Mod: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

In other words, the AOTF would be lesser (2 Const), but still require A1W1, while the ??? water only item would be greater (4 Const), and require W4.

Do you really feel that 25 water gems per commander is a reasonable cost to spend getting onto land?

Aquatic Nations, after all, already have their own set of advantages. Making land easy to get to just erodes away at the whole idea of playing an aquatic Nation.

This is nonsense. Making the amulet of the fish doesn't make for easy land access for EA R'Lyeh and EA Oceania. It makes land access _possible_. Expecting players to use their pretender to forge a single amulet of the fish every turn for the entire game is single player thinking.

With the possible exception of Hinnom, I don't believe there's a single EA Nation that's more powerful than Oceania, except for the fact that they're almost entirely aquatic. They possess the single best Sacred recruitables in the game, pound for pound, along with all their other advantages. Give them the ability to forge endless cheap Amulets of the Fish, without requiring air magic, and I really believe it could break their balance, giving them the potential to turn into another Hinnom.

You clearly don't even know what the amulet of the fish does. It allows a single commander to go either above or below water. It does nothing for his troops, and EA Oceania's troops are aquatic only. Knights of the deep are aquatic, and are nothing more than a slightly better version of white centaurs, so they will never be a serious threat to land nations. MA Oceania's Trident Knights are already amphibious, so this certainly doesn't change anything there. EA Oceania can already forge amulets of the fish at A1W1, so they aren't affected in any serious way by this change.

Maybe not as bad, but still unbalanced, and potentially very bad. Imagine self-healing heavily blessed sacred calvalry commanders with magic weapons that can strike at any water or coastal area almost at will, and then retreat to near-complete safety.

All magic weapons do is make units better against ethereal troops. The basic magic weapon has _no_ other effect. Triton kings can't self-bless, and have terrible magic paths, so they aren't much more than thugs. Capricorns are already amphibious. Please remember that there are no gem generators in the game unless you happen to agree with the developers idea of proper balance.

What's wrong with keeping the Amulet of the Fish as-is?

As is, EA R'lyeh cannot forge them for its mindlords. Pretender forging is not sufficient for cheap items that need to go on hundreds of your aquatic mages.

Maybe you could even add an item that requires Nature 2, Water 2. Armour maybe, akin to the Shambler skin. It could compete with the AOTF in the lesser forgeable item category, and cost 5 Nature and 5 Water gems. That would make it an option for Oceania, allowing them a more expensive but easier to reach option to get on land a little earlier, without breaking balance.

Triton kings can already get A1. MA Oceania is already amphibious. Have you even bothered to look at the capabiliies of the nations that you claim would be affected by this? Or are you simply scared by the thought of change?