Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92

[calmon]

A dragon still shows 75 points but only substract 50 points when choosing him.

EDIT: Ok, the blue dragon doesn't work. The red and green dragon works correct!

[Turin]

bandar log is still broken.

[quantum_mechani]

Seems some bug fixes weren't working as advertised, download replaced with a slightly updated version.

[trentzero]

::delurking::

Did anyone notice that the war hoof attack gets replaced by "Skills of the Gladiator" ingame?

[quantum_mechani]

trentzero said:
::delurking::

Did anyone notice that the war hoof attack gets replaced by "Skills of the Gladiator" ingame?

This is actually a conflict with the worthy heroes mod. However, last I knew the reverse occured- with warhorse hoof replacing skills of the gladiator.

[trentzero]

Ok, I see it now. I guess Worthy Heroes loaded first in my case. I suppose just changing the warhorse hoof weapon number up to 773 would work?

[Sheap]

Changing the skills of the gladiator weapon number will have to happen at some point. It is better than changing the warhorse hoof number since there are lots of units with that and only one with the gladiator attack. But if it can happen to all units with warhorse hoof attack instead, depending on who knows what, then it needs to be fixed sooner rather than later.

[Sorlakind]

I've been playing with the CB mod with Ulm on middle era. I have only SP experience, so bear this in mind in my comments below.

Pretenders:
I usually choose a rainbow pretender. Is there a rationale for the distribution of magic paths/abbilities to the human pretenders? If I recall correctly, the archmage in the CB mod for domII had a level in every magic path and a point cost of 150. I think something like this should be done with the archmage. The word arch is there for something. I suggest one level in every path except blood and a cost of at the very least 50 to cover the 5 additional magic paths. I leave blood out, because blood is a whole different story and does not really mesh well, thematically speaking, with the concept of an archmage, IMHO. A similar change should be done to the water version of the archmage.

And though I have never used the Vampire Queen, from what I have gathered the nerf on her was probably too much, so how about putting ethereality back in?

Units:
I have no great qualms with the changes in the knights and sapper's cost in both gold and resources. But isn't 40 g/1 res too cheap for the siege engineer? Although he has no armour or weapons, the siege bonus should cost something in resources? Just an idea.

From an Ulm user perspective, their master smiths could *really, really* use a boost in their random picks. I do not know if this is moddable, but an increase to 20-50% in their random pick seems reasonable, thematic and balanced.

Spells:
I dislike the national Ulm spell in the thaumaturgy, since thaumaturgy is next to useless to Ulm. Putting it in level 4 makes it a little better. OTOH I do not have any better solution to offer.

Summons:
This is not Ulm specific, but isn't 5N2D excessive as a path requirement for the summon lamia queen ritual?

Oh and before I forget, congrats for the work!
Best regards

[quantum_mechani]

Sorlakind said:
I've been playing with the CB mod with Ulm on middle era. I have only SP experience, so bear this in mind in my comments below.

Pretenders:
I usually choose a rainbow pretender. Is there a rationale for the distribution of magic paths/abbilities to the human pretenders? If I recall correctly, the archmage in the CB mod for domII had a level in every magic path and a point cost of 150. I think something like this should be done with the archmage. The word arch is there for something. I suggest one level in every path except blood and a cost of at the very least 50 to cover the 5 additional magic paths. I leave blood out, because blood is a whole different story and does not really mesh well, thematically speaking, with the concept of an archmage, IMHO. A similar change should be done to the water version of the archmage.

And though I have never used the Vampire Queen, from what I have gathered the nerf on her was probably too much, so how about putting ethereality back in?

Units:
I have no great qualms with the changes in the knights and sapper's cost in both gold and resources. But isn't 40 g/1 res too cheap for the siege engineer? Although he has no armour or weapons, the siege bonus should cost something in resources? Just an idea.

From an Ulm user perspective, their master smiths could *really, really* use a boost in their random picks. I do not know if this is moddable, but an increase to 20-50% in their random pick seems reasonable, thematic and balanced.

Spells:
I dislike the national Ulm spell in the thaumaturgy, since thaumaturgy is next to useless to Ulm. Putting it in level 4 makes it a little better. OTOH I do not have any better solution to offer.

Summons:
This is not Ulm specific, but isn't 5N2D excessive as a path requirement for the summon lamia queen ritual?

Oh and before I forget, congrats for the work!
Best regards

The rationale for the added paths for rainbows is just taking Illwinter's Dom3 boosts to them in and taking it up a level. Mind you, many veteran players still consider them too weak even as they stand in CB. The Archmage change has been requested by others too, so it's pretty likely I will add it back in. Most likely it would include blood though.

I already cut the VQ's price by 25, adding ethereal would mean going against Illwinter's presumably thematic decision.

The siege engineer I cut the resource cost just to be consistent with EA Arco engineers. I should also note that even as they stand I haven't seriously considered wasting a commander slot on them, given that spies are available.

More magic for Ulm is another case of just not seeming thematic. Besides, I'm not so convinced they are as weak as many people are used to from Dom2, they have done quite well in most MP games I've played.

I don't agree the thaumaturgy national spell is useless, and in fact I like that it encourages an alternate research path.

Lamia queens do take a lot of magic in Dom3, but I already made them gem cheaper, and I like that death isn't as amazingly easy to get from nature as it was in Dom2.

Thanks for input, it's always welcome.