[Valerius]

Originally Posted by LoloMo

Is the spell mists of deception still banned? Do we start with 12 provinces or do we start with just the capital and expand as normal? I would certainly play again!

MoD is still banned. I think at this point the only spell change on my to-do list is making Hidden in Sand castable in all terrains. This provides an opportunity to obtain a fire mage as well as another option for S magic if your D income is poor and you can't afford spectres.

Originally Posted by LoloMo

Do we start with 12 provinces or do we start with just the capital and expand as normal?

This is the big question. We can certainly get everything done that we need to by using map commands. If we go this route I can either do the work myself as a player (in which case we'd all know our neighbors and their fort locations ahead of time) or I can step into an admin role and take care of all this. I can ask rdonj to help out but it takes time to do this (even more so if we go to 8 players) and I don't want to impose.

Another option would be to start the game as normal (maybe everyone gets 3 starting provinces?) and there would be an expansion phase as in a normal game - the big exception being that there's no need to site search conquered indies.

Originally Posted by LoloMo

I would certainly play again!

Glad to hear it! So by my count that makes you, Squirrelloid, LDiCesare and myself (unless I only admin). What about you, NooBliss?

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Valerius, regarding proposed rules for next game:
1)Ok, I get the other items, but why no heroes blades?

Of the misc. changes this was the one I was most on the fence about. In the end I included it as a measure to protect pretenders - which I figured would be the only giant size SCs in the game.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

2)If you want to discuss proper blood spell costs, I'd be happy to, since I've been doing quite a bit of thinking on the matter

Sure, sounds good. Obviously you're going to make some price adjustments in the next release of your mod but comparing the current release with the ThreeFort pricing it seems like in some instances your price was higher than mine, in others vice versa. But the big difference is that I eliminated many spells. I'm willing to put some of those back in but, in the context of this game, there are some I'd like to still leave out: Ice Devils (self explanatory), Infernal Disease (too cheap and too low level in CBM, even given high casting requirements - even more important I think has the potential to be un-fun and take away from this game - lastly, there's no earth attack or manifestation so I see no need for this either), Blood Rite (you know my whole gripe with immortal units). Stuff I'd consider putting back in but have concerns about price: Rain of Toads (especially concerning in a game with limited forts), Send Lesser Horror (bit of a price boost might be enough here), Bind Succubus (this one isn't a problem I think it just got caught up in my nerfing other aspects of blood).

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

3)I presume we aren't allowed to forge the 'downgraded' artifacts - they're there so events have something to work with and that's it.

Yes, exactly. It's mainly the honor system but I'll set them all to have max forging cost to avoid accidents.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

4)Might want to consider changing eras, maybe LA?

The problem here is that I really don't like LA. I like EA but the list of OP nations expands considerably compared to MA. I'd like to stick with MA this time but if the next game turns out to be fun and there's a third we could switch eras (though if we went with LA I'd need a lot of feedack on balance since I so rarely play it).

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Game is mysteriously still running, despite having received teh 'game ending' email. I just got a turn! I'll be ignoring the game, since its supposed to be dead.

This is a perfect example of why I think immortality is OP! Ok, I tried killing it again, let's see if this one sticks.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

That magma eruption was still pretty killer. Arrow Fend does nothing about that, I had to use screens of chaffe to stop it from totally destroying me.

I was wondering about magma eruption as well. Tough thing about the fatigue, though. But also, doesn't Bandar have some armored troops that could be boosted up to around 20 protection with Wooden Warrriors (the only protection buff with a decent AOE under these settings)? It seems like those troops would be largely immune to blade wind, but maybe I'm underestimating massed blade wind?