Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[PDF]

deccan said:

I'm aware of those, but how many MP games use them?

Zen's mod on the other hand, is already being used by a few games. So I guess that makes all the difference.

I don't know for Solomon Islands games , but in France I've played a couple PBEM with SC scales. O3/M3 was clearly not a no-brainer anymore, I've had one nation literally razed by events in 12 turns in one of them !

[Daynarr]

So, where can I get the latest Version of this mod, to take a peek at it?

[Arryn]

Try post #301565, a few Posts above ...

[Zen]

Up here Daynarr

But easier would be www.techno-mage.com/~zen/concept171.zip

Or the Attatchment.

NEWEST VERSION 1.71

Changes from Version 1.7

I mistyped the Light Lance (#357) so it was not recieving it's length bonus.

That is the only change so if you are currently running a game with it, that is the only change.

Notes: I am pretty satisfied with the Mod as it stands right now until more Mod Tools are released. Though I am still taking feedback and very interested in some "Old Fashioned" pretenders that people have tried and if/how it's different and maybe new pretenders.

[Edi]

I'll get back to you on the Asynja, I've got to run a few checks on it, but I've not the time until tomorrow. That one might need some tweaking, it's now so unattractive compared to the male titan.

Edi

[Yvelina]

I do not know whether I should be openning my mouth in such august company, but isn't there a problem with changing the order/turmoil and luck/misfortune scale? The Marignon&Devils and Spring&Autumn themes would get a major boost. After all, Turmoil is supposed to be a bad scale that keeps these two themes down.

In the same way, some of the nations that are required to take Death and Misfortune would be influenced as well. The Vampire Queen nerf hurt Black Forest Ulm hard. I do not think the theme can actually survive increased penalties for death and misfortune.

[Zen]

Yvelina said:
I do not know whether I should be openning my mouth in such august company, but isn't there a problem with changing the order/turmoil and luck/misfortune scale? The Marignon&Devils and Spring&Autumn themes would get a major boost. After all, Turmoil is supposed to be a bad scale that keeps these two themes down.

In the same way, some of the nations that are required to take Death and Misfortune would be influenced as well. The Vampire Queen nerf hurt Black Forest Ulm hard. I do not think the theme can actually survive increased penalties for death and misfortune.

Good question.

Well the Order/Turmoil issue is not that Diabolic Faith and S&A (and BK, don't forget will become overpowered unless not enough thought is done to the repositioning. But making Order less of a single impact (Gold, and that's all really). Because as it stands now, a Forced Turmoil 1 Nation does not lose 7% Income (A slight but significant impact nationwide), but instead loses 28% (Since if you can take Order and decide to take it (Safe bet) you will pick Order 3). If this scale had less of a single influence impact and some of it's single influence (Gold) was adjusted to other scales then it would still be "the Scale" for Gold, but if you were forced to take Turmoil, you could circumvent some of that gold loss by taking another scale.

Death on the other hand, I do not agree that adjusting it will hamper Black Forest (or Helheim), simply because I *always* take Death to some degree. Death 2 to be precise. And it may be because I don't play games past the 100 Turn mark, or that I don't want to rely on my Dominion to keep supply (Since it's hard enough to maintain). And it's a playstyle issue. However, the minute death of the death scale coupled with the minor loss of income makes Growth seem (to me) to be a waste of points.

On the Misfortune part: There are, I think, two schools of thought on this. The first being that you are going to have bad events even if you have luck, so you might as well get some Nation/Pretender points if you do (a valid opinion). The second is that even some of the Minor Luck events on the side of "Good Luck" tend to not give enough to be considered lucky (Milita don't get the ol' juices flowing), so taking Luck is a gamble (Perhaps Long shot), whereas taking Misfortune is playing the spread.

Like I said, I haven't rolled out the mod because I haven't tested it enough personally to feel comfortable with the changes (which are no, in fact standard changes of adjusting *just* the Scale adjustments).

[Edi]

Time to get in those Asynja comments:

With the Asynja's cost unmodified and her magic not increased, she is a totally useless pretender to take compared to the male titan.

Reasons why: The main point to take Asynja would be to get air blessing (Air 9, probably). However, it is cheaper to achieve Air 9 with titan, even though its initial cost is greater. Assuming same scales, same dominion strength and same castle, the titan is 21 points cheaper, and it is physically more powerful and has 100% shock resistance, which the asynja does not. The Asynja is stealthy and has glamour, which imo does not nearly compensate for the other shortcomings, especially when the titan only has a new pathcost of 50 vs Asynja's 40.

Furthermore, the point totals are set up so that typically the asynja will have an uneven number of points unspent that are not enough to afford anything useful, while the titan with the otherwise same everything will have 40 points, or one more scale left.

The titan's cost was lowered from the unmodded game, while the asynja is unchanged, and even in the unmodded game, to achieve the same effects (assuming Air 9), the titan was 6 points cheaper. As things stand right now, the Asynja is a complete and utter waste of resources unless one is fond of having a sneaking pretender leading an army of Vanheim holy units, but why take the pretender when you can have the Vanheimn commanders (glamour + stealth) do the same?

I would suggest either lowering Asynja's base cost or beefing her up a bit, or doing something to make her more attractive than the immediate competition for the same role.

Edi

[Reverend Zombie]

I'm hosting a game using 1.72 Version of Zen's Pretender Mod.

The thread with game details is located in the MP forum.