Do you use CBM?
 

This is a poll to find out how many in the community use CBM.

PS If you make a poll, don't have any typos. Because you can't edit it.

"Enen" -----> "Even"

PPS Gahhrgh! How do I change my poll? There needs to be a poll editor! I forgot the most important poll option:

8) No, because everyone got buffs except for Fomoria!

If you want to vote for option 8 (or anything else) then please post below.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

This Fomoria neglect is an absolute outrage!

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I can already tell you that many on this forum use CBM.
However on other Dom3 forums its much less used. They know of it, there just isnt the pressure to use it.

As far as the poll, my answer isnt quite on there. No I dont use CBM. On the other hand, I dont play it vanilla the way the devs made it either. I use many mods that extensively change the game, just not the way CBM tries to.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I find that some of CBM's changes are unthematic and geared towards powergaming.
And the game is sufficiently challenging for me as it is.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I like the idea of not having to base so much strategy around gem production and hammers, so I use CBM. I also appreciate llama's desire to increase the usefulness of certain items and units, though I'm not sure he always succeeds. However I'm fairly inexperienced at the game and never experienced MP WITHOUT CBM, so I don't think I have a great feel for how the game is in vanilla.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Those choices are rather obnoxiously formulated, are they not?

Nevertheless I voted for the first alternative, but a comment is in order.
I prefer vanilla over CBM, especially for MP, but I do try to keep abreast of what happens in CBM and play it occasionally. There are parts of CBM that are nice, but as a whole it is not.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I'm not 100% fine with all the CBM changes, but all in all it's a lot better than vanilla for multiplayer. I personally would have to say that anyone not using CBM or some similiar mod in multiplayer will either be a lot more limited with nation choices or just not have as balanced game, both of which are bad.

For singleplayer nothing matters anyway. It's too easy regardless of if you use CBM or not and AI is far too stupid for the game to be balanced in any way regardless of any game mechanical nation balance.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

+1!

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

People who don't like CBM changes - it's hard for me to consider these issues without knowing what they are. What bits aren't you so keen on?

Hmm, well theme is of course an entirely subjective thing so I guess it's inevitable that there will be some disagreement on these issues. But I do hope that people realise that one of qm's strongest principles (which I have tried to maintain) is that theme should always come first. In any question of balance vs theme, theme should always win out. What changes do you consider unthematic?

I don't understand the powergaming comment. I guess I don't even know what that means. CBM tries to make OP strategies not OP, while also making very weak strategies feasible.

It's hard to comment in this thread without appearing defensive, but that's not how I'm intending to write, I'm just interested in people's opinions.

I should also say again that in a sense I'm speak for qm here, since CBM is almost entirely his work. I've inherited the mod so I'm interested in people's opinions, but qm should take all the credit.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I assume you mean in MP, not SP?

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Even SP can be challenging (unless of course you make statements about SP vanilla compared to MP modded).

And I avoided it before but I will also add +1 to previous comments. I loved CBM under its original creator (Zen, back in Dom2 days) but less and less as time goes on. I know what they want it to be, but I just didnt see it that way. Particularly in shutting down strategies. The "game killer" things they fixed did not seem to really be the automatic-end-of-game they were touted to be except in a particular group of gamers.

And now CBM has come so incredibly far. IIRC no nation is untouched? And almost all answers, guides, wiki pages, etc have to say whether its the CBM or Vanilla version being answered for. It seems difficult for anyone to play in both so they are forced to choose either one type game or the other to become proficient in.

DISCLAIMER: only my humble opinion of course

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I will try to give a sort of general answer here, since you ask. If you want a longer discussion, we should perhaps take it in the latest CBM thread.

If you cannot understand the comments about power, you should try to look at CBM with Vanilla in mind, not an old CBM-version.

Look at it like this:

Scales are more powerful.
Sure, order is down a percentage point, but production is up two and the population growth of the growth-scale, as well as both values of the luck scale, is increased.

Pretenders are more powerful.
Sure some are toned down a bit and a few are the same, but the majority of them are cheaper or better - frequently both. This includes staples such as the master lich and the great enchantress.

Recruits are more powerful.
Sure, there are a few that have increased costs in some form, but the changes across the board are decreased gold cost, decreased resource cost and decreased encumbrance.

While the removal of hammers and gem generators make cost comparisons rather dicey when it comes to forging, it is quite clear that, in general, items in CBM require less research, less paths and are frequently more powerful, too.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Understand that I am not saying that this is necessarily bad, but CBM is rather clearly a souped up version of the game if we consider power. My own concerns with CBM is not so much a general power-up - as long as relative power stays acceptable in MP I do not really mind that much - but that the particulars of it has created some rather unfortunate effects.

As for theme, it is indeed a question of perspective and it is a term shock-full of preconceptions in a context such as this. Perhaps it is better to talk about the character of nations. The changes to some nations changes how they play and feel rather severely. I think MA Man may serve as a decent example.

In vanilla this is a nation with a very small holy component. There is a h1 priest recruitable everywhere as well as the sacred mother, but otherwise it is mundane recruits all the way. In the capital you have the sacred wardens and their captains in addition to crones and daughters. Note that the even the capital-only top elite troop option is not sacred. Clearly in other than very small and quick games sacred troops and priests form a very small part of Man's arsenal. In CBM on the other hand you suddenly have three priests recruitable everywhere and the recruitment of wardens is similarly extended. Even the Knights of Stone have been rendered sacred.

What I am trying to get across here, is that even though this of course can be considered in keeping with the general thematics of MA Man, it clearly changes the general character of the nation.

For my own part, I also do not quite understand what these particular changes are supposed to fix. If Man has a problem, it is the lack of built in end-game. None of the changes really address that. What I see when I look at the changes to MA Man, is a mod trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole.


I hope this makes some things a bit clearer.


To speak of myself, I try to keep up with what happens in CBM and play it a bit now and then, so I sometimes enjoy discussions concerning it, but things will have to change rather much before I prefer it to vanilla. My play-style and CBM simply do not suit each other particularly well.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I generally play whatever the latest version of CBM is, or whatever version happens to be used by whatever mp game I may be in. If I'm playing SP, I will also almost always use the latest version of CBM, unless I really want to use some other mod that isn't compatible with it and can't be bothered to fix up the ID conflicts. CBM tends to make pretender choices and the early game especially more interesting, by actually allowing you to spend your early gem income without feeling like you're shooting yourself in the foot by wasting gems. The newest CBM changes leave me a bit confused because I haven't really had the chance to explore them yet, and there have been a lot of content updates recently. This is a good thing for the continuation of the mod, and there were some very desirable changes in there. I am a bit worried though that in the llamabeast era CBM could get swamped with changes and be difficult to keep up with, because the llama is a much more prolific modder than QM, and willing to make bigger and more controversial changes.

As far as "game killers" being fixed, I would argue that CBM hasn't really attempted to kill game killers for the most part. Turning clams into uniques is probably the closest thing to that. Aside from that I would say that it's more CBM making the game more enjoyable for late game play by increasing the number of ways you can attempt to win. Vanilla far too often devolved into the exact same endgame every time, and is a lot more painful to manage later on, especially if you're actually winning.

That said I still do play vanilla mp games from time to time, and various other things that don't necessarily have anything to do with CBM. But I vastly prefer to play CBM games.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

CBM, vanilla, whatever... it's all good. Llama has put a lot of work into CBM and I think a lot of people make uninformed assumptions about the changes. When I play SP, I don't use it because I have my own megamod I use. When I play MP, I am as equally happy playing with it as I am vanilla.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I think most of that is accounted for by the style of balancing used--people tend to get bent out of shape by making overtuned strategies/units less powerful, and they get excited when lackluster units/pretenders get enhanced to be in line with the power of other options. A lot of the point of all this is to make it "worth it" to not just go with the default strategies but to allow people to experiment without being unduly punished for it.

Pretenders getting 'extras' might be the most useful to talk about. There are a lot of choices for most nations, pretender-wise. Many of them are rather similar, with only one difference in paths(usually not even paths the nation wants on a pretender, even). Unless the pretenders give you different things, things that are worth it, people will tend to just pick one of the two or so 'good' chassis and ignore the rest. I can't think of a different way to make it so a player feels they have lots of genuinely good pretender options to choose from. They have to serve slightly different purposes or go about doing something in different ways. I'm liking CBM's current balancing of Wyrm/Manticore/Dragon...they're all viable expanders, but with different strengths and weaknesses and magic access. And to make that choice not obvious, the Manticore and Dragons had to get a few advantages they didn't before.

I do definitely understand what you're getting at, though. I'm not sure I would call it power gamey, though.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Perhaps will try sometime, but for now I'm more than happy with a little personal modding.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Nope. SP, medium AI.

I don't really go so much for strategy, and I will willingly squander gems and resources just to get a thematic army. That sets me back a bit.



Also, I heard that people who use CBM rape puppies, and I don't want to be associated with that.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I don't use CBM. That said, I play hotseat multiplayer, and nobody other than me uses much other than the game itself, and possibly glances at the wiki periodically.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

@brxbrx
I'm surprised at your answer, and interested. I only play SP, vanilla. Like you I squander a bit and play around, just to have fun/experiment/theme. And I am useless at computer games, not like the experts here! Yet I am up to "Hard" AI now, and never lose --- I don't think I've even ever lost a single castle to the AI. Love the game, but finding the AI lacking (not surprisngly, and no I don't have any time/commitment for MP). Don't do CBM as been told it certainly doesn't help the AI. So, how do your settings/play help make the AI "challenging", I'd actively like to know? (Perhaps a different thread?)

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Maybe I'm just worse than you?

Also, I like to play on large maps, like Glory of the Gods, with a bunch of players. And I sometimes make reckless early game decision which results in slow expansion. So I often find myself beating back enemies from all sides with only a few dozen provinces to my name.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Nope, nobody could be worse than me ;)

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I play almost entirely Solo now.
Here is a pretty good thread about boosting the AI with recommendations on settings, maps, mods, 3rd party programs, etc
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44783

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

The thing about this is, CBM goes to significant effort to make thematic choices more viable. Pretenders, troops, spells; the lot of em. Just because it is conceived for multiplayer doesnt lesson its value for singleplayer in any way, really. The only thing it strips out of the game entirely are gem generation farms.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Because llamabeast asked why people do not like CBM and because I'm one of those, I want to answer here and give my humble opinion.

Of course, I'm not an expert. I did not play a hundred games. And I did not play games for some couples of month now, so I did not play with CBM 1.8+. Nevertheless, here are some thought about CBM < 1.8 :

I understand that the point is to balance the vanilla version. I think we can more or less balance things : scales are the first exemple coming into my mind, some spells costs, some troops costs. But perfect balance was obviously not aimed at by the conceptors and I am pretty sure that perfect balance is 1 - utopic + 2 - boring.

Also, you shall have noticed that I emphasized on the some adverb. Some modifications are interesting, a lot of modifications are... well.. a question of taste. As of CBM 1.7, it's more than a lot of modifications. It's the entire game that has been modified. And what is more interesting from my humble point of view is that on CBM 1.7, things were still on the edge on changing. I guess (but it's only my guess) that 1.9+ is not an exception to the rule. The policy of CBM only leads to more changes, more re-balancing, more mods and more stuff. Each version add new stuff that adds new unbalanced features that invites to a new version that add new stuff etc. Infinite loop.

I think that such infinite loops are the sign that something went wrong with the algorithm. I also think that vanilla version really needs some balance, but a modest one. It could be really interesting, now that players and modders share a lots of experience with various flavours of CBM and other mods, to plan another 'balance mod' from vanilla, a new BM who would aim to be a modest and a stable one.

That said, I'm not firing at anyone here and I very well know that QM and llamabeast did a lot of valuable and generous work for the community. When I don't like a mod, I just don't play with it and I do not have any problem with other people - more experienced or playing more games than I do - using specialized mods.

Cheers from limbo,
H.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I thought Dominions was supposed to be unbalanced.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I wouldn't call it an infinite loop--the balance chaos since 1.7 was almost all a result of the hammer change, so I would characterize it more as punctuated equilibrium. That one change(and SDRs becoming unique I suppose) threw a lot of stuff off-balance--a lot of that was simply that almost every strategy was affected and it took a while for people to understand the changes well enough to be able to rebalance things. Only just now are item prices settling down from the disruption. And a lot of that is simply that it takes months usually to get good feedback on changes because games take a while.

It's almost impossible to make both a modest and a stable balance mod. For instance, say you wanted to not have gem generators(a noble enough goal). This *greatly* disrupts the balance of most every nation, alters the relative value of various pretenders, and wreaks havok with prices for many items and summons. At that point, your modest mod either becomes rather far-ranging or loses all semblance of balance. And likely no matter what you'll fail to account for a few of the hundreds of spells and variables in the game and have to go through a few development cycles to catch things.

All that being said, in my mind CBM isn't a balance mod in that sense--it isn't about making all the nations perfectly balanced with each other(as you said, that's impossible and perhaps even boring). Instead it's about opening up possibilities and making otherwise useless options usable. I think a better description is that CBM wants every spell, every unit, every item to have a legitimate use in serious play, even if that is a fairly obscure niche. It wants people to see even occasionally Ziz(hey, they might be really nice with medallions of Vengeance these days. I'll have to look into that) and other really really useless things in play because they're cheap enough and useful enough that someone will find a way to do something awesome with them.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I know thats the pitch. But I personally do not agree that its the result. I dont feel that it opens up tactics. But it does close some.

For MP play, of certain groups on certain map sizes and certain game settings then it does seem to open some things up. It doesnt make them possible, it just seems to make them more spreadsheet balanced in order to make them a viable strategy for winning. I also have never been thrilled with the "thematic" changes to some of my favorite races such as Pangaea and Caelum. Making them "balanced" for small tight maps and king-of-the-hill games doesnt really work for me. Just IMHO

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Lots of interesting comments in this thread.

Regarding the "infinite loop" comment, I think that kianduatha's comment does a good job of explaining why that hopefully isn't the case. I think that the recent large number of changes have been caused by three things:

1) The uniqueification of hammers. This is the second really big and IMO brave change made by qm, the first being removing gem generators. At the time that was hugely controversial, but I think most people would agree now that it was a good change. The hammer change is possibly still somewhat controversial but I think many people like it; that's a discussion for elsewhere anyway. Regardless it did lead to a need for some rebalancing since it affected some nations and strategies more than others.

2) An attempt to make all items useful*. This was my big project in 1.9, although qm worked on it in 1.8 too. Hopefully, unless I have made a lot of mistakes, there should be little need to make many changes to items in future.

3) An attempt to bring weaker nations somewhat up to par. For a long time this wasn't really attempted, and MA Ulm for instance languished as borderline hopeless. Hopefully 1.9 has covered most of the nations which needed help. There may be need for a couple of tweaks if I have got things wrong, and maybe there are another couple of nations who need some help (Yomi perhaps). But again I hope we are most of the way there.

I think there is room for some significant attention to be paid to pretenders (where there are still some which are pretty useless, particularly national pretenders), so that may be the next area to focus on. But the objective is for the mod to settle into a kind of equilibrium.

--

Gandalf - you seem to have the firm opinion that CBM is balanced around small blitz games, but I don't know where that comes from. Certainly I don't lean that way and it's not obvious that qm did. Consider gem gens for example - they're probably fairly reasonable for small games (4 players or so), and only become monstrous in larger games. Anyway I don't really understand much of your comment so I guess we're not going to get anywhere.

Out of interest, what "thematic" changes to Pangaea do you find objectionable? I'm not familiar with the Pangaea changes.


* - This is a reasonable place to address a common concern about CBM. People might think that for example by making all items useful, there is a danger of making them all the same and removing the interesting diversity from the game. I've tried very hard to avoid that - rather the idea is to make all items *potentially* useful. Some items will be very niche in their use, but if a player finds just the right situation and plans ingeniously, hopefully they will not be punished for trying to use an unusual item.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Care to explain a bit? What changes to them don't you like?

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

As a newcomer who was playing only vanilla few months ago, i have to say that i ve been fully converted to CBM.

The main reason of my choice is the removal of gems gen and to expect something else than tartarian rush in end game.

The other thing i like, which doesn't seem to be the case for everybody (and i m quite surprise about that), is the constant adding of stuff in it. Before i came here (and discovered CBM) i was already constantly discovering new stuff/spells in the vanilla version, but with CBM i have almost the feeling to play a new game with all this added stuff to be discovered.

I also like the big effort done about balancing weakest things like some nations, pretenders and crafts... Why should this game stay unbalanced like i read few posts above ? Maybe it's fun to know that some nations are weaker for thematic reason, but what is the interest if they are not played? or by people who last 10 turns in the game ?

Ofc there is still some balancing to do and with so many stuff, balancing will be a constant preoccupation.

Now it s a noobie observation, focusing MP, so maybe it's not fully relevant. But the main purpose of this post, beside giving my point, is to encourage the Llama and all people working on it to continue this great job !

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

It took a long time for me to come to accept CBM. I didn't try all the older versions, preferring to watch it evolve from afar.

1.6 (gem gens) convinced me since I hate MM and not a fan of high hidden tanking economies inflated by wishing.

I think QM and llama are doing a good job of directing CBM to make the game more interesting and more balanced in the sense that more options are valid.
Vanilla dom has nations, items, spells and pretender that are either weak, useless, eclipsed by some better version or a combination of. CBM does quite a good job of addressing that.

It ain't perfect. nothing is. However I think the approach is good and the modders are capable and have a clear vision so that not every random whim would make it, far from it.

1.9 looks up to be a good version. I'm looking forward to the pretenders work and I think by then CBM would be mostly done.

IMHO it polishes the dominions gem to shine even brighter.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I agree with most of your post, and on this point precisely. But as a matter of fact, removing gem gens or hammers is not what I call modest modding ;).

BTW, I tend to avoid CBM since these features have been removed. The point is that all MP games are using CBM anyway, so I stepped to 1.6. And stopped MPs after that point.

I also happily admit that there are indeed pretenders who need to be balanced, and nations, and spells. I just stopped following to CBM when re-balancing began to mean rewriting. CBM 1.5 is IMHO the best version so far and I now SP with this mod.

Anyway, I'll give a try to 1.9+ one day or another. Just for sake of curiosity, you know :angel

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I don't think CBM was ever intended as a modest mod. Just make certain tactics and nations more viable/fun. Clamming towards victory isn't really fun. And with clams, it is the only way to win.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I like some parts of CBM, mainly the additions to certain nations.

I don't like change for the sake of change. Justification for excessive value fiddling in the name of 'balance' seems a bit disingenuous to me.

Some balance issues are entirely dependant on the type of game being played. Short, Blitz games require entirely different tactics and playstyles to grindfests on massive maps, for example. Any modification to balance one style of play, can have a major influence on the 'balance' of a different style of game.

Having said that, I'll still use CBM for some MP games. I'll have to adjust my play style, but that keeps the game interesting. I won't use the mod exclusively, though.

No disrespect to the people responsible for developing the mod, as they obviously put a lot of work into it. At the very least it keeps the modding community alive and active.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I wouldn't really call CBM built for short blitz games. No one really uses CBM for blitzing. We do have a tendency to play games with no more than 20ish players, on maps of approximately 15 provinces per player. But even a six player game can last for 60 or more turns before a winner emerges. But that still means we're playing on maps that can be anywhere from 70 to 300+ provinces. It's not an insignificant range, and MP games don't really get much bigger than that. I think you'll find that CBM was used in the largest games on these forums in the past too, like Kingmaker.

Also what you see as excessive value fiddling in many cases is just the least controversial way to give nations small buffs or nerfs without getting people all upset :) And in many cases it can go a long way just making small changes to a few units. Like in SC2 where just changing the max range of a unit by 1 suddenly is a big deal.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Some people just don't get it. Balancing a game is something that is done in loops. You changed something, you test it. Any new balance issues that crop up, you change. Redo from start.

Balancing is fiddling with values. Just like Rdonj said, one point more or less here or there can make a big difference. No asymmetrical game has ever been balanced from the start. Even blizzard makes changes to their games years later. (Sure they collect a lot more data, have ****loads of cash etc).

And CBM was not designed with a specific type of game in mind. At least they never say so. Sure it gets used a lot in certain types of games, like rdonj describes. But it was not designed for that purpose. If you come up with that argument again. Give proof. As CBM was trying to give more diverse possible strategies, not to balance the game for a specific type of game.

The "I don't like CBM" camp is spreading so much disinformation about what CBM was supposed to be about. It is mind boggling. (You know who you are.) And if you think that CBM is overpowered, give the various Awesomemods a whirl. Ninjadebugger is a fan of the more is more philosophy.

Ps, Deathblob, I love you!

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I get why certain changes were made. But sometimes I'll go through a unit roster or spell list and see changes that make no sense whatsoever. It's like someone just decided to fiddle with the numbers for the sake of it, not with any obvious goal in mind. That is the part of CBM that grates on me.

In my opinion, 60% of the mod is gold. The rest leaves me scratching my head. You want proof of why I feel this way? I can't provide it, as my opinion is not something that can be debated.

What I can do is provide examples of alterations that make no sense to me. I don't see the point of that though, as it will undoubtedly decrease the signal to noise ratio of this thread dramatically. I can PM them to you if you like, perhaps then you can explain how these changes 'create more diverse strategies', without getting this thread locked.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

No you son of a cokefiend, I wanted proof of the people who said: CBM is designed for gametype X.

If you have specific questions regarding CBM, move them over to the CBM discussion threads.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Well, I can't argue with your perception, but I think it goes without saying that that isn't the case.

Actually, I'm interested. A couple of examples would be good.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Insulting my mother is completely unneccesary.

Sure. Give me a few hours, as I want to include Vanilla attributes for comparison. I'll PM them to you when I get around to it.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I was referring to your nick. A bit Charlie Sheenish now isn't it ;).

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

It'd be nice to have them in the thread so people could discuss them--I know I'm interested in what changes people think are arbitrary :)

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

Here are few changes I have noticed, mainly from playing MP games. I think the great majority of options provided by CBM are positive, please do not misunderstand me. I just do not undestand why certain alterations were necessary. As I have only examined the differences of nations that I have played in MP, I can only provide a limited amount of data based on play experience.

EA

Kailasa (assuming mod references altered the specific unit type, rather than creating a new unit, these changes will be present in Bandar Log and Patala)

Atavi and Bandar archers have attack and defence decreased. The reduced attack score only matters when they run out of ammunition, or forced into melee. The reduced defence puzzles me.

Bandar swordsmen seemed to have reduced morale. At first I thought that all Bandar were nerfed, but on closer examination, it was only the swordsmen.

Naga have awe?


Ulm.

Big changes across the board, those that I have noticed seem to be thematic. Such as ambidexterity and berserk. Berserk on multi attacking, high damage, recruit everywhere units seems a bit overpowered to me, even taking fatigue into consideration.


Agartha.

Mountain survival?

A lot of the units seem to have slight increase to base protection as well as an increase to hp.


MA

Machaka.

Spider armour defence penaty increased and encumberance reduced by one. With alterations to weapon values, spider warriors and bane spiders end up +1 attack -1 defence and encumberance.

Black Hunter MR increase. Major increase to their Hunter Spider secondshape, results in an animal-type with above average MR.



Just a few observations from recent mp games. Many weapon and armour stats have been changed, of course resource and gold costs. Many of the changes made, make a certain amount of sense and are consistent with the Dominions 'mythology.' The intent behind other changes is not so clear to me. I can provide a more extensive list if you would like, but I do not want to appear overly critical.

No drama, sorry to be over-sensitive. The Warlock is my idol.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

That's a change from way back, 1.4 if not earlier. Most archer-types got reduced melee stats in order to make them less of all-rounders--if archers can hold their own against melee in a fight, then there's no real need to have normal troops except as arrow catchers. Also the change makes light cavalry and other flankers comparatively more effective.

Nagas...are bad. And Awe is thematic for other entities in the Kailasan mythology and give the nagas at least niche uses. The change is mostly for LA though.

I've seen some games with EA Ulm in it after the change and they've been useful but not overpowering--remember that basically nobody used those multi attacking, high damage troops before the change because the female troops were simply better. Now the two are each better in different situations.

Also a bit of strength. The mountain survival's only purpose was to give the map move 2 units actually map move 2 in the mountains(which makes sense, cuz they'd be using caves to get through). The hp/prot increases were to try and make Agartha's national troops actually worth it to use--Squirreloid has some math somewhere that basically says that even in darkness Pale One Militia still lost to indy militia, which is downright embarassing. This should help a bit with that.

I'm honestly not sure why the spider armor defense penalty increased--that change was from a long time ago and I don't quite understand it. The encumbrance reduction was part of a global change to make heavy armor less bad by lowering armor encumbrance values.

Black Hunters have been a trap to actually use for a long time--and the Hunter Spiders especially have been more or less useless, not least because of their abysmal MR. As long as their MR is so low, you basically have to leave them behind in any late game engagement, just like Machaka's other spiders. This differentiate between the two role-wise, which is nice. They still aren't worth using a bless on, but they work well for several uses even without the bless.

A more specific list would be great--it's always nice to get people's impressions of these things.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

im a fan of CBM and i never play without it.

i recall in a cbm 1.8 game, ma agartha got some auto-darkness added to its PD, but i did run some tests and now it seems non-existent. what happened?

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

I think it was removed, and made into a spell.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

thanks, i got it now: avatar of darkness.

i think the ma agarthan auto-darkness PD was way OP, im glad it got changed.

Re: Do you use CBM?
 

The awe was indeed an attempt to find a thematic way to buff the previously alnost-useless nagas. Their uselessness seemed a shame given that they are the focus of the nation (Patala). If you read their descriptions it says a lot about how they are otherworldly, and bedecked in glittering jewelry. Snakes are also well known for their (mythical?) ability to hypnotise weak-minded beings, so the change seemed to me to fit in very nicely.

All Pale Ones got general buffs to hp and strength, and very slight buffs to natural protection. Pale Ones are pretty awful all round. One option would be to up their attack and defense, but I really didn't want to do that - their rubbish combat skills are part of what makes them unique. It's even a part of their tragic theme (they *really* shouldn't have emerged to fight a war on the surface). But they are already thick-skinned, tough and strong, so emphasising those traits seemed like a good approach to me.

The mountain survival was before my time but seems to make sense to me. They live among rocks and caves, and you could generalise and say lots of mountains have caves, and wherever there are caves the Agarthans have a big mobility advantage.

All the other changes are from before my time, but kianduatha's explanations sound good to me.