Faded Magic - no diplo, CBM 1.92, limited magic - KeithZ/Pythium wins!

[Valerius]

This is the latest in a series of games in which the central theme is to limit magic to midgame levels. Each game has mixed in other aspects such as no indies, no research required, Assimilation mod, etc. This time around I'm going with a fairly straightforward approach:

* CBM 1.92 with magic limited to level 6 (with a few exceptions - see changelog)

* Also: Monsters! Here I'm defining a monster as a creature without full slots - in short, not an SC. That means tart monstrums, tarrasques and abominations make the cut.

* And Dragons! I've added Fire, Frost and Forest dragons as summons. I think they're usable, but not OP.

In previous iterations I based these games on CBM 1.6. It was what I was most familiar with and thus found easiest to balance. But it's time to move on. I can't make guarantees as to balance. I've done my best to take the limited magic and my experience with the previous games into account when making changes but I'm sure there will be some balance issues.

Basically the way it breaks down is you'll have tough, high HP non-humanoid monsters without full slots and physically weaker thugs that have full slots. Magic also plays a huge role; evocation magic can be especially devastating. If you think you might be interested download the attached mod and give it a try (play on easy research so you can quickly access all the spells).



Player Conduct

Just want to talk about this a bit before getting further into the game details.

Dominions is of course competitive but it is also, in a sense, cooperative. Sometimes things just go to hell: you get dogpiled early, expansion is a disaster, etc. But you keep playing and trying your best for the sake of the other players - and you hope that they'll return the favor in another game if they're the ones having a disastrous game.

So I ask that everyone play things through to the end (keep in mind that with these non-standard settings I may have a difficult time finding subs). And this doesn't have to be miserable. I view last stands as almost a mini-game: how long can I last with my limited resources.

Of course real life takes precedence and it may be that you are unable to continue. If you can PM me to let me know I'd appreciate it but really I only ask that you don't set yourself AI. This gives me the chance to look for a sub. Also, please do not password protect your pretenders so that a sub will be able to step in if needed.

Thanks!



Settings

Age: MA
Players: 5-8
Diplomacy: None
Banned nations: all water nations
Hosting: llamaserver
Hosting interval: 24 hours up to turn 20, 48 hours up to turn 40, 72 hours from then on
Mods: modified version of CBM 1.92 (attached to post)
Map: TBD
HoF: 15
All other settings default
Exploits: Don't use them.



Player roster

ghoul31 - Agartha
KeithZ - Pythium
Ragnarok-X - Jotunheim
Samhain - Ulm
shard - Shinuyama
tratorix - Arcoscephale
Valerius - Caelum



Changelog


Nation changes
--------------

Ashdod:
Adons & Talmai Elder - 3 --> 2 misc slots
Talmai Elder - 600 --> 500 gold
Dirge for the Dead - removed
Call Malakh - 12 gems
Summon Se'irim - 42 slaves
Summon Shedim - 32 slaves
Comments: What an irritating nation (though not as much as Hinnom). Was just going to remove the ridiculous extra slot on the adons and talmai elders and then saw that dirge for the dead spell and knocked that out as well. Then added in some blood nerfs as well. But hey, at I didn't ban them as I was tempted to - and I actually decreased the cost of the talmai elder.

Jotun:
skratti - +1 enc in werewolf form
Along with Ashdod, another giant nation banned in earlier games due to the problems of borderline SCs in a no-SC game. Skratti lovers will hate the boost to encumbrance but I hardly think it's crippling. If Jotun dominates then back to the drawing board.

Ulm:
National holy spells removed (elemental resist / halting spells / blessing of iron) - removed
Drain Magic - removed
Iron Angel - removed
Forge of Ulm - removed
Funny thing about Ulm. The old, weak, CBM 1.6 Ulm actually did fine in the earlier games. A couple dozen mages spamming magma eruption goes a long way under these settings. Despite the multiple nerfs they are still stronger than the previous version was and I'm convinced they'll be competitive.

Pan:
Carrion Woods - removed
No maenad spawning; summon maenad spells (10/1 N gem)
No carrion centaur/lady/lord; national version of construct manikin (10/3 N gems)
Gorgon - removed
One of the free spawn nations, they were initially banned and allowed in last game with the changes above. I played them last game and chose a gorgon pretender who IMO is OP for these settings (I stopped using her midgame because of this) so she's out as well.

Ermor:
No summon undead ability; have national version of pale riders (Ench. 0, D3, 3 gems, 20+ units)
Freespawn isn't as annoying as Pan's given the malus on defending forts but still was removed.

Bandar:
Summon Dakini - 100 slaves
Just a blood nerf (plenty more of those below).

Agartha:
Locus of the seal unit removed (no darkness on PD)
Avatar of Darkness is no longer a unit but a national version of Darkness spell (D3, 3 gems)
No darkness on PD and changed the summonable unit into a national version of the darkness spell. You'll need to get a D3 mage but once you do you'll have darkness much cheaper than anyone else.

Eriu:
Sidhe Lord - no autoentangle
AOE entangle weapons are cheap. If the thug can't land a hit he doesn't deserve to entangle the opponent.

Van:
Vanjarl 240 --> 280 gold
IMO the 50% B random on vanjarls is better than a dousing bonus would have been. Given that, I'm restoring their cost to the original 280 gold.



Summons
-------

Zmey
The feared zmey is still present, though one of the more expensive summons. Prot decreased by 2 points to 20 and misc slots from 3 to 2 (I know usually all three slots aren't used but the increased cost of the lychantropos' amulet may change this).

Ettin
The Rodney Dangerfield of EDM summons gets a chance to shine as the only size 6 unit with full slots (extra ones in fact). Given the context, cost increased to 20 gems and level to 6.

Wendigo
Wendigo moves into a thug role (though a very high powered thug) maxing out at size 4 and W3D3. This should be a very popular summon.

Tartarian Monstrum
You know how the great thing about tarts is the combination SC/magic diversity? Well, they pretty much fulfill the same role here, but in a diluted form. Just like with the ettin, the least of them gets a chance to shine. Two level two randoms and two misc slots (as well as a head slot) mean they provide the best magic diversity around. High HP and flight and the chance of A/S magic also means they can fulfill a raiding role. I expect we'll see a lot of these. Oh, and they don't have that annoying shattered soul or come with afflictions.

Dragons
That's right, dragons. They are basically combat spellcasters and raiders (though not as good in the latter role as a zmey or in the former role as a tart monstrum). They have level 3 F/W/N magic, base MR of 20, and head + 2 misc slots. The fire dragon is the best offensively: with a reinvig item, skull of fire and phoenix power he's a falling fires machine. The frost dragon is amphibious and the forest dragon has recuperation.



Spell changes
-------------

No globals
No reason to hoard gems. Provinces = power so use your gems to summon and forge so you can get more provinces.

Restore Soul - 10 gems
Normally this is for tarts - here it's basically to avoid umbral thugs being too cheap.

Darkness - D5 / 5 gems
Hard to cast normally, even harder to cast here.

Iron Bane - E5 / 5 gems
More difficult to cast and much more expensive

Leprosy - 8 --> 15 gems, MRN easily
Afflictions are serious business here without GoH, chalice or even faery queens.

Horror Mark - costs 1 gem
Don't like this spell and don't want people who go with SC pretenders to have them sidelined that easily.

Communion Master/Slave - increase fatigue 20-->30
No rain of stones makes life a lot safer for communions. Bit of an increase in fatigue to offset this.

Transformation - level 7 spell but stays in
A level 7 spell that I'm just keeping in for the fun of it.

Weapons Sharpness - level 7 spell but stays in with aoe 2
A powerful level 7 spell that I'm deliberately leaving in since I think it has an important role to play against thugs and monsters. AOE much smaller, though. Ulm will be able to maximize use of this better than anyone.

Everything below here is blood nerfs because I think it's a good idea (something to keep in mind is that given the limited research you won't have much of an opportunity cost for blood hunting - combine that with growth scales and blood will be a powerhouse even with some of these cost increases and spell eliminations).

Sabbath Master/Slave - fat 100, costs 1 slave

Rain of Toads - 20 slaves / level 6

Send Lesser Horror - 15 slaves

Bind Succubus - 66 --> 45 slaves (ok, this price is actually decreased as I don't know why this unit is that expensive)

Ritual of the Five Gates - 24 --> 35 slaves

Blood rite, blood rain, bloodletting, hellbind heart, bind ice devil, infernal disease - removed



Magic item changes
------------------

No unique items

Bane venom charm - 15 gems
Afflictions are serious business here without GoH, chalice or even faery queens.

Soul contract, jade knife, lifelong protection - removed
More blood nerfs.

Lychantropos' amulet to 10n
5N is too cheap when you consider the aggravation this causes with commanders picking it up. Also, this makes it less of a no-brainer for zmeys.



Misc changes
------------

Removed bugged ettin site



Tentative roster for Faded Magic 2
----------------------------------

KeithZ - Yomi
Samhain - Fomoria
shard - Lanka
Valerius - TNN