Conceptual Balance Mod (and readme file) 1.00

[mivayan]

Wish said:
am I the only one who thinks the demon bane should have 2x damage vs demons?

Is my manual wrong to say it already does that, or was it removed in cb?

[Edi]

It does have that, but when you look at the actual items with special damage properties, it does not show them in the item description. It DOES show them in the weapon properties when you equip the item.

[StrictlyRockers]

Does it do double damage or not?

[Edi]

In the vanilla game, yes it does. The weapon properties window is the determining factor, not the item description window display.

[Blitz]

Nice mod. I play with it all the time, though I do have a couple of nitpicks. The Dagon has seemingly been "nerfed" to put a crimp on awake SC/W9 bless mictan. Sadly, LA Atlantis feels this the most, as their weak heavy infantry mourns the loss. Previously it was possible to take a W9 awake Dagon without negative scales, now it is not. The combination of a rapid expansion pretender and W9 bless troops from turn 1 made LA Atlantis playable.

Other than that.... I was sad to see you make MA Ermor's Thamaturgs into H2 priests. I didn't think they were ungodly overpowered, and very few things in your mod were actually nerfed.

[quantum_mechani]

You're right that LE Mictlan was the main reason for the Dagon nerf. However, I think he is hardly a shabby pretender now, a great turn 2 expander with good prot, fear, and easy-to-acquire-awe, and the slots to keep him relevant later in the game. And besides he has the bit in the description about weak magic.

With the thoumaturgs, the problem was that their crazy levels of reanimation were (together with the great sacred troops) making the nation the juggernaut of ME, and greatly marginalizing the nation's normal national troops. The grand thoumaturgs actually weren't so bad as they were, being capital only, but the ones recruitable everywhere could just be scaled to insane levels. Providing troops, research, and great magic support (with nether darts) you could make a formidable nation even with no other recruitable unit. I probably would have left the grand ones as they were, but it I didn't want to leave a weird gap in available priest levels.

As for the change summary doc, I don't think I'll have time to work on it any time soon, but Mork did show me a preliminary version of one he made, so he might be working on it.

Oh, and yes, the demon bane works as Edi says in both base and CB.

[Sombre]

Then I'm rooting for Mork ;]

[Blitz]

You're right that LE Mictlan was the main reason for the Dagon nerf. However, I think he is hardly a shabby pretender now, a great turn 2 expander with good prot, fear, and easy-to-acquire-awe, and the slots to keep him relevant later in the game.

Better to simply remove him from MIctan then IMO, as LA Atlantis cannot pay an extra 64 points and remain competitive. While there are other pretender choices, the Dagon is clearly the best W9 chassis for this nation, and as stated before, LA Atlantis... with no heroes to speak of, poor national troops outside the reasonably useful Arssartut, and basicly two-path magic. One of these paths is water, arguably the least-useful... and the other is death, with which LA Atlantis starts with only 1 per turn for a total of 4 gems. OVerall, this is a fairly weak nation with three things going for it... amphibiousness, some nice high-damage sacreds and free design points from a cold scale. Nerfing their best pretender takes too much away from an already questionably balanced nation.

With the thoumaturgs, the problem was that their crazy levels of reanimation were (together with the great sacred troops) making the nation the juggernaut of ME, and greatly marginalizing the nation's normal national troops. The grand thoumaturgs actually weren't so bad as they were, being capital only, but the ones recruitable everywhere could just be scaled to insane levels. Providing troops, research, and great magic support (with nether darts) you could make a formidable nation even with no other recruitable unit. I probably would have left the grand ones as they were, but it I didn't want to leave a weird gap in available priest levels.

Perhaps I haven't seen the same level of Thamaturg abuse that you have, although I do feel that the transition from national troops to summons is a natural progression. If you disagree, I suggest you at least restore the power of the Grand Thamaturgs, as they are now quite a bit less useful in the early game, without their very useful smite vs knights and such while expanding.

I've restored the Grand Thamaturg and Dagon for single-player, and hope you will do the same to your mod so I won't be unhappy playing them in MP anymore. We use your mod, it's exceptional.