Faerun - started

[Aku]

You cant hoard blood or death gems so my vote will just be on clams and fetishes. Wish is disabled in zens spell mod so we cant wish for blood or gems so I think the only concern is clams and fetishes. It also raised vampire lords to 77 slaves to cast.

Faerun is going to be a long game so if we nerf clams and fetishes to lets say 20w10s for a clam and 10f10n for a fetish they would still be feasible to use for a very long term strat but not the only strat to use. Or some other combination of gems to make them whatever someone can think better.

So my vote is:

2/1 and 2/2

I also vote we disable forge of the ancients since that is just a hoarding tool anyway.

[Boron]

Edit:
New vote with the better "poll"

1. Disable Forge
2. With disabled Forge Bloodstones are hard to hoard.
So only clams+fetishes need to be balanced.
I would suggest clams cost 20w now and fever fetishes 5n and 20f.
The strange fever fetish cost is because first i planned 10n and 5f as cost but this way machaka could do them very easy but no other nation. This would be unfair but with 5n and 20f machaka has to get lucky also with the random and still needs 1 firebooster. So they would still be an investment but would have a longer paybacktime also.

[Boron]

thejeff said:

I haven't mastered SC design yet, obviously. Can you give an example of a SC-Pretender design that can reliably take Strength 9 indies with little to no gear or buffs? Or how you'd get enough gear and/or buffs in the first few turns with VH research?

It's not that I don't believe you. I just want to know how to pull it off. My best attempts at SC-pretenders have waited for Alteration-3 and were still only semi-successful. (Immortals took more risks, but weren't really any more successful)

VQ works always, it is just expensive.
But with alteration 2 you can send her out quite save and with alteration 3 she beats almost any indies.
Alteration 2 should be able to reach even with vh research on turn 4-6,depending on nation.
Jurri's Dracolich is probably the best SC-Pretender-type with Zens mod and should work even better.
With all the other pretenders it is more dangerous since they are not immortal but there is always a not small risk that the pretender dies or at least gets crappy afflictions when fighting.

[Huzurdaddi]

Jurri's Dracolich is probably the best SC-Pretender-type with Zens mod and should work even better.

Crazy powerful. I have to say.

As for your hoarding limitations I have to say that I ( personally ) think that the limits you are specifying are insufficient, but I'll leave it up to your judgement. Although from the numbers you are throwing around I think I may want to go back to Marignon

I wanted to go with Caelum since:
1) Archers, which I think are the backbone of their early game have been improved
2) I *had* to play a nation which could hoard since hoarding was allowed.

I'll go back to the more tame Marignon if you are nerfing clams and such.

[Huzurdaddi]

Oh and what about graphs?

I liked having to actually scout in the last Faerun game. I think I had a good 60 scouts at one point ( not hoarding but actually scouting! ).

[PashaDawg]

I am fine with Boron's suggestions with anti-hording.

[PashaDawg]

I know that there were various changes to the Faerun map a while back (e.g., making the colors darker). Where is the best place to get the right version of the map?

[Aku]

Here you go Pasha

http://www.dominions-2.org/files.htm

Also graphs should be off, I think Boron forgot to write that in the settings.

[Saber Cherry]

Huzurdaddi said:
As for Pythium's cheap communicants IIRC they cost 60 gold in the mod. That's actually quite expensive. A 1S caster should cost slightly less than 60 gold if it has no special abilities and communicants are in many ways less useful than a 1S caster. I still love communion though. It can be frighteningly powerful.

That's true; I may have been unfair, and should have left Communicants alone while just expensivizing the mages. 60 gold for a non-casting communicant with no magical or normal leadership is much higher than Illwinter's guidelines. However... I'd still buy them like crazy at that price Since, after all, Astral-1 mages are super-rare (1 in 4 vaetti hags; 1 in 8 80g sages; etc) and are far, far better than any other level-1 mage (other than blood). Communicants are almost as valuable as Slave Matrices, which are quite pricey.

Were the stats on Assassins improved? Well now, that could make a decent sized difference! Perhaps I should go back to Marignon ( I generally like them they have all of the toys, although their more expensive crossbowmen are a little bit of a pain ).

No stat changes, but they do gain additional armor (Armguards), and a third weapon (throwing knives) that may even allow them to take out indy commanders safely. So by default they are more powerful, though fully-equipped, they are about the same. The price also dropped by 5g. Slayers, OTOH, did not get the extra equipment or price drop, but they did get stat boosts.

One question: Did you Nerf pangaea's White Centaurs over your 1st version? A quick glance still shows the light lance ( did they have that in the stock game ) and decent stats? I thought that many people had been ( rightly ) overrun by these guys in your 1st test game. I don't expect them to be as big of a factor in a Faerun game ( although as his nearest neighbor I may be eating those words! ).

Yes, they are substantially nerfed... and yes, they were used very effectively in the test game They keep the light lance, but the defense was reduced and price increased, and thus should be about right now. Black Centaurs, OTOH, get an entangling magical Vine Spear, which is cool... but Carrion Woods can probably never afford very many of them.

[Jurri]

@Pasha: This is certainly far too large a map for me. Soapy and Huzzur, I salute you for your stamina. Iron men walk amongst us.

Bloodstones can be hoarded by Abysia rather effectively, btw. You need but an earth warlock and you're set. There's even a feedback-loop before you start arguing definitions, since every bloodstone yields 10 gold per turn if alchemized and thus pays the upkeep of an apprentice ... Come to think of it, using the gems to make dwarven hammers is also a cumulative proposition since every hammer can be used to save 5 slaves or more per turn . Such foolery aside, 15 slaves and 2 earth gems to get 1 earth gem a turn? Dang cheap, if you have the mages (like Abysia does) and ask me.