Mod: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)

[Jack_Trowell]

Hum, I think that maybe you increased Ulm MR too much.

Would'nt a base 12 (instead of 9) be enough for magic-resistant humans ?

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Jack_Trowell

Hum, I think that maybe you increased Ulm MR too much.

Would'nt a base 12 (instead of 9) be enough for magic-resistant humans ?

So, I chose the number that gave MA Ulm's mages mr19 and increased everyone else by the same amount (in MA). Then I noticed EA had slightly lower mr in general, so i arranged this to be true.

Anyway, MR12 is pretty typical for slightly magical humans. Ulm's people are severely anti-magical, they should be really resistant. Remember, sucking at magic is a *big* disadvantage. The advantage in MR should also be big. Or possibly more relevantly, there are a large number of other troops with MR12 out there. I can't think of many with MR14 off the top of my head - the super high MR sets them apart as something special, especially since its nationwide.

Now, how much is too much? I don't know. Ironhawk proposed MR18 across the board for the whole Ulm line-up on IRC. That's probably too much =). Will MR14 be unbalancing? I sort of doubt it, but this is an alpha, I expect to playtest it before it goes to beta.

[Squirrelloid]

Version 0.03 is in the works, stuff to expect:

LA Ulm - consistency update. Since LA Ulm is cursed, i've given them much more modest mr (baseline mr 11 for basic troops/commanders) - their resistance to magic is fading as they pursue blood magic. (Also, LA Ulm is vastly superior to its predecessors, so it didn't really need much of a boost).

Machaka - Two things become apparent when you look at Machaka. First, its theme is 'Giant Spider!', which is a pretty lame theme when you think about it. Second, there is almost no African mythology or traditional belief here, nor any historical basis, its some weird exoticized idea of 'darkest africa'. This is pretty shameful. That the nation is pretty thin is no surprise based on this - there's only so much you can do with 'Giant Spider!' (although there *could* be a national summon or something...). I'm really tempted to do a content update. (Honestly, I'd almost prefer to scrap the whole nation and start over!) And there are parts of the theme I simply can't figure out, like what 'darkest africa' is doing with platemail... seriously, can anyone explain that to me?

However, for v0.03, expect some slight tweaks to Machaka, but there's only so much that can be done with what's currently available.

Summons - The healer ability is made easier to access. Faerie Queen's have theirs improved to 100, Treelords find a use as Healer 100s as well, and Naiads (who have lost focus in the post-clam world) gain Healer 50.

Spells
Fate of Oedipus - removed from the game. It creates a bad play dynamic and causes Eyes of God to never be cast.

Gift of Health - I was going to make it harder to cast and substantially increase the cost, but some discussion on IRC led me to decide to only slightly increase the cost (to 60n). In play terms, this might delay the casting of GoH slightly, but the major effect will be to make it more vulnerable to Dispel. It really was too cheap for what it did, however, even if you ignore the interaction with Tartarian Gate.

Awaken Treelord - reduced to 30n. Even with the improved healing they still aren't that good. Compare to other things you could be spending your nature gems on: lamia queens and faerie queens.

Dispel - reduced to 10s. Dispel is already a bad mechanic, and the only way to fix that is to make dispel cheap enough that it might be worth tossing one off to test a global. At 10s it will tend to discourage minimal globals (because someone might just choose to test a global at that price), but won't really effect globals with any real investment in them (say >+10 gems) since the investment in the Dispel necessary to test that becomes really expensive. Especially in the post-clam world where pearls are much less common.

Thinking about tweaking another nation or two before considering it finished. Please do take this opportunity to share your thoughts on the above.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Spells
Fate of Oedipus - removed from the game. It creates a bad play dynamic and causes Eyes of God to never be cast.

Well, while you're removing spells..

I'd like to suggest combining the Hand of Dust & Hand of Death into a single spell. Hand of Dust just plain sucks and gets instantly overwritten by a spell 40 research points above it. It's just a plain damn waste of a spell slot (especially since frighten gives a actually useable spell for D1 mages to cast with no research any way). You could use the now free spell slot to make some national spells or something. Heck, you could probably go for a spell slot neutral mod.

Sea of Ice -> How is the presence of this spell good for the gameplay?
It's also bugged up it's *ss.

The next one is a bit controversial, but I'd also like to suggest BoT to be removed or at least nerfed. It's a instant, no saves, no way to defend yourself way to kill and or cripple several nations (Abysia, Man, LA T'ien C'hi for example) even in the best case scenario that it gets dispelled immediately (fat chance) it still takes effect for the first turn and likely afflicts most of your mages that were already old. It's a pretty situational global, but the fact that there is absolutely nothing you can do to defend yourself when it is up is just pure murder for some nations.

[Valerius]

Squirrelloid, I like most of your changes. There's two that stand out to me as possible problems.

GoR is a fun spell and I'd like to see it used more. But making it this cheap can raise problems and I think the cost of GoRing an umbral is one of them. I'd prefer them over a bane lord even at the same cost. At only two thirds the cost ... well, I think that's going to be abused. Obviously Agartha needs help but I'm always wary of changes that create loopholes. As far as a solution, you could raise the cost of GoR to 10 gems or price umbrals assuming they'll be GoRed. And of course, I don't think you'll need your pretender to GoR each one given how easy N is to branch into (maybe your pretender will forge some boosters but that's a one time thing).

I do have one suggestion that would help Agartha across the board - remove the cold blooded attribute.

I'd also like to echo the previous comments about Ulm's MR increase. Perhaps it won't prove to be a problem but I'd be more inclined to go with a 3 point increase and see how it goes.

I like the idea of the improved/more available healing units. It ties in very nicely with the diversity mod. If you are relying on those summons instead of tarts you may not have the Chalice/GoH - this way you can heal them more easily if they receive an affliction. It also helps national troops who can now gain experience without likely being crippled eventually. Though this does to some extent take away from the uniqueness of Pan's recuperation ability on all its troops.

The Treelords become a lot more worthwhile with the healing ability but, as you point out, you're still better off getting a Faerie Queen. What about having them generate N gems? This way you get your investment back over time.

Do you plan on making any changes to Eriu? I'm sure I could come up with some borderline OP suggestions if you want.

[Squirrelloid]

I do plan on doing something to Eriu. If nothing else, making Bean Sidhe recruit everywhere. I need to think more about what can be done to *fix* Eriu specifically, and I welcome suggestions, although I'm not sure there's much I can do that would be true to theme, even broadly construed.

Pan's recuperation lets them heal wounds while they're off fighting - they don't have to join up with a healer and sit there while they get tended. That's a pretty big advantage, even with more common healing.

Treelords do generate vinemen right now. Between that and being 10n less than Faerie Queens, I think I'm ok with Treelords at the moment. Maybe their cost should come down to 25n?

I am opposed to removing cold-blooded from Agartha at the moment, because it is vaguely thematic, and it justifies the temperature preference.

I know some people think the MR for Ulm is too much. Others suggested much higher, and might see a mere 14 as insufficiently good. I'm happy with where it is and think its distinctive and worthwhile. Remember, sucking at magic is a really powerful disadvantage, a mild MR advantage wouldn't even begin to make up for that. Enough MR to make master enslave look like a poor idea is enough MR to matter. The reaction to fighting Ulm should be 'put away your MR-resists magic and use something else'.

[Valerius]

Making Bean Sidhe recruit everywhere was also my main thought. That helps Eriu in a number of ways.

A few more ideas (all trying to stay thematic):

Cu Sidhe - I really like the idea of national summons and always think they should be encouraged over generic summons. I want to summon these but can't really justify it when I could spend those gems on a vine shield to equip a thug (assumes a dwarven hammer for forging of course).

Some ideas to make them more appealing:

* The easiest fix would be to just increase the number of units per summon. CBM already improved this but I still don't think it's enough to justify summoning them.

* Change the gem types needed for summoning. When playing Eriu I always have a high demand for N gems. If the cost of the summoning were split between N and W gems it would be more appealing.

* Make them a cap only recruitable unit in addition to a summon.

* Make them a better unit by giving them two attacks per round. But this may be too much, especially with recruit everywhere Bean Sidhe's giving you a much better chance to have enough W2s for casting quickness.

Another bonus to improving Cu Sidhe is that it helps Man as well.

Healing - You've made healing much more accessible so this isn't as high a priority but it could still be useful to have a summon with some degree of healing ability. My thought was to give healing to Tuatha Sorceresses. So TNN would have a recruitable healer; Eriu would have to summon one.

Nemedian Sorceress - One of the few remaining Nemedian Sorceresses signs a pact with the Tuatha to serve the awakening god. Formoria is no longer around in the MA so I don't think this contradicts Dominions history. Also, TNN/Eriu have two very nice national heroes with D magic so it doesn't seem to be completely unthematic to have this summon. It could either be castable by national mages, thus providing access to D, or require D magic to summon and thus require a pretender or perhaps national hero.

Enchanter - In exchange for knowledge a mortal enchanter agrees to serve the Sidhe. S1 mages and even N1S1 mages, in the form of lizard shaman, are not uncommon. In the event Eriu has bad luck this would give them access to forging basic S items as well as some mind hunt protection. Notably, the N2 would give easy access to moonvine bracelets. Probably the least thematic suggestion here and is really just a way to give them some S access and moonvine bracelets.

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Also, I'd definitely agree with bringing Treelords down to 25N. If they still don't get summoned when you test the mod, then do something else to help them.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by Valerius

* Change the gem types needed for summoning. When playing Eriu I always have a high demand for N gems. If the cost of the summoning were split between N and W gems it would be more appealing.

You can only have a spell take one gem type for casting.

Originally Posted by Valerius

Another bonus to improving Cu Sidhe is that it helps Man as well.

Note that there are different types of Cu Sidhe, Black Dog, and Barghest. I didn't think that Man's units overlapped, but I could be wrong...

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Cu_Sidhe
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Cu_Sidhe_(summon)
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Barghest
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Black_Dog

[Squirrelloid]

Barghests and Black Dogs are both Fomorian summons. Cu Sidhe are TNN/Eriu and Man.

Anyway, I'll definitely take a look at Cu Sidhe. I'll confess I've never summoned them either.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Stavis_L

You can only have a spell take one gem type for casting.

Don't know how I forgot about that... Thanks for the correction.

Originally Posted by Stavis_L

Note that there are different types of Cu Sidhe, Black Dog, and Barghest. I didn't think that Man's units overlapped, but I could be wrong...

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Cu_Sidhe
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Cu_Sidhe_(summon)
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Barghest
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Black_Dog

Man (MA and LA) and TNN/Eriu are definitely both summoning unit 1770. Not sure if the other unit is currently being used.

Man also gets access to the same Barghest and Black Dog summons as Fomoria.

Also, another (thematic!) idea that just occured to me for improving Eriu/Man is improving the spell songs.