Endgame Diversity Mod - v1.2 released

[Calahan]

During my tests with the Shishi, I found the burning pearl helped a fair bit when attacking against high defence. Better than luck quite often. (no point negating half of the hits against you if you still can't hit yourself)


Plus it's not just about a one-on-one match-up, as you have to consider what would actually happen during a game. As in that scenario the PD comes into the equation. Since if you have a Shishi in the field and expect it to be ambushed, paying just 60g for 10PD often either interrupts the attacking Shishi killer during buffing, or provides other targets for the Shishi killer to focus on, meaning the Shishi has a number of free hits. And of course the attacks by the PD help lower the defence of the Shishi killer.


Either way I think lowering the attack value on the Shishi by 6 will achieve the desired result for now. As 17 really is at the top end of natural attack scores, and that's without adding the +3 from quickness and +1 from experience (which they'd likely get from their first raid).

The attack value of the Shishi really is critical IMO, as whatever value it is will automatically go through a big force multiplier because of the six attacks. And any extra attack points the Shishi gets from any source is going to be boosted comparatively more for the Shishi than for other units, because of this force multiplier.


Giving the Shishi a natural attack value of 11 (14 in battle) = Good idea in my book.

Originally Posted by rdonj

/headdesk!

I guess you've gotten me back, calahan, after all those times I've taunted you. But I will have my revenge!

You know where to find me rdonj. So you're welcome to try whenever you're ready

[llamabeast]

The Treant retreat problem is a very good point, thanks for pointing it out. Concerns:

1) When brought close to death a Treant can't retreat. Not desperately worried about this.

2) At the turn limit if the Treant isn't killing fast enough, it will try to retreat at zero speed and just sit there for 25 turns before disappearing.

3) Most serious: If a player sees a Treant coming, they will plant something immobile in its path (e.g. that Earth/Astral holy summon). The resulting battle will be a draw and the Treant will die.

Possible solutions:

a) Give the immobile form a #secondshape of a damaged mobile form. So when brought close to death the Treant will uproot and run away. This is thematically pleasing, but only solves the first and least concerning of the problems.

b) Give the rooted form a very slow walking speed (e.g. two or three squares). This is slightly unthematic but could be justified. Probably solves most problems? The rooted form would still be immobile on the map, which hardly matters but is thematically pleasing.

c) Abolish the rooted form as suggested, applying the rooted stats to the non-rooted form. I don't want to do this as I like the rooting thing. However I guess it would be preferable to the current situation.

Also on the subject of the Roc, it is true that I've created an easy Fog Warriors caster, which is a more powerful addition than intended. I think that, with regret, I will therefore reduce it to A2 unless people can think of any other solution. Ideas for compensatory buffs gratefully received. Awe is an option I guess, not desperately thematic but possibly justifiable (most beautiful bird in the WORLD).

[Zeldor]

Roc is nice sieger with an option to cast some army buffs, so he should stay like that, otherwise everyone will use Asynjas only.

[Squirrelloid]

I don't see why Rocs are a problem. Why should the go-to air caster summon be a *nature* spell? So its a fog warriors caster. That's fine.

No one complains the Troll King is a good AoG platform...

I'd like to see more caster summons for paths that are required to summon them (fire notably has no midgame commander summon which is a fire caster).

Water has a few, death has a few, astral has one, earth has one, nature has one, air and fire didn't. Now air does. I don't see the problem.

Re: Treants - i prefer the slow movement speed option. Even treelords have a combat move of 2 iirc.

[rdonj]

Well, the treant already only has 6 ap, so it can only move three squares as it is. I guess you could make it move even slower when rooted....

[Valerius]

I think more than any of the paths represented in the Diversity mod, air nations experience a "get something, lose something" reaction. You get thugs and SCs, you lose in the fact that a path that was among the more difficult to branch into is now easy to enter.

Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion but the difficulty of entering air magic was a relative advantage for A nations and if easier access to air is given to everyone I think the same should be done for other paths. As Squirrelloid mentioned, fire is one of them. Something along the lines of a Conj. 6, F2/3 unit that only requires a single path to summon would be good.

I think astral is another candidate for this. The current options all involve some combination of getting lucky with randoms, having dual paths for summoning or spending a huge amount of gems. I'm talking about something simple: a single path summon where you spend x number of gems and get a guaranteed S mage. Doesn't have to be thug or SC, just a mage. But I realize astral is not a focus of the Diversity mod so this may not be the place to add such a unit.

Regarding the Roc, the value of gems is effected by the nation you're playing. For a non-air nation A gems don't have a high value; for an A nation they are very important to fuel cloud trapezing. N gems on the other hand would be valuable to the non-air nation, especially under the Diversity mod where you'll have more thugs/SCs to equip. Keeping this in mind when comparing the Faery Queen at Conj. 8 with the Roc at Conj. 6 I'd say for a non-air nation (the ones who will be summoning Rocs) I'd usually go for the Roc, even with both available (there's plenty of other ways to get N magic) since both the absolute, and even more so the relative, cost to me of the A gems would be less than the N gems. The Asynja is another matter; for only 10 gems more I get a reasonable chance of A3, full slots, possibly other magic paths and glamour (the last of which I think will prove to be a problem). So she does overshadow the Roc. OTOH the Granite Cyclops overshadows the Troll King (though not by as much).

Having said all that, I think reducing the Roc's A magic to level 2 would hurt them too much. What about leaving them at A3 but moving them to Conj. 7? In order to try to keep them as an option even after the Asynja becomes available they could get a further boost to siege bonus or map move.

[Sajuuk]

Did anyone think that Asynja is a method too convenient to access to blood? For a difficult level of summon air queens and the gems cost equel to a lamia queen(not to mention that for most nations,N gems are more useful than A gems), you have a greater chance to get a blood mage, much easier than lamia queen or tarts.

And if not lucky to get blood, she is still a great SC and raider(or caster of rain of stone)that almost can't be hunted down——golems with returning are good raiders, but they need enemy attack to return, they have poor statistic that hardly competent as SC hunter, and enemy could set a trap with S mage to duel them upon their arrival as I have done before, any success is a great loss to the enemy.

So maybe cut down the Blood random chance of Asynja, and increase the spell requirement and cost will be better ?

As SC, though cyclops have a statistic even better that the pretender version, they are not shining like Asynja. But as a E mage, no doubt they have overshadowed troll kings. So why not gurantee it as SC rather than mage? Like change its path to E2F1?(EF)1 or even(EFAD)1?

Ember Lords are pretty powerful, although without capacity of deep strike make it less versatile comparing tarts. But shouldn't such powerful beings unique? Not one, but.... several or even a dozen different Ember Lords? That will be funny,but maybe too hard,though.....

Some say treant will be easily killed by immobile enemy, so I'd say, it is quite unwise for a sneak sc to attack a province without sneak—— sneak into target province,make sure there's no dangerous enemy, then turn into rooted form, and he will attack that province next turn. As for tree lord, I don't think a caster could have overlap with a sc exept their themes. But combine tree lord and treant into one kind of creature sounds interesting~~

Roc seems better be used as a cheap A3 mage, if not, lower A and plus some random might be an alternate.

Shishi seems interesting, and has been debated alot, but I'd say I can hardly connect this stone-hard air spirit with the stone lion decorated at the gate of some Chinese traditional buildings

Great Krakens are great, but B2 random at first seems useless since no one can cast blood magic beneath the wave and great kraken are not amphibian. But on a second thought, since there is amulet of fish exist, kraken became a quite handy access to blood even better than Asynja.....S2 kraken are excellent raiders, but they are also a convenient access to astral for non-astral nation like oceania, maybe too convenient since it only need W4 and 30 gems? Oh, by the way, in vanilla, no one can access death path if he do not already have it or through blood, yet in this mod, we have Ember Lord, Asynja and Great Kraken to access death via fire, air or water, I'm not sure if it is wise enough.....

grendelkin seems powerful enough yet not overpowered, but it seems a little unconvincible that a mere monster can be much stronger and tougher than titans and demons......

Some say zmey are too powerful against SCs, then why not reduce its attack so that it can be effective against troops yet hard to hit a SC?

Ettin and mechanical giant are not so exiting since they are either not very powerful or have critical flaws. But they are really cheap, so still worth using.

I didn't see any special usefulness or uselessness on fire bird and wendigo, they fit their desingh well,though "any" fire nation may be able to completely negate the strategy of undead/dark vision/demon plus darkness, too easy maybe?

That's all I can imagine, hope it will be useful^^

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sajuuk

Did anyone think that Asynja is a method too convenient to access to blood? For a difficult level of summon air queens and the gems cost equel to a lamia queen(not to mention that for most nations,N gems are more useful than A gems), you have a greater chance to get a blood mage, much easier than lamia queen or tarts.

Lamia Queens are only 15n. This mod assumes CBM for balance purposes.

And you're going to build up tarts anyway if you're summoning tarts, so the cost of tarts is not the relevant factor here - you'll just get blood mages automatically as a consequence of building up your tart forces. Indeed, if you focus your GoR uses on tarts with decent random paths (Monstra, titans), I think you'll get more blood mages from tarts than Asynja. Certainly you'll get better blood mages.

Why is blood magic such a big deal anyway? Its the easiest magic path to get into... If you want blood mages, you can use scouts to hunt up 50+ slaves well before you can cast an Asynja and empower your own blood mages.

As SC, though cyclops have a statistic even better that the pretender version, they are not shining like Asynja. But as a E mage, no doubt they have overshadowed troll kings. So why not gurantee it as SC rather than mage? Like change its path to E2F1?(EF)1 or even(EFAD)1?

Who cares if it overshadows teh troll king. It should. It comes what, 3 research levels later? No one complains that Liches are better death mages than wraithlords of moundkings...

Great Krakens are great, but B2 random at first seems useless since no one can cast blood magic beneath the wave and great kraken are not amphibian.

Ok, i'll agree B2 as a random on a Kraken is kind of weird.

[Sajuuk]

Oh，I forgot cbm make lamia queen cheaper, then the only disadvantage of lamia queen will be its N5D1 summon requirement. But you are right, though Asynja become the easiest way to access to blood, it's not break(but I never have the gut to start blood economy from scout...). Yet I insist that a SC with deep strike, stealth, glamour and more hp deserve at least same cost of an air queen.

Demi-lich overshadow wraith lord and mound fiend? of course not. Wraith lord can be a immortal thug or a SC, and mound fiend can reanimate or cast some national magic such as ashdod's. Demilich can perform non of above action, they are just superior death mages. So what about cyclops and troll king? cyclops are cheaper than troll king, can be a better sc than troll king, and have better path than troll king. Troll king's only advantage is his court, yet I'm afraid they are not worth 25E or more. Beside, cyclops make earth kings much less useful, too.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

GRENDELKIN CANNOT BE KILLED

False.
I had one killed, despite being kitted, etc. because it just crawled underwater and got stuck first with some mermen, second with ice encasings. When he routed due to turn limit, he wasn't fast enough to actually get out of the battlefield and eventually died. My bane lords fared much better...
I still say grendelkin needs amphibious.
Did people actually use it in MP before saying it's overpowered?