Conceptual Balance Mod 1.41

[VedalkenBear]

I love the Lord of the Gates. I (personally) like the auto-summoners, except those that produce troops that require upkeep.

Here's a theoretical question. For the Lord of War (or the Celestial General), what is the tipping point for a summon that you have to actually command? E.g., would a Lord of War that auto-summoned nothing, but could use Summon Allies to summon 25 infantry and 5 cavalry be balanced? What about 15 and 3? I would much prefer a design that used 'Summon Allies' over auto-summon, because of the control it allows.

[Horst F. JENS]

Originally Posted by VedalkenBear

I (personally) like the auto-summoners, except those that produce troops that require upkeep.

For the Lord of War (or the Celestial General), what is the tipping point for a summon that you have to actually command? E.g., would a Lord of War that auto-summoned nothing, but could use Summon Allies to summon 25 infantry and 5 cavalry be balanced? What about 15 and 3? I would much prefer a design that used 'Summon Allies' over auto-summon, because of the control it allows.

The point of auto-summon instead of summon-allies (as far as i understand) is that auto-summon let your pretender do other valuable things with his time, like search, forge, cast etc.

Maybe the auto-summon should be dominion-strength-dependent like with the ghost king ?

I find a batch-summon-allies Lord of War scary because i would strip him of magic and use him as a mobile troop-factory. But maybe that is exact what he need to become more popular.

[Jazzepi]

Originally Posted by VedalkenBear

I love the Lord of the Gates. I (personally) like the auto-summoners, except those that produce troops that require upkeep.

Here's a theoretical question. For the Lord of War (or the Celestial General), what is the tipping point for a summon that you have to actually command? E.g., would a Lord of War that auto-summoned nothing, but could use Summon Allies to summon 25 infantry and 5 cavalry be balanced? What about 15 and 3? I would much prefer a design that used 'Summon Allies' over auto-summon, because of the control it allows.

I can't imagine a pretender being given "summon allies". Usually when you have a pretender you do one of four things.

1. Invade PD provinces. (cyclops, wyrm, PoD)
2. Site Search (Rainbow mages / mages with high levels in off paths)
3. Research (primarily rainbow mages)
4. Forge (Any god can do this)

Summoing allies is almost always strictly worse than any of the above 4. Basically the last thing you would ever want your pretender to do is sit around summoning chaff, or even regularish units. To balance something like this, your pretender would have to spit out 20+ units a turn. Probably more, actually. 25 infantry, 5 calvary, and 10 archers could be good. The idea is that you would literally want him to summon a small raiding force each time he is used.

Jazzepi