Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

[FrankTrollman]

I will say that Abyssia's reduced effects from Death Scales are all bad. They are old and need to find little girls for their powers, so Growth scales are good, but they don't get extra supplies from it.

On the flip side, while they avoid starving from Death scales, they still still suffer the worst effects (increased age effects and reduced blood hunting). That means that they get hosed coming and going.

Abyssia would be happy if their death scale "resistance" was taken away.

-Frank

[PDF]

FrankTrollman said:
I will say that Abyssia's reduced effects from Death Scales are all bad. They are old and need to find little girls for their powers, so Growth scales are good, but they don't get extra supplies from it.

On the flip side, while they avoid starving from Death scales, they still still suffer the worst effects (increased age effects and reduced blood hunting). That means that they get hosed coming and going.

Abyssia would be happy if their death scale "resistance" was taken away.

-Frank

Wouldn'it be simpler to just alleviate old age from Aby mages (ie make them younger)? Still they'd suffer from reduced hunt, but 80 or 120 design points is still no thing to sneer at...

[Nerfix]

That sounds like a plan. Especially Warlock Apperentices and Anathemant Salamanders need to have their age dropped. It's ridiculous that every single one of their mages starts as old. Demonbreds, Anointeds of Rhuax and the latter-day humanbred mages excluded.

[calmon]

Hmm, whats the problem of being old? I tried a test game with abysia. During 2 years noone have died. If they drop old the mages would be more expensive (like the mictlan non-old good mage). Both late Era.

[Nerfix]

In my test games with Abysia, using growth 1 or 0, the mages swiftly racked up afflictions and died.

[Twan]

calmon said:
Hmm, whats the problem of being old? I tried a test game with abysia. During 2 years noone have died.

It's the problem. Short term effects of old age are a pure random factor. With the same nation/settings you can have all your good mages feebleminded or mute in a year or none affected. The aging system is good for long term, but may or not have big consequences in the early game and it's not very good for balance.
The problem is the same for bad random events (in fact the "very bad random events in early game" problem is worse... plague in turn 2 with luck !? ).

[PhilD]

PDF said:
Wouldn'it be simpler to just alleviate old age from Aby mages (ie make them younger)? Still they'd suffer from reduced hunt, but 80 or 120 design points is still no thing to sneer at...

Don't forget that Abysia already get 120 free design points in the form of Heat scales (OK, slightly less than that 'cause they need a strong dominion to push the scales as fast as possible, but still, strong Dom is typically something desirable).

Hmm, actually, this all might be why I'm so bad with Abysia - I like Growth scales, or at least I dislike Death. (The other thing being that I tried it, EA, before I got your patchlike-mod)

[DominionsFan]

Kristoffer O said:
Splendid initiative Zen!

With the new spell mod commands you can have a go at making spells, changing dmg, range, effects, and whatever.


Good luck!

Fantastic! Now we will be able to make really decent mods.

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Disclaimer: I've never played Abysia.

For the record, I like old age. The only additional micromangement old age incurs seems to be that you need to send additional mages along for trips to avoid having the odd army without mage support all of a sudden. Playing Arco, yes, I loose a fair amounts of the old 'ones (crones?), but hey, gold is plentiful, so I just recruit some more. It just means that we won't have those insane stacks of researches hanging around, which I think is a good thing. Also, it makes the younger, less powerful mages more interesting than they were in dom2, where I virtually never hired anything but crones.

As the battlemages... the number of mages should increase along with the number of troops, so no change there. As the number of gems has decreased, the relative costs of battlefield (gemrequiring) spells has increased a bit, so that's alright. It is true that the troop buffs are more powerful now, but then, you can only have so many mages buffs troops.

One thing I would like nerfed a bit is independent archers. They are often better than the nationals, which I find a bit of a shame.

I also looooovvvvveee the new horror mark... makes it possible to bring down any SC if you are willing to sac the mages for it. Perfect!

Also, definitely move the summons around a bit so that the poor value summons are lowered to in path/research requirements and the good one the other way around, so that more summons are useful. I don't have much experience here, though. The only summon I have had any luck with are behemoths and skeletons.

Have fun everyone!

[Nerfix]

Abysia's problem with aging is twofold:

- Almost all mages start as old, even Anathem. Salamanders and Warlock Apperentics
- Abysians have tiny miny lifespans and are old at age of ~32. This makes them to be propotionaly more likely to rack afflictions from old age. Warlocks start with age of 38 IIRC.