Draconian Mod Under construction

[Endoperez]

Originally posted by Thilock_Dominus:

1. Expensive units/commanders
2. No archers.
3. No mounting/Cavalry.
4. Only one kind of units uses shield.
5. Units don't wear helmets execpt commanders which can forge them, but none at the start.
6. Some of the units are restricted to the capitol.
7. Can't command undead units.

3. They have fliers. What do you need cavalry for?
4. Shield is slight prot/def. bonus plus prot. versus missiles. Scales are small prot. bonus, air magic in general is great against enemy missiles. Even without using storm you can cast Arrow Fend.
5. Helmet is small armor boost, scales are small armor boost. No helmets and no shields have slight effect together even over scales, but commanders unable to wield helmets would be much better restriction IMO.
6 and 7: This is the basic way! Normally the most powerful mages and/or units (often these are sacred) are restricted to capitol, and no nation except for few special ones have or should have undead commanders for free.
Having no access to either Death or Blood prevents them from commanding undead and demons, but how would they get them in the first place? And pretender having Death 4 can summon Revenants (D1), give them skull staff and skullface (+D * 2) and summon Mound King to lead the units...

Also, what was the nation you are replacing? C'tis, Caelum, Jotunheim, Ermor and maybe few others have special units available from the spell Reanimation. (Broken Emp.) Ermor always reanimates
longdead velites and/or legionaires, Jotunheim undead giants half the time, Caelum and C'tis sometimes but I'm not sure about the exact number.
Might be the same ½ as with Jotuns. Soulless from Carrion Reanimation are affected too, atleast when playing Jotunheim. Then you have all giants.

About the 'Arcane Changeling', the six random is limited to the elements (No death, nature or astral) and are limited to recruitable in the capitol. I think it is one of the funniest creation I came up with. You buy something and don't know which magic paths it will have
Also it's more expensive than shown in the 'old' list.

best regards
Thilock

Six randoms in four paths of magic? He ALWAYS has ATLEAST 2211, often three in one and you can reliably get 4 at mid- to late game. Also, you need maximum of 3 for elem. magic booster, and so can easily forge Staff of Elemental Masteries... And find all the elemental sites!
I have studied my Randoms -mathbook, and would post the spesific numbers if I were able to calculate them. No luck yet. However, 4 randoms would be much, and even 3 would fill the part you gave for them. Take a look at Arco Mystics.

[Boron]

lets just wait until the first beta comes out

after that i suggest you make a new thread where balance issues can be stated

Originally posted by Endoperez :

Six randoms in four paths of magic? He ALWAYS has ATLEAST 2211, often three in one and you can reliably get 4 at mid- to late game. Also, you need maximum of 3 for elem. magic booster, and so can easily forge Staff of Elemental Masteries... And find all the elemental sites!
I have studied my Randoms -mathbook, and would post the spesific numbers if I were able to calculate them. No luck yet. However, 4 randoms would be much, and even 3 would fill the part you gave for them. Take a look at Arco Mystics.

6 randoms might be a bit high yeah . but if they have "only" access to elemental magic and are capitol only perhaps not too strong .

a "trick" to make you chose could be giving them really the 6 elemental randoms but only a base research of 1-2 .

so you have to chose whether you gamble for e.g. air 4 or you want research .

as soon as you find sages this is of course rather unimportant . but you can't 100% rely on sages .


but just lets see how the mod turns out in the beta Version . still strong looking forward to the first beta

if serious imbalances become obvious they still can be changed after the beta by e.g. reducing the randoms to 4 and giving 2 base paths e.g. EW .

[Blitz]

Obviously there's really been no attempt to balance this mod. I don't think he's trying to make the race playable in multiplayer... obviously his units are too cheap, too powerful, and too versitile. Clearly this is a single-player race to be played for fun.

If that wasn't the intention, then I would point out that the race is terribly unbalanced. It surpases or equals several races in their "theme". It's a more powerful astral nation than Arcoscephale. It's a better flying nation than Caelum. It has better random magic than Tiern Chi S&A.

[Thilock_Dominus]

LOTD (Land Of The Dragonkin) is meant for SP, I havn't heard or seen a MP with mod(s), correct me if I'm wrong. Though if lots of people are requesting it for multiplayer and will gladly use it for that purpose I won't hesistate to make an another Version of it or make the changes in the original.

Originally posted by Blitz:
Obviously there's really been no attempt to balance this mod.

Didn't you read my statement that you can't rely on the old list?


As Boron stated, wait with the big-balance-issue untill the first beta release or atleast to I have posted the new unit list.

LOTD gonna replace Atlantis, but people can change that easely if they want to.


best regards
Thilock

[ August 02, 2004, 07:15: Message edited by: Thilock_Dominus ]

[Thilock_Dominus]

Originally posted by Blitz:
If that wasn't the intention, then I would point out that the race is terribly unbalanced. It surpases or equals several races in their "theme". It's a more powerful astral nation than Arcoscephale. It's a better flying nation than Caelum. It has better random magic than Tiern Chi S&A.

1. Only one hero(Temple priest) got astral magic, which is reduced to two, also I've removed the 1 random it had. Cost 420 gold

2. Caelum can s-move 3 while the draconians can only s-move 2, also the elite army of Draconians (The temple Lord and Temple guards) can't fly.

3. Perhaps the draconians have higher random magic than T'ien C'hi, but look at it in this way: Arcane Changeling is capitol restricted, all of its magic is random so you can't build up a thoughtfull strategy and put it to use. You have to buy it (spending alot of gold) and then see where it fits. It's gambling ...and how much money would a player use on an unit they don't really know turns out?

4. It's an expensive race, means you are using alot of money to buy some few units, also expensive units have high upkeep that keep the player to have fewer units.
Fewer units = Easely overun by the enemy.
If the enemy have trample units like mammoth, you are really on deep water, it will maul down the expensive draconian units


best regards
Thilock

[ August 02, 2004, 07:05: Message edited by: Thilock_Dominus ]

[Sindai]

Originally posted by Thilock_Dominus:
1. Only one hero(Temple priest) got astral magic, which is reduced to two, also I've removed the 1 random it had. Cost 420 gold

Why is the astral there at all, though? it doesn't fit with the rest of their magic. Heck, even the other magic-Users in that "family" of units don't get any astral. It really doesn't make any sense and detracts from the symmetry of the design.

3. Perhaps the draconians have higher random magic than T'ien C'hi, but look at it in this way: Arcane Changeling is capitol restricted, all of its magic is random so you can't build up a thoughtfull strategy and put it to use. You have to buy it (spending alot of gold) and then see where it fits. It's gambling ...and how much money would a player use on an unit they don't really know turns out?

It's really not much of a gamble. You're guaranteed low of medium levels in all 4 elements, or a high level in one. That alone is pretty useful.

But that's not really the main problem with the unit. It has the same primary problem as the astral priest: why is it there? It doesn't seem to fit the fire-wind theme. Acro and Spring and Autumn are practically built around hefty random-magic units, this one just seems to have been tacked on for the heck of it. I would drop the unit altogether.

Overall, the Draconians seem to suffer from kitchen sink syndrone. I think the mages should perhaps be focused a little more, and I like the idea of capital-only recruitable dragons (less powerful than the pretender dragons, but still very good). Also, maybe increase the armor and resource costs of most of their units. I think a neat theme to go for would be a combination of Abyssia (slow, tough, fire-Users) and Caelum (quick, weak, air-Users). You'd end up with a medium-speed, medium-power flying race with the dragons as a really unique feature.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Endoperez:

quote:

---

About the 'Arcane Changeling', the six random is limited to the elements (No death, nature or astral) and are limited to recruitable in the capitol. I think it is one of the funniest creation I came up with. You buy something and don't know which magic paths it will have
Also it's more expensive than shown in the 'old' list.

best regards
Thilock

Six randoms in four paths of magic? He ALWAYS has ATLEAST 2211, often three in one and you can reliably get 4 at mid- to late game. Also, you need maximum of 3 for elem. magic booster, and so can easily forge Staff of Elemental Masteries... And find all the elemental sites!
I have studied my Randoms -mathbook, and would post the spesific numbers if I were able to calculate them. No luck yet. However, 4 randoms would be much, and even 3 would fill the part you gave for them. Take a look at Arco Mystics.

---

hm i think 6 elemental random is nice :

probability for 3+ in one skill :
probability for 6 + probability for 5 + probability for 4 + probability for 3 =
1/4 to the power of 6 + 1/4 to the power of 5 x 3/4 + 1/4 to the power of 4 x 3/4 to the power of 2 + 1/4 to the power of 3 x 3/4 to the power of 3 = 1/4096 + 3/4096 + 9/4096 + 27/4096 = 5/512 probability total for 3+ in one path .

that is by no way too powerful . you can say only ~ 1 of 100 random 6 elemental mages has a power of 3 or greater in one path .
only about every 3rd of these has a power of 4 or greater in one path so about 1 of 300 of these mages has a power of 4 or greater in one path .