Conceptual Balance Mod (and summary file) 1.1

[quantum_mechani]

The readmes are unfortunately still mostly for 1.00, but the much requested CB summary file is up to date to 1.1.

An approximate change log from 1.1:

*Fixed some missing national units bugs (flamen and agarthan infantry).

*Finally fixed blowpipe precision bug.

*Seduction ability more likely to succeed.

*Several pretenders now auto summon troops: Lord of the Sky, Lord of the Gates, Celestial General, Lord of War.

*Carrion Woods much easier to cast.

*Polypal mothers can summon gibodai.

*Fairy trod cheaper.

*T'ien Ch'i MA ceremonial masters improved randoms.

*MA Ulm's master smiths higher chance of 3e random.

*Increased price for cheap booster items removed.

*Reduction to order scale income removed.

*Growth gets bonus to direct income instead of pop growth.

*Various redundancies with the 3.08 patch removed.

*New nations updated to CB pricing for light infantry and national troop commanders.

*Yazatas take less research and gems to summon.

*Wild hunt from 30 to 40 gems.

EDIT: Attachments seem to be down, for now you can get the mod here (http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=0582C99A7777764B ) .

[quantum_mechani]

Mod split into sections. EDIT: For now, get it from here (http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=8504CE217A09D1EE ) .

[WraithLord]

I get this error when trying to d/l...

Not Found
The requested URL /threads/uploads/519284-CB_Complete_1.1.zip was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[quantum_mechani]

Attachments seem to be not working right now, I edited in links to temporary hosting in my posts in the meantime.

[Edi]

Attachments have been screwy for a while now, randomly giving errors resulting in nonfunctional links. As far as I understand it, the admin staff are on it.

[Beorne]

Great work! I'll try it.

[Horst F. JENS]

works very well. I currently try it together with the epic hero mod.

[Sir_Dr_D]

quantum_mechani said:
Mod split into sections. EDIT: For now, get it from here (http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=49E0095358D3C673 ).



This link has now expired.

[quantum_mechani]

Ok, reposted, should work again now.

[lch]

I have mirrored it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?6yptsysfxzq
This link shouldn't expire.

[Sombre]

Couple of things - firstly Ich's link seems to be the only working one in this thread, but it is only for the mod split into sections. I would like the CBM complete file - the one all in one .dm rather than than split into sections.

Secondly, the ID numbers listed in the readme don't seem to be accurate.

[lch]

Attached is the CBcomplete file, repackaged as I only have it unpacked in my game directory.

qm warned in the top post that the readme is still from the 1.0 version.

[Sombre]

Huh,.. there are some differences between this one and the sectional ones I believe.

Well here's a comparison of the ID number usage - I also found a couple of ID conflicts.

CBM complete 1.0

----Weapon slots used: 659, 708-10, 751-5, 768, 769
----Armour slots used: 252-264
----Monster slots used: 2851, 2877, 2888, 2890-2892
----Site slots used: 890



Whereas this is what I've found in 1.1

MONSTERS -- 2851, 2877-81, 2888, 2890-2 (added 2878-81)
WEAPONS -- 659, 708-710, 751-5, 768, 769 (same as before, but with one conflict on 754)
ARMOUR -- 252-264 (same as before, but with conflict on 264)
NO SITES (site 890 no longer in .dm file)

CONFLICT between heavy ashigaru armor and gold plate armor ID 264
CONFLICT between divine lightning and hell hooves weapon ID 754



#newmonster 2851
#descr "Ordinary Commander on horseback."

#newmonster 2877
#name "Raven Guard Captain"

#newmonster 2878
#name "Soldier of the West"

#newmonster 2879
#name "Soldier of the West"

#newmonster 2880
#name "Soldier of the East"

#newmonster 2881
#name "Soldier of the East"

#newmonster 2888
#name "Chief"
#descr "Vaetti chief"

#newmonster 2890
#descr "Scout."

#newmonster 2891
#descr "Shambler."

#newmonster 2892
#descr "Vanara"



#newweapon 659
#name "Fever Curse"

#newweapon 708
#name "Rusted Short Sword"

#newweapon 709
#name "Rusted Broad Sword"

#newweapon 710
#name "Warhorse Hoof"

#newweapon 751
#name "Divine Flail"

#newweapon 752
#name "Divine Flail"

#newweapon 753
#name "Divine Flail"

#newweapon 754
#name "Hell Hooves"

#newweapon 754
#name "Divine Lightning"

#newweapon 755
#name "Bow of Agonizing Death"

#newweapon 768
#name "Crude Shortbow"

#newweapon 769
#name "Druid Blessed Axe"



#newarmor 252
#name "Rotted Shield"

#newarmor 253
#name "Rotted Buckler"

#newarmor 254
#name "Rusted Iron Cap"

#newarmor 255
#name "Rusted Legionary Helmet"

#newarmor 256
#name "Rotted Tower Shield"

#newarmor 257
#name "Rusted Full Helmet"

#newarmor 258
#name "Rusted Kite Shield"

#newarmor 259
#name "Rusted Scale Mail Hauberk"

#newarmor 260
#name "Rusted Plate Hauberk"

#newarmor 261
#name "Rusted Chain Mail Hauberk"

#newarmor 262
#name "Rusted Ring Mail Hauberk"

#newarmor 263
#name "Rusted Scale Cuirass"

#newarmor 264
#name "Gold Plate"

#newarmor 264
#name "Heavy Ashigaru Armor"

[Sombre]

I've spotted another little bug in CBM 1.1 complete.

For LA tienchi the commander unit #addreccom 2778 should be #addreccom 807 - it's the H1 priest guy. Right now it's just a blank unit with stats 10 of everything.

[llamabeast]

QM - any chance you could give us a definitive CBCompleteV1.1 file? I'm using the one lch has linked to, but Sombre's observations sound like it may not be quite right.

[Sombre]

Those are just bugs - the actual file is as good as the segmented ones I think, maybe very slightly different.

[KissBlade]

I can't download this. =( Yousendit didn't work.

[lch]

Check my two posts (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=519284#Post522791), the first one is for the segmented file, the second is the all-in-one version. You're back?

[KissBlade]

yah =D

[KissBlade]

Celestial Masters don't have holy magic in cb?

[quantum_mechani]

Small bug/oversight, should be fixed next version.

[Sombre]

Got another bug with tienchi qm - are you on a mission to mess with them or what?

Anyway, with EA Tienchi, when you tried to edit the Celestial Master, you gave the unit id in the dm as 1544, which is actually the unit id of the Warrior OTFE. Consequently the Warrior OTFE is now old (because of the magic paths) and the Celestial Master is unchanged.

Here's the code for the two units in question.

-Warrior of the Five Elements
#selectmonster 1544
#gcost 30
#end

-Celestial Master
#selectmonster 1544 --- THIS SHOULD BE 941
#clearmagic
#custommagic 2816 100
#custommagic 2816 50
#custommagic 13440 100
#magicskill 0 1
#magicskill 1 1
#magicskill 2 2
#magicskill 4 1
#end

[Sombre]

Oh and should EA Vanheim dwarves have a forge bonus? They don't currently in cbm or vanilla, but the description sure suggests they should, all balance aside.

[quantum_mechani]

Dwarves forge things finely, not cheaply, at least that was KO's explanation as I recall.

[Sombre]

I'm uploading cb complete 1.1 again (my own version, but basically the same) so that people can get to it. This thread has a confusing mess of broken download links.

[Burnsaber]

I found a bug in CB. The Abyssian national spell Inner Furnace works fine in Vanilla (tested this), but with the CB complete 1.1 on, the results differ.

It gives all troops on the battlefield heat(3), even opponents troops. And since the opponents troops don't have Fire resistance, this is quite a killer.

I have a savegame where you can see the bugged Inner Furnace in action..

[quantum_mechani]

Hmm, you know this actually almost makes for a more interesting spell, after I fix this I may think about adding a new spell with that intentional effect. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kristoffer O]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Humakty]

I think that some minor change could maybe be made to EA Agartha, so they could dispose of a less crappy elite(maybe better att and def ?). For the moment, with the raise in cost of troglodites (which seems normal), I mostly use indeps, and, because most of them have been tweaked, I find agartha less efficient than before,what is quite odd.(they weren't top notch before, but maybe there is something I missed)
In all other aspects, this mod seems to me unavoidable.(I do no more play vanilla games)

[Sombre]

Right, the 3.10 patch raises some problems. So far the two I've spotted with the help of lch (cheers buddy) are due to pointless annoying name changes which no doubt resulted from the nitpick kings and their 'typo fix' stuff.

First.

The next cbm has to replace #selectarmor "light weight scale mail" with, get this,..

#selectarmor "lightweight scale mail"

That was actually causing cbm to not work at all with 3.10. Nice huh?

Next up,

#selectspell "Claws of Cocytus" needs to be changed to

#selectspell "Claws of Kokytos"

Very, very silly.

[Kristoffer O]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Edi]

Those two are the only changes that break things between 3.08 and 3.10 in mods (unless someone has made the mistake of editing certain void monsters and the retiarius by their monster names instead of number). The biggest problem with the whole armor and spell issues is that they are not selectable by ID number as they properly should be. Well, spells are, afaik, but there is no spell DB yet. If you could select and assign armor by ID number (like you can do with weapons) instead of having to use the names, there would be no problems at all with those.

People have at various points *****ed about various typos, spelling errors and other such things in the game (I'm not the only one who has noticed such things), so once they were being looked at in a coherent fashion, it made no sense at all not to harmonize all spellings across the board. I have to shoulder a fair portion of the blame and I apologize for the inconvenience, but I do not regret those changes coming about.

[Sombre]

This isn't really about CBM, but it would be nice if when the patch was released the modders here could be informed which nametypes, nation numbers etc are being used by the new material. It would help us out and presumably not take long for KO or whoever to look up.

[Edi]

Point. I don't actually know the nametypes or nation numbers for the new ones, but Fomoria is supposedly 15 and Pythium SC is probably 70 (Lanka 68, Eriu 69 and SC is at the end of the LA list in games). Pythium SC probably uses the EA/MA Ermor & MA Pythium nametype, no idea about the Fomorians.

I'm going to compile a lot of the mod stuff that I talked about earlier and present it to IW for review for the next patch, now that a lot of the other stuff that was with 3.08 is out of the way. The next edition of the Dom3DB is also going to be more useful to nation modders (lists nation numbers, start forts and sites and will eventually have more stuff).

[lch]

Edi said:
Point. I don't actually know the nametypes or nation numbers for the new ones, but Fomoria is supposedly 15 and Pythium SC is probably 70 (Lanka 68, Eriu 69 and SC is at the end of the LA list in games). Pythium SC probably uses the EA/MA Ermor & MA Pythium nametype, no idea about the Fomorians.


The IDs are correct. Nation number 70 changed its file names from nation_70.* to pythium.* which is, uh, funny in ongoing games, but amazingly does not break anything cross versions.

[Sombre]

I just fixed a couple of typos in this description - below is the fixed version ready to include in the next version.

--Jotunhiem ME

#newmonster 2888
#copyspr 283
#copystats 283
#gcost 40
#name "Chief"
#descr "The Wolf Kin of Jotun, or Vaettir, as they call themselves, are a tribal people of goblins living in the deep forests of Jotunhiem. They try to avoid contact with the giants, but serve the Gygjas without question. The Hags are sacred to the Wolf Kin, and a Vaetti would gladly die to protect a Gygja in danger. The Wolf Kin wear heavy furs, and some ride into battle on their wolven friends. Vaettir are small and stealthy and can hide in enemy territories."
#end


I am going to post other random bits for the update in this thread over the next couple of days.

I might as well say these random bits now -

Little Bakemono should be size 1, not 2. Not major, but they are clearly size 1 units in terms of graphics and stats.

Pikes need something extra to make people consider building them. Since the main advantage of being mounted is having +def, I suggest giving pikes +2 to att rather than the +1 they have now. Simple, easy change and gives pikemen a niche.

[CUnknown]

Thanks for working to update this mod for the new patch, I eagerly await its completion!

But, you asked for the reasons why I dislike the item and nation mods, so I will comment on them. I really do like most of what you've done, so don't get the wrong idea.

Nation Mod:

My major beef with this one is the increased cost for indy commanders and scouts. It may be that they are actually worth that much (?) or you did it because things just work out better that way, I'm not sure, but I just don't care for it, and that's enough to prevent me from using this one. I do like just about everything else in it.

Perhaps, lower the indy commanders from 65 to maybe 40 or 45?

Item mod:

First thing off hand that I remember was the increased cost of the dwarven hammers. I pretty much hate that, lol. As far as other complaints, nothing really stands out except many of the things you've changed just don't seem to be necessary. Maybe for half the changes, I'm just not sure why they were made. Some of them seem good, but mostly I just don't get it.

Take for example the changes to research items. I mean.. weren't they perfectly fine before?

[quantum_mechani]

Ah, well, you've picked probably the two most popular major complaint's, I have to admit I was hoping for something more exotic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

With those (as with most anything in the mod), I'm willing to be convinced on them. The reasoning behind the indy change is very simple: everyone uses the indy scouts/troops leaders to the exclusion of national ones. The national ones could be made 0 gold and they would still not be chosen vs default priced indies, due to fort slots. That said, I have been playing with the idea of instead differentiating national commanders by giving them extra weapons, abilities and stats. This seems a fun idea, but it has a lot hurtles, among which is coming up with enough different boosts, making them all thematic (having magical weapons and HP is particularly tricky), and not undercutting heroes.

The reasoning for the hammer getting harder to get is simply that it's incredibly under priced. People complain about clams... it's not unusual for a hammer to pay off in one turn. The hammer was already an amazing deal in dom2, now it just so happens to be 25% off in base game. I can understand people being annoyed by the change when they first come across it, but I would argue it actually cuts down mm in addition to improving balance. As far as I can tell, no one really seems to think the base game price is particularly balanced, merely convenient since hammer abuse is so deeply ingrained in dominions players.

In the case of research items, I must admit I am quite astonished at the number of people who use them base game. I don't think I would ever use them other than perhaps the occasional lightless lantern binge. However, it seems lots of people swear by skull mentors and owl quills, so since the change seems to confuse some people I will likely reset it next version. Aside from that, I'm not sure what would be considered extraneous tweaks, apart from simply insufficient ones. There are a lot of items that are rather useless even at the very minimum cost and level, nonetheless I gave them what boosts I could on the slim chance someone might be able to come up with an off-the-wall tactic for them.

Again, I very much appreciate the feedback, if there is one lesson I have learned making CB it's that people are happy with almost any balance or imbalance, but make a change that inconveniences people and all hell breaks loose. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Burnsaber]

AoE on weapons is moddable currently. Will you be changing the Star of Heroes like you said on IrC some time ago?

[quantum_mechani]

I strongly suspect even with the improved AoE modding it will still lose it's armor breaking power by making it AoE, but I suppose it might be worth testing.

[Edi]

Yes, it will, since Armor Dest is not an AoE effect. However, you could mod Armor Dest to also have AoE 1 and then set that as #secondaryeffectalways on Star of Heroes. That *should* work, but no guarantees.

[Endoperez]

You could #copyweapon the armor-breaking property itself, and make THAT #aoe 1, couldn't you?

[Sombre]

I wasn't aware there was a "Destroy armor" weapon. I thought that property was one of those that exists on items, not equipment. Like the properties on item-armour.


Edit: By the way there is no copy weapon command.

[Endoperez]

Weapon 174, "Armor Dest"

Most of the special weapon attributes, like Small Area Flame and Frost, or 1AN+MR, or Enslavement, are actually weapons.

[Sombre]

Oh then I think the answer is simple.

#selectweapon "Star of Heroes"
#secondaryeffectalways XXX
#end

#newweapon XXX
#name "Wreck Armor"
#aoe 1
#secondaryeffect "Armor Dest"
#end

That should/could work. Obviously needs a test. I don't know if you can chain secondaryeffects.

[Endoperez]

Sombre said:
Oh then I think the answer is simple.

#selectweapon "Star of Heroes"
#secondaryeffectalways XXX
#end

#newweapon XXX
#name "Wreck Armor"
#aoe 1
#secondaryeffect "Armor Dest"
#end

That should/could work. Obviously needs a test. I don't know if you can chain secondaryeffects.



You probably can. However, AFAIK, this would create a default weapon (0 dam + str? whatever) that has the same special effect as the Star of Heroes. It might work, it might not. In case it doesn't work, this might work:

#newweapon XXY
#name "Destruction"
#copyweapon "Armor Dest"
#aoe 1
#end

[Endoperez]

Neither of these worked. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Edi]

Sombre, that one can't work, since AoE weapon secondaryeffects must always be of the #secondaryeffectalways variety. Try assigning AoE 1 to Armor Dest and see where that gets you. Or did you try that already, Endo?

[Burnsaber]

Endoperez said:
Neither of these worked. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif



That's a shame.

It's a pet peeve of mine, but I'd really like to see a forgeable weapon that strikes with AoE (think of Sauron at the battlefield in the first LoTR movie, Sauron struck like 3 guys at once). Something to give some options for a SC/thug weapon besides the Brands.

[Sombre]

Endo's one didn't work because there is no #copyweapon command, which I pointed out earlier.


Ok, so try my one but use #secondaryeffectalways both times.

So:

#selectweapon "Star of Heroes"
#secondaryeffectalways XXX
#aoe 1
#end

#newweapon XXX
#name "Wreck Armor"
#aoe 1
#nostr
#dmg 1
#secondaryeffectalways "Armor Dest"
#end


The reason to avoid messing with "Armor Dest" giving it aoe 1 is that it might impact more than the star of heroes.

Oh and Burnsaber: It's not that we're having trouble getting AOE working on star of heroes. The problem is getting the AOE on the armour destroying effect as well.

[Endoperez]

Yeah. One of those "not working" test caused the destruction of the militia, not thier armors. 21, 25, 17 dam... It must've added the pretender's strength score in the whole AoE.

[CUnknown]

QM:

Yeah, it's true.. I sort of agree that Hammers are underpriced in the base game, it's not so much the cost that I don't like but the requirement of an Earth-4 caster to make it. Hammers need to be relatively easy to get, or items just get so costly, imo. I feel entitled to cheap items, and if everyone has them, I don't see a balance problem.

As far as the indy commanders, it's again mostly a convenience issue.. but also the fact that indy commanders aren't worth 65 gold. I don't see the reason why people should be forced to pay through the nose for a unit-ferry. Maybe it reduces the number of national commanders seen in the game, but I guess I just don't see that as much of a problem.

You could set the indy commanders at 45 gold, say, and even that is overpriced for what you're getting. You'd be paying more for convenience, and that would make sense. It's just that 65 is too much, it's so much that it would actually change my buying patterns, which I know was your intent. But I don't like that.

[Endoperez]

Hey, if you want it changed you should edit the last chapter. "What you did does exactly what you wanted it to do. I don't like it" isn't a good argument... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[CUnknown]

Hehe, Endoperez. I know... but, I thought that if I didn't recognize it, he would just have said that. "Well, I'm not going to change it, because by your own admission, it works perfectly as I designed it."

I know it's probably not going to be changed, I guess. I don't know what else to say, but "I don't like it."

[Sombre]

I'm going to give a sort of report on early summons which are a bit (or very) underpowered here. I'll slowly fill it in, just posting up what I have so far as an example. Debate welcome, some of what I suggest is quite heavy handed, because I really think some spells need a big boost to be any good.




CONJURATION


LEVEL 1


Summon Sea Dogs - DUAL PATH - 2 / 1 in vanilla, 4 / 1 in CBM.

I think they could still use a boost, maybe something like 10 / 2.




LEVEL 2


Drakes - 1 / 8 in vanilla, which is awful, 1 / 6 in CBM. I know things are complicated slightly by dragon master, but 1 / 5 or 1 / 4 please, if only for the AI's sake. Drakes are almost snakes and we all know snakes in dom3 need some love. If you're going to try and make them a usable spell, might as well go all the way.

Summon Sea Serpent - 1 / 8 in vanilla 1 / 6 in CBM, could do with an extra gore or horn attack, possibly higher fear? Regen? Strength is at 18, needs to be like 22. Could reduce pathcost to W1 - it is the lowest research aquatic summon. Currently even at 6 gems, can't see people using it, which is a shame.

Summon Horned serpents - 4 / 11 in vanilla, 4 / 6 in cbm. Even at that price, they suck. Need a niche, or to be more numerous, like 8 / 10. They could be poor amphibians, or have an added gore attack.

Summon Animals - 20 / 20 vanilla, 20 / 12 CBM. I think cutting the cost to 20 / 10 would still be fine. It's a fun spell and I think nature should get solid summons.

Bind Scorpion Beast - DUAL PATH - 1 / 4 vanilla, 1 / 2 in CBM. I like these guys, but they need to be better as tanks. #selectmonster 524 #prot 18 #weapon 29 #weapon 29 #weapon 423 #mapmove 2 #end --- adds another claw, increases prot, increases map movement. Then they'd be fun.

Summon Wyvern - 1 / 6 vanilla, 1 / 4 CBM. Def to 13, could do with being cheaper. 1 / 2 maybe? That would make them pretty good with dragon master, but if you can get the paths maybe you deserve them to be, non?



LEVEL 3


Summon Amphiptere - DUAL PATH - 1 / 5 vanilla, 1 / 3 in CBM. Currently size 4 and def 9, so clearly needs a def boost to 13 or so. It's a magical flying snake, that's gotta be hard to hit. Could also do with forest survival and maybe regen. Like most summons, I'd personally make this more time efficient by having it cost 2 / 5 or something.

Call Kraken - 1 / 3 vanilla, 1 / 2 CBM. Nice price, but at W3 and aquatic only I figure they should kick a bit of ***. They're def 7, which should be like 11 imo, since underwater I imagine they'd be a handful to hit. Could use + 1 or 2 att, and most importantly I'm certain they should be size 4 rather than 6, to match their graphic and stats.

Revive Wight - 1 / 5 vanilla, 1 / 2 CBM. Cool reduction, but again I'd go for 3 / 6 or something, make 'em a bit more tempting. Not a mass summon, but something that doesn't require huge amounts of D2 mage time.

Summon Sea Lions - DUAL PATH - 15 / 25 vanilla, 15 / 15 CBM. This is N3W1 and aquatic only, so it isn't exactly a common spell. Therefore it would be cool if it was a nice little summon. Could do with def +1 or 2. Could be 15 / 10 and not be overpowered imo.

Pride of Lions - 17 / 25 vanilla, 17 / 10 CBM (also bumped from research 3 to 5). If you were to boost summon animals, I guess it would make sense to boost this a little too. Just to 20 / 10 or something. Again, nature and good summons would seem to make sense.




LEVEL 4


Spirits of the Wood - 5 / 8 vanilla, 5 / 5 CBM. I tried these out and couldn't figure how to get anything from them, which is a shame because they're a nice concept. 10 / 6 or 8 would be far more tempting.


Summon Bog Beast - DUAL PATH - 3 / 5 vanilla, 3 / 3 CBM. Now I know I'm a bit biased when it comes to Bog Beasts, but for 2N2W and that price, who is going to make 'em other than me? Suggest: Def to 10 rather than 9, Venemous bite they use should be the strong poison, not weak poison version and the summoning should be 10 / 8 or something. If you can get 17 lions in one summon, why not more bog beasts?


Summon Kithaironic Lion - DUAL PATH - 1 / 6 vanilla, 1 / 3 CBM. Nice concept unit here, but only one per casting is a bit of a crippler. He's N3 E1, which isn't that common. Maybe make it 3 / 8? He has prot 18, could have prot 20 to be even more remarkable.



LEVEL 5


Contact Draconians - 16 / 45 vanilla, unchanged CBM. I can sort of understand why this wasn't altered. It's because the leader can spawn more dracs, so you're paying for him. Dracs look like ok flying meatshields, but honestly even at that they kinda suck. 45 air gems at a highish research level for 16 flying turkey troops? They're even cold blooded. This spell is supposed to 'compete' with the Court summons, right? But it doesn't. I'm not sure what to suggest - possibly make the drac leader a mage with A2? Boost the dracs themselves somehow to make them less awful troops?

Naiad Warriors - DUAL PATH - 15 / 30 Vanilla, unchanged CBM. They're cool units and I don't think they're too overcosted, but with the dual path they could perhaps be more tempting. 15 / 25 I reckon.



LEVEL 6


Contact Sea Troll - 1 / 1 vanilla, unchanged CBM. Research level was dropped down though. Only change is they should use claw instead of fist.


LEVEL 7


Summon Asp Turtle - 1 / 15 vanilla, unchanged CBM. Nice summon, but is totally aquatic and quite high research level. Would see more use for 1 / 12 I reckon.







BLOOD


LEVEL 1


Bind Spine Devil - 1 / 3 vanilla, unchanged CBM. The reason I can't see anyone using these is they require B2 magetime. If they were 6 / 15 that could be pretty cool.

Bind Bone Fiends - DUAL PATH - 3 / 3 vanilla, 3 / 2 CBM. I think QM said he was changing it to 13 / 3 or something in the next CBM version. Considering the spell is B1D1 they really are abysmal value in vanilla, so a large boost like that would really be appreciated. No other way they'll ever get built.


LEVEL 2


Bind Fiend - 1 / 5 vanilla, unchanged CBM. I think they're a bit overpriced and of course hard to mass. Straight blood nations could do with having solid earlyish summons, so I'd suggest 3 / 14 or something similar.


LEVEL 3


Bind Devil - DUAL PATH - 1 / 7 vanilla, 1 / 6 CBM. Bit pricey, similar to the fiend of darkness I'd say go for 3 / 17 or so.

Bind Frost Fiend - DUAL PATH - 1 / 6 vanilla, 1 / 5 CBM. Same deal as the two above, could do with being 3 / 14.


LEVEL 4


Bind Serpent Fiend - 1 / 5 vanilla, 1 / 3 CBM. These only require 1B which makes them easier to mass. I suggest 2 / 5 which would make them a sweeter deal.

Bind Storm Demon - DUAL PATH - 1 / 7 vanilla, unchanged CBM. If you change the other demonic summons, might be worth making these 2 / 13.

Bind Demon Knight - DUAL PATH - 1 / 5 vanilla, unchanged CBM. Again, could be 3 / 14 or something.


LEVEL 5


Awaken Dark Vines - DUAL PATH - 2 / 12 vanilla, unchanged CBM. Could be slightly cheaper and better for massing, like 4 / 16 or 18.


LEVEL 6


Ritual of Five Gates - 5 / 28 vanilla, unchanged CBM. Considering this is B5 to cast, fairly high research and the troops don't work well together, it should be cheaper. Like 5 / 20. Not like anyone can mass B5 casters.


LEVEL 9


I think forces of Darkness and the infernal spells would still be good, even with the more effective lower tier summons.





ENCHANTMENT


LEVEL 3


Behemoth - 1 / 10 vanilla, unchanged CBM. Ten death gems for a single undead elephant thing seems a bit much. It's got a nice graphic and really cool sound effect, so I'd like to use them. What about 1 / 6 or 7 or so?


LEVEL 5


Enliven Gargoyle - DUAL PATH - 1 / 10 vanilla, unchanged CBM. I like this summon, but the paths are a bit rare, E3A1. It would be great if you were rewarded for getting this path combo with a very cost effective summon, such as 1 / 6.


LEVEL 6


Ziz - DUAL PATH - 1 / 10 vanilla, 1 / 3 CBM. Thank god these were reduced to 1 / 3 because they suck and have a D3A1 path requirement. I still think they should be like 3 / 8. Def 9 att 9 could be boosted to def 11 att 11.


LEVEL 7


Leviathan - DUAL PATH - 3D1W - 1 / 15 vanilla, 1 / 15 CBM. Seems good, much like the Asp Turtle. The requirement of D3W1 and having to cast it in the sea might justify making it cheaper, like 1 / 12.

[Sombre]

I have updated my "report" and it's pretty complete for the generic summons I considered a bit 'dodgy' or underpowered.


I will probably move on to a report of some national summons next. Tonight, tomorrow, not sure.

[Sombre]

National summons might take a while.


MARVERNI


Sounder of Boars - 20 / 20 vanilla. They are sacred, but are size 3 tramplers and tend to die very quickly. Not that great, but fun. Seeing as this is an early marverni spell, I figure they could do with being quite a bit better, like 20 / 14. The only danger there is possibly replacing the summon animals spell, which is similar. But it might open up some new bless strat, possibly a N9 one.


Great Boar of Carnutes - DUAL PATH - 1 / 7 vanilla. A size 5 sacred commander trampler with 15% fortune telling. It has a weak domsummon of Great Boars and some leadership. It would be cool if it had a standard effect, inspiring all the bare chested nutjobs.


Iron Pigs - 7 / 10 vanilla, 14 / 4 CBM. This is not a national spell, but if cast by Marverni gives Iron Boars not Iron Pigs and these are sacred, have 20 prot and 25 hp and most importantly have morale 13, 15 when blessed. Clearly in CBM this is a /very/ good spell for Marverni.

[mathusalem]

I have a little issue :

"The requested URL /threads/uploads/519284-CB_Complete_1.1.zip was not found on this server.


Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

[Quitschi]

Will there be a CBM for version 3.10?

[Sombre]

QM has said the next version of CBM will be out relatively soon and of course it will be tailored to 3.10.

[Morkilus]

It'd be nice if it also included some of the bug fixes that are possible with mods, such as the hydra fix and the demonbred's age. I appreciate you guys' hard work!

[BigJMoney]

I probably asked this last year, but I haven't played in a while and things have possibly changed since then: Have the touch attack spells been changed at all? In particular have any of Dom3's healing spells been made more feasible? The biggest problem I have is that it's hard to get your caster to reliably cast the spells at all (ie. they either stay away from battle, or directly engage, but rarely ever get up close and heal).

=$=

[quantum_mechani]

I intended to to have the 1.2 version out last weekend, but it looks like it's going to have to wait for this coming weekend. I do intended to incorporate as many base game bug fixes as possible.

On touch and healing spells: many of them have been boosted, but it's very difficult to have them function as intended by IW and still have a niche.

[Sombre]

Couple more nations' summons looked at.



ARCOSCEPHALE EA

Summon Sirrush - DUAL PATH - 1 / 10 vanilla. Honestly these things are already pretty cool. They're size 6 but get 3 attacks at str 22, good attack skill, 80hp, they're sacred, great mr of 16, prot 15. However they could probably do with a little discount just to reward people for using this tasty unit. 1 / 8 would be better. Note that Ctis uses a similar spell called Contact Sirrush with path requirements they can meet. I suggest the same there.


ULM EA

Sloth of Bears - 8 / 15 - To bring it in line with improved animal summoning spells in general and to make it not suck, I suggest 8 / 8 and bump it to research level 4/5 instead of 3. Most importantly, the unit 'Great Bear' #694 currently has att 9 def 7, this needs to be higher, like att 11 def 10 at least. Additionally the Great Bear unit only has a claw attack, when it would make total sense for it to have Claw and Bite. With these changes, the bears would have some nice offensive power.

Pack of Wolves - 20 / 25 - Wow, this one needs to be improved. I'd basically stick it at 12 / 7 and have it pretty much replace summon animals, while still being different.

[Sombre]

Just looked over TC's national summons. It's hard to figure the balance of these somtimes, but they're such cool units (national summons generally) that encouraging their usage can't really be a bad thing.

TIENCHI EA


Celestial Servant - DUAL PATH - 1 / 3 - It isn't too bad a summon, though it's hard to use these guys in combat - as meatshields they have low prot and as fighters they only have one attack at size 5 and that's at att 8. They are sacred however. I'd like to see them at 3 / 8 so they can be used in some sort of bless strat, and either the rake weapon set to att 0 def 0 or the servant bumped to att 10 def 10 instead of 9-9; they are supposed to be bad fighters, but 10 10 with a -1 -1 weapon is already bad.


Heavenly Rivers - DUAL PATH - 3 / 12 - Another sacred heavy infantry type. Unlike servants, these guys know how to fight and have berserk 4. They're also amphibious. After brief conversation with QM, the cost is probably fine, due to high prot + berserk 4.

Ambush of Tigers - 7 / 10 - Another animal summon, same level as the rest. Tigers have two attacks which makes them more powerful offensively than most. I suggest 6 / 4, keep at same research level.


Celestial Hounds - DUAL PATH - 2 / 5 - Oh I do love these little fellas. If people aren't using them then a slight discount to 2 / 4 or 2 / 3 wouldn't go amiss.


Heavenly Fires - DUAL PATH - 3 / 10 - Another fun flying sacred celestial summon. These guys throw fire around, but it doesn't seem hugely effective. I suggest changing their "Flaming Wheel" #321 weapon to #nratt 2 #dmg 3 to make them better at range and maybe discounting to 3 / 7 or 8.


Call Celestial Soldiers - DUAL PATH - 5 / 15 - These guys are sacred and have some nasty power on them, though they are at a relatively high research level. They seem pretty damn solid to me, though at size 4 I'd like to see them sporting a hoof attack to go along with their glaive. They are giant horsemen after all. If cost was cut to 5 / 10 they would be a very attractive higher level summon, maybe that's too much though.


Contact Huli Jing - DUAL PATH - 1 / 30 - A nice summon which offers more magic, but it's hard to get above 2 in W, S or A. Guaranteed N3 though. I'd rather they were 1 / 25 or so to encourage their usage.

[Sombre]

Urk. I just noticed some old CB 1.1 values for the summons I talked about, so let me address them first.


Celestial Servant was actually reduced to 1 / 1 in CB 1.1. If given +1 att/def I think it's probably better at 3 / 5 than the 3 / 8 I suggested. But maybe I'm still overcosting them, hahah.

Heavenly Fires was already at 3 / 8 in cb, much as I suggested - with improved ranged attack this is fine imo.

Call Celestial Soldiers was actually at 5 / 8 in cb 1.1 which is even more of a discount than I was suggesting. If they get an extra hoof attack 3 / 10 would be fine though. 3 / 8 with the extra hoof might be real strong, which in itself is not a bad thing.

Ambush of Tigers, Pack of Wolves and Sloth of Bears were all discounted fairly heavily in CB 1.1, but not as much as I'm suggesting. I think early nature summons need more love, I really do. Especially these national animal ones.


Speaking of animal summons, let me address,...



MICTLAN EA


Summon Jaguar Toad - 1 / 1 - RL1, N1 - A Size 3 trampler that basically sucks. Currently att 7 def 6, prec 5. I suggest att 9 def 8, prec 9 (the spit is its natural hunting weapon after all). AP from 6 to 12 - Toads really aren't terribly slow creatures and that still isn't fast. I'd prefer it at 4 / 3 cost. Give toads some love!


Summon Jaguars - 17 / 25 - RL3, N2 - Jaguars are basically identical to Tigers and Great Lions, but are sacred. To avoid making the Great Lion spell completely pointless for Mictlan, I suggest 3 / 3, which is cheap but requires mage time. It still works nicely with a bless.


Summon Jade Serpent - 1 / 5 - RL4, W2 - Hey, this new summon is pretty cool. It's amphibious, has standard 10 and a really nice bite. I'd suggest 12 AP instead of 10, size 5 instead of 6 (compare it with hydra), def 11 instead of 9. The fact that it has 15 mr is a bit puzzling, most animals have 5. If you feel generous it could be 1 / 4.


Summon Monster Toad - 1 / 2 - RL5, N2 - I quite like the cost, but this guy needs to be better. Should have at least 12 AP, att 9, def 8 like his little brother. I believe this summon is also used by Ctis, who are at least giving toads and snakes some love (possibly literally, if their influence on Serpent Cult is anything to go by).


Contact Couatl - 1 / 40 - RL6, N1S1 - S3N3H2 flying mage, which is pretty solid. Obviously MA Mict isn't going to be summoning them up, though if they do they have no gold cost (#525). I'm going to go with my gut here and say that tempting EA and LA mict to actually use these guys instead of going hardcore blood would be quite good for variety and they /are/ snakes, so perhaps a discount to 1 / 30 or 35?


Summon Tlaloque - 1 / 60 - RL7, W4 - Powerful unique demons. I don't feel comfortable suggesting any price/stats change here. Guess if people use them, they don't need a change. If not, they do ;]




Bind Beast Bats - 3 / 8 - RL2, B1 - They were moved to 3 / 10 in cb, but I think 3 / 8 is fair. They are normally passed over for Ozelotls anyway.


Bind Jaguar Fiends - 3 / 13 - RL4, B1F1 - These were moved to 3 / 18 in cb 1.1. They're pretty nuts, so that seems fair.


Contact Civateteo - 1 / 25 - RL5, B2D2 - Mini-vampire ladies. They're B1D1H2 and are stealthy, but aren't assassins or spies or anything. Nice leaders though, of normal and undead. The problem of course is that recruitable Mictlan mages don't have B2D2, so a discount seems fair. 1 / 18 given that you might have to wait for an onaqui to summon them.


Bind Tzitzimitl - 1 / 10 - RL6, B2S2 - More sacred demon goodness, but these guys probably don't get much love because of the Ozelotl summon. I'd like to see them at 1 / 8 or 3 / 25 perhaps.


Contact Tlahuelpuchi - 1 / 25 - RL6, B2 - Sort of an upgraded Civateteo. They can assassinate and in animal shape are very stealthy (+25). Unlike the Civateteo they only require B2 so the cost seems,... ok. Are people using them?


Contact Onaqui - 1 / 101 - RL7, B4 - This seems very expensive, but then again it's very good. I'm going to leave this one to the experts :]


Rain of Jaguars - 14+ / 40 - RL8, B6F2 - No comment here. I don't want to touch the summon X+ spells.



As you can see my knowledge of Mictlan isn't awesome, especially when it comes to their blood stuff. I hope this is in some way helpful all the same :]

[Sombre]

ABYSIA EA


Summon Spectral Infantry - 5 / 5 - RL2, D1F1 - The Abysians lack recruitable mages to actually cast this and on top of it being difficult to use, the units aren't exactly hot stuff, only slightly better than shades. I suggest a major discount to 5 / 1 just to reward people who can cast the things.


Contact Scorpion Man - 1 / 12 - RL8, E1F1 - Again, the Abysians don't have mages that can cast this, though it does come late in the game. Actually that's the big problem with it - it's an interesting and powerful unit, but it's research level 8 damnit. If at all possible I'd like to see this dropped a couple of research levels and made 1 / 10. It seems really out of place at RL8. I appreciate that other nations have this spell and can actually cast it, so I could be wrong :]



CAELUM EA

Summon Yazatas - 6 / 18 - RL5, 2S - You already changed this a LOT in the last cbm, altering the unit, lowering the cost and making the spell RL1. So I'll leave them to you,.. though it might be thematically a bit funny I still think that both this summon and Amesha Spenta should require Air not astral, making them castable primarily by EA Caelum, since they are closest to the the celestial sphere. I suggest making them RL1 as you already have, but having them cost A3 - usable out of the box mainly by EA Caelum, but also by the other two eras.


Call Amesha Spenta - 1 / 60 - RL8, S5 - Reminds me of the Tlaloques. Again, I think they should be an air spell, A5 - one reason is to give air some actual cool summons, the other reason being that Caelum, particularly EA Caelum, don't get astral mages. Thematically EA Caelum would probably be most likely to summon these guys, you'd think. So I suggest A5 at 1 / 60.

[Sombre]

CTIS EA


Contact Sirrush - 1 / 10 - RL5, S1N1 - See my previous comments on Arcoscephale's Summon Sirrush spell. I think 1 / 7 or 8 would be far more tempting.


Summon Monster Toads - 3 / 8 - RL5, N2 - Note that this spell is different from the "Summon Monster Toad" one Mictlan gets, because it summons more at a time. Again, the boosts to the stats of the Monster Toad would help a bit, but I think this summon should be 3 / 6 making it hands down better for Ctis - after all the Marshmasters of MA Ctis would be far more in touch with these beasties.

Contact Couatl - 1 / 40 - RL7, N1S1 - See my comments on Mictlan's version of the spell, which is identical afaik.


Summon Scorpion Man - 1 / 12 - RL8, E1F1 - Once again the poor Scorpion man is hard or this nation to cast and high research level. See my comment's on Abysia's version, which has a different name but is afaik identical. Oh and as noted in IRC, he could be summoned a commander, that'd be fairly cool.


Devourer of Souls - 1 / 30 - RL9, D6 - A cool unique summon. Like scorpion man it could reasonably be changed to summon as a commander. It's nice that it is castable by Ctis with a couple of boosters. It could be dropped in research level by 1 or 2, but mainly it has problems as a SC killer because it isn't a commander and is a bit hard to use. With appropriate slots, as a commander and perhaps costed lower it could be a fun and useful unique for Ctis.



PANGAEA EA - all these summons are basically for Pan LA though.


Carrion Centaur - 1 / 10 - RL1, N1D1 - I merely suggest a discount to encourage the use of these reanimators. 1 / 6.


Carrion Lady - 1 / 16 - RL4, N1D1 - Suggest 1 / 10.


Carrion Lord - 1 / 25 - RL6, N3D2 - I'd like to see the Carrion Lord unit get N3D1H3 magic instead of his current N3H3 D 10% payload. That way he could summon up Carrion Ladies himself. Cost could drop to 1 / 20.

[MartialDoctor]

This mod looks great! I was wondering if version 1.2 was out yet? I'd like to try it out.

Thanks for the all the work you guys are putting into this.

[quantum_mechani]

It's not out yet, hopefully some time in the next few weeks.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

I don't know if this is relevant, or just a result of using 3.10 with CB1.1 Gods/Scales.

Late Era Agartha has some funy pretenders. Including some Maverni hornblower or something.

[quantum_mechani]

That is actually a worthy heroes bug.

[Sombre]

TIRNANOG EA


Contact Cu Sidhe - 7 / 10 - RL3, N2 - A sacred animal summon. It's interesting to note there are two types of Cu Sidhe in the game, one green one (1770) and one black one (851). The green one is summoned by this spell and is actually quite a fighter, like an upgraded dire wolf with excellent mr. It lacks the patrol bonus of the black one however. This is one of the best animal summons I've seen, on par with the jade serpents. If it were 7 / 7 I'd use it for sure, probably with a nice bless.


(As an aside, the "Dire Wolf" unit, ID 1224, should really be size 3, not 2 as it currently is in the game.)



HELHEIM EA


Pack of Wolves - 20 / 25 - Same as EA Ulm's spell. I suggested changing it to 12 / 7, though perhaps even 13 or 14 / 7 would be needed to stop it sucking so bad. It's even more awful for Helheim because none of their national mages can cast it.



NIEFELHEIM EA


Pack of Wolves - 20 / 25 - Same spell again. Niefelheim can at least cast the damn thing, but only with about 1/2 of their Gygja.

[Sombre]

I've given Kailasa a look, but I don't feel overly confident in my ability to balance them, especially the commander summons. You can see from my approach so far that I basically boost summons - this is because I feel the majority of them are currently so much worse than the other uses for gems and they really are very cool. Anyway, Kailasa.


KAILASA EA


Summon Apsaras - 3 / 3 - S2, RL3 - They are offensively rubbish and have no prot, dying quickly to missile fire, however they are hard as hell to hit in melee. This spell isn't too bad considering they are sacred, but could sure use a boost, as part of the monkey nation early game. I suggest 6 / 4 for these as well as the tigers, because the spell requires astral gems and must therefore be tempting.


Ambush of Tigers - 7 / 10 - N2, RL3 - Same as the Tienchi spell I talked about before. I suggested a change to 6 / 4 earlier. I stand by it.


Contact Yaksha - 1 / 25 - N2E1, RL4 - These are buildable by Kailasa and unlikely to be cast by Patala. For Bandar Log they are nice summons for the Rishis, though given that they cost astral and are rather restricted they could perhaps be even cheaper. 1 / 22 wouldn't break anything.


Contact Yakshini - 1 / 25 - N2W1, RL4 - These are buildable by Kailasa and unlikely to be cast by Patala. For Bandar Log they are nice summons for the Rishis, though given that they cost astral and are rather restricted they could perhaps be even cheaper. 1 / 22 wouldn't break anything.


Summon Gandharvas - 6 / 18 - S2, RL5 - This is more like it; Sacred, skilled, fast, resistant, protected and they even have standard 5. These guys are capable of kicking serious ***, though imo they are overcosted in base (like most troop summons) particularly as they cost astral. 6 / 12 or 14 would be far more tempting.


Summon Kinnara - 1 / 25 - S3, RL6 - Access to a flying commander with A2 is cool, even better with his other abilities. No change suggested.


Summon Siddha - 1 / 35 - S4, RL7 - Main feature of these chappies is flying mapmove 10. They might be thuggable with the right equips. They are better than Kinnaras in almost every respect so 35 seems ok. No change.


Summon Devata - 1 / 45 - S5, RL8 - Thuggable, A3S2H3, they can't fly. I suggest a decrease to 1 / 40.


Summon Devala - 1 / 55 - S5, RL9 - Increases magic scale and fairly quickly too, S3H4 which is interesting, no flying,... a discount to 1 / 45 might be fair because they don't do much else and at this research level I'm not sure how important a magic scale increase would be.


Summon Rudra - 1 / 55 - S5, RL9 - Rudras appear to suffer from old age, which they probably shouldn't. They grant access to F3 and D3 are storm fliers with mapmove 4, but they can't lead or research (who cares?). Their description says they can't forge but they could when I tested. Very cool units, but a bit overcosted again. 1 / 45-50.

[Sombre]

YOMI EA



Summon Kappa - 1 / 1 - W1N1, RL1 - Oh dear. These fellas are ok when you can recruit them, but as a summon they suck *** and are sort of like upgraded sea dogs. 6 / 3 and I'd cast them to eat arrows and expand UW.


Summon Karasu Tengu - 1 / 1 - N1A1, RL2 - Sacred. Similar to Konoha Tengu but more skilled in melee. Still fragile. As a Tengu of the wilds it should get forest survival and being able to fly in storms it should get 50% shockres. Yomi can't cast these with nationals. I suggest 5 / 3 to reward those who can actually cast and use them. Which is only Jomon pretty much.


Summon Konoha Tengus - 5 / 5 - A1E1, RL3 - Sacred. Similar to Karasu Tengu but less skilled in melee. Still fragile. As a Tengu of the mountains it should get mountain survival and being able to fly in storms it should get 50% shockres. I suggest 10 / 6 to reward those who can actually cast and use them. Yomi actually can, as can Jomon.


Ambush of Tigers - 7 / 10 - N2, RL3 - Same as the Tienchi/Kailasa spell I talked about before. I suggested a change to 6 / 4 earlier. I stand by it. Yomi can't cast this.


Ghost General - 1 / 10 - D3, RL4 - These are basically the national version of Banes, harder to cast, one research level higher and hardly much better. I suggest lowering the requirement to D2 and dropping the price to 1 / 5, the same requirement and price as Revive Bane in CBM 1.1. That way you don't have to waste Dai Oni time to cast them and they thematically replace Banes, slightly better but at one research level higher.


Contact Dai Tengu - 1+25 / 55 - A2E1, RL5 - You get one Dai Tengu commander and a 25 Konoha tengu retinue. He has A3E1N1H2 and as such can summon more Tengu. I suggest a drop in cost to 45. Yomi has virtually no chance to cast this with nationals, Shinuyama can't but Jomon can.


Contact Nushi - 1 / 25 - W2N1, RL5 - She gets sick and dies if she leaves her home. Nushi are W3D1N2 and so can step up your paths slightly, but are pretty underwhelming generally. 1 / 20 would be better. Yomi can't cast her, but Shinu and Jomon can.

[Sombre]

ATLANTIS EA


Summon Monster Fish - 1 / 10 - W3, RL6 - It's ok, but it's very niche. Considering only Atlantis has it and they are very often outclassed in the water, it could certainly be cheaper. I suggested knocking the Asp Turtle down to 1 / 12, but perhaps it should be 1 / 10 and this should be 1 / 6 or 7.



OCEANIA EA and RLYEH EA don't have jack.




LANKA EA



Host of Ganas - 20 / 12 - D1, RL2 - I've actually used this effectively in SP, but even then it was only really good compared to stuff like summon shades. With CBM dropping summon shades to 4 / 1, these very shadelike fellas should be something like 20 / 7.


Summon Vetalas - 10 / 10 - D2, RL5 - These guys are great fun at parties. They are ethereal but fragile, rather like ganas, but they do have a damaging life drain attack. Their secondary attack is touch of madness which is only good against commanders and is mr negates as well as only resolving at att 9. In my opinion they are both overcosted and too high in research. I'd drop them to 10 / 5 or 6 and RL4.


Summon Rakshasas - 3 / 10 - B1, RL1 - Not bad, especially with the typically strong lankan bless. As with the next two summons, I don't see any particular need for change. 3 / 9 maybe.


Feast of Flesh - 15 / 50 - B1N1, RL2 - Again, Praghasas aren't too bad at all. They're very similar to Rakshasa really, though more annoyingly gluttonous. That's the tradeoff for being able to summon so many at a time I suppose.


Summon Asrapas - 5 / 11 - B2, RL3 - Work with rather a different bless from the previous two summons, but are less powerful in combat. With a water/fire bless they could be mean as hell, so the price seems roughly right.


Summon Rakshasa Warriors - 5 / 25 - B2, RL4 - Considerably tougher to take down than their lower level brothers. They also work better with nature bless, though switching two attacks for one means they're worse with fire. Yet again, the price seems about right to me. No wonder Lankan blood summons have a good rep.


Summon Sandhyabalas - 3 / 30 - B2D1, RL5 - Ah. I'm not convinced these guys are worth the price. They're like stealthy dark powered moonblade swinging Rakshasa Warriors, but are 100% susceptible to fire rather than 50%. I think 4 / 30 would be fairer, but I am happy to be corrected.


Summon Dakini - 1 / 50 - B2A1, RL6 - As strong flying mages they seem ok for the price. I defer to others' expertise on this one. They have blood vengeance but it seems like it would be hard to utilise.


Summon Samanishada - 1 / 35 - B3D1, RL7 - Assassins, especially expensive ones, don't fare too well in dom3. What is a nice idea is using assassins with standard move orders to hunt thugs with the right equipment. Since they come with a moonblade and dusk dagger plus tasty stats (though not SC worthy), these guys might fill that role. I suggest lowering the cost to 1 / 30 because their main trick of assassination doesn't usually cut it.


Summon Mandaha - 1 / 133 - B5D2, RL8 - Going to have to defer to others on this one. The price seems ok and apparently people are getting plenty of use out of them, so no problem. One thing that does strike me as odd about them is that they have a gcost of 600, so they cost a load of upkeep. This is not in keeping with similar summons.


Summon Davanas - 3 / 75 - B5, RL8 - Eh,.. considering the research level I am not impressed. I believe if you GoR them you get H2 + 2 50% chances of B1 and 2 50% chances of A1. I think in CB this should be a single commander summon for 66 or something. They also don't appear to have an attack sprite. No idea why that is, guess it's a bug.

[vfb]

I have a slight disagreement about your assessment of Summon Vetalas:

This spell gives you 10 Unit #1765 (Possessed Corpse). Not ethereal yet, but not what I would consider fragile. This form has 22HP, 14 Prot, 14 MR, 16 Str, 12 Attack.

When killed they don't die, they are like Onis and they turn into their Vetala form (U#1766). Now they are ethereal, with a brand-spanking new 15 HP and a life drain attack to keep them going.

And the ethereal form heals completely into a new Possessed Corpse before the next battle, pretty much wiping out the "never heals" penalty.

In my opinion, these undead monkeys are serious bad news and I don't think it needs a boost.

(Yeah, I was ravaged by swarms of screaming Vetala hordes in MP, can you tell? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

[Sombre]

Ah, see I was just looking at the vetala form - I added it as a recruitable unit and tested it out, I didn't get them from the spell and thus get the possessed corpse form first.

My bad. Let me give them another look.

[Sombre]

Ok having looked at them again,...


Summon Vetalas - 10 / 10 - D2, RL5 - These guys are great fun at parties. Their first form is a fairly tough undead Bandar Warrior with some solid offensive power. If this is killed they switch to a second form which is ethereal but fragile, rather like ganas; though it has a damaging life drain attack. The second form also has a touch of madness attack which can feeblemind, but is mr negates as well as only resolving at att 9. The second form will restore itself back to first form after battle. Because of this they are pretty durable and much stronger than I initially assessed. The base price therefore seems ok, though if they aren't seeing much use they could still be discounted to 10 / 8 or so.

[Sombre]

Here comes some more,.... finishing up EA and moving on to MA. As always, I welcome discussion. These are just my ideas after all.


FOMORIA EA


Summon Black Dogs - 20 / 10 - D2, RL2 - These little dogs are actually rather good. They have dark power, 100 DV and stealth 20. Much better combat stats than animals like wolves too. Good spell and fun unit. Really shows how bad summon animals is for the basegame 20 / 20.


Summon Barghests - 9 / 13 - D2, RL4 - Barghests are basically upgraded black dogs who are also sacred. The spell is fairly good and if you have a nice bless, the dogs can make a mess. With DP3 and DV100 they're also badass in the dark. I suggested changing Cu Sidhe from 7/10 to 7/7 (that might be a bit cheap) so a cost reduction would make sense,.. to differentiate them from the Black Dogs summon, reducing the numbers further might make sense. I suggest 5 / 6.


Summon Morrigan - 1 / 4 - D2A1, RL6 - Like the Umbral (for EA and MA Agartha anyway) the Morrigan is rather hard to mass because the recruitables capable of casting it are all cap only. I therefore suggest a change to 3 / 10 or 12. Badass troops though.




------------------MIDDLE ERA--------------




ARCOSCEPHALE MA - Same as EA.


ERMOR MA - As with Ermor EA, no national summons here.


PYTHIUM MA


Contact Harbinger - 1 / 25 - S4, RL6 - Nice. Cost seems fine, as long as people are actually using them. No change.


Angelic Host - 1+6 / 50 - S5, RL7 - This is a farsummon. You get 1 Archangel commander with 6 Angel troops. Again this is powerful and seems costed about right.


Heavenly Wrath - 1 / 35 - S3F1, RL7 - Summons up an Angel of Fury. No magical abilities, no leadership, he's built purely for SC duties. Blood Vengeance 2 is the really interesting thing about him. Do people use him? The lack of magic paths seems like a turnoff.


Heavenly Choir - 1 / 144 - S7F2, RL9 - Generally considered the most powerful SC monster in the game, the Seraph might actually justify this kind of price tag. You also get a load of Angels of the Heavenly Choir, which aren't too shabby themselves, unless I'm mistaken. I'm out of my depth here so I'll just say 'No Comment'.



MAN MA


Summon Black Dogs - 20 / 10 - D2, RL2 - Same spell as the Fomorian version. Man lacks the recruitable mages to cast these.


Summon Cu Sidhe - 7 / 10 - N2, RL3 - Identical to Tirnanogs 'Contact Cu Sidhe'. I suggested 7 / 7 or thereabouts. They are different spells, but are functionally identical afaik.


Summon Barghests - 9 / 13 - D2, RL4 - Same spell as the Fomorian version. Like Black Dogs, it's not castable by recruits.



ULM MA - The same as ULM EA, except you actually lose the Pack of Wolves spell.

MARIGNON MA - Same as Pythium MA. Identical Angel summons.

MICTLAN MA - Same as Mictlan EA.

TIENCHI MA - Same as Tienchi EA.

MACHAKA MA - Have no national spells.


AGARTHA MA


Awaken Cavern Wight - 1 / 3 - D1E1, RL3 - In competition with the Summon Umbral spell which is only 2 research levels higher. CBM 1.1 made them 1 / 1. The problem is that MA Agartha can only cast them with cap only expensive oracles. LA Agartha can mass the buggers, but also has Sepulchrals to go for, plus a mass summoning of them up the research tree with 'Halls of the Dead'. So in my opinion this spell should be usable for MA Agartha and for LA should offer something a bit different from Umbrals and Sepulchrals. I suggest 8 / 10.


Summon Umbral - 1 / 2 - D1E1, RL5 - Same as the EA Agartha spell. Like EA, MA Agartha has problems massing these.


Attentive Statues - 2 / 8 - E2, RL3 - These are roughly the same as the 'Living Statue' units gained by casting 'Enliven Statues'. The requirements are quite a bit lower but they cost over twice as much. Bearing this spell is for MA Agartha, it should be better. CBM 1.1 had them at 2 / 5 but I think to differentiate them from both Enliven Statues and the higher level agarthan statue spells, they should be 5 / 10. This gives Agartha an early game boost without treading on the toes of the other spells and would surely make the spell usable, even good.


Enliven Sentinel - 1 / 4 - E2, RL4 - Being sacred and with boosted stats, these kick the crud out of living and attentive statues. I think they should be 2 / 7 or 8. Massable because they're E2 and you get 2 per cast, but far less so than the attentive or living statues, while obviously quality over quantity.


Enliven Granite Guard - 1 / 12 - E3, RL5 - CBM 1.1 had these at 1 / 8. Only making 1 at a time makes perfect sense and differentiates the spell from other statue summons. I reckon you could go 1 / 7 without unbalancing them though. The pinnacle of quality over quantity.


Enliven Marble Oracle - 1 / 45 - E3D1, RL6 - I'm really not sure why these are worth 45 gems. I feel like I'm missing something. They are like upgraded Golems, but with holy 2 instead of astral. Clearly they are to be used as SCs and they do have nice slots and stats for that duty,... but 45 gems? 35 would seem closer to the mark to me, especially when you consider that Golems are basically something you get for free just by researching construction (which you'd have to do to get items for your Marble Oracle SC anyway).

[DrPraetorious]

The angels are a lot more useful for Marignon than for Pythium. Marignon has recruitable sacred troops enough to at least *justify* a strong bless, marignon doesn't get air magic (hence the harbinger).

The price points might be marginally high, since astral pearls are so precious in large amounts - but people certainly do use the angel summons, so I think they're okay.

Didn't you forget holy pyre, or are we ignoring national combat spells?

[Sombre]

I'm just looking at national summons right now. Weak summons are my bugbear.

But I'm sure QM would like feedback on other national spells. They are one of the most time consuming and tricky things to look at when balancing.

[quantum_mechani]

DrPraetorious said:
The angels are a lot more useful for Marignon than for Pythium. Marignon has recruitable sacred troops enough to at least *justify* a strong bless, marignon doesn't get air magic (hence the harbinger).


I think Pythium gets at least as much use or more out of them (they have astral gems coming out their ears). I agree they are pretty much fine as they are though.

[Sombre]

Before I post some more stuff, I want to revise what I said about two summons for Kailasa/Bandar/Patala.

Contact Yaksha - 1 / 25 - N2E1, RL4 - These are buildable by Kailasa so are unlikely to be summoned. They also cost gold upkeep. They can be summoned by Patala, though they aren't especially attractive to them. For Bandar Log they are nice enough summons for the Rishis, though there is some difficulty in getting them. The cost is ok at 1 / 25 or so considering the access into earth.


Contact Yakshini - 1 / 25 - N2W1, RL4 - These are buildable by Kailasa so are unlikely to be summoned. They also cost gold upkeep. They can be summoned by Patala, though they aren't especially attractive to them. For Bandar Log they are nice enough summons for the Rishis, though there is some difficulty in getting them. W3 is simply less useful than E3, making the Yakshini less appealing than the Yaksha, so I think they should be cheaper. 1 / 20 or 22.


I can't be bothered to go back and edit the original entries where I was mistaken about a couple of things.

[Sombre]

ABYSIA MA - Same as Abysia EA

CAELUM MA - Same as Caelum EA.

CTIS MA - Same as Ctis EA.

PANGAEA MA - Same as Pangaea EA.

VANHEIM MA - Did I forget Vanheim EA? Anyway, all they get is Pack of Wolves, which I've discussed. They can't cast it with recruitables anyway.

JOTUNHEIM MA - Same as Niefelheim EA.


BANDAR LOG MA - Get all of Kailasa EA's summons AND all of Lanka EA's too, plus these.


Summon Nagas - 6 / 20 - W2E1, RL3 - All the water and earth naga summons are virtually uncastable by Bandar Log recruitables. They also all require gold upkeep, which is a bit unfortunate. In terms of fighting ability, Naga Warriors fall short of Ghandharvas but are better than Apsaras. Bandar Log is the only nation that gets these Naga summons and the only realistic way to use them is either with pretender magic to get a Naga Commander who then searches for water gems and summons the troops,.. or with 1 in 4 of your Yakshini. Because of this the Naga troops are effectively higher in research than they appear and are very hard to cast. They should therefore be considerably cheaper, to compete with the astral summons. I suggest 6 / 10.


Contact Nagini - 1 / 25 - W2E1, RL4 - These give access into water and earth, but only 1/4 have E2 and 1/4 W3. They can seduce in their second form, which is fairly useful, though they are expensive for just that. Considering the trouble Bandar Log will have getting water gems to cast them, the fact they cost gold upkeep, their relatively underwhelming stats/magic and the fact that the Yaksha/Yakshini provide better and easier access to water and earth, I think they should be 1 / 20.


Contact Nagaraja - 1 / 30 - W2E2, RL5 - I'm not sure why these should ever cost more than Nagini. They have worse magic in exchange for another level of holy and better thug/leader stats and they are harder to cast. Gotta be 1 / 20 or maybe even lower. The difference is largely cosmetic though. I think reducing the requirement to W2E1 to match the Nagini would would also be fair.


Contact Nagarishi - 1 / 40 - W3E3, RL6 - The problem with Nagarishi is that they are very hard to cast and for 50 nature gems you can get a Yakshini AND a Yaksha who provide you with roughly the same amount of magic, with guaranteed W3 and E3 and are more versatile. Yaksha /Yakshini are far easier to cast - you can get them with your Rishis. So what should be done with the Nagarishi? It could be reduced to 1 / 30 but it would still be a complete pain in the arse to actually cast. Perhaps at 1/30 but with the requirement of W3/E2. That way you'd have more chance of getting one using a Nagini, if for some reason you actually have water gems rather than nature.


NB. In CBM1.1 the Nagini and Nagaraja were swapped in terms of research level, the Nagaraja was reduced to 1 / 25 and the Naga warriors were 6 / 10 already.

[DrPraetorious]

Do you really have nothing better to do with pearls than make angels with them?

I almost always make a couple of the thug angels, and the heavenly host is great to diversify into fire (although - who really cares about fire?), but give me an extra hundred astral pearls, I'm not going to spend them on more angels.

[llamabeast]

The angels were a pretty key part of my joint victory in Alpaca. I think they're awesome. There aren't that many other comparable SC chassis apart from Tartarians and elemental royalty.

[Alneyan]

At the risk of looking like the local dofus, what's the status of CBM? The pointers I've found resulted in 404s, and I'm not sure if there's actually been a release for 3.10. So, where should I go to get CBM?

[Agrajag]

I got mine from Pashadawg, he Emailed it to everyone in the RAND MP game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif
(Emailed because everyone was having problems downloading it)

EDIT: I attached what I have to this message, I'm pretty sure this should work. (I don't have it all packed, so I repacked all the files that I think belong to cbm.)
Its in a .rar archive.

[Serenity]

Well that didnt work for my 3.10.

Worked for anyone else?

[Zeldor]

I have checked the rar file and files there are the same that I have and they work. Do not forget to unpack it into /mod folder http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Alneyan]

The mod works for me. Thanks a bunch, Agrajag!

[Serenity]

Gives me a "Bad #selectarmor command" -error :S

I can run the CBM complete from there but not the individual ones. Btw I noticed nothing changed, how do I know the CBM complete is in effect? I can see the mod on my right side of screen but im still not sure its affecting anything.

[Szumo]

Sombre said:
Summon Morrigan - 1 / 4 - D2A1, RL6 - Like the Umbral (for EA and MA Agartha anyway) the Morrigan is rather hard to mass because the recruitables capable of casting it are all cap only. I therefore suggest a change to 3 / 10 or 12. Badass troops though.
[...]
Summon Umbral - 1 / 2 - D1E1, RL5 - Same as the EA Agartha spell. Like EA, MA Agartha has problems massing these.




Small correction here, 25% of EA Agartha's Earth Readers (recruitable everywhere) can summon Umbrals. Which is quite enough to mass them easily in midgame.

[Sombre]

Ah, thanks. You're quite right.

I stand by my suggestions for the spell though.

[vfb]

Sombre said:
Summon Jade Serpent - 1 / 5 - RL4, W2 - Hey, this new summon is pretty cool. It's amphibious, has standard 10 and a really nice bite. I'd suggest 12 AP instead of 10, size 5 instead of 6 (compare it with hydra), def 11 instead of 9. The fact that it has 15 mr is a bit puzzling, most animals have 5. If you feel generous it could be 1 / 4.




I just ran into a few MA Mictlan Jade Serpents in an SP game, and they did a decent job of elephant traffic management. Yay for the AI! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

EA/LA Mictlan don't care so much because they have Vines already, but these nice new Jade Serpents do a pretty nice job of elephant blocking for MA Mictlan that would be lost if their size is dropped from 6 to 5.

[Sombre]

Well in terms of blocking a size 5 unit does pretty well against size 6 trample anyway. I'd put my money on size 5 jade serpents vs elephants, since the serpents would almost certainly carry a bless.

[llamabeast]

Being size 5 against elephants is still pretty disastrous. I can't remember how the damage depends on size difference, but it's not a very strong size dependence, so even size 5 units will take quite a bashing. Good point about the bless though.

[Zeldor]

So maybe make them big and strong and take bless away?

[Sombre]

Just going by the graphic, hitpoints etc I really don't think they should be size 6. Bless also makes perfect sense for them. I think all of micts summons are sacred.

Anyway, it's not exactly a major issue. If people prefer them at size 6 I guess that's fine :]

[llamabeast]

I've not actually seen the things yet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[Sombre]

Attached is a graphic for QM.

[krawn]

How's this mod going?

Any idea what the release date is looking like?

[Endoperez]

The discussion has been active on the IRC channel. I don't think the next version will appear before the next patch, and we don't know when that's going to appear.

[Sombre]

Star of heroes - 172 - secondaryeffect - Armor Dest 173

#selectweapon 172
#secondaryeffectalways 173
#end

#selectweapon 173 -- might need an explspr as well
#aoe 1
#end

Evening star - 304 - secondaryeffect1 - Fire and Weakness - 305 - secondaryeffect2 - weakness 306 (not used by anything else, either of these)

#selectweapon 304
#secondaryefectalways 305
#end

#selectweapon 305 -- explspr? Something fire and weaknessy
#aoe 1
#end

#selectweapon 306
#aoe 1
#end


Star of Thraldom - 218 - secondaryeffect - False Fetters 219

#selectweapon 218
#secondaryeffectalways 219
#end

#selectweapon 219
#aoe 1
#end

[iceboy]

Is this mod compatible with patch 3.10? Possible to put patch compatible version in the readme? Thanks!

[Endoperez]

It's waiting for the next patch to come out. No details on the release date yet, but http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html progress page is back up.

[iceboy]

Endoperez said:
It's waiting for the next patch to come out. No details on the release date yet, but http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html progress page is back up.



Thanks looking forward to it! But is that a yes or a no? It is or isnt compatible with 3.10?

[Endoperez]

There's an attachment at the end of page 6 of this thread. I didn't test it myself, but it worked for some people and didn't for others.

You'll probably want to try the complete version. The CB is divided into parts, so that you can choose to only enable scale effects, or only changes to the pretenders, or changes to the scales and spells but not pretenders, etc. The Complete version of CB enables everything, and while it can be pretty overwhelming you get a good idea of all the things that change. I don't know if the .rar file has all the versions. (And .rar is just like .zip, except that you need a program named WinRAR instead of WinZip, in case you didn't know.)

[MKDELTA]

The 3.10 compatible version works for me. Seems like fun.

[iceboy]

Any timeframe for the update to CBM for 3.14? Looking forward to it!

[quantum_mechani]

Yes, now that I can no longer lean on my 'waiting for Illwinter' excuse, I'm going to try and have it out by this weekend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[iceboy]

quantum_mechani said:
Yes, now that I can no longer lean on my 'waiting for Illwinter' excuse, I'm going to try and have it out by this weekend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Great! Cant wait! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Starshine_Monarch]

There seems to be a serious bug here. I was using this mod to create a new pretender, but when it asked me to choose which age, no matter which one I picked, I ended up getting an error. I think it said "Bad #selectarmor command". This could be just a minor bug, but I think it's more of this simply isn't compatible with 3.15 yet. I hope we can get the CBM fixed soon.

[Humakty]

I was able to continue a Shinuyama game after having patched to 3.15... And there is a new thread for 1.21 and subsequent versions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

Worthy Heroes gives Ratherik the Ulmish hero Star of Heroes. Conceptual Balance gives Star of Heroes AoE 10. Using Raterik in an army of Ulmish heroes kills both Raterik and his soldiers, since their armor is destroyed and prot 0 Ulmish troops are like barbarians, except slow to produce.

Raterik should have some other morningstar instead, perhaps Evening Star. Its armor-piercing damage will hurt his friends, but he's almost immune and even Bracers of Protection should protect him most of the time. The strength loss is annoying, but that's still better than Star of Thraldom whose effect is magic resistance negates...


There's a bug with Evening Star:

#selectweapon 304
#secondaryefect 0
#end

#selectweapon 304
#secondaryefectalways 305
#end

[Sombre]

I'm guessing they aren't supposed to be aoe 10.

[Endoperez]

Sombre said:
I'm guessing they aren't supposed to be aoe 10.



Evening Star and Star of Thraldom have AoE 5 or 6 or so, and thugs/SCs fighting indies or national units wouldn't mind having large AoE specialties. Thugs would have magical armor (i.e. armor item), good magic resistance and/or fire immunity, negating the negative effects of their own weapon.

If non-item armors could be magical, and Ulmish Black Plate was such, Star of Heroes would be great for Ulm. Unfortunately, that's not the case and Raterik is more dangerous to his pals than the enemy, especially since Ulmish armors need so many resources before they're fixed.