Mod: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Stritcly inferior to Astral Travel? Astral Travel is researchlevel 9 and costs 25 astral gems. It's not a valid comparison.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

My point was such a boost wouldn't make it too powerful.

Egh? I'm having hard time understanding your argument. Because a lower research level, with different magic path spell is weaker than a high research one with a different path doesn't mean that you should boost the weaker one. That's like boosting "Falling Fires" because it's not as good as "Niefel Flames".

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Especially since water nations will often have more border territories than land nations because there is less water and its often strung out along the land (which they may or may not hold or be able to hold).

Water provinces are pretty large and most land provinces only have connecion to a single water province. If you see a huge army on a coastal province, they usually have only one water province to move to. Without the lab requirement, defensive maneuvers would be too easy.

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

With W5 it can't be reached without boosters, requiring both thaumathurgy and construction research (there are some expections,like MA Atlantis and EA Oceania). The intention of the spell is to allow movement in UW over that non-moddable 1 province restriction. It is costed and pathed for that use.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

So basically water nations can't have nice things?

*cough*

You read the first post, right?

Underwater nation balance
EA Oceania:
- New coastal recruits, 5 new heroes (5 total), KotD nerf, and a bundle of national spells
EA Atlantis:
- New coastal recruits, 2 new heroes (4 total), national H3 MR-boosting spell and Mage of the Deep and Basalt Queen made cheaper. Also improved MR for Coral Guards and Living Pillars. Also better admin on starting fort (40 now)
EA R'lyeh
- New coastal recruits, 2 new heroes (4 total), Better admin on starting fort (30 now)

MA Oceania
- New coastal recruits, 3 new heroes (4 total), some national spells and Capricorns now only lose 1 point of water magic on land (instead of losing 1 point in all paths).
MA Atlantis:
- New coastal recruits, national H3 MR-boosting spell. Also improved MR for Coral Guards, Mother Guards and War Lobsters.
MA R'lyeh
- Slightly improved coastal recruits.

LA R'lyeh
- No changes

They got plenty of nice things. Hence my reluctance to give them a superior teleportation spell just for their use. Now that I think about it, this argument must be some sort of misunderstanding. Allow me to restate the intention of the spell

Traverse the Sea isn't intented in no shape or form to duplicate the stragedies and or uses of the Gateway or Astral Travel spells. It is a modded mid-game spell with the intention of allowing you to move your map move 1 troops around in your territory and is supposed to require some planning on your part to do so. It's not an offensive spell, it's not an defensive spell, it's just a movement spell. If you want astral travel or gateway, then just use those spells instead, perhaps take some astral on your pretender.

[Squirrelloid]

[quote=Burnsaber;709975]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Water provinces are pretty large and most land provinces only have connecion to a single water province. If you see a huge army on a coastal province, they usually have only one water province to move to. Without the lab requirement, defensive maneuvers would be too easy.

If you want to keep the effect as is, it should require something like W3 and 5 or fewer gems... and maybe only require Thaum 4. Its literally less than half as good as gateway, and making it harder to cast just makes it laughable.

Also, many land provinces do connect to multiple water provinces.
Map: Aran - see provinces 15, 17, 25, 27, 48, 56, 81, 89, 90. That's at least half the coastal provinces.
Map: Cradle of Dominions - see provinces 85, 94, 103 for examples (not surveying the whole map - those were 3 of the first 4 coastal provinces i looked at).
Map: Urraparand - 137, 142, 147, 148 were 4 of the first 5 provinces i looked at, all with at least 2 adj water provinces.

And as I said, the effect of my proposed modified version is sort of like having map move 2-3 units and a nearby fortress on land, except slightly improved (which it should be, since it requires W5, mage time to cast from a mage capable of leading an army, and gems as opposed to just moving the units).

They got plenty of nice things. Hence my reluctance to give them a superior teleportation spell just for their use. Now that I think about it, this argument must be some sort of misunderstanding.

I'm just going to focus on one here for clarity.

More heroes? Nice, but not really a balance change. I mean, its not like many land nations didn't already have a bunch of heroes anyway. And given MA Oceania needs to use their pretender to get actual good magic paths, taking luck scales is sort of out of the question.

Coastal recruits/improve capricorn land performance: these were (1) essential anyway if MA Oceania wasn't going to suck, and (2) have absolutely nothing to do with making it easier for MA Oceania to repel invaders *in the water* who now have a much easier time doing so.

So basically, MA Oceania is now easier to invade and got nothing to compensate for that.

Allow me to restate the intention of the spell

Traverse the Sea isn't intented in no shape or form to duplicate the stragedies and or uses of the Gateway or Astral Travel spells. It is a modded mid-game spell with the intention of allowing you to move your map move 1 troops around in your territory and is supposed to require some planning on your part to do so. It's not an offensive spell, it's not an defensive spell, it's just a movement spell. If you want astral travel or gateway, then just use those spells instead, perhaps take some astral on your pretender.

Movement is inherently either defensive or offensive. Its changing the strategic value of your troops.

Regardless, it is vastly overpriced for what it does in terms of mage skill, gem cost, and RPs. Either it needs improving or it needs to be easier to access and cast.