Artifact Game - ready!!

[Ironhawk]

shovah said:
pangea could do ok if their pretender could put on the boots and spam something, machaka could stick chains on a survivable pretender and enslave armies, TC may have a little trouble and man could basically do the same as pan or rush for vine men/ogres. im still for my idea of trinkets aswell but thats just me. im guessing when your ready you will be putting a thread in multiplayer? and personally i think atlantis is a little weak (not to mention i thought ryleh had the orb because i got an even as ryleh which mentioned some guys coming to find it)

Yeah, good points shovah. Tho I have been toying around with the idea of having human-only pretenders. It fits in with the theme of the passing of the Old Gods, you know? Cause all that are left now are thier human servants and the new batch of pretenders are the most powerful of the lot who are now fighting for dominance. Plus, going human-only sidesteps the issue of mega pretender-SCs from turn 1, which could potentially be unbalancing.

I like your idea about trinkets too. I actually considered it myself - thought about giving Man a Staff of Storms, for example. And TC a Wand of Wild Fire or Phoenix Rod or something. Do you all have any feelings on what would be good trinkets for the weaker nations? Stuff to help thier starting armies take off?

[Turin]

TC is weak with the Hammer of the forge lord and ember? And they get two very useful boosters too? I´d say they get top of the line stuff.

In fact I´d rate the way you have given artifacts to the nations as follows:

1) arcoscephale:
boots of the planes and the aegis are both among the most powerful artifacts, the forbidden light is very powerful too and a free improved staff of elemental mastery is very nice.


2) ermor:
They are amazingly unbalanced with the sickle at the start. Just load SG ermor, prophetize your wraith centurion and channel the 30 gems he gets each battle to your home province with scouts. sceptre of dark regency is great as well

3) tien´chi:
hotfl and ember are top tier and the other items are nice boosters.

4) ulm:
they get the gate stone, the gate stone rocks! The summit and alchemists stone are quite nice too.

5) pythium:
They get the sword of augelmer, another top tier item. The tome of high power is nice too

6) marignon:
The chalice and the ark are both very nice, but not too gamebreaking.

7-9) mictlan, atlantis and vanheim each get a very good item, but not much else.

10-16) the rest, not much very useful stuff there.

[archaeolept]

I'd agree ermor's selection is a bit scary; the others are not really unbalanced w/ human pretenders, though arcos and tien chi are pretty heavy duty if the normal gamut of SC pretenders is allowed.

[Truper]

I won't offer an opinion on who should get which artifacts and why, since I haven't played with them often enough to know what all of them do

But I would say that if you're going to do this, why not allow any and all pretenders, and get the full flavor?

Oh, and I want a spot

[Ironhawk]

Turin said:
TC is weak with the Hammer of the forge lord and ember? And they get two very useful boosters too? I´d say they get top of the line stuff.

Believe it or not, yes You have to remember that I said "relatively weak" not just "weak". Clearly with the HoTFL, TC will be very strong as the game progresses. But in early game, TC is pretty weak just on its own and relatively even weaker when compared to Pythium (with Aurglmier) or Jotunhiem (with Winter Bringer), both of which will significantly speed up thier early province capture rate.

2) ermor:
They are amazingly unbalanced with the sickle at the start.

Indeed, indeed. I actually purposefully unbalanced Ermor because I never allow any pop-killing dominion themes in any of my games - my apologies for not mentioning that earlier (been doing it for so long now I just assume it). So Ermor would only get Broken Empire and therefore needs significant enticement to get people to choose it

[Wish]

cealum looks to kind of get screwed to. how many artifacts does each nation actually get to start with, just 1? and those with more than one listed have more than one choice? Maybe slap the sun helmet and sun armor onto cealum as well? I dunno.

I want in on this BTW, unsure what nation, but probably pangaea.