Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[Chazar]

PDF said:
I think that reducing the strat move of fliers - let's say to 2 at most, and 1 for "heavy" troops, be they SG/IG or Gargoyles - will balance things a little.

What is the difference of an ordinary move of 1 and a flight-move of 1? Maybe PerpetualStorm should just be made a little bit more accessible if strategical flight is to be nerfed at all (which is a thing that I do not want to judge here).

[Cainehill]

Reducing the strategic movement of flyers would have the very bad effect of allowing troops that move on foot to move as far or farther than flyers in some conditions (such as when the terrain is plains). I don't think that light infantry is supposed to "run like the wind", or that cavalry should be running faster than creatures can fly.

That strategic mobility is very nice, yes. But it's one of the main benefits of Caelum (who doesn't necessarily even bring armies along), and I'd disagree that the "only" counter was magic transportation (which is, barring artifacts, more expensive, but also goes further). There's also remote summons, remove evocations (murdering winter for devils, fires from the sky against Caelum), stealth units being used to surprise them, and otherwise strategically deducing where they're going next (ie, blind guessing) and attempting to move an army there.

And arguably PD ought to be more effective in warding off such things, but as I believe the devs want an offense oriented game, it seems unlikely that PD is going to be boosted much.

[Huzurdaddi]

murdering winter for devils

Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province. Nada. They have too many HP. Further there is no remote summon which is cost effective against them ( unless you are using Zen's mod ).

but as I believe the devs want an offense oriented game

I don't know if they wanted one however it sure is played that way.

very bad effect of allowing troops that move on foot to move as far or farther than flyers

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high? No idea. Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

[PDF]

To previous replies :
Flying has a *big* advantage over overland strat move, it allows to pass any terrain without having to have "xxx survival" ability.
So any Caelum/Devil player can use 1 army to as much effect as 3 or 5 landlubber armies, attacking the weakest one in turn without possible retaliation. And if the landlubbers regroup you can wreak havoc everywhere else and use mass damage spells against them !
And no, M Winter hasn't any noticeable effect on devils, nor against Caelum? Only FftS is effective and only against Caelians.

As 1 turn is 3 months long, I don't suppose strat move represent any unit running/flying for the whole season, but is rather an estimate of an army ability to move in an organized fashion, with supply train and so on. So "Flying" shouldn't be that much of an advantage .

Powerlessness of PDs is another balance issue indeed

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province.

I assume you used it against a garrison of a castle. It doesn't kill more than about 10% of the troops there if they are in a castle.

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human.

That's obviously not a problem for these beings.

Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

Except that it's not bad with respect to game balance.

[Cainehill]

Huzurdaddi said:
Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province. Nada. They have too many HP. Further there is no remote summon which is cost effective against them ( unless you are using Zen's mod ).

Ghost Riders tend to do quite a nice number against devils, and it's relatively cheap and easy to cast. You can also gateway an army in, again taking care of the devils fairly easily.

I don't know if they wanted one however it sure is played that way.

They've commented that they wanted it that way - if defense was as strong / stronger than offense, it'd lead to a boring stagnant gameplay. (Think mad castling made stronger.)

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high? No idea. Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

Obviously people disagree. Personally, I see it as quite easy for fliers to go that far in a month - after all, they're flying, and can easily see where to land and rest each day that'll be far away from enemy troops. And I don't think it's particularly unbalanced. It is one of those irritating things to deal with, and people tend to dislike things they find difficult / irritating to deal with (hence, people hating gem producing items, flying troops, cheap castles, wrathful skies, SCs, etc).

Just to help illustrate solutions to flying troops: the Mechanical Militia global spell. Yep, it's an expensive spell, only available to one nation at a time, but having the 10 or so MMs added to any province with a single point of PD wreaks havoc with a lot of fliers, stealth troops, and even most remote summonses.

Another way to go: station a mage in each province commanding some statues and mechanical men. Zero upkeep, if you use a summoned mage to command them.

Another possibility: get enough scouts out to see when someone is starting to grow devils, and see about disrupting their plans. It's easier to see if someone's building soul contracts (the usual way of generating large amounts of devils) than it is to see if someone is hoarding clams and fever fetishes.

[Chazar]

Huzurdaddi said:
Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high?

Indeed, Caelians spent most of their time eating because of their high metabolism: They are size3, thus they eat twice as much as humans do.

Supply is provided by a supply chain from the closest fortress (up to 4 squares), however not through hostile provinces!

The requirement for cold+3 reduces the available supply in non-cold climates dramatically.

This works out remarkably neatly: When I played Caelum and used my fliers to attack behind enemy lines, my Caelians usually starve badly. Of course, commanders never starve, so as the game progresses and when mages start to pull out entire armies out of their pockets (living clouds, etc.), food is not a concern. I think food balances flight pretty neatly. Maybe its enough to have WineSkins having 2N requirement for forging, so that Caelum cant do this. Do Devils eat? No? Oops!!!

(I rather think supply is sort of ridiculous with all those easy wine skins and need-not-eat summons, which can be stacked to huge armies...)

[Zen]

Booyah!

[Cainehill]

Proposed tweaking to the Shedu :

Remove "Wing Buffet" and give it a head butt, or a stronger non-AoE wing buffet. My rationale for this is that the Shedu is a size-6 trampler : it will thus never use the wing buffet unless fighting something size-6, in which case a wing buffet with an area of effect of 1 is pointless - it can only hit the single size 6 target.

[Graeme Dice]

The point of the wing buffet is both to do damage, and to repel attackers. Perhaps it should get a length 5 head butt?