Mod: Underwater Gameplay Improvement Mod

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by BandarLover

Interestingly enough, they fought!

Ok, then it's just a 'cosmetic' thing. I won't do a quickfix update for that. Added to the fix list, thought. Thanks for the bug report!

[Squirrelloid]

Looked over the spells today.

The Traverse the Sea spell being the same level as gateway and requiring W5 compared to Gateway's S4, while being more limited in effect, is really poor design. Yes, its 3 gems cheaper, but that doesn't even begin to make up for a more limited ability to use it. Why not give it the same limitation as the Ride the Currents - must be to a friendly province (without the lab requirement). Now it has some advantages over gateway, but is still strictly inferior to astral travel. (Honestly, Astral Travel is too high level as it is, because by the time you have it, you don't care about armies anymore).

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

The Traverse the Sea spell being the same level as gateway and requiring W5 compared to Gateway's S4, while being more limited in effect, is really poor design. Yes, its 3 gems cheaper, but that doesn't even begin to make up for a more limited ability to use it. Now it has some advantages over gateway, but is still strictly inferior to astral travel. (Honestly, Astral Travel is too high level as it is, because by the time you have it, you don't care about armies anymore).

Stritcly inferior to Astral Travel? Astral Travel is researchlevel 9 and costs 25 astral gems. It's not a valid comparison. And for why it's harder to cast than Gateway, it's because the spell, althought necessary is sort counterinituative to this mod number #1 goal: to make access to water easier. There is no way for a land nation to attack UW if the uw-nation can just use these spells to cheaply teleport an army on the magic phase at the path of the invading army.

With W5 it can't be reached without boosters, requiring both thaumathurgy and construction research (there are some expections,like MA Atlantis and EA Oceania). The intention of the spell is to allow movement in UW over that non-moddable 1 province restriction. It is costed and pathed for that use.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Why not give it the same limitation as the Ride the Currents - must be to a friendly province (without the lab requirement).

Well, if people deem it that unusable, I might consider it. But this spell does something quite new, I first want to see how the 'conservative' version works before turbo-charging it.

As for you comparisons to Gateway and other astral travel spells:
1) Remember that these cost water gems. With gem gens out of the picture water gems will be perhaps the most useless gems in the game. If you can use the water version over the astral version, you will likely do so.
2) Water nations are a lot better at water magic than astral. (expect for R'lyeh, of course)
3) Water magic is a *lot* easier and cheaper to boost than astral magic.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Stritcly inferior to Astral Travel? Astral Travel is researchlevel 9 and costs 25 astral gems. It's not a valid comparison.

My point was such a boost wouldn't make it too powerful.

And for why it's harder to cast than Gateway, it's because the spell, althought necessary is sort counterinituative to this mod number #1 goal: to make access to water easier. There is no way for a land nation to attack UW if the uw-nation can just use these spells to cheaply teleport an army on the magic phase at the path of the invading army.

So, you take a bunch of sucky nations (Oceania, Atlantis), and then you make it easier to attack them, but it isn't acceptable to let them actually defend themselves?

They'd have to know exactly where they were being attacked to use it thusly. And considering land nations can generally duplicate that effect (admittedly on a somewhat smaller scale) with strategic move 2 or even 3 (cavalry)... it really doesn't seem unreasonable to allow a larger effect when that effect requires gems, a mage turn casting, and a mage who can lead the army in the first place, gems spent on boosters, and having dedicated the RPs to acquiring it (and sufficient construction). Especially since water nations will often have more border territories than land nations because there is less water and its often strung out along the land (which they may or may not hold or be able to hold).

With W5 it can't be reached without boosters, requiring both thaumathurgy and construction research (there are some expections,like MA Atlantis and EA Oceania). The intention of the spell is to allow movement in UW over that non-moddable 1 province restriction. It is costed and pathed for that use.

So basically water nations can't have nice things?

Well, if people deem it that unusable, I might consider it. But this spell does something quite new, I first want to see how the 'conservative' version works before turbo-charging it.

Oh, it'll be used. Only because water nations will be so desperate for *anything* that they'll have to pony up and use it. That doesn't make it not a really poorly balanced spell that takes too much investment of mage time, research, and gems for what it does. Its just most water nations *don't have any other choice* but to try to use it.

As for you comparisons to Gateway and other astral travel spells:
1) Remember that these cost water gems. With gem gens out of the picture water gems will be perhaps the most useless gems in the game. If you can use the water version over the astral version, you will likely do so.
2) Water nations are a lot better at water magic than astral. (expect for R'lyeh, of course)
3) Water magic is a *lot* easier and cheaper to boost than astral magic.

1) Irrelevant. Most water nations are stuck with water income - you're basically penalizing them (again) for being a water nation. (Also, its not like water doesn't have perfectly playable summons for the midgame when this spell might actually be useful).

2) Still irrelevant. Its pretty easy to get an S2 mage to S4 for gateway. You take ES on your pretender if you don't have ES naturally for crystal coin, especially if you've got astral to want the coin. W2 mages aren't really boostable to W5 in any reasonable way. MA oceania has a mere 1/4 of their casters who can reasonably be boosted high enough (W3 + 2 boosters, all their mages are W2 + 1/4 of ?100%), and doing so takes *construction 6*. EA Atlantis is no better off. Natural S3+ mages are a lot less rare than W4+ mages.

3) Sure, 2 boosters cost more gems for astral than water (20s 10e vs. 20w), but S2 is a lot more common for astral nations than W3 is even for many water nations, and boosting S is a lot better than boosting W. And astral has the RoS and RoW for even more boosting options - not that they're cheap, but you can do it. Water has... a unique trident?

And we're talking about access to a spell that even without the lab limitation is still vastly more limited in the long term than gateway, since at some point that water nation needs to traverse the land if it expects to win.

As written, the spell is more useful for EA Rlyeh than nations who actually need it like MA Oceania and EA Atlantis. That's just silly.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Stritcly inferior to Astral Travel? Astral Travel is researchlevel 9 and costs 25 astral gems. It's not a valid comparison.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

My point was such a boost wouldn't make it too powerful.

Egh? I'm having hard time understanding your argument. Because a lower research level, with different magic path spell is weaker than a high research one with a different path doesn't mean that you should boost the weaker one. That's like boosting "Falling Fires" because it's not as good as "Niefel Flames".

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Especially since water nations will often have more border territories than land nations because there is less water and its often strung out along the land (which they may or may not hold or be able to hold).

Water provinces are pretty large and most land provinces only have connecion to a single water province. If you see a huge army on a coastal province, they usually have only one water province to move to. Without the lab requirement, defensive maneuvers would be too easy.

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

With W5 it can't be reached without boosters, requiring both thaumathurgy and construction research (there are some expections,like MA Atlantis and EA Oceania). The intention of the spell is to allow movement in UW over that non-moddable 1 province restriction. It is costed and pathed for that use.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

So basically water nations can't have nice things?

*cough*

You read the first post, right?

Underwater nation balance
EA Oceania:
- New coastal recruits, 5 new heroes (5 total), KotD nerf, and a bundle of national spells
EA Atlantis:
- New coastal recruits, 2 new heroes (4 total), national H3 MR-boosting spell and Mage of the Deep and Basalt Queen made cheaper. Also improved MR for Coral Guards and Living Pillars. Also better admin on starting fort (40 now)
EA R'lyeh
- New coastal recruits, 2 new heroes (4 total), Better admin on starting fort (30 now)

MA Oceania
- New coastal recruits, 3 new heroes (4 total), some national spells and Capricorns now only lose 1 point of water magic on land (instead of losing 1 point in all paths).
MA Atlantis:
- New coastal recruits, national H3 MR-boosting spell. Also improved MR for Coral Guards, Mother Guards and War Lobsters.
MA R'lyeh
- Slightly improved coastal recruits.

LA R'lyeh
- No changes

They got plenty of nice things. Hence my reluctance to give them a superior teleportation spell just for their use. Now that I think about it, this argument must be some sort of misunderstanding. Allow me to restate the intention of the spell

Traverse the Sea isn't intented in no shape or form to duplicate the stragedies and or uses of the Gateway or Astral Travel spells. It is a modded mid-game spell with the intention of allowing you to move your map move 1 troops around in your territory and is supposed to require some planning on your part to do so. It's not an offensive spell, it's not an defensive spell, it's just a movement spell. If you want astral travel or gateway, then just use those spells instead, perhaps take some astral on your pretender.

[Sombre]

Strategies.

[Squirrelloid]

[quote=Burnsaber;709975]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

Water provinces are pretty large and most land provinces only have connecion to a single water province. If you see a huge army on a coastal province, they usually have only one water province to move to. Without the lab requirement, defensive maneuvers would be too easy.

If you want to keep the effect as is, it should require something like W3 and 5 or fewer gems... and maybe only require Thaum 4. Its literally less than half as good as gateway, and making it harder to cast just makes it laughable.

Also, many land provinces do connect to multiple water provinces.
Map: Aran - see provinces 15, 17, 25, 27, 48, 56, 81, 89, 90. That's at least half the coastal provinces.
Map: Cradle of Dominions - see provinces 85, 94, 103 for examples (not surveying the whole map - those were 3 of the first 4 coastal provinces i looked at).
Map: Urraparand - 137, 142, 147, 148 were 4 of the first 5 provinces i looked at, all with at least 2 adj water provinces.

And as I said, the effect of my proposed modified version is sort of like having map move 2-3 units and a nearby fortress on land, except slightly improved (which it should be, since it requires W5, mage time to cast from a mage capable of leading an army, and gems as opposed to just moving the units).

They got plenty of nice things. Hence my reluctance to give them a superior teleportation spell just for their use. Now that I think about it, this argument must be some sort of misunderstanding.

I'm just going to focus on one here for clarity.

More heroes? Nice, but not really a balance change. I mean, its not like many land nations didn't already have a bunch of heroes anyway. And given MA Oceania needs to use their pretender to get actual good magic paths, taking luck scales is sort of out of the question.

Coastal recruits/improve capricorn land performance: these were (1) essential anyway if MA Oceania wasn't going to suck, and (2) have absolutely nothing to do with making it easier for MA Oceania to repel invaders *in the water* who now have a much easier time doing so.

So basically, MA Oceania is now easier to invade and got nothing to compensate for that.

Allow me to restate the intention of the spell

Traverse the Sea isn't intented in no shape or form to duplicate the stragedies and or uses of the Gateway or Astral Travel spells. It is a modded mid-game spell with the intention of allowing you to move your map move 1 troops around in your territory and is supposed to require some planning on your part to do so. It's not an offensive spell, it's not an defensive spell, it's just a movement spell. If you want astral travel or gateway, then just use those spells instead, perhaps take some astral on your pretender.

Movement is inherently either defensive or offensive. Its changing the strategic value of your troops.

Regardless, it is vastly overpriced for what it does in terms of mage skill, gem cost, and RPs. Either it needs improving or it needs to be easier to access and cast.

[kianduatha]

As of CBM 1.6, coral priests are now EA Atlantis' most cost efficient researcher(despite only a 50% chance at a pick, their rock-bottom cost and sacred status trump everything else). Not only that, but since only half of them can even research, you have an entire army of spare preachers and blessers. Since you're an underwater nation, you were going to need those preachers anyways...and this allows you to in turn take a lower dominion score if you want.

But alas, with UWGIM enabled, these tiny powerhouses don't even exist. Now, the coral shaman is amazing, and frankly does a ton for Atlantis' magic diversity...but it would be nice to have the coral priest around.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

As of CBM 1.6, coral priests are now EA Atlantis' most cost efficient researcher(despite only a 50% chance at a pick, their rock-bottom cost and sacred status trump everything else). Not only that, but since only half of them can even research, you have an entire army of spare preachers and blessers. Since you're an underwater nation, you were going to need those preachers anyways...and this allows you to in turn take a lower dominion score if you want.

But alas, with UWGIM enabled, these tiny powerhouses don't even exist. Now, the coral shaman is amazing, and frankly does a ton for Atlantis' magic diversity...but it would be nice to have the coral priest around.

Unfortunately it's simply not possible. You see, due to modding stuff, the only way I could give EA Atlantis new coastal recruits was to edit the excisting coastal recruits. So basically, Coral Shaman is Coral Priest. IIRC, UWGIM reduces the cost of Mage of Deep dramatically, so you have an borderline effective researcher now there.

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by Burnsaber

IIRC, UWGIM reduces the cost of Mage of Deep dramatically, so you have an borderline effective researcher now there.

It does reduce the cost of the Mage of the Deep to 200 gold...but then, so does CBM 1.6.

Assuming Magic 1:

Mage of the Deep(200g, 7 research) - 28.6 initial ,1.9g upkeep/point of research

Basalt King(500g, 10.1 research, sacred) - 49.5 initial, 1.65 upkeep/point of research

Coral Shaman(190g, 6.1 research, sacred) -31.1 initial, 1.04g upkeep/point of research

Coral Priest(45g, 2 research, sacred) -22.5 initial, 0.75g upkeep/point of research


That on its own doesn't seem too bad; there's the loss of extra 'freebie' H1 commanders, but you needed more castles to get out the priests, so it's about even. The real problem is that in UWGIM, your best researcher by almost a factor of 2 is coastal only. This can be...quite problematic. Unfortunately, I can't really think of a solution other than to shift the magic diversity over to the Mage of the Deep(they're even noted as being magically diverse) with another 25% random AN, then leave the coral priest alone. It doesn't get you level 2 nature, though.

Edit: It does give you a ridiculously good communion master a decent chunk of the time, though. And I suppose you could make the first random 100% EWFSN, but it doesn't seem...right.