Invisible Swarm III: over

[jeffr]

A new turn is up.

"would be the one eating up jeffr's remains" - that hurts

"but Pangea's provinces were all set to 200% tax forever, and aren't worth much." - yep, the sign of a good player, eh? Poverty rules!

"They are also fairly gem-poor." - an even better sign of a good player! Hmmm, maybe I should rethink this one.

"Zen's item mod makes me want to puke. I will never play with it in one of my games."

I hope you change your mind on this and consider it for your next game. I think the item mod might introduce some variety and make item construction much more interesting. Anything that promotes variety and choice is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. It seems to me that everyone currently builds more or less the same small subset of items, which is a shame considering the number of items in the game.

Cainehill said above, "Making lifedraining weapons less common is a majorly good thing about it, imo; likewise making staff of storms, etc, harder to attain."

I agree with this. Does anyone have experience with the item mod? Have games played out differently?

[CUnknown]

Well, I'm open to the possibility of changing my mind about it. I do like that some of the weaker weapons have been made cooler. I just can't get over the lifedrain thing.. it seems like it essentially removed lifedrain from the game (except maybe for the rare 40+ strength guy or Golems with astral weapon). I thought lifedrain was a nice aspect, something that allowed SCs to compete with armies. I agree with making armies more powerful, and that's been done with Zen's other mods and SC's mod (and other mods). I don't think that you need to -also- weaken lifedrain. I'd agree with a price hike--make wraith and hellswords cost 20 gems each, and I'd agree with a damage and attack value nerf on Blood Thorns (maybe to 0 or -2). Zen's mod just goes too far, and that's an understatement. It goes way too far.

I'm ambivalent about the nerf to hoard items. I can see the value for nerfing them if you like to play on large maps, but I don't. Small maps with quick action are the way to go, imo. Under those conditions, I think hoard items are balanced in vanilla.

I dislike most of the other changes in the mod, such as making flying boots, water bracelets, etc. more expensive. I don't see the reason for it, and it would really hurt my Ulm game, heh. I can't really see Ulm doing very well in an item mod game, and I think most people believe them to be weak. There would be no question they'd be weak in an item mod game. Item construction is their bread and butter, you nerf that, you're killing them. Where would I be in this game, for example, if I couldn't hoard bloodstones, clams, if I couldn't make flying boots, water bracelets, etc? I'd be up the creek! My god can do anything, but she can't do everything at once.

Yes, now we're getting to the meat of the issue. The item mod drastically nerfs my favorite race! You guys happy??

[Boron]

Qm now continues the mod. He already did many new tweaks.
About the LL weapons he is still unsure but he is 100% sure that he has to improve them. Zen's version of LL weapons are garbage. I personally don't mind though because i love troophordes and nerfed LL makes the troophordes a bit more valuable strat .

[The Panther]

Unfortunately, the single best change for life drain is not fixable in a mod. All that really needs to be done it make life drain steal HP only and NOT fatigue. If the battle goes too long, then they will get fatigued out and die like ordinary troops. This potentially fixes both the troops with inherent lifedrain (can you say 'much-too-powerful Vampire Lords and Queens'?) in addition to fixing the weapons.

If commanders with LD could die from fatigue and you therefore had to consider reinvigoration items, then LD would not be a no-brainer like it is now for an SC.

Oh, and about the Nexus: Since you are using the spell mod and Wish is not available, then Nexus/Clams are not near as powerful as in the base game. Still extremely strong, of course, but not worthy of resigning at once. Jurri could summon a lot of abominations, though, if he wants, and those guys are very good. Furthermore, because you are not at turn 100 yet, then perhaps he put it up with fewer pearls than the max.

Anyway, R'lyeh ought to have the most clams since Atlantis is not in the game.

Finally, as long as Aku valiantly holds out, Pasha will not be attacking anyone else, I would wager.

[Aku]

Well nobody seems to be attacking me since i destroyed pasha's main army including his god lol. They just want to leave me at 2 provinces and dom kill me!

[CUnknown]

Yay Aku! You rock.

[jeffr]

"I dislike most of the other changes in the mod, such as making flying boots, water bracelets, etc. more expensive."

I guess we just disagree then I also like this change. Why should I as Pangaea have easy access to Flying Boots and Boots of Quickness (via the Water Bracelet)? Pangaea is not supposed to be an Air or Water nation, yet I use the same old tactics as everyone else (although clearly not as well .

I think the nations should be differentiated more. I'm Pan and yet I'm fielding Bane Lords with Hell Swords, Boots of Quickness, Lucky Coins, blah, blah, blah, the same as everyone else. What is that? If I want the benefits of these clearly superior items, I should have to do more than stick a water bracelet on a water random mage.

I'm just brainstorming here, but I would even go so far as to have some spell schools and items prohibit the use of opposite spell schools and items (Wraith Sword means no Lucky items as a first guess?). Do I want Nature or Death spells? Or Tartarians and Demons stacked with most mortals kills the mortal's morale. If I summon Fiends as Pan, shouldn't my Centaurs be pissed off? I'm just throwing thoughts around without thinking about them, but the goal is variety. Tough choices are more interesting.

The spell mod attempted to introduce variety and choice by making the obvious spells more difficult to cast. I liked the fact that I saw Iron Pigs on the battlefield! I think
the item mod might do the same for the item aspect of the game.

And I have a feeling Zen carefully considered the changes, although everything can be tweaked. I also agree with the idea that upping the item cost is not the solution for most of the items (Wraith Swords, etc.).

And hey, if you really think your favorite nation (say, Ulm) is not playable with this mod, then I'd be willing to play the next game as Pan without something I like (say, White Centaurs). Although Jurri, or someone else, will probably just kill me off that much earlier and use my resources against you

But maybe we should ask those with experience. Does anyone have first-hand knowledge of games played with the Item Mod?

[The Panther]

This is an interesting discussion and I have to agree with Jeff about the items.

I am playing in Yarnspinners2, where the main point of the game is writing yarns and not necessarily winning. I am therefore making thematic choices (which are not necessarily the best or even the usual choices) because of the yarns. As part of my story tale, I wanted to outfit my Great Enchantress pretender with a bunch of cheap artifacts. And, because the game is still fairly early (plus I wanted to be totally thematic), I only built low-level air or nature items (I am base Man). No astral or death artifacts! Can you believe that someone would actually outfit a pretender without luck or MR or LD??? I did! It was actually quite fun looking around for an interesting combination of Man-specific artifacts which seem to mesh well together. Did you know that weightless scale mail is really cool for a mage?

I suppose I have been playing Dominions long enough by now that I am more interested in variety instead of doing the absolute best thing (like life drain, luck, boots of flying or quickness, magic resistance, etc).

[YellowCactus]

Is there a maximum number of gems you can put into a global?
-yc

[The Panther]

YellowCactus said:
Is there a maximum number of gems you can put into a global?
-yc

Yes - it is 999.