Pretender Balance Mod

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
According to Zen, 4 paths at 3 would be the closest thing to 'normal' Raibows you get, and 4 is just as close to 1 as it is to 7.

So in your view 1 path is just as 'rainbowish' as 7? I'm not Zen, but I'm pretty confident he would call those 4 paths a minimum to get the 'rainbow' label.

140 Pearls (the price of the quoted equipment) gets you almost 6 Acashics.

Pure theory. In practice a true rainbow with brains will use a Hammer to forge these rings. Ie, 90 pearls, about 3.5 ARs.

Acashic, unlike the equipment, gives you an immediate and permanent gem income back.

Sounds like you're assuming equipment is always forged out of purpose.

It is true that I don't see the point of true Rainbows.

Great, I've no problem with that, that's a perfectly valid point of view. The only thing I want to point out is the method you use to demonstrate it - ie, designing a decent pretender who capitalizes on his/her strengths, and then comparing him/her to an human mage who doesn't. It makes humans look worse than they are by several orders of magnitude. As if they needed that.

*shrugs* Where is the benefit over, say, a Great Mother with (etc.)

Maybe, but that's besides the point I'm discussing.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
It is true that I don't see the point of true Rainbows. If you use them for site-searching, they're very slow, and might not even find sites that your other mages can use.

They aren't slow at searching, a rainbow 2 mage gives you about 75%-80% of all magic sites in a province every other turn. Level 3 and four sites are very rare.

*shrugs* Where is the benefit over, say, a Great Mother with 4N/4E/3S, who can cast Gift of Health after Construction 4, can cast Acashic naturally, and Forge before spending over 100 gems that would have been halved under the Forge?

That pretender isn't usable in multiplayer, since even an astral 1 mage will be likely to kill her. You also can't count on forge staying up for more than a few turns at most.

[Blitz]

Question is, who is going to forge those items for the 2222222 pretender? I have to do some downloading before I can look at the magiboost.xls file, but I don't your low rainbow can actually forge the items necessary to get close to all 5's.

And I don't see many human players being willing to forge the more powerful, hard to get, magic boosting items for an opponent.

Here goes...

Starshine Skullcap = S3
Crystal Coin = S4
Ring of Sorcery = S5 D3 N3 B3
Ring of Magery (lose the coin) = F3 A3 W3 E3 S5 D4 N4 B4
Staff of Elemental Mastery = F4 A4 W4 E4 S5 D4 N4 B4
Robe of the Archmagi = All paths 5, Astral 6

From there you can basicly boost yourself to cast any ritual in the game. Robe of the Magi probably isn't a great idea on a humanoid pretender, but it's there.

[Scott Hebert]

]Question is, who is going to forge those items for the 2222222 pretender? I have to do some downloading before I can look at the magiboost.xls file, but I don't your low rainbow can actually forge the items necessary to get close to all 5's.

With 2S + 2E:

Forge a Starshine Skullcap. Go to 3S.
Forge a Crystal Coin. Go to 4S.
Forge a Ring of Sorcery. Go to 5S + 3 in all Sorcery paths.
Forge a Ring of Wizardry. Go to 3 in all Elemental paths, 4 in all Sorcery Paths, and stay at 5 Astral.
Forge a Staff of Elemental Mastery. Go to 4 in all Elemental paths.

That's a way to get to at _least_ 4 in all paths starting in 2 in all paths... of course, that's a VERY specific set of forges you have to make. From here, you can remove the Helm for a Fire Helm or Air Helm (go to 5 Air or Fire), Earth boots for 5 Earth, Robe of the Sea for 5 Water, Thistle Mace for 5 Nature, Skullface for 5 Death, and I'm not sure if you want to worry about Blood, but there are several options.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:
They aren't slow at searching, a rainbow 2 mage gives you about 75%-80% of all magic sites in a province every other turn. Level 3 and four sites are very rare.

I'm aware of that. However, 'every other turn' is too slow. That's half the rate of expansion, and that's assuming you have a searcher for each army you have. Much easier is simply to stay in your capital and cast site-searching spells, which DO search at the rate of your expansion.

That pretender isn't usable in multiplayer, since even an astral 1 mage will be likely to kill her. You also can't count on forge staying up for more than a few turns at most.

That's if an Astral 1 mage is ever in combat with her. It's not like I'm planning to send that Pretender into combat. The only way I see it likely that you're attacking my Pretender with Astral Mages is if you're storming my capital, in which case I would think that I've already lost.

She's also no less survivable than a Human Rainbow that has 3 Astral. Or do you normally raise your Astral Magic on your Rainbows to the 6 range as well?

The Forge thing, though, I grant you. But that argument can be said for any Global. Also, the faster you get Forge up, the longer it _should_ Last, due to research constraints. Therefore, IF you want Forge up, you'd be better off with a Pretender with 4E instead of a Rainbow-2, IMO.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
She's also no less survivable than a Human Rainbow that has 3 Astral. Or do you normally raise your Astral Magic on your Rainbows to the 6 range as well?

No need to, you just have script your rainbow for (Returnning) since he's not supposed to see battles. The only path I'd be tempted to raise above 3 is earth, to get WR immunity without having to rely on a Robe of Shadows.

In my experience, it's much harder to kill a mage who knows how to protect himself and doesn't want to fight, than a Great Mother.

[ June 18, 2004, 15:50: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Blitz:
Well the crone has FOUR misc slots for one thing. That dosen't suck. Of course the Freak Lord would be wholly superior to the Archmage then, having THREE misc slots and trample, etc. You could tweak here and there... give the Archmage dominion 2 to start maybe.

Except that Trampling often sucks because the unit won't use other attacks (such as ultra-powerful swords / axes) unless the opponent is too large to trample. This is one reason I've stopped using the Earth Mother, and I certainly wouldn't want a fragile little Freak trampling. There's still the 3 misc slots, true, and more importantly the Freak's Fear ability, higher defense and precision, and Last but not least, 3 encumbrance vice the Archmage's 5, compared to the archmage's only advantage, movement 28 vice 16.

When you look at it that way (Fear, 3 misc, better stats, better encumbrance) the Freak is a bargain at 10 points more than the Archmage. But you can't raise the price on the Freaklord, because already no one takes him, so ....