Mod: Alugra, City of Wonders v1.06 - Stable version

[VedalkenBear]

Burn: Playing around with Alugra a little bit, I have some feedback.

1) Alugra is an incredible Blood nation. I'm sure that I could check what the Villain's Blood magic is, but I haven't seen less than 2. It would seem that a very good starting strategy is to buy a Preacher for your commander first turn, and then a Master + Villain + whatever for second turn, Gift the Villain, put him out to the first suitable Blood province, build a lab, and start hunting. Meanwhile, the Master you have will be Gifting Librarians so that you can get to Blood-2 as fast as possible (and for Alugra, that is pretty fast).

The Blood Sergeant is way too cheap for its effect. It has Dousing 1, correct? The Sergeant could easily be doubled in cost, and it wouldn't matter. I might suggest taking off the Dousing (as I don't think you could make them Blood-0 with Dousing-1 and make it work).

2) Librarians seem to be too efficient. Research-5 is too much, it seems, as research is blindingly fast. Research-3 would probably be a bit better. As it is, if I wanted to, I could probably take Drain-3, and not really care.

I'm about to start testing thugging/SCing Gifted commanders to see what happens. Smiths with their buff + Summon Earthpower might be overpowered.

BTW, I wanted to apologize for not getting to this sooner. The Jomon patch coming out, plus some school stuff, conspired to put this on a back burner for a few.

[Radio_Star]

Smiths definitely seem like the go-to mage. Earth and astral individually are pretty awesome paths on the field and having both is tons of fun. Battlefield buffs, blade wind/magma eruption/falling fires/gifts of heaven depending on what chaff vs. heavy ratio you're looking at, prec. 100 astral fires if that's your need and since your national buffs (use air power is perfect here) scream reverse communion, you can buff up, reverse communion rattle off some gifts then blink your way into buff melee destruction. On top of all that, you've got a nice forge bonus in some very forge-friendly paths.

Baalz's guide to Marverni has some excellent tips on the dirty tricks you can pull with E/S druids most of which applies to smiths and requires substantially less equipment.

[VedalkenBear]

I was actually thinking of their abilities as thugs, but battle magic is another useful way of using them.

[Radio_Star]

It's the cross-utility that makes them so appealing, to my mind. As you pointed out, they've got clear thug potential. On top of that, you also get fierce battle magic, mobility via the astral path, -and- forge bonuses. Total package, so to speak, making them the go to recruitable.

Whether or not they're overpowered in their own right, they definitely overshadow the rest of the choices for a mage to mass. In your thug testing, I'd also suggest taking a look at GoR'd temple guards. At least I think that's what the unit is. It's the demon national summons. They're 3b2f, sacred with good stats and an alternate ranged attack that's pretty respectable.

[VedalkenBear]

Radio: I'll take a look at that. While the Smith is quite good, his capital-only nature and, IIRC, 1 Strategic move means that he is only good as a commander. Sure, he can't be hurt, and that can be nice when throwing battlemagic around, but I prefer somewhat more offensively-minded troops.

As far as his utility as a commander goes, he's at _least_ third on my list of troops to Commanderize (after Librarians and Villains, respectively). Well, I do have one early in my current game, but that was so he could get empowered to Blood-3 (from 0) to make Blood Stones.

Burn, I'm going to be testing a lot of different starts to see if I can get a better one, but currently, I have a ridiculous blood slave income. I'll give you the details tonight.

[Burnsaber]

First of all, my sincerest thanks to both of you.

Originally Posted by VedalkenBear

Burn: Playing around with Alugra a little bit, I have some feedback.

1) Alugra is an incredible Blood nation. I'm sure that I could check what the Villain's Blood magic is, but I haven't seen less than 2. It would seem that a very good starting strategy is to buy a Preacher for your commander first turn, and then a Master + Villain + whatever for second turn, Gift the Villain, put him out to the first suitable Blood province, build a lab, and start hunting. Meanwhile, the Master you have will be Gifting Librarians so that you can get to Blood-2 as fast as possible (and for Alugra, that is pretty fast).

The Blood Sergeant is way too cheap for its effect. It has Dousing 1, correct? The Sergeant could easily be doubled in cost, and it wouldn't matter. I might suggest taking off the Dousing (as I don't think you could make them Blood-0 with Dousing-1 and make it work).

2) Librarians seem to be too efficient. Research-5 is too much, it seems, as research is blindingly fast. Research-3 would probably be a bit better. As it is, if I wanted to, I could probably take Drain-3, and not really care.

I'm about to start testing thugging/SCing Gifted commanders to see what happens. Smiths with their buff + Summon Earthpower might be overpowered.

BTW, I wanted to apologize for not getting to this sooner. The Jomon patch coming out, plus some school stuff, conspired to put this on a back burner for a few.

1) You can see all gifted magic picks from this link (it's in the first post, you probably missed it): http://xs.to/xs.php?h=xs537&d=09106&f=picks497.jpeg -> Villains have automatical B2. It was orginally D1B1S1 base with 50% chance of second level in each path, but I changed it after a test game where I gifted 4 villains without any B2 for TBS. Since their "personal" spell (Villain's Escape) has to be b2 (so that b1 manifests are unable to cast it, due to balance and thematic reasons).

I think that I deluded myself into thinking that having summonable blood hunter would be somehow worse than having recruitable one. Yeah, Blood Sergeants have douse 1 and it doesn't work without the B1. I'll probably bump the cost (to 10-15? range) and remove the dousing. I alsohave this idea of making them increase unrest(5), since they don't have *official* status of a bloodhunter like most nations have. They're just monsters who snatch away daughters. IMO, Alugra isn't supposed to be a major blood nation (unless you *really* focus on it, since everything has a opportunity cost).

2) Yeah, I'll probably have to reduce it. The massive bonus is probably a leftover from the times when they had single AEFWSBDN pick.

Huh, I never realized that Smith can negate his fatigue gain with Earthpower. But I'll write more about that guy later.

Oh, Vedalkenbear see the "to-do" list in the first post. I've added some stuff from your first PM there.

Originally Posted by Radio_Star

Smiths definitely seem like the go-to mage. Earth and astral individually are pretty awesome paths on the field and having both is tons of fun. Battlefield buffs, blade wind/magma eruption/falling fires/gifts of heaven depending on what chaff vs. heavy ratio you're looking at, prec. 100 astral fires if that's your need and since your national buffs (use air power is perfect here) scream reverse communion, you can buff up, reverse communion rattle off some gifts then blink your way into buff melee destruction. On top of all that, you've got a nice forge bonus in some very forge-friendly paths.

Baalz's guide to Marverni has some excellent tips on the dirty tricks you can pull with E/S druids most of which applies to smiths and requires substantially less equipment.

It's the cross-utility that makes them so appealing, to my mind. As you pointed out, they've got clear thug potential. On top of that, you also get fierce battle magic, mobility via the astral path, -and- forge bonuses. Total package, so to speak, making them the go to recruitable.

Yeah, the instant I got the idea for Metallic Smiths, I knew that they'd be troublesome. I can't really change their path combos, since it's just too thematic the way it is. I want to encourage training the gifted diversly. Everyone is going to have a favourite, but it's be nice if all of the Gifted start from the same line. I'll probably do one of the following nerfs to Smith;

1) Reduce Slots even further. Taking away either hands (no hammers/Crystal Shields) or boots (no earth boots) will likely hurt.

2) Make them F1E1 base with 50% F/E/S/S. Could be annoying if you don't get E2 to "Gnome Lore"ing, thought.

3) Make the second astral pick 10%(or 20%) so that only one in 20(or 10) will have S2 and be thus able to teleport with crystal coin.

Originally Posted by Radio_Star

In your thug testing, I'd also suggest taking a look at GoR'd temple guards. At least I think that's what the unit is. It's the demon national summons. They're 3b2f, sacred with good stats and an alternate ranged attack that's pretty respectable.

Temple Guardians are quite sweet, but hard to thug. Neither F nor B is very bufftastic path and they don't have S for the national buffs, so you'll have to communion to get the ones that count.

It's probably just easier to have them use Phoenix Power and drown your foes in Hellfire . Their mainpurpose is to give easier access to Baa'Lah. Oh, that reminds me, I really need to do that national hellfire spell.

Thanks for the feedback. It's really helpful to see what others think. You can't truly be objective when testing your own mod. These balance tweaks will surely be appreciated in the Alugra MP game, started once I've managed to finishsome old ones. I'll have to remember what's most important though. It's that Alugra is a fun and thematic nation to play.

So have you guys been having fun?

[Radio_Star]

Less astral access on smiths is a good start. You'll wind up with thug-smiths and battle-mage smiths instead of just the one-unit-does all. You'll also have to keep at least a few of the precious astral smiths at home for forging, further reducing the available pool of mobile, battle-magic flinging thugs.

As for GoR'd temple guards, I had the thought of just adding them to the happy reverse communions you're likely to be running instead of trying to self-buff them.

[VedalkenBear]

Burn: Overall, the Gifted have too many paths I think. The issue with 'hidden' mages is that you're giving Alugra both recruitable mages (and reasonable-to-good ones) _and_ LA Ermor-esque 'mage summon chains'. Consider that it costs 7 Astral Pearls, ~40g down plus appropriate upkeep, to get a _fantastic_ mage. I can't think of another spell that can do this, can you? The contenders, I think, would be Spectres (20 death gems), Lamia Queens (rather harsh requirements), or something similar.

Also, I wouldn't worry too much about not being able to do site-search spells, since Alugra is perfectly set up to do Acashic. It even wants to research to a minimum of Conjuration-3 for the Power spells.

Anyway, I'll get right on doing more.

[llamabeast]

I don't think you can compare the gem cost of Alugra's mages with other summonable mages as such, because Alugra is unique in that it has to summon all its mages.

[Burnsaber]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

I don't think you can compare the gem cost of Alugra's mages with other summonable mages as such, because Alugra is unique in that it has to summon all its mages.

Well, you have some recruitable ones. Masters are 230gp S2H2 capital only mages with 200% AEWFSBD picks. If you are lucky you might get some that can cast useful battlespells (like one with S4 or S3D1), but mapmove 1 sucks. Your recruitable everywhere Manifests are 140gp with 1S1H with 120% AEWFSBD. Mostly useful in thug communions.

The recruitable mages can be useful, but pale when compared to the stuff that's available in EA.

Having the mages be 'summonable' is both a curse and a blessing. They cost astral gems (the best gems in the game), which holds the opportunity cost of not casting any Wishes and making the forging of Rings of Sorcery and Wizardy.. quite painful experience. And althought the training spell can be casted anywhere the troops are capital only, making Alugra even more capitol centric*.

It's a blessing in the sense that you can recruit more mages than you actually have forts. It's also pretty useful to "stash" your experienced (like 3 stars or more) gifted units in a special province and have a Master teleport there for some Training. Any gifted unit with 3 stars of exp will make an especially nice thug.

*= If I ever face Alugra in MP, I'd probably rush for a unrest-causing remote spelland spam it on *the* City of Wonders. I once got hit by a full volley of these spells from AI and it nearly crippled me.