Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Micah]

Warriors of the 5 absolutely destroy W/F jags, contrary to your assertion, although I was using an S bless, not an F.

I haven't tried against other sacreds. Additionally, the S bless makes their weak HP in the off season not nearly so bad, since they'll have some leftover HP that will take a while to bleed off, which combos well with twist fate. Oh, and it's cheaper to get too.

Also, your suggestion that Atlantis get almost nothing and rlyeh gets absolutely nothing while giving kailasa recruit-anywhere top-tier mages kind of makes me doubt your grasp on "balance."

[Alpine Joe]

Well, I don't know much about underwater nations, having only played two UW games and hating them both. Once again, I don't claim to be some kind of expert, I just thought it would be interesting to have discussion of nation balance with some kind of starting point.

[Tollund]

Originally Posted by Micah

Also, your suggestion that Atlantis get almost nothing and rlyeh gets absolutely nothing while giving kailasa recruit-anywhere top-tier mages kind of makes me doubt your grasp on "balance."

You could suggest different changes rather than suggest that the game is currently perfectly balanced.

[rdonj]

I think you guys should probably bring this to a seperate thread. CBM is less about overall balance than it is increasing the number of non-terrible options available to the player.


Personally I like not having all nations be perfectly balanced. The more perfectly balanced a game is the more boring, imo.

[Squirrelloid]

Alpine:
I think your list isn't sufficiently thought out regarding which nations are weak and which are strong.

EA Ermor in no way needs a boost. Its plenty strong as it is, and capable of defeating any of your power nations, even in a rush scenario. The key, of course, is knowing what your anti-rush spells are, and actually start researching them *before* you get rushed.

While Marveni isn't really as bad as people seem to think either (it has good earth magic, the best rush-counter path there is), reducing druid cost further is probably warranted. 340 is a lot of gold for an old mage with 8 RPs.

EA TC needs no help.

And so on. A few nations could definitely use a boost (like EA Agartha), but for most of them people need to get used to the fact that being a different nation means playing them differently. I really can't understand how any nation with good E+S can be considered weak (ie, Marveni) unless people just haven't thought about what their options are during an early war. I imagine a similar analysis applies to many nations. As long as you have acceptable expansion options against indies, the real key is finding those spells which can keep you alive in an early war.

[Alpine Joe]

Well, the list of nations with no wins was my starting point to determine nation strength. Participants in the various cripple games got the biggest suggested buffs. I've only played EA ermor in one multiplayer game, but I always assumed it was understood it was a weaker nation based on its poor performance.

However, you are most likely right. Which nations do you think need buffs other than Agartha? What would you suggest micah? Unless you believe every nation is equally strong, it helps to get some suggestions, rather than pure critique, although the latter is welcome.

[Squirrelloid]

So, my hit list for power improvement would include:

EA, MA Agartha
MA Machaka
EA, MA Atlantis
MA Eriu
EA Oceania
MA, LA Ulm*
MA Man
EA TNN
EA Aby
LA Caelum

In about that order of severity. I might also consider small boosts to:

LA Atlantis
LA Jomon
MA Oceania**
EA Ulm***
MA Bandar Log**

*My biggest problem with Ulm is that the combination of 'we suck at magic' and 'we're very vulnerable to magic' is just a stupid theme that is DoA. Sucking at magic is an ok theme - but if they suck at magic, they should be especially resistant to it as well. There's really no other way to balance sucking at magic. As it currently stands, the game basically says 'everyone else has an advantage over you in area A, which is the single most important component of nation power. Oh yeah, and you're especially vulnerable to it, so not only can't you fight back with that tool very well, but they get to clobber you with it'.
**Its really hard to make a worthwhile change to these nations that meets QM's philosophy for CBM.
-Bandar Log's biggest problem is that in the early game it only gets E on randoms from Rishi. While it can eventually solve this with conjuration, its far too late to defend against a rush by the time you do so. And S+N is not the best magic for defending rushes.
-MA Oceania's problem is total lack of lategame magic, having possibly the worst magic paths in the game (as a set), and no feet slots UW to even take advantage of its E randoms at all. And having no recruitable thugs, much less SCs, Ns good uses mostly don't apply. However, QM doesn't really screw with magic paths, so no help for that. Drastically slashing the cost of Capricorns might be worthwhile, however. (Say 250 or 275 instead of 350?)
***would benefit from the same changes as MA, LA.

[Micah]

*eye roll* I used a W9F9 bless on the jags when I did the comparison and the first hit did surprisingly little, since the Warriors have such good defense and the single attack the unhurt jags have isn't enough to hit them.

I can't imagine eagles doing better, but run a test and let me know. The Elemental warriors are only 25g as well, not 35. Luckily they don't HAVE to be non-cap, since they're not a great midgame unit and you want to switch to other stuff, as previously mentioned by other posters. You also have a pretty badass S9 pretender with a lot of dominion power since you start at 3 dom, which is kind of nice. The higher dominion also means you have a high holy limit and can outnumber them early on when raw troop numbers are more important.

As far as the archer comment: I was responding to the assertion that they fold to other sacreds, not that they're uncounterable. To delve into more strategy for a moment though, TC has excellent archers and good shielded infantry, so it shouldn't be too hard to archer screen with a few guys and tear their archers up with a fire archers command to save your sacreds. It's not foolproof, but it's gonna make life hard for your opponent.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Micah

*eye roll* I used a W9F9 bless on the jags when I did the comparison and the first hit did surprisingly little, since the Warriors have such good defense and the single attack the unhurt jags have isn't enough to hit them.

I can't imagine eagles doing better, but run a test and let me know. The Elemental warriors are only 25g as well, not 35. Luckily they don't HAVE to be non-cap, since they're not a great midgame unit and you want to switch to other stuff, as previously mentioned by other posters. You also have a pretty badass S9 pretender with a lot of dominion power since you start at 3 dom, which is kind of nice. The higher dominion also means you have a high holy limit and can outnumber them early on when raw troop numbers are more important.

As far as the archer comment: I was responding to the assertion that they fold to other sacreds, not that they're uncounterable. To delve into more strategy for a moment though, TC has excellent archers and good shielded infantry, so it shouldn't be too hard to archer screen with a few guys and tear their archers up with a fire archers command to save your sacreds. It's not foolproof, but it's gonna make life hard for your opponent.

I agree that tc has excellent archers; I agree that an S9 pretender absolutely rocks. I just do not agree that W5E's outclass jags.

I also don't think that you are going to have a higher dominion score than mictlan.

Mictlan can afford to dump resources, heat, and growth/death if need be, and even two points of drain. TC just can't afford to do that - it need resources for archers; doesn't have a heat preference; and needs growth for its old age mages.

Finally, Mictlan can afford drain, by using a dominion pocket strategy, whereas all TC's mages are cap only, with crap outside its capital and hence, should not afford a drain scale.

Mictlans preferred bless chasis long ago was the oracle; since thats now no longer available the blood fountain is probably next best. Sucks on the endgame - but in terms of dominion the fountains Dom 4 under CBM is BETTER than the Dom 3 you're referencing. A typical mictlan starting bless will be an f9w9b4 with Dom7. however you certainly can see dom 8 easily, as well as an 9-9-9 bless.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Could one of the way to balance nations just be to increase the gold and/or resource settings at the beginning of the game. If sacreds are a smaller percentage of armies, it may make the game more balanced.