Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[Cainehill]

Reducing the strategic movement of flyers would have the very bad effect of allowing troops that move on foot to move as far or farther than flyers in some conditions (such as when the terrain is plains). I don't think that light infantry is supposed to "run like the wind", or that cavalry should be running faster than creatures can fly.

That strategic mobility is very nice, yes. But it's one of the main benefits of Caelum (who doesn't necessarily even bring armies along), and I'd disagree that the "only" counter was magic transportation (which is, barring artifacts, more expensive, but also goes further). There's also remote summons, remove evocations (murdering winter for devils, fires from the sky against Caelum), stealth units being used to surprise them, and otherwise strategically deducing where they're going next (ie, blind guessing) and attempting to move an army there.

And arguably PD ought to be more effective in warding off such things, but as I believe the devs want an offense oriented game, it seems unlikely that PD is going to be boosted much.

[Huzurdaddi]

murdering winter for devils

Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province. Nada. They have too many HP. Further there is no remote summon which is cost effective against them ( unless you are using Zen's mod ).

but as I believe the devs want an offense oriented game

I don't know if they wanted one however it sure is played that way.

very bad effect of allowing troops that move on foot to move as far or farther than flyers

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high? No idea. Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

[PDF]

To previous replies :
Flying has a *big* advantage over overland strat move, it allows to pass any terrain without having to have "xxx survival" ability.
So any Caelum/Devil player can use 1 army to as much effect as 3 or 5 landlubber armies, attacking the weakest one in turn without possible retaliation. And if the landlubbers regroup you can wreak havoc everywhere else and use mass damage spells against them !
And no, M Winter hasn't any noticeable effect on devils, nor against Caelum? Only FftS is effective and only against Caelians.

As 1 turn is 3 months long, I don't suppose strat move represent any unit running/flying for the whole season, but is rather an estimate of an army ability to move in an organized fashion, with supply train and so on. So "Flying" shouldn't be that much of an advantage .

Powerlessness of PDs is another balance issue indeed

[Endoperez]

I thought 1 turn represented 1 month... (early/mid/late spring/summer/fall/winter = 3*4 =12)

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with you. For Caelum, I think buffing PD up a bit and making false horrors not spammable for a long time without severe fatique would be enough - it's not their military strength that people are worried about. If something needs to be done, maybe a magical net (NN, Hunter's net, supply bonus + 'lost wing' affliction for those hit, dmg 0 + entangle in AOE 1).

About devils, I think boosting up their classical counterpart, the angels, would deal with them quite nicely. If a small group of angels was able to devastate devils as well as small group of them is able to devastate independents...

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province.

I assume you used it against a garrison of a castle. It doesn't kill more than about 10% of the troops there if they are in a castle.

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human.

That's obviously not a problem for these beings.

Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

Except that it's not bad with respect to game balance.

[The Panther]

The single biggest problem with strategic flying is the fact that it allows you to fly over a province or two and also attack in the same turn. This is the true problem with the game imbalance of flying, imho.

Even if land troops have the movement to go through your own farm land and move into the next neutral or enemy controlled province, it is not allowed. This should work for both walking and flying, or work for neither.

My opinion is that the only change needed to bring flying back into balance is to never allow a flying troop to attack an uncontrolled province unless the army startes the turn adjacent to the desired province, just like a walking army. You can still use flying to quickly bring reinforcements to the front lines through your owned territory, so it would still be a good ability to have.

But the nearly unbeatable, cheesy flying strat of taking 10 provinces on one turn two deep into enemy territory would be nerfed, just as it needs to be. My only win in an MP game was accomplished as Caelum with a lot of thanks to using this cheap flying strategy.

It even causes people to take the cheap castle and spam them everywhere to try and stop this. Which is yet another cheesy strategy that works well.

[Cainehill]

Huzurdaddi said:
Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province. Nada. They have too many HP. Further there is no remote summon which is cost effective against them ( unless you are using Zen's mod ).

Ghost Riders tend to do quite a nice number against devils, and it's relatively cheap and easy to cast. You can also gateway an army in, again taking care of the devils fairly easily.

I don't know if they wanted one however it sure is played that way.

They've commented that they wanted it that way - if defense was as strong / stronger than offense, it'd lead to a boring stagnant gameplay. (Think mad castling made stronger.)

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high? No idea. Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

Obviously people disagree. Personally, I see it as quite easy for fliers to go that far in a month - after all, they're flying, and can easily see where to land and rest each day that'll be far away from enemy troops. And I don't think it's particularly unbalanced. It is one of those irritating things to deal with, and people tend to dislike things they find difficult / irritating to deal with (hence, people hating gem producing items, flying troops, cheap castles, wrathful skies, SCs, etc).

Just to help illustrate solutions to flying troops: the Mechanical Militia global spell. Yep, it's an expensive spell, only available to one nation at a time, but having the 10 or so MMs added to any province with a single point of PD wreaks havoc with a lot of fliers, stealth troops, and even most remote summonses.

Another way to go: station a mage in each province commanding some statues and mechanical men. Zero upkeep, if you use a summoned mage to command them.

Another possibility: get enough scouts out to see when someone is starting to grow devils, and see about disrupting their plans. It's easier to see if someone's building soul contracts (the usual way of generating large amounts of devils) than it is to see if someone is hoarding clams and fever fetishes.

[Chazar]

Huzurdaddi said:
Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high?

Indeed, Caelians spent most of their time eating because of their high metabolism: They are size3, thus they eat twice as much as humans do.

Supply is provided by a supply chain from the closest fortress (up to 4 squares), however not through hostile provinces!

The requirement for cold+3 reduces the available supply in non-cold climates dramatically.

This works out remarkably neatly: When I played Caelum and used my fliers to attack behind enemy lines, my Caelians usually starve badly. Of course, commanders never starve, so as the game progresses and when mages start to pull out entire armies out of their pockets (living clouds, etc.), food is not a concern. I think food balances flight pretty neatly. Maybe its enough to have WineSkins having 2N requirement for forging, so that Caelum cant do this. Do Devils eat? No? Oops!!!

(I rather think supply is sort of ridiculous with all those easy wine skins and need-not-eat summons, which can be stacked to huge armies...)

[Cainehill]

Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods? I've been checking, but haven't seen even the beta Versions up on his webpage, so I'm reduced to mere curiousity what people thought of the latest spell mod and the scale mod.

[alexti]

Cainehill said:
Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods?

I think it hasn't happened.