Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Alpine Joe

I don't really think EA tienchi is a bless nation...... your sacreds are weak against archers and even with F9W9 they lose to most other similarly blessed sacreds (hellheim, mictlan, lanka, Hinnom, Kailasa, ). They have terrible HP in the off-season as well, where they have trouble even with regular infantry.

I also don't really understand your point about masters of the 5 elements...they are too good, but you never use them? They completely eliminate the use of masters of the way? Well, when was the last time you used the F1D1 LA c'tis cap only mage, or the equivalent one for LA agartha? nonmage commanders almost never get recruited as is, losing a lot of thematic commanders simply for not being optimal.

Warriors of the 5 elements are very very underestimated.
EA T'ien Chi blessed beat easily Lankans and Mictlan jags. Against Hinnom they struggle. The point is not to rely on warriors of the 5 elements beyond early expansion however. You've got sacred summons. Demons of heavenly waters are not weak and very easy to get. Demons of heavenly fire with a water 9 bless shoot fire wheels very often. Celestial soldiers rock.
As for archers, there's no reason to send only warriors of the 5 elements. Bring in yoru composite bowmen for support with fire archers and 3 shielded infantry to use as decoys, and you don't have to worry about archers.

Masters of the 5 elements right now are so good that you don't always pick celestial masters in your capital, so you alternate (you want some for their flight + strong paths, the others for the random E2 and N2 in particular). If they weren't capital only, you'd always build them outside your capital, and only celestial masters in your capital. There would be no point in recruiting masters of the dead anymore since you can get D random on the celestial masters, and why would one buy masters of the way if one can buy masters of the 5 elements?

There are many, many units that are not recruited and could effectively be removed from the game. Forcing people to use them doesn't exactly make the game better.

The point of CBM is to make the huge variety of units more usable. The 'Balance' in CBM means units inside a nation are more balanced so you have more reasons to pick under-used units. I don't understand why you'd want to use this mod if you think some units should be removed, as it strives to make more units usable.

[Tollund]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

The point of CBM is to make the huge variety of units more usable. The 'Balance' in CBM means units inside a nation are more balanced so you have more reasons to pick under-used units. I don't understand why you'd want to use this mod if you think some units should be removed, as it strives to make more units usable.

I didn't say that I think that units should be removed. I said that some units could effectively be removed, and will always be effectively removed from the game if they aren't worth building. People still recruit theurg acolytes even though theurgs are better mages because theurg acolytes have a useful purpose and are worthwhile. People don't recruit battle deacons, and never will as long as communicants are available. You'd have to make battle deacons free before they would be worth recruiting instead of a communicant. The Alae legionnaire might as well not exist because the hastatus is strictly superior. Reduce its gold cost to match its actual combat performance, and it would become a useful unit.

Yes, masters of the five elements are better than masters of the way, and people would recruit masters of the five elements over masters of the way if they had a choice. This doesn't mean that masters of the five elements have to remain capital only so that people will use masters of the way. It means that should masters of the five elements be made recruit anywhere, then masters of the way would have to be improved to be worth recruiting instead of a master of the five elements.

It's quite clear that balance between nations is the overall goal of the mod. Otherwise nations that have worthless national troops in vanilla like Bogarus wouldn't have been given heavy cavalry that's is virtually identical to tower knights. Your argument that the mod is meant to promote balance "within" a nation is basically nothing more than the argument mod supporters use to convince those people who like imbalance, because they can take advantage of it, to play in the modded game. The CBM doesn't go nearly far enough in making all units viable.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Tollund

It's quite clear that balance between nations is the overall goal of the mod. Otherwise nations that have worthless national troops in vanilla like Bogarus wouldn't have been given heavy cavalry that's is virtually identical to tower knights. Your argument that the mod is meant to promote balance "within" a nation is basically nothing more than the argument mod supporters use to convince those people who like imbalance, because they can take advantage of it, to play in the modded game. The CBM doesn't go nearly far enough in making all units viable.

qm has said before that nation balance is not the primary concern. Obviously it is something that CBM works towards addressing, but I don't know where you get that it's the 'overall goal'.

[Tollund]

Originally Posted by Sombre

qm has said before that nation balance is not the primary concern. Obviously it is something that CBM works towards addressing, but I don't know where you get that it's the 'overall goal'.

I'm assuming it's the overall goal because it's the only overall goal that's worthwhile for a mod that makes as many changes as it already does. If you would rather it not change overall balance between nations, then there are a large number of things that will have to be done to restore the balance back to what it is in vanilla. The nations with light cavalry, for example, will have to have the power of their other units reduced, or costs increased so that the improvements to cavalry don't upset the balance between nations. Niefelheim will need some major changes to unit costs so that the extra 100 gold cost on niefel jarls and the smaller cold auras on niefel giants doesn't reduce the nation's power relative to other nations.

Every change that is made to a nation changes the relative balance between nations. To argue otherwise is ignorant.

[vfb]

Originally Posted by Tollund

I'm assuming it's the overall goal because it's the only overall goal that's worthwhile for a mod that makes as many changes as it already does.

Nope. The only overall worthwhile goal, obviously, is to make the game more fun, by increasing diversity. How is diversity increased? By balancing under-used stuff.

Originally Posted by Tollund

If you would rather it not change overall balance between nations, then there are a large number of things that will have to be done to restore the balance back to what it is in vanilla.

Obviously, "not changing the overall balance" is not a goal of CBM. The overall balance will be changed, as a side effect of making under-used stuff more worthwhile.

There's nothing stopping you from making your own nation-balancing mod, if that's what you want.

I think Chris P has a project like that started. And there's another mod somewhere that gives all players identical nations, if you're looking for perfect balance for some reason.

[chrispedersen]

Right, my balance mod makes changes to oceania, all agarthas, and abysia.

I had changes started for machaka, and eriu.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

Warriors of the 5 elements are very very underestimated.
EA T'ien Chi blessed beat easily Lankans and Mictlan jags. Against Hinnom they struggle.

I love both W5E's and lankan kumas and mic-jags. But both your post and micah's post are a little simplistic.

W5E's benefit more than mic jags do from a S blessing as they are more fragile. So a heads up comparison of an F9S9 blessing mics v jags will give skewed results.

Jags have mediocre attack and defense numbers, and have the ability to survive a hit based on on their were form. In fact, their were form is de-rigeur to really get the maximum advantage from the f9 bless (three attacks vs one).

A few other factors: W5E's are very, very susceptible to archer fire. And finally, the key to beating W5E's is killing them first.

You don't use the same tools on every problem. Mictlan will probably be using eagles not jag's agaist the W5E's. Set them far back Hold and attack, and with a priest set to Bless, bless, whatever.

This allows the eagles to get the first hit, offense or defense.
And if you are doing equal GPs, (iirc 15 vs 35?) 10 eagles and a priest vs 5 M5E's and a priest should win 19/20.

Even if you *don't* do it on a gp basis - M5E's are cap only and do not scale.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Even if you *don't* do it on a gp basis - M5E's are cap only and do not scale.

T'ien Chi's warriors are inferior to Mictlan sacreds only in that they are capital-only. Their strengths are different. TC does better vs. units relying on fire/heat/cold for instance. Eagle warriors are great against units which need boosting for instance, as these will get attacked before their buffs are on.
My point about using a bless for EA T'ien Chi is that the bless allows them to start fast. They'll tear down non archer indies. Later on, as the W5E are capital only, you can't rely on them, but you can summon sacred demons and sacred celestial warriors in the mid-game, and your bless should help these too. So mid-game, TC still has usable sacreds, which they can mass-summon everywhere (if you have the gems).
By the way, one reason to recruit a master of the way over a master of the 5 elements if these weren't capital only would be to try and get an S random so you can summon demons of heavenly waters, but it's probably easier to bring in a celestial master (fly/teleport/trapeze depending on what you've got) than risk 4 or 4 lousy picks in the process.