Balance opinions

[Twan]

Ironhawk said:
I'm surprised to find that people feel there is a "learning curve" to the balance mods tho? I mean, you just plug it in and go. Do you seriously memorize every unit from every nation and every spell? It seems a better strategy to me to just abstract your knowledge of dominions - what values make a unit or spell good/bad and then you are ready to play any game with any mod. Just glance at the units and spells that fall into line with your strategy and you are good to go.

Personnally I don't memorize but like to be able to use the excellent manual sent with the game, so I avoid to play with any mod changing many spells or items levels/effects*/cost (but would use a balance mod limited to units, detail of nations, pretenders and other things not making the manual obsolete, if such a version is made).

* eventually altering the effects of some really over/underpowered spells I've nothing against ; as long as levels/paths/schools listed in manual aren't changed

ps : also I'm not an huge fan of dominions 3 magic philosophy ("a nation must remain weak in non national schools forever" ; "magical economy is an option for a little number of gifted nations only") compared to dom2 one ("all nations start with strengths but can developp any magic with some effort", "in end game the norm is to have a magical economy allowing to use the most expensive -and fun- spells/summons often" ), and my impression is balance mods goes even further than vanilla dom3 in the restricted magic tendancy (which forces them to change more things for balance, as some nations won't be competitive in end game against the gem/blood economy powers without big boosts of other paths or nerfing more clams etc... ; then these paths risk to be overpowered before end game, or magical economy nations to be underpowered before too late game ; then other changes have to be made to avoid this ; etc....).