Rebalance Mod game now running on a 24h timer.

[Saber Cherry]

If you can find one, that would be ideal, and prevent a 48h play stoppage or 2 missed turns...

[Arralen]

Obviously, T'C still isn't up to the task of being survive-able in a MP game.

Besides it's horribly expensive mages prefering to target blood slaves (and not hitting them) and their horribly mage-time (of those horribly expensive mages) consuming Demons of Heavenly Fire, who cannot hit the broad side of a barn, even after flying over and landing just in front of it's axes, obivously the battle magics suck due to being path-1 or path-2 at best and early research non-existant because the preciour mage-time goes into national summons.

Chariots are still not worth the cost, mostly to dumb AI (as all those other nifty units). Best bet are still those bowmen - if there were any decent troops to form a meat shield in front of them.

So, after loosing troops 3:1 against a Mictlan, I turn the crappy leftovers to AI control. After all, it botched to battles, now should it see how it gets along with the rest.

If anyone thinks about beefing up T'C S&A, this is what it obviously needs (This is a hint to the devs, as themes cannot be fully modded !!):

- Master of the way with Astral: Communion, Conjure Nationals

- cheap standard commander: mages are expensive, lousy commanders, the charios are lousy too, and 'only' half as expensive

- Better selection of starting units: Other nations get a scout (which is really needed), shielded inf instead of pikeneers which die in droves to any missle troops.

- communion as starting spell: CM who can actually cast some spells which make a difference

[quantum_mechani]

Arralen said:
Obviously, T'C still isn't up to the task of being survive-able in a MP game.

Besides it's horribly expensive mages prefering to target blood slaves (and not hitting them) and their horribly mage-time (of those horribly expensive mages) consuming Demons of Heavenly Fire, who cannot hit the broad side of a barn, even after flying over and landing just in front of it's axes, obivously the battle magics suck due to being path-1 or path-2 at best and early research non-existant because the preciour mage-time goes into national summons.

Chariots are still not worth the cost, mostly to dumb AI (as all those other nifty units). Best bet are still those bowmen - if there were any decent troops to form a meat shield in front of them.

So, after loosing troops 3:1 against a Mictlan, I turn the crappy leftovers to AI control. After all, it botched to battles, now should it see how it gets along with the rest.

Sorry to hear about it, this sounds an awful lot like what happened to me playing S&A in Age of Men...

I have had (sort of) successful S&A games, where I at least get to the point of being the dominant power getting ganged up on. However, you need to get lucky with starting isolated/with peaceful bordering nations.

[Arralen]

Actually, I haven't turned the nation over to AI yet.

I had a look at the graphs. Now I just want to just sit by and wait if Mictlan manages to grab my castle before getting wiped out at home himself.

Going right for my capital, he managed to take 3 provinces - as much as me. Now he's sitting in the neighbouring province and waits for reinforcements. Meanwhile the other players grab provinces.

So here's my congratulation for effectivly taking us both out of the game early. A wise move, especially in a test game. This way a lot of valuable data about the changes to recruitable troops was gained:
Sun Warriors with Fire-9 bless, the pretender and a smiting prophet beat dispossed spirits, and T'C infantry and a handful of heavenly demons.

Not that I could have told that before ...

[The_Tauren13]

I had no idea that province was adjacent to your capitol, and I will have everyone note that it was you who attacked me first.

But what on earth do you have to whine about? Im sitting here with no money because of a stupid bug where I started with all my negative scales and none of my positive. I hope I die quickly.

Does anyone know if this god damned bug has been reported?

[Arralen]

Would you sit by and let another player pile up an army next to your homeland?

I think you left out some details - "No idea" .. you're not only parking your army there for 3 turns now, but moved in reinforcements. Strangly, there where 5 other directions to move when starting from homeland, but you went straight for my capital and didn't take over any other province.

And - if it's indeed a bug, why didn't you tell us on the second or third turn?

Now the game is pretty much busted, at least for testing purposes.

And if one thing proved: S&A isn't competitive. At least in my hands. But I do not play SC pretenders, so maybe that's how it must be played.

And I do not whine. I simply state the obvious - to me. Maybe I exaggerate.

[Ironhawk]

If you all will be kind enough to PM me with the province # of your respective capitals I will do my best to come and end your feud. PERMANENTLY!!! Heheheh.

As for me, one interesting thing I have noted about Ulm is that I am buying only one type of infantry. I want to diversify into the other infantries, but I cant because thier high resource costs mean low troop numbers. And with numbers that low I must ensure that all men in the squad have the same speed or they will "run" ahead and be killed and shatter the squad morale.

Additionally, I think the change to increase the cost of the Black Knight back up to its original 60gp was a mistake. While that makes them a *really* great deal, the truth is that the knights are Ulm's only truly potent weapon given its lack of any useful magic. They need to be a good deal for ulm to have any chance at all in a regular game.

[The_Tauren13]

OK, sorry I got angry with you earlier. It was just the combined anger from this bug and from something going on in another of my games.
To be honest, I took those 2 provinces because they were easier than anything else, and with hardly any money I couldnt put together much to go after real strong indies. When I saw I was adjacent to your cap, I decided "Aw what the heck, Ill start a war and get killed quickly to end the pain." Didnt realize just how good those sacred dudes are.

[Saber Cherry]

Ironhawk said:
As for me, one interesting thing I have noted about Ulm is that I am buying only one type of infantry. I want to diversify into the other infantries, but I cant because thier high resource costs mean low troop numbers. And with numbers that low I must ensure that all men in the squad have the same speed or they will "run" ahead and be killed and shatter the squad morale.

Yeah, this is an interesting problem for me with Jotuns and Vaetti as well. They are excellent to mix together, giving 2 Vaetti and 1 Jotun per square. But Jotuns run way ahead unless you start them on the far right of the tactical map.

You might consider buying a cheap militia screen to stall the opponents, so that if the speed different is low, the slower ones have a chance to catch up by the time the enemy eats through the militia to hit your faster units. Other than that, and starting them at the far right, I'm not sure what can be done, but I'll look at the infantry lineup and their speeds...

Additionally, I think the change to increase the cost of the Black Knight back up to its original 60gp was a mistake. While that makes them a *really* great deal, the truth is that the knights are Ulm's only truly potent weapon given its lack of any useful magic. They need to be a good deal for ulm to have any chance at all in a regular game.

I should note that you're expanding faster than anyone at this point But obviously, that may change when you start encountering nations and magic. I've been giving some thought to additional changes to Ulm units, like ingraining elemental and/or magic resistances into the armor, such that Full Plate + Full Helmet units become substantially different (better) than Chain + Helmet units, and more expensive.

Tien Chi and Mictlan: It's unfortunate to hear that you're both encountering problems. That negative scales bug is especially annoying... I'd thought it had been fixed.

Thanks for the suggestions on Tien Chi; Communion as a national spell (and MotW communicants) is probably a good idea, as flight is sort of... bleh. I'll look at Fire Demon stats and weapons precision as well; I've never used them, only the default TC summons. I was underwhelmed with the pig-men, though; very expensive for such a terrible unit.

[Graeme Dice]

The_Tauren13 said:
Does anyone know if this god damned bug has been reported?

Many times.