Conceptual Balance Mod 5.4

[quantum_mechani]

PDF said:
QM,
I criticized the mod for having nerfed things that did'nt require it/were not unbalancing. OTOH I've noticed that some things were still too strong, mostly Blood Summons (Elem Rulers went up to Conj7/path7, ID only to Blood6/B3W3)

As for my nerfs, why would having IK only nature-2 and not capable of summoning easily their own kind so bad as to make them useless ? (and BTW, another, less nerfing, way to make it would be to make the summon Nat5 )
And even at 3 gems/spell, VO summoned by batches of 3-4 would still make very cheap and good chaff. What can you have in such great number for such a low price ?
About drakes, maybe they're useful on turns 15-20, but as I wrote, how many will you make with the poor gem income you get at that stage ? And noone will make them anymore once they have a decent research/gem income ...

As the matter of fact, elemental royalty is back to 5, while IDs remain nerfed. And yes, making ivy kings more expensive and n2 would make them pretty much useless. Making them take an n5 mage would by ok, but if you see it as an abuse it would just restrict/delay the abuse for a few nations. I would not pay 1 gem for a vine ogre most of the time, when you figure in the difficulty of getting an n3 mage and an ivy crown. Though, I suppose I could make the ogre spell 2 gems and see how that works out.

Gem income may be relatively low early in the game, but by turn ten your start site has usually produced 50 gems that remain unspent. If you are in an early war it very much pays to pour those into drakes and similar summons. And yes, they will be rarely used once you research better spells, but what would be the point of research if you did not get better things? I believe the low research niche was all thy were intended to fill in the first place.

[Edi]

I actually like the cave drakes least of all of them. High prot and lots of HP, yes, but low defense and not such a spectacular damage. The frost and fire drakes, on the other hand, ain't nothing like them early on to blast away the dirt and chaff. Just a few with a screen of infantry out front will be murder on indies or even early armies of other players. Though gem cost 6 or 7 would make them slightly more attractive than they are even now.

The elem royals could perhaps be at #6 if they need adjustment?

Edi

[archaeolept]

i'd up the ivy kings to 25 maybe, but that's all