Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

[FrankTrollman]

Spells like Firebolt are actually much better now that your opponents come in really big piles. A little deviation no longer counts as a miss, it still nails someone. Little Witchdoctors with fire magic dumping firedarts and the like kill many more people than they used to. The relative effect of this may be smaller, but the absolute effect is larger. And since Witch Doctors haven't changed much in price, that means that their fire pokeys are more meaningful per pound of gold spent.

It will take a lot more analysis before I could tell you if a fire mage is "worth it" now, but changes in the base gamemechanics have made him a bit better over all I think.

-Frank

[Zen]

Twan said:
I don't want to hijack the thread with my impressions so I'll stop after this explanation.

No need to fear that. Don't stop unless you want to.

My analysis was mostly based on common/no gem consuming battle magic. With the kind of very big armies you encounter in dom 3 (at least in sp against mighty+ AIs, as my mp games are around turn 10 I can't say how players will use their extra gold, perhaps armies in mp games will stay closer to what they were in dom2), a spell like pillar of fire (aoe 1) is not that good (especially with precision 0, and your nation perhaps not having access to precision buffs), as well as all lower levels elemental damage spells (falling fire/frost with their bigger AoE being the most useful).

This is true to a very large extent. However, you have to also consider the path of the spells. 2Fire for Pillar of Fire makes all low-end casters able to put holes in the opposing army. Assuming you are dealing with human sized creatures (Size 2), you will kill 3 units per turn, per casting. With 10 F2 mages casting Pillar you will be killing 30 units (20 if cavalry) a turn (10% of the force).

I'm not saying these spells don't need to be looked at, because they do, but lowpath spells like Frozen Heart/Ice Strike/PoF that have visible results with lowpath casters are a nice addition. Unfortunately you usually have to wait 7-8 research levels.

Magic for the mostpart in Dom3 has much less of an earlygame impact and hold consistant to the midgame then comes full force in the lategame. Definitely something I am waiting to see the full spellmodding capabilities to address. Especially considering the nature of "magetime" or RP's being a huge factor of balance.

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

Well, one thing to remember is that it's almost always possible to force somebody to have to deal with your large, powerful army. Siege a castle, and unless they break the siege, they'll lose that castle, and give you a recruiting centre right in their empire. If a nation can't deal with a frontal assault by the troops of another nation, there's likely a balance problem, as you can't guarantee that every battle will be fought on your terms.

Actually Ive successfully played MP games where I lost my castle fairly early in the game. Not on a small 2-player map but mid-sized with 3 players and up its not impossible.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Zen said:
This is something I will be doing as well. There are a number of commanders with wierd slot problems. They are easy enough to fix.

In that case it might be good to report those slot problems in the bug thread as well. I'm sure that some of them have been reported but many more bugs of that type (and some of them definitely qualify as bugs, not preference) come to the surface when one systematically mods a game than arise in random bug reports. Doesn't guarantee that the dynamic duo of amateur developers will actually fix it, but who knows?

[Shovah32]

Also, remember that along with doing huge AoE1 damage pillar of fire can set many other units on fire.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Here is a suggestion for improving light calvary. It makes sense that light calvary has lower precision values. But because they are on fast horses they should also be a lot harder to be hit by arrows in return. The easiest way to do that would be to give them an automatic air shield. If there defense isn't high enough, that could get raised as well. Light calvary then would still be less effective at straight archery then archers, but at the same time they would be much harder to kill. Plus they have the speed advantage. You would be able to do hit and runs with them, and use them as light calvary are meant to be used.

[curtadams]

When people talk about what's happened to battlemages you can't neglect the improved AI. All ranged units target noticeably better than they used to, and cause much less friendly fire damage, so you get more "bang for your buck" for battlemages. The flip is that most of the gain comes when battlemages combine with a meaningful groundpounder army. That encourages combined arms - which I think was a goal of the redesign. But, boy, even a little artillery makes quite the difference.

I doubt the aging system can be modded. Starting ages probably will be moddable and that obviously can fix most problems. If you can mod the mechanism, a good calc for deterioration chance which is based on how organisms age in the real world is 100/years to get old)*2^(age-(years to get old) (possibly with a scaling factor - I can't test). It captures the exponential harm from aging and the slower exponential growth for long-lived species.

IMO workhorse mages - researchers, some forgers, and artillery mages - shouldn't start old unless there's an important game balance or thematic reason. It's just too much of a micro hassle - I was going bonkers with my Witch Hunters in MA Marignon and I understand Pythium and Arco at least are similar and Abyssia worse. IMO if LA mages are supposed to be really weak it's better to nerf workhorse mages rather than make them old. I'm OK with top rank mages being old - I can stand having to pay attention to each one of them.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
Actually Ive successfully played MP games where I lost my castle fairly early in the game. Not on a small 2-player map but mid-sized with 3 players and up its not impossible.

I can definetly see that happening, especially if you make a good last stand in your castle, then can manage to convince one of your enemies neighbours to attack the guy who just took over your castle. Or you can sue for peace and create a game-long allience. One of my favourite games was one where I took over for Zen's Abysia, and worked with his Pangaean ally (Sorry, but I forgot who was playing that nation.) that he had nearly defeated early on. Pangaea's earth mages, and his ability to make fever fetishes combined to make both of our armies much stronger than they ever would have been otherwise.

[PDF]

Shovah32 said:
Also, remember that along with doing huge AoE1 damage pillar of fire can set many other units on fire.

Yes, but in midgame where you wont'see Pillars but rather Fireballs, Fire Clouds or Falling Fires, all things equal a given number of Fire mages will be *less* effective than they were in Dom2 because they'll face 2x the number of troops ! Same for Air, and to a lesser extent Earth.
Later in game the BF area spells make Elem magic rules again.

[dirtywick]

In any case, I thought mages were supposed to be less dominant in Dom 3 than Dom 2.