Conceptual Balance (Discussion)

[Zen]

Hello old and new friends alike!

I'm sure you were either fearing or wanting this to happen, but I am taking it once more upon myself to put together the Dominions 3 Conceptual Balance mod. I will be waiting until after the first patch to not only see the direction of balance that IW chooses, but to also see the full extent of the modding capabilities.

If you have gripes or concerns about the "Balance" of Dom3, this might be the best place to do so, not only so that good and valuable suggestions can be added to the groupthink of Conceptual Balance, but also to give a good indicator of all *real* issues.

Now remember, Balance is a question of a few things. My concept of balance is for everything to have some sort of use, however minor. And even if it alreay has a use, it fits in line with the cost/efficency that will allow you to use multiple strategies with each nation/era/pretender.

Further, you should know from the CB Mod in Dom2, there are unique balance problems to the Dominions universe and game. A number of these stem from the lategame so you may see some conceptual changes that will make Dom3 less likely as the game progresses to become the "same ol' endgame".

[Ironhawk]

Whoa, zen. Good to see you

[Potatoman]

*applause*


I'd like to see air magic as a random possibility for EA Ry'leh Slave Mages or Mind Lords.
I'd like to see the devastating effect of old age lessened. It feels like old commanders always die off 1-2 years after recruitment, regardless of their actual age. A 1001/1000 aged commander is just as likely to die as a 100/50 aged commander. Also, the whole "Fire magic reduces lifespan" mechanic, while thematically interesting, is too crippling to fire-heavy nations.


Just throwing some ideas on the table.

[Meglobob]

I would like to also request a toning down of old age. I dislike it alot, u spend a huge amount of gold on a powerful mage, only to watch the mage waste away...yea great fun...not.

[Zen]

Just throwing some ideas on the table.



This is the perfect way to go with ideas. I would ask everyone to be cordial, even if you disagree with a change or discussion. Obviously I would prefer that you also have a reason, just like the good Potatoman did, for your thoughts on change. Reasons like "This sucks" will probably be not given as much weight as something with a well thought out reasoning.

Also, please remember that balance will occur first in the things that affect all Ages/Games. This can greatly impact how each nation is played. Dominions 3 is so big that these Mod releases will be done as soon as possible with as much testing as possible to ensure quality.

[Nerfix]

Abysia suffers really excessively from old age.

Some of the not so good pretenders got actually nerfed out of all things. Namely Son of the Sun, both varieties as they lost their Awe, and they weren't that great before. Vampire Queen is useless now. No ethereality, no nothing, 175 point cost. Propably a lot of other things.

[NTJedi]

After several games here are the balance issues I noticed:

1) Eater of the Dead = The price of this creature has doubled(!50_gems!) yet it's effect and value have changed very little. Considering it's very difficult magic path of 4D and 4S, the 50 gem cost, conjuration_8 and the creature eventually turns independent... it needs an overhaul. Approach the change any way you wish, but it would be most interesting if the creature was improved to the point where players would consider the spell. Currently even for 8 astral I doubt anyone would summon the creature... so I say boost the value of the creature.


... at work so the rest will need to wait.

[FrankTrollman]

I have mixed feelings about your Dom2 balance mod. We feel the same about many units, and differ sharply on others. However I think this is a good discussion to have.

Upon entering the game one is presented with Gods. So let's talk about them first:

Drakaina She's a Titan, and she costs 75 with just 2 picks. That's pretty standard territory - but she only has a Dominion of 1. That seems like a bug, because other creatures in that tax bracket (Lord of Fertility, Earth Mother, Son of Niefel) have a Dominon of 2 or 3.

Lord of War Where to start? He's worse than a Cyclops in every meaningful way and the cost savings isn't even there with an Earth Magic of 6+. He isn't even available to positions that don't get a Cyclops. He's just a crap god. He should have a Dominion of 4 or more magic or anything to make him less of a loser.

Titan (Female) She' just not... good. She doesn't do anything and has less magic than a Lady of Fortune who does. You seem to be paying real magic for an Owl, and we know that aint right. She should get better magic in one path or take on a third path. Something. Anything.

And while we're on the subject of those 2 picks 75 cost titans, what is up with them anyway? The cost savings for having a high initial pick in something are really big. Buying a 9 in a path for a god with a 50 pathcost is discounted by 114 points by having a 1 in the path to start with, discounted by 178 for having a 2 to start, and discounted by 234 for starting with a 3.

What does that mean? It means that having a 1 in two paths actually saves you less points than having a 3 in one path if you intend to purchase both up to 9. Getting bonus protection and berserking is cheaper on a Cyclops than it is on an Earth Mother. That means that the characters with 3 in one path (Solar Disc, Cyclops, Prince of Death, Lord of the Sky, etc.) are much better than the guys with 2 picks in one path and one pick in another (Titan, Mother of Serpents, Daughter of the Dawn).

A better split for pretenders like that would be to give them 2 picks in two categories. They'd be meaningfully encouraged to focus on the two categories of magic that they come with. A 2 Nature/2 Death Mother of Serpents would be worth considering to a degree that she really isn't now.

-Frank

[dirtywick]

Hi Zen, we've never spoke so I thought I'd tell you that I liked the mod you made for Dom 2.

I think either Ubas or Bakemono Sorcerors should get at least a 10% chance for an Air pick so Shinuyama can make use of their sacreds a little more effectively. Or at least the little priest guys should get a 100% chance so you can actually find some air sites.

[Nerfix]

Lord of War is economic for Marverni IMO. But it isn't that great on stats, magic etc etc.

Also, one might consider to take a look into Risen Oracle's downright obscene HP.

Also, in EA Vanheim/Helheim are overpowered with their easy to acces to lots of different troops with Glamour.

[Morkilus]

I'd like to see a revisit of the Dom2 CB idea of lesser summons showing up sooner on the resource tree. Also, perhaps archers should be more expensive than infantry (in gold, not resources). After all, it takes more skill to fire an arrow than to run around in armor and get hit with arrows. I often find myself only hiring archers after I get a couple good tanks to protect them, and this just doesn't feel right.

[FrankTrollman]

Lord of War is economic for Marverni IMO. But it isn't that great on stats, magic etc etc.



If your Earth wants to be 6+, a Cyclops costs less points.

If your Fire wants to be 4+ (or 3 with a Dominion of 4+), a Forge Lord is cheaper.

If your Nature wants to be 2+ and you want a Dominion of 4+, a Lord of he Forest is cheaper.

All three of those titans have better stats than the Lord of War and some have better abilities as well. If you weren't interested in stats, then a Great Enchantress is chepaer for almost any set of magical picks and generate magical income.

I have no idea what Maverni could be doing that would involve a Lord of War being economical for anything. It's just a bad god.

-Frank

[FrankTrollman]

Water Magic:

I find Water Mages to be annoyingly useless under water early in the game.

Solution: Why not have Water Strike available at Evocation 0? The indeps are using it from the start of the game, why shouldn't player armies do so as well?

-Frank

[PDF]

Huhu, what about nerfing Horror Mark ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Else :

Agreed on excessive nerfing/cost of VQ.
All the new big "Greek Pantheon" gods are very costly and not that great.
I'm still not convinced with the "human" pretenders, yet they now have the advantage of being easily awake, so it needs more testing/discussion.

Both Air boost items are now A4, it's really hard to have mages able to make them. It means you need base A4 to be able to progress, it's too harsh a requirement. I'd make the Winged Helmet back to A3 and let the bag A4.
All other path have at least one lvl-3 boost or less (including those requiring dual-path).

I have issues with Bless effects, but these aren't moddable...

About archers, it's not that logical that lowly goblinoids make as much damage with a bow that a human or better - after all the bow effectiveness is related to archer strength and skill, as well as bow quality isn't it ?
So why not split the current "bows" in 2-3 categories with different range, prec and damage ?
For example Short Bow could be "inferior" with 8 dam/rg 25, standard at 10/30, or superior at 11/35/+1 prec.

Thus the too-easy hordes of cheap archers will at least be less effective that better, more expensives ones.

Issue is that I'm not sure we can *add* weapons in mods ?

[Zen]

PDF said:
Huhu, what about nerfing Horror Mark ?


Waiting on the first patch to see if this is done for me. If not it will have to be moved on the research tree and cost evaluated.


Issue is that I'm not sure we can *add* weapons in mods ?



Yes, you can. Which is a big part of nation balance. The only command that doesn't work and hasn't for a while is the number of attacks.

[Nerfix]

FrankTrollman said:

Lord of War is economic for Marverni IMO. But it isn't that great on stats, magic etc etc.



If your Earth wants to be 6+, a Cyclops costs less points.

If your Fire wants to be 4+ (or 3 with a Dominion of 4+), a Forge Lord is cheaper.

If your Nature wants to be 2+ and you want a Dominion of 4+, a Lord of he Forest is cheaper.

All three of those titans have better stats than the Lord of War and some have better abilities as well. If you weren't interested in stats, then a Great Enchantress is chepaer for almost any set of magical picks and generate magical income.

I have no idea what Maverni could be doing that would involve a Lord of War being economical for anything. It's just a bad god.

-Frank

Um, no. Lord of War is 75 points cheaper than Forge Lord or Cyclops. At least the last time I checked. =|

[Nerfix]

FrankTrollman said:
Water Magic:

I find Water Mages to be annoyingly useless under water early in the game.

Solution: Why not have Water Strike available at Evocation 0? The indeps are using it from the start of the game, why shouldn't player armies do so as well?

-Frank

Also, move Boil to...like Alteration 2 or 3 and make it Fire 2 Water 1 or perhaps Water 2/3 Fire 1. An underwater only combat spell that has awkward paths and appears at Alteration 6? No thanks.

[FrankTrollman]

Um, no. Lord of War is 75 points cheaper than Forge Lord or Cyclops. At least the last time I checked. =|



It sure is. However, a Forge Lord has an extra point of dominion and a point of Fire Magic. If you have a Fire Magic of 3, that costs your Forge Lord 24 points and your Lord of War 98 points. If you have a dominion of 4 it costs your Forge Lord 7 points and your Lord of War 21 points.

So that's 156 points of Forge Lord and 169 points of Lord of War.

And if the Lord of War gets anything else, the Forge Lord can get it for the same price or less.

It's cut and dried. The Lord of War is crap.

-Frank

[UninspiredName]

I'll second the Vampire Queen and Corpse Eater being boosted, as well as making the seniors take longer to die. Also perhaps have Old Age work by the percentage of the 'in his prime' time period, due to the also-aforementioned '51(50)/1001(1000) issue. Fire boosting aging would probably be much less of a problem itself if aging worked reasonably.

Seduction also feels like it doesn't work nearly often enough. I could swear it's literally impossible to seduce an enemy with the Oriad, though I haven't gotten the chance to try with Succubus. Some even consider it a glitch. Perhaps also add a way for such characters to improve their seduction ability.

EDIT: Also, not sure if this applies, but I could swear the AI will always go for you first before fighting other AIs. Doesn't really make sense.

[The_Tauren13]

A fiend of darkness is about equally strong as a devil. Which is effed up, seeing that devils take a better mage, are more expensive, and higher research.

[UninspiredName]

With one Wish, you can get enough Astral Pearls to make it pay for itself with intrest. This means that one Mage with Wish can cast the spell, for non-pearl reasons, at least once every third turn while losing no astral gems at all. I understand it's level 9, but this strikes me as sort of overpowered. It might be better to prevent wishing for Astral Pearls, or decrease the amount of Pearls you can wish for.

Unless my calculations are wrong, in which case I apologize.

[dirtywick]

UninspiredName said:
With one Wish, you can get enough Astral Pearls to make it pay for itself with intrest. This means that one Mage with Wish can cast the spell, for non-pearl reasons, at least once every third turn while losing no astral gems at all. I understand it's level 9, but this strikes me as sort of overpowered. It might be better to prevent wishing for Astral Pearls, or decrease the amount of Pearls you can wish for.

Unless my calculations are wrong, in which case I apologize.



Just so long as any gems you get are more than what you'd get with Alchemy I think it's fair. After all, genies don't allow you to wish for more wishes http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[alexti]

Zen, it's good you've decided to do this again for Dom3. I greatly appreciated your CB work for Dom2.

I have feeling that in Dom3 there're too many design points (due to dormant option and no need to spend points on fortresses). The indication is that I often find that I have spare points (meaning that I already got everything I need to get the nation working but I still have plenty of points left) that I spend on some minor improvements (like taking awake pretender, just for extra research and earlier searching) or couple of growth scales (extra gold won't hurt even though I'd have enough). That is in contrast with Dom2, where the pretender setup was usually full of difficult compromises. I think there're several contributing factors:
1) There's more money in the world, so it's easier to come up with required amount despite worse scales;
2) Magic scale seems somewhat weaker. +1 research for 80 points? Together with fewer cheap mages Magic+3 seems to offer little advantage over Magic+1;
3) Uber pretenders were somewhat weakened and I think that makes fewer reasons to invest a lot of points into powerful multi-path SC.

This issue is also somewhat related with the bless issues on small (and not-so-small maps).

[Nerfix]

FrankTrollman said:

Um, no. Lord of War is 75 points cheaper than Forge Lord or Cyclops. At least the last time I checked. =|



It sure is. However, a Forge Lord has an extra point of dominion and a point of Fire Magic. If you have a Fire Magic of 3, that costs your Forge Lord 24 points and your Lord of War 98 points. If you have a dominion of 4 it costs your Forge Lord 7 points and your Lord of War 21 points.

So that's 156 points of Forge Lord and 169 points of Lord of War.

And if the Lord of War gets anything else, the Forge Lord can get it for the same price or less.

It's cut and dried. The Lord of War is crap.

-Frank

Why would I want Fire magic? All that Marverni needs is an E4 bless for the druids and good scales the I don't think any pretender does it cheaper to Lord of War.

[B0rsuk]

1. Light cavalry archers

Ok, so it makes sense from realism point of view that cavalry can't shoot bows as accurately as infantry. But there seems to be consensus that light infantry is already poor enough and doesn't have a purpose. Why nerf already overpriced unit with lower precision ? I say make their precision 10 for gameplay's sake. It will at least allow to use 'fire and reatreat' tactic with some success, and enable attrition war. Even with precision10, light cavalry with bows:
- costs much more than regular archers. At least twice as much
- bigger size, bigger targets, you can't pack as much firepower into small area
- bigger size probably means they eat twice as much. Bigger base price means higher upkeep cost, as well (correct me if I'm wrong)
- if I wanted archers with acceptable melee ability, I'd take indy archers 10/8, ones with shortbow, short sword, ring mail. 8 morale, but still.
- only advantage light cavalry has is speed, and speed is not THAT big advantage on Dominions battlefield. I think both flyers and heavy cavalry on flank are better for attacking commanders.
... so light cavalry deserves something to make it useful. Even leaving precision out of this, it's already much worse at archery. Increase in precision could be justified by saying they shoot only when all horse's hooves are above earth, or stop before shooting ,etc.

2. I understand reasons for nerving independent mages(to make nationals more important), but they're somewhat too pricey for what they do. Is it intentional ? Two examples (can't remember name) - 1N 1H 10% random mage costs 180 gold. Crystal Sorceress - 1A 1S 10%random costs 180 gold, too. I would decrease the price for many indy mages by 20. Or are they intentionally overpriced ? Is Forest Survival sooo valuable or what ?

3. Slings (damage) aren't affected by strength. Why ? If slings were changed to be affected by strenth, perhaps Blood bless would be marginally more useful, althrough I can't think of a single holy unit with sling. Or are slings already too powerful ?

4. Air9 bless. It certainly has its uses, but they're very narrow. Niche, tricky, combo-ish. Air9 bless basically requires a combo to work. Some people probably are attached to it, but how about replacing Air9 bonus with +2 precision ? I'd be afraid to make it any bigger. But people would have much more to choose from. Precision would help mages as well as archers. I don't think it would overpower archers, because you can't mass sacred archers so easily. Alternatively, it would make a little bit of sense to replace shock resistance with poison resistance (fumes, breath etc; air could help with that). Poison attacks are much more common.
My goal should be clear: not to make air bless simply stronger, but rather give it more general purpose.

[Nerfix]

The_Tauren13 said:
A fiend of darkness is about equally strong as a devil. Which is effed up, seeing that devils take a better mage, are more expensive, and higher research.

Devils are Fire Immune, have a Heat Aura and get a 7 dmh Trident for the extra cost of what, 2-3 blood slave?

[KissBlade]

Heh Zen, I think you know my issues about dom III. Celestial Masters s2 and no old age across the board. Also maybe have mid age TC be able to do something battlemage wise. Make spears not suck. Order scales is too good. ABYSIA NEEDS HELP. I'll think of more sometimes. =)

[Endoperez]

Zen - I hope you don't mind me commenting on these suggestions. Also, as Potatoman said, *applause*. I Wish you Luck on your quest. /threads/images/Graemlins/icon23.gif




Potatoman said:
A 1001/1000 aged commander is just as likely to die as a 100/50 aged commander.




Actually, this isn't the case. A commander with 1000 maxage is less likely to die than a maxage 50 commander, regardless of how big maluses they get from old age. 10 000/500 commander is less likely to get an affliction than a 32/28 commander. Of course, the first might actually be close to dying from the age percentage malus to HP.




FrankTrollman said:

Drakaina

Lord of War

Titan (Female)



Drakaina is a monster. In Dom3, monsters like Dragons and Drakaina get Dominion of only 1. So there's a reason for it, but the reason isn't enough to keep anyone from changing it if it doesn't work.

I'd like to see Lord of War as a Nataraja equivalent: 0 cost chassis, with perhaps 40-point paths. You could take ANY path, but not high. Water for defense and Quickness, or Earth for some protection and Earth Power/reinvigoration, etc.

Female Titan is an excellent warrior, with attack and defense of 15. This is very good. However, she actually has fewer hitpoints than other size 6 titans, both male and female. Her Owl is a nice addition, because Length 6 #bonus attack gives her a chance of Repel regardless of her actual weapons. However, she has Nature and Astral, neither of which are good paths for a warrior. Astral makes her weak against Magic Duel, and I don't think she's available to any non-Astral nations, while Nature only gives Regeneration, forcing her to Enchantment. If she had a (new) helmet called Magic Crown or Magic Tiara as a helmet, she'd only need some armor, and if she had Water instead of either Nature or Astral, or Astral 2/3 instead of Nature, she'd be better.

Also, even while it's true that it's easier to take high level magic with expensive pretender that starts with more magic in a path, levels 9 and 6 aren't always needed. For combat pretenders, another path at just 3-4 might be good enough, and for e.g. weak Air nation A4 is actually a very nice choice (see below).


Son of the Sun was also mentioned. The S1 version, at least, could benefit from beings S2-3 and 75 points instead of S1 and 50 points. If he had some other path instead of Astral, he could be used as a combatant, but Astral makes him vulnerable.





PDF said:
1) Huhu, what about nerfing Horror Mark ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

2) Both Air boost items are now A4, it's really hard to have mages able to make them. It means you need base A4 to be able to progress, it's too harsh a requirement.

3) I have issues with Bless effects, but these aren't moddable...

4) About archers, it's not that logical that lowly goblinoids make as much damage with a bow that a human or better - after all the bow effectiveness is related to archer strength and skill, as well as bow quality isn't it ?

Thus the too-easy hordes of cheap archers will at least be less effective that better, more expensives ones.

Issue is that I'm not sure we can *add* weapons in mods?



1) Horror Mark isn't the problem, but Horrors with Horror Marking attacks, and the fact that Doom Horror attacks are currently too common. When weapons can be #cleared, I'll do a test mod which removes Horror Mark effect from all Horrors' attacks. I'll try if adding another #specialeffect or #specialeffectalways works, or if the horror mark effect of their attacks can be made resistable, or something.

2) There are two Air boosters that only require Air, and both are available at Constr 4. At that level, Water has one booster, Robe of the Sea. Fire has one, Flame Helmet, which isn't good in battles. Earth, Death and Nature have good and cheap boosters, but Earth has no boosters after that, and Nature only Treelord's Staff at Nat 5. Death has Skullface, which is good. Blood has access to three boosters at this point, but Armor of Souls requires Blood 5, Blood Stone some Earth and Brazen Vessel Blood 4.

In short, Air is different, but not much worse than other. One Air 4 mage can forge two boosters, and then even an Air 2 can forge more, and the hand slots are left free for a Dwarven Hammer if you can get your hands on one.


3) This is a very good point. Bless effects cannot be modded. While it's nice to throw ideas around, don't expect anything to happen via the Conceptual Balance mod.

4) Why would Goblinoids be inferior to humans? I think you mean Bakemonos with this. They are size 2, as humans, and some kind of lowly demons.
Dominions doesn't model hit locations, so archer's skill doesn't affect damage. Currently, Precision is the only stat that affects archers. It's good enough, of course, and Precision could differentiate different archers from each other, but why should independent human archers be made more viable instead of national ones?

Also, weapons can be added, but currently not #cleared. This means that weapons' damage can be changed, but it can be impossible to change some of their features, including #nostr.




UninspiredName said:
With one Wish, you can get enough Astral Pearls to make it pay for itself with intrest.

Unless my calculations are wrong, in which case I apologize.



A Wish for gems gives amount of pearls that can be almost alchemized back into 100 pearls. 97 pearls and 1 gem in each of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Nature, Death. With two Wishes, you could alchemize it back into 200 pearls. It'd ONLY be profitable if you had Alteration bonus site.






B0rsuk said:
1. Light cavalry archers

-prec to 10
- if I wanted archers with acceptable melee ability, I'd take indy archers 10/8, ones with shortbow, short sword, ring mail. 8 morale, but still.
- only advantage light cavalry has is speed, and speed is not THAT big advantage on Dominions battlefield. I think both flyers and heavy cavalry on flank are better for attacking commanders.

2. independent mages - Is it intentional ?

3. Slings (damage) aren't affected by strength. Why ? If slings were changed to be affected by strenth, perhaps Blood bless would be marginally more useful, althrough I can't think of a single holy unit with sling. Or are slings already too powerful ?




1 - Ligh Cavalry.
Their movement bonus isn't as good as it could be, because most archers of the various tribes have mapmove 2, and some of them have one or several terrain survival abilities. If all independent, non-mounted archers had mapmove 1, Light Cavalry would have some use.
There is more gold in circulation, so LC could be afforded when ANY archers are better than no archers.
LC should be better in battle than LI or archers. Light Lance would help, but that'd make Tien Chi LC weaker when compared to normal indy LC.

2 - Indy mages
Random picks were made more rare, and new paths from independent mages were made more rare. It's inentional.

3 - Slings
There isn't a #clear command for weapons yet. If there was, I'd mod slings so that they deal the same damage when used by str 10 units, more with higher strength, make normal slingers a bit cheaper, and make some slingers Elite with 12 gp cost and str 12, precision 13 (still lowered by sling's negative prec - they're hard to use properly). I'm still considering whether or not their range should be few grids more than for shortbows or not. I wouldn't mind my idea being incorporated into CB mod.

[B0rsuk]

My complaint about indy mages isn't that they're too weak, but that they're somewhat too expensive for what they do. I know they're meant to be weaker, but why make them so pricey ?

Crystal Sorceress (indy)
180 gold 5 res
shortbow, prec 14
mapmove 2
1A 1S 10% random
Other stats don't really matter, but generally lower (other than precision)

Gutuater (Marverni)
120 gold 1 res
1N 1H 100%random
prec 11
mapmove2 + forest survival
can perform blood sacrifices
Many stats, including attack, defence, morale higher than those of Crystal Sorceress

I'm fine with quality, but somewhat confused by price. Now they're not worth buying unless you really need some obscure item forged,
Hmm. I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.

[Twan]

About pretenders I'd like to see more misc slots added to the actually very weak ones (and/or perhaps some 1 in one path become 2) like it was done for dom2.

I also think that indie mages and shamans are overpriced (the question is less if it's intentional but if it's a good idea if you want to have all units useful ; in most paths 1 isn't sufficient to make a booster and diversity doesn't really worth to pay 180++ gold for a -sometimes old- mage you'll have to empower anyway).

For light cavalry I would reduce the price instead of making it more effective (say 15-18 gp if the standard archers stay at 10). Reducing the cost would make fast defensive armies (sufficiently big to inflict signifiant casualties to a normal one) a viable strategy without reducing the friendly fire if you use light cavalry as a reinforcement for other troops.

I think the price of light infantry should be reduced a little too (say worse militia 5-6, ultralight/tribesmen/light without javelins 7, most light 8). With more ressources to build heavies the light troops become even more useless than in dom 2 (of course you have more gold, but who will make prot 6 soldiers instead of keeping it for castles and mages ?). And reducing prices for weak units is globally a better idea IMO than raising prices for usefull ones, as it gives more utility to national leaders (with smaller armies the actually rarely used generals would never be used).

PS : about horror marking I also support a big nerf. As it is you just need 3-4 S2 mages, a level 1 research and about 20 gems, to condemn a SC to chain death (see the sad story of my pretender here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=dom3&Number=460590&Forum=f 187,f194,f195&Words=horror&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&M ain=460483&Search=true&where=sub&Name=&daterange=1 &newerval=5&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyp rev=#Post460590))

[Peter Ebbesen]

B0rsuk said:
My complaint about indy mages isn't that they're too weak, but that they're somewhat too expensive for what they do. I know they're meant to be weaker, but why make them so pricey ?



1) Because they are ways for nations without access to the paths that the indy mages have to actually get access. Gaining access to paths that your nation is not "thematically" supposed to focus on has got to be expensive.

2) Because, if you already have national mages that can do what the indy mages can do, it is preferable from a game perspective, as well as more fun in the long run, if the "profitable" thing to do is to use your national mages. More differentiation between nations that way, when they don't all run around recruiting the same independents.

For both reasons it is without shadow of a doubt better that independent mages are both more expensive than equivalent (low-powered) national mages and less powerful than the powerful national mages. In other words, it is best if they "suck" in all situations but one: namely the one in which you really need their sort of magic.

[Nerfix]

Twan said:PS : about horror marking I also support a big nerf. As it is you just need 3-4 S2 mages, a level 1 research and about 20 gems, to condemn a SC to chain death (see the sad story of my pretender here (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=dom3&Number=460590&Forum=f 187,f194,f195&Words=horror&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&M ain=460483&Search=true&where=sub&Name=&daterange=1 &newerval=5&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyp rev=#Post460590))

I quite like the Horror Mark as it makes people think more than 0 times before they roll out an SC.

Then again, I also understand the concerns about it's power. Perhaps the Thaum 1 spell should be MR resistable (vaguely useful before Antimagic items are mass-produced) and there could be a higher-level Horror Mark that can't be resisted by MR. A Blood/astral Horror Mark spell would also be funky.

But then again, you can't create new spells. Saddness.

[PDF]

Agreed on the ideas on
Lt Cav : it's hopeless at current prices. Either some more prec or some less gold, or a mix of both

Indy mages are very crappy now, expensive and weak. One of the other could be ok but not both...I'd rather go for somewhat boost them (50% path instead of 10 for example....) rather than making them cheaper but useless anyway !

@Endo
About archers I don't ask to have better "humans" or whatever race, my idea would be to have more variety and balance amongst archers where current only difference is prec.
So creating new bow "sub types" (inferior shortbow, etc..) could help differentiating poor troops such as Atavi or Bakemoni vs better ones, be they Ulmish or whatever.

[Nerfix]

We do get Small Bows now... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

And Bakemono Archer's usefulness isn't related to the power of their bows but the sheer affordability. Cheap price = Volume of fire + easy acces to Flaming Arrows = Mass Destruction.

[Gandalf Parker]

I havent read thru all of this thread but...
my peoblem with balance mods is that they tend to balance toward one persons playing style. One persons balance of Pangaea is to make it more like LA Ulm (armored, using more resources, more able to fight an Ulm army of equal size) while if I were ever interested in "balancing" Ulm to Pangaea Id make it less armored, less use of resources, add more stealth and give them flying units. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But Zen has done great work in the past so I will wait and see what comes from this.

Gandalf Parker

[Nerfix]

Another thing is that EA Van/Hel units should propably cost more resources, at least Helhirdlings. IIRC those units even use magic armor, so it could be even justified (other than them being too easily massable now). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

And Ulm, hmmmm, I think the randoms on the smiths should be 25% instead of the 10% we get now. Ulm is not supposed to be a mage power, but even in the rank of mago-phobic empires (LA Man, Marignon etc etc) they are really weak on the mage departament and while the randoms are interesting the 10% chance to get them is a consolation prize. I'd add capital only Grandmaster Smiths who get a 100% random, but that's just me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Reverend Zombie]

This might warrant a separate thread, but there are commanders with special default ranged weapons that they lose when equipped with melee items. I'd like to see the #bonus tag added to the Lord of the Summer Plague's Plague Bow and to the Harbinger's Horn, so that they are not forced to use "fist" in melee if we want them to use their ranged weapon.

[Zen]

Reverend Zombie said:
This might warrant a separate thread, but there are commanders with special default ranged weapons that they lose when equipped with melee items. I'd like to see the #bonus tag added to the Lord of the Summer Plague's Plague Bow and to the Harbinger's Horn, so that they are not forced to use "fist" in melee if we want them to use their ranged weapon.



This is something I will be doing as well. There are a number of commanders with wierd slot problems. They are easy enough to fix.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
I havent read thru all of this thread but...
my peoblem with balance mods is that they tend to balance toward one persons playing style.



Well, one thing to remember is that it's almost always possible to force somebody to have to deal with your large, powerful army. Siege a castle, and unless they break the siege, they'll lose that castle, and give you a recruiting centre right in their empire. If a nation can't deal with a frontal assault by the troops of another nation, there's likely a balance problem, as you can't guarantee that every battle will be fought on your terms.

[Shovah32]

Heres another request:
Improve the national (marignon and pythium) spell heavenly choir, the commander it gives you (seraph) is amazing but the troops are really bad (magicless harbingers suck except vrs undead and angels of the choir just plain suck).

[Twan]

A general impression about magical balance : with the new spell ranges, size of armies etc... Elemental magic (except earth thanks to summons in addition to good battle spells) has become weaker outside of spells affecting the entire battlefield (which cost gems and generally need old mages to be used... and old fire mages don't last long). I don't know if it's bad for the balance between nations or a part of a new one, but my impression is : having earth or death magic is more useful than fire/water/air with the dom3 settings as common artillery spells don't have the same power (fewer/more expensive mages against bigger armies) and all magics have good end game battle spells. Also water with quickness and clam hoarding nerfed may need more utility for non-cold non-aquatic nations (Ct'is miasma ie... the former kings of quickened skeleton-spaming http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

Don't know if I'm right and if it's worth doing lots of changes at this stage (to wait for some finished big games is probably better) but making the death(+astral) and earth good battle spells harder to cast may make the paths giving fewer summons more attractive (or perhaps making the rare fire and air summons better/cheaper) ; and water magic desserves some attention too.

[Zen]

Gandalf Parker said:
I havent read thru all of this thread but...
my peoblem with balance mods is that they tend to balance toward one persons playing style. One persons balance of Pangaea is to make it more like LA Ulm (armored, using more resources, more able to fight an Ulm army of equal size) while if I were ever interested in "balancing" Ulm to Pangaea Id make it less armored, less use of resources, add more stealth and give them flying units. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Well, it may have been you didn't ever use the CB mod for Dom2, but it's intention was never to create the same playing style for all nations, but rather allow more choices for each and every scale/nation/pretender/spellpath/item.

Obviously everyone will have to wait for the first version of the Mod to make a conclusion in either direction, but I can tell you my intention is to allow every style of play effective use.

[Shovah32]

@Twan:
Do you really think elemental magic has been nerfed? Fire magic (other than old age problems) is great, plenty of high damage AP spells with good AoEs (and later on pillar of fire is amazing) although the summons and items arent great.

Water isnt too great (dosnt have much in the way of summons or items either) but quickness is a very useful buff and falling frost and frozen heart are great battle spells

Air is pretty hard to defend. It has very nice battlefield buffs and some battle summons but almost all its battle magic, while having good precision and damage, just cant hit enough units.

[dirtywick]

Shovah32 said:
Air is pretty hard to defend. It has very nice battlefield buffs and some battle summons but almost all its battle magic, while having good precision and damage, just cant hit enough units.



Air has some of the best items in the game, and a couple of nice global spells too, but it really shines in self buffs.

[Shovah32]

Winged shoes, chainmail of displacement, tempest and what? None really come to mind (although yes, the globals are nice and the buffs are even better)

[dirtywick]

Spirit Helm, Barrel of Air, Amulet/Robe of Missile Protection, Weightless Shileds, Eye of Aiming, Bow of War, Thunder Bow, Flying Carpet, I guess that's about it and some of them are debatable but it's definately better than a lot of other schools items, like Fire or Earth.

ETA: Owl Quills too http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Shovah32]

Apart from a bow of war on some cheap commander for extra oomph or maybe some of the breathing items i wouldnt really consider them to be the best of items but to each his own i guess.

[dirtywick]

Shovah32 said:
Apart from a bow of war on some cheap commander for extra oomph or maybe some of the breathing items i wouldnt really consider them to be the best of items but to each his own i guess.



What I mean is you get a lot of the better items at all research levels in the game using Air. I guess they're not the best items for building the ultimate unit, but at Const 6 and below especially Air offers a lot of good items for a lot of your units.

My fault though, "best" was bad word choice initially.

[Cainehill]

And hopefully there'll once again be an early version that simply deals with the pretenders - those are the least debatable, as there are simply way too many pretenders that one would never choose because there's another that's much much better for the same cost, and other pretenders that are once again no-brainers because they're so great for the cost.

So, some balancing of the pretenders could come fairly quickly, while other things (units, magic, etc) might warrant more play and analysis.

[Twan]

I don't want to hijack the thread with my impressions so I'll stop after this explanation.

My analysis was mostly based on common/no gem consuming battle magic. With the kind of very big armies you encounter in dom 3 (at least in sp against mighty+ AIs, as my mp games are around turn 10 I can't say how players will use their extra gold, perhaps armies in mp games will stay closer to what they were in dom2), a spell like pillar of fire (aoe 1) is not that good (especially with precision 0, and your nation perhaps not having access to precision buffs), as well as all lower levels elemental damage spells (falling fire/frost with their bigger AoE being the most useful).

In a battle between two 300+ soldiers armies, to use an earth buff spell with all the AoE full of troops (say legion of steel, SoG etc...) looks better than to make a little hole in ennemy ranks with an AoE 1 spell of air or fire (spell you have with the same path and research level and not using gems). And in early era, earth is also one of the best schools for killing armies (blade wind power).

But as the new army sizes make spells affecting the entire battlefield more powerful too, the balance may be preserved after mid game, especially in mp games. So better to forget my message after all.

[FrankTrollman]

Spells like Firebolt are actually much better now that your opponents come in really big piles. A little deviation no longer counts as a miss, it still nails someone. Little Witchdoctors with fire magic dumping firedarts and the like kill many more people than they used to. The relative effect of this may be smaller, but the absolute effect is larger. And since Witch Doctors haven't changed much in price, that means that their fire pokeys are more meaningful per pound of gold spent.

It will take a lot more analysis before I could tell you if a fire mage is "worth it" now, but changes in the base gamemechanics have made him a bit better over all I think.

-Frank

[Zen]

Twan said:
I don't want to hijack the thread with my impressions so I'll stop after this explanation.



No need to fear that. Don't stop unless you want to.


My analysis was mostly based on common/no gem consuming battle magic. With the kind of very big armies you encounter in dom 3 (at least in sp against mighty+ AIs, as my mp games are around turn 10 I can't say how players will use their extra gold, perhaps armies in mp games will stay closer to what they were in dom2), a spell like pillar of fire (aoe 1) is not that good (especially with precision 0, and your nation perhaps not having access to precision buffs), as well as all lower levels elemental damage spells (falling fire/frost with their bigger AoE being the most useful).



This is true to a very large extent. However, you have to also consider the path of the spells. 2Fire for Pillar of Fire makes all low-end casters able to put holes in the opposing army. Assuming you are dealing with human sized creatures (Size 2), you will kill 3 units per turn, per casting. With 10 F2 mages casting Pillar you will be killing 30 units (20 if cavalry) a turn (10% of the force).

I'm not saying these spells don't need to be looked at, because they do, but lowpath spells like Frozen Heart/Ice Strike/PoF that have visible results with lowpath casters are a nice addition. Unfortunately you usually have to wait 7-8 research levels.

Magic for the mostpart in Dom3 has much less of an earlygame impact and hold consistant to the midgame then comes full force in the lategame. Definitely something I am waiting to see the full spellmodding capabilities to address. Especially considering the nature of "magetime" or RP's being a huge factor of balance.

[Gandalf Parker]

Graeme Dice said:

Gandalf Parker said:
I havent read thru all of this thread but...
my peoblem with balance mods is that they tend to balance toward one persons playing style.



Well, one thing to remember is that it's almost always possible to force somebody to have to deal with your large, powerful army. Siege a castle, and unless they break the siege, they'll lose that castle, and give you a recruiting centre right in their empire. If a nation can't deal with a frontal assault by the troops of another nation, there's likely a balance problem, as you can't guarantee that every battle will be fought on your terms.



Actually Ive successfully played MP games where I lost my castle fairly early in the game. Not on a small 2-player map but mid-sized with 3 players and up its not impossible.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Zen said:
This is something I will be doing as well. There are a number of commanders with wierd slot problems. They are easy enough to fix.


In that case it might be good to report those slot problems in the bug thread as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I'm sure that some of them have been reported but many more bugs of that type (and some of them definitely qualify as bugs, not preference) come to the surface when one systematically mods a game than arise in random bug reports. Doesn't guarantee that the dynamic duo of amateur developers will actually fix it, but who knows? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shovah32]

Also, remember that along with doing huge AoE1 damage pillar of fire can set many other units on fire.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Here is a suggestion for improving light calvary. It makes sense that light calvary has lower precision values. But because they are on fast horses they should also be a lot harder to be hit by arrows in return. The easiest way to do that would be to give them an automatic air shield. If there defense isn't high enough, that could get raised as well. Light calvary then would still be less effective at straight archery then archers, but at the same time they would be much harder to kill. Plus they have the speed advantage. You would be able to do hit and runs with them, and use them as light calvary are meant to be used.

[curtadams]

When people talk about what's happened to battlemages you can't neglect the improved AI. All ranged units target noticeably better than they used to, and cause much less friendly fire damage, so you get more "bang for your buck" for battlemages. The flip is that most of the gain comes when battlemages combine with a meaningful groundpounder army. That encourages combined arms - which I think was a goal of the redesign. But, boy, even a little artillery makes quite the difference.

I doubt the aging system can be modded. Starting ages probably will be moddable and that obviously can fix most problems. If you can mod the mechanism, a good calc for deterioration chance which is based on how organisms age in the real world is 100/years to get old)*2^(age-(years to get old) (possibly with a scaling factor - I can't test). It captures the exponential harm from aging and the slower exponential growth for long-lived species.

IMO workhorse mages - researchers, some forgers, and artillery mages - shouldn't start old unless there's an important game balance or thematic reason. It's just too much of a micro hassle - I was going bonkers with my Witch Hunters in MA Marignon and I understand Pythium and Arco at least are similar and Abyssia worse. IMO if LA mages are supposed to be really weak it's better to nerf workhorse mages rather than make them old. I'm OK with top rank mages being old - I can stand having to pay attention to each one of them.

[Graeme Dice]

Gandalf Parker said:
Actually Ive successfully played MP games where I lost my castle fairly early in the game. Not on a small 2-player map but mid-sized with 3 players and up its not impossible.



I can definetly see that happening, especially if you make a good last stand in your castle, then can manage to convince one of your enemies neighbours to attack the guy who just took over your castle. Or you can sue for peace and create a game-long allience. One of my favourite games was one where I took over for Zen's Abysia, and worked with his Pangaean ally (Sorry, but I forgot who was playing that nation.) that he had nearly defeated early on. Pangaea's earth mages, and his ability to make fever fetishes combined to make both of our armies much stronger than they ever would have been otherwise.

[PDF]

Shovah32 said:
Also, remember that along with doing huge AoE1 damage pillar of fire can set many other units on fire.



Yes, but in midgame where you wont'see Pillars but rather Fireballs, Fire Clouds or Falling Fires, all things equal a given number of Fire mages will be *less* effective than they were in Dom2 because they'll face 2x the number of troops ! Same for Air, and to a lesser extent Earth.
Later in game the BF area spells make Elem magic rules again.

[dirtywick]

In any case, I thought mages were supposed to be less dominant in Dom 3 than Dom 2.

[KissBlade]

Shovah32 said:
Winged shoes, chainmail of displacement, tempest and what? None really come to mind (although yes, the globals are nice and the buffs are even better)



staff of storms, spirit helms, shield of valor =) To be honest, air gems are quite awesome but globals isn't one of them. I don't think I've casted a single air global beyond the temptation at times to save up for gale gate.

[Shovah32]

Ive cast air globals a few times, i would use them more if i played air nations. I dont use staff's of storms often and i find spirit helms too costly but i agree shields of valor are rather kickass.

[dirtywick]

Fata Morgana looks good on paper, increases income by lowering unrest and gives your PD a huge boost. I've never actually cast it that I can recall, but it seems like a better version of Mechanical Militia.

[Frostmourne27]

I am unsure if this is really a balance complaint, but some of the supposedly strong mages are kinda crappy. Things like Celestial Masters. Ignoring the fact that they drop like flies to magic duel, The fact that they have a lot of magic isn't all that relevant. Their magic being spread out over so many paths means that they are unable to cast any high level spells, and unable to even forge boosters, except for water bracelets, and a few two path boosters. Similarly, Eagle Kings. What is with the earth magic? unless it's free, why would you EVER want to have it? Air 4 is good enough thank you. They can cast flying shards. Wheee! Oh, Wait! They can cast orb lightning and shoot 4 bolts. Nevermind. They can't even forge earth boots. It's not that eagle kings suck (they don't - air 4 is awesome) but that they seems, at least to me, to be overpriced, since they pay for something that is totally worthless. Also, their magic is a bit weird, aren't they supposed to be high mages of the storms? Or weather? Or something like that? And what about mind lords? Ok, enslave mind as an attack is cool, but it's not really all that usefull, and I'm pretty sure it's not free. It's not bad if you order them to quicken and fire, but if you want to cast with them, which I think is what most people will do, it's not great, especially since you need more then one to be truely effective. Yeah, like you can spam capital only 420 gold mages.
I've been playing Dom3 one nation at a time, so my observations are limited to a few races, but I think that they are fairly accurate. I'm not entirely sure whether paying extra for things you don't need is bad for balance, but it certainly seems that way to me.

[dirtywick]

Having multiple low paths opens up site searching for gems and eventually empowerment so you can forge boosters. Of course, then you run into problems when your scripting runs out and they start casting oddball buffs instead of better spells. It's not totally useless and IMO it's better to have it than not even if you have to pay a little more.

[alexti]

My thought on "power of magic" by Twan and Zen's response.

The size of armies increased, but not because of units being cheaper, but because of more gold in the world. That means number of mages increases proportionally as well. And due to large armies, penalty for low precision is somewhat reduced.

The less effect of magic in early-mid game is more related to slower research, I think (in early game it's also related to the cost of setting up extra forts and labs).

In the late game more mage means more equipment for them (considering that you can't siege anything without being flamed/frozen/rain-of-stoned or lightning bombed and few mages can survive those without protection). However, amount of magic gems has not been increased, so it makes harder to use battlefield mages in the later game. Those are my projections, I haven't yet played late game vs human opponent.

[PDF]

dirtywick said:
Having multiple low paths opens up site searching for gems and eventually empowerment so you can forge boosters...



It's not true anymore in Dom3 : the "pure" Fire and Air boosters are at level 4 now, and Elem Staves also are at level 4.
So no way for CM to get at them...

[dirtywick]

PDF said:

dirtywick said:
Having multiple low paths opens up site searching for gems and eventually empowerment so you can forge boosters...



It's not true anymore in Dom3 : the "pure" Fire and Air boosters are at level 4 now, and Elem Staves also are at level 4.
So no way for CM to get at them...



Well, you'd have to empower them quite a bit, but at least you can find the gems to do so if you find it that important.

[KissBlade]

LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.

[dirtywick]

KissBlade said:
LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.



heh. It's your gems.

[Endoperez]

KissBlade said:
LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.



EA Tien Chi has 1/4 chance of getting a F2 Celestial Master, and 1/4 chance of getting F1D1 Celestial Master. Skull of Fire is a Fire booster. It wouldn't be 100 gems, and it wouldn't be just one mage. One empower and one Skull of Fire would let the lucky one forge boosters for the rest of the Celestial Masters. Of course, there's not really need for that, as 1/4 Celestial Masters have F2 and can both cast Phoenix Power without gems AND use a Skull of Fire.

EA Tien Chi also has Masters of the Five Elements, of course.

Other eras of Tien Chi don't have Fire, even as randoms.



MA Tien Chi doesn't have any Earth randoms. That's bad. It might also be a bug, because LA Tien Chi Celestial Masters DO have an Earth random, even though they don't have an Earth pick.
However, if one of the Celestial Masters is empowered to Earth 2 (30 gems), he can forge Earth Boots, and Dwarven Hammer with the boots.

LA Tien Chi has access to D2, E2 and N2, but not 3 in any one of these. They also have access to what MA Tien had: A2 and S2 via 100% randoms and W2 without random. The only thing MA Tien Chi has in addition is an E1 pick on the Celestial Masters, which is worse than being able to recruit E2D1 mages from all your castles, and access to W3 via a 100% random instead of just 10% random.

Tien Chi can't forge Air boosters. They can forge Astral boosters (Starshine Skullcap). With Skullcap, an E2 Celestial Master can forge Crystal Coins. Tien Chi can forge both Water boosters. Empowerment lets a Celestial Master forge Thistle Maces, and with N3S1 they can make a further Moonvine Bracelet.

Single empowerment can still be worth it for Tien Chi. However, it seems MA Tien Chi is very, very weak magic-wise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Nerfix]

MA Tien needs at least to get Earth randoms. Then we can at least open a way for them to use Gifts from Heaven.

[Cainehill]

Endoperez said:
LA Tien Chi has access to D2, E2 and N2, but not 3 in any one of these. They also have access to what MA Tien had: A2 and S2 via 100% randoms and W2 without random. The only thing MA Tien Chi has in addition is an E1 pick on the Celestial Masters, which is worse than being able to recruit E2D1 mages from all your castles, and access to W3 via a 100% random instead of just 10% random.




Seems odd (and is definately frustrating) that LA TC's randoms can never go on the mages strengths. (D2 can't get D, E2 can't get E, etc.) Also that the one mage who starts with N2 - gets a nice extra 50 years of age, to ensure that he's dying despite having N2. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[curtadams]

Celestial masters aren't good battlemages but they are still great units. Battlemages want high ratings in single paths rather than a wide range of paths, because of the way spells get better with higher path ratings and the limited ability to use spell diversity. However, they are excellent site-searchers, good forgers, and are good at casting the excellent Tien Chi specialist summons. You can also often boost individuals to cast hard-to-access multipath spells. Having access to them is an excellent boost to Tien Chi even if you don't want a bank of them doing artillery work.

[Kristoffer O]

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!

[NTJedi]

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!



Yes, based on the last patch progress report the 3.01 patch is almost ready.
Looks like I'll take Friday as a day off from work.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[B0rsuk]

Is no one else insane enough to think about Summon Hellpower on Celestial Masters ?

[Nerfix]

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!

You...can!!?? OMU, does this mean that I can make my Astral 1 Blood 1 Astral Taint that causes Horror Marks??

[KissBlade]

Endoperez said:

KissBlade said:
LoL, yeah. Congrats for spending 100 gems to be able to cast Falling Fire with ... one mage. Oh look he died to magic duel.




Single empowerment can still be worth it for Tien Chi. However, it seems MA Tien Chi is very, very weak magic-wise. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



Was referring to this actually to be specific. I'm well aware of S&A's CM's I assure you. I have no real complaints about LA CM's and the only qualm about EA CM is that they start with old age and s1.

[Teraswaerto]

About old age, it seems that growth scale has a big effect. In a few demo games I've had many old people without any afflictions for the entire 40 turns with growth 3.

It seems growth scale is much more useful now, and that's a good thing, right? Of course, some things like Abysia probably could use some fiddling with but you shouldn't be too quick to just throw old age out.

[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 !? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ).

[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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

[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.

[JaydedOne]

Nerfix said:
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.



From what I recall from this weekend's game in which I played Abysia, the lower-ranked Abysian priests, the Warlock Apprentices, and the Annointed of Rhuax all begin "young". You can't say "almost all" when a full half of them don't. The choice in that nation is a hard one -- you can choose cheaper, weaker versions of each type of mage/priest without old age or you can choose more expensive, old units. The Annointed is the exception and comes with his own issue (i.e. his size, which makes him a target for AI scripting.)

[Nerfix]

Let me fire up the game and check...

Yes, you are correct, but A. Salamanders have age of 28(33) and will occasionaly start with old age. So that leaves us with Blood 1 Warlock Apperentices and the 440 Gold Anointeds of Rhuax as the only reliably young mages. Anointeds are great though.

This is EA Abysia. Let me see the other ages...

[Nerfix]

MA Abysia's A. Salamanders start Old with the age of 34(33). Their Warlock Apperentices also start Old with age of 35(35)...Their only reliable young mage is the Demonbred.

Late Era Abysia, I think that the Newst and Sanguine Apperentices are only ones who don't start as Old.

[JaydedOne]

Yeah, I agree that their old age might be a bit overboard, especially with the Death Resistance that I saw discussed earlier and the way it minimizes the use of the Growth scale to protect against. I know that some part of me was wondering why I was investing so heavily in mages when a full half of them were going to die sooner than later.

The other downside there is that Abysia really is an inflexible nation in terms of unit choices. Really, what else are you supposed to buy if NOT their mages?

[Nerfix]

Demonbreds (who are good) and, uh, Newts and Sanguine Acos who can cast, errrr, Combustion and Bleed... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[B0rsuk]

If I'm not mistaken, Fire path substracts exactly 5 years per level from max age. Demo doesn't let me examine Abysia unless I play against it...

[Nerfix]

Perhaps Fire magic is one reason for Abysia's age craziness, I'm not sure.

[dirtywick]

Aging with Abysia MA isn't really that huge of a problem IMO. First thing is they can forge Boots of Youth, but not for a while, so mid/late game age can be a non-issue for Abysia but not most other nations. Second thing is if you're going to play them you should be blood hunting, and with blood nations you'd usually take Growth anyway which makes a noticable impact in age afflictions, although you're still going to be seeing mages die. The last thing is you'll probably be taking Order as well since their troops are so expensive, so replacing mages isn't a big deal between that and all the fire gems you get every turn and the lack of things to do with them.

Does Old Age need a bit of adjusting? Probably, I don't find it that awful except for not taking Growth bar the occasional guy who gets diseased the turn you recruit it, but in general in my experience mages last a few years.

[Nerfix]

Well, judging from the flavour text at least the Warlock Apperentices should be young since they are said to be "young Abysians".

[Endoperez]

Nerfix said:
MA Abysia's A. Salamanders start Old with the age of 34(33). Their Warlock Apperentices also start Old with age of 35(35)...Their only reliable young mage is the Demonbred.

Late Era Abysia, I think that the Newst and Sanguine Apperentices are only ones who don't start as Old.



EA Warlocks also start with 35/35 years and Anathemant Dragons 35/32 years old, so using this logic EA Abysia could also be said to have no "reliably old" mages. They could always start young! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif





B0rsuk said:
If I'm not mistaken, Fire path substracts exactly 5 years per level from max age. Demo doesn't let me examine Abysia unless I play against it...



I think it's only 2, at least for human-types with 50 years of maxage. I think it is 5 years for e.g. Agarthans, though.

This doesn't affect Abysians, though. Maxage of Anathemant mages seems to be 32, despite the amount of Fire magic they have.

[Cainehill]

dirtywick said:
Aging with Abysia MA isn't really that huge of a problem IMO. First thing is they can forge Boots of Youth, but not for a while, so mid/late game age can be a non-issue for Abysia but not most other nations. Second thing is if you're going to play them you should be blood hunting, and with blood nations you'd usually take Growth anyway which makes a noticable impact in age afflictions, although you're still going to be seeing mages die.



The problem is that _ALL_ the mages you'd want to use to research towards those Boots of Youth are going to be getting diseased and dying of old age before you get them, making it rather difficult to get the research done - and you have to focus insanely on Construction, whereas Abysia usually wants Evocation and Blood.

Then, all those mages who are dying, you have to choose between research, and blood hunting. And then use your hard-earned blood slaves to save your mages, when even the petty mages need protection.

[curtadams]

Boots of Youth is not a fix for aging. Research is twice as difficult, sages are almost impossible to find (in 4 SP games I've seen one library), and most independent researchers require a lab and temple. With your good researchers old (and therefore not acceptable as researchers) you have to research with low-end researchers. It takes *forever* to get to Con 6 - 1040 research points with 4 point researchers is like bailing a bathtub with a teaspoon. It takes even longer if you want to have your mages *do* anything in the first 25 turns or so, because some have to come off the research line to, well, do something, and because you need to research whatever they're going to cast. My SP games are basically won by the time I get Con 6, and in MP, players will often be dead before that kind of stuff starts showing up.

[dirtywick]

Cainehill said:

dirtywick said:
Aging with Abysia MA isn't really that huge of a problem IMO. First thing is they can forge Boots of Youth, but not for a while, so mid/late game age can be a non-issue for Abysia but not most other nations. Second thing is if you're going to play them you should be blood hunting, and with blood nations you'd usually take Growth anyway which makes a noticable impact in age afflictions, although you're still going to be seeing mages die.



The problem is that _ALL_ the mages you'd want to use to research towards those Boots of Youth are going to be getting diseased and dying of old age before you get them, making it rather difficult to get the research done - and you have to focus insanely on Construction, whereas Abysia usually wants Evocation and Blood.

Then, all those mages who are dying, you have to choose between research, and blood hunting. And then use your hard-earned blood slaves to save your mages, when even the petty mages need protection.



Your blood mages can cast Rejuvenation too from the Blood school which is a temporary fix. Not that finding sages is going to be a huge help anyway, as they too have old age.

If you need a research boost to get there you can also take the Magic 1 or 3 scale and use Demonbreds who don't have to worry about old age at all realistically as they have like 200 years before they hit old age.

Abysia actually has more tools available to deal with old age than most nations do. I think the only thing old age does with Abysia is pigeonholes it into take an imprisoned pretender so you can get good scales; you basically need Order, Productivity, Growth, and probably Magic to be successful.

[Morkilus]

I would be extremely disappointed if Abysian mages were modded "younger". I realize losing mages is frustrating for players who try to make every gold piece and every blood slave count, but Abysia is hardly broken with old mages. Just because you can't play a nation the same as you used to doesn't mean that it's broken.

[dirtywick]

Morkilus said:
I would be extremely disappointed if Abysian mages were modded "younger". I realize losing mages is frustrating for players who try to make every gold piece and every blood slave count, but Abysia is hardly broken with old mages. Just because you can't play a nation the same as you used to doesn't mean that it's broken.



I think a better solution would be to move either the Boots of Youth or Rejuvenation further down their trees, so that way old age prevention is across the board rather than for just Abysia.

[Graeme Dice]

Morkilus said:
I would be extremely disappointed if Abysian mages were modded "younger".



Abysia suffers greatly from being one of the few nations to have multiple capital only mages, while at the same time having most of those mages suffer from old age. They can get around this, but would benefit greatly if warlock apprentices were available at any fortress with a lab. Then they wouldn't have to sacrifice as much research potential just to get a blood economy going.

[Graeme Dice]

Frostmourne27 said:
Similarly, Eagle Kings. What is with the earth magic? unless it's free, why would you EVER want to have it? Air 4 is good enough thank you.



The benefit of E1 is that it gives them the ability to cast ironskin so that spells like rain of stones won't wipe them out.

[upstreamedge]

B0rsuk said:
I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.



I do not think that is a good idea, I think luck is already to powerful of a scale. I do kind of like your idea though, and I think that it should be tied to the magic scale (which is lame)

Another thing I would like to see is ME Tien'Chi's conscription bonus for order territories be beter. I think it should give additional PD every season or year.

[KissBlade]

upstreamedge said:

B0rsuk said:
I wish Luck scale slightly increased chance of getting random path. It would be both climatic and useful. Dom2 luck scale had repotation of being only midly useful.



I do not think that is a good idea, I think luck is already to powerful of a scale. I do kind of like your idea though, and I think that it should be tied to the magic scale (which is lame)

Another thing I would like to see is ME Tien'Chi's conscription bonus for order territories be beter. I think it should give additional PD every season or year.



... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...

[FrankTrollman]

... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...



And yet in Dominions 3 it's not an uncommon assessment.
Growth and Luck have real proponents in Dom 3. It's a whole new world.

-Frank

[curtadams]

I'm certainly biased towards luck, because I'd play it often SP in Dom2 just because it's more fun. But the things that happen to me in Dom3 even at flat or light luck make me totally terrified of Misfortune. I really notice the effects on conquered Misfortune provinces. I just had Bogus drop in on a critical bottleneck province (with my first outside temple, even), cutting my empire in two and leaving my pretender almost alone facing Ermor. In Dom2 I got the feeling - notwithstanding my preferences - that Order was ohsogood and Turmoil was asking for it, while Luck/Misfortune was flavor. Now, I feel it's reversed.

[Endoperez]

curtadams said:
In Dom2 I got the feeling - notwithstanding my preferences - that Order was ohsogood and Turmoil was asking for it, while Luck/Misfortune was flavor. Now, I feel it's reversed.




Order is still ohsogood, but now Misfortune is asking for it as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[KissBlade]

FrankTrollman said:

... I think that's the first time I've heard the positive luck scale described that way ...



And yet in Dominions 3 it's not an uncommon assessment.
Growth and Luck have real proponents in Dom 3. It's a whole new world.

-Frank



Actually luck is even less common among vets than in Dom II. At least in dom II you have turmoil nations, in Dom III,you have ... AE Ermor. And that's it. If you want the most competitive edge possible in any MP, you should almost always be taking Order/Misfortune.

[Nerfix]

Luck is quite random. Sometimes you can take Misfortune/Order with minimal harm, sometimes Plague will hit your capital, followed by Indy Knight Revolution.

[KissBlade]

Nerfix said:
Luck is quite random. Sometimes you can take Misfortune/Order with minimal harm, sometimes Plague will hit your capital, followed by Indy Knight Revolution.



As others had said before, the benefits of Order/Misfortune far outweighs the one out of maybe twenty games it will actually hurt you.

[Nerfix]

I suppose so. I've had enough plague/flood/earthquake hits capital/Barbarian carpet bombardment to make me wary of Misfortune.

[KissBlade]

Nerfix said:
I suppose so. I've had enough plague/flood/earthquake hits capital/Barbarian carpet bombardment to make me wary of Misfortune.



With Order: 3, Misfortune: 2, unless you've had the worst of chances, you're exaggerating their effects by far.

[Nerfix]

So perhaps I have had bad luck with Misfortune. I don't like bad random crap happening, so I don't like Misfortune.

[KissBlade]

Nerfix said:
So perhaps I have had bad luck with Misfortune. I don't like bad random crap happening, so I don't like Misfortune.




That's fine if YOU don't take the scale. Personally I don't mind people who don't abuse the current Order/Misfortune imbalance. It makes it easier to beat them. What I do mind is misinformation being spread to newbier players. Luck is no means "too powerful". In fact, I'd not even say it's "powerful".

[Twan]

What about changing luck/misfortune scale to +8% events chance and order to -3% ? (don't remember if it was done in CB for dom2 or another mod I've tested, but it was a good idea anyway). Also the chances of good/bad events may be increased, ie +15% / luck scale.

So with order 3 / misf 3, you' have +15% of having events (with 95% of bad events it's not really attractive), and +33% with luck 3 / turmoil 3 with 95% of good events (instead of +0% / +30%, and 89% of the events being good/bad).

[FrankTrollman]

What I do mind is misinformation being spread to newbier players.



Heck, I mind people going off as if their personal play style were somehow divine writ and that other playing styles were somehow "wrong." Telling people about your play style and how it works when you use it is not "misinformation."

-Frank

[KissBlade]

FrankTrollman said:

What I do mind is misinformation being spread to newbier players.



Heck, I mind people going off as if their personal play style were somehow divine writ and that other playing styles were somehow "wrong." Telling people about your play style and how it works when you use it is not "misinformation."

-Frank



Stating which effects are more powerful than another isn't playing style. It is mathematics. Considering this is a thread about BALANCE, I don't even say what playing styles have to do with it.

[Teraswaerto]

I'm sure you are right in saying order is clearly better in most cases, but:

Have you actually done math on how powerful luck is? Seems it would be rather complicated to calculate a thing like that, especially since you get more than money with good events (magic items, etc.).

[KissBlade]

Teraswaerto said:
I'm sure you are right in saying order is clearly better in most cases, but:

Have you actually done math on how powerful luck is? Seems it would be rather complicated to calculate a thing like that, especially since you get more than money with good events (magic items, etc.).



It's true, you do get some really uber events with Luck. I had a lot of fun with my old max all positive scales but Turmoil 2 back in Dom II because everytime you get that 1500 gold event, you just want to jump out of your seat. But you've said it yourself, Order is clearly better in most cases. Luck's problem is, not all the extra events it adds are positive. Which is EXTREMELY LAME. In order words, you have actually a good chance of having a crappy event from those extra events you're getting from turmoil or luck! Even worse is some of the "positive" events aren't even positive! Oh look, you got 60 militia in the same province as your army who's now eating up the valuable food from your REAL troops. Yay =(

Balance wise, Luck needs a buff, Order needs a nerf. It's obviously not as simple as simply saying that but I'm actually pretty convinced that some of the current imbalances we're seeing is simply because of the Order scale's existence. I'd like to really play some test MP games where you ban the Order scale and ONLY the order scale and seeing where it goes.

Edit: Dom II. not III.

[Zen]

The main difference between Luck and Order from Dom2 to Dom3, is that gold across the board was raised, and Order as a base % modifier was raised at the same rate as the general gold per population.

Luck's events, max number of events per turn (3) have not been scaled, like the gold per population or even resources. So bad events are a drop in the bucket of gold (what is 100 gold as a bad or good event in Dom3's rich gold world, gem events while nice, have less of an impact since Magic (especially summons) has less of a total gamewide impact as opposed to Dom2).

Also, Order not only gets you the gold you want, but allows at the very least a free 40 points (Misfortune 1, with order 3, is pretty standard when hunting for points as it's overall impact is very low).

Luck with a different eventlist would be as strong as in Dom2, if it scaled to the changes that were made between Dom2 to Dom3.

[PDF]

Well, I think the problem with Luck/Misf is rather with ..events themselves !
As Zen said they were not scaled to new gold standard
Plus we still get the damned Militia as "good" event
And then some gamebreaking events (such as Plague) can occur even with Luck and Growth on the first game turn !! So the best solution is to have the less possible events (Order3) and just hope the bad won't occur too soon - after that they're not that bad.

With that there's really few point in taking Luck, the good'ol O3/M3 combo is still the thing to do.
But no amount of balance tweaking will solve the real issue, the real solution would be that events become moddable...

[curtadams]

I don't know the numbers but I certainly think the percentages for luck have been changed. My luck scale certainly seems to make way more of a difference than it used to. The number of bad events certainly decreases with luck - "is good" goes up faster than "% events". There's also some tweaking to the severity. I just had a 6000-gold event on Luck 3 and I've never seen that with less luck.

Luck becomes more useful over the long term. A significant number of the good and bad events involve permanent income changes - gaining mines, population, and occaisionally sites, versus losing population. Eventually a luck country would pass an order country.

[Graeme Dice]

There's a maximum of three random events per turn. This means means that luck is luck can only be more useful than order in the long term if the number of provinces you control is at or below the point where you receive your three events per turn.

[dirtywick]

PDF said:
With that there's really few point in taking Luck, the good'ol O3/M3 combo is still the thing to do.
But no amount of balance tweaking will solve the real issue, the real solution would be that events become moddable...



M3 is just crazy in a longer game, even with O3. M2 is better, but you'll still be constantly attacked by Barbarians to where you'll need a significant amount of PD in every province you want to keep.

But really, the only big advantage that Luck/Turmoil gives is you'll have a lot more gems that route, it's not even close. Nations that need a lot of summons/battle magic gems would probably do better with Luck than Order IMO.

[KissBlade]

Mm... I'm not sure you'll get constantly attacked with M2. I never take M3 though since it does seem a little risky and not to mention you'll never get a hero. Also while Luck is better late game since gold isn't as important, you need to factor in that Order gives you a very strong early/mid game which transitions into a stronger late game compared to turmoil/luck. Though I could see a possible argument for Luck/Turmoil in a low magic sites setting.

[NTJedi]

PDF said:
Plus we still get the damned Militia as a "good" event



I recall posts complaining about this good event, yet the event remains unchanged. Personally I would love to see the event changed saying something such as... "Many units from nation (XXXX) have defected and chosen to serve your nation." The units which appear would be a random set of recruitable units from XXXX nation. It would only use nations which exist within the current game.


PDF said:
But no amount of balance tweaking will solve the real issue, the real solution would be that events become moddable...


I asked Illwinter to add events as something which can be modded and/or creating custom events. Perhaps when Dominions_4 arrives.

[dirtywick]

KissBlade said:
Mm... I'm not sure you'll get constantly attacked with M2. I never take M3 though since it does seem a little risky and not to mention you'll never get a hero. Also while Luck is better late game since gold isn't as important, you need to factor in that Order gives you a very strong early/mid game which transitions into a stronger late game compared to turmoil/luck. Though I could see a possible argument for Luck/Turmoil in a low magic sites setting.



I guess that depends on how big your empire is. The bigger it is, the more provinces you have, the more events happen.

[PDF]

NTJedi said:

PDF said:
Plus we still get the damned Militia as a "good" event



I recall posts complaining about this good event, yet the event remains unchanged. Personally I would love to see the event changed saying something such as... "Many units from nation (XXXX) have defected and chosen to serve your nation." The units which appear would be a random set of recruitable units from XXXX nation. It would only use nations which exist within the current game.




Or if at least it gave useful standard units (archers, hvy inf, whatever)...
A possible simple solution to implement by IW would just be to create dedicated unit ids for those event guys so they could be modded without impacting national and indy unit pools.

[PhilD]

dirtywick said:
I guess that depends on how big your empire is. The bigger it is, the more provinces you have, the more events happen.



I've seen the "max of 3 events per turn" rule mentioned, but I also seem to remember, in my SP games, some turns with 4 events reported - none of which looked like they could have been caused by a ritual, though I could be wrong here. But it's still true that, with a largish empire, I tend to get exactly 3 events per turn, most of the time.

Still, I tend to be a fan of Luck over Misfortune, even though I do get the occasional bad events. With Luck 1, I get enough gem events, or additional gold events, or "free mage/assassin/item" events, or even permanent gold boost events, that it seems well worth the points. Now, this is SP, but still, SP vs good numbers of Impossible AIs...

[AMF]

Here I am again, back for a repeat performance as "the newbie with a question." Thank you for the applause, I'm here all week.

Today, I have a question related to the AI balance of the game (and, I think, this thread). My question is this: Is there a way to set up an "AI Smackdown" with Dom3?

What I mean and where I am coming from is this: in Space Empires IV, with a little bit of work, a person could set up a game with only AI empires, and run that on their machine until one of the AIs won. If you do this enough times (taking care to be statistically/analyitcally honest, so keeping the same difficulty, skill, era, maps, and other settings for the AIs in play), you can come up with a pretty defensible and statistically signficiant understanding of which empire or empires is/are 'better' than the others, and to what degree.

So, I wonder if there is a way to run Dom3 games using all the AIs (and only the AIs) on a given map, with a given era, and the same skill levels etc...It seems that Dom3 is much more command-line friendly than SE4, and so might even allow this to be done with graphics turned off, thereby making any single AI smackdown game take just a few minutes...and so perhaps hundreds if not thousands of games could be run to test the balance of the empires...and that would certainly give some statistics on how balanced the empires are...

Just curious.

[Endoperez]

Gandalf ran a few tests with all nations of all ages in the same game.

This is from memory, so it might be wrong, but...

The nations that did best were LA Ermor in the early game, but Oceania got past, and much later Arcoscephale got to the first place. I'm not sure which era of Oceania or Arcos was the one that got the upper hand.

[Turin]

I don´t think that those AI tests say much about the relative strength, since the AI still seems to have only a very poor understanding of magic and no understanding of bless strategies.

Both of those aspects are probably far more important to find out the true strength of a nation than to determine who has the better national troops.

[Nerfix]

Not a balance problem per say but perhaps Lady of Love should have Fire instead of Water magic? As of now she is pretty close to that spring goddes with Water/Nature. Fire seems to be a more passionate element anyway.

[FrankTrollman]

She is a literal picture of Aphrodite, a goddess who is most famous for rising out of a sea shell.

So it is of no surprise that the "Lady of Love" is designed to, among other things, make clams.

http://www.cuttingedge.org/seashell-aphrodite.jpg

[Nerfix]

Mmm, that's true. But she is still very close to Lady of Springs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[FrankTrollman]

I'd prefer a solution in which the Lady of Springs gets a new job. For example, if her magic was changed to WND, she would be able to put together both kinds of Naiads (the WN Naiads and the WD Naiads), which means that she'd be able to cast all the appropriate "springs" spells.

-Frank

[Cainehill]

Zen - I'd consider trying to do something myself, but I'm notoriously _not_ impartial or well balanced. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Oh, and working almost two full jobs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Any chance you might follow past history, come out early with a pretender CB mod that also fixed blatant mistakes? ( IE, accuracy / encumbrance for Aby, Oceania's roadkill "stealth" commanders? )

[Zen]

Cainehill said:

Zen - I'd consider trying to do something myself, but I'm notoriously _not_ impartial or well balanced. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Oh, and working almost two full jobs. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Any chance you might follow past history, come out early with a pretender CB mod that also fixed blatant mistakes? ( IE, accuracy / encumbrance for Aby, Oceania's roadkill "stealth" commanders? )



I am releasing the first portion including Scales/Pretenders very soon, then the discussion about how I'm a powermad despot can resume. There are more solutions to Pretenders (and problems) than Dom2, so the balance of that, coupled with the new goldrich enviroment, lesser impact of SC's, and slottablility have caused me to reevaluate almost all the pretenders. Not to mention that on the nationend, you have to deal with double blessing imprisoned pretenders, which is mostly handled by nations, but again, Dom3 is rife with Pretenders who do exactly the same thing, or another one does it better, so there is no reason to choose one for a lesser effect.

[Cainehill]

Zen said:
I am releasing the first portion including Scales/Pretenders very soon, then the discussion about how I'm a powermad despot can resume. There are more solutions to Pretenders (and problems) than Dom2, so the balance of that, coupled with the new goldrich enviroment, lesser impact of SC's, and slottablility have caused me to reevaluate almost all the pretenders. Not to mention that on the nationend, you have to deal with double blessing imprisoned pretenders, which is mostly handled by nations, but again, Dom3 is rife with Pretenders who do exactly the same thing, or another one does it better, so there is no reason to choose one for a lesser effect.



If you're saying a version 1.0, either just with Scales / Pretenders, or with Scales/Pretenders/other things broken out into sections, is coming, that's awesome news. Those two things tended to be much less controversial with Dom2, as things that definately needed to be fixed. Even with the Sleeping/Imprisoned/Lazy Athiest (sleep most turns, and don't give a blessing no matter what http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) making it more complicated, it'll be a lot easier than balancing magic properly again. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

So - thanks, definately looking forward to it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Drakaina]

Hi all,
Iwas browsing the web and came accross your forum and had the surprise to discover my name (and registered trademark http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif) in your game... I am very honored thanks.. I've been a professional fantasy art model and actress for 6+ years and was already featured on a non official Magic the Gathering card (named Drakaina®) and as many fantasy characters but i had no idea I was part of D3 too lol
Cheers
Drakaina
http://drakaina.com Official Drakaina website (http://drakaina.com)

[Sombre]

Since this thread has been brought back to the forefront, I thought I'd point out that I've made some CBM versions of popular LA nation mods.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=508169&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

More are on the way too. I'm also considering making a modified version of CBM that addresses some stuff that bothers me (improving or reducing the cost of more national troops that are 'useless' among other changes). It would also probably incorporate rejuvenation for all pretenders, the strength based slingmod and maybe some bits from other mods.

[HoneyBadger]

Welcome, Drakaina! Nice to have you here.

It was a "Drakaina" (or "Dracaena")-part woman from the waist up, part serpent-who was the first ruler of Scythia. Another one made a bargain with Herakles after she stole the cattle of Geryon, that she'd only give them back if he'd sleep with her-effectively treating the mightiest of Greek heroes as a prostitute. She eventually had 3 sons by him-Agathyrsos, Gelonos, and Skythes. The older two were banished from Scythia, but the youngest, Skythes, became king and founded the royal line of Scythia.

[Morkilus]

This is by far the strangest thread resurrection evar. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

[KissBlade]

I thought Zen posted again -.-.

[Drakaina]

Thanks HoneyB http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[HoneyBadger]

My pleasure, Drakaina http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Managarm]

Back to the original thread again...

I'm currently playing SP games with the Conceptual Balance Mod on, and I found that an early "Wild Hunt" is somewhat broken...

Wild Hunt in the original game design is a Conjuration 9 spell, requiring 50 gems and N6. With the CB enabled, this spell gets a huge discount on price/requirements: it becomes a Conjuration 5 spell requiring just 30 gems and N5.

In my SP games, once I got this spell up, I had around 4-6 special battles per turn with a high enemy priest/prophet/sacred commander killing ratio.
That means 2-3 successful 'holy' assassinations per turn at a bargain price of 30 gems!! That's what I call efficiency...

I know that in MP an enemy human player won't be fool enough to keep sending sacreds/priests into the deadly forests each turn; although it can be really annoying for them, specially for the players relying on a hardcore bless strategy (Mictlan)...
Overall I suppose that is a good MP spell for making new friends! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Should this spell cost and requirements be slightly higher than CB but lower than the ones found in the original game?

Thanks

[Manuk]

yep i did cast wild hunt cb mod in a blitz game. That was too good. Some nations have their best mages also priests.

[quantum_mechani]

I don't think there are too many cases in MP where angering all the other players are worth however much it would harm them. However, it was 40 gems in dom2 CB, and I wouldn't be opposed to resting it to that.

[Xietor]

Could not read whole thread, i read the few few pages.

1. MA Ulm, nothing about Ulm warrants the curse of their units and commanders having 9 mr. This defect was remedied, in Aarlens, black steel Ulm mod, which i think made them more viable.

2. MA Pangaea's Pans are good, no old age, but Pangaea is severely limited on research with only a 350 gold mage for 8 research. The limited access to magical paths, combined with expensive research, a 30 admin, castle,and paying a penalty to get mercenaries, more than make up for the recuperation and strong units. MA arcosaphale also heals afflictions, has tough units, but has much better research, astral mages, access to many branches of magic, better castles, no mercenary penalty, and is a much better race endgame.

I would suggest giving the pan 1 additional
research point or dropping the cost to 300 gold.

[RamsHead]

You shouldn't be recruiting Pans for research. Use Dryads and Black Dryads for that instead.

[Xietor]

Ram,

I specifically said MA Pangaea who does not get black dryads. As for the White ones, they get a whooping 3 research for 110 gold! Though technically 3 for 110 is cheaper than 8 for 350,You are not going to win many research races getting 3 research a turn. Man's daughter of Avalon gets 4 for 80.

I could live with 4 research for 110 gold. But I would rather just pay the 350 gold and get 9 research with the pan, even though you can get 9 for 330 with 3 dryads as it presently stands.

The point is, pangaea's research could use a slight boost.
It is not like Pangaea is overpowered in MA in the least.

[Graeme Dice]

I specifically said MA Pangaea who does not get black dryads. As for the White ones, they get a whooping 3 research for 110 gold! Though technically 3 for 110 is cheaper than 8 for 350,You are not going to win many research races getting 3 research a turn.



I'm doing quite well in a MP game where all my research was performed by Mictlan priests in a drain 2 dominion, who give me only 2 research points per turn. You don't just add three research per turn, you add 9 research per turn out of three castles for the same upfront cost, and less than half the long term costs. The Dryad costs you 3.67 gold per turn, the Pan costs you 23.33 gold per turn. If it's just for research purposes, then you can afford to have 6.4 Dryads for every Pan over the long term. The Dryad is always cheaper on a gold cost/RP basis.

[Xietor]

That is true, but early in the game, you have 1 castle. And initially, i like to produce Pans, until I get one with death bonus. I have several other reasons why i like having the pans
that are not related to research.

But the thrust of the thread, and my point, is not to debate the relative merits of researching with a dryad v Pan, they both could use some help in the research area. Yes, the dryad is slightly better than Pan at research, but they both are below average.

Conceding your point, then bumping the Pan to 9 research will not affect game balance at all.

[Sombre]

If it won't affect game balance what's the point of doing it?

[Xietor]

I was being sarcastic.

[Sombre]

You were? "bumping Pan to 9 research will not affect game balance at all" seems a very strange thing to say sarcastically. Ok though, if you say so.

Is there an ETA on the next version of CB?

[quantum_mechani]

Probably some time not long after the new IW patch.

[Xietor]

While it would be a huge task, I think it is unbalanced that some races get their toughest sacred units at every castle, (MA vanaheim), and a race like man does not get koas, which are not even sacred, at their other castles.

Man seems to really get slapped hard with the loss of units they can recruit away from their capital(5 units), and on a large map, not sure that is balanced. I can see stripping the Crone, and the 2 sacred units, but the daughter of avalon and Koa seems punitive.

I am not using MA Man as a poster child, it just the race I thought of 1st, i am sure there are others.

The issue with respect to balance is how races fair on large maps where they really have no access to their cap troops. Another race that is powerful is arcos. and they get virtually all of their best troops at any castle, especially elephants, and super high morale infantry. (And their astrologists can tp around the map).

So when you have tough tough races getting vans and elephants at every castle, not sure why man loses out on all 5 of its units.

[Xietor]

While touching on Man, they have terrible infantry, and their tower guard, described as the elite unit of Man(lol), should not be more than 10 gold.

It is 13 gold, and it is not even in the same ballpark as other infantry that is much better for 10 gold. And if you look at Pangaea's 13 gold infantry and compare it to man's 13 gold infantry, well you may even say man's so-called elite infantry should cost 8 gold.

[Sombre]

In CB it's 12 gold and has 12 morale.

[Xietor]

they say great minds think alike!

[Teraswaerto]

Something to consider is that overall balance for a nation can not be reduced to comparing individual units. Infantry of Man may be inferior both in effectiveness and cost to that of many other nations, but does anyone think Man is a weak nation?

[Dedas]

Yes you have to have a holistic view if any balance is to be achieved in this game. It isn't a game of one unit pitted against another after all.

[Sombre]

I was just playing about with CB MA Ctis and I noticed that Heavy Infantry have one less morale than City Guard. I still think they're somewhat useful as a resource sink, but city guard are better basically (+1 morale, mapmove 2, lower resource cost). Interesting anyway :]

[MaxWilson]

You don't think Prot 16 (vs. 12 for City Guard) is worthwhile? I find Heavy Infantry mix nicely with Elite Warriors, except for the mapmove.

-Max

[Dedas]

Prot 16 is much better than 12 as a lot of weapons wielded by humans becomes pretty much worthless (unless you have huge fatigue that is). Spears for example, harm you almost every time when you have prot 12 and not to mention broad swords.

[Sombre]

I'm not saying they should be changed, just that I'm surprised to find the city guard to be better. I think the reason HI aren't doing very well for me is that I'm fighting against my mod nation Avernum and several of their units either deal relatively high damage or have armour piercing weapons.

I mostly go for heavier protection to avoid missile fire, but it didn't seem to be troubling my city guard that much.

[Dedas]

As they both have shields and as shields are extremely effective against missile fire (double parry) it doesn't surprise me the least. Of course, armor is also good when facing archers and the like but it is not so price worthy as shields.

I use City Guards as cheap and effective early expanders.
Here are some pros that make them good at this:

+ Shields for facing archers

+ Pretty good armor for facing milita, light infantry and other spear wielding units

+ Reasonable encumbrance for fighting high defense units like the above as they don't have very good attack skill and only low damage spear.

+ Moderate AP. They can get "first hit" if you script them right. They can also chase and backstab most routers (-4 def) and get valuable experience.

+ Moderate defense skill (12). Will have a pretty good chance to avoid getting hit by light infantry (att 10), and tribe warriors.

+ High map move (2) for armored unit. You can return back to your castle to gather reinforcements or for defense.

+ Fortress defense bonus. When you are done expanding they don't become useless as you can put them in your newly built castles for defense; they will also gather experience over time becoming more useful again.

+ Good morale for lizard unit. VERY good in the beginning when you don't have dominion over a province (+1 to your moral -1 to enemies) you want to conquer from independences (they get +1 to their morale as it is their home province).

Cons

- No helmets. Very prone to getting critical once fatigued so use a small screen of light infantry with shields to draw arrow fire away from them.

- No missile units for "softening up" advancing infantry for killing with their low damage spears.

Two ways to do this:

*Fire closest/no scripting put forward
+ Will fire into the enemy ranks
+ Will build up fatigue (very effective when facing heavily armored infantry) letting the City Guard get critical hits easily.
+ Will hold up pretty good against low attack low damage weapons as spears as they have 13 in defense.
+ Will draw some fire into the enemy rear from its own archers when in battle.

- Some of them will die of course but they are cheap so use many. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

*Forward and hold attack
+ Will get fired at by archers even when the city guards runs past them.
+ Will not get harmed in close combat.

- Will fire into the battle between the city guards and the advancing enemy with their javelins.

There are lots more to this of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Sorry for being somewhat off-topic.

[Xietor]

I do not think MA Man is weak, but if you look at their troops they can get at a castle far from their capital, it is not good either.

Man is average imho. But I think they get too big a penalty on troops away from their capital. Man IS weak when compared to Vanaheim and Arcos MA, and both of those nations pretty much get their full compliment of troops in all castles.

And of course Arcos. can tp their astrologists around the map, so even their mage that is capital only is not limited on a large map.

In short, Man's infantry sucks, and warden's are capital only. I do not think man is powerful enough to make them pay a premium for a very average infantry unit even if he is called elite.

And while you cannot only compare similar units among the different races, if the races you are comparing are close in power, than you can compare.

Man does get the longbow men, and air magic. Longbows are good, but many races have as good or better missile troops. And missile troops are plentiful to buy in dom III from indies. maybe not as good, but serviceable.

man gets knights and koas, but neither is sacred.

In the scheme of things, I would adjust man's so-called elite infantry upwards, as they did, and at least consider allowing the Daughters of Avalon and KOA's to be recruited at all castles.

Or conversely, limit vans and elephants of arcos and vanaheim to capital only. Though arcos could easily gate them, at least they would have to make that small effort. But the capital only penalty really does not effect a strong astral race like arcos., so my preference would be to relax the penalty on other races, rather than try and limit the astral races and Vanaheim.

And lest we lose sight, having fun is the key point. Why not try to let people use the troops they like best as often as they want to the extent it does not really unbalance the game. And since many games are played on small maps where the capital only penalty is marginal, i do not see the game balance being affected drastically.

Yes i realize that part of the penalty is to limit their production, more castles means more can be made per turn.

But I think any unbalancing is more pronounced with mages and sacred troops, than a costly nonsacred troop like the KOA, or the lord guardian and guardians of ulm. I see nothing unbalancing about allowing these nonsacred, non mages, being made at all castles.

[Dedas]

But Lord Guardians are only trained in the Keep of Ulm as they as they are the elite of the elite in Ulm. So it says in the description at least. You can change that of course but I would find it rather unthematic that you can recruit elite "lords" in every castle.

[Teraswaerto]

Xietor said:
Man does get the longbow men, and air magic. Longbows are good, but many races have as good or better missile troops.




What are better than longbows at every castle?

[Shovah32]

And when you add wind guide(and possibly flaming arrows from a pretender/indies/summons) those longbows become more than good.

[Dedas]

I hate longbows! Being on the receiving end that is. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Even with tower shield troops you lose men with every volley when the arrows are wind guided and fire enchanted (as Shovah wrote). The only relief is that those longbowmen don't have a lot of armor and most new players tend to ignore protecting them from counter archery/"crossbowery" and fliers. Oh, and you can always cast storm/rain/mist (if you're lucky Man will do it for you), that will keep you somewhat alive.

[Teraswaerto]

If you get blasted by Man's air mages you might not think that storm is so great. They also can buff their melee troops with a lot of different Nature spells.

[Dedas]

Yes I know, but at least you get rid of those tiering longbows. I prefer to be blasted by sorcery over shot by an arrow any day. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Just kidding of course.

[Xietor]

MA races with longbows(off the top of my head)
Pangaea, Shin. Bandar Log, Man.

Better than longbows(at times)

Tien Chi has the composite bows, Maragon crossbows, Ulm arbalests, and ap bows are not commonly found among indies. Ulm's arbalest are also better infantry than many so called infantry.

And later in game, arrow fend can neutralize missile troops to a large degree, so you cannot always rely on them.

My only point is, not to argue with anyone, is that some races likely could use some adjusting with their capital only troops.

As for thematics , just change the description of Ulm's keep to say "In Ulm's Keep, the heart of Ulm, the FIRST Lord Guardians and Guardians were trained."

For Man, "The Knights of Avalon, loyal to the Mother of Avalon, fight alongside her." As you know, the Mother of Avalon can be recruited at all castles, so it is no less thematic to allow the KOA to be recruited all over either.

[Dedas]

I understand. However, being able to recruit elite units everywhere kind of takes away their charm for me. It feels so gamey somehow, even if you make it realistic within the fantasy world by adding premises to why you are able to do it.

[Xietor]

And I agree 100 percent with the earlier discussions on changing the luck events.

A lucky event should never be a bad thing. Getting militia usually is a bad thing. Having faith decrease in favor of growth is at best a break even event(the game is called dominions), and having a witch curse your troops for gems is a bad event if your pretender or key unit gets cursed.

I think the events getting troops should be quality troops that most would want. And I think events where people move into the province should be much more common. It seems there is an obsession (with events, spells, themes, high taxes, patrolling) in general with lowering the population. And there are few ways to increase the population of a province.

So more luck events boosting population would be nice.

[Xietor]

you consider guardians elite? I consider vans and elephants elite, and they are recruited all over. And on a large map, you may never see your guardians(map move 1) or other elite capital troops because it is too hard and not worth the effort to get them to the front lines. So you may well not get to use your favorite troops at all mid and late game.

I agree in principle with your statement, but the thread is about balance. vanaheim do not get dwarves all over, but they can research fine from their capital, and they can search sites remotely. But troops whose value is exclusively in combat cannot be put into play from their capitals.

So, it may be worth exploring in the concept of balancing the nations.

[Shovah32]

Theres a difference between elite and powerful. Units like guardians are supposed to go through extreme amounts of training ect.

[Cainehill]

Not to mention that units like elephants, while useful sometimes, are certainly not elite by any definition, and aren't necessarily even powerful.

[Xietor]

elephants grouped with hyperists, are a powerful against smaller units. They are certainly more powerful than a guardian unit from ulm(who also has a crappy mr), and in certain situations better than the KOA.

You are correct they are vulnerable to smite, mind blasts, astral magic, but they can trample some very powerful units as well. Units that otherwise are very hard to kill(double blessed vans). They fight to the bitter end when grouped with hyperists and they do get lots of afflictions, but arcos. can heal those.

[Sombre]

The LA Marignese high/grand inquisitor seems a bit overpriced at 210 for an oldage F1H3. The normal inquisitor is 110 and has the same abilities with only one less level of holy (F1H2).

[Sombre]

Oh and did you mean for LA agartha to not have Agarthan infantry (not the heavy or light variants) as recruitables?

I figure it's a bug, but maybe there's some reason.

[Edi]

Sombre, what are you talking about? LA Agartha does have the basic Agarthan Infantry (unit 1355) as recruitable and so does MA Agartha. Both had it in 3.06 already and nothing has changed in that regard with the new patch.

[Sombre]

I have no idea about the new patch, but either my copy of Conceptual Balance Mod is different from yours,... or we're interpreting the title of this thread differently. When I say 'did you mean for X' I'm referring to QM and the Conceptual Balance Mod.

Attached is a screenshot of the CBM LA agartha recruitment screen with a piece of 'code' from the CBM dm file. No 1355 there.

[Edi]

Ah, sorry, my mistake. Got confused for a moment. The Agarthan infantry is available in the vanilla game, so their omission from the CB seems strange. Especially since that unit is hardly a balance issue in and of itself.

[Sombre]

No problem, I probably should have posted my comments in the mod forum CBM thread anyway.

[quantum_mechani]

Ah, thanks for pointing this out, yes it's a bug (with CB). There is a similar bug effecting EA Ermor Flamen, both should be fixed next version.

[Sombre]

Actually I was meaning to ask you - there are a few bits in the CB 'code' where you #clearrec a nation and put the numbers back in.

Why? Have some nations had units removed/added? I can understand if you've made a unit cap only by assigning it to a site, but for some of the nations where you've #clearrec'd them that isn't the case.

[quantum_mechani]

Sombre said:
Actually I was meaning to ask you - there are a few bits in the CB 'code' where you #clearrec a nation and put the numbers back in.

Why? Have some nations had units removed/added? I can understand if you've made a unit cap only by assigning it to a site, but for some of the nations where you've #clearrec'd them that isn't the case.

Those are mostly to accomplish adding in a new scout unit that doesn't have the same ID as the indy scout, in order to change just the indy scout's price.