Random Picks and Modding...

[Scott Hebert]

I doubt many of you remember me, but those that do might remember my rather silly passion for 'brute-forcing' certain things.

Well, I am currently trying to work out accurate gold costs for random picks on mages, using Illwinter's baseline as given on their website. I have discovered a rather unusual event.

It needs tweaking, but a general rule of thumb is that a fully random pick is worth 25g regardless of the mage's fixed picks. Elemental or Sorcery random picks are harder to quantify (at least, on mages that have both), but I hope to have those quantified soon.

Now, a few caveats regarding this. It assumes that the random pick is fully random; i.e., it can be any of the 8 paths, and it is not bound to any other random pick (such as in the case of Atlantis's Kings of the Deep). It also assumes that each of the 8 paths of magic are equally desirable. That is, Fire magic is no better than Air magic is no better than Death magic is no better than Astral magic. This is Illwinter's assumption on their site, and I have followed it.

What prompted this is the at-times rather obtuse pricing of mages in the game. Certain mages are drastically undercosted (High Seraphs, Circle Masters, Daughters of Avalon), while others are drastically overcosted (Master of the Five Elements, Pans). I hope the end result of my research will be a balance mod to redress this.

Something else that I hope to glean is the 'formula' for calculating the cost of commanders, beyond the very simple. I feel that I have a basic grasp of it, but the quantification of various 'specials' needs to be tightened.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I will check when I can.

[tinkthank]

Hey, this looks very nice! -- but one word of warning, if I may: With a few exceptions (most notably: The Arch Seraph, who really could be a lot more expensive in my book), the over- and under-pricednicess of mages is not something which needs much, if any, fixing, because it is itself the result of balancing. "Balancing" the mage prices without drastically changing the rest of the nations -- in essence, creating a whole new game -- would make for disaster.

[Endoperez]

Illwinter has stated, that non-standardly priced mages are priced cheaper/more expensive on purpose. However, I still think your balance mod will help by adding an option to those who don't like the current pricing.

I don't remember your name, but I remember some of your threads and ideas... I was going to link your old thread about Exalted mod and the pricing of random magics that followed from it, until I noticed who started it all...

Welcome back!

[Chazar]

Sorry, but I think that this is futile: All these pricing rules can only be rules of thumb, to ensure that user-made mods are not too unbalanced!

It would be boring if all nations would be equal, hence e.g. Caelum is defined by its cheap mages as Ulm is defined by its superior Infantry. Once these basic difference have been decided, gaming balance is then an entirely different issue. Since Caelum has cheaper mages, other nations should have other advantager or caelum should have another disadvantage, but that is an entirely different topic for a different thread.

So establishing a rough gold cost estimate is useful for modders who do not have the experience and the a lot of test-gaming-time, but still want to add new thins to the existing game (assuming it is balanced). So apart from that, what is the point then?

[Scott Hebert]

I am aware that non-standard mages are supposedly there for 'balance purposes'... but having played the game for some time, I have to question this. Let's take for example the most likely culprit, the High Seraph of Caelum.

It is RIDICULOUSLY under-priced. As I recall, it is 3A2W1?, correct? By my calculations, the price for its magic ALONE is 257.75g. Then add the base price of 30g for a commander (though I'm working on refining that), and you get 287.75. Then, let's take into account that it flies, and is cold-immune. Say another 20. That's 300g.

Caelum gets this for 175g, instead.

Well, then, I would expect to see outstandingly bad troops for Caelum (ignoring, for the present, the fact that magic always outstrips troops). Well, they're certainly fragile, for the most part. However, that is to balance that nearly all of their troops fly, and naturally have magic weapons. What non-flying troops they have are quite good, so I don't see how Caelum's 'good mages' are balanced by their 'bad troops'.

Well, what about their priests? Maybe they just have no good priests? Nope. Their only priest(ess), the Seraphine, is Holy-3 AND Stealthy. No, you really can't say they have bad priests in the least.

Well, what about bad scales? Are they balanced there? You look, and no. Far from it, in fact. They want Cold-3, which is another way of saying that they get 120 free points. Now, even if 80, say, of those points go into upping their Pretender's Dominion so that they naturally spend time in their Dominion, that's still more points than the average nation gets, and that's a higher Dominion. As it is, Cold is better than Heat because most Undead/Underwater nations take it, so it's more likely to be a Cold world than a Hot one.

So, personally, I don't see where Caelum is all that hampered by other factors that they deserve to have a mage on the order of the High Seraph, that cheaply.

For myself, I do not think that the ideas espoused for balance should work that well. Balance each part of the game against themselves, and you end with a balanced game. Balance does NOT mean equal, though. Ulm has good troops, yes... except against Undead/Magic/Giants/Armor-Piercing attacks, etc. Ulm also has a good mage, if a limited one. (The Master Smith, by ANY calculation, is undercosted.)

In any event, if/when I release a mod for the mages in the game, people who don't feel there's an imbalance in the mages don't have to use it.

[Scott Hebert]

I have finished my analysis of random picks. The 'general rule' of 25g per pure random pick is rather borne out. It gets higher with more paths, and it seems to dip on the second random pick, but it's rather set, otherwise.

I will start working on an analysis of the commanders in the game, to see if I can 'pin down' at least some of the variables involved in it. Any suggestions as to how to do this would be appreciated.

[Saber Cherry]

Commander factors, in order of importance to me:

Free Summons (e.g. Unholy / Tribal King / Wolfherd)
Magic Command
Undead Command
Amphibious
Command
Flight
Stealth
Sailing
Immunities
Protection
Has a Shield
Strat Move over 2
Survival Skills (forest, waste, etc)
Longranged Weapon (eg composite bow)
HP
Precision
Magic Resist
Other assorted bonuses (Standard, Patrol, Pillage, NNE, etc)

[Scott Hebert]

Saber Cherry said:
Commander factors, in order of importance to me:

Ah, Saber Cherry. Greetings again. If I may comment...?

Free Summons (e.g. Unholy / Tribal King / Wolfherd)

Well, Unholy already has its calculation done for me (Illwinter). Personally, I think it's about right. Unholy-3 Priests can put out a lot of Longdead, but they pay 150g for the privilege.

Tribal Kings and Wolfherds, OTOH, show that just being able to produce chaff isn't all that expensive an ability.

Magic Command
Undead Command

Granted, this is important. I imagine it will be valued at twice the equivalent amount of 'normal' leadership. This of course does not include Leadership (of any type) gained by magic, since that (presumably) is included in the cost of the magic path.

Amphibious

Again, useful. On this note, how much do you think Strategic Movement should be valued?

Command

Leadership is referred to above.

Stealth
Sailing

Sailing is a movement enhancer and as such will be valued. Stealth... not so much. I'll explain more below.

Immunities

Do you think that all immunities should be equally valued?

Protection
Has a Shield

Unless someone can tell me otherwise, Weapons and Armor will be ignored in this analysis. The reason being is that is taken into account on resources, correct? Base (inherent) Protection values will be valued accordingly.

As a base, I am looking at the basic scout. All of its stats are 10, it has no Leadership, it has Stealth(+0), and that's about it. That would lead me to believe the following:

Commander: 10
Stats: 0
Leadership: 0
Stealth(+0): 10

For a grand total of 20 points.

Now, if you 'move up' to the standard infantry commander, he loses stealth, but gains Leadership 25. This might look like the following:

Commander: 10
Stats: 0
Leadership: 20
For a total of 30 points.

From these examples, you might be able to look at the following, for base leadership:

0 - 0 points
10 - 10 points
25 - 20 points
50 - 30 points
75 - 40 points
125 (Is 100 a valid base number?) - 50 points

Does this work out to about the right amount? I don't know yet. But it's my 'working guess'. As for stats, I'm going to assign positive/negative numbers based on most stats' deviation from 10 (Str, Att, Def, Prc, Mrl, MR). Protection will simply be its number. Encumbrance on its deviation from 3 (that seems to be the human norm), with probably a larger 'bonus' if it's 0. For HPs, currently it's just like Str, but it may need to be changed. Do you think that might work, or would it be overvaluing HPs?

I'll do some more work on it, and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Scott Hebert]

Well, I have looked into Abysia. Perhaps it was not the best one to start with, but it may help matters. I'm still trying to 'tweak' the leadership numbers, but here's how it currently stands:

0 - 0
10 - 5
25 - 10
50 - 15
etc.

That's for normal leadership. Undead leadership costs twice base, magical leadership triple base.

Anyway, here are the 'breakdowns' for each Abysia (base theme) commander, for stats, leadership, and magic.

Slayer:
Commander: 10
Stats: 19
Leadership: 0
Magic: 0
Total: 29

Warlord:
Commander: 10
Stats: 18
Leadership: 15
Magic: 0
Total: 43

Beast Tamer:
Commander: 10
Stats: 16
Leadership: 20
Magic: 0
Total: 46

Anathemant Salamander:
Commander: 10
Stats: 8
Leadership: 10
Magic: 140
Total: 168

Anathemant Dragon:
Commander: 10
Stats: 11
Leadership: 10
Magic: 300
Total: 331

Warlock Apprentice:
Commander: 10
Stats: 4
Leadership: 5
Magic: 110
Total: 129

Warlock:
Commander: 10
Stats: 6
Leadership: 5
Magic: 257.5
Total: 278.5

Demonbred:
Commander: 10
Stats: 24
Leadership: 35
Magic: 200
Total: 269

Now, we have some assorted 'bennies' to hand out to the Abysians. They ALL have Heat (and thus Fire Immunity) and Wasteland Survival. In fact, that is all that the Warlord/Anathemants/Warlocks have left. Looking at the Anathemants, a cost of 30 seems to be 'about right' for Heat and Wasteland Survival.

Survival seems a weak ability, so 5 points sounds about right. That leaves 25 points for Heat. Exactly how that splits up (Heat by itself vs. the Fire Immunity... probably thinking 20 for Immunity), I'm not concerned yet. In any event, that seems to work there, so adding...

Slayer:
Subtotal: 19
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 49

Warlord:
Subtotal: 43
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 73

Beast Tamer:
Subtotal: 46
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 76

Anathemant Salamander:
Subtotal: 168
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 198

Anathemant Dragon:
Subtotal: 331
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 361

Warlock Apprentice:
Subtotal: 129
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 159

Warlock:
Subtotal: 278.5
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 308.5

Demonbred:
Subtotal: 269
Heat: 25
Survival: 5
Total: 299

Okay. The Warlord comes out more expensive than in the actual game, but the Beast Trainer and the Anathemants are more or less right on, as far as costs go. (Commander costs always seem to be rounded to the nearest multiple of 5.) The Warlock Apprentice and the Warlock are also a little overcosted, but they are capital-only, and so that may or may not be important. (I may have gotten the Warlock's magic calculation wrong as well, so I'm going to recheck that.)

The Beast Trainer supposedly has Animal Awe, but I doubt that really makes much of an impact, and so it's 0. Judging from the Slayer, Assassin (and Stealthy +5 to go with it) seems worth 30 points, so that's what I'm using there. As for the Demonbred, he's the real oddball. He's already over his 'normal' cost, and I haven't adjusted for Flying yet.

Anyway, I might take a look at Blood of Humans, and maybe Pythium, and get back to you guys some refinements.

[The_Tauren13]

I would give the captiol only guys -10% or so simply because they are cap only. Makes sense that capitol only mages should be cheaper, as they are 'exclusive'.