Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[RonD]

But "balanced against tarts" does not have to mean "identical to tarts". It could (does, actually) mean "not as good as tarts, but available at earlier research level." That is, obviously, a harder balancing act, but I don't think anyone has advocated just adding a bunch more Conj 9, cheap, super-multi-path, 200hp, 0 encumbrance summons.

[curtadams]

Originally Posted by RonD

But "balanced against tarts" does not have to mean "identical to tarts". It could (does, actually) mean "not as good as tarts, but available at earlier research level." That is, obviously, a harder balancing act, but I don't think anyone has advocated just adding a bunch more Conj 9, cheap, super-multi-path, 200hp, 0 encumbrance summons.

That's a definition of "balanced", but not for an *endgame* diversity mod. By that balance, Tarts are still the trump of the endgame; you've just added *midgame* options which may pre-empt Tarts. That's a lot of the complaint in the post that started this subthread. There certainly isn't much need for diversity at research level 6 - IMO that's the period of the game which already had the most diversity, with a lot of different magic options and still some possibilities for mildly boosted regular armies.

[llamabeast]

Luckily I never played dom 2, so when I come to review pretenders I will definitely make her stronger.

[Mightypeon]

Awesome God changes her to Dom 3 and beeing a semi rainbow with 30pts path cost. This makes her a decent choice for a more expensive higher dom rainbow that can be used in battle, although, for some nations that need B/D the most, you could see her as a bit strong.
Some other Awesome God changes I like:
-Master Alchemist got immortal
-Frost Mage (the rainbow, not the SC) got Summon Allies for Winter Wolfs
-Master Druid domsummons Vine critters
-Freak Lord domsummons crossbreeding stuff
-I think the mounter archmage gets more paths
Basically, most rainbows get some kind of non too powerfull extra gimmick.

What I also liked was liberal use of Magic boosts on Pretenders, for example, the Virtue go Magic boost 3, so she can be a capable battlemage but is crappy at blessings. The Forge Lord got Magic boost 4, so if you empower him he gets straight up to level 4, but is sphinx class immnobile.
Other things are great bless grants by starting out with high paths, but not great casters because they have negative magic boosts.

[Bwaha]

What happened to rain of stones?


Do I have change my evil plans???


Noooo...

[Torgon]

Did rain of stones really need the nerf. Sure it was powerful but so are a lot of other spells. And its not like the nations that can cast it natively are exactly powerhouses.

EA Arco
EA Ulm
EA Tien
EA Caleum
EA Tir
EA Van
EA Helhiem
EA Yomi
EA Oceaniana

MA Man
MA Ulm
MA Tien
MA Van
MA Eriu

LA Man
LA Midgard

Am I missing any? And most of those needed at least a pair of earth boots to pull it off on any significant portion of their mages. It was also fairly hard to make it effective as you generally had to lure someone into attacking so you could get it off before any first round protection spells are cast. Where big mage communions under powered?

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Torgon

Did rain of stones really need the nerf. Sure it was powerful but so are a lot of other spells. And its not like the nations that can cast it natively are exactly powerhouses.

EA Arco
EA Ulm
EA Tien
EA Caleum
EA Tir
EA Van
EA Helhiem
EA Yomi
EA Oceaniana

MA Man
MA Ulm
MA Tien
MA Van
MA Eriu

LA Man
LA Midgard

Am I missing any? And most of those needed at least a pair of earth boots to pull it off on any significant portion of their mages. It was also fairly hard to make it effective as you generally had to lure someone into attacking so you could get it off before any first round protection spells are cast. Where big mage communions under powered?

The nerf to RoS is my least favorite change in CBM. It was totally unnecessary. (It also totally lobotomizes LA Man, who depends on the spell).

[Mightypeon]

+1 to rain of stone nerf criticism.

[Corinthian]

I am neutral to the RoS change. But only because I was personally abusing it quite a lot in earlier versions of CBM and it made my opponents miserable. I like that it requires more research though. People almost never research evo 8&9 previously unless they had nothing else to research.

LA Jomon
LA Ulm
LA Caelum

Can also cast RoS.

[Immaculate]

Some thoughts on patala:

The golden naga should be amphibious like all other naga.
The casting monkeys (gurus?) should have stealth. As is they have near zero mobility and a morale of seven. To make them somewhat better and still remain thematic, a stealth +0 option would be nice so they could accompany the stealthy monkey armies and provide a slightly stronger raiding vector.