Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[Mightypeon]

One of the few things with about as much flexibility for the cost as a Zmey is an Iron Angel under Forge of Ulm.

[Valerius]

Pythium has come up in a couple of recent conversations which reminded me that I wanted to ask if it would be reasonable to nerf MA Pythium's starting gem income. I understand that it's thematic that Pythium represents a height of magical power but the EA is considered more magical than the MA and this is represented by a 1 gem higher starting gem income. Three gems higher than their peers seems like overkill (especially considering they are far from a weak nation to begin with).

This is hardly a new situation so if it has been suggested in a previous CBM thread and rejected please ignore.

[Valerius]

Ok, so I don't expect this suggestion to be taken seriously but I've thinking about reconciling blood magic costs with gem based costs and it occured to me what if they used the same metric and non-unique blood summons cost gems, not slaves? Because so many blood summons are cross path it would be easy to assign the appropriate gem type for most of them. Then you could ask, for instance, how many E gems is a demon knight worth compared to the other available E summons? For single path cases like fiends of darkness you could have a couple of versions of the spell using different gem types to keep the spell available to most/all blood nations. Ritual of the five gates maybe just go with S gems (probably do the same for send horror even though it's not a summon).

National blood spells could take the same approach, generally matching single path blood spells with that nation's dominant paths.

Added bonus: reduced micro since you'd only have to blood hunt to the extent of fueling battlefield magic, blood sacrificing and summoning uniques. Sure, blood nations would have to pay "real money" for their summons but OTOH they'd have some extra gold from not hunting quite as many provinces. Though if they did keep hunting to the same degree it would be interesting to see how that translated to additional power on the battlefield (more life for a life casters, etc.)

And yes, they likely wouldn't have the gem income to mass the numbers of blood summons they have now, but that just puts them on the same footing with non-blood nations.

Like I said, I'm not seriously suggesting this as a CBM change but maybe one day I'll run an experimental game with these settings.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Ok, so I don't expect this suggestion to be taken seriously but I've thinking about reconciling blood magic costs with gem based costs and it occured to me what if they used the same metric and non-unique blood summons cost gems, not slaves? Because so many blood summons are cross path it would be easy to assign the appropriate gem type for most of them. Then you could ask, for instance, how many E gems is a demon knight worth compared to the other available E summons? For single path cases like fiends of darkness you could have a couple of versions of the spell using different gem types to keep the spell available to most/all blood nations. Ritual of the five gates maybe just go with S gems (probably do the same for send horror even though it's not a summon).

I would price most troop blood summons as being worth 2 gems.

[Shardphoenix]

Originally Posted by Valerius

what if they used the same metric and non-unique blood summons cost gems, not slaves?

What for? Just to nerf all blood powerhouses to the level of pre-CBM EA Agartha?

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

What for? Just to nerf all blood powerhouses to the level of pre-CBM EA Agartha?

Isn't the question mostly something like "just for fun?" I mean, the suggestion is anti-good and the gem cost system has a large dose of arbitrary already (why does ghosts initially cost 4 death gems when you get a troll for 1 earth?) No blood summons seems more like a house-rule for specific games than anything else.

I don't know why you figure blood nations would be close-to-useless (I figure that's what you were describing when comparing it to old Agharta) even without blood summons, some of them still have large enough strengths to go around.

Comparing blood summons to the others isn't easily done either, as you can usually get a lot more blood summons from a province than you can get other summons, even as things are now. At 2 gems I compare the blood summons to the individuals summons others get. I think blood deserves a reduction in the amount of units it allows you to field, but different strokes and all that, some people seem to not just bother with setting up decent-sized parallel blood economies.

[Shardphoenix]

Isn't the question mostly something like "just for fun?"

Why in CBM thread then?

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

What for? Just to nerf all blood powerhouses to the level of pre-CBM EA Agartha?

That would only be the case if those nations were otherwise weak and depended on underpriced (as opposed to fairly priced) blood summons. As Redeyes pointed out, that's not necessarily the case. And in situations were it is you could compensate those nations with favorably priced national summons or better priced national versions of some of the generic summons. And if it were the case that all blood nations needed cheap summons to compensate them you could account for that by pricing blood summons very favorably compared to other gem summons. Just not as favorably as now. The main point is you'd now be comparing apples to apples instead of trying to translate the gold based costs of current blood summons to the gem based costs of non-blood nations. And blood nations would no longer have gem based summons + gem quality blood summons but have to make tough decisions as to how to allocate their gems.

Interestingly, given all the discussion about zmey, I can see demons being a competitive use of F gems.

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I would price most troop blood summons as being worth 2 gems.

That seems a fair starting point to me as well, comparing their quality to that of the various gem based troop summons. But I'm not at all a blood magic hater and would be open to, for instance, a demon for 1 F gem, moving up to 2 E gems for a demon knight. Blood magic could be a national advantage that allows for considerable massing of high quality troops - it just wouldn't be open ended as it is now, being based on gold.

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

Why in CBM thread then?

Like I said, I don't expect the suggestion to be treated seriously but who knows maybe llama will think it's the best idea since the removal of gem gens.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Valerius

That seems a fair starting point to me as well, comparing their quality to that of the various gem based troop summons. But I'm not at all a blood magic hater and would be open to, for instance, a demon for 1 F gem, moving up to 2 E gems for a demon knight. Blood magic could be a national advantage that allows for considerable massing of high quality troops - it just wouldn't be open ended as it is now, being based on gold.

I think you might be under pricing them now. I would peg the demon knight as being stronger than a wight, other than not being a leader (which is a large drawback) at least at the level of a bane. Devils, Fiends of Darkness, and Storm Demons, also have the advantage of flight and can excel as raiders due to that, you don't need a lot of storm demons to make a competent raiding force.

I think the exercise is somewhat interesting because evaluating blood summons in gem-terms aids in comparisons towards other summons.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I think you might be under pricing them now. I would peg the demon knight as being stronger than a wight, other than not being a leader (which is a large drawback) at least at the level of a bane. Devils, Fiends of Darkness, and Storm Demons, also have the advantage of flight and can excel as raiders due to that, you don't need a lot of storm demons to make a competent raiding force.

I think the exercise is somewhat interesting because evaluating blood summons in gem-terms aids in comparisons towards other summons.

Uh, this is kind of a delayed response but that's one of my trademarks.

I don't disagree with your analysis but I think part of what I had in mind was trying to "sell" the idea to blood nations by making the transition to gem based summons not quite as painful as it would be if you completely went by the utility of the units. Also, for thematic reasons, generally speaking I would like to encourage blood nations to use blood summons rather than other gem based summons.

Anyway, you've humored me enough that you can expect I'll PM you to help set prices and play in the game in the event I do give this a try.