Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[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...)

[Cainehill]

Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods? I've been checking, but haven't seen even the beta Versions up on his webpage, so I'm reduced to mere curiousity what people thought of the latest spell mod and the scale mod.

[alexti]

Cainehill said:
Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods?

I think it hasn't happened.

[PDF]

To Cainehill, back on the Flying balance :
I don't think the Flying issue is comparable to SCs, Hoarding or many other in that Flying is a nation-specific huge advantage right from the start (for Caelum) or relatively early in the game(for blood nations).
Mech Militia et al. are not an option before mid-game, and not an option at all for many nations.
To illustrate this, in a pbem game, I (as TC) allied with Marignon and Ermor (BE) vs Caelum on turn 30-some. My allies+me were overall much stronger (in terms of income, research, gems, provinces) an yet Caelum manages to hold for 10 turns and bLasted most of Marignon and my armies.
And the game is on Hard research !

In another I'm playing Caelum (turn 25), just eradicated Arco main army (with Pretender), and on the next turn I turn against Machaka with all of my armies...
This is a just an unfair and unbalancing advantage, Caelum opponents just have no effective counter.

[Endoperez]

No effective counter against what? Masses of Caelian Archers backed up by few mages, masses of Caelian Infantry backed by some mages or lots of seraphs backed up by some archers/infantry?

Caelum's archers are quite good, but still die quickly if anything gets next to them. And they eat a lot. Fast Caelian infanty is quite bad, too. And the good ones are not only expensive but slightly slower as well. And the "lighter complexion" of Caelians that enables flight also makes them weaker than their human counterparts. I haven't tried them in MP, but I quess they will be quickly decimated if your enemy manages to surprise you in any way. And the mages are excellent, as they should.

I can see mountains blocking flyers, but I don't think swamps or forests would be much of a hinderance to them. Maybe in Dom3...

[The Panther]

The real problem is that once Caelum gets false horrors, which is not all that far into the game for the fastest researching nation, it gives that race a supreme advantage. A single Seraph can kill up to 10 PD reliably, except perhaps for Ulm or Jontunheim. And a Seraph with 2 archers can take those two nations too, losing maybe one archer in the first volley to Ulm and losing nothing to Jontun. Even if you lose one raiding force and take only 9 of 10 desired provinces, so what?

In what is still early game, Caelum can therefore take pretty much any province against ANYBODY that can be reached. Want three enemy provinces? No problem! How about 6? Getting harder, but sure. Ten? Yup, I have done that and more in a single turn in an MP game. It cannot be stopped without having a castle in every province.

As long as fliers can jump over provinces AND attack in the same move, flying will be an unbalanced ability. Thus making Caelum the best race for the early game and deep into the middle game. As for the end game, it may no longer be best, but will still be in the top 5 because of the early game advantages.

[Graeme Dice]

The Panther said:
It cannot be stopped without having a castle in every province.

This is when you take your armies ans smash down his undefended watchtowers.