New Mod Nations Game: Mods over Europe (finished)

Sombre · #1 August 5th, 2007, 12:15 AM

"Gem starved"? Because they don't get astral pearl spawn from a recruitable? That must mean all the vanilla nations are gem starved too.

I think you're overreacting Shovah. I've said that if you have suggestions on more changes to Avernum, to keep them relatively powerful and of course interesting, I'm happy to implement them. But I always suspected I'd have to remove the pearl spawning if I ever made a cbm version because astral pearls for gold like that basically throws the mechanics of MP out of whack.

If you're saying "Now they aren't overpowered and I won't be able to utterly stomp everyone, so I won't play" then yeah, you probably shouldn't be playing, since part of the reason for his game is to improve the balance of the mods and highlight how they can be part of regular MP. But I don't think that's what you're saying - you just want a fun nation that you can play well, fair enough. So tell me some changes other than having the pearlspawning back, that you'd like for Avernum.

One thing I could do which would greatly boost their battlemagic is simply let Vahnatai Mages be built outside the cap. With potential 3F or 3A they're pretty special. I can also reduce the cost of the Crystal Souls, if you think they're too pricey to actually use right now.

As for the rest of Avernum's military - they have resource sink troops, a nice sbow archer, useable sacreds, stealth troops+commander, amphibious infantry and very heavy infantry right out of the box. Varied and certainly above average.

Sombre · #2 August 5th, 2007, 12:30 AM

As for Hoburgs,.... you have to understand that when we looked at Hoburg Kingdom for the last mod game, the thing seemed overpowered as hell in the early game - it could simply crank out a wall of cheap crossbows with excellent stats that would shoot you to pieces, then when you got to meleee you couldn't even hurt the buggers, since they had solid protection plus abnormal defence values. They even had mr 14 on their troops, they had a commander who could summon allies and way too many of them,...

Basically they would be no fun to start next to, even if their late game was highly suspect.

So now I've nerfed them, but if I've done it right, they should still be pretty scary in the early game. If not, well I'll un-nerf them some. I didn't want to give more magic to a nation which we had decided was basically overpowered though.

Hoburg Alliance SE on the other hand, seemed ok/weakish in balance. They actually have pretty decent mages and research prospects, they can still mass crossbows, they still have fun and effective hog cavalry etc. Overall I just tweaked them, now I think they should be fairly balanced. I certainly wouldn't go thinking hoburgs are worse just becuase they're hoburgs - their crossbows are just as good as those of regular troops (even better with their prec) and the price is lower. They also get slightly discounted commanders, priests and mages.

I appreciate it when people make specific balance suggestions, or bring my attention to specific units that might be a problem, so please go ahead.

Jazzepi · #3 August 5th, 2007, 12:43 AM

I was disappointed by the severe restriction in magic. I don't see how someone is suppose to fight with magic selection that includes E2 and F2 mages max (sure you can random higher, but it's extremely unlikely to get anything over F3 or E3, and even that doesn't happen terribly often).

I think it might help to take a page from Abysia. If you're going to give someone an extremely limit selection of magic, they should at least have access to high levels in those paths. For example, it's nearly impossible to get to a point where you can cast Fire Arrows with the current Horburg setup, but Abysia can do it out of the box.

Jazzepi

Sombre · #4 August 5th, 2007, 12:51 AM

Abysia doesn't have huge numbers of quality missile troops right out of the gate, however I think you make a fair point. Perhaps in order to fully change them from overpowered early game face hugger to balanced nation they should get some magic boost to help in the later game. I'll take another look at them today. Overall they aren't supposed to have good magic though - they are rather like Ulm in that respect.

Jazzepi · #5 August 5th, 2007, 12:57 AM

I can understand that. Having limited magic selection is fine.

If you can come up with a good battle-mage us for F2 or E2 casters, please let me know. The only thing I can think of is building boots of earth, casting summon earth power, and spamming blade wind. Maybe the Magma spell (whose name I can not remember right now) if they get good randoms.

Or maybe casting phoenix fire and attempting to spam falling fires.

Jazzepi

Cor2 · #6 August 5th, 2007, 01:01 AM

Maybe if the random picks where upped to 30-50% they would be better. You could have a 4 fire or 4 earth right out of the box as it is now, if your very lucky.

lch · #7 August 5th, 2007, 02:43 AM

Regarding the pearl generating drama, I'd be fine if they'd generate pearls one out of five times, but unfortunately it is not possible to mod that. Your comments make it sound like you'd exploit the gem generation thing to the fullest, and as I said before, I think it's a very unfair advantage. Other nations have their gem income limited by the number of provinces in their control and the magic diversity of their mages, you wouldn't have any limitations. You would probably be able to crank one of those guys out per turn by turn 15 or 20, and then receive a pearl for each one of those... So we are talking some extra dozen gems by turn 30, and some extra two dozen gems by turn 40-45, regardless of provinces in your control. Compare that to the cost of gem generating globals... I don't think that this is justified, sorry.

Sombre asked me if we could have a "no indies" map for this game. This means that provinces would have indy defenders in them and would generate money and resources like usual, and you could recruit units from magic sites and your own nationals from forts, but not any other type of units. I have declined that request since I think that nations should be able to complement what they are missing through indies, missile troops or amphibious units for example, and in my games I rarely use indy units, but make heavy use of indy scouts for example. But I can understand that this might be interesting so that players really play their nations to the fullest. So if there are absolutely no doubts by the other players, I could certainly make the map indy-less. Opinions?

Jazzepi · #8 August 5th, 2007, 02:53 AM

Eeew, no. I have no interest in playing on an indy-free map. Indies allow you to get into the water when you couldn't otherwise. They allow you to get interesting sacreds when you couldn't otherwise. Indies are like a 2nd layer of strategy on the map. Controlling certain provinces becomes even more important when they create indies you need/want.

Jazzepi

Cor2 · #9 August 5th, 2007, 12:49 AM

I am not sure i understand the logic behind such high MR for hoburgs. The protection may be a little high as well, but i would not touch the Def at all. Maybe drop attack some, they are short, might be hard to hit above the waste.

The Alliance SE hog knights are not very good IMHO. They have trample, but good luck using it with their size 2, IMHO trample can go and they can get a gore attack if they don't have one already or maybe the hogs can fight on their own when the riders bite it. whatever. i would be perfectly happy with no changes to the alliance.

The kingdom is a little overpowered troop wise and under powered magic wise IMHO. 4 resources for a troop with armor, a sword and a crossbow? wow, seems unlikely. Plus a HOLY giant? eww.

Sombre · #10 August 5th, 2007, 01:01 AM

Quote:

Cor2 said:
I am not sure i understand the logic behind such high MR for hoburgs. The protection may be a little high as well, but i would not touch the Def at all. Maybe drop attack some, they are short, might be hard to hit above the waste.

The Alliance SE hog knights are not very good IMHO. They have trample, but good luck using it with their size 2, IMHO trample can go and they can get a gore attack if they don't have one already or maybe the hogs can fight on their own when the riders bite it. whatever. i would be perfectly happy with no changes to the alliance.

The kingdom is a little overpowered troop wise and under powered magic wise IMHO. 4 resources for a troop with armor, a sword and a crossbow? wow, seems unlikely. Plus a HOLY giant? eww.

The MR on the hoburgs is from the vanilla stats. I did take away the high def from the vanilla stats though (ok you can say they're short and hard to hit, but 14 def? That's better than a ninja, I believe. Other small units don't seem to get this bonus and hoburgs are slow little fat guys. Also, why would they get that def bonus when on a hog? You just hit the hog instead).

I think the high mr is just a feature of dominions hoburgs - I toned it down a little, from 14 to 13 in many cases. It seemed less insane than the def.

Seems I forgot to give the Hoburg Alliance hog knight gore attack instead of trample. I'll fix that before the game starts.

Hoburg Kingdom soldiers, before they were nerfed, had better armour, a sword, a crossbow, a shield and better stats. They were just all purpose monsters without a real early game counter. Don't know if the giant is a problem though - he might be, but he didn't look that nuts to me.

Trust me if you think they're overpowered troopwise now you should have seen them before the nerf.

You are using CBM Hoburg Kingdom 2 right?