Mod: CBM 1.7 released

[Happyfungi]

I have not checked the thread in the other board, but has anyone noticed that zmey tail weapon and roc beak weapon both share #915.

[TheDemon]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I'm glad that the dominant magical sites were removed (e.g Ultimate Gateway) but from the last discussion we had about them I thought it would be more controversial.

If he wanted to remove dominant magic sites he should have removed them all. Now that EDM is included, a 20% discount in ANY area can be gamebreaking. 20% const now that hammers are gone is too good. Not to mention the most broken site (20% alt) is still in. Really the only non-dominant discount sites are the evo sites and I say if you want to remove discount sites for balance you should go all the way.

[Corinthian]

Originally Posted by TheConway

I have no idea what you mean about a general archer nerf. Explain?

Archers have been nerfed in several waves in the previous versions.
First they nerfed the general melee capabilities of archers.(att/def) This was somewhat justified in that it made flanking cavalry more effective and archers arent suposed to beat cavalry in melee. (Looking at the latest change log I cant actually find this so they might have reverted it again?)

Second they nerfed ranged units by making all common ranged weapons except slings and short bows more expensive in resources.

Third they made several units either more expensive or weaker. (Rangers of Ulm, Jomon longbows, bakemono archers (though they also got smaller so it evens out), more?)

[Corinthian]

Originally Posted by TheDemon

If he wanted to remove dominant magic sites he should have removed them all. Now that EDM is included, a 20% discount in ANY area can be gamebreaking. 20% const now that hammers are gone is too good. Not to mention the most broken site (20% alt) is still in. Really the only non-dominant discount sites are the evo sites and I say if you want to remove discount sites for balance you should go all the way.

Personally I don't care much about this kind of balance. Why? Because the game is in free for all form. If someone plays a powerful nation or get a good start the other players will take notice and gang up on him.
Also the random starting conditions and available magic sites means things will never be fair so what does one more random thing mater.
If a nation that was already powerful finds the ultimate gate? Well chances were that he would probably win any how. If a weak nation finds it? Why that might just be the thing that turns his game around! Making it harder to tell the victor in advance and making the game interesting for longer!

Either way, even the ultimate gate probably contributes less to your victory chances then your starting position. Take your SA lets play for an example. Ashdod, with all the god percentage sites in the first province they find, could not have salvaged Ermors terrible starting position.

Also on another note. I found both the bottomless lake (conj 20) and the ultimate gate (conj 50) in the same province. Unfortunately they don't stack

On a third note while I'm at it: Claymen really should be fire resistant. They are made of clay! Also golems are fire immune.

[TheConway]

Originally Posted by Corinthian

Archers have been nerfed in several waves in the previous versions.
First they nerfed the general melee capabilities of archers.(att/def) This was somewhat justified in that it made flanking cavalry more effective and archers arent suposed to beat cavalry in melee. (Looking at the latest change log I cant actually find this so they might have reverted it again?)

Second they nerfed ranged units by making all common ranged weapons except slings and short bows more expensive in resources.

Third they made several units either more expensive or weaker. (Rangers of Ulm, Jomon longbows, bakemono archers (though they also got smaller so it evens out), more?)

looking at the first post changelogs for both 1.6 and 1.5 i am unable to see any sort of archer nerf besides the well deserved Androphag Archer cost increase. If you found this in the code yourself then okay.

[Finalgenesis]

Submitting forging suggestion for discussion:

Weightless Scale Mail : A2 -> A1

Moon blade : 2 handed -> 1 handed; S1 -> S2 or lower stats? (I mean, even sandhyabala has 1-handed moon blades...)

Ring of the warrior : B1 -> B2

Flesh eater axe : B1 -> B2

Bane blade (2H) : remove for slots? Would people actually craft this reasonably often over the 1H version with the new changes? Hmmm...

Bone Armor : D5 -> D4

Wraith Crown : D5 -> D4

Robe of Invulnerability : E5 -> E4

Frost brand : W1 -> W2, AoE dam restoration arguable

Lantern shield: D2F1 -> D1F1

Where I'm on the fence for in varying degrees, and where 1 lvl price drop seem excessive:

Amulet of Missile Protection

Rod of the Phoenix - Already used in games, but with hammer changes I think I may never see them again, even as a specific counter. FR and a leadership boost maybe?

Stymphalian Wings

Axe of Hate -(The fatigue damage is not AoE it seems, has to hit) - and honestly, I see kryss used as SC slayer over axe of hate 100% of the time.

Sword of Swiftness

The above with some exception (frost brand, blood items...etc) are items I've never or very rarely seen used in the MP games I played in (admittedly not very many... ), it's always the same ol' couple of items. The worst are weapons and shields, whereas armor and helm and to lesser degree boots are more varied. I wished more items are made more viable whereas there are some clear optimal winners now that everyone uses, in the footstep of herald lance change from S2 -> S1 in CBM 1.6 which was excellent. Given hammer changes, the never-seen items will probably get even more never-seen.

For frost brand, it just has amazing utility for an amazingly cheap price, AoE, decent weapon stats and CR 50 in a 1-handed package for 5 measly water gems? Objectively speaking its far and away better then most weapons out there overall without any doubt. Firebrand is likewise amazing and even heaps AP, but I can convince myself its a cross-path item bonus and already cost 10 gems.

As for blood items, maybe the blood hunt nerf is enough, but I still think 5 blood slaves for decent usable items are way too cheap.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I'm glad that the dominant magical sites were removed (e.g Ultimate Gateway) but from the last discussion we had about them I thought it would be more controversial.

I hate that change.

I like the existence of unique magical sites that, if discovered, can radically change the game for the one discovering them. Sites that are so powerful that they can become specific targets for serious warfare if knowledge of their presence in a game spreads.

But then, I hate most of the changes made in CBM until now that do not either attempt to address bugs or attempt to balance nations or pretenders by changing nation and pretender specific information.

The sweeping changes in CBM to more general gameplay aspects available to most or all nations tend to reduce the game's strategic diversity in favour of balance through reduced randomness and a general homogenization process of power levels.

Which may be great for the large scale games CBM seems principally designed for with players who don't like for anybody to gain a benefit that they haven't worked hard for, but does reduce the fun quotient somewhat for the smaller scale MP games I participate in. SDR and Hammers as uniques are another example of things where the changes don't make much sense when the scale (both in map size, number of players, and expected length of game) is smaller.

OTOH, since I'm not the one making the mod, I really have little room for *****ing. If this sort of thing is what those who play games on the Shrapnel boards want, great! I'll just do my best to try not to use it in the games I play. (I may well fail - we are using CBM 1.6 now despite my wish to stick with 1.5 )

-------------

I do wonder about the earth booster, though. Given that CBM has already killed off gem generators except as uniques, why was a perfectly good and fun artefact, the Boots of Antaeus, replaced in favour of a Ring of the Earth booster rather than stripping the blood stone of its gem generating ability and newfound uniqueness (the simplest solution) or, if such was impossible (if the gem generation was in the game code and couldn't be modded), why not choose to replace some low-priority magic item that is almost never used such as Boots of Long Strides or the Main Gauche of Parrying?

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Weightless Scale Mail : A2 -> A1

You do realize this would obsolete Lightweight Scale Mail? Not that that's necessarily bad...

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Moon blade : 2 handed -> 1 handed; S1 -> S2 or lower stats? (I mean, even sandhyabala has 1-handed moon blades...)

Moving to 1-hand would definitely open up to potential situational use...

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Ring of the warrior : B1 -> B2
Flesh eater axe : B1 -> B2

Do people make rings of the warrior? RE: the axe - how would it then compare vs. the heart finder?

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Bane blade (2H) : remove for slots? Would people actually craft this reasonably often over the 1H version with the new changes? Hmmm...

It would be worth it to keep the AI from forging them.

I think that 1H bane blade + shield is pretty much always better than the 2hand version, which leaves its utility down to units you were going to give a magic weapon to that don't already have shields and you don't want to invest another 5 gems into...

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Bone Armor : D5 -> D4

Wraith Crown : D5 -> D4

Robe of Invulnerability : E5 -> E4

Frost brand : W1 -> W2, AoE dam restoration arguable

All of these seem reasonable, in light of hammer removal. However, consider the impact of forging the hammer of the forge lord or hammer (potentially + forge lord pretender and/or early FoTA from Ulm) to churn out the above items.

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Lantern shield: D2F1 -> D1F1

At that price, people might be include to do it just to get the corpse candles at the edge of the field.

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Where I'm on the fence for in varying degrees, and where 1 lvl price drop seem excessive:

Amulet of Missile Protection

Note that at 2A it's the same price as the air-based shields.

Originally Posted by Finalgenesis

Rod of the Phoenix - Already used in games, but with hammer changes I think I may never see them again, even as a specific counter. FR and a leadership boost maybe?

Stymphalian Wings

Axe of Hate -(The fatigue damage is not AoE it seems, has to hit) - and honestly, I see kryss used as SC slayer over axe of hate 100% of the time.

Sword of Swiftness

For the Sword of Swiftness, perhaps adding +1 or more attacks would be a better re-balance vs. a price drop?

[llamabeast]

I do wonder about the earth booster, though. Given that CBM has already killed off gem generators except as uniques, why was a perfectly good and fun artefact, the Boots of Antaeus, replaced in favour of a Ring of the Earth booster rather than stripping the blood stone of its gem generating ability and newfound uniqueness (the simplest solution) or, if such was impossible (if the gem generation was in the game code and couldn't be modded), why not choose to replace some low-priority magic item that is almost never used such as Boots of Long Strides or the Main Gauche of Parrying?

None of your suggestions can be done with dom3's modding capabilities You can't take gem gen off the blood stone, and you can't add earth booster ability to other items. QM is working within considerable restrictions.

[Corinthian]

Originally Posted by TheConway

looking at the first post changelogs for both 1.6 and 1.5 i am unable to see any sort of archer nerf besides the well deserved Androphag Archer cost increase. If you found this in the code yourself then okay.

My sources for the changes are mostly the 1.5 changelog. Here is a few excerpts:

--Weapons and Armor--

-Crossbow-
Resource cost: 6 (4)

-Agarthan Steel Crossbow-
Resource cost: 10 (6)

-Composite Bow-
Resource cost: 5 (4)

-Long Bow-
Resource cost: 5 (4)

-Samurai Archer-
Gold cost: 12 (11)
Morale: 10 (11)
Precision: 10 (11)

-Ranger-
Gold cost: 13 (12)


I also found some more nerfed archers when I looked again.

-Vanara Archer-
Defense: 9 (10)
Attack: 9 (10)

-Bandar Archer-
Morale: 10 (12)
Attack: 10 (11)
Defense: 8 (9)
Hit points: 17 (18)

--Marignon MA--


-Crossbowman-
Morale: 10 (11)
Attack: 8 (10)
Defense: 8 (10)

--Sauromatia--


-Archer-
Gold cost: 11 (10)

-Ulm EA-


-Archer-
Hit points: 11 (12)
Strength: 10 (11)
Morale: 10 (11)
Map movement: 1 (2)
Changed short sword for dagger
Removed stealth

-Warrior Maiden-
Gold cost: 14 (12)
Precision: 11 (12)
Morale: 11 (12)