Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[llamabeast]

Unfortunately not Snacktime - the list would be extremely long. However, browsing spells in-game is quite easy and probably quicker than a changelog anyway.

Items are easily viewable using Momfreek's excellent browser: http://dom3-mod-inspector.googlecode...?mod=CB1.92.dm . Also there's the PDF packaged with CBM 1.92.

Units: I'm afraid there's no easy way, sorry. The best thing is to quickly test out your strategies in single player games.

[Soyweiser]

Aha, the famous list of changes question.

No there has not. People have started it, feel free to help them out.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by bbz

The thing is nations like T'ir Na N'og are not supposed to be sending mind hunts every where, so while they are brave soldiers I don't really see them as Nation that gazes at the stars to gain power. Also what about golems? E2S3 You need as little as S2 on your pretender and you are sorted. Heck even S1 works if you can get someone to forge you one astral cap.And voila you get your mind hunter. Also none of the paths doesnt require Death to get them. Yea death can be a way of achieving all of them at once, but as It was said you have high research requirement and its at high risk (not getting the chalice) and nature as cross path.

Also back on T'ir Na N'og, you get a really strong middle game nation, that has decent expansion rate(fir blogs are amazing) so you don't even need an awake pretender, for the 100 extra design points you get from that, you can get f4 e2 s2 d2- those paths are enough for you to get into fire astral and death. While at the moment the fire bless attack +2 is a bit redundant due to the fact that Ri's lances always hit hopefully that will change in the future(cough cough).

If every single nations was mind hunting, summoning zmeys, and use Fog warriors everywhere, then they wouldn't be different at all. And the diversity is what I love most in Dominions, because every nation has a different way it is played(and heck it even has 20 different ways it can be played). If you give every nation a spell to diversify them into the paths they don't have using as you suggested their natural income. Then you reduce the strategical depth of the game. If everyone could use the best Sc's the best assassination spells, the most cost-effective troops, why bother with other spells? The way it is at the moment: you are not strong in astral but you have strong earth what can you do instead of mind hunt - Earth attack ,sure it takes 5E gems and its less cost effective than mind hunt but to compensate, on the field of battle you get army of lead/gold weapons of sharpness pertrify and loads of other nice buffs.

Never said that Tir should be spamming mind hunts. Said mind hunt cover, meaning protection from mind hunts. And yes, tir does need this. As tir, or man, or pan, etc. if you're not thinking about how to protect yourself from mind hunts at a very early stage you'll get fried. Unfortunately, as it stands now the only way to reliably get cover (outside or lucky indi mages) is death.

I have no desire to give every nation access to the best spells in the game, and don't want to see everyone spamming mind hunts and banes. Thats sort of my point, and I thought sort of one of the point of CBM, to make thematic national paths viable options, and open up alternative strategies for nations to pursue. I'm saying that I think that one barrier to this goal is the fact that death remains the only path with any sort of magical diversity. Once again, exactly what I don't want is every nation spamming tarts, I don't even want tarts for the other paths. What would be nice however is a summons that got a couple random picks here or there outside of death.

And no I'm not forgetting about the Fairy Queens, Demon lords, and Heliophagi. Heliophagi and Demon lords are both limited in number so not really reliable. Fairy queens actually do provide some diversity and probably should be discussed. But I'd actually say that they're the singular example of what I wish were more common. A way, even if its difficult (and fairy queens are difficult) to diversify in some way using national paths. A nation that summons a fairy queen is never going to be an air power. They'll still play very differently than Caelum or Tir. But the queen at least gives someone the option to get into air using nature, even if its in a very small way and late in the game. Aesir are another good example and a good unit. Just wish this design principal were taken a little further.

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by bbz

The way it is at the moment: you are not strong in astral but you have strong earth what can you do instead of mind hunt - Earth attack ,sure it takes 5E gems and its less cost effective than mind hunt but to compensate, on the field of battle you get army of lead/gold weapons of sharpness pertrify and loads of other nice buffs.

And I think this is good design principal. I'm just saying that I think it should be extended.

What you are saying is exactly right. Sure earth doesn't have mind hunt, but it does have an assassination spell. Its not as efficient, has different counters than mind hunt, etc. But it does have some way of remotely attacking commanders. If you really need to assassinate someone you have the option within earth. Most of the paths, and thus most of the nations have some way of pulling a remote assassination off. They all do it differently, with different strengths and weaknesses, but they all have the option.

All paths have thugs in some way, shape, or form. Some are better than others, some are more efficient than others. But they exist in each national path.

Most of the paths now have SC in some form. EDM makes a good effort at given all of the paths some sort of SC or equivalent, and does a great job of it. Once again, they're all different, with different role and that's great.

All paths can throw out evocs in some way. Sure, fire and air do it better and differently than water or nature. But Water and nature, if the the need arises, have options for throwing out battlefield damage. One thing CBM has explicitly tried to do is bump up nature in this regard.

All paths have troop summons of some sort. Some are better than others, some more efficient than others. But every path has some way to summon up stuff that hits things with swords, teeth, or other. It seems like one thing CBM has tried to do is to enhance the parity on this factor.

Then we come to summons with magical diversity. Which I'll argue is just as important as the other dimensions I've listed above. Not so that everyone can just beeline for the best of the best, but for key forgings, a few key spells, etc. If you want to use a summons to diversity magically you only have death. Its not that death does it better than the other paths, its not that death does it more efficiently, or that death does it differently in some way. Its that death is the only path that has the option. Giving a little magic diversity to other paths isn't going to turn Caelum into a fire nation, or Tir into an astral nation. It would simply give them the option for a little diversity without having to conjure up mages from beyond the grave.

[llamabeast]

EDM summons with paths outside the summon paths include at least Ember Lords, Treants, Asynjas and Krakens (I will admit Krakens are rubbish).

[Bat/man]

Is Ulm's encumbrance in heavy plate 2?

Is Mictlan's encumbrance in furs 3?

Does this make sense to anyone?

[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by Bat/man

Is Ulm's encumbrance in heavy plate 2?

No. Ulm's encumberance naked is two. To that they add whatever encumberance their equipment gives.

Originally Posted by Bat/man

Is Mictlan's encumbrance in furs 3?

Yes. (if you mean the two very specific sacreds who wear furs, since their regular warriors don't.)

Originally Posted by Bat/man

Does this make sense to anyone?

I agree it wouldn't make sense if it was true. Luckily, it isn't.



Now, because I'm a kind person I'll expand a bit and also address the issue you were trying to point out with that false argument:

Partly for balance reasons*, partly bacause of "thematic reasons"** the base encumberance for Ulmish units was decreased from 3 (standard for most humans) to two. On top of that MA Ulm's heavy armors were also reduced in encumberance, as Ulm's armorsmiths were supposed to be some of the best ever. (Again balance and theme go hand in hand here.) This does mean that MA Ulm heavy infantry has 4 encumberance, (or 5 with shield.) which is indeed very good for heavy infantry. Did those two changes at the same time overdo things? I don't know. I haven't played Ulm (with or against) since. If you think it's unbalanced make an arguement as to why, preferably with a concrete ingame excample, and I'm sure Llama will look at it.

*Ulm's heavy infantry was really poor, and in fact easier to kill them in regular melee engagements than more lightly armored troops & the heavy infantry of many other nations, this while their heavy infantry was supposed to be their strength.

** From EA Ulm's Barbarians, to MA/LA professional soldiers and LA forresters all mention or at least imply great strength and endurance, so giving them 1 point less endurance (again, naked) than the average human seemed to make sense.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Bat/man

Is Ulm's encumbrance in heavy plate 2?

Is Mictlan's encumbrance in furs 3?

Does this make sense to anyone?

Which units are you talking about? Please give exact unit numbers, as what you wrote doesn't provide enough info.

(open the unit window and press Shift+I, and make note of the monster number of the units you refer to)

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Torgon

Then we come to summons with magical diversity. Which I'll argue is just as important as the other dimensions I've listed above. Not so that everyone can just beeline for the best of the best, but for key forgings, a few key spells, etc. If you want to use a summons to diversity magically you only have death. Its not that death does it better than the other paths, its not that death does it more efficiently, or that death does it differently in some way. Its that death is the only path that has the option. Giving a little magic diversity to other paths isn't going to turn Caelum into a fire nation, or Tir into an astral nation. It would simply give them the option for a little diversity without having to conjure up mages from beyond the grave.

Going in the opposite direction had occurred to me at one point. Currently 3 of 7 tarts have fixed paths, with the lightning cyclops getting the prize for the excellent AE combo. What about limiting the randoms on the other four? Maybe they would have access to all paths, maybe they wouldn't. But they wouldn't have access to all combination of crosspaths as they do now. I'm not really suggesting this be done but I do think a variety of summons, each with their own limited sets of magic, is more interesting than giving units a chance at any path/path combination.

In any case, it seems to me your concern is with the thematic side of things. You don't want to have to use death to get access to S magic (though in all fairness, golems wouldn't be in contradiction to TNN's theme - of course you'd have to have your pretender be able to summon them). I can understand wanting to play within a nation's theme but it's a difficult thing to do.

For instance, TNN has two national heroes with D magic (one with D3, the other with D4 and immortal to boot). Will you use them to site search if you get them? If you do and you turn out to have a surprisingly strong D income will you use it? Even if you don't site search for D sites, if you conquer a nation that has will you make use of those D gems?

If gem income were tied to a nation's paths it would be one thing but that isn't the case (aside from the fact that you'll have some starting income from your cap and this will give you a jump on getting a gem generating global) so in each game you have to make do with what you get, even though it may not be thematic.

An idea that had occurred to me was to try a game where magic site frequency was set very low and compensate for that by a series of gem generating national summons such that your gem income would largely match your national paths. Such settings would emphasize playing within a nation's theme without putting you at a disadvantage by doing so.

[llamabeast]

An idea that had occurred to me was to try a game where magic site frequency was set very low and compensate for that by a series of gem generating national summons such that your gem income would largely match your national paths. Such settings would emphasize playing within a nation's theme without putting you at a disadvantage by doing so.

I was considering a game where there were 7 free or almost free remote commander summon spells, one for each gem type. The resulting commander would produce a gem of the appropriate type. A house rule would limit players to one such commander per province. However there would be 0% site frequency, or at least very low.

The effect: Each player could choose their own gem income, with the limitation that their total gem income would equal their number of provinces. Completely removes some of the main reasons to diversify and allows highly specialised nations. I reckon it might be fun.