Conceptual Balance Mod 0.9

[Boron]

Twan said:
I have the same feeling about many changes. Diversity should be the result of players choices with lots of good options, not of extremely pigeonholed nations and overnerfed magic, two things already too much used in dom3 IMO.

The search spell nerf boosts rainbows, accashic record and sitesearching directly with mages.
Graeme said it is more MM to directly sitesearch, but imho directly sitesearching with a mage requires about the same effort as sitesearching with the remote 1 path search spells, maybe even less MM.

Twan said:
I think I would prefer a mod buffing the weak paths (what is now possible with the new spell modding commands) and giving more possible strategies to each nation (adding ways to developp original magic choices instead of restricting more the possibilities).

QM maybe nerfed some spells too much, mainly my beloved skelspam and probably bladewind too, but if you buff the weaker paths battlefield spells then this might have 2 cons:
- Magic doesn't feel different enough if nature/water/death/blood magic get stronger battlefield spells too
- Troops might become too useless by this change. In Dom2 troops were imho too useless usually, now in Dom3 they are still butchered by battlefield magic eventually, but they seem to have more niches and be more useful than in Dom2.

Graeme said that a mage has to be able to kill more troops than his cost, but imho this is not really true. Mages have other uses too. If mages with some research kill easily troop armies, then troop armies have no niche.

Currently the balance could roughly be seen as rock paper scissors balance imho:

Mages > SCs > Troops > Mages

This is generalizing too much of course, some spells counter troops very well like magma eruption, and "Mage SCs" like Dai Oni can defend vs. mages eventually with earthquake and rain of stones.

But in general at least in early and midgame it seems more rewarding in Dom3 to try a combined arms approach than it was in Dom2 were spending gold on troops almost felt like a waste of money.

Twan said:
Anyway it may or not be the good direction for the cbmod, and another mod can be done for those (like me) prefering a more dom2-like game.

Yeah a retro-mod that tries to make especially the middle age an exact copy of Dom2 might be cool too