The one change Dom2 really needs.....

[Zen]

The second Conceptual Balance Mod in the Series deals with Items and makes those Life Draining weapons considerably more in line. Though this won't in effect stop people from making SC's with lifedraining weapons, but unfeasible to make a ton of mini-combatants. I don't know whether or not this is a good or a bad change, but a change nonetheless. As a spoiler, the costs have been adjusted on various items to look like:

Wraith Sword - Construction 4, 4D, 40 Death Gems (Now you will probably pick Standards of the Damned, but that's the trade off)
Blood Thorn - Construction 6, 3B2N, 20 Blood Slaves, 10 Nature Gems
Clam of Pearls - 4W, 10 Water, 10 Astral
Fever Fetish - 2F2N, 10 Fire, 10 Nature
Blood Stone - 3B2E, 20 Blood, 10 Earth
Winged Shoes - 2A, 10 Air

etc.

[Arryn]

Zen said:
Clam of Pearls - 4W, 10 Water, 10 Astral

Are you able to "disconnect" the path requirement from the gem cost? Because for every other item I can think of, the progression goes:

1 path = 5 gems
2 path = 10 gems
3 path = 20 gems
4 path = 40 gems
5 path = 80 gems

So you'd either need 40 water gems (and no astral), or pathing of 2W2S?

[Zen]

Item Modding allows you to set the forgable path and then the gem costing path. While it still does follow that rule of path/gem ratio, setting the path requirement can be different from the gem cost.

[Frosted Flake]

Zen those changes seem great to me! It makes sense (to me) that any item that is considered automatic, and wraith swords are, needs nerfing. It happened with elemental armor (what else would you put a neifel in!)and should happen to the rest of their standard equipment ...flying booties,luck pendent, and wraith sword. People will still make wriath swords and the rest..but not for every tom,dick and harry.

frosted

[Arryn]

Death to nerfers!

[Zen]

Frosted Flake said:
Zen those changes seem great to me! It makes sense (to me) that any item that is considered automatic, and wraith swords are, needs nerfing. It happened with elemental armor (what else would you put a neifel in!)and should happen to the rest of their standard equipment ...flying booties,luck pendent, and wraith sword. People will still make wriath swords and the rest..but not for every tom,dick and harry.

frosted

I don't know if I'd change the Luck Pendant, yes it's a very useful item, but it also chews up one of the all important misc slots.

I know very well the "Always a wraith sword" problem, because I'm a pretty good perpetuator (most who play games with me will tell you I always have Death in some form). While I don't always put a wraith sword on everything, I do always put it on something that is worth anything as a 'general' item. Meaning if I don't know for sure I'm fighting X I will keep a wraith sword/blood thorn on them. Most SC counters rely on undead or lifeless units because of this and it adds an air of predicitibility to whatever you are fighting. So, in essence it is not particularly overpowered, but useful to any/everything and, IMO detracts from alot of the flavor the game has to offer.

The only other option is to completely remove the Life Draining weapons, but that doesn't seem right either, though that may just be my overdependancy on variable strategy (with Turmoil or if you get hammered by bad luck, you are required to shift moementum and sometimes using wraith sword combatants is your only option because of the nature of the game).

That being said, I don't, in fact, the costs I have diagramed would shift the dependancy on the items but would shift it to only certain items. I'm still fairly certain every Air Queen, Ice Devil, Arch Devil, Demon Lord, Earth King, will be equipped with a life draining weapon, but it will stop people from equipping their Golems, Bane Lords, Firbolgs, Wraith Lords, Niefel Jarls, etc.

[Graeme Dice]

Zen said:
Clam of Pearls - 4W, 10 Water, 10 Astral

Do you mean 2W2S?

Fever Fetish - 2F2N, 10 Fire, 10 Nature

This seems to be very severely overpriced, and would also have the side-effect of almost denying them to Machaka. The other prices seem to be about in line, but I would bring wraith swords down to death 3 probably.

[Zen]

Graeme Dice said:
Do you mean 2W2S?

No, I mean 4W. The reason for this is if you change it to 2W2S, then it limits it to a few nations, that can still clam as easily as they did before. And give them what would seem to be an advantage (not that there is).

With 4W, every nation can use them that can get 2W and forge some boosters, which is pricy. Or if you summon a Sea King, a Water Bracelet. The idea behind this is to limit the non-siteproducing gem income to something that you pay a dear price for. Like I said, it might be overkill, but that's what I think most people who don't like Clams/Fetishes/Bloodstones are looking for, overkill. It could just be an easy fix and remove all 3. Then there would be no non-site income. But that would then bring up the issue of 'madcastling' to protect gem economy? Or some other issue, I'm sure.

This seems to be very severely overpriced, and would also have the side-effect of almost denying them to Machaka. The other prices seem to be about in line, but I would bring wraith swords down to death 3 probably.

See above for the overpriced bit. Perhaps it could be changed to 3N1F or something similiar. There is a reason that I haven't released the Mod yet, because I'm still seeing what nations are able and how fast the exponential growth curve on the new costs would be.

[Graeme Dice]

Zen said:
Do you mean 2W2S?

No, I mean 4W. The reason for this is if you change it to 2W2S, then it limits it to a few nations, that can still clam as easily as they did before. And give them what would seem to be an advantage (not that there is).

[/quote]

I wasn't aware that you could separate the required paths from the gem costs. I've no problem with requiring 4W to forge actually, since that seems like a good way to limit the throughput on clams.

See above for the overpriced bit. Perhaps it could be changed to 3N1F or something similiar. There is a reason that I haven't released the Mod yet, because I'm still seeing what nations are able and how fast the exponential growth curve on the new costs would be.

Well, the curve for fetishes was already a lot slower than that for clams. Blood stones were already a rarity for most nations, and anyone using them likely has a hammer, so the increase in cost there doesn't matter too much.

I just ran the numbers on fetishes through some calcs, and with F1N1, no hammer, and income of 5 fire gems per turn, at turn 100 you can have 139 built. You'll need to also factor in the cost of whatever is holding them. With a hammer it's 255 fetishes. At F2N2, the same numbers would be 33 and 69 respectively. That's with a huge number of fire gems alchemized into nature gems though, which might not necessarily be the case.

[Huzurdaddi]

Zen,

Nice mod. While I have always liked the idea of re-investment I have to say that as it currently stands the interest rates seem to be too high.

Also I like your changes on the life drain weapons.

I think that balancing these types of games when there is an active community is a matter of nerfing what people do a lot and then buffing what they do not use. And doing it in small steps.

I would also like to see Protection tuned slightly since it seems essential in most SC builds. If it was treated something like defence that would help things out as well.