Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Squirrelloid]

Re:Sombre
Possibly a separate issue: Should the lifedrain used by illithid troops be #bonus to avoid them losing it when they lose an arm? This doesn't have the same balance implications as the commanders, as they cannot be equipped with items.

(Yes, I realize differentiating the two requires specifying a new lifedrain weapon that is #bonus rather than just making the existing one #bonus).

[Stavis_L]

Note that Illithid Lords and Illithid Soldiers do *not* have the Life Drain weapon. So perhaps, despite our DnD fueled preconceived notions, they suck out your life with their hands vs. tentacle beards? Note that life drain doesn't align terribly well to the concept of sucking out a brain anyway...perhaps it's totally unrelated.

[Warhammer]

Would it be possible for future versions of CBM to have two d/ls? One with gemgen and one without for those idiots among us, like myself, who has no idea how to mod?

[Rysan Marquise]

I believe that goes against the idea behind CBM.

It seems that the goal is to create a balanced game and improve gameplay, not specifically create a mod that people will like.

[Amonchakad]

Would it be possible for future versions of CBM to have two d/ls? One with gemgen and one without for those idiots among us, like myself, who has no idea how to mod?


I agree with Rysan, it shouldn't be an official version, but just for you, here you go;) (didn't test it but it should be ok)

And I suggest you try out Dom3 modding, it's nowhere near as hard as it might sound:)

[zzcat]

A minor bug: Divine Lightning(weapon number 754) should be magical but it doesn't have #magic tag.

[Festin]

I am preparing for a new MP game as Jomon, and I ran a few quick SP games with them to test my strategies. So, I would like to talk about Jomon a bit.

The point is: am I the only person who thinks that Jomon seems specifically designed to induce frustration?

*)Jomon infantry have no shields - ok, fine, completely thematic. But why is their armor so horribly heavy? I do not see any reason for this to be so extreme.

*)Some of their infantry have 9 hp instead of default human 10. Why? If it is thematic, why there is no mention of this in the flavor text(Ulm units have it mentioned)? Is it for balance reasons? No need to worry, really, they suck anyway due to heavy armor and lack of shields.

*)They have great death summons (Ghost General and Dai Oni), but absolutely no death access. Worse, Dai Oni is a F/D summon, costs a huge number of death gems (which you will not have), and needs it armor replaced.

*)Kenzoku is a cool new summon: sacred, ethereal, awe - realy nice. He is quite cheap, and your mages can actually summon him(big improvement for Jomon). But guess what? His goddamn armor ruins everything. An earth bless could fix him, but Jomon does not really benefit from earth bless.

*)Why? Because your mages are not sacred. Also, they have movement 1, and a path selection that is so depressing that I do not even want to speak about it. No boosters for you.

*)Jomon has impressive underwater recruitables, especially Ryujin. But how do you get underwater without using a SC amphibious pretender? Each time I tried to use water breathing items, it was already late.

So. You have a weak starting army, and your units cost a ton of resources, so you may want to take Production to have a decent expansion speed. But your mages are not sacred, so they have huge upkeep, so you want Order. So, no way to save points by taking a "less troops/more mages and summons" path.
You have great, cheap thugs - Kenzoku and Ghost General. Too bad that you have no way to use them as a basis for your strategy: Ghost General needs death, Kenzoku needs an earth bless(or an armor replacement, after which he will no longer be cheap), and a priest to bless him because he cannot self-bless.
You have good archers, but you can wait for a long, long time to have a 2F or 2A mage.

Basically, Jomon has a lot of interesting options, but most of them are either unpractical or mutually exclusive and not good enough by themselves.

Is it possible to do anything about it?

[rdonj]

Festin - In our mp game together what I did is I took an awake celestial general with 4 air, 3 earth and 2 death. I didn't use him as an awake SC, but I used his freespawn as arrow catchers to help me expand. And used him to site search a bunch of provinces near my capitol. This was enough to get me a death income, and I was able to get enough death gems to summon mages and spam dark knowledge out a bit. You may not have seen them but I have a number of shura down fighting gath+midgard. This pretender also gives you easy access to both dwarven hammers and air boosters, which you would also ordinarily have a little trouble with. It's not too hard to fit decent scales on this pretender so long as you don't go overboard on the dominion. This pretender won't let you summon Dai Oni of course, but by the time you should be contemplating them, you should have a fairly solid fire income. If you have to empower, fire is probably one of the less painful gem types to do so with.

Getting underwater is a bit painful, and I plain couldn't do it. Your best bet? I don't know, probably to trade someone something for an underwater province.

The heaviness of samurai armor is also a bit of a pain. 7 encumbrance on a unit that doesn't have a shield or black plate is pretty bad. Luckily combats with them don't tend to last very long, as usually either you'll be shot full of arrows or the very high attack skill of the samurai will make mincemeat out of the enemy. They could probably stand to lose one encumbrance on the heavy and normal samurai armors, but certainly no more than that. While we are on the subject of armor though, have you tried using boots of the messenger on your kenzoku? 2 net encumbrance isn't really that bad, and should probably suffice for light raiding.

The low HP thing is from vanilla. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to reflect that japanese are shorter than european humans. So the average joe gets lower health.


You have good archers, but you can wait for a long, long time to have a 2F or 2A mage.

Am I the only player in dominions who thinks jomon's archers are terrible? They take more resources than anything other than your cavalry, have worse stats than anything else you can recruit, and they bring longbows into the era of super heavy infantry with tower shields. Chances are, if these guys are firing into the enemy and you have soldiers engaged in melee with them, your units are going to take far more casualties than the enemy as they can actually be damaged by the arrows. If you're just using nothing but samurai archers it's a little better, but they are still nowhere near as good as your other units in melee and cost more resources. I cannot imagine them being a better buy than your melee troops without both wind guide and flaming arrows. I would still probably just buy indy archers though.

[Festin]

Celestrial General is quite nice, but it still has some weak points:
*)No earth bless for thugs. Boots of messenger will do the job of course, but, as I see it, the whole point of Kenzoku and Ghost General is their low cost, and this means minimal equipment (something like Demon Whip/Vine Shield, I think). In thier current state, Jomon cannot rely on thugs in midgame, because they will not have enough of them.
*)Need to empower to summon Dai Oni.
*)He does not help to get underwater.
*)He is quite expensive. With their non-sacred mages, Jomon likes good scales.

I think I would try to do something with Ghost King, which really shows how messed-up Jomon is. Who actually uses Ghost King apart from Jomon?

Low HP thing seems a bit illogical: why are Tien Chi soldiers 10 HP then?

I think Aka-Oni Samurai are far better then other Jomon units, including archers. But archers could be very nice, hypothetically, if Jomon had reliable 2F and 2A.

Some suggestions:
1)Reduce samurai armor weight. Come on, it is ridiculous, really. Jomon infantry is not overpowered in any way, since there is an obvious counter for them.
2)In CBM, Jomon can summon Kappa commanders early on. Nice, but a bit pointless, because they are too weak to be used as thugs and have nobody to lead. Give Jomon a low-level Conjuration spell that summons several regular Kappas, or change an existing spell so that it summops a Kappa Chief and 10 regular Kappas(more expensive, of course).
3)I do not know what can be done with their mages and path access. Probably somebody more experienced can suggest something without ruining the balance.

[rdonj]

Well, I managed o3/p3 on him with decent dominion. You just need to take 3 negative scales.

[Micah]

You keep harping on their non-sacred mages but they have a perfectly functional sacred researcher. Granted he's not doing anything in a fight, but your combat mages are actually pretty cheap because they're not sacred, while you can fill out your labs with really cost-effective guys.

[Trumanator]

Not to mention that the W or N random monks become absolute monsters when placed into a communion. 0 enc, 0 gem reinvigoration and POTS are nothing to sneer at.

[Frozen Lama]

Hey, don't rip on the ghost king. he is a very good expander/rainbow

[Squirrelloid]

I've used GK with plenty of nations, often UW ones! He's a great expander early on against non-archers non-mages - which means UW you can guarantee a province/trn so long as you avoid the hydromancers (they're the ones with sea trolls and a kraken). Land nations need to be a little more careful (or give him air magic!).

Jomon:
1) Samurai armor's huge encumbrance is irrelevant. If they acquire more than 20-30 fatigue, you're doing something wrong. Namely, not killing the enemy fast enough. You have 6 damage katanas as the *low* end of your weapon options. At the high end you have 10 damage glaives. Since all the units you will ever buy have str 11, that's 17-21 damage per guy. That's enough to really matter against even elite infantry. Throw on some strength of giants and its your own fault if you start fatiguing out.
2) Earth bless can make a lot of sense as Jomon - specifically for your summoned thugs. But it also benefits your sacreds - the yamabushi are well worth using *even without a bless*. Don't overlook the H2/H1 thug that comes even earlier than the other one - he can self bless and has only slightly worse stats. (Also, only requires E gems iirc, instead of precious astral).
3) Jomon's magic is good. No seriously, you have access to everything but D natively, and you have a summon that has D magic (i forget which offhand - its the swamp one). Who cares if they're not sacred - they're dirt cheap for how good they are. 4 total paths for 160g and recruit anywhere is pretty nice - it comes out to around 11g upkeep, which is less than 2g/RP in upkeep - its not winning any efficiency awards, but its certainly not notably bad either.

And since you can (and should) buy a lot of them, you'll have the path combinations you want, and access to boosters in most paths. The only boosters you won't have reliable access to are air and fire, and for the most part you won't care. Heck, you have the coveted E+S in combination, so you can make coins to S-boost. IIRC, you can get to RoWs without needing your pretender involved.

Site search aggressively (you'll be able to use auspex, augury, apsu, arcane probing, gnome lore, and haruspex trivially) to get good gem income.

Map move 1 a problem? Use your air income to make boots of flying.

4) Samurai archers suck. No seriously, don't buy them. Go-hatamoto, aka-oni, ashigaru, and yamabushi are about the only troops you should ever buy.

5) The monks are just amazing, but not for research. They're less efficient researchers than your other mages (no seriously, they've got half as many RPs for more than half the cost, meaning they cost more upkeep/RP than the mages do). What the monks excel at is being handed a master matrix, and leading line-backer communions in which they get to use awesome spells (W+N monks), or casting AoE air shield (A monks) on your shield-less troops. The F and E monks are acceptable researchers, and the cost of getting the really awesome monks.

[Festin]

Thanks for some good suggestions (I did not really notice yamabushi, for example), but, in my opinion, the main points still remain.

Sorry, but Jomon magic is simply not good. Sure, there are nations in LA with worse mages, but not too many. Tien Chi magic is good. Marignon magic is good. Jomon magic is not. I have played 2 MP games with them (and several SP), and the most vivid memory is a huge crowd of W1N1, A1N1 and E1W1 Onmyoji hired in a vain hope to get an F2.

I did not mean that earth bless is completely useless for Jomon. But here the in-built frustration factor of Jomon manifests again: you need earth bless for thugs BUT your mages are not sacred and you have a reliable access to earth. So, it's a kind of a lose/lose situation. Typical.

Moving around those huge monk-powered communions which are supposed to be a trump card of Jomon using boots of flying does not really look like a solution.

Nushi does have D1, but she is Conj-5, needs W2 and can only be summoned in swamps. Well...

Go-hatamoto, aka-oni, ashigaru, and yamabushi are about the only troops you should ever buy.
Why ashigaru? I did not really find any use for them. You start with 10, and they do a good job as archer decoys, but I never saw a reason to buy one.

[rdonj]

Hmm. At first glance, yamabushi don't really seem to be a real improvement over go-hatamoto without a bless. Care to elaborate on their usefulness, squirrel?

[Humakty]

I rather agree on the mage frustration part, as you can't plan on anything, apart on a giant map where you'll be able to pump enougth of them so as to be 'almost' sure to have the paths you need. Even in SP I had problems with those damn randoms.

But the troops seemed to me rather good, ok you have no shields, but you'll crush any recruitable troops in melee, thanks to awesome attack skill and good damage output. And your cavalry is here to flank ennemy archers. Heck, the attack skill of your troops is so high you can even hope to reliably damage water blessed sacred troops ! The only real threat is crossbows/ fire arrowed archers, as basic archers will have great pain damaging your troops.
Think the other way around : who will I send to the frontline to hold those god damn samurais that won't end sliced up in two rounds ?

As I'm a SP player, I won't praise the jomon specific summons (AI can't react properly to thugs) but they seem to me efficient enougth to be worth using. Those plus the ones you get as an heritage of earlier time gives you a enormous lot of tools to use.

[Squirrelloid]

rdonj: Yamabushi have (1) higher attack than go-hatamoto, (2) damage 10 weapon vs, damage 8 weapon (21 vs. 19 damage before drn), and (3) map-move 2. You're also likely to have some sort of bless unless you played for pure scales, most of which are going to be at least plausibly useful. Finally, they require relatively few resources compared to their gold cost, unlike most of your troops, so they're easy to 'mass' - I usually take good dominion as Jomon to push my likely great scales so i'm buying 7+ of them every turn.

Thanks for some good suggestions (I did not really notice yamabushi, for example), but, in my opinion, the main points still remain.

Sorry, but Jomon magic is simply not good. Sure, there are nations in LA with worse mages, but not too many. Tien Chi magic is good. Marignon magic is good. Jomon magic is not. I have played 2 MP games with them (and several SP), and the most vivid memory is a huge crowd of W1N1, A1N1 and E1W1 Onmyoji hired in a vain hope to get an F2.

Ok, first of all: castle aggressively. If you have less than 3 castles at the end of year 1, you're probably doing something wrong. If you hire mages at all your castles every turn, and continue castling aggressively, you should get most variations you need.

Second: both of your mages are useful. The Onmyoji only really come into their own later on - i'd focus on the other earlier. He'll get you easy access to haruspex and gnome lore, and you'll probably pull an augur and auspex before too long. As your anti-rush strategy should involve alteration research, these are the mages you want to shut down a rush anyway because the early earth magic in alteration is killer. (Suggested research: alt2 -> thaum2 -> evo2 -> conj3+ OR alt4 OR constr++. This gets you all the site searching spells as well as the necessary rush counters before the end of year 1.)


I did not mean that earth bless is completely useless for Jomon. But here the in-built frustration factor of Jomon manifests again: you need earth bless for thugs BUT your mages are not sacred and you have a reliable access to earth. So, it's a kind of a lose/lose situation. Typical.

First, your god doesn't *need* to do anything for you except provide good scales. So grabbing a major e-bless really doesn't involve any opportunity cost except your scales are worse than they would otherwise be. So who cares if your mages aren't sacred? That means you don't need to waste effort trying to bless them all either, and since your priestly options kind of suck, sacred mages would be even more aggravating.


Moving around those huge monk-powered communions which are supposed to be a trump card of Jomon using boots of flying does not really look like a solution.

Monk-powered communions are *a* tool in the jomonese toolbox, not the only tool. You have summonable thugs capable of raiding, you have good battle magic especially in earth and astral, and you have solid troops. You even have mages capable of casting Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows (F2 + Phoenix Power + 3f gems - so keep an eye out for good indie archers). The communions should come out for big fights only, and as your Onmyoji can all teleport with a cap, they are easy to mass when necessary, and are your go-to mages for communions because they can slave themselves up on their own.


Nushi does have D1, but she is Conj-5, needs W2 and can only be summoned in swamps. Well...

Since your major early research goals are in alteration, conjuration, and construction (following acquisition of site searching spells), conj 5 is not that inconvenient. Also, swamp forts are cheap, so you have good reason to want a swamp anyway. And you'll have W2 by the time you have conj 5. IIRC, she also has decent water magic, so you can use her to break into Streams from Hades with some boosters for D3 access. Conj 5 is plenty early enough for death access.


Go-hatamoto, aka-oni, ashigaru, and yamabushi are about the only troops you should ever buy.
Why ashigaru? I did not really find any use for them. You start with 10, and they do a good job as archer decoys, but I never saw a reason to buy one.

Ashigaru have a length 5 weapon, and you'll have a pile of N2 mages. Panic + repel sounds like a tasty combination. Also, cheap chaffe is always potentially useful, especially when your cheap chaffe is better armed and armored than most of the independents at a similar resource cost, and the independents are much harder to mass. Deploy them against average morale foot soldiers or cavalry, provide some mage support (re:Panic, but also LoS, Wooden Warriors, etc..), and the lowly ashigaru might surprise you. With sufficient panic-spam, even elite soldiers are vulnerable.

Note that the yamabushi's glaive is length 4, so still good for repelling a wide variety of targets - they could easily be mixed into blocks of ashigaru for some punch.

[Festin]

The tread is actually about CBM, so I will try to be brief, so that we can concentrate on discussing possible mod suggestions
If you hire mages at all your castles every turn, and continue castling aggressively, you should get most variations you need.
This does not really solve the problem. Sure, if I hire a huge number of mages, eventually I will get all the needed combinations - and end up with scores of nearly-useless high-upkeep mages.

First, your god doesn't *need* to do anything for you except provide good scales.
IMO, Jomon absolutely needs death on their pretender. Without death, they will miss one of the best thugs in the whole game, and their late game will be completely unimpressive. Nushi is _not_ an option for death access, because it is difficult to summon, and, far more importantly, comes far too late. Ghost General is Conj 4, and as Jomon I would want to mass summon them ASAP. Not to mention the amount of death gems Jomon will have available using this approach. Forget Dai Oni, I am not sure Jomon will even have enough for some generic late game summons.
You have summonable thugs capable of raiding, you have good battle magic especially in earth and astral, and you have solid troops. You even have mages capable of casting Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows (F2 + Phoenix Power + 3f gems - so keep an eye out for good indie archers).
Sure, Jomon has all these options. In addition, it has good national SCs, powerful amphibious troops, great flying shapeshifting water mages, etc, etc. Too bad most of these options are best described as "hypothetical". I mentioned communions because this is one of the precious few things Jomon can _reliably_ access.

So, to keep this constructive :)
Jomon as it is, in my opinion, is flawed in several ways. It has access to very, very intersting things that can make this nation unique, competitive and just fun to play. But Jomon practically cannot use most of them. I would accept the mage-frustration thing by itself without any problems - lots of nations have problems with their mages, and they should compensate for it somehow, it is part of a game. But in Jomon's case it is a part of a greater picture. Heavy armor, bad randoms, no death, weak starting army, no underwater access, etc - all these things combine in a way that cripples the nation and ruins its great potential. Remove a few of these, and then players will be able to either compensate for the nation weaknesses, or accept them and boost the strong sides instead. This is the usual approach with most nations.

[Squirrelloid]

The tread is actually about CBM, so I will try to be brief, so that we can concentrate on discussing possible mod suggestions
If you hire mages at all your castles every turn, and continue castling aggressively, you should get most variations you need.
This does not really solve the problem. Sure, if I hire a huge number of mages, eventually I will get all the needed combinations - and end up with scores of nearly-useless high-upkeep mages.

....

I'm not about to go through all the possible path combinations to tell you what they're useful for. Suffice it to say that most of them are good for something, and you do need researchers after all, so even the few 'bad' combinations aren't actually useless. There are lots of great spells available at X2 for most paths, and quite a few at X1Y1 or X2Y1. Once you get some boosters you can cast 80-90% of the spells in the game. Most nations *cannot* say that.


First, your god doesn't *need* to do anything for you except provide good scales.
IMO, Jomon absolutely needs death on their pretender. Without death, they will miss one of the best thugs in the whole game, and their late game will be completely unimpressive.

...

No. In fact, Death is among the *last* things I would want on my pretender. Nushi -> Kolkythiad -> Lich -> Tarts gets you all the death you could ever possibly want, and the early steps don't even require d gems!


Nushi is _not_ an option for death access, because it is difficult to summon, and, far more importantly, comes far too late.

Conj 5 being late is hilarious, considering most pretender achieved D-access is acquired at conj 5 or 6 (lamia queens, streams from hades)


Ghost General is Conj 4, and as Jomon I would want to mass summon them ASAP. Not to mention the amount of death gems Jomon will have available using this approach. Forget Dai Oni, I am not sure Jomon will even have enough for some generic late game summons.

Ok, first of all, ghost general (like dai oni) is a yomi/shin summon that you are *lucky* to still have access to.

Second, you have your own perfectly good thug summons at conj 2 and 4 that don't require death.

Third, you will never have the d gems that early to mass ghost generals. You might get one, maybe 2. You'd be better off saving those d gems for something you actually need.

If your pretender is awake so you can get d-income that early, your scales aren't good enough. Jomon lives or dies by its scales. Then you consider sites in LA are often fairly rare, and you're really wasting your pretenders time if all he's doing is site searching and casting thug summons.


You have summonable thugs capable of raiding, you have good battle magic especially in earth and astral, and you have solid troops. You even have mages capable of casting Wind Guide and Flaming Arrows (F2 + Phoenix Power + 3f gems - so keep an eye out for good indie archers).
Sure, Jomon has all these options. In addition, it has good national SCs, powerful amphibious troops, great flying shapeshifting water mages, etc, etc. Too bad most of these options are best described as "hypothetical". I mentioned communions because this is one of the precious few things Jomon can _reliably_ access.

When i said summonable thugs i meant the e/s ones that are actually Jomon's, not the shin/yomi summons that jomon happens to have access to.

Jomon does not have national SCs really - it has access to shinuyama's SC summons (which is, in turn, a yomi recruitable). Its lucky to even have that as an option. Not being able to predictably use it should not be interpreted as a Jomon disadvantage - they only have access to it because Shinuyama has it. It was never intended to be cast by them.


So, to keep this constructive :)
Jomon as it is, in my opinion, is flawed in several ways. It has access to very, very intersting things that can make this nation unique, competitive and just fun to play. But Jomon practically cannot use most of them. I would accept the mage-frustration thing by itself without any problems - lots of nations have problems with their mages, and they should compensate for it somehow, it is part of a game. But in Jomon's case it is a part of a greater picture. Heavy armor, bad randoms, no death, weak starting army, no underwater access, etc - all these things combine in a way that cripples the nation and ruins its great potential. Remove a few of these, and then players will be able to either compensate for the nation weaknesses, or accept them and boost the strong sides instead. This is the usual approach with most nations.

... the starting army can expand just fine with some recruits - it is by no means especially weak.

They have everything but death, and all you need is a swamp to bootstrap up death in a real way. You won't need death magic until the endgame, so...

Kappa provide UW access. Also Naiad warriors, which you can easily summon, or happening across merfolk/shambler towns.

Basically, stop whining about things that Jomon doesn't do well when it was never intended to do those things well. Look at what Jomon actually does well instead - there's quite a lot. Not having easy access to death magic isn't exactly the end of the world - plenty of good nations don't have access to it, and Jomon can bootstrap into it *without* using precious pretender points!

[Festin]

Oh, of course Jomon has its strong points. It even won a game once(according to HoF)!

I do not think it is a most productive use of time - trying to convince everyone that Jomon mages are perfectly nice, when they are obviously not.

I do not think it is very reasonable to explain that Jomon is unable to use most of its national summons because it was not supposed to have them at all. Meh.

And I would so like to listen about the way you managed to enter water with Kappas.

But I guess it would be considered as more "whining", so I will stop here.

[Squirrelloid]

Oh, of course Jomon has its strong points. It even won a game once(according to HoF)!

I do not think it is a most productive use of time - trying to convince everyone that Jomon mages are perfectly nice, when they are obviously not.

...
-recruitable mages with E+S is nice.
-Recruitable mages that cover 6/8 paths, where one of the excluded paths is blood (and thus easy to access if you really want it) is nice.
-Recruitable mages capable of remotely searching all 6 of those paths is nice.
-Access to a summons which grants sufficient access to bootstrap the 7th non-blood path is nice.
-Access to E1 + 2 chances at E randoms is nice (early game alteration to counter rushes).
-Access to E2+ with boot slots to permit hammer forging is nice.

Jomon's mages cover so many bases for which many nations have to use their pretender, its hard to consider them 'bad'.

Try comparing their mages to other LA nations. There are a few LA nations with powerful mages (Patala, Rlyeh, and Bogarus spring to mind), but most of those are capital only, and Rlyeh has other issues (hard to find the gold to buy mages). The only LA nation with better recruit-anywhere mages that I can think of is C'tis, and their mages don't cover their holes very well (they need an E+S pretender to forge hammers, coins, RoS/W, etc...). Well, and Rlyeh, who has other issues, and can't wear boots, and thus can't forge hammers without a pretender.

If you can't come up with good things to do with Jomon's mages, you really aren't trying hard enough.


I do not think it is very reasonable to explain that Jomon is unable to use most of its national summons because it was not supposed to have them at all. Meh.

That you have access to them at all is an advantage regardless of how hard it is to use them. But demanding the nation have good access to them when they aren't intended for them is ridiculous. Shinuyama similarly has access to some summons (eg, Dai Tengu) it would really like to use but can't, because they are intended for Yomi or Jomon.

Not that anyone would summon Dai Oni over Tarts given the difference in gem cost.


And I would so like to listen about the way you managed to enter water with Kappas.

There is *one* water nation in LA, and it is often banned (for stupid reasons) or has expansion issues. I leave acquiring a water province as an exercise to the reader.

[Squirrelloid]

5) The monks are just amazing, but not for research. They're less efficient researchers than your other mages (no seriously, they've got half as many RPs for more than half the cost, meaning they cost more upkeep/RP than the mages do). What the monks excel at is being handed a master matrix, and leading line-backer communions in which they get to use awesome spells (W+N monks), or casting AoE air shield (A monks) on your shield-less troops. The F and E monks are acceptable researchers, and the cost of getting the really awesome monks.

Math error not in my favor. I'm halving the wrong thing in this analysis. Monks are more cost-efficient than your other mages.

That said, the other mages are (generally) more use efficient (you'll want some monks, but won't need them in quantity), and most certainly more *time-efficient* for research. Getting there first is generally better than getting there cheapest.

[Tollund]

I do not think it is a most productive use of time - trying to convince everyone that Jomon mages are perfectly nice, when they are obviously not.

They aren't that different from Arcoscephale's mystics, so they really aren't that bad.

[Festin]

You almost convinced me that I was missing something, so I decided to check the situation with other races: surely, Jomon's situation is not unique? So, here are the results:

There are 21 nations in the Late Age, and only 2(two) of them do not have death or blood (or both) on their recruitable mages. One of them is Jomon, the other one is Patala.

I admit that I have never really played as Patala (monkey troops are not my thing), but the only guide I found in Strategy Index suggests picking a pretender with death and blood. And Patala has _very_ powerful sacred mages and national Astral end-game summons like Rudra. It must have suffered greatly after clam nerf, so I assume that death on pretender is even more important now.

Well, that's it. If you still insist that Jomon is one single nation in whole LA that can do just fine without death or blood on their mages or their pretender, then so be it, I admit that I was wrong.

[Illuminated One]

The problem of Yomons diversity is that it's so random.
Sure, Yomon makes one of the best sitesearchers in the game, but one of the worst combatants and booster forgers imo.
Sure there are other very random mages but the nations that have them have either someone else to base their strategy on or they are enchantresses (which pretty much means that your sitesearching advantage is an illusion as some power nation will luck into them).
Yomon has only these. So, you start the game at turn 1 and start researching into conj3 and evo5 for GfH and Falling Fires. Let's say you have it with 25 mages. The chance that you have not a single mage able to cast these spells on his own is ~ 20% for each (the chance that you can get there with a communion is ~ 98% - I did ignore that the chances are not independent for the spells, i.e. if you have no GfH caster you have a better chance to but this shouldn't make a too big difference I think). Now maybe these values look not so bad but in comparison with other nations who can get their spells without communions always and ever, or with a very high probability (the chance that Tien Chi has 4 or more Rain of Stones casters in 20 Ancestor Smiths to kill a lot your communions is ~ 80%). Now, you also have the bad mapmove which means you either teleport around a lot or don't have the mages that can cast the spells that you went for where you need them.
In any case I've yet to see a game where Yomon does more than defend it's territory, so a boost certainly wouldn't hurt. I disagree about giving them d or b though.

[Squirrelloid]

Festin: there are things to do besides d or b. And breaking into b is easy if you really want to do it. Why are you so obsessed with these two? You get death eventually, enough to bootstrap up to tarts (which is why everyone wants death), so its not like you're lacking that.

Jomon has pretty good astral, which is enough to base a strategy around.

I completely disagree with Illuminated One and don't know why you'd try for Falling Fires at all. GfH is good, but not enough to make racing down Evo right away worthwhile.

Here's the actually good spells you want early on:

Conj:
F: (2) Bind Scorpion Beast, (3) Summon Phoenix Power
A: (5) Dai Tengu
W: (5) Contact Nushi, Naiad Warriors, Naiad, Kaijin? (haven't tried, looks plausibly useful)
E: (2) Summon Ujigami, (3) Summon Earth Power
N: (0) Contact Jigami, (3) Awaken Sleeper, (4) Summon Bog Beast
S: (4) Summon Kenzuoko,

Alt:
F: (2) Blindness
A: (1) Aim, (4) Windguide
W: (2) Numbness, Personal Quickness (use with eagle eyes/aim and a bow)
E: (2) Earth Might, Armor of Achilles, Earth Meld, (3) Curse of Stones, (4) Destruction
S: (3) Body Ethereal
N: (1) Eagle Eyes, (3) Protection, Mossbody, (4) Swarm, (5) Wooden Warriors

Evo: Slime, Rusting Mist, lightning bolt, vine arrow, magma bolt, acid bolt, sleep cloud

Ench: Gift of Flight, Str of Giants, Dragon Master (combo with frost or fire drakes, or wyverns)

Thaum: Farstrike, Curse, Bonds of Fire, Panic, Paralyze

Much of that is even available without boosters. Note i've listed through Conj 5, Alt 5, Evo 3, Ench 3, Thaum 3. Overall recommendation on early research targets was Conj 5+, Alt 4+, Evo 2, Thaum 2, and Constr ++, which gets you most of that.

[Festin]

Ok, so I must be wrong. Jomon is a strong nation not underpowered in any way, and has a solid chance of victory in any MP game. Being an only nation without death or blood access does not really matter. Path selection on its mages is ok. Access to most of its national summons is not really needed. Underwater expansion is easy. Armor weight is irrelevant. 9 HP infantry is thematic. Pretender selection leaves nothing to be desired. Initial army is adequate. Important midgame spells are easily accessable. Endgame summons are fine. Is short, completely no need for boost of any sort.

[Sombre]

Agreed, so let's move on.

[Illuminated One]

I didn't say you should try to get those spells early (if you want to know it I'd go down thau and alt first), it was merely an example how Yomon struggles to get them. I have an error in there and the chance is even lower.
You have a ~ 2% chance that when you want to use lightning bolt that you get a guy who can cast lightning bolt. Same for most other spells. So quite simply you need 50 Yomon mages on average if you want to spam lightning bolt from one of them (yeah, communions, but you can't have a large communions running around everywhere and fatigue can be quite ugly if you are casting spells that your slaves don't have the paths for, have fun calculating the fatigue with everyone different). Basically it's not you deciding which spells you use but the drn.
It's not a question of theoretical availability it's a question of mass. Sure you can go through your mages and look at what you have picked up, but this is a) tedious and b) subpar in most situations (farstrike is defeated by missing, shield, armor, same for magma bolts, bow + quickness only works half of the time and don't think of using crossbows, etc).
Now consider Bogarus who can have lightning bolt from every mage they recruit if they choose so, or nether bolt or magma bolts or via smallish communions a lot of good spells like magma erruption, gifts from heaven, shadow blast, astral fires, dust to dust, leech, etc. Same versatility but a better control.

[Trumanator]

You know, its not that Squirreloid's wrong, but I think its obvious that as Jomon you have to work a lot harder than other nations to get similar progress. An interesting boost might be giving them linked randoms. I don't see why only Atlantis and Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath should be the only ones who get it?

[kianduatha]

Amusingly enough, Jomon has a caster which gets linked randoms. You know, their flying badass battlecasters that can turn into dragons.

[Micah]

Jomon could probably still use some love even after the patch, but their mages, which uninspiring, are functional. S2 provides a useful mage, regardless of other paths. The master shugenja are a bit more of a gamble, but you don't need tons of them.

Jomon's problem is that they combine a lot of individual uninspiring elements and come up with something uninspiring on the whole, that then gets ganged or rushed to death. One of the other problems they have is that they don't have any low-resource troops, which constrains their early options in terms of production scale and/or pretender selection, and a good, diverse pretender would go a long way to smoothing out their wacky randoms. Maybe looking at adding a new troop (similar to the o-bakemono in design, high gold, low resource, functional for expansion and then never bought again) would help smooth things out for them instead of messing with their magic?

Regardless, settling on one aspect of jomon and blaming all its ills on one factor doesn't seem like the way to go.

[Squirrelloid]

i dislike the idea of giving them a low-resource unit. Making Jomon playable with Sloth-3 is unappealing - especially since sloth scales are already a no-brainer for so many other nations.

Given that Jomon needs almost nothing out of its pretender anyway except for scales, I'm not sure I see the advantage to a low resource troop for their game play. They don't need an SC. They don't need a bless. They don't need any specific magic (being able to bootstrap up to tarts via a summons they have access to nationally is plenty good enough for D access. So the only path they're missing is blood, and putting that on your pretender is not an especially great way to bootstrap blood). Considering virtually every other nation is far more constrained on which pretender it chooses than Jomon is, it hardly seems like making their pretender choice a little more flexible is going to improve them much.

(Reasonable minimal scales for Jomon are Pr3 Mg1, hardly an onerous burden even for an awake SC or RB, and much less of a straightjacket than minimal scales for a number of nations.

It is possible to play without Pr3 if you want to focus on sacreds for expansion, since they (yamabushi) only require 15r/ea, but then you need a decent bless, a plan on what you're doing in mid-game probably involving summoned units, and you still probably don't want to take sloth scales. But it can be done).

I'd rather see CBM take steps to make Order and Sloth less of no-brainers in general than find a way to let Jomon take Sloth 3 just like everyone else.
--------

Trumanator and I discussed linking the master shugenja's randoms. In the longterm this is probably advantageous. In the short term it makes it harder to plan early research for defensive playing (since the perception that Jomon is weak will probably lead to your needing to defend a rush). E1N1 + 200% linked FAWEN (+10%...) would give you 5 possible distinct X2 paths, many of which don't share the same school of research for early rush defense (although Alt is a reasonable choice, being good for E3, and having reasonable uses for A2, N3, and W2; but thaum and evo start looking reasonably good as well).

On the other hand E1N1 + 200% FAWEN unlinked leads to a lot of E2 and N2 mages, making it much easier to predict what your likely useful paths are for early game magic given a limited number of commander buys.

As commander buys increase, guaranteed X2+ on every mage will be superior.

---------

If we really feel the need to improve Jomon, here's where I'd start:

(1) Improve the stats of the sacreds a little bit. Ok, not so much the Yamabushi, who is perfectly playable as is. But the sohei is shameful. He should have at least equal stats to the aka-oni, or possibly be diversified in some way so he's functionally different. (12 att 14 def? Higher strength?)

(2) Make Sohei not capital only. This would give Jomon an interesting option because choosing to play for a blessing would actually be more reasonable. (And Sohei aren't so overpoweringly better than Jomon's normal troops as to make playing for a blessing an obvious choice).

(3) Further diversify the unit list to make some choices actually useful. In particular:

-O-ban are useless given the existence of Go-Hatamoto, especially given their current price point and resource cost. Not sure how to fix without altering all the units - possibly make base stats at least the equal of the Go-Hatamoto so the difference between the katana and the no-dashi actually translates into a real difference in performance rather than strict dominance of the Go-Hatamoto.
-Samurai with a katana are similarly useless given the existence of the aka-oni, who is vastly superior with move 2, or the Go-Hatamoto in terms of stats and price point, being insufficiently cheap to be a reasonable alternative. See #4 below with some recommendations on changes to the samurai chassis in general.

(4) Consistency and sanity issues (most of this won't necessarily help with balance, but some of it might and a lot of it is strange):
-Of the basic samurai, the non-archer ones have precision 11 but the archer has precision 10. WTF? Recommend increase archer to 11 for consistency.
-Similarly, the archer samurai costs 2 extra gold. As resources are supposed to reflect gear, and the only difference is the gear, this should be fixed. (Recommend gold cost of 10 for the archer samurai to be equal to the others).
-Samurai are elite troops, even if they are most of Jomon's line-up. Recommend improving attack and defense by 1 each on all 3 basic samurai units (which might help make them reasonable alternatives to the superior go-hatamoto and aka-oni given their cheaper prices). Also recommend improving morale by 1 (to 12).
-A katana requires 3 more resources than a naginata and 1 more than a no-dashi. I have no idea why this is true. Recommend giving katana a reasonable resource cost. (Should be less than a no-dashi at the very least).
-A long bow requires 5 resources. This also seems rather excessive since that's 2/3 or so the resource cost of the armor... Given a longbow is a large stick with a string on it, this is rather ridiculous (i jest, but its not that far from the mark - there's a reason *peasants* in England used them - they were cheap and easy to acquire). Given the Japanese 'longbow' has its own name (Daikyu), a new weapon definition to restrict any changes to Jomon is certainly plausible. (Its also technically not a longbow since its a composite and asymmetrical).
-Ashigaru are levied troops and should be dirt cheap to field in large numbers, recommend slashing gold cost to something like 4. Resources are going to be more limiting than gold anyway, and the challenge should be *feeding* them, not paying them.
-The Hatamoto has one lower att/def than the mounted Gokenin and the Daimyo, who bracket it in the mounted commander choices in terms of quantity. Fix this. (recommend improving Hatamoto's stats to equal the others).

It bears noting that the Daikyu is asymmetrical *because* its intended to be capable of being fired from horseback. Similarly, the katana was originally designed as a cavalry sword (its curved blade and length are indicative of a one-handed mounted weapon). One might have expected a slightly more diverse cavalry selection given the historical uses of the weapons involved.

(5) 5FP Monk improvement: replace the F and E monk signs with something that's actually useful, or give those signs enough range that you can actually script them. Currently they're so close range that getting the monk to even *cast* them is next to impossible.

Recommend replacing them with small AoE buff spells to emphasize monks as a supporting element for armies.

(6) Delimit some of the national summons a little bit. Most relevantly, swamps are sufficiently uncommon that the Nushi is a tad hard to cast. Since many provinces likely have small swamps in them anyway (ie, there's a scale issue), possibly just give them the Naiad disadvantage of losing hp if they leave their home province? (note that the Naiad also thematically has a terrain requirement, ie water, but that isn't specifically enforced by the game).

The others may be ok, since mountains and forests are sufficiently common to not be unreasonable, although it certainly wouldn't hurt to reduce the penalties for moving off favored/home terrain or restrictions on location of conjuring.

Hmm... this is already longer than i originally intended.

[kianduatha]

Half the problem is simply that other players expect Jomon to be weak. Having excellent sitesearching also makes you a tempting target.

I agree though with Ashigaru being more spammable and some of the more 'normal' troops getting higher stats. Also Sohei becoming recruit anywhere would be fun to try out.

[Festin]

Jomon's problem is that they combine a lot of individual uninspiring elements and come up with something uninspiring on the whole, that then gets ganged or rushed to death.
Exactly. But it's not like they are not flexible - far from it. Rather, all these options sort of fail to combine into a coherent strategy.

I agree with Squirrelloid about the low-resource unit - it will only add another non-matching element to the whole mess.

Linked randoms look like a good idea.

Improving Sohei and making it recruitable anywhere can cause Jomon to become another generic bless nation, which is not very interesting. I would leave sacreds as they are, or slightly improve Sohei.

4 gp for Ashigaru is far too cheap. Weakest generic militia costs 5 gp, and Ashigaru are far superior in every way (morale 10, nice length 5 spear, decent armor for light infantry).

Other suggestions look good. I still think that 9 HP on ashigaru and samurai should be removed.

And it would be nice if Kappa spell provided some regular Kappas in addition to commander, so that it could be used to enter water. Currently, the spell is useless.

[Squirrelloid]

4 gp for Ashigaru is far too cheap. Weakest generic militia costs 5 gp, and Ashigaru are far superior in every way (morale 10, nice length 5 spear, decent armor for light infantry).

I doubt you'd find them overpowering at 4gp. As such, its not far too cheap, its just a national advantage.

There's no point comparing to other nations or indies - a nation is balanced as a set of units against other nations as sets of units. Individual units most certainly do not have to be balanced against other units (Go cry about it with LA Ulm's Black Templars if you must).

Independents especially are notably worse than national units in almost all cases, and when a national unit is merely as good as an independent unit, it sucks. (You can cry with Eriu about their milesians, who are only very marginally better than independents, and suck).

I still think that 9 HP on ashigaru and samurai should be removed.

Eh, who cares? 9 vs. 10 hp is pretty negligible. And most of the units anyone uses at present don't have 9hp - go-hatamoto, aka-oni, and yamabushi have 11hp.

[vfb]

Kappas bleed awesome from their eyeballs. And they rip your guts out through your anus. What more could you want! What do they cost anyway, 2W?! This monkey PD discussion should be moved to its own Jomon thread.

[Festin]

Eh, who cares? 9 vs. 10 hp is pretty negligible. And most of the units anyone uses at present don't have 9hp - go-hatamoto, aka-oni, and yamabushi have 11hp.
Well, it's not like it is important - currently, nobody uses generic samurai anyway. It is just annoying and illogical.

And it does not matter how much Kappas cost. Even if they were 1W, they would still suck in their current state.

[rdonj]

I think the resource cost of a katana is a thematic thing. Making a katana is a lot of work, and requires very special skills and materials due to the way they're made. That said, I thought the no-dashi was basically an oversized katana. I'm having trouble finding non-game references to no-dashi on the internet so it's hard to say for sure. But from the look I would have expected them to be made the same way. I would say there's a good argument for them requiring more resources than a katana.

Making sohei not cap-only wouldn't be bad. There aren't really that many LA bless nations, and I think jomon would make a lot of sense thematically as a bless nation. I'm not sure that they need this, but I wouldn't object to it either.

4gp ashigaru is just wrong though, that would be less even than mictlan. They could maybe be justified in dropping a little, but they are pretty good for chaff, making them much less expensive would almost be too good.

I'm also not sure I like the idea of giving them linked randoms. They are one of a very few nations in the game that can have mages with such diverse paths. Sure, they can be really annoying and make site searching frustrating, but they also give you access to path combinations that are very rare, plus with communions you can power the onmyoji up sufficiently in their side paths to be fairly useful. Now, MAYBE if just the master shugenja had their paths linked that would be fine because you wouldn't really be losing out on anything. But that smacks of being too convenient and useful. And you couldn't link paths on onmyoji but not master shugenja or no one would ever buy them. I would almost rather just make Jomon's mages all less expensive. Say 120 gold for the mages and 70 for a monk.

It would be nice if there was ever a reason to recruit normal samurai units and o-ban.

And it would be nice if Kappa spell provided some regular Kappas in addition to commander, so that it could be used to enter water. Currently, the spell is useless.

I think kappa summoning would be fine if you could just summon more of them at a time. One is almost useless. 5 might get you somewhere.

[Squirrelloid]

katanas do not require special materials. Its hard and soft steel, which is effected by how much carbon is in the steel, which is purely a result of differences in the processing of iron into steel. So it requires an understanding of metallurgy (its LA, we have that). But all it requires is iron, flux, and heat - nothing rare or unusual.

A katana can be time consuming. But not every single one is a 1000h piece of artwork. You simply couldn't produce them in militarily useful quantities at that rate. I realize we're romanticizing Japan, but most katanas are going to have to be made cheaply enough to make something approaching mass production feasible.

A no-dashi is just a 'big katana', however, which is why i think the katana costs too many resources.

Ashigaru at their current price are rather unusual to buy because they cost almost as much gold as a samurai. That's kind of ridiculous. So the price is definitely too high relative to Jomon's other options - 1.5 ashigaru or 1 aki-oni is a no-brainer choice most of the time. And Jomon's other options are the only thing that matters. Who cares what Mictlan pays? I refer you to Black Templars, who are vastly overpriced for what they do. Cost of units is a within-nation balance thing, and only the whole has to balance against another nation.

(Further, the 9 resource cost is the limiting factor in production, slashing the gold cost mostly reduces the upkeep - which is completely justified because historically the only 'pay' they would have gotten was food. I'd propose a 1 gold cost, but that probably is a little crazy).

[Trumanator]

The 9 hp thing isn't so much a balance thing as just a dumb "feature". That gives samurai less HPs than indy militia, which is just stupid.

[rdonj]

Yes they do :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamahagane

I could maybe see 6 gp ashigaru, but much lower just won't happen. And yeah, resources will always be the limiting factor with jomon's high resource to gold ratio units, but 4gp militia just doesn't exist.

[Squirrelloid]

Yes they do :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamahagane

I could maybe see 6 gp ashigaru, but much lower just won't happen. And yeah, resources will always be the limiting factor with jomon's high resource to gold ratio units, but 4gp militia just doesn't exist.

That it doesn't currently exist is no reason for it not to exist.

On Tamahagane: yes, the japanese had to get their steel from iron sands because that was how it was readily available. So they developed a special process for extracting it. It sounds similar in complexity to many pre-15th century steel-making processes, and thus not overly 'special'. The only reason its hard to get today is because modern steel-making techniques are more efficient and guarantee a more uniform quality, so the demand for steel made the old-fashion way is mostly for sword-making enthusiasts - its continuing use is an anachronism.

Only "damascus steel" might qualify as a special material, and even then i'm dubious.

[kianduatha]

Now, I don't know whether I quite agree with the necessity of a low-resource expansion recruit, but its implementation would work out just about perfectly. Just give them a Gladiator-esque Ronin unit. Since Jomon was never gold-limited anyways, it would give them a kickstart for early expansion. It'd also help a bunch vs. rushes.

[rdonj]

I went and looked at a few other methods of steelmaking on wikipedia, and Tamahagane has the dubious honor of being by far the least efficient steel to make, both in terms of labor required and materials required per ton. Excessively complex? Maybe not. But I think resources is basically a measure of labor and materials required.

That it doesn't currently exist is an argument QM will use to not make it exist ;)

[Squirrelloid]

How many ashigaru do you think Jomon should be able to maintain relative to 'samurai' (by which i mean aka-oni, since that's the functionally useful one). I'd say at least 10:1, which is a hard point to reach when the aka-oni costs <20 gold.

[rdonj]

If we're going purely on theme, sure, that would make sense. But then no nation really works that way, and it would significantly alter the way the game works if they did. You could maybe make it work, but I imagine it would be difficult.

[kianduatha]

I do think that with the recent changes to underwater accessibility in CBM 1.6, a revisitation of the kappa summon is in order. At this point it's easier to(if you want to rush the water) prophetise your assassin and turn 5 forge an amulet of breathing(which you actually have the native gem capabilities for and is Const-0!), then have him assassinate through a few water provinces. Or just go to Const-2, make a Manual of Water Breathing and send some Go-Hatamoto to pillage the water(they are great at it, by the way). Total investment: 5 gems.

In comparison Summon Kappa is a rotten deal. Frankly, with the mage turns required to get a usable number of kappas, you could have researched up to Const-2 and gotten underwater troops that don't melt when they meet Triton Troopers. I'd rather just have 3 or 4 or 5 normal kappas per summon.

[Illuminated One]

Instead of linked randoms why not make the master shugenya for example 2e1n + 100%fawen and somewhat more expensive. Or even make that a copy, so the player can choose if he wants to recruit the new or the old one(s) (i.e. you could theoretically have 5 versions, giving the player the decision over his magic).
This could produce quite powerful combinations reliably while you still need to balance them against the cheaper s2 + 200%fawen mages.

[Tollund]

I'd probably give every Jomon unit a #bonus longbow, call it a yumi and give it whatever resource cost is appropriate.

[vfb]

What's up with all the LOLongbow fanboyism in these kind of games? The whole thing is just silly to me and serves no purpose.

[Tollund]

What on earth are you talking about? I don't see any "LOLongbow fanboyism" at all in this or any other thread here. As for Jomon, Samurai were archers first, whether on foot or horseback, and their sword would only be used for when the enemy was too close for shooting. Realistically, they'd also prefer to use a naginata or yari if they knew they were going to fight simply because it's safer than fighting with a katana.

[rdonj]

vfb has been possessed by the ghost of machingunjoeturbo :O

[Gregstrom]

Oh dear god no. That was just painful...

[Sombre]

Jomon does not equal Japan. Jomon = orientalist vision of japan, at best. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but ideas like 'give all Jomonese units longbows' do not belong in this thread. It's about balance, not historical blah blah.

[Tollund]

To give all Jomon units longbows _is_ a balance suggestion. The cavalry at least should certainly have them. Since the samurai archers are currently inferior to the non-archer troops, and since one goal should be to have Jomon field armies that are composed of archers that are no less deadly in melee combat, then the elites should certainly have their own archery equipment.

[Festin]

and since one goal should be to have Jomon field armies that are composed of archers that are no less deadly in melee combat

I do not really see why this should be one of the goals. If we are talking about balance, Jomon's troops are definitely not the main problem.

[Tollund]

Would you ever recruit a Samurai archer over an Aka-oni samurai? I sure wouldn't, and I'd rather not see yet another army with independent archers.

[Festin]

So, probably, the logical course of action is to improve samurai archers, and not to give aka-oni samurai longbows?

[Tollund]

Given that Jomon's troops are resource constrained, the problem is always going to end up being that you can build X samurai archers or 1.3*X Aka-oni. It would certainly be possible to change Samurai archers so that they would be a better or equal buy to Aka-oni, but that would make them virtually indistinguishable.

[kianduatha]

Well, the 'thematic' option is to keep Ashigaru the same price and give them shortbows. I suspect that won't fly, though.

Is there any reason Samurai Archers don't have the same stats as the 'other' 12 gold samurai, the O-Ban? That would improve them plenty, it seems.

Also, does it bug anyone else that Shrimp Soldiers use Glaives when they probably should be using Naginatas?

[Sombre]

Longbow samurai cost more gold because longbows are awesome and if they cost the same as the other samurai they're basically all anyone would build.

So there's no chance they are going to get a stat boost to be semi elite in melee as well.

[Festin]

Also, does it bug anyone else that Shrimp Soldiers use Glaives when they probably should be using Naginatas?
Probably nobody ever uses them, because Jomon fails to get underwater. So, nobody noticed this.

[Tollund]

The disconnect between troop performance, resource cost, and gold cost is one of the things that still needs to be looked at more carefully I think.

[rdonj]

The main thing samurai archers need to be more viable is a lower resource cost so that they're actually massable, rather than costing more resources than every single other unit you can recruit. So if you're going to change them, I would suggest finding ways to lower their resource costs.

Samurai armor takes 8 resources. The kabuto takes 2 resources (and is the helmet with the worst resource to protection ratio in the game under vanilla, at 6 resources). The longbow takes 5. And the katana takes 7.

This is all a lot of resources for things that an archer doesn't really need. That said, you would basically either need to create entirely new equipment for them (ashigaru armor isn't really very thematic, you could maybe replace the katana with a wakizashi for 3 less resources), or just make them completely unarmored, possibly with a precision bonus. They would still cost 13 resources (10 with wakizashi), but I can see no realistic way to lower their resource cost sufficiently other than the complete removal of any armor given the insane resource costs of all samurai weaponry.

Although come to think of it if you wanted to make an archer with no armor it might be better to make an entirely new unit.

[Trumanator]

While their high resource cost is an issue, I'm afraid that if you make them massable they'd be the only thing people would recruit. Longbows are just so incredibly awesome. Personally I'd be okay with reducing the res cost a little, but only enough that its possible to recruit some of them, not to make them the default unit.

[Squirrelloid]

Sombre: Gold cost is not supposed to reflect equipment but the person's stats. As such, i strongly advocate reducing the archers to 10 gold to match the other samurai (and giving them the same 11 precision of their non-archer brethren). Since resources are the limiting cost, and they will always cost more than resources than a samurai without a longbow, the difference in gold cost is negligible and silly.

-----

That said, I don't see any real way to make samurai archers at all playable given reasonable gear, and thus reasonable resource costs. I would, however, reduce the resource costs because they are ridiculous.

Katana should cost no more than 5 resources. That it takes almost as much as the armor is ridiculous. (this also puts it below the no-dashi). I would probably place it at 4r.

The longbow should cost like 2 resources. Seriously.

[rdonj]

1) MA man recruits them for 9 resources, so while they'd be more massable, even a completely unarmored guy with a wakizashi and longbow would be less massable than man's longbowmen.
2) Longbows are a lot more awesome when everyone isn't wearing plate and carrying tower shields. Even indies in la are hard to kill with longbows.

I can't see them working as your sole recruit without fire arrows. Until then, they just do not have enough damage output in the armor-heavy late period. Unless you're fighting manikin hordes or something else that doesn't have a shield. Plus you would still be owned by indy shortbows, who are more easily massed, cost less and actually have armor. There are maybe 8 LA nations whose expansion units are not nigh-invulnerable to longbows, and even fewer who could not adapt to deal with them just by changing what they recruit. I cannot see 12-15 resource longbows approaching overpoweredness in LA.

Squirrel - I think I agree with you on resource costs. Longbows are actually 3 resources in vanilla. Katana are still 7 though. And basic samurai armor 10 :sick:

[kianduatha]

Remember that if you make katanas or Samurai armor better/cheaper for Jomon, it'll also buff Shinuyama.

If you want to lower Samurai Archer resource cost, just give them a Yari instead of a Katana. Bam, down to 17 resources.

Also here's the thing about Samurai Archer stats--they're lower even than those of indie Longbowmen, who at least get 11 Str and 10 HP. Incidentally, giving Samurai Archers Yari solves the problem of 'why would anyone buy anything else'--their weapons would be different.

[Squirrelloid]

there's no reason why the Jomon Katana has to be the same as the Shinuyama Katana. Given the Katana as we know it is a relatively late developement, Shinuyama arguably shouldn't have them at all.

[Sombre]

Obviously the humans copied or stole the Katana design from the Oni and Bakemono. I think it would be a little bit counter intuitive giving them different versions of the katana, but I guess you could. Doesn't seem worth it to me. If you want to change the resource cost on a unit it's better to just change its ressize if you're worried about shared equipment.

[Hiisi]

Hi,

I'm fan of LA Ulm and i'm wondering how useful Zweihanders are compared to rest of the LA Ulm infantry?

At the first look they look great 20 prot, 13 HP and a greatsword. But then you realize that they have 8 enc, 9 mr and they cost 14 gold and 36 resources.

At the same gold cost and less resources than 30 Zweihanders you can have either 42 pikeneer, 42 halberdier or 42 infantry of ulm.

Against what you would choose Zweihanders? Well against infantry that doesn't have shield, has length 2 or less weapon and doesn't have high morale. So against what do you use them against? Also Zweihanders are fewer in numbers so they are even more vulnerable to magic than other LA Ulm units.

High resource unit should bring you some advantages, so should the cost be lowered to 10 gold and maybe the encumbrance to 7. Zweihanders need so much resources anyhow that they are difficult to mass, so low cost wouldn't make them too good. It would bring benefits players that choose high production scale. Currently LA Ulm trend is to choose sloth and go for rangers? Is that thematic?

[Squirrelloid]

Reducing the gold cost of zweihanders will not solve their problems.

Enc. 8+ infantry is virtually unplayably bad. Even 7 enc. and i start to get worried. When its 8 enc. without a shield you know you're just hosed.

FWIW, if i had to choose Ulmish heavy infantry at all, I'd take zweihanders against heavily armored troops or giants because of the high weapon damage. However, using standard Ulmish heavy infantry is generally a mistake because they're just so bad at doing anything.

[chrispedersen]

Am I the only player in dominions who thinks jomon's archers are terrible? They take more resources than anything other than your cavalry, have worse stats than anything else you can recruit, and they bring longbows into the era of super heavy infantry with tower shields. Chances are, if these guys are firing into the enemy and you have soldiers engaged in melee with them, your units are going to take far more casualties than the enemy as they can actually be damaged by the arrows. If you're just using nothing but samurai archers it's a little better, but they are still nowhere near as good as your other units in melee and cost more resources. I cannot imagine them being a better buy than your melee troops without both wind guide and flaming arrows. I would still probably just buy indy archers though.

As in many things rdonj, I agree with you completely. Samurai archers are a honeypot (trap) on this nation.

[KissBlade]

I think samurai's having less hp than militia is just plain ridiculous. =\

[Tolkien]

I would like to make a suggestion: could medallions of vengeance be made cursed? Generally, I don't see it used all that often, and by making it cursed, it means people are going to have to extra careful placing commanders who pick them up, as if you decide to leave your commanders/mages clustered together and a stray arrow finds one carrying it (left over by some random scout), it won't be a pretty sight. Certainly it gives it a slightly greater niche use. There aren't many uses for it otherwise, and this way, the Medallion of Vengeance becomes a nasty little surprise, for nations with fire gems to spare.

[vfb]

Don't they blow up? Must be some kind of magic bomb or somethin', if it's still around after the explosion.

[cleveland]

Shhhh! No more talk about MoVs. Might reveal my favorite use for Horse Brother Commanders... ;)

[Tolkien]

I've already talked about kamikaze Vampires. ;)

AHA! HORSE BROTHERS!

[Sombre]

MoV can't even be picked up can it?

[rdonj]

Only if you have -6% luck.

[Quitti]

Yeah, and that requires 4 hands to accomplish.

Still, I would like to raise the issue of MA Ulm again, as there was discussion about it in the "nations under CBM 1.6" thread on the main part of the forum - mainly that MA Ulm mages lack diversity, iron angels are (pretty much) impossible to get and cast, especially now without blood stones. Also the troops are very high enc - full chain mails are still usable, but their flavor text says that they "are large and can endure much physical punishment before collapsing", which would in my books mean more than just +hp. Full plate units are enc7 and def6(axe) or def4(flail), chainmail units enc6 with +1def for the aforementioned weapons. The low def score pretty much plainly states that the troops are not made to evade the hits, ever, but to endure them, and chain mail doesn't really do the job properly. Slashing some enc or implementing national earth-based slight reinvigoration spell (such as earth version of relief) would do lots for the troops, and slightly boost the mages. Reducing the requirements, level of research and cost of iron angels would do a lot of good for MA Ulm lategame also.

[Sombre]

I would definitely be pro a research level reduction for iron angels. Not sure about cost currently.

[Jarkko]

I've only ever found one use for Medals of Vengeance. I was playing Pangaea (suprise!) and IIRC the opponent at the time was Marverni (or perhaps it was Tien Chi; some fragile human mage-wielding nation anyway). I had found (or rather, taken a province with the site) a site with mages capable of crafting MoV's, crafted five of them.

Enter the Harpy commander. I recruited five of them for this test. Gave them each a red bandana, a Medal of Vengeance, and script Hold, Hold, (if I had been defending, I would have added one more Hold to that), Attack Rear.

KABOOM. Scratch a few evil hostile mages and their equally evil guards. I tried it again (with just three harpies then IIRC), but the opponent had put some archers/slingers/something at front with Fire Fliers, and the harpies did sadly died before attacking, and killing a couple dozen maenads this time :(


Would work wonders against communions too, I think. Except of course if the opponent is expecting you to do it...

[Sombre]

I find it hard to get fliers on attack rear to actually land near casters, personally. Maybe it works differently for flying commanders with that order though.

[Festin]

As I noticed in "Nations under CBM 1.6" thread, several nations widely considered weak (Tir, Eriu and Man in particular) are, so to say, "nature themed". Nature is a useful path to have, but it lacks real power, especially in endgame. Path considered game-deciding (Death, Astral, Blood, to a lesser extent Earth) are generally unavailable to these nations for thematic reasons.

So, maybe it is possible to give Nature a bit more endgame power? I do not really know how can it be done - maybe by seriously boosting some obscure high-level summon like that dragon (forgot the name). Anyway, in my opinion boosting Nature can solve many balance problems at once.

[Jarkko]

I find it hard to get fliers on attack rear to actually land near casters, personally. Maybe it works differently for flying commanders with that order though.
Pangaea has a thing which forces fliers to actually attack rear, if they just wait a couple rounds. That thing is called "maenads" (and "manikin", except in CBM 1.6, but that is a good change IMO :) ). The maenads swamp the front line and flanks, so fliers with Hold&Attack Rear actually *have to* attack rear (and commanders with Hold, Hold, Attack rear actually attack rear (on the defense it's best to scrpit Hold x3 Attack rear, so that the maenads can swamp the forward positions)). Otherwise the fliers just end up attacking the front or flank, and the fun goes wasted :)

[Jarkko]

I would rise up a tabu on the table.

Flaming Arrows.

Been looking at the different percieved weak nations, and they all seem to have one commong thing: They would benefit a lot from a more easier to cast Flaming Arrows.

There must however be something I am missing, ie some of the super strong nations would reap the benefits even more. But as I am the simpleton that I am, I just can't figure out which nations that would be.

So, if I may ask, why was Flaming Arrows originally made so hard to cast in CBM? Is that reason still valid now, with the changes CBM has gone through in the different versions?

[Sombre]

Flaming arrows was simply too dominant a spell early on. It may not be the case any more, but people were rushing to cast it to the exclusion of pretty much everything else. And it is absolutely devastating in the early game, increasing the kill rate of archers by like 300%, if not more.

Historically nation balance has been less the target of CBM than unit and spell balance - where there have been nerfs it's because the spell or unit, as an option, eclipsed everything else to such an extent that it was simpler to tone down that option than boost everthing else.

So while easier flaming arrows would help weaker nations, its biggest change would be making everyone go after it again - provided they have archers they'd want to be casting it.

[Squirrelloid]

While I'm not sure easier access is the way to go with Flaming Arrows, CBM may want to think about focusing on nation balance more than it has been. Some of the generally considered weak nations probably aren't, but some of them almost certainly are, and it would be nice if those nations received some boosting _as a nation_ to make them more competitive. Especially since better balance won't hurt standard ways of playing the game but would substantially improve the play experience for a number of game varieties, such as RAND style games.

(MA Agartha being the first nation eliminated by somewhere in the ballpark of 10 turns before the next elimination was probably not a surprise to most people, for example, and it would be nice if random nation selection didn't result in some players getting shafted).

[Jarkko]

Flaming arrows was simply too dominant a spell early on.
I was playing mostly vanilla games earlier, and I don't remember Flaming Arrows cast by much anybody else but Marignon, Machaka and Tien Chi, and Ulm and Man if they happened to have a pretender casting that.

My memory can be quite selective, but I think I've never seen Flaming Arrows cast ever against me in a CBM game. And I usually play Pangaea and I love Mass Protection, so Flaming Arrows would make lots of sense.

How commonly is Flaming Arrows cast in CBM games? Is it just a flue I never see it cast against me (or that I never seem to have any need to cast it when it finally eventually becomes available)?

[Sombre]

I don't have the mp experience to tell you how often it was cast or by which nations, but even if it was cast by very few nations under vanilla values it's such a strong spell and available so early that anyone who could cast it would want to beeline it immediately. It absolutely ruins just about any mundane army EA or MA and tips the whole fight as quickly as a high level spell like darkness, imo. Of course it was counterable etc, but it was really, really good for how early you could get it.

I don't have a strong opinion on the research level it's at, but I get why it was moved. Nothing to do with nation balance.

It's still a great spell. If you don't need it you're winning anyway I guess?

[vfb]

Yomi & Shin cast it easily too. And Aby, with any tribal archers.

[Jarkko]

Ok, but have you ever seen it cast under CBM? If it is not cast ever, then I suppose it is not very balanced as a *spell* (wether it would boost or not certain nations), or is it?


Any nation having good enough fire-mages to cast Fire Arrows in CBM will be deeply screwed. There is absolutely zero incentive to ignore Evocations for that long, you'd have all the amazing fire-evocations way before, so it is retarded to not go that way. When you then eventually end up with Fire Arrows (prolly after you've already have at least Evocation 5, Conjuration 5+ and Construction 6), Flaming Arrows is already a joke (flaming things are of very little use after early midgame).

[Sombre]

Well yeah, since I've cast it under CBM, I've seen it cast under CBM. I don't see what that has to do with anything anyway, since like I said I don't have the MP experience to comment on how widely used it is. I have used the spell and know how powerful it is. I'd say massing archers with fire arrows is a much better idea than forming up evocation barrage squads, under the vanilla fire arrows values. It takes only a few mages to provide a lot of extra firepower and they can continue to cast spells after the flaming arrows. To match that kind of firepower you'd be talking a lot more mages casting evocations.

I think you overestimate the amount of fire protection your enemy is going to field. Regular armies are still around and without total fire immunity until the lategame sees them entirely replaced with items and summons.

[vfb]

Fire arrows also turns your missiles into magic ones, giving them +2 to hit versus shields, according to the manual. It may be more. I've cast Fire Arrows versus FR Aby troops, to help me punch through the shields (or zip around -- whatever it is magic arrows do). In CBM.

[Sombre]

The secondary effect from fire arrows may ignore shields entirely if poison missile weapons are any indication.

Actually I think someone tested this, but I don't remember what the result was.

edit: vfb's post was about the regular arrow damage though.

[Jarkko]

I think you overestimate the amount of fire protection your enemy is going to field. Regular armies are still around and without total fire immunity until the lategame sees them entirely replaced with items and summons.
If what you say was true, then I should see Fire Arrows cast all the time in CBM MP games.

For some odd reason I've never seen it used against me. Not even when I play Pangaea and use Mass Protection (which would make Fire Arrows even more effective).

It's cool to talk about the theoretical possibilities of a given spell, but my impression is that Fire Arrows is *not used*. If somebody steps up and say they use Fire Arrows and ignore fire evocations, then I shut up.

I would prefer to not read about theoretical number juggling. I spesifically have asked now three times if they've seen Fire Arrows used in CBM MP games, and so far none has told they have (unless I misintepret vfb's post above). I've also asked who would in CBM forego fire evocations to get Fire Arrows instead, and that doesn't even wake a discussion.




As far I've understood, Conceptual Balance Mod is about making items, units and spells more balanced. Does people feel Fire Arrows is balanced in CBM? Are the requirements (Enchantment 5 and a F4 mage) on par with what the spell does? Personally I think the requirement would be ok if it was in Evocation (where Flaming Arrow doesn't IMO fit thematically), but in a tree with zero Fire spells (oh, there is Fire Shield...) that is pretty close to ridiculous, isn't it?

[Sombre]

If what you say was true, then I should see Fire Arrows cast all the time in CBM MP games.

That doesn't logically follow at all. People could be underestimating fire arrows, they could lack the path access, they could have been too busy with other research, they could have different uses for the mages capable of casting it, they could be in a continually poor position to use it etc

It's cool to talk about the theoretical possibilities of a given spell, but my impression is that Fire Arrows is *not used*. If somebody steps up and say they use Fire Arrows and ignore fire evocations, then I shut up.


I've used fire arrows. vfb has used fire arrows. The use of fire arrows doesn't necessitate ignoring evocations. You've had literally two people respond. Like I said I don't have the MP experience to comment on its CBM usage.

I would prefer to not read about theoretical number juggling. I spesifically have asked now three times if they've seen Fire Arrows used in CBM MP games, and so far none has told they have (unless I misintepret vfb's post above). I've also asked who would in CBM forego fire evocations to get Fire Arrows instead, and that doesn't even wake a discussion.

See above. If you're patient you'll probably get more responses. You can also try in the IRC channel. I don't see the theoretical number juggling you refer to. I'm also unclear on who 'they' are. Me and vfb? We've both said we used fire arrows in cbm.

I don't have the experience with heavy fire nations (in cbm) to weigh up the early game applictations of fire arrows vs rushing up evocation. I did respond regarding vanilla, at the value you questioned the change from, where fire arrows are definitely legit to go for ahead of fire evocations in a lot of situations.

Personally I think the requirement would be ok if it was in Evocation (where Flaming Arrow doesn't IMO fit thematically), but in a tree with zero Fire spells (oh, there is Fire Shield...) that is pretty close to ridiculous, isn't it?

Not really. There are plenty of reasons beyond fire to be rushing down enchantment in the early/midgame. Fire arrows, being a single use per battle spell, doesn't require lots of fire mages. Just one or two of them. It can be cast by an F2 caster easily enough as well.

[Jarkko]

Sombre, I don't know if you are obtuse or just pretend to be, but I have asked if people have seen Fire Arrows been used in MPs under CBM. Ok, I got it, you have used it in SP. Fine. Could you please now carry on and either answer what I asked, or please ignore the question if you don't have a clue, please? :)

[Psycho]

I've used it with LA Man in vanilla, CBM makes it impossible to get it early enough and limits you to casting it only with your pretender.

I've seen it used recently in CBM 1.5, where the player using it lost nearly his entire army in two turns against a FR 100% thug. It was still early in the game - around turn 20 I think.

IMO it was not an overpowered spell in vanilla and certainly not on par with darkness. It can be countered much more easily.

[Sombre]

Sombre, I don't know if you are obtuse or just pretend to be, but I have asked if people have seen Fire Arrows been used in MPs under CBM. Ok, I got it, you have used it in SP. Fine. Could you please now carry on and either answer what I asked, or please ignore the question if you don't have a clue, please? :)

No, I used it in MP. I've already gone out of my way to answer your questions. Don't worry that won't be a problem in the future though. Good luck getting the discussion you're after with the condescending attitude and selective reading problem you seem to have.

[Maerlande]

I have been using Fire Arrows very heavily in a CBM game with Patala. The combination of CBM and Worthy heroes makes Fire Arrows a great choice for monkeys if you get a bit of luck with heroes. And it fits with other research for monkeys so in no way is it out of the normal research paths.

Also, I find that with Patala at least, empowering in fire is a given so that you can forge all the lovely cross path F/W/E/S items with Nagarishi's. So it's a great spell in CBM.

[Quitti]

I've certainly used flaming arrows with nations (in CBM) that have an easy access to it (f2+booster or f3 casters with phoenix power). It's a very good spell, and enchantment has some very useful spells in addition to that, such as domes, demiliches, skeleton spam, some buffs, cloud trapeze, dispel to name a few. Still, I wouldn't generally solely rush to it, as it certainly isn't a very early game viable spell at ench5, when there's useful stuff to be had in other paths such as con, conj, thaum and early evocations. It all depends on the nation you're playing to be honest.

[Jarkko]

No, I used it in MP.
Like I said I don't have the MP experience to comment on its CBM usage.
Right, make up your mind already :) I am a simpleton and get easily confused... I am sorry if I sounded harsh, but I really don't understand wether you've seen it used in MP or not. I first got the impression you don't have experience of it in MP in CBM, but seems you do after all (despite what you said). Or maybe not. Maybe you are as unsure as I am at the moment?


Maerlande, did I understand right, in your experience Patala needs to get one of the special heroes, or to empower one of the normal monkeys to get access to Fire Arrows (and that as a side-effect rather than the reason)?

Quitti, in your experience, did you feel Flaming Arrows was worth it once you got it?

[Sombre]

Those statements aren't contradictory. I don't have the MP experience to comment on how often flaming arrows is used in CBM 1.6 or indeed more generally in CBM.

I have used flaming arrows in 3 or 4 CBM MP games. I used it most recently in Sign of the Hammer.

[Micah]

It's still a good spell in CBM, and is much overpowered in vanilla, at least before CBM nerfed it. Some playstyle changes as the game has matured might limit its impact now (mostly more reliance on thugs and less reliance on armies), but it was absolutely brutal back when I started playing Dom, and the major counterspell (arrow fend) is located at level 6 research, so there was plenty of time to get brutalized in the meantime.

At level 5 the spell is reasonable, at level 4 it was a major research goal for anyone that could get archers and an F caster, since it's more or less an I-win button against any army outside of the Abysians, barring a gross mismatch in army strength. Not bad for an F2 caster with phoenix power and a couple of gems.

[Quitti]

Quitti, in your experience, did you feel Flaming Arrows was worth it once you got it?

Not solely, but investing in enchantment magic is well worth it for most nations. Flaming arrows is a good tool to have as it is very brutal against low/med prot units. Funnily enough Pangaea, which you used as a example has one of the easiest counters to that strategy, army of gold/lead castable by national mages. I wouldn't base my strategy just on flaming arrows + archers/slingers, but I've used it to complement what I do, and in that role it performs excellently. So yes, it was worth it, I just haven't prioritized it over other stuff I find more important.

[kianduatha]

As far as balance for Flaming Arrows goes...it's still crazy effective for nations that can get it easily, it's just no longer worth beelining to(and in some cases getting a pretender that can cast it, even without national fire mages). Anything worth that was grossly overpowered.

That being said, the second fire gem is probably no longer necessary.

Speaking of Enchantment, though, Riches From Beneath is simply ludicrous now at E5. I count a whopping 5 nations(EA Atlantis, EA Agartha, Vanheim, Kailasa, and MA Agartha) who can cast it without a pretender. Of those 5, only MA Agartha might want to cast it--except I can't think of a time when I'd rather cast Riches From Beneath over having one more kitted Marble Oracle(if you need troops, cast Hidden in Sand with the gems instead).

[rdonj]

I can think of exactly 3 nations who would ever cast riches from beneath, ma ulm, la ulm, and warhammer dwarfs :P. I can't think of anyone else who would even consider it unless it was enchant 0.

[Squirrelloid]

I can think of exactly 3 nations who would ever cast riches from beneath, ma ulm, la ulm, and warhammer dwarfs :P. I can't think of anyone else who would even consider it unless it was enchant 0.

EA Atlantis doing the stupid thing and trying to play blessed LPs?

I could see Fomoria casting it since they're so capital based, actually, but they probably have better things to do if they ever scraped up enough E to do it.

[rdonj]

Yeah, they could consider it, but it still probably wouldn't be the best idea. Good catch though.

[Maerlande]

Maerlande, did I understand right, in your experience Patala needs to get one of the special heroes, or to empower one of the normal monkeys to get access to Fire Arrows (and that as a side-effect rather than the reason)?


Right. I don't meant to say it's a tactic you plan for. But, since the multiheroes (Golden Naga) are reasonably likely with a bit of luck scale it's a great option if you get one.

I wouldn't empower for Fire Arrows. But I think it's worth empowering a Nagarishi for forging. Then fire arrows can be a bonus. Also, late game you'll have Rudras at F3 so again it's in the portfolio. Rudras also get you flaming skulls and then fire helmets so now you have the stuff for flaming arrows.

You've got stealthy cheap archers, so building some when needed and hiding them is a great option for a sneak attack. Add fire arrows and suddenly those cheap short bows become viable depending on opposition.

So to sum up, it's not a tactic Patala should plan to use. But if you get the right situation (say luck with a F/W) site, it's great to supplement.

I'm doing a Bandar Log game now too so we'll see if it fits in there. The big bandar long bows need Wind Guide and flaming arrows would be a distinct boost.

[chrispedersen]

Mae is *absolutely* right that *f* absolutely increases the effectiveness of all the monkey/naga nations.

[vfb]

New CBM topic: can mummy maxage please be increased?

It's a penalty for nations like TNN, whose Ri can live to like 2000 or something. But they start at the sprightly age of 655.

The mummy OTOH has a maxage of 500.

So, if you're Man or something, that's just fine and dandy. But a TNN hero who is dead just 1 month and then gets RoR'ed, all of the sudden gets 155 years of old age, even though he's been in the grave for just 30 days.

[vfb]

New CBM topic: can mummy maxage please be increased?

It's a penalty for nations like TNN, whose Ri can live to like 2000 or something. But they start at the sprightly age of 655.

The mummy OTOH has a maxage of 500.

So, if you're Man or something, that's just fine and dandy. But a TNN hero who is dead just 1 month and then gets RoR'ed, all of the sudden gets 155 years of old age, even though he's been in the grave for just 30 days.

[Radio_Star]

I can think of exactly 3 nations who would ever cast riches from beneath, ma ulm, la ulm, and warhammer dwarfs :P. I can't think of anyone else who would even consider it unless it was enchant 0.

Jomon

[KissBlade]

Jomon has way better things for e gems.

[rdonj]

I can think of exactly 3 nations who would ever cast riches from beneath, ma ulm, la ulm, and warhammer dwarfs :P. I can't think of anyone else who would even consider it unless it was enchant 0.

Jomon

I could have bought it if you'd said ashdod. With the horrific resource costs of their sacreds, they will never be able to produce a full 10 per turn in a regular game.

Jomon, well, no. If jomon wants resources, taking production is sufficient for their needs. Beyond initial expansion you won't have any problem using up your gold buying troops once you have a decent number of forts. So, unless riches from beneath was castable on turn 1, they really wouldn't care. In general the only nations who really benefit much from riches from beneath are ones that have very powerful, high rcost cap only troops. The ulms have black halberds, which earns them a spot on the riches from beneath wagon. Jomon has... nothing really worth it.

[Sombre]

Yeah it's a cap enabler pretty much.

I think some excellent high resource units would be nice in the game. Stuff that you either have to wait a long time to build, or have production scales, clever fort placement, riches from beneath etc.

Imagine for instance if Mictlan could carve stone head monuments with significant powers, but they took 6000 resources each.

[rdonj]

Imagine for instance if Mictlan could carve stone head monuments with significant powers, but they took 6000 resources each.

That would be pretty damn cool, imo.

[Amonchakad]

Imagine for instance if Mictlan could carve stone head monuments with significant powers, but they took 6000 resources each.

That would be pretty damn cool, imo.

Yep, but isn't really CBM stuff, qm doesn't like adding new units; another mod with something like that would be very cool indeed;)

[Squirrelloid]

Yeah it's a cap enabler pretty much.

I think some excellent high resource units would be nice in the game. Stuff that you either have to wait a long time to build, or have production scales, clever fort placement, riches from beneath etc.

Imagine for instance if Mictlan could carve stone head monuments with significant powers, but they took 6000 resources each.

Unfortunately, the way the game handles resources across turns seems to be borked. If you can't build it in 2 turns, it will never get completed. (It seems to handle carry-over for one turn just fine, but not more than that)

[Stavis_L]

Yeah it's a cap enabler pretty much.

I think some excellent high resource units would be nice in the game. Stuff that you either have to wait a long time to build, or have production scales, clever fort placement, riches from beneath etc.

Imagine for instance if Mictlan could carve stone head monuments with significant powers, but they took 6000 resources each.

Unfortunately, the way the game handles resources across turns seems to be borked. If you can't build it in 2 turns, it will never get completed. (It seems to handle carry-over for one turn just fine, but not more than that)

Is that in the bug-list?

[Squirrelloid]

Yeah it's a cap enabler pretty much.

I think some excellent high resource units would be nice in the game. Stuff that you either have to wait a long time to build, or have production scales, clever fort placement, riches from beneath etc.

Imagine for instance if Mictlan could carve stone head monuments with significant powers, but they took 6000 resources each.

Unfortunately, the way the game handles resources across turns seems to be borked. If you can't build it in 2 turns, it will never get completed. (It seems to handle carry-over for one turn just fine, but not more than that)

Is that in the bug-list?

I don't remember seeing it there, but i never went looking for it specifically.

[Sombre]

Interesting. I might have to give that a test.

If it is the case it actually opens up another option, which is to have units that cost just the right amount in resources that you need a special province or prod 3 scales or riches from beneath to be able to build them within the two turn limit.

[Jack_Trowell]

Wouldn't it be a trap for the IA, making it queue units it will never be able to complete ?

[Sombre]

Possibly. But simple enough to not use the mod with the AI if so. I also suspect the AI wouldn't try and build them.

[Alpine Joe]

Qm has done a great job in this mod of making some nations stronger, but there is a lot of work yet to be done on nation balance. I would like to see a balance mod where no nations are clearly much more powerful than others. Ideally, nations like niefelheim, hinnom, mictlan, etc would actually be on par with other nations in terms of strength, rather than clearly ahead. Thus, I'd like to jumpstart a discussion of nation balance by proposing my own list of changes that I feel would do more than provide small power buffs to weak nations, but rather give them a substantial boost putting them on par with the powerhouse nations.
thus here is my list. i welcome disagreement/discussion, and i acknowledge i am not the most experienced of players. Nevertheless, I think some discussion of nation balance is warranted, especially with the removal of gem gens.

EA arcoscephale:
1. Mage engineers recruitable everywhere
2. Oreiads get A3E1N2 default with the extra 110 percent random
3. lower encumbrance on icarids

EA ermor:
1. Augurs get a point in D magic
2. Augur elders get an extra 100 percent F/D/A/S random

EA Ulm:
1. 50 percent random on smiths increased to 100 percent
2. Archers restored to vanilla stats
3. Antlered shamans increased to N3

Marverni:
1. Druids reduced to 300, W random option removed, leaving randoms only S/E/N
2. Axe wielding infantry +1 strength

Sauromatia:
As is

Tien'chi:
1. Master of elements recruitable everywhere
2. Reduce resource cost on archers

Mictlan:
As is

EA Abysia:
1. Warlock and Warlock apprentice recruitable outside of capital
2. Extra point of earth on Annointed of Rhuax
3. Demonbred given leadership 40/Undead leadership 40

EA Caelum:
As is

EA C'tis:
1. extra point of N on Sauromancers, research malus 1 to compensate
2. Serpent dancer cost reduced by 5

EA Pangaea
1. Centaur warrior price reduced by 5
2. Pan reduced to 300
3. Maenad generation rate reduced

EA Agartha
1. Extra E/Element random on Oracles
2. Earth readers 10 Percent chance of extra E random
3. heat 2 preference

EA tir'na'nog
1. Extra point of E on Tuatha sorc and Ri
2. Sidhe warrior price reduced by 3

Fomoria
As is

EA vanheim
1. Dwarven smiths recruitable everywhere
2. Sacred boar cost reduced by 10

EA Hellheim
1. Svartalfs restored to recruit anywhere

Niefelheim
As is

Kailasa
1. Yaksha recruitable everywhere
2. Bandar longbows reduced to 18 gold

Yomi
1. MR on demon troops increased by 2
2. Reduce encumbrance on Dai oni armor by 2
3. Old age removed from sorcerer

Hinnom
As is

Atlantis
1. MR on all "Deep" troops increased to 10

R'lyeh
As is

EA Oceania
I have no idea where to go with this one.....

Lanka:
As is

Feedback on this list? Unless people really hate talking about this, I'll post some suggestions for other ages later. Once again, i only intent this as a starting point for a discussion of nation balance, not as some kind of definitive list.

[kianduatha]

My first comment seems like a lot of those changes are simply counter to the style of CBM as a whole--QM doesn't like changing mage paths.

Regarding Abysia...at most you would want to make Warlock Apprentices recruit anywhere, and that changes the whole feel of the nation. Furthermore, you would also have to change at least MA Abysia with the same change. It for sure would make them more powerful by a substantial margin, but it also makes them a full-on blood nation.

It would make sense to give Agartha Heat-1 or 2, seeming as everyone takes it anyways, and it would benefit them to have some extra design points.

In general the 'recruit anywhere' suggestions are thematic minefields. Just look at the MA Man warden fallout(I for the record approve of that change, but many others didn't).

[Festin]

And this is exactly why Jomon's Sohei should not be made recruitable anywhere. Oh, please no.

[Alpine Joe]

Well I tried to avoid making any nation's strongest, iconic mage recruitable everywhere, except kailasa, and maybe that was a bad idea. I can't see anything wrong with making warlock apprentices at least recruitable everywhere, and mage engineers almost never get used otherwise. Svartalfs and Dwarven smiths aren't the iconic mage for either of their nations, IMO.

I don't understand the problem with extra magic paths. They make nations more interesting by adding more options. In EA especially, the more human nations are magically equivalent or weaker than their non-human counterparts, who often come with impressive physical stats, immunities, and other powers. Ermor's frail, old elders should be better at magic than Niefelheim's giants.

Caveat: I am not much of a thematic person, preferring balance over staying true to the spirit. I understand QM's reasons for not touching certain things, and perhaps there should be a separate nation balance mod. However since the thread is for "complete balance," I think this is an appropriate place to have the conversation.

[Belac]

One thing EA Agartha could use, for balance, I think, is easier research. Its mages get 4 and 7 RP for 120 and 350GP (sacred), which is pretty lousy overall, especially for early era.

[LDiCesare]

Well I tried to avoid making any nation's strongest, iconic mage recruitable everywhere, except kailasa, and maybe that was a bad idea.
That's not really true for EA T'ien Chi eihter. Sure, they have captial only celestial masters, but these are not the best mages you want to recruit. They fly and are expensive, so being capital only is not much of a drawback. If you allow masters of the elements to be recruited everywhere, there's simply no reason to recruit any mage except masters of the 5 elements and celestial masters in the capital, thereby removing 2 units from the game, which is counter to CBM purpose.
Furthermore, I fail to see how this strengthens T'ien Chi. I'm also not sure they need boosting. The cost reduction on archers would let them mass more archers, but would it really help? To me, EA TC is a bless nation. Warriors of the 5 elements will make mincemeat of most other troops but are capital only, so later on, you switch to TC's sacred national summons. The biggest problems EA TC may face early on is Hinnom (fire resistant giants with good mr) or hyper aggressive Mictlan eagle warriors flying above your archers. Where T'ien Chi is weak is late game: They have weak astral and death mages, so must make up by having a good early/mid-game so they can empower or summon better mages. The boosts you propose don't help early on and don't help late-game. Masters of the 5 elements would make T'ien Chi a nation with awesome battlefield magic without need for communions, but I'm not sure they need an armada of wizards to back them in late game.

[Tollund]

If you allow masters of the elements to be recruited everywhere, there's simply no reason to recruit any mage except masters of the 5 elements and celestial masters in the capital, thereby removing 2 units from the game, which is counter to CBM purpose.

There are many, many units that are not recruited and could effectively be removed from the game. Forcing people to use them doesn't exactly make the game better. Unless there's a compelling balance reason to make a unit capital only it should probably be recruitable everywhere. Otherwise you run into the actual thematic problem that no national unit should be recruitable from anywhere that is not the capital (or initial territory) since that's the only place that those troops would be trained.

[Fantomen]

A very minor note: The mounted "soldier of the east" generated by celestial general lacks a hoof attack. It's not a big issue I know, but easy to fix so I think it should be adjusted in the next CBM.

[Alpine Joe]

Well I tried to avoid making any nation's strongest, iconic mage recruitable everywhere, except kailasa, and maybe that was a bad idea.
That's not really true for EA T'ien Chi eihter. Sure, they have captial only celestial masters, but these are not the best mages you want to recruit. They fly and are expensive, so being capital only is not much of a drawback. If you allow masters of the elements to be recruited everywhere, there's simply no reason to recruit any mage except masters of the 5 elements and celestial masters in the capital, thereby removing 2 units from the game, which is counter to CBM purpose.
Furthermore, I fail to see how this strengthens T'ien Chi. I'm also not sure they need boosting. The cost reduction on archers would let them mass more archers, but would it really help? To me, EA TC is a bless nation. Warriors of the 5 elements will make mincemeat of most other troops but are capital only, so later on, you switch to TC's sacred national summons. The biggest problems EA TC may face early on is Hinnom (fire resistant giants with good mr) or hyper aggressive Mictlan eagle warriors flying above your archers. Where T'ien Chi is weak is late game: They have weak astral and death mages, so must make up by having a good early/mid-game so they can empower or summon better mages. The boosts you propose don't help early on and don't help late-game. Masters of the 5 elements would make T'ien Chi a nation with awesome battlefield magic without need for communions, but I'm not sure they need an armada of wizards to back them in late game.

I don't really think EA tienchi is a bless nation...... your sacreds are weak against archers and even with F9W9 they lose to most other similarly blessed sacreds (hellheim, mictlan, lanka, Hinnom, Kailasa, ). They have terrible HP in the off-season as well, where they have trouble even with regular infantry.

I also don't really understand your point about masters of the 5 elements...they are too good, but you never use them? They completely eliminate the use of masters of the way? Well, when was the last time you used the F1D1 LA c'tis cap only mage, or the equivalent one for LA agartha? nonmage commanders almost never get recruited as is, losing a lot of thematic commanders simply for not being optimal.

[Squirrelloid]

And this is exactly why Jomon's Sohei should not be made recruitable anywhere. Oh, please no.

???

Why should they be cap only? Sohei were warriors attached to *a* temple - something Jomon can build anywhere... There's no thematic problems here.

Further, in line with CBM's attempting to make as many options playable as possible, there is no way to make Sohei worth using that doesn't involve making them recruit everywhere. Its just not possible to justify wasting time on a bless for them when the aka-oni has better base stats and can be hired anywhere.

At least the Yamabushi has a reason to exist.

[Micah]

Warriors of the 5 absolutely destroy W/F jags, contrary to your assertion, although I was using an S bless, not an F.

I haven't tried against other sacreds. Additionally, the S bless makes their weak HP in the off season not nearly so bad, since they'll have some leftover HP that will take a while to bleed off, which combos well with twist fate. Oh, and it's cheaper to get too.

Also, your suggestion that Atlantis get almost nothing and rlyeh gets absolutely nothing while giving kailasa recruit-anywhere top-tier mages kind of makes me doubt your grasp on "balance."

[Alpine Joe]

Well, I don't know much about underwater nations, having only played two UW games and hating them both. Once again, I don't claim to be some kind of expert, I just thought it would be interesting to have discussion of nation balance with some kind of starting point.

[Squirrelloid]

Alpine:
I think your list isn't sufficiently thought out regarding which nations are weak and which are strong.

EA Ermor in no way needs a boost. Its plenty strong as it is, and capable of defeating any of your power nations, even in a rush scenario. The key, of course, is knowing what your anti-rush spells are, and actually start researching them *before* you get rushed.

While Marveni isn't really as bad as people seem to think either (it has good earth magic, the best rush-counter path there is), reducing druid cost further is probably warranted. 340 is a lot of gold for an old mage with 8 RPs.

EA TC needs no help.

And so on. A few nations could definitely use a boost (like EA Agartha), but for most of them people need to get used to the fact that being a different nation means playing them differently. I really can't understand how any nation with good E+S can be considered weak (ie, Marveni) unless people just haven't thought about what their options are during an early war. I imagine a similar analysis applies to many nations. As long as you have acceptable expansion options against indies, the real key is finding those spells which can keep you alive in an early war.

[Alpine Joe]

Well, the list of nations with no wins was my starting point to determine nation strength. Participants in the various cripple games got the biggest suggested buffs. I've only played EA ermor in one multiplayer game, but I always assumed it was understood it was a weaker nation based on its poor performance.

However, you are most likely right. Which nations do you think need buffs other than Agartha? What would you suggest micah? Unless you believe every nation is equally strong, it helps to get some suggestions, rather than pure critique, although the latter is welcome.

[Tollund]

Also, your suggestion that Atlantis get almost nothing and rlyeh gets absolutely nothing while giving kailasa recruit-anywhere top-tier mages kind of makes me doubt your grasp on "balance."

You could suggest different changes rather than suggest that the game is currently perfectly balanced.

[rdonj]

I think you guys should probably bring this to a seperate thread. CBM is less about overall balance than it is increasing the number of non-terrible options available to the player.


Personally I like not having all nations be perfectly balanced. The more perfectly balanced a game is the more boring, imo.

[LDiCesare]

I don't really think EA tienchi is a bless nation...... your sacreds are weak against archers and even with F9W9 they lose to most other similarly blessed sacreds (hellheim, mictlan, lanka, Hinnom, Kailasa, ). They have terrible HP in the off-season as well, where they have trouble even with regular infantry.

I also don't really understand your point about masters of the 5 elements...they are too good, but you never use them? They completely eliminate the use of masters of the way? Well, when was the last time you used the F1D1 LA c'tis cap only mage, or the equivalent one for LA agartha? nonmage commanders almost never get recruited as is, losing a lot of thematic commanders simply for not being optimal.
Warriors of the 5 elements are very very underestimated.
EA T'ien Chi blessed beat easily Lankans and Mictlan jags. Against Hinnom they struggle. The point is not to rely on warriors of the 5 elements beyond early expansion however. You've got sacred summons. Demons of heavenly waters are not weak and very easy to get. Demons of heavenly fire with a water 9 bless shoot fire wheels very often. Celestial soldiers rock.
As for archers, there's no reason to send only warriors of the 5 elements. Bring in yoru composite bowmen for support with fire archers and 3 shielded infantry to use as decoys, and you don't have to worry about archers.

Masters of the 5 elements right now are so good that you don't always pick celestial masters in your capital, so you alternate (you want some for their flight + strong paths, the others for the random E2 and N2 in particular). If they weren't capital only, you'd always build them outside your capital, and only celestial masters in your capital. There would be no point in recruiting masters of the dead anymore since you can get D random on the celestial masters, and why would one buy masters of the way if one can buy masters of the 5 elements?

There are many, many units that are not recruited and could effectively be removed from the game. Forcing people to use them doesn't exactly make the game better.
The point of CBM is to make the huge variety of units more usable. The 'Balance' in CBM means units inside a nation are more balanced so you have more reasons to pick under-used units. I don't understand why you'd want to use this mod if you think some units should be removed, as it strives to make more units usable.

[Squirrelloid]

So, my hit list for power improvement would include:

EA, MA Agartha
MA Machaka
EA, MA Atlantis
MA Eriu
EA Oceania
MA, LA Ulm*
MA Man
EA TNN
EA Aby
LA Caelum

In about that order of severity. I might also consider small boosts to:

LA Atlantis
LA Jomon
MA Oceania**
EA Ulm***
MA Bandar Log**

*My biggest problem with Ulm is that the combination of 'we suck at magic' and 'we're very vulnerable to magic' is just a stupid theme that is DoA. Sucking at magic is an ok theme - but if they suck at magic, they should be especially resistant to it as well. There's really no other way to balance sucking at magic. As it currently stands, the game basically says 'everyone else has an advantage over you in area A, which is the single most important component of nation power. Oh yeah, and you're especially vulnerable to it, so not only can't you fight back with that tool very well, but they get to clobber you with it'.
**Its really hard to make a worthwhile change to these nations that meets QM's philosophy for CBM.
-Bandar Log's biggest problem is that in the early game it only gets E on randoms from Rishi. While it can eventually solve this with conjuration, its far too late to defend against a rush by the time you do so. And S+N is not the best magic for defending rushes.
-MA Oceania's problem is total lack of lategame magic, having possibly the worst magic paths in the game (as a set), and no feet slots UW to even take advantage of its E randoms at all. And having no recruitable thugs, much less SCs, Ns good uses mostly don't apply. However, QM doesn't really screw with magic paths, so no help for that. Drastically slashing the cost of Capricorns might be worthwhile, however. (Say 250 or 275 instead of 350?)
***would benefit from the same changes as MA, LA.

[Tollund]

There are many, many units that are not recruited and could effectively be removed from the game. Forcing people to use them doesn't exactly make the game better.
The point of CBM is to make the huge variety of units more usable. The 'Balance' in CBM means units inside a nation are more balanced so you have more reasons to pick under-used units. I don't understand why you'd want to use this mod if you think some units should be removed, as it strives to make more units usable.

I didn't say that I think that units should be removed. I said that some units could effectively be removed, and will always be effectively removed from the game if they aren't worth building. People still recruit theurg acolytes even though theurgs are better mages because theurg acolytes have a useful purpose and are worthwhile. People don't recruit battle deacons, and never will as long as communicants are available. You'd have to make battle deacons free before they would be worth recruiting instead of a communicant. The Alae legionnaire might as well not exist because the hastatus is strictly superior. Reduce its gold cost to match its actual combat performance, and it would become a useful unit.

Yes, masters of the five elements are better than masters of the way, and people would recruit masters of the five elements over masters of the way if they had a choice. This doesn't mean that masters of the five elements have to remain capital only so that people will use masters of the way. It means that should masters of the five elements be made recruit anywhere, then masters of the way would have to be improved to be worth recruiting instead of a master of the five elements.

It's quite clear that balance between nations is the overall goal of the mod. Otherwise nations that have worthless national troops in vanilla like Bogarus wouldn't have been given heavy cavalry that's is virtually identical to tower knights. Your argument that the mod is meant to promote balance "within" a nation is basically nothing more than the argument mod supporters use to convince those people who like imbalance, because they can take advantage of it, to play in the modded game. The CBM doesn't go nearly far enough in making all units viable.

[Sombre]

It's quite clear that balance between nations is the overall goal of the mod. Otherwise nations that have worthless national troops in vanilla like Bogarus wouldn't have been given heavy cavalry that's is virtually identical to tower knights. Your argument that the mod is meant to promote balance "within" a nation is basically nothing more than the argument mod supporters use to convince those people who like imbalance, because they can take advantage of it, to play in the modded game. The CBM doesn't go nearly far enough in making all units viable.

qm has said before that nation balance is not the primary concern. Obviously it is something that CBM works towards addressing, but I don't know where you get that it's the 'overall goal'.

[chrispedersen]

Warriors of the 5 elements are very very underestimated.
EA T'ien Chi blessed beat easily Lankans and Mictlan jags. Against Hinnom they struggle.

I love both W5E's and lankan kumas and mic-jags. But both your post and micah's post are a little simplistic.

W5E's benefit more than mic jags do from a S blessing as they are more fragile. So a heads up comparison of an F9S9 blessing mics v jags will give skewed results.

Jags have mediocre attack and defense numbers, and have the ability to survive a hit based on on their were form. In fact, their were form is de-rigeur to really get the maximum advantage from the f9 bless (three attacks vs one).

A few other factors: W5E's are very, very susceptible to archer fire. And finally, the key to beating W5E's is killing them first.

You don't use the same tools on every problem. Mictlan will probably be using eagles not jag's agaist the W5E's. Set them far back Hold and attack, and with a priest set to Bless, bless, whatever.

This allows the eagles to get the first hit, offense or defense.
And if you are doing equal GPs, (iirc 15 vs 35?) 10 eagles and a priest vs 5 M5E's and a priest should win 19/20.

Even if you *don't* do it on a gp basis - M5E's are cap only and do not scale.

[Tollund]

qm has said before that nation balance is not the primary concern. Obviously it is something that CBM works towards addressing, but I don't know where you get that it's the 'overall goal'.

I'm assuming it's the overall goal because it's the only overall goal that's worthwhile for a mod that makes as many changes as it already does. If you would rather it not change overall balance between nations, then there are a large number of things that will have to be done to restore the balance back to what it is in vanilla. The nations with light cavalry, for example, will have to have the power of their other units reduced, or costs increased so that the improvements to cavalry don't upset the balance between nations. Niefelheim will need some major changes to unit costs so that the extra 100 gold cost on niefel jarls and the smaller cold auras on niefel giants doesn't reduce the nation's power relative to other nations.

Every change that is made to a nation changes the relative balance between nations. To argue otherwise is ignorant.

[Micah]

*eye roll* I used a W9F9 bless on the jags when I did the comparison and the first hit did surprisingly little, since the Warriors have such good defense and the single attack the unhurt jags have isn't enough to hit them.

I can't imagine eagles doing better, but run a test and let me know. The Elemental warriors are only 25g as well, not 35. Luckily they don't HAVE to be non-cap, since they're not a great midgame unit and you want to switch to other stuff, as previously mentioned by other posters. You also have a pretty badass S9 pretender with a lot of dominion power since you start at 3 dom, which is kind of nice. The higher dominion also means you have a high holy limit and can outnumber them early on when raw troop numbers are more important.

As far as the archer comment: I was responding to the assertion that they fold to other sacreds, not that they're uncounterable. To delve into more strategy for a moment though, TC has excellent archers and good shielded infantry, so it shouldn't be too hard to archer screen with a few guys and tear their archers up with a fire archers command to save your sacreds. It's not foolproof, but it's gonna make life hard for your opponent.

[Sombre]

Who is arguing otherwise? That statement is a truism to the point that it's meaningless. What you're talking about is the goal of the mod. Still. Even if qm never said another peep about CBM there are plenty of posts about the intentions behind CBM. Plenty of IRC logs. And even without those, the changes themselves tell a pretty clear story of balancing units, items, spells against each other. There have definitely been changes made which were primarily about nation balance, for example the original toning down of Hinnom's starting army (before a patch did it).

Anyway, no need to argue about it. Just ask qm if you want to know. Send him an email or pm, that's probably easiest.

[vfb]

qm has said before that nation balance is not the primary concern. Obviously it is something that CBM works towards addressing, but I don't know where you get that it's the 'overall goal'.

I'm assuming it's the overall goal because it's the only overall goal that's worthwhile for a mod that makes as many changes as it already does.

Nope. The only overall worthwhile goal, obviously, is to make the game more fun, by increasing diversity. How is diversity increased? By balancing under-used stuff.

If you would rather it not change overall balance between nations, then there are a large number of things that will have to be done to restore the balance back to what it is in vanilla.

Obviously, "not changing the overall balance" is not a goal of CBM. The overall balance will be changed, as a side effect of making under-used stuff more worthwhile.

There's nothing stopping you from making your own nation-balancing mod, if that's what you want.

I think Chris P has a project like that started. And there's another mod somewhere that gives all players identical nations, if you're looking for perfect balance for some reason.

[chrispedersen]

Right, my balance mod makes changes to oceania, all agarthas, and abysia.

I had changes started for machaka, and eriu.

[chrispedersen]

*eye roll* I used a W9F9 bless on the jags when I did the comparison and the first hit did surprisingly little, since the Warriors have such good defense and the single attack the unhurt jags have isn't enough to hit them.

I can't imagine eagles doing better, but run a test and let me know. The Elemental warriors are only 25g as well, not 35. Luckily they don't HAVE to be non-cap, since they're not a great midgame unit and you want to switch to other stuff, as previously mentioned by other posters. You also have a pretty badass S9 pretender with a lot of dominion power since you start at 3 dom, which is kind of nice. The higher dominion also means you have a high holy limit and can outnumber them early on when raw troop numbers are more important.

As far as the archer comment: I was responding to the assertion that they fold to other sacreds, not that they're uncounterable. To delve into more strategy for a moment though, TC has excellent archers and good shielded infantry, so it shouldn't be too hard to archer screen with a few guys and tear their archers up with a fire archers command to save your sacreds. It's not foolproof, but it's gonna make life hard for your opponent.

I agree that tc has excellent archers; I agree that an S9 pretender absolutely rocks. I just do not agree that W5E's outclass jags.

I also don't think that you are going to have a higher dominion score than mictlan.

Mictlan can afford to dump resources, heat, and growth/death if need be, and even two points of drain. TC just can't afford to do that - it need resources for archers; doesn't have a heat preference; and needs growth for its old age mages.

Finally, Mictlan can afford drain, by using a dominion pocket strategy, whereas all TC's mages are cap only, with crap outside its capital and hence, should not afford a drain scale.

Mictlans preferred bless chasis long ago was the oracle; since thats now no longer available the blood fountain is probably next best. Sucks on the endgame - but in terms of dominion the fountains Dom 4 under CBM is BETTER than the Dom 3 you're referencing. A typical mictlan starting bless will be an f9w9b4 with Dom7. however you certainly can see dom 8 easily, as well as an 9-9-9 bless.

[Sir_Dr_D]

Could one of the way to balance nations just be to increase the gold and/or resource settings at the beginning of the game. If sacreds are a smaller percentage of armies, it may make the game more balanced.

[Micah]

I was just speaking about the sacreds, not the nations as a whole, though you're blowing 5 scale picks on that build vs a TC with s9w9 at any level of dominion (the starting dom doesn't cause enough of a difference to matter) and I doubt the 2 points of strength will change the battle results by much.

[chrispedersen]

Could one of the way to balance nations just be to increase the gold and/or resource settings at the beginning of the game. If sacreds are a smaller percentage of armies, it may make the game more balanced.

Yes and no.
At first glance making a 'richer'game seems as if it would mean more normal troops compared to sacreds.

However, it doesn't actually change the equation tooo much. Blesseds expand faster, and so have a steeper ramp up on their incomes. So instead of building a castle on turn 4, they build it on turn 3.

What it does tend to do is compress the game. Expansion against indies tends to happen faster. Armies tend to get larger faster.

There are also other effects. Niefle, hinnom, agartha a few other nations tend to love rich resource and gold games, and it tilts the balance in favor of them, rather than dom limited smaller nations.

Spell research easier is a bigger effect, in my opinion.

[kianduatha]

I finally noticed something that bugs me: Ichtycentaurs and Trident Knights don't have a hoof attack. They should, at the very least on land. Give Trident Knights lances too and you might even see people using them.

[Frozen Lama]

Hinnom seemsto have acess to two Son of the Sun pretenders. one S1 one F1. this is in vanilla also. maybe just change the name of the S1 since son of the sun seems more firey to me.

[chrispedersen]

I was just speaking about the sacreds, not the nations as a whole, though you're blowing 5 scale picks on that build vs a TC with s9w9 at any level of dominion (the starting dom doesn't cause enough of a difference to matter) and I doubt the 2 points of strength will change the battle results by much.

Sorry I thought you said F9S9 vs F9W9. You're ownly blowing 3 scale picks due to a heat preference on mictlan.

Well, with 11 tests, only two of which were conducted at 6 hp and 9 hp (one each). mictlan won 5 fights, TC won 6. Tests were fought within TC dominion.

These were at even odds, usually 10 on 10.

A few things I noticed:

Eagles won more often because they killed the enemy priest.
TC inflicted much more casualties, in general. TC never lost more than 5, mictlan lost 9 or 10 4 times.

These results seem *highly* variable.

Switching to a s9w9, the TCs won 6 out of 9, at equal #s. The extra defense of the W5E's and extra attack just tears mictlan up.

[LDiCesare]

Even if you *don't* do it on a gp basis - M5E's are cap only and do not scale.
T'ien Chi's warriors are inferior to Mictlan sacreds only in that they are capital-only. Their strengths are different. TC does better vs. units relying on fire/heat/cold for instance. Eagle warriors are great against units which need boosting for instance, as these will get attacked before their buffs are on.
My point about using a bless for EA T'ien Chi is that the bless allows them to start fast. They'll tear down non archer indies. Later on, as the W5E are capital only, you can't rely on them, but you can summon sacred demons and sacred celestial warriors in the mid-game, and your bless should help these too. So mid-game, TC still has usable sacreds, which they can mass-summon everywhere (if you have the gems).
By the way, one reason to recruit a master of the way over a master of the 5 elements if these weren't capital only would be to try and get an S random so you can summon demons of heavenly waters, but it's probably easier to bring in a celestial master (fly/teleport/trapeze depending on what you've got) than risk 4 or 4 lousy picks in the process.

[Micah]

Mictlan's heat preference is only one point, and it's kind of odd to bring it into the discussion anyhow, since it's not like Mictlan loses it if they don't take a bless. Additionally, I can't remember the last time I took anything but heat or cold at 3, because it's by far the least important scale, so getting a freebie there isn't worth as much as one elsewhere.

I take it the only reason mictlan won 3 of those fights with the proper bless is because they popped the commander? The Element warriors just absolutely mop the floor with Mictlan's troops. Even at equal goldcost the eagles were being destroyed wholesale when I ran some tests.

[zlefin]

Proposed change: short sword attack from 0 to 1.
Because short swords are pretty decent weapons, but their current stats has them plain inferior to broad swords, while in reality they have some advantages and are used for those at times.
May help unit balance some, as short sword (like spear) tends to be a weapon on lame units.
Zlefin :)

[Trumanator]

Biggest problem with short swords is length 1. Att boost wouldn't be bad though, since they're plausibly more nimble. Maybe even a def boost?

[Fantomen]

That minor short sword boost is a very good idea. As it is now, short swords are a plain disadvantage. I suggest 1 in both attack and defence.

[Amonchakad]

That minor short sword boost is a very good idea. As it is now, short swords are a plain disadvantage. I suggest 1 in both attack and defence.

LA Agartha could really use a boost like that, considering that all their melee troops, even their sacreds, use shortswords, which makes them quite ineffective.

[Quitti]

Or then, swap the short swords of the blindfighters into broad swords. It wouldn't make them top of the line troops but would make them at least a bit more viable without spending points to blood in your bless. Rest of the troops I see as pretty fine for LA troops for what they can and can't do.

[rdonj]

Another suggestion for the next version of CBM: divine grasp should be a bonus weapon, so you can equip iron angels and not lose the halt sacred attack.

[Digress]

Or then, swap the short swords of the blindfighters into broad swords. It wouldn't make them top of the line troops but would make them at least a bit more viable without spending points to blood in your bless. Rest of the troops I see as pretty fine for LA troops for what they can and can't do.

Agartha and its short swords are supposed to be stabbing "cave fighting" weapon flavour of the nation.

Blindfighers do have 11 strength to help them out a touch.

[Tollund]

Roman troops use short swords also, so that would also be a boost to troops that probably don't need it too badly.

[Festin]

Another suggestion for the next version of CBM: divine grasp should be a bonus weapon, so you can equip iron angels and not lose the halt sacred attack.

Yes, this is very important. There are other units with the same situation, as far as I remember.

[Mardagg]

Talking about swords:

Anyone else also thinks its unthematic that a big and heavy 2-handed weapon like e.g. the Wraith Sword does less damage than many single handed weapons?

Generally i think the magic items could still use quite some balancing work in CBM.
Just to name a few:
- Fire Brand and to a lesser extend Frost Brand are overpowered for the cheap prize imo.
-Hell Sword and Wraith Sword are extremely underpowered on the other hand,they have to offer much more bang for the buck in order to compete with single handed weapon+shield.
We got a 25 Death gem/15 slaves + 10 fire gems weapon here,with just average stats,below average and not even AP damage,nerfed life drain,using two hand slots.Thats just plain terrible.

(Also i would like to see the Shadow brand to be on par with the other two (nerfed) brands,AN damage would be thematic here imo)

[Sir_Dr_D]

Another suggestion for the next version of CBM: divine grasp should be a bonus weapon, so you can equip iron angels and not lose the halt sacred attack.


I have never used Iron angels, but that sounds like a great suggestion.

[Sir_Dr_D]

I just had some thoughts on middle age Ulm. Are you able to mod the starting sites of a nation. If so would you be able to give ulm a starting site that allows it to collect an extra 100 or so resources per turn? The theme of the nation makes it sound like they should have access to a high resource site.

I will also add my voice to the opinion that ulms armor encumbrance should be reduced further. Contrary to popular belief, plate armor was easy to move around in. They were specificially designed to give knights mobility. If Ulm has such genius smiths, they should have been able to create armor that is stronger and just as easy to move around in. Not only that, but ulm is a nation that is tough and strong, and specifically trained to wear armor. They should be able to wear armor, and be less effected by encumbrance then other nations. I don't know the formulas enough to say what the best encumbrace should be, but don't be afraid to give the encumbrance a value of 5 or 6. Do that, or else give all umlish troops a natural reinvogration. The reinvogration would simulate their toughness,resilence and trained ability to be less effected by armor.

[rdonj]

Talking about swords:

Anyone else also thinks its unthematic that a big and heavy 2-handed weapon like e.g. the Wraith Sword does less damage than many single handed weapons?

Generally i think the magic items could still use quite some balancing work in CBM.
Just to name a few:
- Fire Brand and to a lesser extend Frost Brand are overpowered for the cheap prize imo.
-Hell Sword and Wraith Sword are extremely underpowered on the other hand,they have to offer much more bang for the buck in order to compete with single handed weapon+shield.
We got a 25 Death gem/15 slaves + 10 fire gems weapon here,with just average stats,below average and not even AP damage,nerfed life drain,using two hand slots.Thats just plain terrible.

(Also i would like to see the Shadow brand to be on par with the other two (nerfed) brands,AN damage would be thematic here imo)

I don't think the hell sword is actually that bad. If its price was reduced you wouldn't want to reduce it more than 1 step, probably. It has a couple extra things on it other than just life drain which should increase its price. The wraith sword I'll agree with, it is way overpriced. At d2 or d3 it would be much better balanced with the brand weapons, and it is after all a cons 6 item.

Frost brand and fire brand could use maybe a one step price increase, but iirc QM tried this before and people complained until it was changed back. As for the shadow brand, again I don't think it is that bad. With fear and/or quickness it is actually much better than a fire or frost brand most of the time imo, at least at killing chaff.

Unfortunately, you can't really alter the stats of weapons with item modding. Basically the only change you could make to improve or weaken any of them would be to change the secondary effects they use. For example if one really wanted to they could double to damage of the shadow brand's aoe and make the fire brand's aoe do one damage. But you cannot alter the actual weapon itself.

[rdonj]

Another suggestion for the next version of CBM: divine grasp should be a bonus weapon, so you can equip iron angels and not lose the halt sacred attack.


I have never used Iron angels, but that sounds like a great suggestion.

I haven't either, I was just looking them up in edi's database :)

[Mardagg]

Unfortunately, you can't really alter the stats of weapons with item modding. Basically the only change you could make to improve or weaken any of them would be to change the secondary effects they use. For example if one really wanted to they could double to damage of the shadow brand's aoe and make the fire brand's aoe do one damage. But you cannot alter the actual weapon itself.

Oh,wow,didnt know that.
Thats very sad.
I really think that e.g. Wraith Sword having like 16 base damage or so would be much more thematic.
Thanks for the info.

Maybe giving it 50 or 100% CR,+some kind of fear effect+reducing the price then.
I agree,that the Hellsword is better in comparison,but still most of the time it isnt really an option because of superior brand+shield kits.
Maybe giving it 100%FR and a slightly better berserk effect?
2 handed weapons just have to offer quite a lot for its big downside.
Is it possible to change the damage type to AP damage?

[Sombre]

Huh? You can change the stats of weapons like the wraith sword no problem via current weapon mod commands.

It can certainly be given 16 base damage. The code would look like this:

#selectweapon 110
#dmg 16
#end

You can't give it better berserk or fire res or anything like that because those are item effects - I guess that's what rdonj was referring to. Essentially items (forged stuff) may grant weapons and armour (things that appear under the stats on the unit info screen) which have the same name as the item, but they are NOT THE SAME THING.

[Sombre]

I just had some thoughts on middle age Ulm. Are you able to mod the starting sites of a nation. If so would you be able to give ulm a starting site that allows it to collect an extra 100 or so resources per turn? The theme of the nation makes it sound like they should have access to a high resource site.

They already get a resource bonus in all of their forts. This can be changed.

But yes, you could easily give them a site which gives them extra resources in the cap, or add the extra resources to an existing site.

[rdonj]

Actually I was just wrong, so thanks for straightening me out.

In other news I have finally figured out how to create new forgeable magical items, although it seems a bit buggy. I couldn't get multiple attacks to work while having a #secondaryeffect or #secondaryeffectalways.

[Mardagg]

ok,i am glad that the stats of the magic items can be changed.:)

I think a lot of items are just off or way-off stat wise, some for thematic reasons,some for balancing.
Instead of changing the gem cost it often might be better to slightly alter the stats instead.
Lets take the brands for example,they are meant to be massable,i.e not very expensive.
Probably better therefore to just lower the damage output for both while keeping the price.That would make them still a great choice vs chaff but they would be considerable weaker vs thugs/SC`s.

what about the following list : ( )=old value
...................Att....Def..Dmg...type

Fire Brand:....4(4) 1(1) 6(12) AP,area effect
Frost Brand:..2(4) 4(2) 12(16) area effect
Wraith Sword:5(2) 6(3) 18(9) Partial Life drain
Hell Sword:...7(3) 0(0) 16(9) Partial LD

If possible to mod,maybe change Damage type from Hell sword to AP instead and make it like 10-12 damage.The berserk effect grants indirect more damage anyways.

With that list,i would keep all prices the same except for the wraith sword which probably should cost 15-20 Death gems.

What do you think?

[Mardagg]

bah,how can i remove the automatic formatting?

[Sombre]

I couldn't get multiple attacks to work while having a #secondaryeffect or #secondaryeffectalways.

That's weapon modding not item modding!

Mardagg: I suggest you read through the mod manual to find out what is and isn't possible. It will help inform suggestions.

[Mardagg]

I just took a quick peak at the modding manual and i think i might understand it slightly better now.
So you cant change those values of existing magic items,just weapons.

You got me confused,since i was referring to the magic item wraith sword and you were telling me,the damage output can be changed..for weapons.Which at that time i wasnt aware of the difference.
So basically,for my changes to work you could either create new weapons and assign these via #weapon <weapon nbr> to the corresponding item,or you could alter the existing weapon.Didnt know before that such a manual exists.Good stuff.

[Sombre]

You are correct sir!

Bravo for taking up the invitation to check the manual out. I think you might be the first person I've suggested that to who actually bothered, rather than continuing to make suggestions without a sense of what was possible.

[Zeldor]

Huh, I'm not reading all that discussion, too much of it. I wonder if QM will :P

Sombre:
Nation balance was not a concern earlier, surely not the biggest, but now it's changing. While whole game is now almost fully balanced [still, tarts need smth to be done with them], lack of nation balance is even more apparent. But last CBM already had big changes, so I bet QM wanted to see reaction to that [and it had probably the biggest amount of nation balance in long time]. I know there are some changes for weak nations that did not make into 1.6 but hopefully they will be in 1.7 [like 100% random instead of 10% for EA Ulm Shamans].

kianduatha, Squirrelloid:

No new spells will be added [maybe llamabeasts late game mod if it's great?], so if you have any suggestions, they should be about things like price/research level of national spells; randoms on mages [that can be upped]; prices; unit being cap/non-cap.

[kianduatha]

kianduatha, Squirrelloid:

No new spells will be added [maybe llamabeasts late game mod if it's great?], so if you have any suggestions, they should be about things like price/research level of national spells; randoms on mages [that can be upped]; prices; unit being cap/non-cap.

Wha? I've never suggested new spells. My suggestions have largely been minor stat changes:

-Jomon's Samurai archers should get 11 def, 11 precision, 11 morale, and if QM is feeling rowdy maybe a Yari instead of a Katana(lowers the resource cost a bit, gives more variety of weapons, keeps them from making normal Samurai obsolete)
-Jomon's Shrimp Soldiers and Crab Generals should have Naginatas instead of Glaives, if just for theme.

-MA Ulm's Iron Angels' Divine Grasp should be #bonus, and while we're at it Iron Angels should really be 0-encumbrance(and only 4 earth/Conj 7)
-MA Ulm's Guardians should get at least 10 MR.

-Machaka's Hunter Spiders(the big black ones without riders) should get 16 str so their Venomous Fangs match up with the Spider Bite on the original Black Hunters (the normal Great Spiders could be changed too, but those don't matter so much)
-Machakan PD should get priests/casters. My personal preference is towards a Witch Doctor at 1 and a Voice at 20. Some ruckus was made about not having casters at PD 1, but EA Vanheim, EA Helheim, EA Oceania, and MA Oceania(the latter two only on land) have casters at PD 1.

-MA Oceania's Ichtycentaurs and Trident Knights should get hoof attacks, like the Centaur Warriors they're based off of. Maybe give Trident Knights a lance, too, though I'd almost rather just lowering their cost to 75.
-both Triton Kings and Capricorns could afford to get their 10% randoms up to 20 or 25, so you have more than just a freak chance of getting A2 or E2.

-Flaming Arrows should go back down to 1 gem.

-Riches From Beneath should probably be only 4 earth.

Here's a new one, from playing a couple of MP games as underwater nations: give at least Mermages, Slave Mages and (maybe)Mages of the Deep the ability to bring some troops underwater. This prevents the very odd necessity of creating underwater breathing items to move your Bog Beasts/Frost Drakes etc. from your staging ground to your battlefield.

Just as a question, how often do people use/see Amphipteres?

[Squirrelloid]

I don't recall specifically requesting new spells either.

[Zeldor]

No? Someone was? Well, it was to those who suggested it. Anyway, what is the problem with flaming arrows being 2 gems?

[Lingchih]

I'm not sure when the Devana summons was lowered to 65 slaves, but, after fighting an army of them in Early Days, I would suggest putting them back to 75 slaves. 65 is too cheap for a unit as powerful as almost any high level blood summons.

[Frozen Lama]

well there is that thing about the 40% blood site he had.....

[13lackGu4rd]

sorry to sound very noobish but how do you make the mod work? I downloaded the zip file, extracted it(still have zip files after the initial unzipping) and copied the entire folder into my dominion 3 folder under "mods"(was already available but empty). I assume I did something wrong here, or just stopped a step or 2 short...

[Quitti]

You also have to enable it from preferences -> mod preferences and then start a new game. It suffices if it is just in the mods folder if you are playing a game that has been started with the mod on (such as a multiplayer game hosted by someone else).

[Zeldor]

Lingchih:

Uber magic sites are going to be removed in CBM, or already are? Summoning Circle should not exist really, I had 100 vampire lords in one game, when I got it. And all I had were B1 mages to recruit, and not even reliably [LA Midgard].

[Trumanator]

I think that the spell "Fate of Oedipus" should be removed, or at least drastically changed. At the moment it adds nothing, it just means that no one will ever cast Eyes of God in a game.

[Digress]

I think that the spell "Fate of Oedipus" should be removed, or at least drastically changed. At the moment it adds nothing, it just means that no one will ever cast Eyes of God in a game.


High level S mages don't really need eyes anyway ...

And does anyone really cast Eyes of God other than to show off ?

[Sombre]

They might, if it didn't mean a certain dispel and blinding via FoO. And if it was cheaper.

The thing is EoG is cool and interesting, and FoO while cool in concept, does nothing but stop people casting EoG. So it never even gets cast itself.

[vfb]

EoG is useful to:
- take up a global slot, without making people mad
- let you look at the gear on the heroes in the HoF
- scout out rare (discovered) sites in enemy lands
- scout out income (pop) in enemy lands

You only need it up for one turn to get info on sites and income.

I've used it in more than one MP game. But it used to be 30 pearls, now it's 50. With no more clams, I probably wouldn't cast it now.

[Digress]

EoG is useful to:
- take up a global slot, without making people mad
- let you look at the gear on the heroes in the HoF


I have cast it for the first reason - but class it as showing off. Basically saying "I can burn a bunch of pearls just to see whats cooking". I take the view that you can never have too many astral pearls ... never.

I had no idea it gave you info on heroes ... thanks.

[BigDaddy]

Why CBM?

Is it to make dom3 a more relaxing casual game?

I ask because it seems like, if someone knows a nation intimately, that then they can use it, and the game is probably fair (it is 23b afterall) without the CBM.

I guess what I'm asking is why and when do you like to use the CBM?

Like this, let's say I like to clam hoard with Atlantis, because it can be hard climb up on land and make war after I take out another underwater nation. So, with the CBM I can no longer clam hoarde, and the other players are no longer concerned bout Atlantis hoarding clams and suddenly emerging to beat them into a pulp...

I say clam hoarding as a time bomb for underwater nations... you have to find a way to go down there and get him...

I remember in dom2 without the CBM clam hoarding was violently fast... They have slowed it tons in the stock version since then. I think that they have thought carefully about how fast clams pay off. Does it make sense to make clams unique in all cases?

[rdonj]

Vanilla is not really that well balanced, really. There are a number of nations that are just plain stronger than most others. They are still beatable, but there are just far fewer chinks in their armor than most nations. CBM doesn't really try to address this that much, though it does make some of the grossly overpowered nations a bit more reasonable. Mostly what CBM does though is make more strategies viable, and try to work around bad mechanics (see: clam nerf). I prefer playing CBM because it improves a lot of spells and pretenders that are pretty useless in vanilla, and makes them actually usable and fun.

[Squirrelloid]

Like this, let's say I like to clam hoard with Atlantis, because it can be hard climb up on land and make war after I take out another underwater nation. So, with the CBM I can no longer clam hoarde, and the other players are no longer concerned bout Atlantis hoarding clams and suddenly emerging to beat them into a pulp...

I say clam hoarding as a time bomb for underwater nations... you have to find a way to go down there and get him...

I remember in dom2 without the CBM clam hoarding was violently fast... They have slowed it tons in the stock version since then. I think that they have thought carefully about how fast clams pay off. Does it make sense to make clams unique in all cases?

This is bad game design because you're basically saying a UW nation basically should stop playing the game for awhile (30 turns? 50?) unless someone else can be bothered to come and fight them underwater. In the meantime, they should be able to build up an insurmountable advantage by just sitting back and clamming?

Winning the game should involve playing the game. Not just seeing how much you can abuse the forging system. And attacking UW is really hard in Vanilla - I'd say it would be next to impossible for a land nation to take out an UW nation before late game. Further, there's the social problem of everybody knowing you're sitting there clamming, but no one is willing to attack you because it weakens them, so you just don't get attacked. (Of course, everyone is clamming, and water income is actually less common underwater, so you probably lose the clamming race anyway. This is a pretty degenerate metric for winning/losing the game).

The lack of interactivity between land and water nations is a serious problem in vanilla. CBM in 1.6 took large strides towards fixing this by making access UW easier, and the ability of aquatic-only commanders to leave the seas easier (cheaper water-breathing and air-breathing items). And this is a good thing. Attacking underwater is still too hard, even with these changes, but at least it can happen earlier and requires fewer resources.

Besides, not fighting a war is still plenty beneficial at present (don't need to divert valuable mage resources to combat, or use as much cash on armies so you can spend it on mages or infrastructure). But clams just turned it into an 'I win' button if you could successfully turtle and forge tons of clams. As a strategy that simply had to go.

[Stavis_L]

Why CBM?


Ok - a lot of people are going to respond with MP balance related responses, which is valid, and nice and all, but only one reason to use it. A perhaps more pragmatic reason is that a large number of MP games are started using it, so familiarity is helpful if you intend to join a lot of MP games.

For me, however, the big attraction of CBM is that it lets you do things that you otherwise wouldn't do due to opportunity cost. For instance - Dragon Master. This always sounded cool in vanilla, but was always too expensive to justify. In CBM, it's cheaper, so it actually sees some use. As another example, see the use of wholesale transformation in e.g. Baalz' Oceana guide (or his latest Pangea guide.) You can justifiably recruit or summon many more national units than before. You can use some of the "cool sounding" pretenders and not feel like you're taking a huge handicap for doing so. You can cast nifty spells that were previously "inferior" and never saw play.

It diversifies the game and expands the palette of economical strategies (somewhat.) It's not a panacea, but it does help.

[Sombre]

I think CBM is worthwhile even if you only play SP, because it evens out the difference between things which are hugely cost effective and those which are, essentially, far too little bang for you buck.

You might really like the concept and look of a certain summon, for instance abysian smoulderghosts. But whenever you use them, they do worse than far cheaper regular troops, which is discouraging, so you stop using them and almost inevitably drift towards stuff which works well, rather than stuff which is interesting (partly because the stuff which works actually survives and is affordable, while the other stuff dies horribly). Now if you introduce CBM, it makes those smoulderghosts, if used in an intelligent way, worth the cost. That idea you had of using them with sulphur clouds becomes feasible, because you can actually afford more of them. So you're able to make use of the units and tactics you want to without them being overshadowed too horribly by obvious better choices. They may still not be optimal, but at least they work ok.

[BigDaddy]

But smoulderghosts is a conjuration 2 spell, it should be far inferior to level 8 spells... like animate archers. If the smoulderghosts become comparable to skeletal archers then the CBM is a game mechanics fail.

I don't know exactly how these two things were determined. Well, if you go straight for conjuration with Abysia, the smoulderghost seem intent to fill a very short term early game niche if you've got death gems, or you can cast protection spells on them. They also have a magic weapon. I could say that the smouldghosts suck for similar reasons that Caelum sucks. I think that's funny.

But, I'm not arguing against the CBM, I just think it takes away from nation specific skill.

Since I always played MP with added AI players, clamming hard with the computer set to aggressive. The objective should be to make rushing more appealing.

IMHO nations without an H3 priest are at a serious disadvantage as they can be easily rushed. Maybe we should give everyone H3 priest? How do you make up for the fact that every MA Pythium city has a H3 brigade of "researchers" inside it? You don't, that is just how Pythium is. Or maybe we could just tinker with smite... I just smote my brother in MP the other day (10 Kings of Rain showed up at his territory on turn 16). He still thinks its scary... especially because I was also ahead in research. Maybe getting smote doesn't bother people as much because it happens early in the game, whereas losing because you of clamming takes days.


Unless they have a titan pretender which can kill lots of priests without equipment. But then you can't heal your pretender until you get to conjuration or construction 8.

I guess it isn't that I fail to see the usage of the CBM, I just fail to see the game as horribly imbalanced in the first place.

[KissBlade]

If you find it balanced in the first place, then don't use a balance mod. =) However, a lot of people don't find it balanced so opt for the alternative.

[BigDaddy]

I seem to having some difficulty getting my point across or my question across. In what cases should I use the CBM? Most of the people on this thread are divided between "never" and "always." It's clearly a popular mod.

In what cases should I use the CBM?

[KissBlade]

There is no "should". As I said, it is a matter of opinion. You stated that you felt the game has no imbalancing issues. In that case, why would you use a "balancing mod" if you felt it added nothing to balance. The point of cbm is for people who felt "Hey, some of these pretenders/troops/summons/nations don't appear to be costed right ..." or "Turtlegemgenthreehourmicro" is not fun. If you have none of these issues, then why use it? ;)

[Squirrelloid]

But smoulderghosts is a conjuration 2 spell, it should be far inferior to level 8 spells... like animate archers. If the smoulderghosts become comparable to skeletal archers then the CBM is a game mechanics fail.

I don't know exactly how these two things were determined. Well, if you go straight for conjuration with Abysia, the smoulderghost seem intent to fill a very short term early game niche if you've got death gems, or you can cast protection spells on them. They also have a magic weapon. I could say that the smouldghosts suck for similar reasons that Caelum sucks. I think that's funny.

His point was that smoulderghosts in vanilla are so bad, no one would ever spend gems on them. You can pay gold for better troops. Since gems > gold (bar fire gems), you'll never spend gems to get troops worse than what you can just hire.


But, I'm not arguing against the CBM, I just think it takes away from nation specific skill.

Er... non-sequitur? How? There are still nations, they have distinct national units, they have particular paths and pretender choices. In fact, CBM increases nation differentiation *because* it removes gem gens. Since you can't just clam/blood-stone/fever fetish your way to arbitrarily large gem pools, your endgame is no longer nothing but summoned troops and mages. National mages and troops are more important all game long.


Since I always played MP with added AI players, clamming hard with the computer set to aggressive. The objective should be to make rushing more appealing.

... no no no. The objective should be to make the game more balanced and interesting so every nation has a fair shake. Rushing is already really powerful - if anything, it could probably use a little toning down in some cases. Ideally, mid-game should be longer and more relevant, since that's the interesting part of the game.


IMHO nations without an H3 priest are at a serious disadvantage as they can be easily rushed. Maybe we should give everyone H3 priest? How do you make up for the fact that every MA Pythium city has a H3 brigade of "researchers" inside it? You don't, that is just how Pythium is. Or maybe we could just tinker with smite... I just smote my brother in MP the other day (10 Kings of Rain showed up at his territory on turn 16). He still thinks its scary... especially because I was also ahead in research. Maybe getting smote doesn't bother people as much because it happens early in the game, whereas losing because you of clamming takes days.

You could afford to send 3500 gold worth of commanders on an offensive on turn 16? You do realize how horribly inefficient that is right? I'd take equal gold against them any day. The smite isn't what makes them scary. One of them dropping divine blessing on 50 double-blessed jags would be a *lot* scarier, and a heck of a lot cheaper. (1600 gold vs. 3500 gold, assuming you had nothing but commanders in your example, which is almost certainly false). And by turn 16 he should have real counters. Like bladewind or thunderstrike. Smite is small potatoes by comparison.


Unless they have a titan pretender which can kill lots of priests without equipment. But then you can't heal your pretender until you get to conjuration or construction 8.

Dar?


I guess it isn't that I fail to see the usage of the CBM, I just fail to see the game as horribly imbalanced in the first place.

Where to start? Well, besides Ashdod (which CBM still hasn't nerfed enough).

We could start with their being only ~7 pretender chasses ever worth using in vanilla.

We could start with the strict domination of some nations over most others. I mean, nations like MA Man are still bad in CBM, but they are absolutely *hopeless* in vanilla.

We could start with the poorly balanced spells such that some of them are win buttons and others are useless or mostly useless.

I mean, what kind of specific examples would you like?

CBM doesn't just balance nations against each other, it also balances options against each other so more of the spells and units see play. Its done the latter of these rather well in many cases, in some as well as is possible without fundamental changes. (e.g., MA Ermor's censor cannot be priced so that it will ever be bought if it remains cap-only, so no change CBM could make that retains its cap-only status will effect how often it sees play).

[Sombre]

In what cases should I use the CBM?

You shouldn't ever use it if you find the game already balanced, obviously. Kissblade summed it up perfectly, no need for further discussion. You don't sound like you have a great deal of dom3 MP experience though, so maybe you're wrong about the balance. Keep playing and see how you feel :]

[BigDaddy]

But smoulderghosts is a conjuration 2 spell, it should be far inferior to level 8 spells... like animate archers. If the smoulderghosts become comparable to skeletal archers then the CBM is a game mechanics fail.

I don't know exactly how these two things were determined. Well, if you go straight for conjuration with Abysia, the smoulderghost seem intent to fill a very short term early game niche if you've got death gems, or you can cast protection spells on them. They also have a magic weapon. I could say that the smouldghosts suck for similar reasons that Caelum sucks. I think that's funny.

His point was that smoulderghosts in vanilla are so bad, no one would ever spend gems on them. You can pay gold for better troops. Since gems > gold (bar fire gems), you'll never spend gems to get troops worse than what you can just hire.


But, I'm not arguing against the CBM, I just think it takes away from nation specific skill.

Er... non-sequitur? How? There are still nations, they have distinct national units, they have particular paths and pretender choices. In fact, CBM increases nation differentiation *because* it removes gem gens. Since you can't just clam/blood-stone/fever fetish your way to arbitrarily large gem pools, your endgame is no longer nothing but summoned troops and mages. National mages and troops are more important all game long.



... no no no. The objective should be to make the game more balanced and interesting so every nation has a fair shake. Rushing is already really powerful - if anything, it could probably use a little toning down in some cases. Ideally, mid-game should be longer and more relevant, since that's the interesting part of the game.



You could afford to send 3500 gold worth of commanders on an offensive on turn 16? You do realize how horribly inefficient that is right? I'd take equal gold against them any day. The smite isn't what makes them scary. One of them dropping divine blessing on 50 double-blessed jags would be a *lot* scarier, and a heck of a lot cheaper. (1600 gold vs. 3500 gold, assuming you had nothing but commanders in your example, which is almost certainly false). And by turn 16 he should have real counters. Like bladewind or thunderstrike. Smite is small potatoes by comparison.


Unless they have a titan pretender which can kill lots of priests without equipment. But then you can't heal your pretender until you get to conjuration or construction 8.

Dar?


I guess it isn't that I fail to see the usage of the CBM, I just fail to see the game as horribly imbalanced in the first place.

Where to start? Well, besides Ashdod (which CBM still hasn't nerfed enough).

We could start with their being only ~7 pretender chasses ever worth using in vanilla.

We could start with the strict domination of some nations over most others. I mean, nations like MA Man are still bad in CBM, but they are absolutely *hopeless* in vanilla.

We could start with the poorly balanced spells such that some of them are win buttons and others are useless or mostly useless.

I mean, what kind of specific examples would you like?

CBM doesn't just balance nations against each other, it also balances options against each other so more of the spells and units see play. Its done the latter of these rather well in many cases, in some as well as is possible without fundamental changes. (e.g., MA Ermor's censor cannot be priced so that it will ever be bought if it remains cap-only, so no change CBM could make that retains its cap-only status will effect how often it sees play).

He attacked them through PD, and they had blood slaves with them. We play on indy's 7 or more, I'm used to 9, so I tend to make really powerful armies that are inefficient. They did have lab and a few demons... I was Mictalan afterall... he was bogarus, they killed a lot of heavy calvary. It is probably bad for my "professional" experience. It is true that I haven't played dom3 that much, I'm just an old dom2 player.

What are the 7 chassis? Enchantress, statue, fountain, fountain... actually I think all the immobile ones have their niche.

I never liked the titans, as they seem like late game mage artillery... because they really aren't good for taking provinces early on, and it doesn't take long until taking provinces with a few basic spells becomes a waste of their time.

Maybe I'm just missing some tactics somewhere.

I feel like I'm missing something. So, to find out, I need to play MA Man.

[BigDaddy]

The reason I struggle with believing that a billion small changes -must- be necessary is that according to the company their patches (now 23b) include balances. And so, I wonder if vanilla spells are really balanced, or if maybe the CBM is in a strategy rut.

Or maybe the writers of the game don't see it as such a hardcore competitive game.

So, I'm just skeptical that they have said they been rebalancing it, but a nation, MA Man, is still way more difficult to win with.

[Sombre]

KO and JK, the guys who made dom3, haven't really focused on balance. They have said as much themselves. The balance changes they have made have been very limited, the most notable ones being some nerfs to Hinnom, changing the cost of jaguar warriors and changing costs/cap restrictions for van and helheim. Each of these has really only been after many, many threads complaining about these units.

It's kinda cute that you think that way though. It must be balanced because it's had lots of patches. Heehee.

You say 'maybe I'm missing tactics somewhere' but judging from your posts I'd say you have only a beginner's grasp of dom3, which has a huge learning curve. You're missing a /huge/ amount currently.

[BigDaddy]

Well, then I disagree that clam hoarding should be made impossible. ROR 15 seems like a long time, but it pays off in the next game stage. How about ROR45?

[Squirrelloid]

Well, then I disagree that clam hoarding should be made impossible. ROR 15 seems like a long time, but it pays off in the next game stage. How about ROR45?

First of all, no one forges clams without hammers.

Second, consider there's other ways to reduce forging cost (Steel Ovens or Banefire Forge sites, Forge Lord pretender, Hammer of the Forge Lord artifact, Hammer of the Cyclops 'artifact' (wishable, not forgeable), Forge of the Ancients global spell), so there's no 'fair' cost for an item that produces gems and can be produced indefinitely. The max price reduction you can achieve is 80%, and it is quite possible to achieve that. (Well, there's some rounding factors involves as well, so the ultimate cost is actually less than 20% - you can reduce 5gem items to no gems with the right combination of reductions).

[Squirrelloid]

Worthwhile vanilla pretender chasses (I'm probably missing a few, but these are the ones that jumped out at me):

Wyrm
Gorgon
Cyclops
Prince of Death
Oracle
Fountain
Ghost King
Lich

(Avoiding pretenders who are very nation-specific, although most of those are just bad). So its 8, maybe a couple more i missed. (The dragons are probably perfectly playable, but why you'd choose them over the ridiculously cheap Gorgon or PoD is beyond me).

[Sombre]

Gorgon is only available to very few nations, but is a total no brainer.

PoD is not available to a handful, but as an awake SC is often a total no brainer.

But this is all stuff that's been covered a million times before :]

[BigDaddy]

Wait... Yes, I was LA Mictalan and I hired a King of Rain every turn from the begining until turn 16. I had 15. The performed all the major fighting, research, and blood collection duties, and my research was still very strong. I don't end up with as many demons, however, as the manual says I can, but then, I want to go to blood 5 and get the general. One of the Kings can ussually cast Ice Devil... It is entirely possible to hire the most expensive unit everyday, especially if its holy... Plus, the King of Rain can smite so I don't need any evo at all. I don't know, though, because it seems like the people here see that as a backward strategy.

Anyway, I digress... It is too bad, that clams can't be used in a way were the gems must stay on your mage, so that they can be used in their most enjoyable way, that is, that you don't have to micromanage your mages spell casting supplies so much. Ultimately I see why gem hoarding had to be disabled...

[Trumanator]

Wait... Yes, I was LA Mictalan and I hired a King of Rain every turn from the begining until turn 16. I had 15. The performed all the major fighting, research, and blood collection duties, and my research was still very strong. I don't end up with as many demons, however, as the manual says I can, but then, I want to go to blood 5 and get the general. One of the Kings can ussually cast Ice Devil... It is entirely possible to hire the most expensive unit everyday, especially if its holy... Plus, the King of Rain can smite so I don't need any evo at all. I don't know, though, because it seems like the people here see that as a backward strategy.


This really has nothing to do with CBM. Basically it sounds like you were winning anyways so it didn't really matter.

[Trumanator]

One more thing to add to the list of possible changes: Oceanian tritons really ought to have coral spears instead of regular spears imo. Its a flavor thing for the most part, but I think it also makes them a little more useful too.

[militarist]

What I'm missing in CBM is that authors would make a balance the way that races would be Competitive not only in it's age, but Cross ages as well. Just there should be some conceptual difference between races of different ages (for example EA would have easier and Cheaper access to magic, skills to storm castles, while LA - to protection, more patroling bonuses).

For me it's not clear why many races go worse and worse from EA to MA to LA. While other - not. If people like some race, and like to specialize in it, why not to give them joy of having his race playable and not nefed in one age compared to another?

The second thought I wanted to mention - heroes in a game doesn REALLY change a ballance (most of them), but they defenitely add pleasure and fun a lot. Why not just to make all races to have 3 hero? It wouldn't affect the balance, but would add some pleasure to play.

[Trumanator]

Well, there really aren't very many single age games, so I'm guessing qm wasn't really considering it that much. As for heroes, CBM does make a lot of them better through its incorporation of the Worthy Heroes mod. Adding more heroes though is something that is very cool, but its somewhat beyond the scope of the mod.

[militarist]

Thanks, good idea is to write about heroes in worthe heroes mode thread. That's true.

As for ages - LA is very rarely playable. And it's much less of lovemark than EA or MA. And I say about keeping in mind all nations - it's not really for single age mod. Just to make some holes in balance more obvious.And, btw, single age mod maybe not really playable exactly because of lack of ballance between ages.

[Trumanator]

I'm not sure why LA isn't playable? Or what you mean by "lovemark", or how it matters about cross-age balance if you're not using Single Age mod?

[kianduatha]

One more thing to add to the list of possible changes: Oceanian tritons really ought to have coral spears instead of regular spears imo. Its a flavor thing for the most part, but I think it also makes them a little more useful too.

What? It contradicts the flavor, if anything. Oceanian tritons would never stoop down so low as to use coral spears. Also, Oceanian tritons are pretty awesome as is. Turtle warriors, though...maybe they're okay having coral spears.

[militarist]

I didn't mean it's not playable. Just much less games are in LA, less magic, less giants :). And if we don't say about Rleh and Ermor, is any other race became better there then EA and MA? Maybe it's wrong to generalise though, but when I think about northen-themed nations had much more taste in EA, less in MA, and lowest fun in LA. Also LA Agartha comes to mind.

[vfb]

One more thing to add to the list of possible changes: Oceanian tritons really ought to have coral spears instead of regular spears imo. Its a flavor thing for the most part, but I think it also makes them a little more useful too.

What? It contradicts the flavor, if anything. Oceanian tritons would never stoop down so low as to use coral spears. Also, Oceanian tritons are pretty awesome as is. Turtle warriors, though...maybe they're okay having coral spears.

The graphic has Oceanian tritons wielding pink-tipped spears.

[Trumanator]

I didn't mean it's not playable. Just much less games are in LA, less magic, less giants :). And if we don't say about Rleh and Ermor, is any other race became better there then EA and MA? Maybe it's wrong to generalise though, but when I think about northen-themed nations had much more taste in EA, less in MA, and lowest fun in LA. Also LA Agartha comes to mind.

Well the less magic, less giants thing is flavor, outside of CBM's purview.

As for nations that are better/just as good in LA as in EA or MA, here's my personal list of nations that I think are better in LA:

Aby
Ulm
Marignon
TC
Agartha
Ctis
Pan
Midgard
Utgard (than MA anyways)

[kianduatha]

The graphic has Oceanian tritons wielding pink-tipped spears.

That, my good sir, is bronze--it's orange, not pink.

[vfb]

Oh! You are totally correct. I have checked it with the gimp, and booked an appointment with my optometrist.

[Squirrelloid]

As for nations that are better/just as good in LA as in EA or MA, here's my personal list of nations that I think are better in LA:

Aby
Ulm
Marignon
TC
Agartha
Ctis
Pan
Midgard
Utgard (than MA anyways)

Certainly agree with most of those. Utgard better than Jotunheim though, really?

Also, I wouldn't say LA Marignon is better than MA, so much as different.

And LA TC being better than MA is because LA TC is crazy good, whereas MA TC is just decent.

[Tollund]

Certainly agree with most of those. Utgard better than Jotunheim though, really?

Seithkona are better then Vaetti hags, but Norna are probably a wash vs. Gyjga.

[BigDaddy]

Maybe you could help Ulm by letting their smiths lead more clockwork horror or mechanical men... increase their leadership rating.

[Sombre]

That would make very little difference to anything. But I guess.

[BigDaddy]

Could you give them more mechanical men per summon... That would help with the loss of fever fetishes, at least MA.

[militarist]

May be it's my personal impression. Though I like LA Pans as well, I agree.

[kianduatha]

As a flavor thing, shouldn't Jomon's Ryujin get H1? Their flavor text says that they have spread the dominion of the dragon king...but right now they have no way to spread dominion.

Also the Mighty Yari on Kaijin is currently a ranged weapon with ammunition 0.

[Squirrelloid]

As a flavor thing, shouldn't Jomon's Ryujin get H1? Their flavor text says that they have spread the dominion of the dragon king...but right now they have no way to spread dominion.

Also the Mighty Yari on Kaijin is currently a ranged weapon with ammunition 0.

If I have to guess, its because the description is using 'dominion' in the normal sense of the word. Which may mean the description should be changed, since it has a technical sense in dom3.

[kianduatha]

I've been looking at Jomon recently, and I realized that CBM actually nerfs Samurai Archers--in the base game they're 11 gold(nerfed to 12), and they're 11 precision (nerfed to 10).

Now I realize that the gold cost is because they have the longbow(though aren't composite bows just as good? They're still 10 gold...), but baseline Jomon units have 11 precision because that's their tradeoff for only having 9 hp.

While we're at it...is there any pressing reason why Monks of the Fivefold Sign are so darn expensive?

[rdonj]

As a flavor thing, shouldn't Jomon's Ryujin get H1? Their flavor text says that they have spread the dominion of the dragon king...but right now they have no way to spread dominion.

Also the Mighty Yari on Kaijin is currently a ranged weapon with ammunition 0.

It could be a hidden dominion spread effect, like prophets get. I suspect this is the case, but I couldn't tell you for certain.

[Trumanator]

Well giving them H levels would also have the useful effect of making them sacred, which is very useful on a 400g+ mage.

[kianduatha]

It could be a hidden dominion spread effect, like prophets get. I suspect this is the case, but I couldn't tell you for certain.

I thought so too, so I tested it. I made a game with just Jomon(Dom10) and LA Mictlan on Glory of the Gods, made a dozen Kaijin, and then flew them to the other side of the map to see if they had any effect on pristine neutral dominion. Nothing--not even a dozen of them over 15 turns. Then to check if it was a heretic-like effect, I tried them on Mictlan's dominion(which was completely static, seeming as I killed their god etc). Again, nothing. So unless my tests were somehow fundamentaly flawed, I think it's safe to say they have no crazy hidden domspread.

Well giving them H levels would also have the useful effect of making them sacred, which is very useful on a 400g+ mage.

Already sacred.

[Lingchih]

Is not all this speculation pointless, since QM, the mod maker, is gone? Deal with CBM 1.6. It's the last CBM, and it is quite good.

[vfb]

Quit your drunken ramblings!

[Burnsaber]

Is not all this speculation pointless, since QM, the mod maker, is gone?

Has thou not read the latets scriptures of the most divine source? Let me quote;


And so, at the last day, the Quantum one shall return, wearing a crown of clams and wielding nerfs in his right hand and boosts in his left. And then, he will judge, and balance shall be had by all.

[Sombre]

qm is studying in the UK and taking a break from dom3. He'll probably return.

[rdonj]

I have just spoken to QM. He has left me with a divine mandate to carry on the great task that is the maintenance of the CBM. As my first act as usurper, er, I mean High Modder, I will gift all nations with the spell Summon Markata King for only 250 pearls each. The days of late game tartarian dominance are over. Long live the markata kings!

[Fantomen]

While trying out MA oceania it occured to me that ichtycentaurs should have the standard hoof attack that other cavalry/centaurs already have.

That would be a nice and well needed boost I think.