CherryMod Thread

[General Tacticus]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Anyway, tiring expensive troops are what peasants are for=) As for the castle defense concerns... on one hand, a defender was a defender, once in a castle... but on the other hand, yes, it would be a huge advantage to quickly and cheaply recruit that defense. And more importantly, recruit them for beseiging, which DOES seem a little unrealistic. I had not considered either one. I was trying to balance them versus lobo guards, but lobo guards are mindless and thus worthless for castle defense.

To balance them for patrols (they'd be terrible) I gave them low movement, since patrol effectiveness is based on action points (or so I hear).

Well, I'll have to give peasants more thought, especially since the concerns you mention cannot be tested in the combat sim.

-Cherry

I myself was thinking of Hogsburg militias. They are more expensive, can be recruited only in Hogsburg provinces, and are more vulnerable to trample (size 1). I don't remember if they have better stats. The lobo guards on the other hand are sea only IIRC, and mindless (which is both good and bad).

The problem with peasant balance is that it is very difficult to test. Even if we could send, say, 90 peasants against 30 militias to balance them cost-wise, it would only balance them for AI use (which has no qualms against sending big armies of worthless troops). A player would use them differently... I myself am thinking of a screen of 25 peasants, in 5 squads of 5, forming a long front line the width of the battlefield, on attack closest. For the price of a good knight (the Ulm Version), I have protected my good troops against the first arrows volleys and any flanking movement, at least by the AI. Definitely woth it...

I did the same thing with great success with Pythium, only with gladiators (who were a bit more expensive but could kick some serious *** had great moral). I am doing the same with Mictlan in my AAR, with slaves (who are free but have to be captured, which takes time) and the cheapest warriors (9 gold 2 res). My concern is not the power of the peasants, it is their availability and cheapness...

Look at it this was : your race has cheap arrow fodder, medium priced average units, good heavy units, archers (though I don't know how good your bows are), good cavalry, the best stealth selection I have ever seen, good sacred units that are reasonbly priced (very rare !), decent mages including one with two random picks (very versatile), average priests, good commanders.

None of these fields are, in itself, unbalancing. I can't point at any one (except maybe the peasants, and I am not sure how well they'll do in real condition) and say : THIS is too much. But still I wonder...

Let me just give you one advice : far better to do a first release of the race that is too weak, than too strong. In the first case, people will be delighted when you make it better. In the second, it will be much hader to make them accept a tune-down.

[Saber Cherry]

Well, I wrote a little scale-rebalancing mod. Not that it makes them better, just more the way I feel they should feel.

Changes:

Major event frequency changed from 15% of events to 12%.

Order affects event frequency at 2% per scale, not 5%. I felt decoupling order and luck was very important.

Luck/Misfortune increases events by 7% per scale, not 5%. This is to make up for reducing the event frequency with a high turmoil.

Luck/Misfortune affect event polarity (good/bad) by 13% per scale, not 10%. Now the percentage of positive events is like this:

Luck : probability an event is good
3 : 89
2 : 76
1 : 63
0 : 50
-1 : 37
-2 : 24
-3 : 11

Growth/death changed from 0.2% population change per scale to 0.3%. Before there was no reason to ever choose Growth 3.

Capitol population by turn 30 (2.5 years):

Original, 3 growth: 35900
Rebalanced, 3 growth: 39200
Original, 3 death: 25000
Rebalanced, 3 death: 22900

...a minor change. I wish I could set a base of .1% growth at neutral scale.

Now, I just need a host=)

-Cherry

P.S. In the meantime, if you want it, pm me with an email address.

[ January 12, 2004, 21:31: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Johan K]

If it has a cute banner we'll be glad to put the Saber scale mod on our page. Right after the trolls mod.
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/mods.html

[Saber Cherry]

Cute - I think I can manage that=)

[Saber Cherry]

Two new immobile pretenders added:

New Unit:
Tree of Life (Base creature: Tree of Life)

HP: 220 Str: 20
Prot: 12 Att: 5
Mrl: 30 Def: 0
Mrst: 18 Prec: 5
Enc: 0 AP: 2
Reinvig: 0 Regen: 22

Resistances:

Fire: -50 Cold: 0
Shock: 0 Poison: 0

God, Awe 2

Magic: Nature 3

*********************************

New Unit:
Volcano Spirit (Base creature: Volcano Spirit)

HP: 1000 Str: 20
Prot: 40 Att: 7
Mrl: 30 Def: 0
Mrst: 18 Prec: 10
Enc: 0 AP: 2

Resistances:

Fire: 100 Cold: 0
Shock: 0 Poison: 100

God, Lifeless, Heat 20

Magic: Fire 2, Blood 1
Weapons: Lava Blob

*********************************

The Tree of Life will be available to Man, Mictlan, Pangaea, Pythium, Arco, and Tien Chi. Animals flock to it constantly - like the Summon Animals spell, with the number per turn dependant on dominion strength. It also produces 100 supply.

The Volcano Spirit is actually a volcano. It will be an option for Mictlan, Machaka, Pangaea, and Vanheim (cold places are volcanically active too!). Not Abysia, since they already have a volcano. Volcanoes like blood sacrifices, though... I wish there was a way to make it demand blood sacrifices, or else cause luck to drop drastically. Note that the volcano is virtually impervious to damage. I'll make additional paths cost 800 or so... I don't want it casting mistform or breath of winter.

You didn't add the Design Points per cost.

And maybe you want to add Immortal for the Tree?

If/when they fix it so that you can't teleport/trapeze with immobile pretenders it shouldn't be an issue with him tooling around in your domain killing things instead of sitting at home and making animals.

Perhaps more useful or thematic would be instead of animals (which are sort of 'bleh' but okay for low dominion) you could make fantastic creatures flock to in high dominion. Unicorns, Sprites, etc.

Edit: I don't really know what to say about the Volcano Spirit.

[ January 14, 2004, 05:20: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Zen:
You didn't add the Design Points per cost.

Yeah, they don't affect anything in combat so I never bothered to add them to the sim=) I may as well...

And maybe you want to add Immortal for the Tree?

Good idea! Though... I'm not sure. Normal trees can regrow from stumps, but the Tree of Life? Maybe.

Perhaps more useful or thematic would be instead of animals (which are sort of 'bleh' but okay for low dominion) you could make fantastic creatures flock to in high dominion. Unicorns, Sprites, etc.

Yeah, I like that too=) Mundane animals at a high rate, and magical animals at the greatly reduced rate like the Ghost King gets ghosts (very slow).

Edit: I don't really know what to say about the Volcano Spirit.

Hahaha... you know, it's not really much stronger than the Sphynx. With 800 point paths and no item slots, it would always be susceptible to water/air/astral/armor-piercing attacks. So I think the combat power is reasonable, at least versus fireproof opponents.

Or is the problem that it is too big? Sphynxes are big, but volcanoes are way bigger... So, alternately, I could have the volcano as a special capitol Blood site, and let the spirit possess a follower. Thus the physical representation would be an immortal human with magic paths, and strat move 0.

Lots of primitives worshipped volcanoes (at least in movies) and this isn't really reflected in Dominions...

[ January 14, 2004, 05:36: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]