Pretender Balance Mod

Scott, not to change your direction or anything regarding your intention. But, don't you only play SP?

The benefits of a Rainbow vs a Combat Pretender are easily seen but hard to gauge and do depend somewhat on game settings.

They are not on a level playing field, but they do allow you to play differently.

A better comparison or 'balance' would be adjusting Pretenders based on the one 'good' pretender that is rainbowish (I.E. The Ghost King) and not trying to match them up against some things that may not fit thematically, or strategically.

I personally would be much more likely to think of a giant 2 headed snake that could talk and do magic as a God than some creepy old guy who can do magic who lived in some big old castle for years. Simply because I have more in common with the creepy old guy than with the 2 headed snake. And mortality is sort of a key component to being "Godlike" in my book.

[ June 17, 2004, 18:27: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Scott Hebert]

As a more extreme example, let's take the Arch Seraph vs. the Virtue.

You can say that their chassis is similar enough for comparison.

Their base costs:

Arch Seraph: 65
Virtue: 50

Their base dominion:

Arch Seraph: 1
Virtue: 4

Their base paths:

Arch Seraph: A
Virtue: AA

Their path costs:

Arch Seraph: 10
Virtue: 80

Oookay. So I would think that the potential for versatility makes the Arch Seraph cost more than the Virtue.

The problem is that the numbers don't help the situation.

Again, let us assume Dominion of 6 (which I have heard referred to as 'standard'). So let's do some examples.

Cost of Air-4 Dominion-6 Virtue: 95 points.
Cost of Air-4 Dominion-6 Arch Seraph: 218 points.

Okay, clearly the Virtue is superior here. Note that any increases to either Air or Dominion will benefit the Virtue more.

Cost of Air-4 Other-4 Dominion-6 Virtue: 247 points.
Cost of Air-4 Other-4 Dominion-6 Arch Seraph: 300 points.

Even with adding another path at 4, the Virtue is superior to the Arch Seraph. That is with a 70-pt. difference in Path cost. Note again that any increase to Air or Dominion benefits the Virtue, while increasing the Other costs the same for both parties.

Cost of Air-4 Other1-4 Other2-4 Dominion-6 Virtue: 399 points.
Cost of Air-4 Other1-4 Other2-4 Dominion-6 Arch Seraph: 382 points.

At 3 paths at 4, the Arch Seraph finally overtakes the Virtue, but the difference is only 17 points. This is not enough to enable an additional purchase on the part of the Arch Seraph (except for 1 level in a 4th path). So we can safely say that the Virtue and the Arch Seraph are equals at this point. Another way of putting this is that you would have to buy 4 paths of magic (at 4) to make the Arch Seraph a better buy than the Virtue.

The main culprit you can point to for the downfall of the Arch Seraph is the cost to increase her Dominion up to match the Virtue's. This artificially increases her 'base cost' to an astronomical level, to the point that the Virtue is the better choice for anything but broad but shallow magical knowledge.

Now, note the difference under my proposed mod. To get the Virtue and the Arch Seraph to equal levels, the Virtue would have to buy a point of Dominion (7 points), and the Arch Seraph would have to buy a point of Air Magic (8 points). Much more balanced from the viewpoint that the difference in costs is accurately reflected. Then, you have a much closer argument for which is better. If you want more than one path, then clearly the Arch Seraph is the cheaper (thereby better) way to go. However, if you want to specialize in Air magic, the Virtue would be better. She has better combat stats and innate immunity to the element's magical attack form.

This is my idea of 'balanced'. You have several equally useful options.

Similar arguments could be made for Lord of Fertility/Bull/Mother of Lions vs. Great Druid, and so forth.

In any event, hopefully this gives you some idea where I'm coming from in terms of this mod.

6 Isn't a standard for Dominion I believe. At most it's 5 I believe. 4 Paths at 3 would be a better estimate (as that is primarily what Rainbows use)

Dominion isn't as useful to Rainbows as it is to Combat Pretenders, because Rainbows do not fight initially, only when they are ready to handle situations and spell research is ready. Whereas the point pouring into Combat Pretenders it to have an immediate economic advantage, wheras with the Rainbow it's a potentially significant gem advantage.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
As an example, let's say you're playing a nation that has access to the Lady of Fortune. If you want a 6+ Dominion and 4W/4N/4E (say) on your pretender, it is actually cheaper to take the Lady of Fortune as opposed to the Frost Father. (The Lady has 164 points left at 6 Dominion, while the Frost Father has 128.) This is with the Lady of Fortune's higher base cost _and_ much higher path cost. I don't think this was intended by the designers.

This Last point is quite irrelevant, since your example isn't meaningful at all: it's built on the LoF's strengths and compares them to the lack of the same strengths on another pretender. You could as well have said, "I want a fire-9 blessing, how does a Crone compare to a Moloch?".

To be fair, you should now design a realistic Frost Father with 1-3 levels in 6-8 paths, a moderate dominion (4-5), and design a LoF using the same magic and dominion strength. Then compute a mean to get a meaningful assessment of their respective values.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Zen:
Scott, not to change your direction or anything regarding your intention. But, don't you only play SP?

I knew this would come up. *sigh* Yes, I only play SP. That is because the computer that DomII is installed on cannot go onto the internet, and the computer (that I'm currently on) that can go onto the internet cannot run Dominions II. It is not because I don't want to play MP.

The benefits of a Rainbow vs a Combat Pretender are easily seen but hard to gauge and do depend somewhat on game settings.

Well, to be honest, I play most often on the settings that are most conducive to Rainbow Mages (Rich, 75% Magic Sites), and I still don't use them.

They are not on a level playing field, but they do allow you to play differently.

Can you give a reason as to why they should not be on more of a level playing field?

A better comparison or 'balance' would be adjusting Pretenders based on the one 'good' pretender that is rainbowish (I.E. The Ghost King) and not trying to match them up against some things that may not fit thematically, or strategically.

As my Virtue/Arch Seraph example points out, I believe that specialization vs. variety should be equally viable. They are not, however. I think I chose the worst possible non-Rainbow Pretender to try to make Rainbow (the Virtue), and it was still better than the Rainbow in 3 or less paths. Under my mod, each _should_ work equally well in a game.

I personally would be much more likely to think of a giant 2 headed snake that could talk and do magic as a God than some creepy old guy who can do magic who lived in some big old castle for years. Simply because I have more in common with the creepy old guy than with the 2 headed snake. And mortality is sort of a key component to being "Godlike" in my book.

Two small quibbles. One, the Wyrm starts with no magic. (The land ArchMage doesn't either, but most Rainbows do.) Two, if mortality is a key component to being "Godlike" (from this I take it you mean that the more immortal you are, the more godlike?), why do the Immortal Pretenders all have low Dominions, and particularly why did the VQ's Dominion _decrease_ in 2.12?

The other option I have is to take the opposite approach, and switch the magic paths of human vs. giant Pretenders. Make the humans the specialists (and let's face it, do they have the time to master 8 different paths of magic?), and make the giants the generalists. Would that be better?

[Arralen]

IMHO a lot of the Rainbow-Mage-Wisdom I read here comes from the days of DOM1.

But with the blesses and all those new sites, Lvl 4 is just too useful.
Lvl 2 on the other hand is quite common on national or even indie mages ..

And getting the human pretenders to Lvl 4 in multiple pathes is too costly, compared to the giants which don't pose to much of a problem at least with some path combinations.

(I found Fire or Water plus Earth plus Death @4 really devastating with blessable troops and mages, e.g. Vanheim, Last of Tuatha, T'ien C'hi)


But I don't think modifying the starting dom as Scott suggest does make much sense. At first, adjusting the point cost is simpler and makes for better fine-tuning.
Second, the problem is not with the base costs, but with the non-existant starting magic levels of the human-sized pretenders.
So give them all Fire, Water, Air, Earth @1 and do the math again ...

[Sheap]

I think the issue here is that you are not considering true rainbow mages. You are focusing on high dominion with strong magic in 2 or 3 paths, which just happens to be exactly the greatest strength of the titans. This is not what a human pretender should be trying to do.

If you have 4 points in each path you can find every magic site except holy/unholy. This will allow you to find on average roughly one site per turn, with average site frequency, as long as your army can keep up this pace of conquest (should be doable vs independents even of high strength).

If you have a rainbow mage you don't need so much dominion because you are not using it to boost your own strength in combat.

If you have 4 levels in each path you can forge almost any item. With an easily made magic item or two you can forge literally any item.

If you have a rainbow mage you gain more from your research in the later game because there are not very many spells you will not be able to cast.

During the early game you will not have the ability to send your pretender out busting independents. You also will not have the risk of getting your pretender afflicted. If someone stabs your 4/4/4 titan in the head, perhaps by standing on a tall ladder, and he gets feebleminded, you are toast. This will never happen with a rainbow mage.

In the midgame you can't take as aggressive a stance as a player with a combat oriented pretender. But you will have more gems, more and better summons and you will have them sooner. You could surprise your enemy with a powerful army of summoned units before he thinks you will have them. And you will have fewer gaps and weaknesses in your army because you will be able to conjure up anything.

The only downside to a rainbow mage, IMO, is that he can do only one thing at a time even later in the game, meaning that if he isn't searching or researching he is wasting a significant fraction of his power. But then a combat pretender wastes a significant fraction of his power whenever he is not actually turning the tide of battle. Every affliction suffered, every turn spent in a siege, every battle overwhelmingly won or lost, wastes the power of the combat pretender.

A lot of the decision is based on what your nation's strengths are. If you have a nation with strong troops that can handle independents with the regular army, but has weak mages, then a rainbow mage is an excellent choice for a pretender. If your troops are weak and depend on high dominion or blessing to fight well then the rainbow mage isn't so great. (Even then your blessing is likely to be not hopeless - a bunch of weak powers instead of one or two strong ones).

[ June 17, 2004, 20:38: Message edited by: Sheap ]