Mod: Squirrel Balance Mod (Current Ver: v0.05)

[Squirrelloid]

Current Release: SqBM v0.05
Status: Alpha, unstable
Changelog History: Complete text (with CBM context as applicable) is included as a text file.

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v0.05 Highlights
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------General------
Blood got hit with a substantial nerf bat. The overall goal here is to make the cost of blood summons (and occasionally other blood spells) better match the value you get from those summons. Many blood spells doubled in cost or more. And the scary part is I'm not sure I went far enough.

I would be happy to discuss proper price points for any or all of these spells, but an important point is that blood slaves cost gold to acquire and then get spent like gems for gem-quality summons. Since its in addition to your other gem income, blood summons should never be cheap. And its not like Bloodsummons are subpar summons - the best troop summons in the game are blood summons!

------Nations------
-EA Mictlan
Capital only mage prices increased across the board. The various H2s are only a little more expensive (and still a good deal for what you get), the H3 HPotSun increased in price substantially because Mictlan is a bloodsacrifice nation. Additionally, the recruit anywhere Mictlan Priest has had its cost increased 33% (call it a stupid cheap bloodhunter tax).

-EA Lanka
Rakshasa cost increased to 320g so its no longer cheap for a pure mage, much less a thug chassis.

-EA Marveni
New national spell "Entice Blood Henge Acolyte", which summons a poor mage (B1H1) who is an exceptional bloodhunter, but at a substantial cost in nature gems (20n). Also note he costs upkeep (4g/trn).

Basically, Marveni is frustratingly dependent on getting its multihero to do anything with the fact it is sort of a blood nation. The new option is expensive, but it does give Marveni limited guaranteed access to blood mages.

-EA/MA Vanheim, LA Midgard, EA Helheim
Vanjarls are now A2B2 to make up for the loss of dousing rods.

-LA Mictlan
Priests similarly more expensive, especially King of Rain, which is now priced more like the thug it is, in addition to being H3.

-MA Agartha
I know, nothing to do with blood, but I did increase the Golem Crafter's 10% random to 50%.

------Spells------
Reorganized the Blood spells in CBM so they are more logically arranged and easier to browse.

Almost every non-national blood summon spell had its cost increased, with the sole exceptions of Demon Lords and Succubi. Most notable, the various elemental demons are much more expensive (they were stupid cheap before), and the Vampire Lord is now at 100b. Succubi were actually substantially reduced in price, because they were seriously overcosted.

Lanka's national blood summons increased in price. Especially notable: Dakini at 100b, Davanas at 105b for 3, and Mandeha at 175b. The lower level troop summons weren't too bad at their price, so cost increases weren't especially substantial.

Mictlan's national blood summons increased in price to varying degrees. Most notable are its commander summons which were increased to 40b and 60b for civateteo and tlahuelpulchi respectively. (Upkeep-free bloodhunters should not be cheap).

A few other spells received cost increases, most notably Rain of Toads (now 25b).

------Items-------
Sanguine Dousing Rod and Jade Knife are now artifacts.
-The dousing rod was basically a gem gen, and should be treated similarly. It is also harder to forge now (15b, B3 mage required).
-Blood Sacrifice is too good relative to the cost of acquiring blood slaves. Unfortunately, neither the real cost of slaves nor the effectiveness of blood sacking can be modded, but making the dagger unique reduces the ability to concentrate blood sacrifice as much, and thus helps address the problem.

------Sprites------
Blood Henge Acolyte has new sprites (recolored and slightly modified Blood Henge Druid). (Preview not updated yet).

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Future Update Plan
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v0.06: Item Tweaks, possibly tweaks for UW nations who need help. Also expect to do something with Jomon.
v0.10: 1st Stable Release. Likely very close to v0.06.

[Valerius]

In addition to raising the weak nations to average do you also plan on nerfing the OP nations? Also, do you plan on including the Diversity mod?

[Squirrelloid]

I do not plan on specifically including the diversity mod, although I will certainly look at how it interacts with this.

I may nerf overpowered nations, depending on if I have any good ideas for doing so or not.

[Valerius]

Ok, if the mod isn't going to assume the use of the Diversity mod then I'll suggest fixing the tart problem by making them affliction-free summons (and remove that annoying shattered soul while you're at it). This eliminates the necessity of getting the Chalice/GoH in order to take advantage of tarts. Tarts become the default non-unique end-game summon for those nations without national SCs. Then I'd suggest balancing the pricing of tarts and national SC summons so that tarts aren't a more cost effective option (if anything it should be the other way around). And these changes work just as well for games using the Diversity mod as those without.

[kianduatha]

Hrm, interesting. I'd love to hear more specifically what you're planning on doing with the nations you have plans for, especially Jomon.

I'm sorta curious as to what purpose the Fairy king is supposed to have--why go to all the bother/what niche is it supposed to have that wasn't present already?

The Gift of Reason change it seems would have a lot of ramifications we haven't terribly thought about yet--some crazy things might start happening when it's only 5 gems. People might start GoR-ing Ghosts en-mass as stealthy raiders(total cost of the chassis 2D 5N to get a stealthy ethereal fear-causing life-draining guy) or something else just as wacky. I haven't really thought through the national summons yet to see if there's anything terribly imbalanced, but it would for sure drive all the Agarthas even harder to GoR-ed Umbrals. I'm not sure you can do anything else to them if you give them that.

[Squirrelloid]

Well, I kind of support wacky uses for Gift of Reason. I'm not totally sure all the effects it will have, but it will get people to use it on something other than tartarians, which imho will be a major improvement. It feels like the spell as it currently exists should be called 'make tartarian useful'. That's boring.

So is 5n GoR crazy? Probably. Will it make for a lot more interesting choices? Certainly.

Btw, a naked ghost wouldn't make *that* good of a raider. After gear would it be cheaper than a minimally geared black servant? I dunno, but that would be the basis for comparison.

The Faerie King aims to add another caster to the tart line-up. Mostly, I needed something to replace Monstrum because I really want to take the Monstrum out of the Tart Gate spell - they'd be plenty useful if you were choosing to summon them, but they aren't what you're looking for when you're casting tartarian gate. I had a flavor idea for a Faerie King tartarian. If you wish to provide a better idea (and a sprite!), I'm certainly willing to listen. But I do need something (something has to take over the Monstrum's old monster number so it doesn't appear in tart gate).

[rdonj]

You could just use a different sort of tartarian.

[Squirrelloid]

But rdonj, where's the fun in that?

I confess, this might be a little too divergent compared to other tartarians. So it might be back to the drawing board, and I'll use this elsewhere...

[Gandalf Parker]

This is a great idea and Im eager to see it happen.

Something I heard elsewhere which seemed worth considering. The tartans problem would be handled, but still fun, if each tartan was unique.

[lch]

Tartan problems? Go ask a book! PUN ERROR Yes I'm a nitpicker, but why do you people have to make this so easy?