Dud units / monsters / summons

[quantum_mechani]

Darrel said:

You have Serpent Cataphracts listed as one of the extreme 'bite me's. I don't find them that bad.If you compare them to the independant knight, the knight has an extra point of defense and attack, but the Serpent Cataphract is tougher and ,because it turns into a regular lizard after, you have to kill it twice. The knight due to the lance has a greater damage potential for the first strike, but the Serpent Cataphract has slightly higher damage for all strikes after that, and they have lower encumbance. But then it is true that knights are cheaper, and they are faster.

And themetically, Pythium is supposed to have lower calibre calvary then other nations. Their strength is their infantry. Still the Serpent Cataphracts are only slightly inferior, and if you are unable to mass up independent knights, I find your army is better with them then without them. There is just times when you need faster troops.

If I was going to balance them I would simply give them one thing, swamp survival. (and i would consider a small poison resistance) I wouldn't want to change either their cost, or their stats, since the stats do seem to match there description. But swamp survial almost seems like something they should have, and would be enough to give them more of a use.

QM, I am curious on your take on it.

Well, the problem is knights themeslves are somewhat marginal units. A huge investment that goes down the tubes very easy with battle magic. The lance is pretty much thier saving grace (much better than just plain higher damage, since they can actually threaten thugs/weak SCs). So an even more expensive unit with no lance has some real problems. Swamp survival seems reasonably thematic, but by itself doesn't begin to make up for thier cost.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Good point. Knights do tend to get targeted with all the spells. And it is hard to balance that. Technically it should be much harder to hit a fast moving knight with a lightning bolt, then a slow moving heavy infantry, but that isn't built into the game.

Still, knowing this it would be very hard for me not to build Serpent Cataphracts as Pythium, because the game is so much more fun with them.

[Sombre]

In CB the cost of the Serpent Cataphracts is dropped considerably and I find they're useful but not overpowered. Before I would never have built many of them - they could be made slightly more interesting with swamp survival and a bit of poisen res though. Would make them more usable alongside hydras.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Lowering the price is the only thing that can be done with the current tools that are available, I suppose. But thematicly the prices of the units in the base game do seem right. If you balance the amount of resources you spend each round amoung calvary and infantry, the amount of calvary you get compared to the infantry does seem right. It is the game mechanics that are wrong. If the game was able to make better use of movement, and 'attack rear most enemies' worked better so many units in the game would be balanced. As is, the CB mod is the best way to balance it.

Anyway, what brought this is up is I am currently in a multiplayer game where I am building a lot of Cataphracts. I should probably build less of them, but then I would be building almost only one type of unit, and dang it!, that just isn't as much fun.

[Sombre]

Maybe you should play CB multiplayer - that way you'd get a better deal on the serpents.

Also just because people say the serpents are bad doesn't mean it's certainyly true. If you use them heavily in a MP game you might come to a different conclusion. Of course I think you're more likely to see that you can't field enough of them because of the cost and that they get splattered by magic just as easily as cheaper troops.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I would like to play CB multiplayer. But the problem is too many people are opposed to the mod, and there are very few CB multiplayer games.

And I agree about the assesment about the unit. If I was facing them, i would certainly take advantage of the fact there were size 3 to wipe them out with spells. But still I will try to make use of them. When used with Hydras they are the national unit with the most chance of avoiding the Hydras posion, due to their faster speed and chance of getting behind the enemy.I just have to keep them out of the way of magic.

[HoneyBadger]

I think the problem with the CB mod is that a lot of people-including myself, I have to admit-felt that it was premature. It didn't come out long before the game itself came out, and the things it did, noone had time to figure out whether or not they were good ideas, necessary, or balanced.

Also, I'm not sure what exactly the CB mod does and doesn't do? I haven't read the posts on it in a while, and when I did, the ideas presented, I felt, made the game different, rather than balancing it out.

I'm open-minded towards the concept and, atleast in theory, I'd be willing to help, but I definitely don't have any real handle on it, and I'm a little wary of downloading it without knowing the exact changes and the exact reason why things were changed.

[quantum_mechani]

Darrel said:
I would like to play CB multiplayer. But the problem is too many people are opposed to the mod, and there are very few CB multiplayer games.

That's true on the forums, but on the dominions IRC channel CB is actually used more than base. And I don't think there are a whole lot of people opposed to the mod, just a couple of them and a lot of people going with the flow/not knowing much about it.

I think I did jump the gun a bit by releasing some CB so soon after game release, I didn't account for the big difference between the dom2 community and the dom3 one. The veteran dom2 players that stuck with the game long enough to try/get used to CB only made up a tiny fraction of the sudden masses of people.