Mod: CBM 1.7 released

[Squirrelloid]

Regarding Ulm:
I think the 'boosts' Ulm got almost entirely miss the point.

Ok, the armor rebalancing is probably a good thing. Although Ulm's infantry still has a serious problem - their base stats are straight 10s. For a professional military, I'd expect *some* infantry soldiers with better than basic stats. EA Ulm has them, why doesn't MA Ulm? I'm not convinced the armor rebalancing does enough for Ulm's troops, since they were actively bad before, and now they might just not lose to tall grass, but i still have to couch that cautiously. Don't be fooled into thinking the armor changes make Ulm's infantry actually good.

Iron Angels should not be Ulm's focus, its troops should be. And with thugs nerfed pretty hard by the loss of hammers, i'm not convinced making them easier to acquire helps them all that much. But then, its been so long since i've actually seen one, I can't remember what they do.

Finally, FotA available at level 0 is laughable. On the one hand, there's little worth forging without construction research anyway. Otoh, casting FotA take a lot of E gems - gems they can't afford to spend very early anyway (or even if they do, then what gems are they going to forge with?). And since I expect Ulm will roll over and die pretty easily even with the armor buff, its just another reason to kill them early. (Not that a second capital is ever a bad reason to kill someone).

Regarding SDRs:
SDRs are a gem gen. They needed to go. The heims probably need to be looked at following their removal to help their chronic blood hunting problem, but no one else should be overly affected in an adverse manner. All the other real blood powers either have cheap(ish) B1 hunters, or B2+ hunters readily available.

Regarding Hammers:
I think this is a change that hasn't been thought through very carefully, and many nations need adjustments, potentially dramatic adjustments, to account for the change. Eriu went from bad to unplayable. TNN and the heims are also in pretty bad shape. The real winners? Nations like Mictlan who didn't really have a good way to get hammers before (because they took a non-E bless chassis and had no E national mages). Mictlan, of course, had no need of a buff, stealth or otherwise. (And no, loss of SDRs doesn't really harm Mictlan very much).

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

All the other real blood powers either have cheap(ish) B1 hunters, or B2+ hunters readily available.

Without SDR's a B1 blood hunter only has a (unconfirmed) 50% chance of successfully hunting slaves. Way to low chance.

With a SDR this raises to 90%. (Yeah, the percentages are influenced by the game settings).

Removal of the SDR just makes it very hard to blood hunt with B1 hunters. So these b1 mages are now useless.

[Executor]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Without SDR's a B1 blood hunter only has a (unconfirmed) 50% chance of successfully hunting slaves. Way to low chance.

With a SDR this raises to 90%. (Yeah, the percentages are influenced by the game settings).

Removal of the SDR just makes it very hard to blood hunt with B1 hunters. So these b1 mages are now useless.

Exactly what I stated a few days back, it will just make certain blood nations much more powerful eg. Jotun, Marg... while nations like Van get royally screwed.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Executor

Exactly what I stated a few days back, it will just make certain blood nations much more powerful eg. Jotun, Marg... while nations like Van get royally screwed.

The small jotun mages do get screwed, and a few of these with SDR's are way more economical than a Skratti.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Without SDR's a B1 blood hunter only has a (unconfirmed) 50% chance of successfully hunting slaves. Way to low chance.

With a SDR this raises to 90%. (Yeah, the percentages are influenced by the game settings).

Removal of the SDR just makes it very hard to blood hunt with B1 hunters. So these b1 mages are now useless.

and so you hire more bloodhunters without SDRs... I'm sure Mictlan is going to cry about it with its 60g sacred B1 mages... Seriously, this is not a tragedy.

[Redeyes]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Regarding SDRs:
SDRs are a gem gen. They needed to go. The heims probably need to be looked at following their removal to help their chronic blood hunting problem, but no one else should be overly affected in an adverse manner. All the other real blood powers either have cheap(ish) B1 hunters, or B2+ hunters readily available.

Well, if you want to give the Heims (or anyone else) more blood slaves, would it work to give their commanders a retinue of blood slaves (unit 326) to help them in combat?

[rdonj]

Is there any particular reason that the heims couldn't just be given a dousing bonus to make up for the lack of blood magic? It seems a simple enough fix without introducing complicated and weird new mechanics.