Question about Ulm and iron faith

[Chris Byler]

Originally posted by Pocus:

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Originally posted by HJ:

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Originally posted by Pocus:
Having the themes balanced would not remove their 'fun' ie originality, but would open them to MP play where competitivness is always (well, often) a factor considered by players.

That remains to be seen, methinks. As they are now, I like the flavour that they add, which partly stems from their imperfection. Or rather, the tradeoffs on which they are based. I would like to see it stay that way.

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an example, as this is the theme I know the best : Blood of nation theme is weak compared to standard Abysia. A tweak, which would be rather in line (more humans, less Abysian) would be to add a site which give 2 slaves (human virgin) a turn in the capital. I dont see how it can be detrimental to the originality of the theme, and this could equilibrate it.

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I think what Blood of Humans needs is a Warlock Apprentice (wait, they already used that... make that Warlock Apprentice Apprentice ). A human (or at least a Humanbred) with Blood-1 for 60 or so. He's a researcher, he's a slave hunter, he can summon a few minor demons, he can forge SDR and some other items... but without the physical might and heat auras of true Abysians (perhaps even without heat resistance).

Abysia has always needed a cheap mage, even since Dom I. Apprentice Warlocks help, but the new Humanbred Apprentice would be even cheaper.

An interesting alternative would be Blood-1 Fire-1 for 90-100: Humanbred Diabolist or something like that. BoH loses the Demonbred which is normal Abysia's only mage to combine Blood with Fire (except for Fire-random Warlocks, Ba'al Chozron (if he's still around and BoH can get him) and possibly the pretender).

It seems clear that BoH needs something to offset its disadvantages. I think a cheap mage could be just the thing.


As for Iron Faith - if you aren't using Templars extensively, why are you playing IF at all? I don't think it's unreasonable for Black Priests to get drain immunity, though. (And the Master Alchemist, too - he's basically a pretender Master Smith, IIRC). Being too far behind in research will negate a lot of other advantages.

Themes in general: yes, they should have tradeoffs. But they shouldn't be obviously stronger or weaker - the point of tradeoffs is that all options should have some advantages and some disadvantages. High point costing themes that provide a wider array of units (Desert Tombs), cheap themes that add some units but delete others (Iron Faith, Miasma), or the generic themes that don't cost many points but generally have minor effects.

[Patrik]

Originally posted by Pocus:
A tweak, which would be rather in line (more humans, less Abysian) would be to add a site which give 2 slaves (human virgin) a turn in the capital. I dont see how it can be detrimental to the originality of the theme, and this could equilibrate it.

This is a good idea, one problem might be that it would very similar to Mictlan's High Temple of the Sun (3 slaves/turn in the capital). Still, other nations have similar sites so, why not??

[HJ]

Originally posted by Pocus:
an example, as this is the theme I know the best : Blood of nation theme is weak compared to standard Abysia. A tweak, which would be rather in line (more humans, less Abysian) would be to add a site which give 2 slaves (human virgin) a turn in the capital. I dont see how it can be detrimental to the originality of the theme, and this could equilibrate it.

So not only does blood of humans flow in veins of your soldiers, you get to spill more of it as well?

The only thing that I was saying was that I'd hate to the distinctive flavour of the theme lost in the process of balancing, and that if such risk exists I would prefer everything to stay the way it is.

[Pocus]

Chris : I thought of your suggestion too, but to me it seems that IW take great care in not giving Abysia a blood mage recruitable everywhere (even the warlock apprentice, which I thought was not restricted to capital is restricted). So I'm very dubious that, if they tweak BoH theme, they will add a human blood mage with no location restriction.

But I like the idea personally...

[iRichard]

It's funny to see that in one thread people says : "AI is to bad, the game is to easy".

And here : "we want powerful themes, bring us the mighty-magic back".

Ulm can be considered as an iron-only nation. If you care about background etc.. play it (in SP only if you want). If not, don't playt with the theme. Leave it untouched, forget about it.

I wonder if there is an opposite theme for another nation (understand : 90% magic 10% unit).

[Nagot Gick Fel]

One easy thing that could be done for Iron Faith is changing the pre-researched spell. Legions of Steel requires earth-3, so it's of limited use to Ulm/standard early - which is a bit irritating -, it's even worse when you pick Iron Faith: without items, 7 out of 8 black priests will never be able to cast it.

[iRichard]

With IF I was able to cast LoS without doing any research

pretender : 4Fire 6earth