Sign of the Hammer - A Warhammer Mod Game. Game on!

[Squirrelloid]

I suppose my point was mostly that anything anywhere near this cost tends to have *substantial* magic, and that the differences in power between having 6-8 paths in magic and having no magic was large enough that they were clearly and grossly overpriced.

And the jotun herse is probably the most damning comparison, since its (a) MA and (b) has just about everything going on that the chaos champions do at 1/3 their price.

But that's fine, we can play as is.

[DrPraetorious]

A combined mod with the revised Chaos nation is attached.

I tend to agree with squirreloid about the costs of the chaos units (in fact, I think I said much the same thing in the thread to discuss the mod originally,) but those concerns do need to be counterbalanced, and I don't think we should hold up the game over it.

[Squirrelloid]

I have a "name2spell: No such spell" error that causes the game to crash when trying to create a pretender god with the combined mod.

[DrPraetorious]

Yeah, sorry about that - have to combine the mods in the correct order or bad things happen. Gimme a minute to sort it out.

[DrPraetorious]

Well, that doesn't make any ****ing sense but this order works. Doublecheck all those #d Bretonnian nationals again to make sure that the script handled them right? I'm rather worried about extreme strangeness.

[Squirrelloid]

Oh god, is this a ****ing joke? Chaos gets 'Dark Citadel' everywhere - which is an admin 20 UW fortress type for 1200 gold. Seriously? A nation of high gold high resource units that are going to underperform for their cost - exactly what they needed was a high gold long build time fortress everywhere that has crappy administration.

Finally, I keep trying to make this work, but Chaos has so many systematic flaws its ridiculous. It really wants to be a nation of blessed troops, but it has no good way to actually bless them (no priests over H1, and they fail to bless all of *4* troops on a regular basis. A single prophet is not good enough). The non-sacred troops are either insufficiently good to even expand routinely or too resource intensive to field in sufficient mass to accomplish anything. And chaos has none of the good army-buffing schools to improve their performance. Not to mention its hard to mass anything when your real commander choices start at around 200g.

I think I've resigned myself to losing this - there is no way chaos is even really playable without a major overhaul that addresses army synergy and commander costs.

And i just took a look at Itza - Morale 13 Prot 18 mega tramplers with archers on top *and* mages that are ridiculously cheap for what they do? Those mages should be 1k and 2k gold respectively, at the least, and the trampler should probably be near doubled in price since it has no real weaknesses. (What are the disadvantages of elephants? Oh yeah, morale and protection... no such problems here, which is just amazing - and Itza's stegasaurs have a mere 3 enc on top of that so you can't even count on fatiguing them out). Then their scouts are 1g(!) and have glamour(?!?) and stealth *+65*(!!!), and their Ld40 commanders are a mere *20g* 16r with a *magic weapon* (!!!) and good stats. What the hell is this? I bet they get cheap castles somewhere too. They could probably win just by spamming castles and building as many of theose 20g commanders as they can - they don't even need equipment (which they could certainly be provided). They also have cheap researchers, H3 priests, and all of their melee units have magic weapons (!!!). And they get to mass them for peanuts. What *doesn't* Itza do well? I feel like rdonj discovering his enemy has immortal death summons of stupidly awesome.

You know, there was a lot of whining about the Lord of the Endtimes before we nerfed it, but honestly, that's about the only thing Chaos had going for it. (And even he would just die to virtually anything Itza chose to field.) Now he's a glorified 50pt chassis with a 125pt pricetag.

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I'll die on the field of honor, but i think this game could greatly benefit from a serious rebalancing of nations to some standard, probably somewhere in the Bretonnia end of the spectrum, although *any* one standard of balance, even Itza levels of crazy, would be acceptable so long as *all* nations were balanced there. (I think by Itza standards Chaos Lords are like 40-50g units, except for Tz who might rate 200g).

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Edit: I see we nerfed the stats of the Tz Lord at some point too. Well, now they aren't worth 500g anymore, so Chaos officially has *nothing* worth buying. At 500g it should be an SC out of the box. I suggested increase the price or nerf the unit, certainly not both. I feel like the things i thought were a little overpowered have been nerfed into near uselessness, and the things that are underpowered haven't really been improved at all.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

And i just took a look at Itza - Morale 13 Prot 18 mega tramplers with archers on top *and* mages that are ridiculously cheap for what they do? Those mages should be 1k and 2k gold respectively, at the least, and the trampler should probably be near doubled in price since it has no real weaknesses. (What are the disadvantages of elephants? Oh yeah, morale and protection... no such problems here, which is just amazing - and Itza's stegasaurs have a mere 3 enc on top of that so you can't even count on fatiguing them out). Then their scouts are 1g(!) and have glamour(?!?) and stealth *+65*(!!!), and their Ld40 commanders are a mere *20g* 16r with a *magic weapon* (!!!) and good stats. What the hell is this? I bet they get cheap castles somewhere too. They could probably win just by spamming castles and building as many of theose 20g commanders as they can - they don't even need equipment (which they could certainly be provided). They also have cheap researchers, H3 priests, and all of their melee units have magic weapons (!!!). And they get to mass them for peanuts. What *doesn't* Itza do well? I feel like rdonj discovering his enemy has immortal death summons of stupidly awesome.

I guess I'll address all these points, but I think you're being a little bit hysterical. That said if Itza does prove to have overpowered elements they'll definitely get nerfed down. No-one likes a Hinnom after all.

Stegadons - These I admit have not been thoroughly tested, so the price could be off (too high or too low). I don't think the archer part of them is a big deal - it causes a few casualties, but only fires twice and is more of a flavour thing. They certainly got elephants beat in both morale and protection, but they share the similar problem of being expensive lowish mr animals that are stopped by roughly the same counters. They're cold blooded too, so they will fatigue out about as much as elephants in my experience. The main difference is that it's much harder to reach critical mass with stegadons than elephants because of the cost. And critical mass is a huge deal with tramplers - once you reach it prot and the like becomes a lot less relevant. We'll see how they perform I suppose.

Slann 4th and 5th gen - To an extent I guess a Slann player would still build these guys no matter what they cost, because otherwise they only have priests. While they are devastating combat mages in battlefield communions and they have a huge spread of paths, the actual depth of the paths is very shallow considering the cost. On paper they look great and if you go adding up the path totals, they seem like ubermages (they are by far the most expensive mages in the game though) but they're actually pretty hard to use and you have to make quite a few just to get the right paths. You then have to worry about upkeep and probably keep a bunch of them dormant (which does still cost you, for no benefit). They suck for research after all.

Scouts - That the scout costs 1g makes little difference. How many are going to get built? I think all national scouts should be 1g personally. Equally the fact the scouts aren't found and killed isn't massively important. It's just a scout. A good one, but consider the opportunity cost for Itza (most expensive forts of any nation, want to build huge amounts of skink priests).

Saurus Scar Veteran - Again, how many will be built? They could make decent mini thugs but the opportunity cost would be substantial and itza isn't very good at budget forging. All the saurus have magic weapons so I don't know why you're excited about that - it isn't like it's an enchanted sword with strong + to stats or anything. The 20g price reflects that national 40ldr commanders just don't get built because of the opportunity cost. If this proves to be too cheap and someone is owning with armies of these guys, I'll definitely look into it though. Unequipped saurus scar veterans would get their asses kicked by most stuff, so again I think you're being a bit silly suggesting you could win by spamming them with your 1400 gold forts.

Cheap Researchers - Yes, Itza has decent research. It's in the upper tier of vanilla. It isn't outstanding as far as I can see. I will adjust it if it's really too good.

H3 priests - These are also very expensive mages who have to do a lot of stuff to make up for their cost. If you are using them just as H3 priests they probably aren't worth it. Admittedly it is another string to their bow, but you pay for the variety and if you buy a jack of all trades and he only does one thing, you're losing out the whole time. It's another matter of opportunity costs. The strong religiosity of the nation is intended though and balanced by their extra expensive temples in my opinion. Temples you'll need to build, really, to get what you want from the forts. Along with labs, that is.

[Squirrelloid]

burnsaber/archeo/et al: What would you like me to compare to? I was trying to choose units near the same price point and with vaguely similar advantages - but there are no 400g units without magic. There are no 300g units without magic. Hell, I don't think there are any 200g units without magic. its hard to find decent comparisons when the units in question are so poorly designed that they fall vastly short of everything else remotely near their price range.

I could compare to the brettonian grail hero, which is much better than the Slaanesh lord at 150g less. (only Awe +1, but strictly better stats and *flying*, not to mention not cap only)

[DrPraetorious]

Compare to some nation other than Jotunheim? Giant werewolves and hirdmen are *ridiculously* good thugs. I agree that Chaos is presently, probably weak enough that it won't be fun for Squirreloid. Given how long we're taking anyway I think it's reasonable to take 1 day and make the game at least kinda fair for Squirreloid:
* Lord of Khorne -> 100 gp, lose the exhaustion
* Lord of Slaanesh -> 200 gp, H3, stealthy
* Lord of Nurgle -> 150 gp, H2
* Champion of Khorne -> 80 gp, lose the exhaustion
* Champion of Slaanesh -> 100 gp, H1, stealthy
* Champion of Nurgle -> 100 gp, H1
* Chaos Cultist -> 40 gp
* Chosen of Khorne -> 60 gp, no exhaustion
* Chosen of Slaanesh -> 75 gp, stealthy
* Chosen of Nurgle -> 60 gp
* Chosen Chaos Knight -> 60 gp
* Chaos Knight -> 30 gp
* Foo Chaos Warrior -> 12 gp
* Marauders -> 9 gp

That said, I think you could make the current army work just fine as all Tzeentch all-the-time. Ethereal heavy inf. are *insane*.

Fortress should be a Jewelled City in his horribly decadant capital, and then Citadels (probably the best all around fort in the game) everywhere else.

In the long run, I think Chaos should probably kill population like the evil LA powers?

Itsa is certainly good, but those huge mages have no slots. Compare to an archtheurg -
costs 380, has 7 total picks, maxes out at 4A3B2C1D.
vs
costs 650, has 10 total picks, maxes out at 3A3B2C2D2E2F

I think that's pretty fair. He's not capital only, he's not old, and is certainly somewhat better overall, but those lizardmen are a poor substitute for Legionaires, and the shaman cost more than communicants.

Stegadons cost 2.5x as much as an elephant. I think elephants are better.

I agree that Itsa is much better than Chaos in this setup.

[rdonj]

Wow, some of those changes do seem a bit over the top. Exhaustion on lords of khorne in particular is a killer. I have a few ideas for you though squirrel, I'll pm some of the effective expansion parties I've come up with.

As to itza, they don't get anything other than 1400 gold forts, so you do sort of have them beat there. On the other hand, their forts all have a decent admin value. Quite a bit less defense though. Having magic weapons on all their saurus (but not skinks) is a pretty major advantage. But I wouldn't say that you could build an army of unequipped saurus veteran thugs and win the game. They are a bit cheap for how good they are, but even playing NI, it's hard to give up a skink priest for a mere commander. And 1-2k gold for slann? I really hope you're joking, I should show you my turn file for tourmaline and let you see how often those 4th gen slann end up with anything resembling decent paths. Getting anything above level 2 costs a fortune. That said, I can appreciate your frustration. The old chaos seemed a little overpowered to me, but comparing them to some of your competition now, I can certainly see how you could question your chances.

As to what Itza doesn't do well - forge, use death magic, and kill immortal SCs . They also don't really make very good thugs, though perhaps they make decent anti-thugs.