protection, for its encumbrance/defense penalty/map move.

I find ulm too strong. Never thought I'd say that. The combination of forge, plus having forge bonuses when no one else can access dwarven hammers is strong.
Throw in the changes to the armor and the astral .....

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I find it unlikely that the Mark of the Champion is too strong, simply because it is so risky to acquire. If it motivates people to fight hard to win the Arena fight, I think that's awesome!

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

An interesting thing to note about the dwarven hammer change... You've actually nerfed forge bonus units that were given dwarven hammers. Consider how it is now, where we have the typical forge bonus nation with 25% reduction vs normal forging. So they pay 75% cost for items, other nations pay 100%: 25% forge bonus nations get 4 items of the same cost for every 3 that a normal nation can forge. If both nations have access to hammers, forge bonus nations are paying 50% cost while normal nations pay 75% cost. That means, with access to hammers, forge bonus nations get 3 items of the same cost for every 2 that a normal nation can forge.

Not saying it's right or wrong, just pointing out something that could be overlooked.

Also, I think the no research forge of the ancients is where balancing ulm veers into overkill territory.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I'll preface this by saying that I've only looked over the change log, not yet tested the mod, and that I'm in biased in favor of anything that reduces micro. At first I wasn't too enthusiastic about the changes (especially because they hit my favored glamour nations hard) but after thinking it over I think there are some good things here - though I do have some concerns.


SDRs: the thing with SDRs isn't the additional blood slave on a successful check but the fact that the chance of a successful check for a B1 mage is dramatically increased. So nations that are rely on non-cap B1 mages for blood hunting take a much bigger hit with the elimination of SDRs than nations that rely on B2+ non-cap blood hunters. Nations with cheap B1 mages (Mictlan) can more easily compensate for the lack of SDRs than nations with expensive B1 mages (Vanheim) but they are still impacted. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, as I'm in the camp that thinks blood magic is OP. My concern is with a blood nation like Niefelheim that relies on B2+ non cap blood hunters and isn't really hurt much by this - they actually gain in power relative to other blood nations. So I'd like to see what is effectively a nerf to blood magic applied evenly. The solution can vary depending on the nation in question. As far as Niefel/Jotun go I rather like the idea of changing Skratti paths from W2B2 +100%WDNB to W2B1 +100%WDNB (which has the added bonus of making it harder for them to cast thug/SC killing Life for a Life and Claws of Kokytos in the late game).

Note: I'm assuming the elimination of SDRs wasn't just intended to reduce micro but to nerf blood. If it was only intended to reduce micro then giving dousing bonuses to blood mages would equalize things again (though it would make a nation like Mictlan in particular more powerful by eliminating the need for the time/cost of making SDRs for their massed blood hunters).


Dwarven hammers: Just as with SDRs the elimination of hammers does not effect all nations equally. Sure, every nation ends up using them for forging but not all nations suffer equally from their removal. Nations that need to equip thugs or forge boosters cheaply are impacted much more than nations who don't rely on those things as much. Now of course, everyone eventually needs SCs but here I don't think eliminating hammers has as much impact. The additional forging cost as a percentage of total summoning/forging cost without a hammer is smaller than the 50% increase in cost in equipping a Sidhe Lord with a frost brand and vine shield.

Still, I do like this change as long as the fact that it hurts some nations more than others is taken into consideration. I think forge bonuses ranging from 10-15% to 25% on the appropriate mages of nations that are most effected by the lack of hammers can be both thematic and differentiate them more than hammers ever did. In cases where it really isn't thematic to grant a forge bonus another boost could be considered.


Fire/Frost Brands: I don't really get the nerf of these, especially in conjunction with the elimination of hammers making them more expensive to forge. Sure, they're popular multi-purpose weapons but I don't think that in itself qualifies them for nerfing. And this change, like with hammers, impacts thugs (especially human strength thugs) more than SCs. The frost brand nerf is particularly grievous since that weapon isn't even armor piercing. At the old damage level a Sidhe Lord's chances if they ran into a bane lord weren't good - with this change they are pretty much non-existent. Heck, their chances against any kind of decently armored troop go down sharply. And when a nation only has one trick having that trick nerfed is painful... Really, this change seems like it's intended to solve a non-existent problem.


Ulm's FotA: If I had to pick one change I think will not last this is it. Sure, Ulm has problems but giving them a level 0 version of one of the most powerful spells in the game doesn't seem the way to solve it and I think will just be abused. Though it will work against Ulm in one sense: the logical thing to do would be to dogpile them before they can get a chance to really start reaping the benefits of their FotA. If I were starting a game today this is the one thing I would definitely change.


Last thing: all of the above is intended to be constructive input. I certainly appreciate the work QM has put into the mod and major changes are always going to need some testing and balancing. And of course I've got my own biases: changes that hurt my favorite nations are going to prompt me to respond but when CBM 1.6 eliminated the clams I disliked so much I didn't have any complaints.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Some thoughts on the new CBM,

I think the problem with removing the hammers is that it will make certain items ridiculously overpriced. For example, it will be much easier to forge the Chalice than to forge a ring of wizardry.
I think this will make even wishing or getting access to Tartarians a very demanding task. (not that a harder access to Tarts is a bad idea)
No doubt it will greatly downsize the usage of mid game thugs which already pretty much only concentrates on nations that can utilize their commanders as thugs (Eriu/Van/Jotun...).
I rarely see summonable thugs such as Bane Lords, Firbolg etc... and this will just make it harder for them to use.

Now I suspect all of this can be compensated with games being created with a higher site frequency, but than again, better diversed nations would get much greater benefits from this.
I'm getting off track a bit, so with removing the hammers, some other items need price changing too.

As for brend weapons, why not change the Shadow brend too than? It's the best out of the 3, it's far superior to the water brend which has taken a hit as it seems as, and isn't even AP. And besides, water brend remains still the easiest one to counter with using just a little undead chaff, so I don't see the point in reducing its damage.

And I agree with Valerius about the SDR. Nations like Van already have a much harder time blood hunting with the expensive mages that require both a lab and a temple, and now with removing SDR you're just giving too much power to Mictlan, Jotunheim, Lanka... Maybe giving certain commanders a blood hunting bonus, or increasing paths, or adding a random paths, or reducing blood paths to some other nations.

Infernal disease is still way under priced, any other assassination spell are far more expensive than this one, and even harder to acquire, be it seeking arrow, manifestation, earth attack... 7 blood slaves is still very little, since even with the blood nefr empowering and forging blood booster is much cheaper than for other magic types.

And last, the fire summon Zmey is still pretty much useless it seems.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Even QM admitted Infernal Disease is too cheap, so it should be changed for final version of CBM [1.7 looks like beta, so there is hope for change, so we should make suggestions :)].

And yeah, some items need price fixes [but that means lowering paths needed to forge them - it may be not so bad with more expensive boosters though]. It will be mostly 25 and 40 gem items, which were very expensive and rarely used even with 25% forge discount.

Would anyone now forge Stymphalan Wings, Bone Armor, Jade Mask, Armor of Invulnerability or even Gate Stone?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

On the mark of the champion... Would it really "not be worth it" if the weapon part was removed and it became a 5 prot helmet with quickness? In most cases for thugs/SCs, there isn't even an artifact you can forge that is as useful. It would certainly be worth fighting for. Why add so much extra power to a single item? I understand the argument that you want people to really try for it, but if you really want people to do anything for it, you might as well give it every stat bonus from every item in the game. Surely the prot and quickness would be easily sufficient without being so insanely overpowered?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I think those changes are all geared towards end-game in many-nations large games.
The only big change I think is ok is the restriction of sanguine dousing rods.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I understand the thinking behind those changes, but this is not the type of update to CBM I had hoped for to be honest.

The last CBM changed the game radically by removing gemgens, this was a good thing. And the big changes here might be too. But there is a problem with big changes, they need a long time getting used to and ruins lots of strategies.

I would prefer to put those big radical changes on hold for a while, and instead see a update to CBM with all the small fixes and non-controversial changes that has been discussed in the thread.

My suggesstion would be to release a less controversial CBM 1.6.2 while this one is tested.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

lolwut? The champion item needs to make its user STRONGER, not weaker, which your 5 prot helmet would do in 99% of cases. In order to be an incentive to actually send capable commanders into the arena, rather than just cheap throwaways, the item obtained should actually be valuable. Mark of the champion encourages actually caring about winning the arena, and sending valuable commanders in with the chance of losing them. For a 5 prot helmet, it would seldom be worth it.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I didn't really type that well. It uses the armor flame helmet, which is a 20 prot helmet that also raises your base prot to (by?) 5. On top of this it has quickness.

edit:
I did a quick test, and the flame helmet will raise a unit from 12 base body protection to 16, so it's of use to units even with a high base protection.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

And? so it adds some prot. wow. quickness and an attack. its still good, not amazing. not even close to overpowered

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

An interesting option would be something similar to Edi's piecemeal edition CBM 1.6, by making the most controversial changes optional.

For example, hammer uniques, it could be if certain players want the to have hammer allocation and planning in the game they can turn it on. Users could customize a game to what they want. Want a dumbed down minimal micro game? Hammer off, booster off ...etc

Though that might cause balancing descrepencies, say if some earth nations were adjusted and weaker thug nations getting forge ability (Eriu, TNN...etc) then you turn hammer on ... Or certain nation getting hammered with no booster access.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

This is pretty easy to do already. Just spend 10 minutes with the modding manual and a text editor. You can remove the pieces you dislike, save it as a new document, and use it for your customized game.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

(Almost) removing hammers is a radical move, but one which is perfectly in line with the concept of the Mod, I think: it removes an "obvious", no-brainer option that was almost mandatory for competitiveness.

As a major side effect, it decreases accessibility of magic items. My personal view, but this is very personal, is that spells were not competitive enough as an option to spend gems compared to items, so I tend to like this. But this is a "flavour" consideration, where I wished that magic items were really exceptional rather than produced at an industrial scale by chains of impersonal hammer-handlers.

So I think the hammer thing is a rather interesting one, in spite of the balance issues it raises.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

i want to add to this discussion that in smaller games (which i tend to play only (6-8 players)) the hammer-micro doesnt feel burdensome for me at all. It means about 6-10 hammers to manage, and for me in these cases the raise in complexity and planning required (makes game more interesting for me) overweights the cost (moving the hammers back and forth between mages) (there are other costs too).

However removing the hammers not only lessens micro but makes items more expensive, i would really like to test it to see how it changes the game, as i like to use low-level summons, and perhaps it will make using them more optimal.

one aspect i like in this change (and in the SDR one) is that i dont have to wait until constr4 (SDR or earth boots or having enough hammers) to forge some items for my commanders and still play near optimal.

And one more: there is a kind of argument versus banning the hammers (the hammer-banner :) ): that people will use the same amount of gems for items, meaning removing the hammers will lessen the number of gems spent on not-forging. It is the same argument used against raising the cost of tartarians. And this type of argument can be used versus raising the price of gas, saying "people will buy gas into their cars anyway, so they will have less money for food". I'm not saying that its a false statement, but I'm sceptical.

The SDR change will affect nations with noncapital bloodhunters much less then the other blood nations, because the SDR could be viewed as a forgeable bloodhunter (with about a little more than 1 level in B). It will weaken all blood nations without doubt and will make low level blood spells more used, because it was seen an optimal way in most cases to not start hunting until SDRs and constr 4, and by this time the research tipically can jump thru the first couple levels in the blood tree.

All in all i personally like both of the hammer and the SDR change.

I'm not sure integrating the edm AND changing it a bit to fit your taste (u said u dont like easy magic diversity) was a good idea (it may not be only your taste tho). Regarding the changes: lessening the magic diversity of the new monsters strengthens the tartarians in their status (as they have diversity). It might turn out to be an excellent idea tho, im looking forward of the test results.

Thanks for the bold changes QM and updating the mod. I'm very curious of its effect on the game.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I fully agree with this. Removing gemgens was a radical change, and it worked, but it does not mean that CBM needs as many radical changes as possible. EDM, hammers, SDRs - aren't there too many controversial and drastic changes for one release? Any single one of them would be radical enough.

On the other side of things, including Armor Revamp is great (well, I hope so, didn't test it yet), new E booster, Bane Blade change and Trelord boost are great too, Agartha and Machaka boosts are always good, same with Iron Angels for Ulm (the Forge thing... uh, I dunno).

But, to sum it up, this version has too few nation balance changes allowing us to use previously obscure units, spells, etc, too few obviously needed and non-controversial changes (like removing upkeep on Ghost General), and too many massive and mostly unnecessary changes. This is all only my opinion, of course.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I find it strange that while it's called a conceptual BALANCE mod it doesnt try to fix balance, focusing on micromanagement and flavor instead.
Take, for example, Sauromatian poison archers. They are bugged and impossible to fix, thus their unerring arrows became a feature. Shouldn't they cost more to reflect that?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Festin:

So compile a list of changes that should appear. I am going to prepare one too and try convincing QM that he should make them :)

I am not sure about forge bonuses on some national mages, but it may work. It'd be cool to have some nations with N magic forge bonus.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The changes I am referring to were discussed for a long, long time both here and on the other forum, and I tried to contribute to it. Now, instead of all those things that were proposed since it was assumed that the discussion will be noticed, we get a Hammer Ban From Nowhere. I'm sorry, but I currently feel a bit de-motivated.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

What mod are you playing? Androphag archers have a gold cost two thirds times higher than their baseline.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

Ah. Indeed; its just that (almost nothing) * 3/2 = (still incredibly cheap for unerring poison arrows). :) My bad.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I feel CBM goes to the wrong direction starting with gemgen removal in 1.6. I never fully agreed to that change as it only removes from the game and adds nothing. I agree however that gemgens had to be nerfed for large games where there were hundreds of them on each side; still there are solutions to that problem that I think are more acceptable. House rules for example. Usually each starting game has some rules like not abusing LaD or not preventing movement with scouts etc. One of them could be not to build more gemgens of each type than the current turn number. Or not more than 50. Whatever. And the winner has to upload the turn archive for everyone to see that he wasn't cheating.
But when CBM removed them completely, it was too much. They represented the concept of economic investment in the game along with generating globals, SDRs and hammers. You either spend your gems now to get immediate result or invest them to get more later. And it was an important strategic choice as overinvesting can leave you without gems to deal with immediate threat.
As I said, this investment in gemgens wasn't really balanced as after initial wars it was an optimal choice in 99% cases to build more of them instead of spending. But CBM removed the choice at all instead of dealing with the problem in subtler ways.
Now the same thing happened to SDRs and hammers. I think this items add important part to gameplay as economic investment; without them we have less strategic choices. Again, I agree that after gemgen removal blood became a bit too powerful; however dealing with it in such manner is too much I think. When I played blood nations I had a choice to move into blood or research const 4 first; now it's gone. Perhaps SDRs are too cheap for what they do so maybe they should be moved to b2 - this way they will be fogeable only by more powerful mages and the mageturns for them will enter the equation; more choices as the result. As for DH, I think they are perfectly fine as they are, being the only investment in 1.6 that gives back gems of all kinds and not only of it's own.
And the MM argument is the strangest thing I've ever heard. I spend hours on late game turns and about 30-90 mins on midgame when I'm in a war - directly to click things, and who knows how much time during work day to make plans. And even with blood-heavy hations it's only about 10 minutes on huge maps to transport slaves and give items to guys that need them - I tend to forge items when I already have the unit for them. Most of the time goes into watching battles, planning, scripting and moving armies around, counting gems to give for bf spells and to scouts... Honestly, I don't think moving hammers around takes more than 5% of all the time on the turn.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I kind of agree with Dimaz that the two most recent versions have made way to big changes. The only gem gen that was problematic was the clam of pearls. The fever fetish caused disease and fire gems are rather worthless anyhow. The bloodstone was overpowered but also extremely hard to get. In fact, I can't think of a single nation that can build them without empowering or designing your pretender to build them.

All these balance problems could have been fixed by changing their cost or their build requirements. Removing them was much to drastic.

The latest version have the same problem. If an item is problematic, make it more expensive. Make it less of an must have item. That way nations that really need them can still have them and those that felt forced to use them can consider if it's worth it.

If you want to make MA Ulm more competitive you could make their black knights cheaper. As it stands even sacred cavalry like that of EA ermor and MA T'ien Ch'i cost less then the black knights and sacred cavalry is way powerful with a big fire bless.

I also did not like the general archer nerf. It made some archers, like Jomon longbows and agathar crossbows less useful then many indys.

Otherwise it's a great mod. Keep up the good work.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

The issue with gem gens is that A- the nations that "needed" them weren't necessarily the ones that got them easily (ulm, agartha, BL) and while they might make a legitimate choice in the early-mid game, they were quite seriously no brainers in the end game and made for ridiculous situations where nations would be casting multiple wishes for gems to forge more gem gens to wish for more gems. SDRs work in almost the same way as gem gens, are far easier to produce, and are even more of a no-brainer. Sure you could up their paths to b3 and cost 15 slaves, but you'd still probably end up making them since it only takes max 4-5 turns for that to pay off. Hammers are definitely a somewhat different case, but I'm wary of immediate condemnation until some testing is done, regardless of any theorycraft-driven alarmism.

Agree that MA Ulm buffs could go farther, there's really no way to raise them above bottom tier unless qm is willing to break some thematic eggs, which doesn't seem to be the case.

I have no idea what you mean about a general archer nerf. Explain?

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

There's a fair amount of nations that can do it with recruitable mages, or using nothing but path boosters.
A full list would be: Marignon, Hinnom, Gath, Abysia, Vanheim and and Pangaea. For all these nations mass-constructing blood stones was a dominant strategy.

Anyway, if you want gemgenerators brought back in it is very easy to mod it back and it (like all changes in the mod) are the houserules visualized by a few players, it's a given that it isn't going to be a perfect fit for all games. My opinion is that the gemgenerators always become problematic in longer games (PBEMs almost by definition!)

Your comments on MA Ulm is fair, Ulms troops might be superior in some ways but it isn't actually a strength when their units cost so much (Royal Guard to Black Knights?)

Although, I think there's plenty of other nations that perhaps should be buffed before (or at the same time) Ulm.

Re: CBM 1.7 released
 

I'm glad that the dominant magical sites were removed (e.g Ultimate Gateway) but from the last discussion we had about them I thought it would be more controversial.