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

[shard]

Sorry for the tardiness, will be submitting the turn in soon

[Valerius]

No problem - I'm sure you've got the most complicated situation to deal with of all of us.

Since there's just an hour until hosting I'll add some time to the clock to make sure you don't stale.

[shard]

The best laid plans of mice and men.... bleghhh


Just a heads up that I'll be travelling again this week til next so I might need some more liberal extensions ><

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by shard

The best laid plans of mice and men.... bleghhh

With no diplo games, it's always a guessing game how things will turn out.

So, my unofficial goal this game has become to try out as many different thug/monster summons as possible. It's funny, while I've fought plenty of EDM summons since I play thug nations so often I think this is actually the first time I've used shishis and rocs myself. I like them and of course monstrums are quite fun for the completely random magic paths.

Originally Posted by shard

Just a heads up that I'll be travelling again this week til next so I might need some more liberal extensions ><

No problem. Actually, I may as well switch to 72 hour hosting one turn earlier than planned.

[Samhain]

Sorry, but I still have a lot of work to do on this turn and just found that I have to travel out of town tonight. Could I get 48 hours added to the clock, please?

[Valerius]

Sure, hosting has been postponed by 48 hours.

I also wanted to mention to everyone that I haven't forgotten at all about trying out these low magic settings in an EA game. I did get a bit sidetracked by joining another experimental game recently but I mainly wanted to give this one some time develop so we could incorporate the feedback into the next game. And yes, I know that thus far only shard has expressed an interest in the next game but there's no harm in advertising it.

[KeithZ]

I pretty like the low magic idea, there is not much pressure on the research race and you can send plenty of your mages into the front line much earlier. That's fun.

I would be happy to join your new game.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by KeithZ

I pretty like the low magic idea, there is not much pressure on the research race and you can send plenty of your mages into the front line much earlier. That's fun.

I agree and I think the same thing applies to gem usage. I tend to be a gem hoarder, saving them up for globals. Here there's no point in that and once you've completed your key research you're best off summoning and forging so you can increase your combat strength and get more territory.

And I plan on easy research next game so we'll get to the action even faster.

Originally Posted by KeithZ

I would be happy to join your new game.

Great! Feel free to already choose a nation if you'd like (you can of course change it later if you change your mind). So far I'm going with TNN (surprise, surprise ) and shard is going with Lanka. I'm really liking Caelum and am tempted to try to them again but at least on paper I like MA Caelum better than EA. Eagle Kings make nice thugs but playing as much TNN/Eriu as I do I'm hard to impress on that front and to me recruit everywhere High Seraphs win out over cap only Eagle Kings.



I still have to finish going through EA nations in order to make changes to fit the game settings. I'll be using the same guidelines as here: adjusting prices on national blood summons along the same lines as I did here and making other changes to nations to fit the game settings.

I'm pretty happy with the monster summons in terms of utility but I'd appreciate feedback on prices. How do you all feel about the prices of monsters vs. the price of full slot thug options like the wendigo and ettin?

I also want to discuss a couple of EDM summons and some changes I had in mind for them.

First off, the wendigo. I like these guys, both in their normal SC form and in the thug role they have here. But because they take time to develop and I had other research priorities I haven't summoned any this game. But I've seen them around so I know they've seen action. For the next game I was planning on changing their magic from W3D3 to W2D2 and having them autocast soul vortex. They would start at size 2, move to size 3 the next turn and their final size 4 the following turn.

My idea was to focus them on being thugs rather than spellcasters. Reducing their magic to W2D2 would promote the kokythiad as the best way to reach D5 for monstrum summoning. Kokythiads and a variety of other summons would also be better ways to get high level W magic. When it comes to thugging the key D buff that is of use to them is soul vortex and this would give them access to that while not making them very good spellcasters. W2 is also enough for W based combat buffs. Having soul vortex autocast can be a bit of a drawback since there might be some situations where you don't want it; OTOH you get to cast it without incurring fatigue which has advantages. The quicker development I think just makes sense - in an easy research game I think the wendigo needs to be ready to go more quickly.

Just to be clear: I'm not intending this as a nerf to the wendigo but purely to promote it as a thug and other units as better WD spellcasters. But as I mentioned, I haven't had a chance to use them in this game and if you all feel it's a nerf let me know (but the one thing I think we definitely should go for is the quicker development time).

Then there's zmey. To review, I made the following zmey-focused changes for this game: prot 22 --> 20, misc slots 3 --> 2, and (the big one IMO) lychantropos' amulet 5 --> 10 N gems. These nerfs seem pretty light and I figured additional nerfs would likely be necessary. My plan was to reduce prot 2 more points, to 18, continuing with the line of thought that they zmey could dish out a lot of damage but was also vulnerable itself. There's plenty of other changes we could also make if needed (lower attack rating, map move 2, lower HP on each form, etc). Only thing ... I haven't seen a single zmey around. I certainly don't think the nerfs in this game were crippling to them so I assume it's just that people had other priorities. But this is a summon whose changes will depend on the feedback we get from this game.

[Samhain]

Thanks for you patience everyone. I should get my turn in tonight.

I really like the idea of trying this format in EA. It is hard to commit at the moment as its all I can do right now to keep up with the two games I am in. But, I would be very interested in playing Fomoria. It would be a great chance to try a new way to play them. And, without Fog Warriors or Dance of the Morrigans, it would be interesting. They may still need a bit more nerfing though as other nations may be affected much more. I don't know the game well enough to make those kind of judgements.

I agree with both the Wendigo and Zmey changes. Zmey's are just too overpowered for their cost in my opinion. And, the game doesn't need another high level DW mage. But, the Wendigo does make a colorful addition to the thug pantheon.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Samhain

Thanks for you patience everyone. I should get my turn in tonight.

No problem at all - you and ghoul are so quick getting your turns in I was a little concerned you'd get frustrated at the leisurely pace. In any case, you're certainly entitled to a postponement when needed (and you still got your turn in before shard and I, who win the slacker prizes for this game ).

Originally Posted by Samhain

I really like the idea of trying this format in EA. It is hard to commit at the moment as its all I can do right now to keep up with the two games I am in. But, I would be very interested in playing Fomoria. It would be a great chance to try a new way to play them. And, without Fog Warriors or Dance of the Morrigans, it would be interesting. They may still need a bit more nerfing though as other nations may be affected much more. I don't know the game well enough to make those kind of judgements.

Glad to hear you're interested! With regard to Fomoria, as you noted Dance of the Morrigans will be out since it is too high a level but other than that the nation seems fine to me and I don't plan on any nation-specific nerfs for them.

In terms of balance decisions, I am of course using my best judgement as to game balance but there's no question that some of it is based on my personal likes/dislikes. For instance, I am of the opinion that generally speaking blood magic is underpriced and that's behind a lot of my changes in this area. That may be a minority viewpoint but I'm not he only one who feels that way. But my dislike of immortal units, especially blood based ones, is particular to me (as far as I know anyway) and removing vampires altogether isn't a choice many people would likely have made.

Aside from blood nerfs, the kind of thing that would catch my attention is something like Hinnom's Acha being able to heal. In a game where there's no GoH or chalice I have no intention of giving Hinnom risk-free mind hunts. Arco can have them - but Hinnom, no.

As regards timing, the next game will also have a relaxed pace and I view when we start in the same light. I'm glad we'll have several players from this game returning and if holding off on the start time until we get a bit further in this one helps in getting everyone on board I'm inclined to do that. And of course that will also give us better feedback for the next game.

I'll add a tentative roster for the next game to the bottom of the first post in the thread.