Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

But smoulderghosts is a conjuration 2 spell, it should be far inferior to level 8 spells... like animate archers. If the smoulderghosts become comparable to skeletal archers then the CBM is a game mechanics fail.

I don't know exactly how these two things were determined. Well, if you go straight for conjuration with Abysia, the smoulderghost seem intent to fill a very short term early game niche if you've got death gems, or you can cast protection spells on them. They also have a magic weapon. I could say that the smouldghosts suck for similar reasons that Caelum sucks. I think that's funny.

His point was that smoulderghosts in vanilla are so bad, no one would ever spend gems on them. You can pay gold for better troops. Since gems > gold (bar fire gems), you'll never spend gems to get troops worse than what you can just hire.

But, I'm not arguing against the CBM, I just think it takes away from nation specific skill.

Er... non-sequitur? How? There are still nations, they have distinct national units, they have particular paths and pretender choices. In fact, CBM increases nation differentiation *because* it removes gem gens. Since you can't just clam/blood-stone/fever fetish your way to arbitrarily large gem pools, your endgame is no longer nothing but summoned troops and mages. National mages and troops are more important all game long.

Since I always played MP with added AI players, clamming hard with the computer set to aggressive. The objective should be to make rushing more appealing.

... no no no. The objective should be to make the game more balanced and interesting so every nation has a fair shake. Rushing is already really powerful - if anything, it could probably use a little toning down in some cases. Ideally, mid-game should be longer and more relevant, since that's the interesting part of the game.

IMHO nations without an H3 priest are at a serious disadvantage as they can be easily rushed. Maybe we should give everyone H3 priest? How do you make up for the fact that every MA Pythium city has a H3 brigade of "researchers" inside it? You don't, that is just how Pythium is. Or maybe we could just tinker with smite... I just smote my brother in MP the other day (10 Kings of Rain showed up at his territory on turn 16). He still thinks its scary... especially because I was also ahead in research. Maybe getting smote doesn't bother people as much because it happens early in the game, whereas losing because you of clamming takes days.

You could afford to send 3500 gold worth of commanders on an offensive on turn 16? You do realize how horribly inefficient that is right? I'd take equal gold against them any day. The smite isn't what makes them scary. One of them dropping divine blessing on 50 double-blessed jags would be a *lot* scarier, and a heck of a lot cheaper. (1600 gold vs. 3500 gold, assuming you had nothing but commanders in your example, which is almost certainly false). And by turn 16 he should have real counters. Like bladewind or thunderstrike. Smite is small potatoes by comparison.

Unless they have a titan pretender which can kill lots of priests without equipment. But then you can't heal your pretender until you get to conjuration or construction 8.

Dar?

I guess it isn't that I fail to see the usage of the CBM, I just fail to see the game as horribly imbalanced in the first place.

Where to start? Well, besides Ashdod (which CBM still hasn't nerfed enough).

We could start with their being only ~7 pretender chasses ever worth using in vanilla.

We could start with the strict domination of some nations over most others. I mean, nations like MA Man are still bad in CBM, but they are absolutely *hopeless* in vanilla.

We could start with the poorly balanced spells such that some of them are win buttons and others are useless or mostly useless.

I mean, what kind of specific examples would you like?

CBM doesn't just balance nations against each other, it also balances options against each other so more of the spells and units see play. Its done the latter of these rather well in many cases, in some as well as is possible without fundamental changes. (e.g., MA Ermor's censor cannot be priced so that it will ever be bought if it remains cap-only, so no change CBM could make that retains its cap-only status will effect how often it sees play).

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

In what cases should I use the CBM?

You shouldn't ever use it if you find the game already balanced, obviously. Kissblade summed it up perfectly, no need for further discussion. You don't sound like you have a great deal of dom3 MP experience though, so maybe you're wrong about the balance. Keep playing and see how you feel :]

[BigDaddy]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

His point was that smoulderghosts in vanilla are so bad, no one would ever spend gems on them. You can pay gold for better troops. Since gems > gold (bar fire gems), you'll never spend gems to get troops worse than what you can just hire.

Er... non-sequitur? How? There are still nations, they have distinct national units, they have particular paths and pretender choices. In fact, CBM increases nation differentiation *because* it removes gem gens. Since you can't just clam/blood-stone/fever fetish your way to arbitrarily large gem pools, your endgame is no longer nothing but summoned troops and mages. National mages and troops are more important all game long.



... no no no. The objective should be to make the game more balanced and interesting so every nation has a fair shake. Rushing is already really powerful - if anything, it could probably use a little toning down in some cases. Ideally, mid-game should be longer and more relevant, since that's the interesting part of the game.



You could afford to send 3500 gold worth of commanders on an offensive on turn 16? You do realize how horribly inefficient that is right? I'd take equal gold against them any day. The smite isn't what makes them scary. One of them dropping divine blessing on 50 double-blessed jags would be a *lot* scarier, and a heck of a lot cheaper. (1600 gold vs. 3500 gold, assuming you had nothing but commanders in your example, which is almost certainly false). And by turn 16 he should have real counters. Like bladewind or thunderstrike. Smite is small potatoes by comparison.

Dar?

Where to start? Well, besides Ashdod (which CBM still hasn't nerfed enough).

We could start with their being only ~7 pretender chasses ever worth using in vanilla.

We could start with the strict domination of some nations over most others. I mean, nations like MA Man are still bad in CBM, but they are absolutely *hopeless* in vanilla.

We could start with the poorly balanced spells such that some of them are win buttons and others are useless or mostly useless.

I mean, what kind of specific examples would you like?

CBM doesn't just balance nations against each other, it also balances options against each other so more of the spells and units see play. Its done the latter of these rather well in many cases, in some as well as is possible without fundamental changes. (e.g., MA Ermor's censor cannot be priced so that it will ever be bought if it remains cap-only, so no change CBM could make that retains its cap-only status will effect how often it sees play).

He attacked them through PD, and they had blood slaves with them. We play on indy's 7 or more, I'm used to 9, so I tend to make really powerful armies that are inefficient. They did have lab and a few demons... I was Mictalan afterall... he was bogarus, they killed a lot of heavy calvary. It is probably bad for my "professional" experience. It is true that I haven't played dom3 that much, I'm just an old dom2 player.

What are the 7 chassis? Enchantress, statue, fountain, fountain... actually I think all the immobile ones have their niche.

I never liked the titans, as they seem like late game mage artillery... because they really aren't good for taking provinces early on, and it doesn't take long until taking provinces with a few basic spells becomes a waste of their time.

Maybe I'm just missing some tactics somewhere.

I feel like I'm missing something. So, to find out, I need to play MA Man.

[BigDaddy]

The reason I struggle with believing that a billion small changes -must- be necessary is that according to the company their patches (now 23b) include balances. And so, I wonder if vanilla spells are really balanced, or if maybe the CBM is in a strategy rut.

Or maybe the writers of the game don't see it as such a hardcore competitive game.

So, I'm just skeptical that they have said they been rebalancing it, but a nation, MA Man, is still way more difficult to win with.

[Sombre]

KO and JK, the guys who made dom3, haven't really focused on balance. They have said as much themselves. The balance changes they have made have been very limited, the most notable ones being some nerfs to Hinnom, changing the cost of jaguar warriors and changing costs/cap restrictions for van and helheim. Each of these has really only been after many, many threads complaining about these units.

It's kinda cute that you think that way though. It must be balanced because it's had lots of patches. Heehee.

You say 'maybe I'm missing tactics somewhere' but judging from your posts I'd say you have only a beginner's grasp of dom3, which has a huge learning curve. You're missing a /huge/ amount currently.

[BigDaddy]

Well, then I disagree that clam hoarding should be made impossible. ROR 15 seems like a long time, but it pays off in the next game stage. How about ROR45?

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by BigDaddy

Well, then I disagree that clam hoarding should be made impossible. ROR 15 seems like a long time, but it pays off in the next game stage. How about ROR45?

First of all, no one forges clams without hammers.

Second, consider there's other ways to reduce forging cost (Steel Ovens or Banefire Forge sites, Forge Lord pretender, Hammer of the Forge Lord artifact, Hammer of the Cyclops 'artifact' (wishable, not forgeable), Forge of the Ancients global spell), so there's no 'fair' cost for an item that produces gems and can be produced indefinitely. The max price reduction you can achieve is 80%, and it is quite possible to achieve that. (Well, there's some rounding factors involves as well, so the ultimate cost is actually less than 20% - you can reduce 5gem items to no gems with the right combination of reductions).

[Squirrelloid]

Worthwhile vanilla pretender chasses (I'm probably missing a few, but these are the ones that jumped out at me):

Wyrm
Gorgon
Cyclops
Prince of Death
Oracle
Fountain
Ghost King
Lich

(Avoiding pretenders who are very nation-specific, although most of those are just bad). So its 8, maybe a couple more i missed. (The dragons are probably perfectly playable, but why you'd choose them over the ridiculously cheap Gorgon or PoD is beyond me).

[Sombre]

Gorgon is only available to very few nations, but is a total no brainer.

PoD is not available to a handful, but as an awake SC is often a total no brainer.

But this is all stuff that's been covered a million times before :]

[BigDaddy]

Wait... Yes, I was LA Mictalan and I hired a King of Rain every turn from the begining until turn 16. I had 15. The performed all the major fighting, research, and blood collection duties, and my research was still very strong. I don't end up with as many demons, however, as the manual says I can, but then, I want to go to blood 5 and get the general. One of the Kings can ussually cast Ice Devil... It is entirely possible to hire the most expensive unit everyday, especially if its holy... Plus, the King of Rain can smite so I don't need any evo at all. I don't know, though, because it seems like the people here see that as a backward strategy.

Anyway, I digress... It is too bad, that clams can't be used in a way were the gems must stay on your mage, so that they can be used in their most enjoyable way, that is, that you don't have to micromanage your mages spell casting supplies so much. Ultimately I see why gem hoarding had to be disabled...