Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[Graeme Dice]

Huzurdaddi said:
Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province.

I assume you used it against a garrison of a castle. It doesn't kill more than about 10% of the troops there if they are in a castle.

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human.

That's obviously not a problem for these beings.

Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

Except that it's not bad with respect to game balance.

[Endoperez]

I thought 1 turn represented 1 month... (early/mid/late spring/summer/fall/winter = 3*4 =12)

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with you. For Caelum, I think buffing PD up a bit and making false horrors not spammable for a long time without severe fatique would be enough - it's not their military strength that people are worried about. If something needs to be done, maybe a magical net (NN, Hunter's net, supply bonus + 'lost wing' affliction for those hit, dmg 0 + entangle in AOE 1).

About devils, I think boosting up their classical counterpart, the angels, would deal with them quite nicely. If a small group of angels was able to devastate devils as well as small group of them is able to devastate independents...

[The Panther]

The single biggest problem with strategic flying is the fact that it allows you to fly over a province or two and also attack in the same turn. This is the true problem with the game imbalance of flying, imho.

Even if land troops have the movement to go through your own farm land and move into the next neutral or enemy controlled province, it is not allowed. This should work for both walking and flying, or work for neither.

My opinion is that the only change needed to bring flying back into balance is to never allow a flying troop to attack an uncontrolled province unless the army startes the turn adjacent to the desired province, just like a walking army. You can still use flying to quickly bring reinforcements to the front lines through your owned territory, so it would still be a good ability to have.

But the nearly unbeatable, cheesy flying strat of taking 10 provinces on one turn two deep into enemy territory would be nerfed, just as it needs to be. My only win in an MP game was accomplished as Caelum with a lot of thanks to using this cheap flying strategy.

It even causes people to take the cheap castle and spam them everywhere to try and stop this. Which is yet another cheesy strategy that works well.

[Cainehill]

Huzurdaddi said:
Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province. Nada. They have too many HP. Further there is no remote summon which is cost effective against them ( unless you are using Zen's mod ).

Ghost Riders tend to do quite a nice number against devils, and it's relatively cheap and easy to cast. You can also gateway an army in, again taking care of the devils fairly easily.

I don't know if they wanted one however it sure is played that way.

They've commented that they wanted it that way - if defense was as strong / stronger than offense, it'd lead to a boring stagnant gameplay. (Think mad castling made stronger.)

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high? No idea. Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

Obviously people disagree. Personally, I see it as quite easy for fliers to go that far in a month - after all, they're flying, and can easily see where to land and rest each day that'll be far away from enemy troops. And I don't think it's particularly unbalanced. It is one of those irritating things to deal with, and people tend to dislike things they find difficult / irritating to deal with (hence, people hating gem producing items, flying troops, cheap castles, wrathful skies, SCs, etc).

Just to help illustrate solutions to flying troops: the Mechanical Militia global spell. Yep, it's an expensive spell, only available to one nation at a time, but having the 10 or so MMs added to any province with a single point of PD wreaks havoc with a lot of fliers, stealth troops, and even most remote summonses.

Another way to go: station a mage in each province commanding some statues and mechanical men. Zero upkeep, if you use a summoned mage to command them.

Another possibility: get enough scouts out to see when someone is starting to grow devils, and see about disrupting their plans. It's easier to see if someone's building soul contracts (the usual way of generating large amounts of devils) than it is to see if someone is hoarding clams and fever fetishes.

[Chazar]

Huzurdaddi said:
Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high?

Indeed, Caelians spent most of their time eating because of their high metabolism: They are size3, thus they eat twice as much as humans do.

Supply is provided by a supply chain from the closest fortress (up to 4 squares), however not through hostile provinces!

The requirement for cold+3 reduces the available supply in non-cold climates dramatically.

This works out remarkably neatly: When I played Caelum and used my fliers to attack behind enemy lines, my Caelians usually starve badly. Of course, commanders never starve, so as the game progresses and when mages start to pull out entire armies out of their pockets (living clouds, etc.), food is not a concern. I think food balances flight pretty neatly. Maybe its enough to have WineSkins having 2N requirement for forging, so that Caelum cant do this. Do Devils eat? No? Oops!!!

(I rather think supply is sort of ridiculous with all those easy wine skins and need-not-eat summons, which can be stacked to huge armies...)

[Cainehill]

Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods? I've been checking, but haven't seen even the beta Versions up on his webpage, so I'm reduced to mere curiousity what people thought of the latest spell mod and the scale mod.

[alexti]

Cainehill said:
Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods?

I think it hasn't happened.

[PDF]

To Cainehill, back on the Flying balance :
I don't think the Flying issue is comparable to SCs, Hoarding or many other in that Flying is a nation-specific huge advantage right from the start (for Caelum) or relatively early in the game(for blood nations).
Mech Militia et al. are not an option before mid-game, and not an option at all for many nations.
To illustrate this, in a pbem game, I (as TC) allied with Marignon and Ermor (BE) vs Caelum on turn 30-some. My allies+me were overall much stronger (in terms of income, research, gems, provinces) an yet Caelum manages to hold for 10 turns and bLasted most of Marignon and my armies.
And the game is on Hard research !

In another I'm playing Caelum (turn 25), just eradicated Arco main army (with Pretender), and on the next turn I turn against Machaka with all of my armies...
This is a just an unfair and unbalancing advantage, Caelum opponents just have no effective counter.

[Endoperez]

No effective counter against what? Masses of Caelian Archers backed up by few mages, masses of Caelian Infantry backed by some mages or lots of seraphs backed up by some archers/infantry?

Caelum's archers are quite good, but still die quickly if anything gets next to them. And they eat a lot. Fast Caelian infanty is quite bad, too. And the good ones are not only expensive but slightly slower as well. And the "lighter complexion" of Caelians that enables flight also makes them weaker than their human counterparts. I haven't tried them in MP, but I quess they will be quickly decimated if your enemy manages to surprise you in any way. And the mages are excellent, as they should.

I can see mountains blocking flyers, but I don't think swamps or forests would be much of a hinderance to them. Maybe in Dom3...

[The Panther]

The real problem is that once Caelum gets false horrors, which is not all that far into the game for the fastest researching nation, it gives that race a supreme advantage. A single Seraph can kill up to 10 PD reliably, except perhaps for Ulm or Jontunheim. And a Seraph with 2 archers can take those two nations too, losing maybe one archer in the first volley to Ulm and losing nothing to Jontun. Even if you lose one raiding force and take only 9 of 10 desired provinces, so what?

In what is still early game, Caelum can therefore take pretty much any province against ANYBODY that can be reached. Want three enemy provinces? No problem! How about 6? Getting harder, but sure. Ten? Yup, I have done that and more in a single turn in an MP game. It cannot be stopped without having a castle in every province.

As long as fliers can jump over provinces AND attack in the same move, flying will be an unbalanced ability. Thus making Caelum the best race for the early game and deep into the middle game. As for the end game, it may no longer be best, but will still be in the top 5 because of the early game advantages.