Re: Mod Balance Guide, Magic Paths
--ASTRAL--
Astral is obviously a big deal.
Acess to astral 1 is worth an extra 4 points.
Non-capital only astral mages may be good as communion slaves. Give yourself 500/cost for your cheapest non-capital-only mage who us guaranteed an astral. If they're not guaranteed astral, scale to the chance.
If you get astral-3 with better than 10% frequency, even in your capital, your nation has access to the higher level astral boosts, and is a potential mindhunter. This is worth 2 points.
Finally, astral is great for thugs. If you have a giant slavering monster with access to astral magic, give yourself 2 points.
--DEATH--
Death 1 is a significant breakpoint and worth 2 extra points.
Death 2 is also worth 2 extra points.
Death 3 is a significant breakpoint for thugs. If you have a giant slavering monster with death 3, give yourself 2 points.
--EARTH--
Earth 2 is a *huge* breakpoint, worth 6 extra points.
--BLOOD--
Blood 1 is a significant breakpoint, worth 2 extra points. It's generally assumed that you could boost/empower from there if needed.
--COMBINATIONS--
Each of the following combinations, if they appear together with >10% frequency on any unit, are worth an extra point (they're listed in reverse path precedence):
blood + fire, water, air, nature
nature + water, UNLESS you have nature 3 anyway
death + astral
astral + earth (worth 2 points)
water (1+) + fire (3+) (worth 2 points)
air (3+) + earth (2+)
Each of the following combinations, if they appear together on a non-capital only unit, is worth the listed number of points divided by the cost of the unit. The noticably-effective spam spell is listed in parens.
death + astral (nether darts), 500
earth (2+) + fire (magma eruption), 250
I'll flesh this list out later.
Tomorrow I'll post some sample path selections and see if people think they really are balanced.
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If you read his speech at Rice, all his arguments for going to the moon work equally well as arguments for blowing up the moon, sending cloned dinosaurs into space, or constructing a towering *****-shaped obelisk on Mars. --Randall Munroe
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