Discussion of the LA Mods balance

[Tuidjy]

Please let me start by thanking Ich and Sombre for organizing the series of modded
games. The nations in play are wonderful, and I am enjoying playing Ulm Reborn
or "Late Ulm got Religion" more than I have enjoyed any other Dominions game.

I have a few notes on balance, and I am sure that other players from all of the
series of games will have theirs. Please, use this thread for discussing what
you would like to see changed.

[Tuidjy]

1. Some of the commanders of Ulm Reborn have rather high hit points. They are
encroaching on giant territory. Their high combat stats can be explained, but
health should remain in the human range. Replace 5 or 10 of their hit points
with a slight boots in endurance (i.e. reduction of their natural encumberance)

2. The demonic/vampiric cavalry of Sangvinia is much too powerful. Regeneration,
life drain and two additional attacks, very high stats, heavy armor
with zero defense penalty, and a shield make them able to go through anything but
massed high level priests without casualties.

From purely a consistancy point of view, I also hate seeing an unit that has a
weapon, a life drain attack and a shield. I can rationalize the vampire
commanders who have a rapier and life drain as extremely agile swashbucklers who
find the time to take a bite from their victims. But a heavily armoured guy on a
demonic steed with a sword and a shield should not be able to do so.

3. Sangvinia's Original Vampire is a game strategy by itself. Extreme stealth,
assassinatiom ability, immortality, all the vampiric tricks - great. But his
second form is much too powerful when you consider that with his stealth 20 he
will be only fighting by choice. Elemental immunities, high hit points, huge
regeneration, and an area attack which I believe cannot be resisted with armour
or magic resistance. No bodyguards will do anything but delay him, and both
forms are immortal. I nailed him with a close range blade wind, and my priests
had managed to convert the province, so baring bugs I have seen the last of him,
but I dare say that he is too powerful. Little else can stop the second form
in an assassination.

4. New Jomon needs a way to deal with archers. At this time, their only chance
is to launch cat demons at the archers. But despite their high hps and morale,
there is no guarantee that they will make it, and Nekoni are damn expensive to
be used this way. But I am sure Jazzepi has more insight on that one.

5. The dwarfs need real crossbows, not instead, but in addition to the repeater
ones. They could also use a bit stronger magic. Not much, just a chance to
get a level three somewhere. I believe that my opponent just did not tailor
his troops to mine, and that the dwarfs are not that underpowered, but their
late game right now relies purely on the pretender.

[Sombre]

1. The hp on some commanders will be toned down.

2. I'm not sure it's really too powerful. It's very expensive, it isn't sacred and because it's a demon stuff like cleansing bell blasts it into little pieces. It's also cap only and fairly hard to amass. I have to compare it to other elite heavy cavalry in the game, which in CBM is quite a bit stronger than in base. I could nerf it a bit I suppose. The life drain+weapons is a bit unusual, but it's pretty easy to explain - the Blood Drakes are demons who use their innate magical powers to drain the life from their foes. They don't need to stoop to conquer, so to speak. That said, I could change the unit and remove life drain from them entirely and still make sure they're very useful.

3. I think the fact that you killed him yourself with a black priest says something about this unit. He isn't a strategy by himself at all, he's just a very powerful hero. Perhaps he is too powerful though, I can take a look at this.

4. Launching Nekoni at the archers would be an incredibly dense thing to do, because they have terrible prot. A better strat would be using decoys, flanking cav and the heavily armoured dog samurai, who have great morale. They're too slow tho reach the archers quickly, yes, but you can still use them as an arrow shield. Jomon aren't getting shields. In the next version they with have a massable mindless undead summon, but if you use them as an arrow shield, they'll get shot to pieces. I'm currently of the opinion that Sylvania's archers/sacreds are still overpowered, so I wouldn't use them to judge how effective jomon are versus typical missile fire.

5. In the next version repeater crossbows will be slightly cheaper, making them more viable. Giving them a regular crossbow as well would require me adding or severely changing a unit. This isn't exactly my mod, so I'm reluctant to do so. As for magic, they have a chance, a 1/3 chance IIRC to get level 3 in water. So they have a solid chance to get magic maxes of W3E2F2D2. Considering they're a late age nation that isn't too fond of magic, that seems fine to me. Finally, the reason you walked through the dwarves is because HoneyBadger made the worst start I have ever even heard of with them. 10+ turns and two provinces. Enough said. Balance considerations for the dwarves should stem from the second mod game, not this one where they had no chance.

[Tuidjy]

2. Yes, they can be banished. But that's all. They cannot be fought or shot. And
you can go through pretty much any indies with six of them, which is two turns'
worth with average scales. As for massing, LoloMo threw 66 at me, and had 24
coming from the south. Heavy cavalry or elephants may kill one with some luck, but
if he is not one-shotted he heals himself, as his life drain is strength based, not
the toothless version. They have it all - defense, armour, regeneration, life
drain, thus no encumberance, and three attacks, the life drain getting a +2 boost.

I just think they badly need another way of being killed besides banishment.

3. Yes, I killed him with a earth random, veteran black priest with a crystal
shield, boots of earth power, a girdle of might, a shroud of the battle saint, and
five bodyguards over whom the vampire flew over. He ate 40 blades at point blank.
But that's a level 5 spell. A water or fire mage would have been defenseless, a
air mage or a priest would not have had the time to go through the hit points and
regeneration. No melee or range commander would have stood a chance. Please look
into him, and think about what it takes to stop him in an assassination.

[HoneyBadger]

Yeah, I threw two very decent armies away in the first few turns, armies that should, by any rights, have crushed the provinces they were attacking.

It was extremely sad, especially the second one, because I knew what I was fighting by then and I should have rode over the province easily.

So, it led me to building the *third* army up, and up, and up, probably more than was absolutely necessary, ultimately leading to a very poor start.

[Amos]

I had the same dilemma with my Vampire nation. They could go through any indy provinces with only 4-5 without casualties. But to make them any less would have unmade them as vampires. In later game their fire vulnerability is their main weakness but I dont know if that it enough.

[DrPraetorious]

I don't think that the fire vuln makes much of a difference.

Five of Amos' blood knights cost 700 gold and 190 resources. That's the same amount of gold as thirty five longbowmen and seven wardens of avalon - who can, likewise, wade through indie provinces without losses. However, those mannish units cost ~450 resources, the vampires are much easier to mass.

The real issue with recruitable vampires is the same problem I ran into with my various tries at well-equipped goblin nations. Goblins have essentially a human statline, and pay only size 1 resource costs. It's vicious.

Vampires are essentially giants (better, in many ways) and pay size 2 resource costs. Vicious.

So, there are a couple of ways to resolve this:
* Naked vampires can have a base resource cost (a large one.) As there are no recruitable vampires in the basic game, this is not a conflict with basic game expectations (if you care about this sort of thing.)
* Vampires can have #ressize 4. You could say that they demand the finest armaments, but this is non-conforming (I don't believe that any other unit does this.)
* You can make special armor and weapons for the vampire units and just set the resource cost ridiculously high. Armor them in blood metal, whatever.

Anyway, at prot 17-20, with that statline, they should cost > 75 resources *each*. Try that and see how it works out for you - for one thing, you need to take productivity which severely limits the efficacy of your blessing.