Vote

[Executor]

I'd like to see everyone's opinions regarding the following changes.

Hammers, Dousing Rods, Gem Gens, Bonus 30%+ Sites

[rabelais]

The problem isnt +30% sites, It's wish. Wish is mostly behind the pearl problem too. have people really broken a game with fever fetishes?

[llamabeast]

I think it's interesting to wonder what would have happened if the base game did not include hammers, and a mod added them.

I reckon people would think they were broken (massively OP item only available with E3 completely skews the game, forces everyone to get E3 and adds micro!!). But who knows?

[llamabeast]

rabelais: I think the problem with fetishes is not so much that they break the game, but that they reward massive micromanagement. So that if you want to have a more fun game (less micro), you are at a quite large disadvantage. Of course some micro is a necessary and often fun part of dominions, but there is a limit.

[Executor]

I think it's interesting to wonder what would have happened if the base game did not include hammers, and a mod added them.

I reckon people would think they were broken (massively OP item only available with E3 completely skews the game, forces everyone to get E3 and adds micro!!). But who knows?

Yes Llama, but the problem isn't in the hammer bonuses, it's in the problem it makes once it's removed.
Items and some summons gem prices should be different.

[Kobal2]

Is that a problem though ? True, FFs are much more micro than the other 3 gemgens (SDRs are gemgens, too). If you mind that, then don't play a nation/build/strat which hinges on fever fetishes. It's not like they are the ultimate weapon (that would be clams).

That being said, I don't think it's really balanced to have S, F, E and B gemgens yet no W, N, D, A ones. Either take 'em all out of give each path it's own gemgen, otherwise balance goes out the window. Doubly so in large games.

[Calahan]

Remove Hammers - No
Remove gem-gens - Yes
Remove 30%+ sites - Yes I think (not 100% certain on this yet though, as you do need a way to end games without them dragging on for 100's of turns. And an Uber discount site certainly offers a nation the chance to end the game)


Not sure on the SDR issue yet. IMO Blood needs to be looked at in real detail in order to balance it. No SDR's might be a solution, it might not. But I am very concerned how badly it affects borderline blood nations like Heim's, Pan, and the general 'getting into blood' scenario. So I'm very uncharacteristically sitting on the fence on this one for now. (and anyone who knows me knows how much I hate fence sitters)

[PriestyMan]

interesting. i look forward to seeing if the current trend continues. add the poll to the Dom3Mods site as well exec?

[quantum_mechani]

Personally, I would be quite interested in knowing how much opposition to the hammer change is on principle, vs unaddressed balance repercussions.

[Executor]

interesting. i look forward to seeing if the current trend continues. add the poll to the Dom3Mods site as well exec?

Didn't cross my mind, not an active member on that forum.
Lot of the players are active on both forums so results might not be all that accurate with double voting.

EDIT> That why I made the poll QM, it might give you guys a better insight.

[PriestyMan]

Personally, I would be quite interested in knowing how much opposition to the hammer change is on principle, vs unaddressed balance repercussions.

I think a lot of the votes are the balance reason. the SDR change hurts some nations a lot, but the hammer change utterly annihilates a few nations. unless they get massive boosts, i think there will be massive opposition to this. my vote for example was not based on principle bu balance

[Gandalf Parker]

Id rather not see anything removed. A tactic or a strategy is just that.
A balancing tweak has been, and I feel should continue to be, about how MUCH it gets used. Not the fact that it gets used.

Usually pretenders, units, equipment, etc have been tweaked to make them appear less or more in the game. Cant such items be made more expensive? Make it so that using the strategy takes more dedication and investment to get it, to the detriment of other factors (such as defense and research) so that opponents strategies have more of a chance against it.

[quantum_mechani]

Actually, calling them 'removed' bugs me a bit. All things mentioned here (except the sites) have simply been made unique.

[Calahan]

Personally, I would be quite interested in knowing how much opposition to the hammer change is on principle, vs unaddressed balance repercussions.
I'm around 90% against the Hammer ban due to my opinion that it removes an entire area of strategy from the game (balance issues can likely be modded), while also punishing good players who are capable of thinking ahead, and rewarding stupid players who can't. (with regards what items they might want in a few turns time)

As without hammers you can just mass forge whatever you need the turn before you need them, without any forethought required at all to ensure you've forged what you need before hand at maximum efficiency. And I don't think I could ever support a change in a non-broken mechanic that dumbs the game down. (gem-gens in theory is a strategy, as you're investing gems for a long-term gain. But were simply broken in the form they were in)

And all the talk of no hammers cutting MM is BS IMO. Since at least for me, hammer time in late game only accounts for about 1% of the time spent on doing turns. In fact, as yet I haven't actually seen any creditable argument for removing hammers that I agree with.


I was writing a post for the CBM thread explaining in more detail this problem, but paused it when I realised I didn't have much interest for the changes CBM 1.7 made in general. So personally I will be sticking to 1.6 for quite some time, as 1.7 is a step backwards for the mod IMO, and goes against what I thought the aim of the mod was in making more strategies viable. (and not about removing MM from the game). As now all strategies involving non-essential items are almost all unviable IMO

(All just my opinion of course, and I think as long as the creator of the mod is happy with any changes, then that is really all that should matter)


Edit - Changed 99% to 90%, as I am concerned about balance issues as well, especially how non-earth uber nations now don't need awake/dormant pretender to stop wasting gems on forging without hammers. As I see no easy way to fix this.

[13lackGu4rd]

Personally, I would be quite interested in knowing how much opposition to the hammer change is on principle, vs unaddressed balance repercussions.

I don't think the major opposition is due to principle, otherwise SDRs and gem gens would also be more popular to stay. the way I see it there are 2 main balance repercussions though, the first is national balance, by giving nations with mainly earth magic another advantage over the blood and death powerhouses, who usually lack in earth magic for early mass hammer production. the second is item balance, as some items either become too expensive or redundant altogether by forging them without hammers. other items become even better, especially the cheap effective items such as the brands, basic shields like vine and eye, etc, by taking their more expensive alternatives out of reach for most nations, especially in mass quantity.

[Gandalf Parker]

I understand the irritation of unique being referred to as removed.
But on the other hand it might also be worth noting how many people do seem to consider unique=remove as far as the usefulness of these items.

[nerozero]

Couldn't hammers just be made more expensive, if they cost 50 gems or something then they would be a little rarer, so it would be difficult to get a large amount of them.

The investment in a hammer in the game repays itselfs after just a few turns, it just seems like a no brainer to make them, with a higher gem cost you might be forced to decide between short and long term gains. This could really go for all the items we are talking about here to be honest.

[rabelais]

Does unique mean just that they are lvl 8 or that there can be only one in existence? are the costs of the item affected?

[Valerius]

Does unique mean just that they are lvl 8 or that there can be only one in existence?

Both are true: level 8 makes the item unique.

are the costs of the item affected?

Forge cost is independent of construction level.

[GrudgeBringer]

Just my take on hammers...

I voted to keep them. At the same time, if your Abysia, Sauro (for the most part) and a number of other nations you are pretty well screwed OR you have your pretender forging them when he could be doing a lot of things better suited.

I would say to make 3 kinds of hammers (just a number), if you were going to change anything and keep the (hammers). Have them in different pathes so that most if not ALL could forge 1 of the 3. You could make them different, say...you make the normal Hammer give Earth 5% more benifit. Hammer 2 might get Fire or death an additional 5% or some perk. And the same for hammer 3.

THAT would open up a lot of different pretender designs and not have the Earth nations get a HUGE jump.

(Me, I usually play Earth nations anyway, but I just thought that might be a neat idea. Of course, someone with some idea of what is going on (which does NOT include me), would have to make the choices, and then a mod etc etc. Sounds like a hell of a lot of work):eek:

[LDiCesare]

Without a balance change, all the changes except gemgens are just bad.
The 30%+ magic sites are ultra-strong, but then those which provide 5 gems are very good too and come in handy earlier.

[PriestyMan]

5 gems? the 30% magic sites essentially provide 20 gems/turn *at the least* if its a conj, const, or blood site, they can be worth 50+ gems/turn. they are on a totally different level than a measly 5 gems. and no amount of planning or pretender design can detrmine who gets them, so they can totally derail and unbalance a game

[rdonj]

I find it a bit odd that I've not seen anyone suggest that games be played at a higher site frequency now that hammers have been removed to increase the gem supply... since one of the complaints I've seen a lot is that it's a reduction in the amount of gems available.

Anyway, I voted that everything should be removed. The main reason hammers bother me is that I feel like I need to spend my entire earth income making them, or I'm losing the game. Any other expenditures of earth gems are suboptimal, until I have more hammers than I know what to do with. I also feel as though forging gear is the most important and almost always the best thing that you can do with your gems, since you're getting a discount on everything you make. As opposed to summoning or casting rituals, forging feels too efficient. And then, of course, if you get unlucky with earth site distribution you can be completely screwed over by having to pay more for gear than everyone else. Hammers basically just seem too important a part of everyone's strategy.

And I agree that there are some balance concerns created in 1.7 that need to be addressed before it's really ready for play. The changes made were vast and sweeping, and caused a lot of complex interactions with national power levels. Some of the complaints about it have seemed rather hyperbolic though.

[llamabeast]

rdonj said exactly what I wanted to say but hadn't found time to put into sensible words.

[TheConway]

Soz GB but item modding is too limited to do what your asking.

@ everyone who wants to make suggestions: in future try reading the mod manual that is in your dom3 folder. Doing so makes for much more constructive discussion since those of us who _did_ read it don't have to be shooting down all sorts of impossible solutions. This is in no way an attack on anyone, simply a request.

[Warhammer]

I voted to keep hammers and sites, I did not vote on the others as they are dependent upon one another. If you keep gem gens, you need to keep SDRs, and vice versa.

I think sites are necessary as they are an important part of the game. The game is inherently unbalanced. When you have as many nations as we do, any two or three nations are going to be unbalanced against one another, but are balanced overall. Where nations are unbalanced, it is up to the players to institute their own balance (Alliances, NAPs, etc.). We've all played games where we spanked one player so quickly, the other players said "we need to get him before he overwhelms us!" Next thing you know, you're out of the game due to a 5 on 1 dogpile. (This is also a reason why I have always been in favor of Machiavellian diplomacy as it allows you to do this, or change relations on a dime)

With regards to hammers, I agree with some of the previous posters, CBM is about giving us more options. I feel hammers do just that. They give us options of different items to produce. Otherwise, we just use the same fire/frost brand with boots of the messenger, etc. Its not like the major earth nations are huge threats in the MP environment (Agartha, Marverni, Ulm are not world beaters by any stretch). Hammers give the earth nations bargaining chips early in the game as well as a leg up that they need.

Regarding gem gens and SDRs, it really depends on game size. On a map with 75 provinces, they are not a huge deal (I would argue if you let someone craft a ton of them in a small game, you're not pressing him enough). However, on a large map, they can be a game breaker. Plus, I like the idea behind the gem gens, investing in your future. They just break things when used on a massive scale.

[Ragnars Wolves]

Gem-gens bad......

[GrudgeBringer]

TheConway, I understand what you are saying, but I think YOU need to understand there are a LOT of us on here that don't know a thing about modding, know where to look for anything about modding, and actually don't care to mod. Re-read the part where it says "(which does NOT include me)in my post AND where it says "Sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me".

I made a couple of sugestions about hammers just in case someone who wanted to keep them in the game and thought it MIGHT be a good idea. Other than that I have no dog in this fight.

So PLEASE, when there is a discussion on here, unless it is YOUR thread and you have it labled 'Only qualified modders' or perhaps 'Only those that have read the modding book', do NOT feel free to lecture me on when to make a comment amonst my friends.

(sorry guys, must be getting cranky since I blew my knee out Thanksgiving playing football)

[P3D]

...

+1

However, I'd keep dousing rods, as they level the blood playing field. Without them, nations that have B2 access outside capitol has a great advantage, not needing to spend 30 slaves to empower.

Mictlan is strangely not that much affected, they only have to rush Blood 6 (Tlahuelpuchi with B2 for 25 girls) instead of Const.

[Finalgenesis]

While I'm for removing hammers, I'm not for removing it without at least a preliminary fix to the large shift in nation power (as in 1.7) to test. not sure whether I should vote for remove hammer or not given that distinction...

[TheConway]

there are a LOT of us on here that don't know a thing about modding, know where to look for anything about modding, and actually don't care to mod.

This is precisely my point. I told you and others where you can find the mod manual, so you can educate yourselves. Its only about a 3 page pdf file, nothing that someone smart enough to play dominions can't handle. You don't need to be an experienced modder at all to read it and understand some basic concepts of what can and can't be done. I don't think its unfair at all to ask that people make use of an easily available resource that take minimal effort to understand and will infinitely improve their ability to make cogent suggestions.

[LDiCesare]

5 gems? the 30% magic sites essentially provide 20 gems/turn *at the least* if its a conj, const, or blood site, they can be worth 50+ gems/turn. they are on a totally different level than a measly 5 gems. and no amount of planning or pretender design can detrmine who gets them, so they can totally derail and unbalance a game

Yes. Late-game. Early/mid-game, getting a site that gives 5 times as much income as the next one is quite useful, unless you're saving all your gems and never using any before you reach the late game when a conj or blood site will indeed rock. I think all the proposed nerfs only apply to big, long games with many players. In a 4 player game, even a 40%bonus blood site may not tip the game because the game can be finished before you can make use of it.

[rdonj]

With regards to hammers, I agree with some of the previous posters, CBM is about giving us more options. I feel hammers do just that. They give us options of different items to produce. Otherwise, we just use the same fire/frost brand with boots of the messenger, etc. Its not like the major earth nations are huge threats in the MP environment (Agartha, Marverni, Ulm are not world beaters by any stretch). Hammers give the earth nations bargaining chips early in the game as well as a leg up that they need.

Is that really true? Because I know with dwarven hammers, I nearly always make brands unless I a) don't have the gems, or b) am looking for a more specialized weapon. Without hammers I'd be making less brands etc because you won't be able to afford the gems to craft them as easily and you'll actually have to consider using different gem types. And if all games started uner CBM 1.7 use higher gem frequency settings, you'll still have lots of gems to play with.

Agartha, Marverni and Ulm are hurt a bit by the lack of hammers, but that doesn't mean that they can't be compensated for it somehow. The most obvious method would be with a forge bonus, of course, but it doesn't have to be a forge bonus either (I'd much rather have a forge bonus as a bargaining chip than hammers, though!). But there are a lot of ways you can boost a nation if its been hit unfairly.

...

+1

However, I'd keep dousing rods, as they level the blood playing field. Without them, nations that have B2 access outside capitol has a great advantage, not needing to spend 30 slaves to empower.

Mictlan is strangely not that much affected, they only have to rush Blood 6 (Tlahuelpuchi with B2 for 25 girls) instead of Const.


If nations who only have weak/expensive access to blood are given a dousing bonus, they'll have built in dousing rods and be much, much better than they are presently. Meanwhile strong blood nations can remain the same, which means relatively more expensive blood slaves. Which will bring blood nations closer together. You can't quite do that for a non-blood nation (I don't think dousing bonuses work on units that aren't blood mages already, or you could give a bonus to scouts), but I don't really have a problem with non-blood nations having to struggle to compete at it. It kind of bothers me that all nations are supposed to end up having all magic paths by the end of the game anyway.

[Zeldor]

There were many talks about CBM 1.8 and nation balance on IRC. I think that QM should reveal some of it, to show what's going to happen.

I don't think 1.7 is the best mod - but I like removal of all items. It just needs many more national changes to make it work. And I'm disappointed that tartarians did not get removed.

[WraithLord]

I voted yes to item removals (QM: making them unique is for all intents removing them for all but one nation - and even that nation would only have negligible gain from that).

I voted no to 30%+ sites. These sites perk up the game: you get one in 1:N (5<N<10 roughly) games and it's serves as an unexpected nice surprise that could always be waiting 'round the corner.

Hammers removal, rdonj has put it well. However a redress is in store as was suggested in the other thread in the other forum.

[Ragnars Wolves]

I don't think I have ever seen a 30% site....I will sure be looking for one though!!

[GrudgeBringer]

TheConway

I am not going to get in a flame war with you or anyone else...

I don't really care what you think, who you think you are in the 'modding' community, or what you THINK you can contribute to the conversation, other than trying to make it yours. If I had known you were the Forum Police maybe I would have paid more attention to what you said.

As I said, I was just making an offhand suggestion that would give someone an idea IF they thought it was a good idea, AND they wanted to keep the hammers. I just play the game.

However, if you check my profile you will see that my comment about friends was why I was on here in the first place. To say hi to them and see what they were up to, as time and RL sometimes gets in the way.

So there is no need to for us to have any other conversation or for you to comment to ME in any way as I don't know you ...or care to.

Let it go

Sorry EX, didn't mean to get this started or to hijack your thread. I won't respond to this guy again. And for what it is worth, I think that is the best poll of things for this game I have seen in a long time.:up:

[llamabeast]

TheConway is just frustrated because every time there is a discussion about hammers, a couple of people will suggest that there should be multiple different hammer items. This has happened quite a few times by now. It sometimes distracts considerably from the discussion because everyone else goes "that's a good idea, why don't we just do that? Silly qm".

[Zeldor]

All discount sites need to be removed probably. At least 90% of them. For construction and alt even 10% is too much.

I have won one game when I had Summoning Circle - 60% blood discount. I had 100 vampire lords, ice devils, arch devils, demon lords, heliophagis...

I had an epic game where I had Ultimate Gateway and I was fighting for victory against Lanka with blood40 site...

Game like that are totally unnatural. They break the game. They make it interesting, sure, but when you get the site and you are at least medium nation, it's almost like "I win" button. Or rather cheat code. And other players still play the game, not knowing they have absolutely zero chances of winning.

Sites like that should only exist when others know you have them. It's not possible at dom3. So it's best to leave these sites out of the game. They can still be placed by mapmakers, so you can use custom maps with those sites at well known location.

[Kobal2]

I haven't voted either way, but I'm not sure discount sites really need to go, except for the Alteration one.

Sure, they are quite powerful and boost the nation that finds them - but then, so does finding great cross-path indep mage sites, or simply getting lots of 3+ gem sites. As long as sites aren't painstakingly distributed and balanced by hand by the mapmaker, magical luck of the draw is always going to favour some players and bone some others. And I'm not quite convinced I want to do away with that inherent unfairness, or the wonder and evil cackling associated with discovering the Steel Ovens.

Besides, it's not like they're an instant "I win" button, you gotta know what to *do* with them, right ? If you don't know squat about gearing SCs and thugs, a Const bonus is quite wasted on you.

Now, as has been discussed in the previous thread on the subject, the Alt discount site is problematic all on its own because it provides an explosively exponential boost whereas other discount sites only provide a linear one. But the rest of 'em ? Meh. I can see how people who've played the game for aeons and are into competitive rankings and such would want to do away with as much of the randomness as possible, but that's not really me.

[WraithLord]

"it's almost like "I win" button. Or rather cheat code. And other players still play the game, not knowing they have absolutely zero chances of winning."

I think you got straight into the heart of the matter. When known they won't break the game. When kept secret they are horribly broken.
This can be addressed by house rules requesting that anyone encountering such a site report its location to the game thread. This will actually serve to further spice up the game - imagine the pandemonium when all players learn the location of the "holy grail" :)

EDIT: All that said I'm still against removing the sites - well except maybe alt. as mentioned before - If we go the path of removing random mechanisms that dare to give some advantage then where would we end up?- Probably with an increasingly balanced & boring game.

[Executor]

Ah, what a lively debate!

Meh, who cares about complete balance? I don't give a crap if someone else has a enc 50% or const 20% site, it a luck factor, like a plague hitting your cap at turn 3 which pretty much means you're done for in most cases (yes it can happen even with luck), or constantly getting rapped by knights, but that's what makes it so fun.

You can have every single bonus site in the game and lose rather badly when everyone dogpilles you, which frankly happens quite often to nations that stand out sadly, which would presumably be nations with bonus sites for example. It could be in possession of a complete newb who doesn't realize it's potential... Anyway, those sites are quite rare and exist to spice up the game a bit.

And yes, I realize having hammers demands the first 35 turns earth income go to hammer forging, but having death gems demands them being saved for Tartarians, and having nature gems saving them for GoR and GoH, and so on... Every path is bound to have some item/spell/summon more demanding and more worthwhile than the rest, and removing one will just make the next in line stick out again, unless you're determent to make all paths as useless as fire.

Now as far as balance goes, my interest there is that items/summons/spells get reasonable prices (for example I think CBM 1.3 or 1.4 had vampire lords cost like 40 slaves, which was absurd), and rather not eliminate parts of the game.
Personally, the removal of hammers and discount sites came rather unexpected to me as I've never heard of a complain regarding those before the change was actually made.

There's was something else I wanted to say, but the thought fled my mind...:(

Removing all this things makes the game just duller me feels.
But luckily CBM is just an optional mode so I'll be sticking with 1.6 for now.

[WraithLord]

I mostly agree with you Executor, but re. hammers I, at first, thought in similar lines to your own but since then came to think differently and accept the change (as rdonj has presented so well).

A random thought on the matter of hammers - when was the last time you saw a summoned thug keep his original equipment?- like say, a bane lord keep his bane sword?- Never, right?

brands + hammers make other weapons obsolete and in so serve to make the game poorer not richer.

At least w/o hammer players would have other alternatives to the forge action that today is a no-brainer.

[Executor]

Well, I kinda agree too with Rdonj, but I agree with Calahan also.
And making a game with higher gems frequency, btw, doesn't solve the problem Rdonj.
I've said it many times, and I'll say it again, with hammers removed a lot of items need price fixing and a lot of thug based nations need a little re balancing, TNN, Van...

Lowering certain item prices can lead to even more unbalancing than balancing I think. It can give nations that rely on early thugs and SC's like Hinnom, Neif... a considerable advantage in cheaper equipment that they couldn't forge early on with hammers for one.

So keeping the hammers is the lesser of two evils I think.
I'm happy to hear how you think this can be fixed, and what are the actual gains of removing the hammers? Even at this point, with everything being left as it is, thug based nations are screwed, thugs are generally obsolete with high gem required equipment and SC's are even more important which was the one of the points of the CBM, to reduce the importantce of SC's in the end game and introduce some other interesting ways to play.

[thejeff]

Or gear is just as important, so you use less gems on spells and forge just as much gear just at a higher price.

What it really does is raise the cost of gear relative to other uses of gems: battlefield spells, globals, summons. If that makes more interesting stuff useful, it was a good change. If it just means you have to invest even more gems in forging then it wasn't.

[Executor]

While that does seem correct in theory I doubt that's how it'll play out in games, but I may be wrong, as might you thejeff.

[llamabeast]

Or gear is just as important, so you use less gems on spells and forge just as much gear just at a higher price.

I don't think this really makes sense. It's not like you need a fixed amount of gear, and then you have enough and spend whatever you have left on spells. Either gear is cheap enough to be better value than anything else, in which case you should make as much as you can (close to the actual situation when hammers are in the game), or not. I would argue that without hammers, the cost/reward ratio of gear is brought closer to that of typical spells and summons, so that basically you have more valid choices.

--

Edit: Or, to clarify (and make it more obvious that I'm mostly agreeing with you):

What it really does is raise the cost of gear relative to other uses of gems: battlefield spells, globals, summons. If that makes more interesting stuff useful, it was a good change.

I agree.

If it just means you have to invest even more gems in forging then it wasn't.

I just don't see why this should be the case (the amount of gear you need is not fixed).

[Dimaz]

I'm sure hammer existence has nothing to do with the choice between brands and bane blade: thugs with bb die and with brands don't, that's the point. So you just see less thugs in general (aka national units importance), which was one of the original points of CBM. However as Executor said it also hits nations that rely on national thugs and not on troops/bf magic, which should be considered. And I voted "no removal" for all questions except gemgens, which IMO create problems in big games but can be dealt with by using house rules, so my answer doesn't presented in the poll (leave them but limit their usage).

[rdonj]

I know raising the site frequency doesn't completely solve the "less gems" problem, but it would help a bit. Another thing that could be done mod-wise to provide more gems (not happening or even necessarily desirable) would be to increase the frequency of some of the sites that give more gems.

And basically my argument is the same as llama's. It seems to me that without hammers you're likely to see a lot *more* thugs relative to SCs, and fewer fully kitted SCs.

[Zeldor]

That's why QM should release changelog for 1.8, there are really tens of nation balance changes :)

[WraithLord]

Well nations like TNN/Van would need two things post 1.7:
A. Adapt to different play style. Thugs are economically good for PD raiding. For anything more than that the player would need to pay much more hence tough decisions. So with thugs getting minor role post 1.7 a nation like TNN would have less reasons to take ubber bless and more reasons to take a more diverse pretender + better scales, I'm not sure it's that bad but it ain't enough so:
B. Some form of compensation would be required for such nations. Maybe buff their recruit-able thugs a bit, maybe more starting gems, maybe better starting equipment on thugs.
Like give TNN thugs a frost brand and make them cost 100g more.

[Valerius]

Well nations like TNN/Van would need two things post 1.7:
A. Adapt to different play style. Thugs are economically good for PD raiding. For anything more than that the player would need to pay much more hence tough decisions. So with thugs getting minor role post 1.7 a nation like TNN would have less reasons to take ubber bless and more reasons to take a more diverse pretender + better scales, I'm not sure it's that bad but it ain't enough so:
B. Some form of compensation would be required for such nations. Maybe buff their recruit-able thugs a bit, maybe more starting gems, maybe better starting equipment on thugs.
Like give TNN thugs a frost brand and make them cost 100g more.

At the moment glamoured thugs can do more than just PD raiding. Properly equipped they can take down SCs. At the same time, they are fragile. A single casting of drain life will waste the investment in them. And fighting a nation like Jotun late game they suffer a horribly high attrition rate between flying, magic attack blood summons and skratti's casting life for a life or claws of kokytos or just killing them in melee (aside from the usual counters like mind hunt).

I'd be pretty sad to have my favorite part of the game resigned to raiding PD due to increase in forging costs and nerf to brands (in particular the non-AP frost brand).

As far adapting to a different play style, one of the big advantages Van has over TNN, and especially Eriu, is that they have other options. Obviously one of those options, blood magic, took a big hit with 1.7. But assuming a dousing bonus is in the works that would still be viable. But I'm not sure what Eriu can adapt to. Sure, they can go for great scales but I don't see that as being a winning proposition against other nations that favor good scales but also have excellent troops, cost effective researchers, good non-cap mages, access to D/S/B, etc. What they've got is their thugs. I think in this case you really need to add some more options to the nation. Reducing the thugging potential of the nation without providing alternatives is painful. Note: Zeldor mentioned things already being in the works so perhaps this is already being addressed.

Also, I think one reason to replace built-in gear with forged gear is so that a casting of destruction/iron bane doesn't ruin your thug's day. Assuming a built-in frost brand was susceptible to those spells (haven't tested it) I wouldn't want to pay 100 more for an already expensive 280 gold unit.

Lastly, rdonj mentioned he expected to see more thugs relative to SCs. It's an interesting question (I'd expect the opposite) but aside from the ratio of thugs to SCs it seems reasonable to assume the absolute number of both will decrease. Given that, I think it's reasonable to increase the cost of mind hunt from 2 to 3 gems (don't have the game in front of me so if that's already the cost in 1.7 then ignore that suggestion).

[Jarkko]

B. Some form of compensation would be required for such nations. Maybe buff their recruit-able thugs a bit, maybe more starting gems, maybe better starting equipment on thugs.
Like give TNN thugs a frost brand and make them cost 100g more.
Funny thing, I had the same idea :) Thus I of course think WraithLords idea is excellent :)

[Slobby]

I voted to remove all 4. *shrug* if a strat/nation needs those things to be competitive then the nation itself isn't competitive seeing how all nations potentially have access to the same things...all those things (cept the sites of course) create micro and don't increase my enjoyment of the game.

[LDiCesare]

I voted to remove all 4. *shrug* if a strat/nation needs those things to be competitive then the nation itself isn't competitive seeing how all nations potentially have access to the same things...all those things (cept the sites of course) create micro and don't increase my enjoyment of the game.
Vanheim and Helheim can make use of both blood and thugs. By removing access to both, you take out two of their tools to win. I wouldn't call either strong, but they could definitely compete with other nations without the nerf. I don't think they can without. So imo they move from competitive to loser status in CBM 1.7. On the other hand, Agartha or Eriu weren't competitive anyway but that's not a reason to make them worse.

[Slobby]

Vanheim and Helheim can make use of both blood and thugs. By removing access to both, you take out two of their tools to win. I wouldn't call either strong, but they could definitely compete with other nations without the nerf. I don't think they can without. So imo they move from competitive to loser status in CBM 1.7. On the other hand, Agartha or Eriu weren't competitive anyway but that's not a reason to make them worse.

With the removal of hammers and rods they can still thug and blood hunt. The issue is quantity, and it's not just the mid/weak nations that are affected but all.

For me mad skills in this game does not equate to being able to make 100s of clams/hammers/rods for the win. And if anything those items restrict gameplay more than open things up as everyone is racing for the same thing.

Example,
If I have earth mages I make hammers. If my nation doesn't have earth well I'll put earth on my pretender to make hammers. I never choose to go without some way to make hammers and always laugh when someone asks to trade for hammers. Now I ask why do I do this? Why to be competitive! Because if everyone else has hammers and I don't well they've got a leg up on me. Take away hammers and all of a sudden the above situation no longer applies atleast for me.

I view hammers/rods/etc much like tarts and how endgame is dominated by D and S (wish) nations. LB has since made EDM (ty!) and all of a sudden more choices! Yay! Choice is good! :up:

I view these changes by QM as the same. And now there's word that QM will be buffing nations, also good. I can't wait for the next CBM update. :up:

[Executor]

If choice is good how can you approve of crippling Van and Eriu?
I think this of all things limits, or even more eliminates some choices for them.
All are affected, true, but some much more that others. Van on the other hand for example had pretty expensive blood hunters to begin with, add to that they just lose half of their blood income, and got a pretty lousy deal on their thugs. Higher item costs, lower brend damage.
I agree with Valerius on every point, their thugs are incredibly fragile,and the only thing they had going for them is that they were cost effective and could sneak in. Now they can just sneak in and raid provicnes.
The idea of increasing gold cost as to add brends or some other item to them at the start is plain terrible imo. That will only result in overpriced-underpowered mages that you wont even to able to mass in any meaningful number for a real battle rather than just thug them out.

[Slobby]

Once again I fail to see how removing hammers breaks Van and Eriu in terms of their ability to thug when every other nation is under the same limitations.

And if anything thugs might actually be seen earlier without hammers since no one would be waiting around to have hammers to kit out their thugs.

To me hammers are not a prereq for thugging.

[Executor]

Under the same limitation? Yes, affected the same by the same limitation? No.
It breaks the effectiveness of their thugs. A hammers 25% forge bonus is not always just a 25% forge bonus. Take fire brend for example, their price went from 6 to 10, that a 40% increase in gems. As did rainbow armor. Frost brend isn't much more expensive but is less valuable given that is isn't even AP and had a reduction in damage and son on...

I fail to see how it doesn't screw them up royally given they pretty much have to rely on thugs since they can't really depend on national mages with great paths or excellent troops.

[thejeff]

Because Van and Eriu especially rely on thugs much more heavily. They use them where many other nations use troops and/or battle mages.

They're also non-capital thugs. A nation using capital-only thugs is still going to be limited by thug production more than by gear forging. Van/Eriu are limited only by how much gear they can forge, so they'll be fielding many less, while others won't be handicapped as much.

[Slobby]

Under the same limitation? Yes, affected the same by the same limitation? No.
It breaks the effectiveness of their thugs. A hammers 25% forge bonus is not always just a 25% forge bonus. Take fire brend for example, their price went from 6 to 10, that a 40% increase in gems. As did rainbow armor. Frost brend isn't much more expensive but is less valuable given that is isn't even AP and had a reduction in damage and son on...

I fail to see how it doesn't screw them up royally given they pretty much have to rely on thugs since they can't really depend on national mages with great paths or excellent troops.

Taking away a 25% forge bonus does not take away from the effectiveness of their thugs. Their thugs are just as effective. Taking away a 25% forge bonus takes away from their ability mass produce thugs (and this is relative to the pre and post hammer nerf!). The thug effectiveness is just the same.

And there are so many limitations on top of this. The fact that their thugs are what 250-350 gold. So there is monetary constraint. Looking over their starting gem income there is also gem constraint. There is no guarantee that you'll get the optimal gems you need.

Also consider they're aiming at what a min 3 item forge? To get to their 'optimal' thug producing point they need 3 hammers to kit out a thug/turn. That's an investment of 37 E gems. And of course since we're talking about an item that makes forging economical so continually input E gems into the equation as they're making more and more hammers.

I feel as though while making this explanation I coulda made thugs taken my glamour troops and rushed someone by now secured more gems kitted more thugs made more glamoured troops and hit the next.

I could be wrong, but I think the pace of games may just slow down a hair without hammers, so it'll all be compensated through time.

And regardless if QM feels that they're suxor and chooses to buff it is what it is. Although I think if anything the thuggy mages should be reduced in price and/or given better gear and left at the same price. As I said previously if a strat for a nation is broken due to the removal of hammers then the nation itself is the problem not hammers.

[Warhammer]

Ah, what a lively debate!

Meh, who cares about complete balance? I don't give a crap if someone else has a enc 50% or const 20% site, it a luck factor, like a plague hitting your cap at turn 3 which pretty much means you're done for in most cases (yes it can happen even with luck), or constantly getting rapped by knights, but that's what makes it so fun.

You can have every single bonus site in the game and lose rather badly when everyone dogpilles you, which frankly happens quite often to nations that stand out sadly, which would presumably be nations with bonus sites for example. It could be in possession of a complete newb who doesn't realize it's potential... Anyway, those sites are quite rare and exist to spice up the game a bit.

And yes, I realize having hammers demands the first 35 turns earth income go to hammer forging, but having death gems demands them being saved for Tartarians, and having nature gems saving them for GoR and GoH, and so on... Every path is bound to have some item/spell/summon more demanding and more worthwhile than the rest, and removing one will just make the next in line stick out again, unless you're determent to make all paths as useless as fire.

Now as far as balance goes, my interest there is that items/summons/spells get reasonable prices (for example I think CBM 1.3 or 1.4 had vampire lords cost like 40 slaves, which was absurd), and rather not eliminate parts of the game.
Personally, the removal of hammers and discount sites came rather unexpected to me as I've never heard of a complain regarding those before the change was actually made.

There's was something else I wanted to say, but the thought fled my mind...:(

Removing all this things makes the game just duller me feels.
But luckily CBM is just an optional mode so I'll be sticking with 1.6 for now.

I think this post best sums my views. A perfectly balanced game is boring. A nearly balanced game is chess, but how many people talk about the last thrilling game of chess they played? What people want is flavor, with manageable balance.

The issue I have with the path CBM is taking is that a mod that is a commonly accepted standard is starting to go down a path of removing things from the game that a subset of the community wants. Even if we are looking at a 50/50 split between removing something and keeping it, you are far better served leaving it in.

[Adept]

What an interesting thread.

I'm going to create a mod for my Dominions group's next game that addresses some balance problems.

Most significantly forging cost reducing items will be removed. The Forge of the Ancients will lose the discount effect and quite likely be moved to a lvl 9 construction. Price halved to 40 earth gems.

Gem generating items will be modified for other purpose or removed.

***

The reason for the above is that the gem economy is at least as important as the gold economy and control of resources. The forging cost reductions and especially the damnable Forge of the Ancients really messes up that part of the game. I want the cost of a Staff of Elemental Mastery to be the full 50 gems.

***

The other thing that will be fixed is werewolves. The general setting material in Dominions (since the original) has skin shifters dropping their weapons and using claws and fangs in close combat. For some odd reason though, a commander werewolf has access to all equipment slots.

That is just a minor problem, but the case of the Jotun Giant Werewolf is an atrocity. The Skratti that can turn into a werewolf is an utterly unbalanced commander. The wolf form has way too many perks and immunities, and for some insane reason it's stronger than a male titan or Dragon. >.<

Our current game has slightly turned into a farce because of these recruitable fromt the start SC monsters who can cast quicken self from early on, and get luck and etherealness cast on them by the cheap recruit anywhere hags.

Here's an early game example:

http://users.utu.fi/mikrin/Dominions/wolfman.JPG

[thejeff]

Most of what you suggest can't be done.
I don't believe you can remove the Forge's discount. I know you can't actually change the gem-generating properties of items. You can remove them, make them unique, or change the paths/cost.

And the Skratti are nice, but vulnerable due to low mr. Even with 2 items that one only has 21, he'll die to a few mages spamming Soul Slay.

[quantum_mechani]

The Forge of the Ancients will lose the discount effect

Unfortunately this is not possible without removing all FotA effects. Tweaking ritual effects (unless they summon something) isn't supported with modding.

Dropping hand slots on werewolves is an interesting idea, though it is unfortunate it would nerf non-giant werewolves which are already a bit borderline for thugging.

[Valerius]

Dropping hand slots on werewolves is an interesting idea, though it is unfortunate it would nerf non-giant werewolves which are already a bit borderline for thugging.

Doesn't the Skratti's werewolf form have its own monster number, different from the human size werewolves?

[Zeldor]

Well, funny solution to OP werewolves is to have Wolf as 2nd form, not 3rd :)

[quantum_mechani]

Dropping hand slots on werewolves is an interesting idea, though it is unfortunate it would nerf non-giant werewolves which are already a bit borderline for thugging.

Doesn't the Skratti's werewolf form have its own monster number, different from the human size werewolves?Certainly, just thinking of consistency.

[quantum_mechani]

I will say one thing for certain about this poll- it has caused me to reconsider the removal of powerful bonus sites. While people seem to regard being unique and being removed as interchangeable for items, I personally find the fact that they are still in the game a significant plus, and likely would not have considered an outright removal of them. The reasoning with sites is that their removal is not really removing on option, but it is admittedly removing content. I think sites do have the potential to 'ruin' games, but probably not consistently, so if the general opinion is they should stay, that seems fair enough.

Hammers are a very different matter, and not just because making them unique is not strictly removing content. Almost all complaints I have heard about the change seems as though they can be fixed with a bit of national balance and/or a slight increase in site frequency in games (this while maintaining the benefits in terms of reduced micromanagement, and the bizarre skewed pretender design hammers caused). There may also be repercussions for specific items in terms of worthwhileness of pricing, but this swings both ways- the available prices for things are no more or less finely grained than before, some items can be priced more appropriately while others must be priced less appropriately.

It has been said the most recent CB actually goes in the direction of reducing possible strategic options, but this seems a difficult interpretation to take. Whatever there is not to like about the hammer change, it is hard to argue that not requiring 3-4 e on a non-e nation's pretender doesn't present more options, or that not needing to beeline right for SDRs with a blood strategy doesn't open up new possibilities. It's the fact that these so called 'options' were indispensable that causes the difficulties, and while it's possible that changing them can cascade into making other options less attractive, these are all presumably independently addressable problems.

[Valerius]

As best I can recall, CBM 1.6 and 1.7 have generated the most discussion of all the D3 CBM releases (can't speak for the D2 CBM releases). But when 1.6 removed gem gens many games already banned them. So while there was some opposition to the change, it was following an already strong trend. 1.7 is different in that it seems most people weren't expecting these changes or requesting them. This doesn't mean they're bad - but it does seem like a significant change from the previous, more conservative, approach.

The other change I've noticed (partly as a consequence of 1.7) is you seem to be taking on balance between nations, not just within them. And I think this has been something there has been more of an interest in CBM tackling. There's always going to be a most powerful nation/path/etc. I'm ok with the current top tier remaining there - I'd just like to see less of a gap between them and the rest of the pack.

It also occured to me in following this discussion that it must be gratifying that people care enough about the mod to provide this feedback - certainly better than early on when CBM was greeted with rejection/indifference.

Anyway, there have been some very good points on both sides of this discussion. For me, 1.7 feels like part of the picture. The changes did have balance implications. As is, I'd be inclined to stick with 1.6 or, more likely, change the parts I didn't like and use a modified version of 1.7. But 1.8, by addressing some of the issues that arise from these changes seems like it may present a more full picture. Though if you keep the nerf to brands in 1.8 I'll change that when I admin a game, self serving though it may be. ;)

It has been said the most recent CB actually goes in the direction of reducing possible strategic options, but this seems a difficult interpretation to take.

I don't want to derail the thread, but thinking along the lines of increasing options by removing something do you have any thoughts on the fact that tarts are still the optimal choice for SC/magic diversity? Things are much better than before the EDM but I think people still feel the need to get the Chalice or GoH so they can mass produce tarts. I'm not suggesting removing tarts but perhaps giving them less magic diversity so they are more like the EDM summons - mainly SCs with some magic diversity added in.

[Warhammer]

It has been said the most recent CB actually goes in the direction of reducing possible strategic options, but this seems a difficult interpretation to take. Whatever there is not to like about the hammer change, it is hard to argue that not requiring 3-4 e on a non-e nation's pretender doesn't present more options, or that not needing to beeline right for SDRs with a blood strategy doesn't open up new possibilities. It's the fact that these so called 'options' were indispensable that causes the difficulties, and while it's possible that changing them can cascade into making other options less attractive, these are all presumably independently addressable problems.

I disagree with the leap you're making here. Again, I think a lot of this is due to fixating on one type of game. The large games make hammers much more important. In a smaller game, hammers are much less important. The mage time in making more hammers over the first have a decreasing rate of return. I am currently playing a small 55 province map against two opponents, and I am crafting all I can afford to do with two hammers. I have too many more important things for my pretender to do (only one with a lot of earth). I took the earth for the bless, not for the hammer forging.

Now, if we were playing a larger game, I would need more hammers. I would have more time, so any turn spent crafting hammers has a lower opportunity cost and a higher payoff. So I would consider trading for hammers or taking a pretender with earth.

I mean is anyone calling for a nerf of Niefelheim because they win duels against Marverni on a map like Dogfight? No.

The other side of the coin is games where you don't get high earth income? I've played games where I needed something and didn't get it. Are we going to ramp up gems just because I got an unlucky draw? No we accept that. Again, I feel this falls into the same category.

[Warhammer]

Also, I would like to second the thought that it is due to the excellent work on CBM in the past that has led to the spirited debate here during the last week.

[quantum_mechani]

It has been said the most recent CB actually goes in the direction of reducing possible strategic options, but this seems a difficult interpretation to take. Whatever there is not to like about the hammer change, it is hard to argue that not requiring 3-4 e on a non-e nation's pretender doesn't present more options, or that not needing to beeline right for SDRs with a blood strategy doesn't open up new possibilities. It's the fact that these so called 'options' were indispensable that causes the difficulties, and while it's possible that changing them can cascade into making other options less attractive, these are all presumably independently addressable problems.

I disagree with the leap you're making here. Again, I think a lot of this is due to fixating on one type of game. The large games make hammers much more important. In a smaller game, hammers are much less important. The mage time in making more hammers over the first have a decreasing rate of return. I am currently playing a small 55 province map against two opponents, and I am crafting all I can afford to do with two hammers. I have too many more important things for my pretender to do (only one with a lot of earth). I took the earth for the bless, not for the hammer forging.

Now, if we were playing a larger game, I would need more hammers. I would have more time, so any turn spent crafting hammers has a lower opportunity cost and a higher payoff. So I would consider trading for hammers or taking a pretender with earth.

I mean is anyone calling for a nerf of Niefelheim because they win duels against Marverni on a map like Dogfight? No.

The other side of the coin is games where you don't get high earth income? I've played games where I needed something and didn't get it. Are we going to ramp up gems just because I got an unlucky draw? No we accept that. Again, I feel this falls into the same category. It is probably true, the smaller the game less likely it is hammers will play a significant role. But the very same thing is true of gem gens, and in a similar way I don't see that small games are harmed by the larger scale fix.

I'm not quite sure what point you are making with being unlucky finding e gems in some games, it's not pity for people who lose games due to not having the right gems for hammers that is driving the change, though I suppose it could be argued it's an added bonus.

On tartarians: I do agree they are in great need of tweaking. I know lots of people are in favor of direct cost increase, but that has some unwanted side effects in terms of making their use as troops unfeasible and giving those that can heal the feebled tarts (owners of GoH/Chalice) a crazy advantage. At the moment I'm toying with the idea of removing their default magic in favor of 'potential' magic. They would have no magic when you summon them but 50 gems empowerment of the appropriate type would get you direct to level 4 in a path (thematically speaking, it's just a different way of representing the feebled mind, but in a way that anyone could heal them, not just the GoH/Chalice). This way, with the right investment they could well surpass most EDM summons, but they wouldn't have the huge diversity advantages.

[Valerius]

At the moment I'm toying with the idea of removing their default magic in favor of 'potential' magic. They would have no magic when you summon them but 50 gems empowerment of the appropriate type would get you direct to level 4 in a path (thematically speaking, it's just a different way of representing the feebled mind, but in a way that anyone could heal them, not just the GoH/Chalice). This way, with the right investment they could well surpass most EDM summons, but they wouldn't have the huge diversity advantages.

That's an interesting idea, kind of a "build your own tart." Just to clarify something: when you say anyone could heal them (which I think is the way to go - eliminate the need for Chalice/GoH) do you plan on breaking them into individual summons or repurposing another spell that summons from a group? The problem I ran into is that the Tartarian Gate spell applies the afflictions so the only way I could summon a random, affliction-free, tart is by using one of the other spells that summons from a group. But since CBM has to cover all nations/eras that doesn't seem like an option.

[quantum_mechani]

Yes, I think the only way to remove afflictions would be to swap out the summoning spell, which has side effects I'd rather avoid. I think having plenty feebled would still be OK though- it's true GoH/Chalice is great now but the concern with the direct raising prices was that it would make them better- this would just leave them at about their current power. After all, how many tarts can you really empower? At 10 gems each you should easily have plenty of healthy empowerment candidates. Also, under this tart scheme GoR could probably get cheaper and they could be used with whatever afflictions as thugs (I actually think seeing some still feebled tarts used in battle would be quite cool).

[Valerius]

Ok, I see. I really like this idea, it seems to cover all the bases. Thanks for the info.

[Valerius]

I've been thinking about this idea and a potential loophole occurred to me: empower in astral and if you've managed to get either the Dimensional Rod or the Forbidden Light you could Wish for magic power and then the boost would apply to all the paths you just gained.

[quantum_mechani]

It's true, but honestly if you have paid 150s, plus other misc expenses, I think you've earned it. It is in some sense the ultimate magic diversifier but I think one tart with 4 in everything is actually far less useful than a half dozen tarts with an assortment of paths.

[Valerius]

Hmm, maybe so. I see your point about one very powerful unit being a bottleneck - only able to forge one item, be in one place at a time, etc. And I really like the idea of seeing magicless, possibly afflicted, tarts on the battlefield as troops and thugs. But I'm always wary of loopholes.

Another thing I was wondering about is which paths would be likely to be empowered. The main one that comes to mind is astral, not just because of the possibility of wishing for magic power but also because it would be the only way to get an S4 summon and strong astral is such a useful late game path. Maybe also air, earth and fire and blood (because it's so cheap to do so). Water, nature and death don't seem likely choices since there's other, cheaper, options.

[Dimaz]

For me the problem with using feebleminded tarts as units/thugs is low MR/high hp combo which makes them the target for all the mr resistable spells which means they don't stay long enough to be useful.

[Valerius]

Good point, I had forgotten about the hit to MR. I guess you could equip the thugs with MR boosting gear but the troops would still be on the low side even with antimagic cast.

[Executor]

Well you can get a very good MR with undead, and other fatigueles commanders.
Lead Shield, MR amulet, Rainbow Armor, Astral Cap, that's +12 right? Quite commonly used items.
I used all that once on a siege golem, seemed like a really good idea until I realized he had no arm slots. :) But still, he was able to soak up a nice deal of damage. I think a siege golem would be a pretty good and widely used summon if he had arms.

[Valerius]

Yeah, feebleminded tart commanders could be equipped to get respectable MR. It's the ones that you didn't GoR that would be in a more difficult situation. For instance, without magic it's almost certainly not worth GoRing a monstrum - but they are useful troops. A feebleminded monstrum would be at 13 MR, that you could only boost as high as 17 MR with antimagic/iron will/army of gold (excluding magic scales in this of course). At the same time its high HP would make it a target.

But perhaps a way around this would be to give the monstrum in particular a starting MR higher than 18? If it weren't feebleminded and were GoRed this still wouldn't be a problem since it has such limited slots compared to the other tarts. In fact you might have to give it a perk like exceptionally high MR to convince anyone to GoR a monstrum without magic.

Interesting idea about the siege golem, I'd never considered GoRing one. Those attack/defense stats look pretty horrible (just the kind of target I like to send my glamoured thugs after :)) but I guess it's not much worse than a golem and if they had hand slots you could get that looking a little better.

[WraithLord]

I personally don't care much for the new suggestion re. Tartarians. I agree that they're too common by far so would like to put another suggestion on the table:

How about tartarians become nation specific spell for nations that have a strong thematic connection to death and/or that need such a uber spell to compensate for innate weakness. So for example, make tarts available only to:
- Ermor (yes, LA Ermor don't need tarts but this is the nation that thematically should have them)
- MA Machaka
- Sauromatia
etc.

That way you kill two birds with the same stone - reduce tarts from very common status and grant or not grant the spell as a further tool to address nation balance issues.

[WraithLord]

QM could you also kindly post the things that are currently on the table for 1.8?- This way we would be able to provide feedback. Even if only a fragment of this feedback would end up being useful it's should still be worth it, right?

[TheDemon]

The vote options like any vote choice are far too simplistic and shortsighted. I wondered if I should have voted at all.

Hammers - should be removed but only after adjusting everything they affect properly. Forge bonuses to all types of smiths, const sites in the cap for thug nations (yes I know likely unmoddable), gear cost adjustments, etc.

SDR - I see no problem with SDR; they don't take much micro. Unlike gemgens their effect on gameplay is obviously intentional. And if you bellyache about them "generating" gems, THAT'S WHAT ALL BLOOD HUNTERS DO. A B2 mage for 160 gold "generates" half a dozen slaves a turn. This is obviously how a blood econ is intended to work, although the costs might need to be adjusted to find balance. If you want to remove SDRs, ideally what would happen is the formula for blood hunting would start at 90% for B1 with B0 staying as it is. Since this is impossible, I say leave SDRs in.

Gemgens - sure take them out it's certainly a different game without them

Sites - 30% sites aren't the problem. The problem there is ALL alt sites, ALL blood sites, ALL const sites, and 30%+ conj sites. Personally I say remove all discount sites, especially with EDM.


I note Jade Knives aren't on the poll. Why?

[WraithLord]

...
Sites - 30% sites aren't the problem. The problem there is ALL alt sites, ALL blood sites, ALL const sites, and 30%+ conj sites. Personally I say remove all discount sites, especially with EDM.
...

I note Jade Knives aren't on the poll. Why?
Sure, let's remove all discount sites. We don't need any rational to lynch them and why the best solution is removing content from the game ;)

Good point re. Jade knives :)

[Executor]

Valerius, they would be really nice imo, all resistances, high protection, high HP and mindless. Would be able to capture forts alone too of course. But yes they have terrible stats like Golems, however you add a good shield and a brend weapon.
I think they should be allowed hands, it goes along with late stage thug/sc diversification. They'd be like a bigger version of the Mechanical Giant.

Deamon, there are only 10 poll questions that can be used, so the poll can't be anything else than simple. My intent was to get some general ideas and feedback on the given subjects and have this thread generate some possibilities regarding some CBM choices, which seemed to work.

As fare as jade knifes go, well, I did intend to put them originally, however I forgot about them when I made the poll.:rolleyes:

[quantum_mechani]

I personally don't care much for the new suggestion re. Tartarians. I agree that they're too common by far so would like to put another suggestion on the table:

How about tartarians become nation specific spell for nations that have a strong thematic connection to death and/or that need such a uber spell to compensate for innate weakness. So for example, make tarts available only to:
- Ermor (yes, LA Ermor don't need tarts but this is the nation that thematically should have them)
- MA Machaka
- Sauromatia
etc.

That way you kill two birds with the same stone - reduce tarts from very common status and grant or not grant the spell as a further tool to address nation balance issues.Care to offer some counterpoints about the other tart suggestion?

I don't see how leaving tarts as they are and restricting them to some nations does much good, especially as death nations are by and large the best nations anyway. If won't change the fact that nations with access will use them almost exclusively, it just means those that don't are fighting a massively uphill battle.

I'll look in to posting a possible change list before release.

[Valerius]

Valerius, they would be really nice imo, all resistances, high protection, high HP and mindless. Would be able to capture forts alone too of course. But yes they have terrible stats like Golems, however you add a good shield and a brend weapon.
I think they should be allowed hands, it goes along with late stage thug/sc diversification. They'd be like a bigger version of the Mechanical Giant.

Sounds good to me. It's certainly not OP and the greater variety of summons on the field, the better. :)


SSJ reminded me of something when he mentioned the Momentum 3 rules in the EDM thread. In that game one of the boosts I gave the elemental royalty was 100% darkvision for those that didn't already have it. What about making the elemental royalty either blind or have darkvision 100? It seems odd to me that, for instance, the Queen of Storms can summon blind air elementals but isn't blind herself. Same goes for the earth kings. Then the fire and water royalty have odd situations such as summoning blind elementals but having darkvision themselves. Seems like it would be thematic and a nice little boost to make this consistent and give all the elemental royalty blindness/darkvision (I don't think anyone would argue they're OP and they are in any case unique).

I don't see how leaving tarts as they are and restricting them to some nations does much good, especially as death nations are by and large the best nations anyway. If won't change the fact that nations with access will use them almost exclusively, it just means those that don't are fighting a massively uphill battle.

Agree completely; I'd rather stick with the current situation than go this route.

[WraithLord]

Yes please.
You said:
"
At the moment I'm toying with the idea of removing their default magic in favor of 'potential' magic. They would have no magic when you summon them but 50 gems empowerment of the appropriate type would get you direct to level 4 in a path (thematically speaking, it's just a different way of representing the feebled mind, but in a way that anyone could heal them, not just the GoH/Chalice). This way, with the right investment they could well surpass most EDM summons, but they wouldn't have the huge diversity advantages.
+
Yes, I think the only way to remove afflictions would be to swap out the summoning spell, which has side effects I'd rather avoid. I think having plenty feebled would still be OK though- it's true GoH/Chalice is great now but the concern with the direct raising prices was that it would make them better- this would just leave them at about their current power. After all, how many tarts can you really empower? At 10 gems each you should easily have plenty of healthy empowerment candidates. Also, under this tart scheme GoR could probably get cheaper and they could be used with whatever afflictions as thugs (I actually think seeing some still feebled tarts used in battle would be quite cool).
"

let me see if I get you right, your suggestion consists of:
1. Tarts won't have magic.
2. 50 gems worth of empower would give them lvl 4 of ???
3. Tarts would still have afflictions
4. Tarts summon price would be 10D

So basically to get a 4X tart I'll need to spend 10D *(avg # of times to get non feeble mind tart) + 50D. My gripe with the suggestion is that: a- it keeps the current unthematic "all nations take death to get to tarts" tendency. Yeah, it really makes sense to see MA Mari + Pyth deploy tarts and go hvy on death...
and b- The price raise and losing diversity seem to take all the fun out of tarts - or in other words are too extreme.

Except LA Ermor the other nations could use both diversity and row power. Think what it would do to MA Machaka status to have near exclusive access to tarts. So perhaps don't give Tarts to LA Ermor but do give to other underpowered death nations.

Tarts are fun the way they are but not everyone should have them. To prevent ppl from taking them you'll need to make them suck and then nobody will summon them :(

[thejeff]

I agree that removing the magic and making them cheap to empower removes much of the interest that comes from the diversity.
Being able to get the magic you want on the chassis you want, as long as you have the gems takes away alot of the flavor. Trying to figure out something useful to do with the weird path combinations (or getting that random 7S titan) is all part of the fun.

And I'm not sure about the mechanics of this. What happens if you stick a RoW on one of these?

[quantum_mechani]

Tarts are fun the way they are but not everyone should have them. To prevent ppl from taking them you'll need to make them suck and then nobody will summon them :(That seems a defeatist attitude towards balance- either they are so good people use them exclusively or they suck and no one uses them.


let me see if I get you right, your suggestion consists of:
1. Tarts won't have magic.
2. 50 gems worth of empower would give them lvl 4 of ???
3. Tarts would still have afflictions
4. Tarts summon price would be 10D
That more or less sums it up, yes. Though given for 10d they are quite good troops anyway, the cost for an empowered tart chassis is more like 50 of whatever gems you can spare + GoR cost. I do sympathize with your objection to unthematic nations getting tarts, but honestly I don't see any option to stop that without very unwanted repercussions. To me, having Mackaka get Tarts but not LA Ermor seems even more unthematic than everyone getting them. And allowing high powered death nations privileged access is just asking for trouble. In any case, restricting tarts by nations is more of an and/or suggestion than directly in opposition to changing their magic.

As for the point about removing fun, I admit I get as much fun from rolling randoms as the next person, but there are plenty of places to do that in dominions. You could even look at the empowerment as simply a more round about way of rolling randoms, based on what kind of gems you get extra of from sites. And as much as rolling randoms is fun, so are strategic choices and this seems to actually increase those.

EDIT: Boosters would work as normal, i.e. they would not boost anything unless you already had that path.

[llamabeast]

My worry about the empowerment thing is that it might actually increase the tendency of Tartarians to give you diversity. Generally it's possible to scrape together 50 gems of any colour by late game, so if you get to Tartarians you might just empower one of each path you don't have strong access to, and then have strong access to all paths.

[quantum_mechani]

I'm not sure it could really be worse than the current set up in that respect... it's true you can't guarantee any particular path right now but I think you can generally acquire diversity at a much lower price. 50 gems of a type you don't have good access to is not easy, and having one x4 mage of the type is not really that great of overall access- compared with usually having a largish pile of tarts with usually several of each path.

[llamabeast]

Fair enough, you've convinced me! I'd tend to think if getting an X4 mage (in path X that I don't have access to) as a win for getting access to that path, but if its so late game that I'm getting Tartarians I suppose a single mage for all that effort and all those gems is no longer so impressive.

[DeadlyShoe]

I think it shows kinda the problem that the suggest price for diversifying at level 4 is 50 gems, when thats the same price diversification is 'intended' to be with empowerment to level 1.

Not that I've ever summoned a Tartarian ^_^

[WraithLord]

Tarts are fun the way they are but not everyone should have them. To prevent ppl from taking them you'll need to make them suck and then nobody will summon them :(That seems a defeatist attitude towards balance- either they are so good people use them exclusively or they suck and no one uses them.

Yes, I'm basically saying that I'm concerned your suggestion would lead to the latter. Why should anyone pay so much the get a one path lvl4 tart?- If you need level 4 summons there's plenty to go around now that are way cheaper and easier to get. It was the diversity and unexpected nature of what you'd get that made for the "fun" factor.



let me see if I get you right, your suggestion consists of:
1. Tarts won't have magic.
2. 50 gems worth of empower would give them lvl 4 of ???
3. Tarts would still have afflictions
4. Tarts summon price would be 10D
That more or less sums it up, yes. Though given for 10d they are quite good troops anyway, the cost for an empowered tart chassis is more like 50 of whatever gems you can spare + GoR cost. I do sympathize with your objection to unthematic nations getting tarts, but honestly I don't see any option to stop that without very unwanted repercussions. To me, having Mackaka get Tarts but not LA Ermor seems even more unthematic than everyone getting them. And allowing high powered death nations privileged access is just asking for trouble. In any case, restricting tarts by nations is more of an and/or suggestion than directly in opposition to changing their magic.

As for the point about removing fun, I admit I get as much fun from rolling randoms as the next person, but there are plenty of places to do that in dominions. You could even look at the empowerment as simply a more round about way of rolling randoms, based on what kind of gems you get extra of from sites. And as much as rolling randoms is fun, so are strategic choices and this seems to actually increase those.

EDIT: Boosters would work as normal, i.e. they would not boost anything unless you already had that path.

ok, how about the following: go even further with the randomness effect - add a certain chance that the summon would backfire. Either not work, or summon horror or some such.

[TheConway]

I don't see why people wouldn't summon them. They simply wouldn't be as incredibly good as they currently are. With QM's proposed mechanic they would perhaps be used to break into a new path, since they could immediately summon other commanders in that path to help your diversity, for more economical use of gems. It would also make it more of a strategic choice for the player. Instead of simply "summon more till I get lucky" its "do I want this guy to help me diversify into w or do I empower him in e for another SC?"
Another thing is, with this change it would be possible to make GoR even cheaper opening up more interesting options.
I also agree with qm in that I see no reason that tarts can't be balanced to be viable and not simply the number 1 choice.

[WraithLord]

inline
"
I don't see why people wouldn't summon them.
I think I won't summon them under the new scheme. It won't be cost efficient. Perhaps many players would feel the same. If so, they'll go from being super common to being rare.


They simply wouldn't be as incredibly good as they currently are. With QM's proposed mechanic they would perhaps be used to break into a new path, since they could immediately summon other commanders in that path to help your diversity, for more economical use of gems. It would also make it more of a strategic choice for the player. Instead of simply "summon more till I get lucky" its "do I want this guy to help me diversify into w or do I empower him in e for another SC?"
Another thing is, with this change it would be possible to make GoR even cheaper opening up more interesting options.
I also agree with qm in that I see no reason that tarts can't be balanced to be viable and not simply the number 1 choice.
I assume they can, I just don't think the proposed change is good. I would have preferred better competition from EDM, a different solution or the current status rather than the new change
"

[llamabeast]

EDM deilberately doesn't add many diversification options. My feeling (and qm's I believe) is that diversification is already too easy, and I didn't want to make that worse. I'd view the Tartarians as being too good for diversification rather than the EDM summons being too bad.

[WraithLord]

I sympathize with that sentiment (diversification is already too easy). I'd personally prefer to see dom evolve so that in end game nations would be distinguished from each other and not all having same slew of uber summons.

I think angels for Pyth, Mari & the Israelites only is a good example. You could give the norse nations some endgame summon only for them. Same for the briton island nations, Same for Arco, Ctis etc. As part of such a tendency Tarts (with increased cost) could be made accessible only for the Ermors and maybe a few more death nations.

My vision: end games where different nations actually field different armies. Where not every army has access to all the battle spells from every color.

[DeadlyShoe]

yeah. two things there. tarts too awesome for diversification, and too easy to bootstrap into death because of its boosters.

[Slobby]

why not make tarts crazier?

[Festin]

I sympathize with that sentiment (diversification is already too easy). I'd personally prefer to see dom evolve so that in end game nations would be distinguished from each other and not all having same slew of uber summons.

I think angels for Pyth, Mari & the Israelites only is a good example. You could give the norse nations some endgame summon only for them. Same for the briton island nations, Same for Arco, Ctis etc. As part of such a tendency Tarts (with increased cost) could be made accessible only for the Ermors and maybe a few more death nations.

My vision: end games where different nations actually field different armies. Where not every army has access to all the battle spells from every color.

Yes, I fully support this. This is actually the reason I don't care much for the EDM - providing alternatives to Tartarians is great, but not same summons for everyone to use. Caelum or TC summoning Aesir is thematically just wrong.

The ideal EDM of my dreams would probably give each thematically linked group of nations their own national summons, like angels for Marignon-Pythium or Hindu things for monkey nations. Aesir for Vanheim-Helheim-Midgard, Ember Lords for Abyssia, some Lovecraftian things for R'lyeh and possibly Atlantis, etc.

[WraithLord]

Yes Festin that's exactly what I was talking about :)

I'm not about to force my opinion on anyone but I'm not just talk either. If the mod makers would indeed come to like this vision I'd be willing to actively help them however I may.

This would be a sight indeed, two opposing armies engage at end game and each is distinct and composed of monsters that mostly fit the thematic flavor of its nation.

[Zeldor]

Well, make a mod like that yourself. And if it's balanced and interesting enough, there is good chance QM will incorporate it in future CBM. Just talking about it will give you nothing.

[WraithLord]

It's not that simple, there are quite a number of considerations, like:

- Incompatibility with EDM's approach of all nations getting all summons
- Possible effect on balance
- My lack of modding knowledge
- My absolute lack of graphical art talent
- My aversion to be in any way in competition with CBM+EDM, on the contrary if such a mod is made and conflicts with CBM then it's not worth much IMO

I could pull such a thing off but not alone and certainly not if its only me that's interested. The way to go about it, as I see it is:
a. Determine if there's demand
b. Determine whether QM and llamabeast think this can ultimately be made part of CBM
c. Get some players who are interested to contribute to design, sprites etc.

or better yet if QM et-al convert to the cause of LESS diversity is MORE :D

[NooBliss]

In my opinion, restricting more summons to specific nations is very, very wrong.

It narrows your choices. It makes the metagame poorer. Right now, you strive to have both the beasties from Endgame mod and the Tartarians. If you cant have everything, you focus on something you can do well, but at least you have the choice.
... Not to mention that delving into non-native paths of magic is a unique and interesting part of Dominions.

Remake the most powerful summons into national spells, and you will kill this fun. Do you REALLY want to lock each nation to it's theme?

7 workers, 4 to gold, 3 to wood
4 houses
2 barracks
Upgrade Main hall
(numbers may vary)

Are you trying to make Dominions go that route, too?

[Dimaz]

In principle the idea of restricting nations to their native paths sounds interesting, however my main concern is that it's necessary to have almost all paths in big lategame battles to have any chance. Imagine a battle between 2 armies with SCs and heavy mage support where one side has access to earth (Army of *, Weapons of Sharpness) and another only to water. The outcome is obvious. In current setup Tarts more or less balance this by providing enough diversity to support several armies, but with the 50 gems/tart with 1 level 4 path version, I fear endgame balance will shatter.

[WraithLord]

I think the secret to success in general but esp. in a game as complex as dom is not to go to extremes.

By aiming to make nations more unique I'm not planning to start a crusade against all possible diversification paths. I think it's all about the right weights, so ideally a nation would have easier (as in cheaper) access to spells and summons related to it's theme (i.e. myth and culture) while it would find it harder (more expensive) to diversify.

Dimaz, to your example, there's no one color nation (that I can think of), so it's more likely you'll see say, E+A pitted vs. W+N+S for instance. I'd imagine this would actually make battles more interesting.

[llamabeast]

I would be absolutely in favour of more nations having national summons. It would be great to have thematic endgame summons for everyone.

The difficulty is the work involved. Making big sprites is quite tiring somehow. As for the coding etc, that's pretty easy. Basically, if people make a load of awesome national sprites you'd have no difficulty in finding people to write the mod code. I would certainly be happy to do it if I liked the sprites.

Making sprites doesn't really need any skill. I have no artistic talent outside of dom3, and I certainly can't draw. Sombre and Burnsaber say the same, and their sprites are amazing. What it does need, however, is a critical eye, and patience.

You don't need to worry about conflict with CBM, EDM etc. That kind of thing can be fixed right at the end. Balance, similarly, can be fixed at the end.

I would suggest that design by committee is doomed. If someone would like to go ahead with such a project, they'd have to take control. Then that person would take suggestions from other people for units, but make their own decisions as to what to actually make. You will always get a mixture of good and bad suggestions, and there needs to be some filtering.

Personally I won't be working on such a project, since the EDM rather wore me out with respect to drawing big sprites. I did make it worse for myself than it had to be though - firstly, the Wendigo and Zmey had a silly number of sprites, and secondly I had to write up my PhD in the middle of working on the mod which knocked the enthusiasm out of me for a bit (writing up a PhD will knock the enthusiasm for anything out of anyone). On the other hand I might easily be persuaded to do a sprite or two.

[Baalz]

Imagine a battle between 2 armies with SCs and heavy mage support where one side has access to earth (Army of *, Weapons of Sharpness) and another only to water. The outcome is obvious.

Not to be pendantic, but Niefel Flames are gonna take a big old dump on your "army of" guys, and quickening can be more effective than weapons of sharpness in plenty of situations. I find a lot of the time people think things are underpowered are because they're just not playing to their strengths...

[Dimaz]

The question is, are all the nations can stay competitive in lategame battles with low diversification? Honestly I don't know, but so far it's the main concern I have with such mod idea.

[DeadlyShoe]

If they can't that's a balance concern in and of itself. One school of magic really shouldn't be shockingly stronger than another, overall. Naturally, some level of imbalance is alright, like anti-Undead Astral spells.

[Executor]

I'm not sure there can be balance among magic schools in the real sense as some tend to be more battlefield oriented like fire evocation, and others tend to be more summons oriented like blood, which is hard to use on the battlefield due to slaves being able to get killed and being needed for every spell, and all the spells fatiguing the casters too fast, etc...
But that doesn't necessarily put one magic school over another, as all of them have some up and down sides, which is a seance balances them out.

So, it's my opinion that magic schools are balanced, more or less, and one can make due with limited diversification.

[Soyweiser]

Imagine a battle between 2 armies with SCs and heavy mage support where one side has access to earth (Army of *, Weapons of Sharpness) and another only to water. The outcome is obvious.

Not to be pendantic, but Niefel Flames are gonna take a big old dump on your "army of" guys, and quickening can be more effective than weapons of sharpness in plenty of situations. I find a lot of the time people think things are underpowered are because they're just not playing to their strengths...

True, I love how quickening is one of the few ways to take out two squares of chaff on attack and not one. I think this double attack isn't given by the quickening boots. Am I right or not?

[thejeff]

It is. Any form of quickness. Even the bless or heroic forms, though they won't give the second attack every turn.

[WraithLord]

Thank you llamabeast. I'm tempted to take this project but I've RL obligations (don't we all? :) ) and this will take bestial amounts of time to complete. I was imagining a support role for me, not taking point.

I'll mull it over the next few days before I go/nogo.

[Muse]

A slight suggestion: It may be useful to give Tartarians a severe malus to Fire and Shock (perhaps 300%)-- thematic, and would discourage use.
(The Lord of the Underworld wished to make them extra-torturable over his long years of enjoying them.)

[Adept]

The Forge of the Ancients will lose the discount effect

Unfortunately this is not possible without removing all FotA effects. Tweaking ritual effects (unless they summon something) isn't supported with modding.

Dropping hand slots on werewolves is an interesting idea, though it is unfortunate it would nerf non-giant werewolves which are already a bit borderline for thugging.

Oh right? Well I won't miss Forge of the Ancients if I have to remove it altogether. It's a broken bit of op cheese.

As for the werewolves, I plan to swap the "claw" to "claws", so they get 2 claw attacks and a bite without weapons.

[Warhammer]

Imagine a battle between 2 armies with SCs and heavy mage support where one side has access to earth (Army of *, Weapons of Sharpness) and another only to water. The outcome is obvious.

Not to be pendantic, but Niefel Flames are gonna take a big old dump on your "army of" guys, and quickening can be more effective than weapons of sharpness in plenty of situations. I find a lot of the time people think things are underpowered are because they're just not playing to their strengths...

I think it is a combination of that, as well as group think. Group think is a terrible thing. I cannot tell you how many games have been ruined by group think, because people don't want to get out of the preconceived notions about a nation. Heck, look at Kailasa, BL, Patala. There have been a fair number of wins among those nations, but all you hear is the complaints about monkey PD (not trying to dredge that up again). If they were so bad, how are those nations getting the wins (K has 4, BL and Pat have 2 each)?

[PriestyMan]

no one ever moans about monkey's because of their pd. its just a meme on these forums because of a very famous thread a long time ago. look up Lord Bob's monkey pd thread

[Kobal2]

I think it is a combination of that, as well as group think. Group think is a terrible thing. I cannot tell you how many games have been ruined by group think, because people don't want to get out of the preconceived notions about a nation. Heck, look at Kailasa, BL, Patala. There have been a fair number of wins among those nations, but all you hear is the complaints about monkey PD (not trying to dredge that up again). If they were so bad, how are those nations getting the wins (K has 4, BL and Pat have 2 each)?

Frankly, the hall of fame (and the results of multiplayer games in general) isn't the place to go to get an idea of whether or not a nation is balanced/powerful/objectively competitive, simply because of the very small sample size coupled with the fact that MP games are more often than not decided by map geography, random luck on sites and most importantly diplomacy and who fights whom when.

In the case of the monkeys for example, on paper they look like they have a great endgame (monkey PD or not) tacked on a really tough start. So if they get rushed, they lose hard - which is the time frame their dreck of a PD really hurts, too. When even the 25PD on your cap can be taken out effortlessly by 40 tribe archers... yeah.
But OTOH if their neighbours have other fishes to fry during those first few years, the monkeys probably have a decent shot at the win.

In the same vein, while everyone quite rightfully agrees Ashdod is overpowered as all getout I'd wager they'll very rarely if ever win one of the rare games in which they're not outright banned, simply because they'll immediately get ganked by a coalition of all of their neighbours LA Ermor style. Whereas an underdog nation in the very same game might unexpectedly thrive... because everyone else is busy ganging on Ashdod and leaving them alone.

(Yes, I know my sentences are overly long and convoluted :o)