Mod: CBM 1.7 released

[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.

[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.

[Soyweiser]

I agree with Valerius. But I also think the dousing bonus really needs an icon.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Many thanks for clearing that up llama. So it would be possible (spell limits allowing) to give each nation 8 (for example) seperate unique summon spells (that generate gems for the purpose of this debate). Interesting idea. I have no idea yet on the merits of this, but as an idea it's good to know it is an actual option.

Yes, this is exactly what I had in mind: make the gem generating summons unique so you can limit them in a way you can't with item modding (where it's either unique or unlimited).

Btw, while you could certainly replicate the way everyone can get equal access to clams, I had in mind that this would be a game balance mechanism. So, for example, Bandar might have eight gem generating summons while Jotun only had one or two (or none). And aside from the number of summons their value could also be different. Want to give Bandar a mid-game boost? Give them a unit that only costs 5 gems to summon and generates 5S gems a turn (or N or W or whatever you think would be useful). Unlike with magic items, or for that matter non-unique summons, you don't have to worry that this discounted cost will be abused.

It's also worth mentioning that the value of these summons in the end game will vary depending on the size of the game. The larger the game, the smaller a percentage of your total gem income these gem generating summons will provide.

I wouldn't really say I'm pushing for this, just that if you like the idea of gem gems this would be an approach with a lot more options than item modding provides since you could limit the scale of it and apply it where needed.

[P3D]

FWIW, there's an alternative to the now unique dousing rod, even if a bit more expensive. Empower B1 for 30 slaves - instead of 6 or 10. It would take about 10 turns to pay for itself.

[earcaraxe]

SDRs give +40% chance, +1 level of B gives +20%

[llamabeast]

That's not true earcaraxe, they exactly the same effect.

That's a good point about the empowering, might well be worth it sometimes.

[earcaraxe]

are u sure llama?

i have found this: http://www.freewebs.com/sunraybe/faq.html
(it may be outdated, but if it is, then what is the real formulae?)

i made some testing with bloodhunting abysian warlocks.

form: for instance "23db 11db B5 sdr =100" means 11 warlocks with sdr averages 100 slaves on 23 tries.

20db 2db B4 sdr =16,35

20db 2db B4 =15,1

20db 2db B3 sdr =17,05

10db 2db B2 sdr =13,6

10db 2db B2 =10,5

10db 2db B3 =13,8

[Quitti]

Vanheim (EA+MA) have expensive (though sacred) and crappy mages. B1 easily achievable at high price. It doesn't seem that they were meant to be a heavy blood nation, more like dabble in it for additional benefit - but the problem probably is that air itself is quite crappy, and the van troops are not actually top tier cost/effectiveness wise while not bad per se. They'd benefit from heavy investment in blood, which would require the aforementioned dousing bonus added to vanjarls/vanadrotts, or another way to boost them might be to add a cheap-ish nonsacred human mage (n1e1 witches, n1+0.1 forest wizards or w/e) to help them with research and diversity.

Also I agree with Squirreloid about MA Ulm @ cbm 1.7. Who wouldn't want easy +5e from early-midgame for themselves? It's not like Ulm can defend themselves in the late game either though with their national troops and mages. Black priests drain immune + recruit everywhere might help the problem (iron darts/blizzard casters), as would boosting up the master smith random to 25% or even 50%.

edit: and also boosting the stats of the normal troops. Make them base enc1 or 2, add in 1-2 attack for all of them. They're supposed to be THE human troops of the game who don't tire from combat and are exceptionally good at it. Armor revamp was a good step forward, but it (almost) equally boosts all other heavy armor nations in the game.

[NooBliss]

Give Ulm some time. Their troops are not really bad - Ulm has got these knights for early expansion, and their troops are cheap and tough, so with several castles to recruit from you can actually build good military.
In Kings of Drama Ulm seems to do just fine at the moment.