Vote

[LDiCesare]

Without a balance change, all the changes except gemgens are just bad.
The 30%+ magic sites are ultra-strong, but then those which provide 5 gems are very good too and come in handy earlier.

[PriestyMan]

5 gems? the 30% magic sites essentially provide 20 gems/turn *at the least* if its a conj, const, or blood site, they can be worth 50+ gems/turn. they are on a totally different level than a measly 5 gems. and no amount of planning or pretender design can detrmine who gets them, so they can totally derail and unbalance a game

[rdonj]

I find it a bit odd that I've not seen anyone suggest that games be played at a higher site frequency now that hammers have been removed to increase the gem supply... since one of the complaints I've seen a lot is that it's a reduction in the amount of gems available.

Anyway, I voted that everything should be removed. The main reason hammers bother me is that I feel like I need to spend my entire earth income making them, or I'm losing the game. Any other expenditures of earth gems are suboptimal, until I have more hammers than I know what to do with. I also feel as though forging gear is the most important and almost always the best thing that you can do with your gems, since you're getting a discount on everything you make. As opposed to summoning or casting rituals, forging feels too efficient. And then, of course, if you get unlucky with earth site distribution you can be completely screwed over by having to pay more for gear than everyone else. Hammers basically just seem too important a part of everyone's strategy.

And I agree that there are some balance concerns created in 1.7 that need to be addressed before it's really ready for play. The changes made were vast and sweeping, and caused a lot of complex interactions with national power levels. Some of the complaints about it have seemed rather hyperbolic though.

[P3D]

Originally Posted by rdonj

...

+1

However, I'd keep dousing rods, as they level the blood playing field. Without them, nations that have B2 access outside capitol has a great advantage, not needing to spend 30 slaves to empower.

Mictlan is strangely not that much affected, they only have to rush Blood 6 (Tlahuelpuchi with B2 for 25 girls) instead of Const.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by PriestyMan

5 gems? the 30% magic sites essentially provide 20 gems/turn *at the least* if its a conj, const, or blood site, they can be worth 50+ gems/turn. they are on a totally different level than a measly 5 gems. and no amount of planning or pretender design can detrmine who gets them, so they can totally derail and unbalance a game

Yes. Late-game. Early/mid-game, getting a site that gives 5 times as much income as the next one is quite useful, unless you're saving all your gems and never using any before you reach the late game when a conj or blood site will indeed rock. I think all the proposed nerfs only apply to big, long games with many players. In a 4 player game, even a 40%bonus blood site may not tip the game because the game can be finished before you can make use of it.

[llamabeast]

rdonj said exactly what I wanted to say but hadn't found time to put into sensible words.

[TheConway]

Soz GB but item modding is too limited to do what your asking.

@ everyone who wants to make suggestions: in future try reading the mod manual that is in your dom3 folder. Doing so makes for much more constructive discussion since those of us who _did_ read it don't have to be shooting down all sorts of impossible solutions. This is in no way an attack on anyone, simply a request.

[Warhammer]

I voted to keep hammers and sites, I did not vote on the others as they are dependent upon one another. If you keep gem gens, you need to keep SDRs, and vice versa.

I think sites are necessary as they are an important part of the game. The game is inherently unbalanced. When you have as many nations as we do, any two or three nations are going to be unbalanced against one another, but are balanced overall. Where nations are unbalanced, it is up to the players to institute their own balance (Alliances, NAPs, etc.). We've all played games where we spanked one player so quickly, the other players said "we need to get him before he overwhelms us!" Next thing you know, you're out of the game due to a 5 on 1 dogpile. (This is also a reason why I have always been in favor of Machiavellian diplomacy as it allows you to do this, or change relations on a dime)

With regards to hammers, I agree with some of the previous posters, CBM is about giving us more options. I feel hammers do just that. They give us options of different items to produce. Otherwise, we just use the same fire/frost brand with boots of the messenger, etc. Its not like the major earth nations are huge threats in the MP environment (Agartha, Marverni, Ulm are not world beaters by any stretch). Hammers give the earth nations bargaining chips early in the game as well as a leg up that they need.

Regarding gem gens and SDRs, it really depends on game size. On a map with 75 provinces, they are not a huge deal (I would argue if you let someone craft a ton of them in a small game, you're not pressing him enough). However, on a large map, they can be a game breaker. Plus, I like the idea behind the gem gens, investing in your future. They just break things when used on a massive scale.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

With regards to hammers, I agree with some of the previous posters, CBM is about giving us more options. I feel hammers do just that. They give us options of different items to produce. Otherwise, we just use the same fire/frost brand with boots of the messenger, etc. Its not like the major earth nations are huge threats in the MP environment (Agartha, Marverni, Ulm are not world beaters by any stretch). Hammers give the earth nations bargaining chips early in the game as well as a leg up that they need.

Is that really true? Because I know with dwarven hammers, I nearly always make brands unless I a) don't have the gems, or b) am looking for a more specialized weapon. Without hammers I'd be making less brands etc because you won't be able to afford the gems to craft them as easily and you'll actually have to consider using different gem types. And if all games started uner CBM 1.7 use higher gem frequency settings, you'll still have lots of gems to play with.

Agartha, Marverni and Ulm are hurt a bit by the lack of hammers, but that doesn't mean that they can't be compensated for it somehow. The most obvious method would be with a forge bonus, of course, but it doesn't have to be a forge bonus either (I'd much rather have a forge bonus as a bargaining chip than hammers, though!). But there are a lot of ways you can boost a nation if its been hit unfairly.

Originally Posted by P3D

+1

However, I'd keep dousing rods, as they level the blood playing field. Without them, nations that have B2 access outside capitol has a great advantage, not needing to spend 30 slaves to empower.

Mictlan is strangely not that much affected, they only have to rush Blood 6 (Tlahuelpuchi with B2 for 25 girls) instead of Const.

If nations who only have weak/expensive access to blood are given a dousing bonus, they'll have built in dousing rods and be much, much better than they are presently. Meanwhile strong blood nations can remain the same, which means relatively more expensive blood slaves. Which will bring blood nations closer together. You can't quite do that for a non-blood nation (I don't think dousing bonuses work on units that aren't blood mages already, or you could give a bonus to scouts), but I don't really have a problem with non-blood nations having to struggle to compete at it. It kind of bothers me that all nations are supposed to end up having all magic paths by the end of the game anyway.

[Ragnars Wolves]

Gem-gens bad......