Mod: CBM 1.8 released

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

I have no power to ban anybody on this forum.

Perhaps he was banned for breaking the rules? Point 10 spesifically.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/misc.php?do=cfrules

You don't have to have the power to do the banning if you influenced a moderator into doing said banning, which in my opinion is what happened. And not being able to call you out on the levels of villainy you seem to have descended to without getting banned is a real shame. It's pathetic how often people on this forum manipulate the forum rules for their own ends instead of dealing with each other like human beings. And as long as you don't outright say what you think and mean, you're safe, but if you can taunt the other person into calling you out, you can then report them and "win" by getting them banned. What a load of crap.

On topic: Yay, CBM 1.8! Thank you QM for your continued efforts in making the game more fun, interesting, and balanced. Boo naysayers.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by rondj;

... Path levels ...

Thanks, I keep forgetting that.

Originally Posted by NooBliss;

You can. Llama's diversity mod did it, in my opinion - now every path has some nasties to summon.

Adding something is not the same as boosting an existing something to be more powerful. We where talking about specific item boosts and nerfs here. You are trying to make it about different magical paths. And the endgame diversity. Two totally different issues.

Edit: also there is a big problem with game development that you are never ever allowed to nerf something, or take something away, or a lot of players start to cry. This makes it very hard to undo game design mistakes. (Which currently, gemgens are. (It could be fixed if the gems showed up in the graphs, and if it was easier to take out the gemgens (Lets say, immobile slotless units)).

Originally Posted by NooBliss;

If something is good and everyone uses it, it doesnt mean it has to be banned, for hell's sake. Asinjas, Shishi etc are also good and gonna be used - will QM ban them too? I think not. Perhaps because these summons are straightforward and dont require as much effort?

It isn't only that it is so good that everybody uses it. It is because it is so good that you always get a guaranteed quick return on investment. A tactic that is only counter able by adopting the tactic yourself. See Hammers, Clams etc.

Originally Posted by NooBliss;

And the runaway leader problem is still there, in case you didnt notice. Whoever has more land gets more gems and gold, provided he also site-searches and had half-decent scales, of course. Is there anything wrong with it?

I noticed, the removal of certain items just makes it less pronounced. And it makes it easier for other nations to catch up.

And Asinjas, Shishi don't generate new gems etc (which is what a forge bonus actually is, a way to "generate" gems by using less of them). You need to put them in harms way, attack the enemy, get his lands. For them to be useful. (Sure they gen RP, but everything does, and there are cheaper ways of getting RP).

The controversial item removals all made it easier to reach the point where you couldn't do anything about a runaway leader anymore. Once the jadeknife dompush started rolling, it could only be stopped by ganging up on the player. Once you had enough hammers for all your mages you would just get a defacto 25%+ gem bonus each turn. Which all made nations with easier earth, or w3n1 access to strong.

Sure there are still spells, and sites which do this in the game. (A alteration 20% site can also create this situation, just as casting certain globals, or even certain nations are build for it (LA Ermor for example)). But you can at least see a lot of these coming, you can dispel the global, take the site, etc etc. They are counterable.

(And I would never advocate for creating penalties for the leader, as that would create neverending games. These kind of games should have runaway leaders, but not runaway leader problems).

Originally Posted by NooBliss;

Oh, I forgot to add - thats another reason I'll stick to 1.6 from now on.

Why are we even having this discussion then? Ow nevermind. This is already taking up way to much time.

But feel free to create your own custom CBM mod. Remove the item cost boosts, put the hammers, SDR, and knives back in. I'm sure there are still a lot of players willing to play your games.

Originally Posted by NooBliss;

Oh, some additional gold expenses. The horror.

You do realize that additional gold expenses are a big deal right? A blood nation already has a lot of expenses, upkeep gold, using mage turns to get slaves. So you have less mages for combat duty, RP etc. Some additional gold cost can be really painful then.

Gold, gems, mageturns (and thus fortturns) are the main resources of this game. They matter. And gold and mageturns matter even more for a blood nation. (you have one additional research path, and less researchers).

Originally Posted by Dimaz;

So if you lead in gems gold etc you should be able to create less of them or what? I'm intrigued.

You know what I mean. Stop trying to misrepresent my point.

Inclusion of gemgens, hammers, and sdrs makes it easier to increase a small lead into a big lead. After your basic needs are met (upkeep, expansion, some defense and research) you can pour the rest of the resources into these three classes of items, to quick increase your lead. With hammers a 2 e site was more valuable than a 2 d site. because after 10 turns the 2e would not be 20 e, but a permanent reduction in forging costs.

Sure you should still be able to use a small lead to create a bigger lead. But it should be more about the armies clashing, conquering territories, casting extremely powerful spells, etc.

Not using your labs to forge equip to forge more equipment. Not all games should be won in the forge.

Originally Posted by Dimaz;

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.

Sure, there is even a guide for it:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...?showtopic=120
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45850

And I said it wasn't counterable. As preaching doesn't really work that well. And a indy priest with a JK generates 6 temple checks.

[llamabeast]

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.

You'll have to excuse that I can't remember the names of the games, but several games have been won quite suddenly in this way. When it happens it's a bit of a game ruiner - it only takes a few turns, the players closest to the blood saccing nation can be wiped out before they can take any real action, and so in effect it's virtually uncounterable.

The reason for this is the bug whereby each slave sacrificed generates two temple checks. So an H3 priest with a jade knife can sacrifice 5 slaves for a total of 11 temple checks (including the one from the temple). With a dom10 nation that's 11 candles per turn per temple - quite extreme. Removing the jade knife reduces this to 7 candles/turn/temple. So, it's still a very powerful strategy and you shouldn't feel that it's been nerfed to oblivion.

Edit: I forgot that there is an issue whereby preaching doesn't help much. I think it's to do with turn order - perhaps the preaching happens first, and can then be overruled by the blood sac. That would make sense - say you have loads of H3 priests in your capital, your last remaining dominion stronghold. They all preach and raise your dominion to 10 (for the sake of argument - actually preaching can't raise dominion that high). Then 20 black candles from blood sac appear and you're left on -10 dominion and lose the game.

I think the SDR thing is very complex and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think probably I would be in favour of restoring the SDR and increasing the costs of all blood spells by say 50%. I could easily automatically write a mod to do this if people thought ut was a good idea. However this solution only addresses the balance part of the issue, and not the micromanagement issue. I have never played a blood nation into mid game, so I don't know how annoying SDRs are.

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

You'll have to excuse that I can't remember the names of the games, but several games have been won quite suddenly in this way. When it happens it's a bit of a game ruiner - it only takes a few turns, the players closest to the blood saccing nation can be wiped out before they can take any real action, and so in effect it's virtually uncounterable.

The reason for this is the bug whereby each slave sacrificed generates two temple checks. So an H3 priest with a jade knife can sacrifice 5 slaves for a total of 11 temple checks (including the one from the temple). With a dom10 nation that's 11 candles per turn per temple - quite extreme. Removing the jade knife reduces this to 7 candles/turn/temple. So, it's still a very powerful strategy and you shouldn't feel that it's been nerfed to oblivion.

Edit: I forgot that there is an issue whereby preaching doesn't help much. I think it's to do with turn order - perhaps the preaching happens first, and can then be overruled by the blood sac. That would make sense - say you have loads of H3 priests in your capital, your last remaining dominion stronghold. They all preach and raise your dominion to 10 (for the sake of argument - actually preaching can't raise dominion that high). Then 20 black candles from blood sac appear and you're left on -10 dominion and lose the game.

I think the SDR thing is very complex and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think probably I would be in favour of restoring the SDR and increasing the costs of all blood spells by say 50%. I could easily automatically write a mod to do this if people thought ut was a good idea. However this solution only addresses the balance part of the issue, and not the micromanagement issue. I have never played a blood nation into mid game, so I don't know how annoying SDRs are.

I've been in games where Pangaea just domkills an entire map and there's nothing any of the further away nations can do about it at all. In the proper hands it was disgustingly powerful.

Unfortunately just increasing the cost of blood spells runs into problems because you can't alter the cost of blood items.

I think a lot of the Tartarian kneejerking is forgetting the fact that you'll still get commander Tartarians about 1/5 of the time. They haven't disappeared--they're just more expensive in mageturns and gems. That being said, Shattered Soul can probably go back down to 10% and their HP nerf can be reverted and they'd still be fine.

[WraithLord]

Tarts are over nerfed.
Please consider a few numbers:
* It takes 1 turn + 30 gems to summon 2 shishis that eat tarts alive.
* It takes 1 turn + 60 (i think) gems to summon 1 ember lord which properly equipped is at least on par with a tart.
* It takes (avg of) 5 (mage) turns and (avg of) 60 gems (assuming 12 base cost) to get one tart commander which is likely to be afflicted and is idle 25% of the time (or worse - razing your temple or such). So it's actually more gem expensive (since you get 25% less actions) and more vulnerable (strategically) since you can't be sure he'll march with the rest of the army but opt to do crazy stuff making it a sitting duck.
* All the nations can summon (parts of) EDM stuff, so all 7 paths but death have good thug<->SC chassis => Death centric nations are now at a disadvantage.

[Dimaz]

Well, once I owned north-western corner of Karan as dom9 Aby and sacced with 12 or so H3's with knives and still even my closest neighbors weren't domkilled. I don't know, maybe I didn't try hard enough, but it seems you can counter dompush if you're prepared for it by building enough temples/priests on the border. And when your efforts become obvious usually good players will try to gang on you. Maybe on smaller maps it can win a game, though.
Anyway, I think these cases are pretty rare and don't need special fix, as it's still part of the game as Executor said.

[NooBliss]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

I noticed, the removal of certain items just makes it less pronounced. And it makes it easier for other nations to catch up.

So, is it a good thing or a bad thing? What's wrong with the leader having more resources anyway? That's what being a leader is about.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

And Asinjas, Shishi don't generate new gems etc (which is what a forge bonus actually is, a way to "generate" gems by using less of them). You need to put them in harms way, attack the enemy, get his lands. For them to be useful. (Sure they gen RP, but everything does, and there are cheaper ways of getting RP).

Hammers dont generate gems. They increase your income by a percentile. If you have 10 hammers and only +4 fire gems/turn, you will only forge ONE fire brand. Any nation can have hammers; sure, you have to take earth on your pretender if you dont have it on your mages, but heck, that's a good reason NOT to take that freaking Dom10 pathelss Wyrm again. And even then, you could skip Earth on your pretender and just trade until you get some indies.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

The controversial item removals all made it easier to reach the point where you couldn't do anything about a runaway leader anymore.

And making sure you cant do anything about a runaway leader anymore is a good thing? I have a feeling there's something wrong with this sentence.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Sure there are still spells, and sites which do this in the game. (A alteration 20% site can also create this situation, just as casting certain globals, or even certain nations are build for it (LA Ermor for example)). But you can at least see a lot of these coming, you can dispel the global, take the site, etc etc. They are counterable.

You won't know when somebody finds a discount site and dispeling globals is a losing game.

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

You do realize that additional gold expenses are a big deal right? A blood nation already has a lot of expenses, upkeep gold, using mage turns to get slaves. So you have less mages for combat duty, RP etc. Some additional gold cost can be really painful then.

You do realise that I'm speaking from my personal MP experience? I'm playing Abyssia in 1.7 right now, here - http://www.llamaserver.net/showScore...e=KingsofDrama

Does it look like I'm suffering from the lack of income? That's not some theorycraft, thats my own playtesting results - nations with B2 mages took a rather slight hit, not nearly as hard as these with B1 or no blood at all.

Edit:

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

Sure you should still be able to use a small lead to create a bigger lead. But it should be more about the armies clashing, conquering territories, casting extremely powerful spells, etc.

Not using your labs to forge equip to forge more equipment. Not all games should be won in the forge.

Why? Because you dont like it? Just because dont want to spend time planning your strategy in a game with a steep learning curve, you'd like to keep it as simple as 'produce some troops, add mages, send them into combat'?

Gemgens could, indeed, create problems in huge games. Huge hidden income that cant be taken away from you. Hammers are nothing like that.


Hmmm let me guess... Do you also think one shouldnt have to diversify into all magic paths, being able to win with just their starting 'Air 4, water 2, astral 1, death 1' picks on national mages?

[llamabeast]

Come on NooBliss, you're deliberately misrepresenting what Soy's saying. He's a smart guy making reasonable points even if you don't agree with him - it's not helpful to keep on building straw men of what you're claiming he's saying then beating them down.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by NooBliss

And making sure you cant do anything about a runaway leader anymore is a good thing? I have a feeling there's something wrong with this sentence.

You are right, that sentence is a bit wrong. Damn you typing skillz!
Change it into:
The controversial items, which where removed, all made it easier to reach the point where you couldn't do anything about a runaway leader anymore.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Come on NooBliss, you're deliberately misrepresenting what Soy's saying. He's a smart guy making reasonable points even if you don't agree with him - it's not helpful to keep on building straw men of what you're claiming he's saying then beating them down.

Or to put it more bluntly NooBliss, it's not worth debating with you. Not because your position is superior, but because your arguments are not much grounded in reality. And I don't think I really need to point out that most of the people arguing for these things to be removed have been around for much longer than you and played many more games than you have.

I think blood is the only thing that no one is completely happy with just yet. There are a number of solutions that could be gone for here, and none of them seems logically to include SDRs being returned. The only reason these items cause such a fuss is because people have been used to being spoiled by them.