Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[quantum_mechani]

I don't think BF Ulm needs any kind of boost (I would put them in the top ten nations/themes), but a thematic change might be fun. Such as giving the member of the second tier the assassin ability and raising his price.

[Scott Hebert]

My main issues with BF Ulm, from a 'fun' standpoint, are:

1. Bloodhunting Micromanagement (no fun)
2. Pretender 'must' be able to cast Sanguine Heritage
3. Illuminated Ones are pointless (Fortunetellers do everything they do and more)
4. Scales are bad (Death and Misfortune are things you don't want with a Blood nation)
5. Rather random Bloodhunters (I'm not paying 160g for a 1-blood hunter)

As an aside, Zen's mod making the Fountain produce Blood Slaves every turn is REALLY GOOD for BF Ulm.

[quantum_mechani]

Scott Hebert said:

1. Bloodhunting Micromanagement (no fun)
2. Pretender 'must' be able to cast Sanguine Heritage
3. Illuminated Ones are pointless (Fortunetellers do everything they do and more)
4. Scales are bad (Death and Misfortune are things you don't want with a Blood nation)
5. Rather random Bloodhunters (I'm not paying 160g for a 1-blood hunter)

The Illuminated ones are not pointless. They can be used as spies when needed, and are not capital only. Yes, it is a good idea to have 3B3D on your pretender when playing BF, much like taking an non recuperating/immoral pretender with Arco is a good idea. Blood micro is a problem with all blood nations (and nations in general in the late game). The scales and expensive hunters just mean it needs to be played in a different way than most blood nations

[The_Tauren13]

BF Ulm is weak: No elemental magic, a national spell that cant even be cast by national mages, starting death gem income but no death mages, no good artilery mages, no good ritual mages, pathetic blood hunters, etc. The list goes on and on. However, it is very fun to play, which, by my standards, makes it better than Pythium

[TheSelfishGene]

quantum_mechani said:

The Illuminated ones are not pointless. They can be used as spies when needed, and are not capital only. Yes, it is a good idea to have 3B3D on your pretender when playing BF, much like taking an non recuperating/immoral pretender with Arco is a good idea. Blood micro is a problem with all blood nations (and nations in general in the late game). The scales and expensive hunters just mean it needs to be played in a different way than most blood nations

... Which is why i wanted them to cause a slight amount of bad luck in the province they are in. The game doesn't really have the kind of robust "cloak and dagger" mechanics that the Illuminated One is supposed to effect upon the hapless empires around them.

Strictly speaking, BF Ulm is average; its weak if played as a 'standard' nation, just picking any old pretender, but decent as a vehicle for the VQ. I don't doubt that for some, that is enough. For myself, Death/Blood economies suck and i hate having only about 2 pretenders to realistically choose from. And the Illuminated One is priced correctly for his abilities, which is fair enough. But i'd rather see a more expensive, more capable I.O. that i could do something more useful with than cause unrest or cast the occasional scry, or have those abilities be more focused and complementary to BF Ulm.

[Graeme Dice]

Scott Hebert said:
4. Scales are bad (Death and Misfortune are things you don't want with a Blood nation)

Misfortune doesn't impact BF Ulm very much once you have enough fortune tellers.

5. Rather random Bloodhunters (I'm not paying 160g for a 1-blood hunter)

Well, the difference in cost between these and warlock apprentices is about 5 blood slaves. It's in the very early game where their weakness is most noticeable.

One major weakness is that while vampire counts can make nice thugs, BF ulm doesn't have the low-level elemental mages (especially earth) that are needed for this to work. If you gave sanguine heritage to default or IF Ulm, you'd have quite a monster on your hands in very short notice.

[TheSelfishGene]

Graeme Dice said:

... and its a Death economy, so your income will be constantly shrinking. So having many IOs mean more and more upkeep for less and less income. If you don't 'cross the Rubicon', militarily speaking, fairly early on, you die in a spiral of bankruptcy. This is of course an issue for everyone to some extent, but it hits BF Ulm harder and more directly than most.

[Graeme Dice]

TheSelfishGene said:
... and its a Death economy, so your income will be constantly shrinking.

But then so is Abysia's when you play with their standard death-2, and that doesn't start to have a really noticeable effect till turn 60 or so. Many of your provinces will not have any taxes for bloodhunting purposes as well.

If you don't 'cross the Rubicon', militarily speaking, fairly early on, you die in a spiral of bankruptcy.

At 0.2% dying per turn, you'll have lost ~12% of your income in your capital by turn 60. Most of your newer provinces will have lost more than that just due to bloodhunting.

[TheSelfishGene]

Graeme Dice said:

But then so is Abysia's when you play with their standard death-2, and that doesn't start to have a really noticeable effect till turn 60 or so. Many of your provinces will not have any taxes for bloodhunting purposes as well.

Not to belabor this point, since this thread is about Saber Cherry's excellent mod, but death-2 is 'standard' Abysian scales? See this is what seperates the winners from losers in multiplayer games. I would lose every single game i played - against the computer! - with those scale choices. You just know exactly what works down to the turn, and damn all and everything else, i suppose.

[Saber Cherry]

tinkthank:

I like the strat-2 move of most bowmen, fine. I would prefer them to maintain their 10-precision, however, for their cheaper price.

So I have this changed in my mod of your mod:

Heavy Archer Prec 10
Heavy Xbow prec 10
Indy Longbowmen: prec 10

Hmmm... makes sense to me (I assume archering is harder with a helmet and plate cuirass...). Except for the indy longbow, who IMO deserves 11 precision, especially at 12g each. Longbowmen (from what I understand; please correct me if I'm wrong) are people who devote their life to the longbow, and their skeletal remains can be unearthed, examined, and shown to be from a longbowman because their hand and fingerbones are deformed in a certain way, due to the strength and practice required to use them. Whereas shortbows and (particularly) crossbows can be given to recruits who are taught to use them in weeks or months.

Mari Xbow: prec 10 (Context of Cheaper Flagellants, cheaper units of your mod)
Flagellants: GCost 7 (still dirt cheap IMO, thats the upkeep of a modded Militiaman too!)
Knight of the Chalice: Stays at 90. Did you feel he has no niche at 90?

Xbow: I tend to think of Marignon units as elites across the board. But you're right, prec 11 seems like too much considering I dropped the price. Maybe I should either make them prec 10 (-1) or 10 gold (+1)...

Flags: I don't know. Considering that they need no armor, training, or salary, it's hard for me to justify charging ANYTHING for them I never build them unless I have a bless-effect pretender (useful for flagellants, like water, air, or fire). Anyone else have input on the cost of flagellants, considering trained light infantry is 7-8g and miltias are 3-5g?

Knight of the Chalice: I have no idea why I did that. Maybe I mistyped? Or maybe they just "felt" expensive and I didn't fully consider how good they are. At any rate, I'll put them back at 90.

Lobos Gcost 4 (too good at 3) (Cherry, do you play Ryleh? Lobos are hands down the BEST recruitable fodder in the game, I loved them at 5 gold; you cant compare them to Militia, which rout -- these guys will sit there and take a beating, and I think 4 gold is a fine price to pay for the difficult task of lobotomizing those poor froggies.)

I rarely play Ryleh, but it's fun to watch froggies poison themselves (due to range-0 attack) against Atlantain poison spears and poison armor I put them at 3g 2r instead of 5g 1r where the extra resource is to note that you don't get an unlimited supply of lobotomized slaves. They lower gold cost is for three reasons:
1) Their theme gives super-cheap lobo guards, and unless I dropped them to 3, human militias would become cheaper, which makes no sense!
2) They require magical leadership...
3) They should not have a salary; that's crazy.

At any rate, I cannot think of any justification for them costing more than 3 gold. However, I CAN think of justifications for dropping their stats. Should physical and mental abuse to the point of insanty increase HP? No... Should it drop you fighting skill? Yes... and by more than 1 att and 2 def. What do you think about lobo guards that are 3 gold and 12 hp (standard), 8 att (-2 from atlantian standard), 6 def (-3 from atlantian standard)? At that point they are much worse than the worst human militia in combat, aside from their 50 morale.

So... I think I'll drop their stats as described (-1 hp, -1 att, -1 def from base game) but keep the 3g price.

Warlock Apprecs: GREAT change with the douse, but nix fear, prec stays at 8 (for no increased cost) (who cares, they cast prec100 spells anyhow)

I boosted the precision to keep them in line with other Abysian mages, and for 1 other reason: some blood combat spells need precision. Of course, nobody ever casts them, so it shouldn't matter, but who knows... As for lesser fear -5, come on, it affects NOTHING! It says "they are greatly feared" in their description

Riderless Spiders given smallish gold cost (30 hunter spider, 10) -- you have to pay for food, heheh -- but seriously, no upkeep is too good for these units

(riderless) hunter spiders are perhaps the awesomest recruitable units in the game. Those costs make sense, assuming those units need tenders. I wouldn't want to turn my back on a riderless hunter spider if nobody was bothering to keep him on a leash Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Yeah... I guess that's fine. Even with those costs, I still kind of hope my riders get killed, so that I get a much cheaper unit that's about as good as before

Machaka Archer 11 prec for 6 gold? (I dont know about this yet, havent had time to test. I think it may be too good, unsure.)

Non-spider Machakans have to be good at SOMETHING I assume they do a lot of hunting, as a pre-agricultural society. Also, their archers get no armor and die in droves. I always recruited indy archers as Machaka. But if you find them to be too awesome, they could change...

Vaetti cold resistance: Fine. Why not Nornae and Seithkonae 25 CR too!?

Nornae and Seithkonae are humans who happen to live with/near the Jotuns, while Vaetti (I assume) were created / evolved in a cold place. In retrospect, it seems fair (to me) to give Vaetti 50% CR.

I sort of wonder what the effect of 25% FR / CR is on fatigue when fighting in hot / cold places...

Here's a question, since you were so thoughtful to change all those descriptions: The Salamander still reads something like "When injured, can erupt in flames??" -- but it never does. Would it be possible to mod the unit so that OnDeath: small area fire?

I wonder... I don't think so, but I'll look into ways to add the ability, or else modify the text to be less misleading.

Cu Sidhe: No supply bonus. (Do you eat your dogs?)

I gave them a supply bonus of 1, with this logic:

1) They are fay (wild...-ish) hound capable of hunting and foraging for themselves.
2) They are size 3, and thus eat 2 food.
3) They are traveling with an army, and thus not capable of foraging as much as normal (they still need some additional food).
4) They were a pretty bad unit.

Hopefully, supplybonus 1 + size 3 = a unit that consumes half as much food as normal. Combining that with a better "weapon", hopefully they will become a useful unit. So, the "supplybonus" is misleading, considering that they still are a net consumer of supplies.

D. Sidhe: No reduced price. Why make them even cheaper?

I gave them bronze armor, resulting in +2 rcost and -1 protection (seems close to Illwinter's bronze armor guidelines). As a result they are slightly worse, so I dropped the cost 10% to compensate. I've only played that theme once. Is 35g still a fair cost even with them becoming slightly worse due to bronze armor?

All (Light) Cavalry: Kept the drastically reduced price, but maintained the low horsey precision.

And I gave them +2 hp, +1 str... and yet, they still aren't very good Especially with light archers getting 2 strat moves, which they deserve. I plan to keep them as they are unless I hear reports of them being overpowered...

Am wary about giving all those cavs higher morale, too. It is not the rider, but the horse which is hard to control.

Hmm, shows how much I know about cavalry Still, Dominions' morale system greatly penalizes small groups of strong units, and it's terrible (and unrealistic) when a group of 10 heavy cavalry routs because one gets killed by the opposing 10 medium infantry.

OK that is all I had the time for so far, really must work, but will try to do this more systematically soon.

Thanks for all your work -- great mod!

You're welcome, thanks for the feedback!



rabelais:

I love the idea of this mod. Go Saber Cherry!

Some comments:

1. Hunterspiders that lost their riders were already upkeep free

2. AP Longbows is overkill, IMHO. Perhaps give them a reduced chance to be stopped by shields, instead?

BF has to endure much to get (AP) rangers. Which leads to:

3. Rangers were plenty good already. Fear them buffed.

1) I wasn't sure... I was setting them as 0 just in case. However, as mentioned above, there seem to be a couple justifiable reasons for making it nonzero. What do you think?

2) If I could find a way to do that, it would be great Good suggestion! I'll have to experiment with the #flail command (att bonus versus shield) and see if it works on ranged weapons. Otherwise, I'll keep AP, as their seems to be good historical justification. If it is overpowered, I can always bump the price of longbow units (on the basis of the much longer training longbowmen undergo). If anyone wants to run a test to see if you can mod a ranged weapon (with #flail) to ignore shields (try giving round shield 20 defense), feel free... I have no computer on which to spend time with Doms II for a few days.

3) You're right, I gave them pretty darn good stats for a 12 gold stealthy unit Seems too good. When I play BF Ulm, I ignore units and spend all my effort on blood, making vampires, and so forth. I don't think I've ever built a Ranger, because those vampire barons are just too much fun And the Zweihanders look really cool. Hmm...

On the other hand, Rangers wear almost no armor and use the crappiest standard 1-h weapon in the game, the Axe. Real rangers use swords. Considering that their bad armor and bad melee weapon make them poorly suited as anything except archers, and that they cost 20-50% more than normal xbows, I think 12g is fair. But if they got a broadsword and ringmail hauberk, it would be a different matter At this point, I think I'll leave them as they are... unless their seems to be a consensus or anecdotal evidence of their overpoweredness.



TheSelfishGene:

Great mod! Really addressed some outstanding issues. I do have some short thoughts on the mod however;

Cavalry is perhaps a bit too cheap. There is a substantial difference between 10 armor and 20 armor; its not just double in effectiveness, its like 4-5x. So when you make, say, Black Knights cheaper AND stronger, they become pretty much the buffest national units in the game. Which may or may not be a bad thing, balance is not a zero sum game and Ulm pays for its Knights by being weak in many other areas, but i gather the Cavalry mod was added in at the last minute and didn't go through as rigerous a testing procedure.

Less rigorous, yes. As for last minute... it took me about 12 hours Unfortunately, I went in phases and first adjusted prices and stats, and later adjusted a few pieces of armor and probably forgot to re-change the prices. Black Knights die like flies before astral / air spells and especially Nether Darts / Bolts. But I agree, 50g is too cheap for possibly the best "standard combat" unit in the game... I'll put them back at 60.

I like the Firbolg Rule of Thumb; is this recruitable unit better than a 10 gem, 5-Path Firbolg? If it is, and its only costing me 50 gold, you might need to think about adjusting something here or there.

Interesting logic. Of course it also costs 70 resources, so you can't make more than 2-3 per turn (and personally, I'd rather have a Firbolg, esp. when playing Ulm), but they are also available from turn 0. So I'll put them back at 60.

Short Bow archers seem useless now compared to xbows because everything has fairly decent armor. I think, imo, a bit too much armor was added to the game...at least with indie troops.

Hmmm? I didn't add any armor to indy troops that I remember, other than Villians.


... I'll post the rest later, gotta run right now