Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Trumanator]

lol nice first post. As for propostions, generally QM uses the feedback on his previous CBM thread (this one) when making the next CBM. However, its going to be a month or two before we get a new one, what with his current busyness.

[Trumanator]

Well, to be truthful its basically about what QM wants it to be. Its true though that it has steadily edged in the direction of balance.

[Sombre]

Actually most of the Hinnom/Ashdod rebalances make sense on an individual unit/spell level, not just on the nation balance plane.

Dawn Guard (or Dawg Guard as I like to call them) for example, were eclipsing everything else, while having too strong a starting army messed with the utility of awake pretenders and bless expansion.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sombre

...while having too strong a starting army messed with the utility of awake pretenders and bless expansion.

Ok, that's bull, and I'm pretty sure you know it. No giant nation is ever going to take an awake pretender unless its units are unplayably bad.

More generally, not every nation is or should be tempted by sacreds and/or awake pretenders, and its ridiculous to think its even possible to achieve such a state.

Further, that QM chose to make certain options more expensive rather than make the alternatives cheaper is indicative of what he thought of the nation vs. nation balance created by those choices.

[Sombre]

You also don't necessarily need to survive a hit - you can try and make sure you hit first via flight, quickness, high AP thug etc. With high strength and a hero blade, you shouldn't need to hit more than once.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Sombre

You also don't necessarily need to survive a hit - you can try and make sure you hit first via flight, quickness, high AP thug etc. With high strength and a hero blade, you shouldn't need to hit more than once.

And regarding other comments: Yes, sure. If you can avoid being hit, don't you think the adon can, too? One in three will cast luck to begin with. Others will wear 2 bracers of protection for +4 defense, etc. If you can build a hero's blade, what kind of + defense gear do you think they can build (should mention their forge bonus mages here)? That weapon isn't a worthwhile counter in my opinion, because when the adonim are an issue (from turn 2), most nations have absolutely nothing to put in front. Last time I tested a CBM1.6 Ashdod vs. Mictlan, Ashdod just walked over Mictlan. Vanheim might be able to kit a van with a hero's blade, but I can't see any other MA nation that could do something (well, maybe Eriu actually).
I'd rather nerf adonim into a (level 0?) summon with a cost such that they can't get out before a few turns than hope that hero's blades will make a difference against them.

[Sombre]

I don't follow your logic. If one choice in a recruitable lineup is flat out superior to the others, qm has on numerous occasions hiked the price on the standout, or reduced its overall upside. See jomonese longbows. Unless you think he was trying to balance the awesome power of Jomon?

Obviously changes to Hinnom, Vanheim and Mictlan considered nation balance. But they were also about making the nation more varied within itself, in terms of strategic choices. If you have a sick, sick starting army compared with every other nation, it messes with nation balance, it's aesthetically weird and it also limits competitive strat choices.

Re: Giant nations and awake pretenders - There's also nothing inherent in giant nations that would make an awake pretender ridiculous. The reason it might be a bad choice is incidental to the characteristics of giants (recruitable thug commanders, high hp units, high str units, large size). It comes down to other attributes like having great expansion units, having units which thrive on a huge bless or not needing a rainbow to sitesearch early. Taking an awake pretender with Fomoria or Gath seems like a legit choice to me.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I don't follow your logic. If one choice in a recruitable lineup is flat out superior to the others, qm has on numerous occasions hiked the price on the standout, or reduced its overall upside. See jomonese longbows. Unless you think he was trying to balance the awesome power of Jomon?

Well, I don't understand that particular example at all. Samurai archers weren't very good before they were inexplicably nerfed by QM, and are totally unplayable now. I can't imagine anyone actually hiring them even in vanilla.

So if that example is supposed to support your point, it failed pretty badly.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Well, I don't understand that particular example at all. Samurai archers weren't very good before they were inexplicably nerfed by QM, and are totally unplayable now. I can't imagine anyone actually hiring them even in vanilla.

So if that example is supposed to support your point, it failed pretty badly.

Er, what?

My point was qm does downgrade units with the goal of within nation unit balance. Which he did in the case of Jomonese Longbows. Whether or not you agree with that change is immaterial. It just goes to show fault in the logic that 'downgrade to unit = qm nation balancing not unit balancing'.

Again, if you want to talk about CBM /should/ be doing, that's a different issue to what CBM (and thus qm) /has/ been doing. Some changes have been made with nation balance in mind, but CBM is not moving towards more towards attempts at nation balance. At least not during the released version. The vast majority of the changes are still about spell/unit/resource choices.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Er, what?

My point was qm does downgrade units with the goal of within nation unit balance. Which he did in the case of Jomonese Longbows. Whether or not you agree with that change is immaterial. It just goes to show fault in the logic that 'downgrade to unit = qm nation balancing not unit balancing'.

Its only unit balancing if it actually looks even remotely like balancing units. It doesn't, it made their worst unit even worse still, which is mostly inexplicable. Which does nothing to demonstrate any particular balancing agenda, since it has no (positive) effect on balance, nation or unit.

Further, as the change happened many iterations ago, its hardly relevant to my claim that *CBM 1.6* is more about between-nation balancing. I will happily stipulate earlier CBMs were entirely about unit balancing if you insist, regardless of the factual value of that statement (although it is plausibly true, I don't care to review them all), because its irrelevant to my claim. So the only relevant examples come from CBM 1.6.

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So, looking at the CBM 1.6 changes:
-obviously most of the item and spell changes are not nation changes, and therefore not relevant one way or the other. Despite this, there are some examples of nation balancing even here.
--Naiad warriors cost reduction, despite being a spell change, is specifically called out as a nation balance change.
--Burnsaber's UWGIM item changes are very clearly nation balance changes, as they were done specifically to make it easier to traverse the land-sea divide by nations that had a hard time doing so. Burnsaber is quite explicit about this in the UWGIM thread.
--The umbral change is clearly an attempt to make Agartha more competitive again.

-Specific national changes:
--MA Agartha's change log does nothing to increase play of lesser used options, and is more about adding new options and increasing the capabilities of old options to make them more competitive. (ie, the old options that were improved were already the ones people were playing with. The new options obviously don't balance units within the existing nation).
--EA Agartha's cheaper oracles do nothing towards unit balance, as you would buy an oracle per turn every turn as soon as you could before the reduction. Thus, it is clearly a between-nation balance change.
--Similarly the change to Pans, Panic Apostles, Capricorns, et al.
--Similarly the other MA Oceania changes.
--Androphag archers price was increased because of the bug, ie, because they were too effective *against other nations* for their cost. Clearly a nation balance change.
--EA Atlantis changes are all about making it more competitive. Same for changes in price/effectiveness for Marveni and Man top tier mages, and the same for Kailasa as well.
--Giant SC cost increases are certainly because they were too effective against other nations, not because of internal nation dynamics (you will always recruit your best cap-only every turn if the option is available, so its not like increasing their cost causes you to consider buying something else if you can afford them).

Now, the rest of the changes are arguable either way, but by and large improved units belong to *weaker* nations, suggesting that between-nation balance was a motivating concern. If unit balance within a nation was the only concern, you'd see a more even distribution of improved units across nations regardless of power. If you really want I can do the statistics on it, but I guarantee the effect is highly significant.

So, to conclude, to pretend CBM 1.6 is not heavily invested in nation balance would suggest you haven't actually reviewed the changelog.