ABM (if I can figure out how to make that work ).

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Endoperez

Are you going to remove old age altogether? If not, what kind of commanders will you leave old?

Generally, I favor incrementalism. Many nations top line mages have specific references to old. All of those nations remained old (iirc) for thematic reasons.

In general however, many nations had 'acolytes'. None of the acolytes contained text saying old - and yet many of them were.
So I believe I removed old age from all acolytes.

I don't believe many people build them, but they might be someone more attractive now.

A few nations were old where I thought it was unthematic. Abysia's slayers are no longer old. Sorry, they idea of a geriatric assassin (stay put while I gum you to death)...

Also, a few nations where I thought they shouldn't be old, where alreadly very strong, so I did not change the nation. The idea to my mind is to increase balance, as well as make units and spells that are not currently viable, more so. So anyway, for this reason nations like EA-Mictlan - a low tech, low lifespan nation, did not get old age tags removed.

Generally, the nations affected are in the readme.

I also *do* like the idea of removing old age entirely, however I figured old age was part of the general balancing act and hence removing it entirely was not appropriate for a balancing mod. However someday I may write an "old age" mod where all old age is removed. A golden time of magic, indeed.

How did you change Black Bull and Blindfighters?

Black bull had a bug in CBM that gave him stats and text from the fenris wolf (or vice versa). I merely removed the bug.
Blind fighters had 8 levels of air, the numbers were juxtaposed. I merely changed 8 1 / 1 8 ie., giving them one level of holy.

Are Cat Charm, Fires from Afar and Seeking Arrow now at the same research level they were in vanilla, or did you make them available earlier? No manual, no game, can't check myself.

Cat charm I restored to vanilla level. Fires from afar and seeking arrow I did not change level - I lowered the casting cost.

Seeking arrow got 1 gem cheaper, and fires from afar now costs 4 fire gems.

It is my general thought that Astral and death schools are the strongest. Air is pretty good. Water, Nature and fire are somewhat weak.

But additionally, I would like to see additional options open up for play. Much of the current game focuses on summons, magic item construction, SC's, and in some cases globals. I'd like to make using magic on a strategic level a more viable option.At 10 gems I think there was no serious use of fires from afar; certainly not in the mid game.

[quantum_mechani]

Here is my 2 cents on the issue:

I still think having CB can lead to confusion (talking about CB 'flavors' rather than actually different mods). In particular it would be nice if you'd start with your own whateveryourmodname 1.00 rather than having one apparently added on to the current CB version. I do understand I share some blame with the confusion, having left some largish bugs in the last CB version, but hopefully the confusion (and bugs) can be eliminated when I release a new version soon.

As for some the specific changes brought up here, several have specific reasons they were nor included in CB. Old age ranges I considerer entirely in the department of IW's thematic call. In particular they have made clear Abysia ages are as they intended them.

The change out of the list that strikes me as oddest though is lowering the cost on seeking arrow. I do not think I have seen a game with air nations where this was not put to huge use. The obvious use is early game where taking out mages and people leading troops can utterly change the tide of a war. But it has an arguably even deadlier side. First just a few of them can make sure to give enemy SCs a chest wound- usually a death sentence in itself for SC vulnerable to it. And more than this, given enough gems and mages it can kill even the best equipped and best chassied SCs. Admittedly this is less efficient than mind hunting , but given the low tech, it's many other uses, and the fact very few scs will have the equipment to counter it, it's already an awfully powerful spell.

I'd also point out that by making early artillery like fires from afar and seeking arrow cheaper you are giving giant nations an even larger leg up.

[chrispedersen]

Rather than continue to hijaak a thread, I moved my response here; so the first points are not directly in answer to this thread.

First, I originally called it cCBM because I considered it a variation of what QM did and I wanted to give him credit.

I have discussed the mod a couple of times with QM; he said he did not mind me making the mod, but he and llama asked that I name it something else. Llama suggested ChrisCBM so that is what I did, per request.

As for advertising, you are right: I am trying to promote interest in the mod; and trying to get people to look at it and consider it as an option for games. But also to consider the changes, and the reasons for them.

For example the most recent changes are removing a lot of old age tags. But it was a minor point in a list of points that were otherwise quite topical to EA-Arcocephale.


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As for this thread:

Interesting comment QM: Do you think the boost to giant nations is bigger than the boost to fire nations?

Also, Absolutely I will defer on the questions of version numbers. It would be funny to go back to version one, and cause confusion. How about I use 2.0 for the next one?
As for the name, at this point I would happily take suggestions.

I do like calling it a balance mod - for much the reasons you did originally. I don't like putting my name on it - it does seem like bragging. The only thing I can think of now is Balance2.0 but considering the firestorm of protest, I'm going to wait for comment.