Random Picks and Modding...

[Scott Hebert]

Graeme Dice said:

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

K...

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.

Very similar to most of these comments, while I do not disagree they have merit, you are also ignoring the base assumption that I made that all paths are equally valuable. I know they're not, you know they're not, but that is the assumption that Illwinter makes.

Would you perhaps give me what you think each path of magic should cost?

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

I can see them doing other things (like leading your Hydras).

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.

Possibly. OTOH, why is a Daughter 80g, and a Druid 140g?

Oh, and there's the Bard, but I don't think anyone counts them.

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.

As opposed to their ability to spam an endless horde of Undead, and the fact that they start with Terror?

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

Well, they (and Broken Empire Ermor) are the only nations that get National Unholy Priests. Ermor's cost upkeep; C'tis's don't.

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.

I think it's more that the original nations are too good.

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

Quite possibly. Then again, this is how much Illwinter's formula gives them.

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.

Perhaps. OTOH, Fire/Astral has many synergistic abilities.

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.

About the only thing Diabolic Faith is missing is a national Blood-3 mage (which the Master can get, I believe).

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.

Or you use nothing but Commanders. Experimenting with this approach, some increase in cost might be needed. Something I am looking into, however, is a way of working Size into the calculations... bigger troops get a reduction on certain things (HPs and Str, primarily). That would lower these costs, R'lyeh, and even Caelum.

These always did seem overpriced to me.

Er... are you sure you want to agree with me on this?

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

I know how good these are, but if you increase the Astral/Death Searching spells to 2-path each, the Seithkona become a little less valuable.

Aren't these considerably more dangerous than a Vanadrott?

Well, that depends. The Vanadrott is Glamored, and can throw much better spells, overall, than the Jarl. Perhaps Cherry can run them both through the simulator? Or can spells not be modeled just yet?

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.

Perhaps a reduction in the cost would be in order, but not a simple ignoring of that ability. If you cut the Assassin cost in half, say, his cost goes down to 90. This would also help Man if you apply the same reasoning to the Bard.

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

Or guaranteed Acashic casters. Are they total randoms or not? I seem to recall a 5S one before. The cost is for total randoms. If they aren't, the costs may change.

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.

I don't use the 'base 30g' cost. Instead, I use my own formula. However, I am thinking of raising the first path's first level cost from 30 to 50, which would add 20g to all of the 1-path mages. However, since that will cause issues with all of my magic pricing, I'm leery to try that just yet.

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

Is it their 1S that's a problem?

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.

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Perhaps, but this almost sounds like chicken-and-egg. Perhaps they are so important because the gems needed to power their spells are so easily found (comparatively speaking).

Anyway, I will take your comments under advisement.