Random Picks and Modding...

[Saber Cherry]

Niefel Jarl is worth 500 gold =)
TC Consort for 15 gold? When I play TC I pump out consorts like crazy. They're already one of the best units in the game... IMO.
Eunuch for 10 gold? ...to good for a leader, even a terrible one. 15 or 20 gold seems like a good absolute minimum.
45 for a black harpy is too much unless you give them leadership.
30 gold for a forester? I'm not really sure if anyone uses them now...
And considering all of Man's (Avalon) mages are capitol only, increasing the price is painful.
70g Lord Wardens are pretty crazy, too... IMO.
C'tis: Even at 35 nobody will buy a taskmaster.
Bane spider at 70? ... No, I refuse to play against Machaka with that setting Those are incredibly good assassins that come with 10 death gems worth of magical weaponry.
Empoisoner also shouldn't drop in price considering their potency.

Well, those are just a few preliminary thoughts. I'm think that complexifying your formula to a form like (x^2+.5xy+(a+bc)^1.5)*10+(a^1.2+f+2x)*5+15 might be necessary to get a good result, rather than using a purly additive formula like x+2y+a+5b+c+15. I can't imagine making a purely additive formula that "considered" all of Dominions' complexities.

[The_Tauren13]

Incedentally, here's a formula I made for caulculating the worth of a unit's physical stats:
HP*((6+Prot)/6)*((Mor)/10)*((1+MR)/11)*(9/(6+Enc))*((3+Str)/13)*((2+Att)/12)*((1+Def)/11)*((3+Move)/5)*((40+AP)/50)
Go ahead and tell me how useful/worthless you think it is

A 'normal unit' with 10 hp, 10 att, 10 def, 10 str, 10 mor, 10 mr, 10, AP, 3 enc, 2 move, and 0 prot will come out as 10 gold. Also, I weighted defense more than attack and strength, and AP the least of all... I dunno, it works ok I guess.

[Scott Hebert]

Saber Cherry said:
Niefel Jarl is worth 500 gold =)

I tend to think so, too. He weighs in at 400, then gets a 40g discount from that for being capital-only.

TC Consort for 15 gold? When I play TC I pump out consorts like crazy. They're already one of the best units in the game... IMO.

They're just spies, right? They could get another 5 or 10 points for having more Stealth than the 'average Spy', but not much more. If they're found, they're dead.

Eunuch for 10 gold? ...to good for a leader, even a terrible one. 15 or 20 gold seems like a good absolute minimum.

May I ask why? He's, well, crappy, to put it mildly. He not only can but probably WILL die to the first hit he takes from anything (including a stray arrow). There's really no way you can increase that.

45 for a black harpy is too much unless you give them leadership.

10 Leadership would be 5,for a total of 50.

30 gold for a forester? I'm not really sure if anyone uses them now...

I can see them as somewhat useful as patrollers...

And considering all of Man's (Avalon) mages are capitol only, increasing the price is painful.

Um... not really. The Daughter of Avalon is the most under-costed mage in the game. The Mother and Crone are also quite under-costed, as they stand now. Really, I'm not going to cry, at all, about Man's mage costs increasing.

70g Lord Wardens are pretty crazy, too... IMO.

Perhaps, but Man's benefitting a lot from the capital-only reduction.

C'tis: Even at 35 nobody will buy a taskmaster.

Quite possibly. THe aim is less to make everything 'more usable' than to see what they all 'should' cost.

Bane spider at 70? ... No, I refuse to play against Machaka with that setting Those are incredibly good assassins that come with 10 death gems worth of magical weaponry.

Well, the Bane Spider is one of those 'niggling problems', which is how to quantify those Bane weapons.

Empoisoner also shouldn't drop in price considering their potency.

Well, if there is to be a reduction for capital-only commanders, it should be applied across the board.

Well, those are just a few preliminary thoughts. I'm think that complexifying your formula to a form like (x^2+.5xy+(a+bc)^1.5)*10+(a^1.2+f+2x)*5+15 might be necessary to get a good result, rather than using a purly additive formula like x+2y+a+5b+c+15. I can't imagine making a purely additive formula that "considered" all of Dominions' complexities.

It's quite possible that a more complex formula would give better results. As it is, though, I think the remarkable thing is not the odd 'way out there' commander so much as all of the commanders that are either spot-on or quite close to spot-on.

I am confident that, if there is a more complex formula, it is not much more complex than the (very) simple formula I am currently using.

I know others have mentioned 'prioritizing' the various stats, but then you could wrangle forever on which are more important.

I am currently considering applying a 'diminishing returns' idea on the specials... as a note, the reason Caelum and Pangaea's commanders are so expensive is the large amount of specials they have. Perhaps if there is a 'full cost/75% cost/50% cost' diminishing cost on specials, it might assuage the issue.

OTOH... there are some that have many specials (Vanheim, for instance) that come out right on... I'll have to work on it.

[Scott Hebert]

The_Tauren13 said:
Incedentally, here's a formula I made for caulculating the worth of a unit's physical stats:
HP*((6+Prot)/6)*((Mor)/10)*((1+MR)/11)*(9/(6+Enc))*((3+Str)/13)*((2+Att)/12)*((1+Def)/11)*((3+Move)/5)*((40+AP)/50)
Go ahead and tell me how useful/worthless you think it is

It sucks! No, actually, I'll look into it and see what happens. Interesting formula.

[The_Tauren13]

Scott Hebert said:

I tend to think so, too. He weighs in at 400, then gets a 40g discount from that for being capital-only.

I think his body is probably undercosted using an additive formula. Using my formula , I bet his body alone would come out about 300.

Here's the difference:
Lets say you have a guy with 20 HP, 20 Att, 20 Def, and everything else 'average'. An additive formula would tell you hes worth 40 gold, where as a multiplicative one would say 80. I guess Im more inclined to believe the latter, but maybe someone could run some quick combat sim tests to see how many 'average' troops that guy would be worth.
Well, the real reason I went multiplicative was that for my mod I had a guy with 5 HP, 5 Str, 5 MR, etc. who came out with a negative cost...

[Graeme Dice]

Scott Hebert said:
I used to have those. Are they accurate? (Not throwing stones... it's one thing to see the game info in front of me; it's quite another to work through a spreadsheet.)

I think I'll add some comments just for fun.

Deep Seer,180,210

W3S2 has no synergy, is very vulnerable to mind duel, and has no real offensive or ritual punch, so I'd never really buy these at 210.

Serpent Priest,190,210

I can't see ever spending this much on a mage that can do little besides summon vine ogres.

Daughter of Avalon,80,105
Mother of Avalon,130,140
Crone of Avalon,230,255

I don't think you've discounted them quite enough for having the extreme disadvantage of being both capital only, and being Man's only mages.

Sauromancer,180,220

Here, their lack of mobility, and general fragility, especially when coupled with the middle of the road troops of C'Tis shoulnd't be overcosted.

Sauromancer,180,225

Desert tombs already pays a hefty economic and scale hit, so the really don't need to have even fewer mages running around.

Marshmaster,220,210

They are less useful than sauromancers in general, so they really should cost less. They suffer from the same problem of all the new themes and nations in DOM2, in that the mages are all too costly for what they can actually accomplish.

High Seraph,175,305

Would anybody ever buy any high seraphs if they cost this much? You'd get far better punch out of two normal seraphs.

Grand Master,270,305

The combination of astral 2, capital only, hurts these nearly as much as it does a deep seer. They also have the added disadvantage that they will start to cast sermon of courage or banishment instead of useful spells.

Goetic Master,190,205

Diabolic faith has an even worse economic hit than Desert Tombs, which makes each mage cost relatively much more than a mage of the same gold cost for another nation. This isn't too far off from what you would expect however.

Jotun Scout,50,95
Jotun Herse,60,85
Jotun Jarl,130,105

Jotuns have the disadvantage that while their commanders are very cheap for their performance, they won't stick around on the battlefield unless you have enough normal giants with them.

Gygja,250,205

These always did seem overpriced to me.

Seithkona,90,70
Norna,220,190

I'd be wary of making one of the best sets of national mages even better.

Niefel Jarl,500,360

Aren't these considerably more dangerous than a Vanadrott?

Star Child,85,105

Assasination shouldn't really be figured into the cost of a researcher, as an assasin can never kill more than a single commander per turn, and is very rarely worth the time investment, let alone the gem investment.

Starspawn,280,300

Unlinked randoms make these only really useful as astral casters on the battlefield.

Mictlan Priest,80,70
Priest King,250,235
Rain Priest,230,200
Moon Priest,230,200
High Priest of the Sun,390,350

I pretty much expected these to be too expensive, but I'm surprised that all of the ?1H2 mages are less than 80 gold by your calculations.

Celestial Master,250,195

That's close to a usable value, but they'd probably have to cost even less to make them powerful.

I feel that it breaks an otherwise equitable relationship.

Death magic and astral magic are both important enough that no nation should be without them, so I'd be wary of making that change.

[Graeme Dice]

Scott Hebert said:
They're just spies, right? They could get another 5 or 10 points for having more Stealth than the 'average Spy', but not much more. If they're found, they're dead.

At 15 gold, I'll have 10 or more castles recruiting nothing but consorts. That way I can completely shut down an opponent's economy. With 100 consorts you could shut down something like 10 provinces a turn, and never lose more than 1 in each province.

I can see them as somewhat useful as patrollers...

You don't patrol unless you are trying to catch spies or assasin's, and then you'll use enough cheap units that the bonus on a commander doesn't matter too much.

Um... not really. The Daughter of Avalon is the most under-costed mage in the game.

Which doesn't matter much past turn 5, as you'll be recruiting nothing but Crones as soon as possible.

The Mother and Crone are also quite under-costed, as they stand now. Really, I'm not going to cry, at all, about Man's mage costs increasing.

Man is limited to a single crone per turn, which isn't nearly enough to keep up in most cases.

Perhaps, but Man's benefitting a lot from the capital-only reduction.

Man doesn't benefit from the capitol only reduction. Man is hamstrung by the capital only restriction for everything past the very earliest parts of the game.

Well, if there is to be a reduction for capital-only commanders, it should be applied across the board.

You have to price commanders based on what they can accomplish. Empoisoner's are just about the only assasins that you'll ever be able to make use of besides taking out independents early on.

[Saber Cherry]

Graeme Dice said:Empoisoners are just about the only assasins that you'll ever be able to make use of besides taking out independents early on.

Hey, my modded assassins and slayers are pretty cool And I loved building slayers in the base game. Skull Talisman, Boots of the Messenger, Lifelong Protection, Copper Plate and Lucky Coin made them able to take over many remote provinces alone... and those are all low-level items.

Of course, the way I play is not necessarily an effective way to play...

[The_Tauren13]

OK, scratch that old and busted formula; that was just something basic to start off on. Here's the new hotness:
sqrt(((HP*(10.0+Prot)*Def*MR)/1000.0)*((Str*Att)/10.0))*((3.0+Move)/5.0)*((40.0+AP)/50.0)*(9.0/(6.0+Enc))*((Mor^log10(7))/7.0)

Comments:
HP, Prot, Def, MR, Str, and Att are all wieghted the same now.
The square root does not encompass Move, AP, Enc, or Mor.
log10(7) = 0.84509804001425683071221625859264 (about), meaning that about 22 Mor is worth twice as much as 10 Mor (instead of just 20 Mor being worth twice 10). I chose to use a logarithm with base 10 so that, for unit with 10 Mor, the equation (Mor^log10(7))/7 will equal 1, so a unit with 10 Mor will be 'average'.
The basic idea is: sqrt(defensiveness*offensiveness)*other. I decided upon this because in a simplistic system where the units only have 2 stats, HP and Damage, an ideal cost formula is sqrt(HP*Damage).
I counted MR as a defensive capability, but it could be brought out of the square root to be weighted more heavily.
I didn't really know what to do with Enc, so I just threw it in so that a unit with 0 Enc is worth 50% more than the same unit but with 3 ('normal') Enc, and the same unit but with 12 Enc is worth half as much.

[The_Tauren13]

I have a n00b modding question: How much is the 4th magic school worth? Ive been counting it the same as the 3rd school (10, 30, 50) so far... so that F2E2D1?1 costs 183.75.

Also, a few questions about your costs:
How much did poison resistance end up being worth? 10, same as elemental resistance? Less?
What about being an animal? I would think that does more harm than good, right?
50% increase for sacred troops, but not commanders, right?
Is the capital only reduction 10% or 20%?

One more question: What's with the 'Death Poison'? How much damage does it do?