CBM 1.8 released

[WraithLord]

The latest and brightest release from the workshops of QM et-al has been released and if I might add, contains many many cool additions and tweaks.

Here's the original release thread (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=313).

[Jarkko]

Snif, too bad Pangaea didn't recieve any buffs.

Lord of the Wild still doesn't spread dom like most of the other titans

Carrion Dragon is just as bad as it has been from the start of the game (at least the other dragons have got higher protection).

Carrion Woods is still practically impossible (especially for LA Pangaea) to get up.

Ah well, should have been bringing up these things earlier.

[Soyweiser]

Snif, too bad Pangaea didn't recieve any buffs.

Lord of the Wild still doesn't spread dom like most of the other titans

Carrion Dragon is just as bad as it has been from the start of the game (at least the other dragons have got higher protection).

Carrion Woods is still practically impossible (especially for LA Pangaea) to get up.

Ah well, should have been bringing up these things earlier.

Post it over at the other forum. I guess QM will fix it.

[Jarkko]

Post it over at the other forum. I guess QM will fix it.
No thanks. While there are some of the best dom3ers and *very* nice people over there, there are also some of the worst scumbags internet has spawned. I'll rather not make myself a target for their bile throwing; if they spit even on people like Edi, then what do they do to mere mortals? I do not want to find out.

[TheConway]

Post it over at the other forum. I guess QM will fix it.
No thanks. While there are some of the best dom3ers and *very* nice people over there, there are also some of the worst scumbags internet has spawned. I'll rather not make myself a target for their bile throwing; if they spit even on people like Edi, then what do they do to mere mortals? I do not want to find out.

Bile throwing only occurs when toolery and trolling is detected. Honest and helpful suggestions are perfectly fine.

[Jarkko]

Bile throwing only occurs when toolery and trolling is detected. Honest and helpful suggestions are perfectly fine.
Heh, I knew that would draw Sombre from his hiding place :p Right, right, "only occurs when toolery and trolling detected". Like changing Edi's name to "Edi is a tool" after he registered on your forums? You Sombre think I would believe that? You sure wouldn't do that to somebody who doesn't like your bile throwing, and has expressed it multiple times, when you did it to an influental member of the community, who actually tried to make peace with you? Yeah sure, and I also believe you saw some cows fly yesterday :p

Anyway, why don't you Sombre ask your account to be released from the ban? You actually think *anybody* believes TheConway isn't Sombre :rolleyes: Just because Llamabeast is cool enough to close his eyes rather than burn his friend doesn't mean everybody else too hadn't figured out this a long time ago already :) It would be great if you Sombre could update your mods (even if it was to tell people not to use the outdated mods on this forum, but to head to z7... forums to get the updated ones). I am pretty sure if you just *ask* you'd get your access back, without having to hide behind a silly alter ego :) However, I understand your problem, in addition to being an excellent modder and super genious in Dom3 (only a fool would try to deny either of those) you would actually have to act like a human being, and that would be too hard, right?

[TheConway]

You still seriously think I'm sombre? /sigh, while I have a certain amount of sympathy for him, I am not in fact an alt of his. He has stated that he has no wish to return, and AFAIK he has not. There really isn't a reason for him to. He has a place to host his mods and talk to people he actually respects. I actually agree with you that changing Edi's name was rather childish.

That said, calling edi an "influential member of the community" is a joke. The buglist is cool, and the DB is amazing for modding, but my standard for "influential member" requires more than 1 post every couple months. Take away posts he makes as a moderator and he's contributed very little to forum discussion for the last couple years. None of the mods have tbh.

RE: editing sombre's mods, he actually asked shrapnel to remove them from the site or post links to the dom3mods forums, and they basically gave him the runaround to the point where he simply decided "**** them" and people could just play outdated versions if they damn well pleased.
Edit: llama has actually taken the blame for this, so my info is wrong/outdated I guess.

Its fairly obvious that you haven't even lurked at the dom3mods forums much beyond the first couple weeks, so you can keep your opinions on them to yourself.

[llamabeast]

Actually the "Sombre's mods on Shrapnel" thing is my fault, I just haven't gotten around to sorting it out (although to be fair I was waiting for Sombre to give me a list of what he wanted me to do).

I also think the Edi thing was quite unfortunate, but the whole community pretty much told Sombre off for that IIRC.

I also feel I should defend Edi's awesomeness, as his DB is absolutely crucial for virtually all modding efforts.

Anyway, this is a bit off-topic, and what I really want to hear about is what people think of the new Machaka spells! (Several of them are mine.)

[Dimaz]

Changing so many crosspath items to single path seems like a very major change. While I'm not going to play 1.7+ anyway, it would be interesting to know the reason for it (as it sort of reduces game diversity imo, or at least diversity between nations). Otherwise, all changes seem more or less logical in hammerless world.

[TheConway]

Actually, the machaka spells look pretty awesome! Overall I think that this CBM will make them quite a different and better nation to play. The new marverni spells are a bit interesting too, though I'm not entirely sure if they really needed a buff. The predictable GoR/tart change might call for some rollbacks of previous tart nerfs imo. I actually am a little puzzled that there weren't any carrion woods changes, but that probably has a lot to do with no one posting about them where qm will really see.

I'm pretty sure that the changes to item paths were mostly to reduce the cost of items that were pretty much priced out by the hammer removal.

I'm sorry that you won't be playing any games with the new CBMs, if you want I can edit out the hammer removal or w/e specific bits you have issues with. I actually am surprised that there aren't more games with customized versions of CBM.

[Jarkko]

Its fairly obvious that you haven't even lurked at the dom3mods forums much beyond the first couple weeks, so you can keep your opinions on them to yourself.
Heh, if you aren't Sombre, then who are you on Sombres forum? If you reveal that, and you are not Sombre, then I'll reveal who I am there so that you can kick me out from there ;)

[archaeolept]

he's not sombre and he doesn't even sound like Sombre. Perhaps more CBM discussion and less uninformed invective?

[Jarkko]

he's not sombre and he doesn't even sound like Sombre. Perhaps more CBM discussion and less uninformed invective?
Right, lets agree he is not Sombre then :) I actually posted one of the two CBM related posts into this thread. That was of course before I knew this thread was not supposed to be used for feedback about CBM 1.8, but that I should post into the cesspit :p

[Soyweiser]

he's not sombre and he doesn't even sound like Sombre. Perhaps more CBM discussion and less uninformed invective?
Right, lets agree he is not Sombre then :) I actually posted one of the two CBM related posts into this thread. That was of course before I knew this thread was not supposed to be used for feedback about CBM 1.8, but that I should post into the cesspit :p

Stay classy Jarkko. I think you have made your point. No reason to keep calling it names.

But I'm not sure if QM checks this forum. I think he does. But posting at the other forum does get a quicker reply. (And it makes it easier for him. He doesn't have to search all over the place for bugposts).

[TheConway]

Just for anyone reading this, feedback is more likely to come to qm's attention at the link Wraithlord provided. If you're afraid to post there, well, he might drop by here, but don't whine about your suggestions not being addressed.

[NooBliss]

Astral serpent - not astral anymore?
Crystal heart - not astral anymore?

Doesnt the word LORE ring any bells for QM, I wonder. I hope more people keep hosting 1.6

[TheConway]

I believe that most of the low-end crosspath item changes are in order to make them worth forging without hammers. QM is actually much more concerned with theme than balance, and has resisted a lot of suggestions for thematic reasons, such as Ulm magic path buffs or drain immune iron priests in MA.

Frankly, the way people get on a ridiculously high horse over changes they don't immediately agree with or understand baffles me. Maybe you should try asking for the reasoning behind them and THEN decide whether you agree/disagree?

On top of that, editing CBM is obscenely easy if you know how to type and read the dom3 mod manual, so if you like parts of the mod but not others then you can easily customize it.

[iRFNA]

What if I can't read? Discrimination!

[Soyweiser]

Astral serpent - not astral anymore?
Crystal heart - not astral anymore?
Did you ever forge these in MP? (In the postclam word).

[llamabeast]

Doesnt the word LORE ring any bells for QM

Actually QM's an extreme stickler for lore. I agree those two aren't ideal, but I'm sure he feels the same. There are heaps of changes he has refused to make because they're unthematic, even if it's quite marginal.

[Dimaz]

The Conway, first of all, thanks for you offer to edit CBM to suit my needs. I'm not a modding guru myself and while I can probably revert mod changes myself if I need it, I will keep your offer in mind. However the problem here, as was stated during gemgen removal, is that most of this (sharapnel + dom3mods) community is attached to CBM and follow it's changes, so I don't think it will be possible to find enough people to play modded CBM game. Besides, many of the 1.8 changes were definitely made to compensate for 1.7 ones, while others are different (machaka ones for example). So deciding what to keep and what to throw is not that easy. That's why I'm going to stay with 1.6 for the time being as it's the most balanced variant imo.
Regarding hammer removal, I think the main reason was that they were no-brainers and so on, while my argument was that they are an important part as an investment tool. In one of my current games I have mediocre e income and good income of other gems and good research, so I reached con8 with only 2 hammers and possibility to forge 20 or so different uniques, including top-tier ones. I had to make tough decisions about spending the gems most economically while also trying to capture most of the arts as somebody else reached con8 a turn or two before me. So I fail to see hammers as no-brainers while they definitely increased the choices I had to make - without hammers I'd just forge everything I can with all the gems I have and that's all.

[llamabeast]

I wonder whether at some point it might be worth making a version of CBM 1.8 which reinstates hammers, and partially undoes the item-cheapening/buffing of 1.8. Personally I think I will use the canonical 1.8, but it would be good if even hammer lovers could benefit from the other changes. The new national spells are fun!

[Finalgenesis]

a masochist version of cbm 1.81 would be welcomed, re-enabling hammer and reversing some price decrease for certain items.

Going through the price decrease list with hammer in mind:

-Amulet of missile prot looks fine at 5A

-Astral serpent can probably stay at 1N, I've never seen it used and there's too many other good misc items competing for slots.

-Staff of corrosion should be reverted to original price, 1w1f staffs is really damn good with hammer.

-Brimstone boots is tough to say, I've used and seen the rare ones at 1e1f, but then it has to compete with quick, birch, messenger and now chi, so seems okay at 1f.

-Elf bane at 1e seems okay.

-Moonblade 1h is good, still kinda expensive at 10S for what it does and const 6, I'd drop it to 5S even, so that it'll actually be used now and then.

-Bone armor can stay D4, D5 was definitely too much.

-Crystal shield should be reverted to 2e2s, I see it (and use it) often on clutch casters already.

-dusk dagger seems alright at 5s even with hammer frankly, as a specific counter to high prot.

-elemental armor looks fine at 1e1f.

-crystal heart probably okay at 1e.

-not sure about stone idol at 1e, I think actual usage in MP will be needed to really see how it pans out.

-Fenris pelt at 2N, seeing as its a low tier unique it doesn't really matter. I'd make it non-unique to be honest, in which case there might be niche uses for it.

-wraithsword looks good at 2D

-ice pebble at 1w const 6 hmmm... not quite sure on this one, I'd say revert to 10W to be safe.

-knife of the damned looks good at 5s.

-pocket ship looks okay at 5n5a.

-phoenix rod looks okay at 15F.

-shield of valor and silver hauberk looks good at 1A.

-spirit helm at 2a hmmm, probably good, 3A was too much.

-summer sword 1n1e looks good, though it may not bode well for wine and cauldron.

-Wraith crown at D4 looks good.

-shield of accursed at 1s1b hmmm... not sure on this one.

-wand of wild fire at F2, I'd say give it a shot.

[Jarkko]

Stay classy Jarkko. I think you have made your point. No reason to keep calling it names.
Sorry, my intention was not to call any names. Last time I checked the z7 dom3mods forum main page the name "The Cesspit" had been placed at the top of the forums. I wasn't aware it hadn't been placed there by the forum owner (as for some childish reason I still seem to be believe). Many boring people, including me, tend to take written words seriously.

But I'm not sure if QM checks this forum. I think he does. But posting at the other forum does get a quicker reply. (And it makes it easier for him. He doesn't have to search all over the place for bugposts).
I never asked for a reply, but of course I certainly hope he will notice the post in this thread (it is after all the second post here) :) Like I already mentioned, I should have been commenting the stuff (commenting more strongly and coherently; I've commented on them elsewhere, even in threads QM have posted in, but I never took the effort to really make the point) earlier, and not just hope QM somehow telephatically would become aware of the things. My mistake.


Other than that, I definitively do like CBM1.8. There are bugs and typos in the new spells, but those should be easy enough to fix.

Possession (or however it is written in the mod) is a *very* heavy class spell for LA Ulm (turn a S1 70 gold mage with one pearl to a Dark Vine commander (two misc slots, for example Lucky charm and Ring of Regen) or a Demon Knight commander (full slots and heavy equipment even without any additions). For Bogarus too it can turn crappy old mages into something useful just before they die of old age (for whome it is no use to give boots of youth). For LA Man it is not a very useful spell, hard to figure out something useful that LA Man astral mages could transfer to.

[NooBliss]

Then buff astral serpent so it's worth using, without removing the ASTRAL part from it. Add MR or luck to it (lucky serpent, anyone?). Then it's just an improved amulet of luck or antimagic, which doesnt make amulets obsolete because nature has other uses.
And yes, I do forge crystal hearts in MP, in Kings of Drama, for my most valuable combat caster. Because some of us dont have fire/nature mages. Its a part of the lore - you know, crystal mages who combined earth and astral to create matrixes and hearts. Its a poor alternative, but an alternative anyway and I like it.
Anyway, with hammers still removed and lots of weitd stuff introduced, I guess I'll have to stick with 1.6 when I can.

Oh, and the SDR change, too. I am playing 1.7 now - my MA Abyssia isnt hurt by the lack of SDRs. Well maybe slightly. Other major blood nations will cope as well, I bet. These who didnt have major blood already will suffer... so much for the balance.

[P3D]

And EA/MA Agartha lost their Umbrals thug. In exchange, now their move 1 troops would move through mountains faster, and their NNE troops eat even less supplies in mountains.

Perhaps make Umbrals a commander for EA and MA Agartha (LA won't need it that much).

[TheConway]

Frankly, the argument that the SDR change boned people from diversifying into blood is silly. It simply isn't like other paths where you can get a viable income via bootstrapping. If you don't have recruitable hunters you'll still get enough for your niche utility needs, maybe you'll have to get 1-2 more scouts. Still, if you're not a blood power it doesn't matter anyways since your income would suck regardless.

Niche items like astral serpent, crystal heart, etc. could indeed see some thematic additions to perhaps make them worth their cost. If you want to post them where qm is likely to see them I encourage you to do so.

edit: And EA/MA Agartha lost their Umbrals thug. In exchange, now their move 1 troops would move through mountains faster, and their NNE troops eat even less supplies in mountains.

Perhaps make Umbrals a commander for EA and MA Agartha (LA won't need it that much).

This is definitely something that should be looked at. You seem to have missed the new national spells though, and darkness with PD.

[NooBliss]

>> Frankly, the argument that the SDR change boned people from diversifying into blood is silly. It simply isn't like other paths where you can get a viable income via bootstrapping.

Not true.
First, there are nations with recruitable b1 hunters; they are hit much worse than these with b2. These, in my opinion, are hardly hit at all.
Second, there are summons like Lamia queen and Asinja, they get b1 quite frequently. Of course, it was a costly way to get into blood, but it was an option. Now it's gone. Bad if you ask me.
And lastly, there's a big difference between 'your income sucks' and 'your income sucks big time' :)

[TheConway]

>> Frankly, the argument that the SDR change boned people from diversifying into blood is silly. It simply isn't like other paths where you can get a viable income via bootstrapping.

Not true.
First, there are nations with recruitable b1 hunters; they are hit much worse than these with b2. These, in my opinion, are hardly hit at all.
Second, there are summons like Lamia queen and Asinja, they get b1 quite frequently. Of course, it was a costly way to get into blood, but it was an option. Now it's gone. Bad if you ask me.
And lastly, there's a big difference between 'your income sucks' and 'your income sucks big time' :)

Those nations with recruitable B1s would be Lanka, Mict, and Van out of the actual good powers IIRC. The first two are the major offenders when it came to blood being OP in world w/o clams. Van I agree has major issues there, and you're not the only one who wants to give them a bit of a buff to compensate. As for the rest, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[kianduatha]

And EA/MA Agartha lost their Umbrals thug. In exchange, now their move 1 troops would move through mountains faster, and their NNE troops eat even less supplies in mountains.

Perhaps make Umbrals a commander for EA and MA Agartha (LA won't need it that much).

I think you're overstating your case--a grand total of 3 of EA Agartha's trooptypes have move 1. They're much more mobile now between that and the national Gateway spell they got. Yeah, Umbral thug loss hurts, but it's not like Agartha's a one-trick pony. I've seen especially EA Agartha win a few games through simply reaching critical mass with their troops, which are darn hard to take down once they get going.

MA is definitely hurt more by the change, though cheaper statues/earlier Poison Golems help counteract that. Also GoR'ed Gargoyle thugs are significantly cheaper now. I mean, it wasn't exactly as if MA Agartha was lacking a thug chassis.

That being said, Umbrals can almost certainly be reverted back to 2 gems now.

[Soyweiser]

SDR removal simply made slaves have a large opportunity cost, and makes it a lot harder to get them. Even if you have b2 recruits. (As these can now fail to find slaves (at least in MA, and LA), which wasn't possible if you gave them a SDR before).

A SDR would also improve the amount of slaves found. Which is also gone. So you now need more mage/fort turns and more gold lost for the same amount of slaves.

Note that the SDR isn't truly gone. You can get the same effect as the SDR with the blood booster items. But that is more expensive. But could be worthwhile if you have a forge boost unit.

Sure it makes it harder to get into blood. But isn't blood supposed to be a bit hard? Being the evil choice after all.

[Colonial]

Quick question:

So you can't GoR a tart any more. can you possession a tart?

[Soyweiser]

Quick question:

So you can't GoR a tart any more. can you possession a tart?

I think you can't as Possession uses the GoR as a nextspell.

But this is something that could be tested :)

[NooBliss]

Those nations with recruitable B1s would be Lanka, Mict, and Van out of the actual good powers IIRC. The first two are the major offenders when it came to blood being OP in world w/o clams. Van I agree has major issues there, and you're not the only one who wants to give them a bit of a buff to compensate. As for the rest, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Lanka and Mictlan have a recruitable B2, so they are not hit as hard as one would hope to. This nerf has only affected these who already struggle, which is kinda lame.

Soyweiser - will you consider getting into blood by using blood boosters as SDRs? By the time you will have a half-decent blood economy, the game will be over. Some costs are just too high. :)

I, myself, was glad to see SDRs removed at first. With clams gone, blood is absolutely broken (as in overpowered). But I am playing MA Agartha now, and I dont miss SDRs - recruitable B2 hunters are as good as ever. This nerf failed, imho.

[llamabeast]

You can't Possession a tart, no.

[Soyweiser]

Lanka and Mictlan have a recruitable B2, so they are not hit as hard as one would hope to. This nerf has only affected these who already struggle, which is kinda lame.

Soyweiser - will you consider getting into blood by using blood boosters as SDRs? By the time you will have a half-decent blood economy, the game will be over. Some costs are just too high. :)


Lanka and Mictlan have b2 as cap only mages iirc.

(Sure lanka gets 1/3 b2 on their mage priest, but that isn't that reliable).

And as you now pay more for each blood slave as blood nation you have less gold for other stuff. (And most blood nations still need a lot of god).

But I agree that the b1 only nations are hit the worst and should get some sort of boost.

And now you cannot bootstrap yourself into a large blood econ without serious effort, if you don't have any blood. Not a huge problem.

[adder83]

Hi there!

I m curious can somebody, who already tried the mod, tell me what kind of requirements the spell Possession has? Is it very late in the research tree? It sounds very powerfull and may can be lead to exploit? For example saving design points by choosing the crone and then turn her into something SC like?

[Executor]

Anyone mind explaining why exactly TheConway suddenly got banned?
I certainly can't find any inflammatory post, personal attack or anything of such nature that would even be considered an infraction.

I though that there were certain forum rules and regulations here that are supposed to be followed and that people don't just get banned for no apparent reason, so am I wrong?

If he in fact is an alt, which is quite improbable as I doubt Sombre would come back to these forums, and behave, why did you wait so long to react in the first place?

It seems to me that TheConway just got banned for no apparent reason, no explanation and as it seems probably at the whim of another member, is that all it takes to be banned here?

[Joelz]

Hi there!

I m curious can somebody, who already tried the mod, tell me what kind of requirements the spell Possession has? Is it very late in the research tree? It sounds very powerfull and may can be lead to exploit? For example saving design points by choosing the crone and then turn her into something SC like?

I've tried the Possession (along with quite a few other spells) and I think this is how it works:
- It kills the caster. It doesn't turn them into anything.
- It's enchantment 0, which needs 1 astral magic to cast.
- Cost is 1 astral pearl.

So practically Possession is a Gift of Reason which kills the caster. No magic or stats is given to the target of GoR.
Since it's so cheap, it can be used to GoR targets of Wish, for example. Nice and cheap as the astral nation doesn't need to have any nature on their god. It is available for only 3 nations though, so not much is changed.

[NooBliss]

>> And now you cannot bootstrap yourself into a large blood econ without serious effort, if you don't have any blood. Not a huge problem.

Less diversity and fever viable tactics is not a huge problem? I beg to differ.

By the way, it was a 'serious effort' before the SDR ban. Now its a 'huge effort that wont pay off'.

[Dimaz]

Anyone mind explaining why exactly TheConway suddenly got banned?
I certainly can't find any inflammatory post, personal attack or anything of such nature that would even be considered an infraction.

I though that there were certain forum rules and regulations here that are supposed to be followed and that people don't just get banned for no apparent reason, so am I wrong?

If he in fact is an alt, which is quite improbable as I doubt Sombre would come back to these forums, and behave, why did you wait so long to react in the first place?

It seems to me that TheConway just got banned for no apparent reason, no explanation and as it seems probably at the whim of another member, is that all it takes to be banned here?

Trumanator's alt.

[Jarkko]

[QUOTE=adder83;770445]
So practically Possession is a Gift of Reason which kills the caster. No magic or stats is given to the target of GoR.
Since it's so cheap, it can be used to GoR targets of Wish, for example. Nice and cheap as the astral nation doesn't need to have any nature on their god. It is available for only 3 nations though, so not much is changed.
It is super for LA Ulm. A 70 gold S1 mage becomes a demon knight commander (for example, works on devils too, etc) with full slots for the amazing price of one pearl; get them while they still are hot ;)

[Executor]

Anyone mind explaining why exactly TheConway suddenly got banned?
I certainly can't find any inflammatory post, personal attack or anything of such nature that would even be considered an infraction.

I though that there were certain forum rules and regulations here that are supposed to be followed and that people don't just get banned for no apparent reason, so am I wrong?

If he in fact is an alt, which is quite improbable as I doubt Sombre would come back to these forums, and behave, why did you wait so long to react in the first place?

It seems to me that TheConway just got banned for no apparent reason, no explanation and as it seems probably at the whim of another member, is that all it takes to be banned here?

Trumanator's alt.

Sorry Dimaz, but I still don't see how that explains it.
If anything it just means that his alt was already well known to everyone (well except me it seems) which meant they purposely chose to let him stay.

So why the ban now?

[WraithLord]

I think Executor has a good point. I also don't seem to recall any abuse coming from TheConway, on the contrary (not that I pretend omnipotent knowledge of all things posted here).

Now, I can't help but wonder why was he banned so abruptly :confused:

[Dimaz]

I don't know why he hasn't been banned as an alt before and it's offtopic here anyway. I think all he has to do to unban his main acc is to ask forum administration but that's highly unlikely to happen. Unfortunately.
Back to the SDR question, well, probably moving them to b2 after gemgen removal is the best solution. Again, not in this life. Unfortunately.

[WraithLord]

Dimaz, I think your comments are good feedback. Did you try to post them at that other forum, the one QM supposedly frequents more?

[Soyweiser]

Less diversity and fever viable tactics is not a huge problem? I beg to differ.

It is still possible, it is just a lot harder. It also reduces a lot of micromanagement.

And if your tactics where planning a large bootstrapped blood economy I think you where playing the wrong nation.

But I must admit I never bootstrapped myself into blood. To much hassle, and I think you could use the commanders and scouts better in other places.

[Dimaz]

WL, I stated my opinion pretty clearly in 1.7 thread where he certainly saw my posts, and we had some episodic discussions in IRC. Unfortunately currently with 3 children and 2 jobs I don't have that much time to follow all the forums so I've chosen this one. On the other hand, I have zero 1.7 experience so I don't think my suggestions regarding further CBM development will make much sense. In short, my opinion about 1.7: please don't fix the things that are not broken.

[NooBliss]

>> It is still possible, it is just a lot harder. It also reduces a lot of micromanagement.

It was very hard already. There's a point where gains arent worth the cost.

>> And if your tactics where planning a large bootstrapped blood economy I think you where playing the wrong nation.

I think Dominions was a game where you could choose your nation and your tactics - and still succeed if you played your cards right. But CBM keeps cutting 'wrong' paths off. Weird idea to ban something because 'everyone uses it', and then start buffing useless items so they get used more often. Why not just buff everything to the point it gets useful - and enjoy many viable tactics.

[Soyweiser]

Some stuff is so good that you cannot win unless you also use it. The gengems for example. Most give a constant boost to gems after only 15 turns. Create enough of them, and you could not lose, so the endgame became, who can create the most gemgens the quickest.

(With some variation of skill, but it is hard to beat an opponent who gets 100 more gems than you get each turn).

The same with hammers, and SDR's. They are so good, that there is no point in not using them. Games become very dull if each game is, rush construction. Forge Turtle Win.

It creates the runaway leader problem. (Which strat games tend to have). As long as you lead in gems, gold, etc. You can create more gems/gold quicker just because you are in the lead. Removal of gemgens and hammers makes this less so. (Not so convinced about the SDR).

Jade knives where just broken. :). A blood sac spam with jade knives isn't counterable.

Compare this to research boosters. Good, useful, but not so overpowered that you need them asap.

And you cannot always boost everything to the point of usefulness, some stuff is just overpowered. Or, something that is used always. If you use a hammer for all your forgings, you could just as well remove the hammer, and reduce all the forging costs.

Perhaps SDR removal is going to far. I don't know. Perhaps they should have been made more expensive. (b2, 15 slaves... So they take about 10 turns to get your investment back). My opinion about it is waving back and forth.

Sometimes certain concepts just don't work out in a game. Sucks, but it takes a big designer to take something out. And it is difficult decision. Gemgens, Jade Knives I agree. Hammers I tend to agree. (If you didn't have e2 + foot slot as a mage, you would always put it on your pretender). And SDR's I'm not totally convinced.

Ps: I love how the removal of the SDR changes everything Dom3 is about. You are overreacting a bit. Dom is still choose a nation, and win. But blood is not something every nation can do just as easy. Just as not every nation has Jaguars or high astral, or heavily armored shock troops who shoot explosive ammo, have a fanatical devotion to a dead superhuman on a toilet, and cybernetic implants.

[rdonj]

Cost of items is directly related to their path level. So you can't have SDRs at b2 and 15 slaves. If you want them to be 15 slaves, then they have to be b3 items. It's not possible to do otherwise. And I should probably point out that either way, it makes SDRs much more useful for the already strong blood nations than for everyone else... so why are we bothering to bring them back in again?

Also noobliss, you're seriously overreacting.

And Jarkko, if you are responsible for the banning of TheConway... I would get banned for saying what I think of you, and you're the one who'd deserve it.

[Valerius]

With the removal of SDRs making blood a less viable option for Vanheim, what about replacing the Vanjarl's B1 with the Vanadrott's 100% AEDB pick? Or if not a random pick then just something more useful than B1 currently is. This would be a boost to Vanheim but the glamour nations, particularly Van, did take several hits in 1.7 so it doesn't strike me as OP.

Edit: maybe a 50% pick would be better, 100% might be too much.

[NooBliss]

The same with hammers, and SDR's. They are so good, that there is no point in not using them. Games become very dull if each game is, rush construction. Forge Turtle Win.

I have yet to see a winner who turtled. Or an good player who turtles, for that matter. Or perhaps we have different definitions of turtling.

It creates the runaway leader problem. (Which strat games tend to have). As long as you lead in gems, gold, etc. You can create more gems/gold quicker just because you are in the lead. Removal of gemgens and hammers makes this less so. (Not so convinced about the SDR).

Gemgens, maybe. Hammers - no, they dont. Its not hard to make or trade for a pair of hammers and use them, and they only multiply the amount of gems you get from your land.

And the runaway leader problem is still there, in case you didnt notice. Whoever has more land gets more gems and gold, provided he also site-searches and had half-decent scales, of course. Is there anything wrong with it?

And you cannot always boost everything to the point of usefulness, some stuff is just overpowered. Or, something that is used always. If you use a hammer for all your forgings, you could just as well remove the hammer, and reduce all the forging costs.[/QUOTE]

You can. Llama's diversity mod did it, in my opinion - now every path has some nasties to summon. Except death, of course - with tarts not GoReasonable anymore. Oh, I forgot to add - thats another reason I'll stick to 1.6 from now on.
If something is good and everyone uses it, it doesnt mean it has to be banned, for hell's sake. Asinjas, Shishi etc are also good and gonna be used - will QM ban them too? I think not. Perhaps because these summons are straightforward and dont require as much effort?
Same with hammer. Yes, you use it for all your forgings. But its not hard to do so, it just requires some effort.

Ps: I love how the removal of the SDR changes everything Dom3 is about. You are overreacting a bit. Dom is still choose a nation, and win. But blood is not something every nation can do just as easy. Just as not every nation has Jaguars or high astral, or heavily armored shock troops who shoot explosive ammo, have a fanatical devotion to a dead superhuman on a toilet, and cybernetic implants.

Not every nation has Jaguars - thats right.
Not every nation has high Astral - true, but you need at least one high astral caster in the endgame.
Blood is not something every nation can do easily - that was always so, but why make it even harder while leaving major blood nations relatively untouched? Oh, some additional gold expenses. The horror.
Its easy to dismiss something just by saying 'you are overreacting'.

[Jarkko]

And Jarkko, if you are responsible for the banning of TheConway... I would get banned for saying what I think of you, and you're the one who'd deserve it.
I have no power to ban anybody on this forum.

Perhaps he was banned for breaking the rules? Point 10 spesifically.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/misc.php?do=cfrules

[PriestyMan]

The same with hammers, and SDR's. They are so good, that there is no point in not using them. Games become very dull if each game is, rush construction. Forge Turtle Win.

I have yet to see a winner who turtled. Or an good player who turtles, for that matter. Or perhaps we have different definitions of turtling.

its funny that you say that. try playing with more vets. qm or juffos are both very very good players who are guilty of being turtles. (although qm is by far the more notorios one) trust me, turtling, especially with gemgens was the way to go.

Its easy to dismiss something just by saying 'you are overreacting'.

yeah. cause you are

[Dimaz]

Some stuff is so good that you cannot win unless you also use it. The gengems for example. Most give a constant boost to gems after only 15 turns. Create enough of them, and you could not lose, so the endgame became, who can create the most gemgens the quickest.

(With some variation of skill, but it is hard to beat an opponent who gets 100 more gems than you get each turn).

The real problem is when several players have hundreds of gemgens at the end so the game just stucks without a clear winner or Armageddon fest starts. What you describe is the viable way to win in the game with gemgens. I have to remind that this game has been played WITH gemgens for most of it's existence and still was fun to play. However I agree that removing them in the form they used to be was for the good.

The same with hammers, and SDR's. They are so good, that there is no point in not using them. Games become very dull if each game is, rush construction. Forge Turtle Win.

Really? I followed this recipe once and lost, how can it be? It has something to do with gemgen removal probably.

It creates the runaway leader problem. (Which strat games tend to have). As long as you lead in gems, gold, etc. You can create more gems/gold quicker just because you are in the lead. Removal of gemgens and hammers makes this less so. (Not so convinced about the SDR).

So if you lead in gems gold etc you should be able to create less of them or what? I'm intrigued.

Jade knives where just broken. :). A blood sac spam with jade knives isn't counterable.

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.
Sorry I don't have time to comment the rest now..

[PriestyMan]

there are at least a couple games won with blood sac being the main strategy, which was where many people learned how broken it is with jade knives. see the Inversions game on Dom3Mods for example.

[Executor]

Jade knives where just broken. :). A blood sac spam with jade knives isn't counterable.

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.
Sorry I don't have time to comment the rest now..

I tend to have a very similar opinion to yours generally Dimaz, but, I do think you might be underestimating blood sacrifice.

Personally I love how the jade knives operate and wouldn't have excluded them, but on smaller maps for 10 or under players they could have been just brutal, and once a dom rush starts it's nearly impossible to stop it. I myself have been in two games that were won by a dom rush, one with Mictlan by myself, and the other by Archaeolept by Hinnom, and both victories took only half a dozen turns.

Still I have no problem with such victories as I consider it a very legit way to win and not a very often one, and I personally consider it to be the most respected way to win, as this *is a game of dominions. :)

[WraithLord]

I'd just like to make one comment. Most of the Vets I know (with exception of QM ;) ) are absolutely not turtlers, they are aggressive as hell and will jump at any opportunity or sign of weakness to crush and subjugate other nations.

Tarts are overnerfed and now death nations are stuck with way overpriced, afflicted & shattered souled (meaning 25% offline) equivalent of EDM SCs (Ember lord etc).

[NooBliss]

Its funny that you say that. try playing with more vets. qm or juffos are both very very good players who are guilty of being turtles. (although qm is by far the more notorios one) trust me, turtling, especially with gemgens was the way to go.

I have played with vets, thank you very much. So far, they expand fast and conquer their neighbours as soon as they can.

Does QM even play anything other than blitzes? Turtling on a small map once you've conquered a good parcel of land - maybe that's a sound tactics, for a while. Turtling on a huge map while others keep expanding? Thats suicide.

yeah. cause you are
Yeah. Cause you say so.

[rdonj]

And Jarkko, if you are responsible for the banning of TheConway... I would get banned for saying what I think of you, and you're the one who'd deserve it.
I have no power to ban anybody on this forum.

Perhaps he was banned for breaking the rules? Point 10 spesifically.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/misc.php?do=cfrules

You don't have to have the power to do the banning if you influenced a moderator into doing said banning, which in my opinion is what happened. And not being able to call you out on the levels of villainy you seem to have descended to without getting banned is a real shame. It's pathetic how often people on this forum manipulate the forum rules for their own ends instead of dealing with each other like human beings. And as long as you don't outright say what you think and mean, you're safe, but if you can taunt the other person into calling you out, you can then report them and "win" by getting them banned. What a load of crap.

On topic: Yay, CBM 1.8! Thank you QM for your continued efforts in making the game more fun, interesting, and balanced. Boo naysayers.

[Soyweiser]

... Path levels ...


Thanks, I keep forgetting that.


You can. Llama's diversity mod did it, in my opinion - now every path has some nasties to summon.

Adding something is not the same as boosting an existing something to be more powerful. We where talking about specific item boosts and nerfs here. You are trying to make it about different magical paths. And the endgame diversity. Two totally different issues.

Edit: also there is a big problem with game development that you are never ever allowed to nerf something, or take something away, or a lot of players start to cry. This makes it very hard to undo game design mistakes. (Which currently, gemgens are. (It could be fixed if the gems showed up in the graphs, and if it was easier to take out the gemgens (Lets say, immobile slotless units)).


If something is good and everyone uses it, it doesnt mean it has to be banned, for hell's sake. Asinjas, Shishi etc are also good and gonna be used - will QM ban them too? I think not. Perhaps because these summons are straightforward and dont require as much effort?

It isn't only that it is so good that everybody uses it. It is because it is so good that you always get a guaranteed quick return on investment. A tactic that is only counter able by adopting the tactic yourself. See Hammers, Clams etc.


And the runaway leader problem is still there, in case you didnt notice. Whoever has more land gets more gems and gold, provided he also site-searches and had half-decent scales, of course. Is there anything wrong with it?


I noticed, the removal of certain items just makes it less pronounced. And it makes it easier for other nations to catch up.

And Asinjas, Shishi don't generate new gems etc (which is what a forge bonus actually is, a way to "generate" gems by using less of them). You need to put them in harms way, attack the enemy, get his lands. For them to be useful. (Sure they gen RP, but everything does, and there are cheaper ways of getting RP).

The controversial item removals all made it easier to reach the point where you couldn't do anything about a runaway leader anymore. Once the jadeknife dompush started rolling, it could only be stopped by ganging up on the player. Once you had enough hammers for all your mages you would just get a defacto 25%+ gem bonus each turn. Which all made nations with easier earth, or w3n1 access to strong.

Sure there are still spells, and sites which do this in the game. (A alteration 20% site can also create this situation, just as casting certain globals, or even certain nations are build for it (LA Ermor for example)). But you can at least see a lot of these coming, you can dispel the global, take the site, etc etc. They are counterable.

(And I would never advocate for creating penalties for the leader, as that would create neverending games. These kind of games should have runaway leaders, but not runaway leader problems).


Oh, I forgot to add - thats another reason I'll stick to 1.6 from now on.

Why are we even having this discussion then? Ow nevermind. This is already taking up way to much time.

But feel free to create your own custom CBM mod. Remove the item cost boosts, put the hammers, SDR, and knives back in. I'm sure there are still a lot of players willing to play your games.


Oh, some additional gold expenses. The horror.

You do realize that additional gold expenses are a big deal right? A blood nation already has a lot of expenses, upkeep gold, using mage turns to get slaves. So you have less mages for combat duty, RP etc. Some additional gold cost can be really painful then.

Gold, gems, mageturns (and thus fortturns) are the main resources of this game. They matter. And gold and mageturns matter even more for a blood nation. (you have one additional research path, and less researchers).



It creates the runaway leader problem. (Which strat games tend to have). As long as you lead in gems, gold, etc. You can create more gems/gold quicker just because you are in the lead. Removal of gemgens and hammers makes this less so. (Not so convinced about the SDR).

So if you lead in gems gold etc you should be able to create less of them or what? I'm intrigued.


You know what I mean. Stop trying to misrepresent my point.

Inclusion of gemgens, hammers, and sdrs makes it easier to increase a small lead into a big lead. After your basic needs are met (upkeep, expansion, some defense and research) you can pour the rest of the resources into these three classes of items, to quick increase your lead. With hammers a 2 e site was more valuable than a 2 d site. because after 10 turns the 2e would not be 20 e, but a permanent reduction in forging costs.

Sure you should still be able to use a small lead to create a bigger lead. But it should be more about the armies clashing, conquering territories, casting extremely powerful spells, etc.

Not using your labs to forge equip to forge more equipment. Not all games should be won in the forge.



Jade knives where just broken. :). A blood sac spam with jade knives isn't counterable.

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.
Sure, there is even a guide for it:
http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=120
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45850

And I said it wasn't counterable. As preaching doesn't really work that well. And a indy priest with a JK generates 6 temple checks.

[llamabeast]

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.

You'll have to excuse that I can't remember the names of the games, but several games have been won quite suddenly in this way. When it happens it's a bit of a game ruiner - it only takes a few turns, the players closest to the blood saccing nation can be wiped out before they can take any real action, and so in effect it's virtually uncounterable.

The reason for this is the bug whereby each slave sacrificed generates two temple checks. So an H3 priest with a jade knife can sacrifice 5 slaves for a total of 11 temple checks (including the one from the temple). With a dom10 nation that's 11 candles per turn per temple - quite extreme. Removing the jade knife reduces this to 7 candles/turn/temple. So, it's still a very powerful strategy and you shouldn't feel that it's been nerfed to oblivion.

Edit: I forgot that there is an issue whereby preaching doesn't help much. I think it's to do with turn order - perhaps the preaching happens first, and can then be overruled by the blood sac. That would make sense - say you have loads of H3 priests in your capital, your last remaining dominion stronghold. They all preach and raise your dominion to 10 (for the sake of argument - actually preaching can't raise dominion that high). Then 20 black candles from blood sac appear and you're left on -10 dominion and lose the game.

I think the SDR thing is very complex and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think probably I would be in favour of restoring the SDR and increasing the costs of all blood spells by say 50%. I could easily automatically write a mod to do this if people thought ut was a good idea. However this solution only addresses the balance part of the issue, and not the micromanagement issue. I have never played a blood nation into mid game, so I don't know how annoying SDRs are.

[kianduatha]

Blood is powerful, and blood sac is powerful, but please show me a game won by blood sac alone or as the main part of the winner's strategy.

You'll have to excuse that I can't remember the names of the games, but several games have been won quite suddenly in this way. When it happens it's a bit of a game ruiner - it only takes a few turns, the players closest to the blood saccing nation can be wiped out before they can take any real action, and so in effect it's virtually uncounterable.

The reason for this is the bug whereby each slave sacrificed generates two temple checks. So an H3 priest with a jade knife can sacrifice 5 slaves for a total of 11 temple checks (including the one from the temple). With a dom10 nation that's 11 candles per turn per temple - quite extreme. Removing the jade knife reduces this to 7 candles/turn/temple. So, it's still a very powerful strategy and you shouldn't feel that it's been nerfed to oblivion.

Edit: I forgot that there is an issue whereby preaching doesn't help much. I think it's to do with turn order - perhaps the preaching happens first, and can then be overruled by the blood sac. That would make sense - say you have loads of H3 priests in your capital, your last remaining dominion stronghold. They all preach and raise your dominion to 10 (for the sake of argument - actually preaching can't raise dominion that high). Then 20 black candles from blood sac appear and you're left on -10 dominion and lose the game.

I think the SDR thing is very complex and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I think probably I would be in favour of restoring the SDR and increasing the costs of all blood spells by say 50%. I could easily automatically write a mod to do this if people thought ut was a good idea. However this solution only addresses the balance part of the issue, and not the micromanagement issue. I have never played a blood nation into mid game, so I don't know how annoying SDRs are.

I've been in games where Pangaea just domkills an entire map and there's nothing any of the further away nations can do about it at all. In the proper hands it was disgustingly powerful.

Unfortunately just increasing the cost of blood spells runs into problems because you can't alter the cost of blood items.

I think a lot of the Tartarian kneejerking is forgetting the fact that you'll still get commander Tartarians about 1/5 of the time. They haven't disappeared--they're just more expensive in mageturns and gems. That being said, Shattered Soul can probably go back down to 10% and their HP nerf can be reverted and they'd still be fine.

[WraithLord]

Tarts are over nerfed.
Please consider a few numbers:
* It takes 1 turn + 30 gems to summon 2 shishis that eat tarts alive.
* It takes 1 turn + 60 (i think) gems to summon 1 ember lord which properly equipped is at least on par with a tart.
* It takes (avg of) 5 (mage) turns and (avg of) 60 gems (assuming 12 base cost) to get one tart commander which is likely to be afflicted and is idle 25% of the time (or worse - razing your temple or such). So it's actually more gem expensive (since you get 25% less actions) and more vulnerable (strategically) since you can't be sure he'll march with the rest of the army but opt to do crazy stuff making it a sitting duck.
* All the nations can summon (parts of) EDM stuff, so all 7 paths but death have good thug<->SC chassis => Death centric nations are now at a disadvantage.

[Dimaz]

Well, once I owned north-western corner of Karan as dom9 Aby and sacced with 12 or so H3's with knives and still even my closest neighbors weren't domkilled. I don't know, maybe I didn't try hard enough, but it seems you can counter dompush if you're prepared for it by building enough temples/priests on the border. And when your efforts become obvious usually good players will try to gang on you. Maybe on smaller maps it can win a game, though.
Anyway, I think these cases are pretty rare and don't need special fix, as it's still part of the game as Executor said.

[NooBliss]

I noticed, the removal of certain items just makes it less pronounced. And it makes it easier for other nations to catch up.
So, is it a good thing or a bad thing? What's wrong with the leader having more resources anyway? That's what being a leader is about.


And Asinjas, Shishi don't generate new gems etc (which is what a forge bonus actually is, a way to "generate" gems by using less of them). You need to put them in harms way, attack the enemy, get his lands. For them to be useful. (Sure they gen RP, but everything does, and there are cheaper ways of getting RP).

Hammers dont generate gems. They increase your income by a percentile. If you have 10 hammers and only +4 fire gems/turn, you will only forge ONE fire brand. Any nation can have hammers; sure, you have to take earth on your pretender if you dont have it on your mages, but heck, that's a good reason NOT to take that freaking Dom10 pathelss Wyrm again. And even then, you could skip Earth on your pretender and just trade until you get some indies.

The controversial item removals all made it easier to reach the point where you couldn't do anything about a runaway leader anymore.
And making sure you cant do anything about a runaway leader anymore is a good thing? I have a feeling there's something wrong with this sentence.


Sure there are still spells, and sites which do this in the game. (A alteration 20% site can also create this situation, just as casting certain globals, or even certain nations are build for it (LA Ermor for example)). But you can at least see a lot of these coming, you can dispel the global, take the site, etc etc. They are counterable.
You won't know when somebody finds a discount site and dispeling globals is a losing game.


You do realize that additional gold expenses are a big deal right? A blood nation already has a lot of expenses, upkeep gold, using mage turns to get slaves. So you have less mages for combat duty, RP etc. Some additional gold cost can be really painful then.
You do realise that I'm speaking from my personal MP experience? I'm playing Abyssia in 1.7 right now, here - http://www.llamaserver.net/showScores.cgi?game=KingsofDrama

Does it look like I'm suffering from the lack of income? That's not some theorycraft, thats my own playtesting results - nations with B2 mages took a rather slight hit, not nearly as hard as these with B1 or no blood at all.

Edit:

Sure you should still be able to use a small lead to create a bigger lead. But it should be more about the armies clashing, conquering territories, casting extremely powerful spells, etc.

Not using your labs to forge equip to forge more equipment. Not all games should be won in the forge.
Why? Because you dont like it? Just because dont want to spend time planning your strategy in a game with a steep learning curve, you'd like to keep it as simple as 'produce some troops, add mages, send them into combat'?

Gemgens could, indeed, create problems in huge games. Huge hidden income that cant be taken away from you. Hammers are nothing like that.


Hmmm let me guess... Do you also think one shouldnt have to diversify into all magic paths, being able to win with just their starting 'Air 4, water 2, astral 1, death 1' picks on national mages? :)

[llamabeast]

Come on NooBliss, you're deliberately misrepresenting what Soy's saying. He's a smart guy making reasonable points even if you don't agree with him - it's not helpful to keep on building straw men of what you're claiming he's saying then beating them down.

[Soyweiser]

And making sure you cant do anything about a runaway leader anymore is a good thing? I have a feeling there's something wrong with this sentence.


You are right, that sentence is a bit wrong. Damn you typing skillz!
Change it into:
The controversial items, which where removed, all made it easier to reach the point where you couldn't do anything about a runaway leader anymore.

[rdonj]

Come on NooBliss, you're deliberately misrepresenting what Soy's saying. He's a smart guy making reasonable points even if you don't agree with him - it's not helpful to keep on building straw men of what you're claiming he's saying then beating them down.

Or to put it more bluntly NooBliss, it's not worth debating with you. Not because your position is superior, but because your arguments are not much grounded in reality. And I don't think I really need to point out that most of the people arguing for these things to be removed have been around for much longer than you and played many more games than you have.

I think blood is the only thing that no one is completely happy with just yet. There are a number of solutions that could be gone for here, and none of them seems logically to include SDRs being returned. The only reason these items cause such a fuss is because people have been used to being spoiled by them.

[NooBliss]

Oh you are so polite Rdonj. :) Weren't you the one complaining that TheConway was banned? I bet he was just as polite as you are. And, of course, calling somebody a fool is an even stronger argument than 'you're overreacting'. :) Keep it up.

Come on NooBliss, you're deliberately misrepresenting what Soy's saying. He's a smart guy making reasonable points even if you don't agree with him - it's not helpful to keep on building straw men of what you're claiming he's saying then beating them down.

Actually, I genuinely misunderstood him. Now it's clearer, even though I do disagree with his conclusions. I can see how clams can be an equalizer instead of extending the lead. But oh well, to hell with gemgens, they are gone for good now. We were discussing hammers. And I still dont see a single valid point why they should be removed. Let's see:

Everyone uses them - that's not a big deal. They arent hard to come by or tedious to use.
They are gemgens - just not true. They improve your honest, land-based income by a fixed percentile, and only for the purposes of forging.
They worsen the runaway leader problem - no, they dont because everyone can use them. Furthermore, some nations like Mictlan just dont have many uses for hammers early in the game, while others may need hammers to 'chase the runaway Mictlan'. Or, for example, if our runaway leader went for a dom10 pathless Wyrm for an extra punch and his national mages cant forge hammers, these who can forge hammers will have an edge while catching up.
Etc etc.
So the only reason I can see is 'hammers complicate the game and everyone ends up using them anyway'.
I am really curious - how do hammers break the game?

[Edi]

Well, to get back to some of the stuff earlier in the thread, where someone asked about an edited version is anyone interested in a Piecemeal Edition of this CBM?

I did a Piecemeal CBM 1.6 and it would not be such a chore to split the 1.8 up to various components that can then be mixed and matched (including versions of items with gemgens enabled normally and one where they are artifact level).

[rdonj]

Well, I tend to post exactly as politely as the person I'm responding to, so take that as you will. Actually, you remind me of another poster on this forum who left a while back. Hmm.

Anyway it looks like you're being more reasonable now so I'll leave it at that.

[kianduatha]

Well, to get back to some of the stuff earlier in the thread, where someone asked about an edited version is anyone interested in a Piecemeal Edition of this CBM?

I did a Piecemeal CBM 1.6 and it would not be such a chore to split the 1.8 up to various components that can then be mixed and matched (including versions of items with gemgens enabled normally and one where they are artifact level).

Not right now at least--there are some major bugs that need to be dealt with first. Also a fair amount of 1.81 is rebalancing items in an environment where there are no hammers, so it's very unclear what parts would be appropriate to separate out.

So it seems like the Tartarian change is simply a matter of degree--and it appears that further testing in MP is the only way to tell if C'tis for example is truly "too weak" lategame because of the more or less doubling in cost of Tartarians. They're normally what, 10 death 15 nature, two mage turns? Now they're ~50 death(10 gems per cast), ~5 mage turns, but you get 4 non-commander meatshields/false targets too. If it's simply that Tarts are inferior to some of the EDM summons...that's fairly easily fixable.

Similarly, I haven't really heard a convincing argument about SDRs other than that Vanheim(and maybe Jotunheim) got the short end of the stick. I think all the other nations were either not affected too badly(it slowed their momentum, but the removal of hammers and gem gens slowed everyone else's too so it's relatively unnoticed) or were already so powerful that a slowdown of their blood production was welcome. So maybe Van's commanders need to be cheaper to compensate...again some more multiplayer games with Vanheim need to happen to see how bad the damage is, especially since they can summon Asynjyas instead of *needing* to go Blood for endgame.

In my view it isn't so much that hammers are a gemgen or not, it's simply that they restrict player choices. Everyone has to obtain access to hammers or be at a rather large disadvantage. This tended to restrict options, especially pretender choice. CBM is about creating flexibility of strategy. People tended not to take Dom-10 Wyrms because they knew they would be screwed over by not having hammers(and it's still not the best idea in the world for most nations, but it's more viable). Yes, the change reduces complexity, but most of that complexity is in the form of micromanagement. There's enough micromanagement and ability to optimize still in the game that I'm not aching for more. I feel no need to spend 5 more minutes every turn juggling around which mages have hammers--I already have to do that with boosters, and I'd rather be able to spend my time scripting my armies or setting up a raiding squad.

[Jarkko]

Well, to get back to some of the stuff earlier in the thread, where someone asked about an edited version is anyone interested in a Piecemeal Edition of this CBM?

I did a Piecemeal CBM 1.6 and it would not be such a chore to split the 1.8 up to various components that can then be mixed and matched (including versions of items with gemgens enabled normally and one where they are artifact level).
For me it would be a bless. It is a pain in the butt for me to go through the one big text file to try to understand what all have been changed. I still used the CBM piecemal version when comparing stuff in CBM1.7, just tried to find the correct line in CBM1.7 and compare how things had been changed. Of course 1.8 came now with a changelog, but it seems to me not all things are in the log, so a piecemal version would be very good.

Note, I don't think I would *use* the piecemal editition to cherrypick pieces of CBM 1.8. It would just be much easier to check out things :)

[Soyweiser]

Jarkko, what also helps is a good text editor which can compare files. (using linux ? type "man diff" ;) ).

That makes it a lot easier to compare changes in files. And it also is a invaluable tool to be able to use outside of mod editing.

[iRFNA]

A quick google search yields winmerge (http://winmerge.org/) for windows. Diff is a life saver.

[Jarkko]

Jarkko, what also helps is a good text editor which can compare files. (using linux ? type "man diff" ;) ).

That makes it a lot easier to compare changes in files. And it also is a invaluable tool to be able to use outside of mod editing.
Sure, but if I want to chek out just what happened to a given pretender chassis, it is much faster to open up the piecemal edition and check the text there. Besides, vi was good enough 20 years ago, and it's good enough still ;)

[NooBliss]

Well, I tend to post exactly as politely as the person I'm responding to, so take that as you will. Actually, you remind me of another poster on this forum who left a while back. Hmm.

By my brilliant logics or my shining personality? :D:D:D

Well I didnt even speak to you, so your attack was rather... unexpected. But if you tell me were exactly I was impolite, I will try to do better in the future. Or dont, if you cant. Lets just be mutually ashamed.

[iRFNA]

NooBliss, drama trails you like a frayed cloak in the wind.

[Soyweiser]

Besides, vi was good enough 20 years ago, and it's good enough still ;)

NOOOOO! Use Emacs. :).

(But we are getting offtopic).

I was wondering, 10 dgems for tarts, or less, if they get a cost reduction. Would you ever use Bane Lords? (apart from being available earlier in the game).

[Valerius]

So maybe Van's commanders need to be cheaper to compensate...again some more multiplayer games with Vanheim need to happen to see how bad the damage is, especially since they can summon Asynjyas instead of *needing* to go Blood for endgame.

Actually, when playing Van, A gems are one of the gem types I least want to spend on summons since I need them to fuel cloud trapeze. I think a non-A nation that happens to end up with a good A income will be more inclined to summon (and benefit from) Asynjas.

But I agree that the best thing is to play a cycle of games and see what happens. If it turns out some nations were particularly hurt by the changes then adjustments can be made in the next release. And they can be tailored to the nations that need a boost, in the same way some of the weaker nations received a boost with this release. So if the changes to tarts are fine in general but C'tis is overly impacted, perhaps they will receive a national summon/spell to boost them.

Also ... tarts spent a long time at the top. If this release overly nerfs them for a period of time I can't say it will bother me. Especially because unlike with tarts the EDM summons are open to anyone and not contingent on requirements such as having the Chalice/GoH in order to take full advantage of them.

On a different note, I have taken a quick look at the changes to TNN/Eriu. The standouts are of course Song of Power and Mists of Hidden Paths. I like these spells and think they fit thematically - powerful but dangerous to the wielder as well as the intended target. It will be very interesting to see how these play out. I'm always up for a high risk, high reward option but we'll have to see if the chance of the reward is high enough or if it mainly ends up being high risk. :p

Also of note is Tuatha and Ri receiving Awe +0. That's a very nice bonus since glamoured thugs are all about layered defenses. It also means there's increased potential to get these out quick enough to help in expansion. The Golden Lance used by Tuatha, Ri and Eriu's (but not TNNs) Sidhe Lords now have the False Fetters effect - nice but I'd still be inclined to forge them gear as I don't like the idea of an E mage hitting them with destruction/iron bane after I've sent them out raiding. Another plus is reducing the base encumbrance on troops/commanders by a point. Anyway, nice to see these nations get some help.

I was wondering, 10 dgems for tarts, or less, if they get a cost reduction. Would you ever use Bane Lords? (apart from being available earlier in the game).

Well you could give them herald lances and have them kill tarts. ;) But yeah, they are available a lot earlier and are more of a mid-game summon but the fact they have full slots is a big plus and I think you'll still see them.

[llamabeast]

Then buff astral serpent so it's worth using, without removing the ASTRAL part from it. Add MR or luck to it (lucky serpent, anyone?).

I meant to reply to this before - these are things you can't do. Please check what can be done before criticising people for not doing them.

[Corinthian]

I will no longer deny that removing gemgens was a good idea. And yes. As long as blood sacing remains buggy, removing the jade knife is also a good idea. But hammers and SDR's are not gemgens. They are force multipliers and the game is balanced around using them. They don't create gems. They merely multiply your initial income.

The Hammer make it so that the value of gems used to forge items increase by approximately 40% If you assume that you spend 50% of your gems on gear and have a gem income of 50 gems/turn. Then having an infinit number of hammers will at most increase your gem income by 50*0.40/2 = 10 gems/turn minus the one time cost of the hammers. Because unlike normal gemgens that have a linear or slightly exponential pay curves, hammers have a reverse exponential curve that panes out towards 20% of gem income.

Think of it! The first hammer will pay for itself almost imedietly! The second also. But how often do you forge ten items in a turn? Sometimes sure, but even a rich nation will only do so on occasion, so it might take 15-20 turns for the tenth hammer to pay for itself. And thats not considering that you could build something else for the earth gems that helps you better.


And now to my personal observations. I am in the same game as NooBliss and from my observations, the absens of hammer have made thugs really rare. I have scouts in most parts of the world, but by turn 45 i have only seen 3 nations use thugs at all. Me, NooBliss and Bandar Log. I can afford it because I have the best gem income and can afford to be wasteful. NooBliss can afford it because much of his gear is made from bloodslaves and those are both plentiful and often did not benefit from hammer-discounts anyhow. The lesson here is that the game was balanced around hammer costs and without hammers people will spend the gems on other things.

And even I mostly use naked thugs like Shishis that does not loose out by not wearing things.


As for SDR's, they are, as already stated, more important for weak blood mages than the strong ones. I think a B1 mage gets a 100% boost from a rod, while a B3 gets a 20%. This is because B1-B2 mages are not guaranteed to find slaves and the rods increases both the chance to find slave and their numbers. These are guesstimates, but I believe them to be true. Guess whom its removal will hurt the most? It might be a bit annoying to make/assign them. But they will usually stay with the mage till he dies so its a one time thing. I don't see micromanagement as a reason to remove them. The unbalance created by their removal is a worse thing than the micro IMHO.

[Soyweiser]

My small tests and experience seems to imply that a SDR counts as an additional B level for both the find chance and the amount of slaves you get. Mine are also guesstimates. But they all increase the power of your bloodhunting. And even if they provide one additional slave each turn on a b3+ mage, that is still free slaves after turn 5. (Not totally true of course, as you waste one turn creating the SDR). This increases micro as you never ever send out a hunter without a SDR.

But as I said before, I'm not totally convinced SDR removal is a good idea. (Boosting some nations with a douse bonus for example just moves the issue around a bit (disregarding the additional mage turns and the used misc slot).

Ps: you get forge bonuses on blood items, just not the contracts, the black heart, the other blood heart, and probably one other item.

[Executor]

I've held my tongue before I had a change to experience CBM 1.7 myself to criticize it. I hope something constructive will come of this.

So far from experience I'd have to say that CBM 1.7 has been a disaster regarding item prices, which ultimately led to several other problems.

Like Corinthian said, and quite contrary to what people expected as I remember some talks how it would actually increase the effectiveness of thugs, it led to a severe decrease in thug numbers.

Even the cheapest thugs become expensive without hammers.
And given that they are supposed to be expendable unlike SCs they shouldn't require much investment.

High level item forging became unbearable. Often you have to rely on a booster to forge other boosters and so on. And those boosters are quite often necessary to get a global spell, cast battle spells, to summon stuff and such.
For example forging a ring of wizardry to get a ring of sorcery to cast GONB for example is bloody awful, 110 gems just for the rings, etc.

Also, the race for the artifacts kinda got well much less important.
Even if you manage to hit construction 8 first it doesn't matter as you certainly won't have enough gems to make proper boosters and than the important stuff you need/want, even with very high site frequency which coshes more problems that it solves.

The thing about rushing to const 8 was that you had to sacrifice a lot to get there first. If you rush construction and get attacked in the meantime there's a good chance you won't ever make it there as you'll be dead since you wasted research on construction rather than summons and battle spells to defend or attack.

And even if you hit construction 8 first, ok, you managed to get a few good artifacts before you blew all your gems away, so now what?

Many of you feel that by simply increasing the site frequency it wouldn't pose much of a problem after all.
Wrong, by doing so you'd probably create much more micro and complicate things as I doubt anyone is crazy enough not to have some kind of a rainbow pretender with such common magic sites, so every nation would have to radically change their approach, strategy.

This is all based from experience on a CB 1.7 game mentioned above.

Now, as for CB 1.8 a lot of items got their prices lowed, paths dropped etc as to compensate for the loss of the hammers. I have no idea how this will actually impact the game until I try it out but I'm sure that this will be the first of several item balancings we'll see as a reprocation of the hammer loss.

The fact remains that even with lowered prices many items will still become unusable I feel. Bows will be the first to go probably, certain cross path items too. There are some items that just weren't worth using without hammers and having their prices dropped from 5 > 3, 10 > 6 etc.

I'm not saying that the loss of hammers will prove to be a bad thing in the end, having to think and plan in advance in how to get E3 with every nation you play is not very accommodating, and personally I love some changes on certain items as even with hammers things like stone idols or those big eartly trample wings were almost unexciting,
I'm just saying that it will need a lot of work and trials and error before it's all well sorted out as so far their removal has caused more problems than good.

Until than, I'll probably stick more to hammer games. Hammer time!

[WraithLord]

Besides, vi was good enough 20 years ago, and it's good enough still ;)

NOOOOO! Use Emacs. :).

(But we are getting offtopic).

I was wondering, 10 dgems for tarts, or less, if they get a cost reduction. Would you ever use Bane Lords? (apart from being available earlier in the game).

Excuse me. Vim is *the* best editor. It also easily handles diffs :)

To topic, Tarts should cost more, say 20D gems but remove all nerfs except non-gored (and if possible can't heal afflictions).
To the "crazy" trait lovers a compensation can be made to lower the craze frequency to say 5%.

Edit: re. hammers. Players got used to them and so could afford "wasteful" thug/SC builds using tons of gems via hammers.
In CBM 1.8 world some tough choices would be required re. equipment for thugs. However, I think thugs would still be valid. I know, I'd deploy them happily, they'd just be leaner and more tailor made for the job.
Much like tarts, this has a lot to do with Psychology and "fashion". The natural first psych. response to no hammers is to think "Fuxk that. I'm not wasting gems on these stupid thugs". I think this will change a bit with 1.8 and over time thugs and SCs would be more common again (but probably not as in a hammer world).
Tarts were public enemy #1 b/c everyone loved them. This is doesn't mean that they should be nerfed to oblivions. The reason being thematic rather than pure balance.

[NooBliss]

To topic, Tarts should cost more, say 20D gems but remove all nerfs except non-gored (and if possible can't heal afflictions).
To the "crazy" trait lovers a compensation can be made to lower the craze frequency to say 5%.

While the idea itself is good, give it some thought: you will spend 100 death gems and 5 mageturns to summon 4 meat shields and one commander (or not, if you're unlucky).
And that commander is likely to be a feeble-minded, armless, uncurable Monstra.

Or is there something I dont understand?

[WraithLord]

You could also get a 5S3B monster or some such. You never know :)

The 20D gems was just an idea. Anything between 15-20 would work IMO.

[NooBliss]

Just ran three quick tests, summoning 10 tartarians every time.

First test: a mute Tartarian spirit (E2D1) with one arm and a never-healing wound, 3 feebleminded tartarian spirits. Very, very lucky to have 4 commander tartarians, but only one of them is half-decent.
Second test: Two feebleminded cyclopes, one of them without an arm.
Third test: One crippled, feeble-minded, one-armed female titan, one unblemished A2E3 titan.

In other words: 30 mage-turns, a heapload of death gems. One top-notch SC, one adequate SC, lots of cripples.
I am not sure what to think about it.

[Jarkko]

Just ran three quick tests, summoning 10 tartarians every time.

First test: a mute Tartarian spirit (E2D1) with one arm and a never-healing wound, 3 feebleminded tartarian spirits. Very, very lucky to have 4 commander tartarians, but only one of them is half-decent.
Second test: Two feebleminded cyclopes, one of them without an arm.
Third test: One crippled, feeble-minded, one-armed female titan, one unblemished A2E3 titan.

In other words: 30 mage-turns, a heapload of death gems. One top-notch SC, one adequate SC, lots of cripples.
I am not sure what to think about it.
And then if you have the chalice of GoH, you would read that as 8 SC's and 22 damn great meatshields. Sure, you can't plan your strategy on getting either of those, but as death nation I would make it *very* high priority to get either, because they have such massive synergy with tarts.

I agree with Wraithlord that the tart-nerfs (except the not-GoRable, not being able the best thing done to tarts IMO :) ) should be rolled back. The insanity for tarts is thematic, but it should be lower chance. The price should be slightly higher, 15-20D sounds to me too as a good price.

[NooBliss]

There was something about Chalice and GoH not healing Tartarians.

[Soyweiser]

I am not sure what to think about it.

Wow, you could also have had 10 liches for the same amount of gems. Who can probably beat your rag tag army of 30 dead gods...

[Jarkko]

There was something about Chalice and GoH not healing Tartarians.
There was? Could you please point me where to look, as I seem to have missed that?

[thejeff]

I still maintain the fundamental problem with Tartarians is the afflictions. More specifically, that at most two nations can heal the afflictions.

If you price them for those nations, then they're too expensive for everyone else. If you price them for everyone else, those two get hordes of cheap SCs. Removing the afflictions would be the best solution, but I don't think that's possible.

I actually think the GoR change makes it worse. Previously boosting the cost of GoR allowed you to change the cost of only the useful tarts. Whoever had GoR or the Chalice could heal them all and GoR as many as they could afford, but other nations could summon them, but only GoR the non-feebleminded ones, lowering their cost per useful tart.

Now the cost is the same, but without Chalice/GoH you get roughly a quarter as many useful ones.

[NooBliss]

There was something about Chalice and GoH not healing Tartarians.
There was? Could you please point me where to look, as I seem to have missed that?

Well, I was answering to WL's idea of non-healable, non-GoRable unnerfed tarts. :)

[Jarkko]

I still maintain the fundamental problem with Tartarians is the afflictions. More specifically, that at most two nations can heal the afflictions.

If you price them for those nations, then they're too expensive for everyone else. If you price them for everyone else, those two get hordes of cheap SCs. Removing the afflictions would be the best solution, but I don't think that's possible.

I actually think the GoR change makes it worse. Previously boosting the cost of GoR allowed you to change the cost of only the useful tarts. Whoever had GoR or the Chalice could heal them all and GoR as many as they could afford, but other nations could summon them, but only GoR the non-feebleminded ones, lowering their cost per useful tart.

Now the cost is the same, but without Chalice/GoH you get roughly a quarter as many useful ones.


Good points! Maybe make the chalice a level 6 item but increase the price by *lots*? The tarts could then be balanced around the idea that they will be eventually healed.

[Soyweiser]

Good points! Maybe make the chalice a level 6 item but increase the price by *lots*? The tarts could then be balanced around the idea that they will be eventually healed.

That would also remove disease as a problem everywhere. Reduce the use of rain of toads disease demon, C'tis dominion, and others. And it would make it easier to tart spam. (As you would need 2 research levels less).

You would fix hole by digging a new one.

I think by reducing the shattered soul 25 to 10 a lot of issues would be solved. And that is moddable.

[thejeff]

Or simply remove the Chalice. It has other uses, but overwhelmingly it's for tarts.
Edit: As Soyweiser says, disease (and old age) would be much less of a problem.

GoH isn't as much of a problem, since it's visible and easier to get rid of.

Then you could balance around them not being healed.

Either approach could work. I'm a little weirded out by the idea of non-unique Chalice, but mechanically it should work.


Reducing Shattered Soul doesn't change the fundamental problem as I see it. Anymore than changing the cost does. The problem is that Tarts are overwhelmingly better for whoever can heal them than for those who can't. The loss of GoR makes it worse.

[Jarkko]

Good points! Maybe make the chalice a level 6 item but increase the price by *lots*? The tarts could then be balanced around the idea that they will be eventually healed.

That would also remove disease as a problem everywhere. Reduce the use of rain of toads disease demon, C'tis dominion, and others. And it would make it easier to tart spam. (As you would need 2 research levels less).
Rain of toads is an early/mid game spell, which you do to destroy income (the disease is a slightly benefical side effect). Disease demon doesn't properly work. MA C'tis (together with EA C'tis) is one of the nations hit most hard by tarts being useless now, so if they could spam tarts, so much better for them. With the exception of making tarts spammable, all the other things can already now be fixed with Fairie Queens; in effect making the chalice non-unique would just affect tarts and other undeads compared to the situation now.

But you are right. Fixing by making chalice non-unique would dig up new, even more horrible problems. Then again, I really meant making the price of the chalice *lots* (maybe I should have typed that as *LOTS* to make it more apparent what I meant) more expensive. Like something you would whimper if you had to craft even one, even if your neighbour payed half of the price.

EDIT: thejeff's comment about old age is a valid one. Then again, old age can be circumvented already now.

[Soyweiser]

How is disease demon bugged? I used it extensively in BootCamp. Work pretty well.

And Diseasing 5% of a army is a rather nice effect. Sure it will not kill them now. But in a few turns it will thin out, get afflictions etc. Mages need regen items, or you need GoH, or the Chalice. Of course you never cast one rain of toads. You cast it that often that there are no toads anymore in the whole world. Toadicide! It is only 10 slaves. Disease demon is more expensive.

Edit: Fixing old age would be a nice benefit indeed. :).

About the *LOTS* remark, remember that price is linked to paths, so increasing the Chalice to N6S5 (now n4s3) it would cost 65N and 40S. But it would also require very large paths. I don't know if these are even accessible to C'tis, if balancing those nations is your plan. (And rushing to con8 would still be useful just to get a hammer :)).

Anybody ever try out what happens when you have multiple chalices in a game?

[NooBliss]

Or you could make Chalice non-unique, make Tarts GoRable again and increase their cost to, say, 30D.
Taking additional expenses into account, that should them on par with other SCs.

And on unrelated topic... how often do you see Flame Arrows in mp? Without CBM it's much easier to cast, and very effective. With CBM, I believe I've only seen it once. Also, they are F4 and Enchantment 5. Arrow fend, which makes FA obsolete, is much easier to cast and just a bit harder to research.
I think they are quite overnerfed.

[thejeff]

Another problem with making the Chalice cost LOTS (which it would need to) is that you can't do that without giving it really high path requirements. (6S6N)?
So most nations won't be able to forge it without a specially designed pretender.

Hard to make it common enough to let everyone access tarts and rare enough to not affect anything else...


Edit: Ninjas. Ninjas everywhere.

[Soyweiser]

Or you could make Chalice non-unique

Does the word 'lore' ring any bells?

[kianduatha]

Tartarians are fairly luck-based right now and far more testing needs done to figure out how much they should be altered--in my testing afflictions were much rarer on commanders and only one out of 5 or so was disabled due to them, not the other way around.

[NooBliss]

Does the word 'lore' ring any bells?

Removing clams, hammers and sdr's, removing the astral part from obviously astral items, adding new stuff and making tartarian exiles impossible to restore already ruined it in my opinion, so I wont mind seeing Chalice non-unique. :D Or anything else.

[WraithLord]

I'm not sure I'm following you.
I still maintain the fundamental problem with Tartarians is the afflictions. More specifically, that at most two nations can heal the afflictions.

Which nations?- AFAIK only GoH and chalice can heal undead.


If you price them for those nations, then they're too expensive for everyone else. If you price them for everyone else, those two get hordes of cheap SCs. Removing the afflictions would be the best solution, but I don't think that's possible.

The afflictions are not that bad. Even feeblemind are comparable and better than say Ettin.


I actually think the GoR change makes it worse. Previously boosting the cost of GoR allowed you to change the cost of only the useful tarts. Whoever had GoR or the Chalice could heal them all and GoR as many as they could afford, but other nations could summon them, but only GoR the non-feebleminded ones, lowering their cost per useful tart.

I disagree. GoR gave you much much more ROI in terms of diversity even w/o chalice. In-fact I made it a habit not to rush for chalice and not squabble over GoH. In two games that I won I summoned many tarts and just GoRed some to get lots of good stuff.
The chalice is a different matter. I agree that it's problematic. I agree it should be seriously increase price and requirement raised. The main stream tart strat. should be optimal w/o it. Only players that would choose (and pay for) being able to forge it will benefit from it (but pay for it in pretender design and # turns to RoI huge chalice investment)


Now the cost is the same, but without Chalice/GoH you get roughly a quarter as many useful ones.
My point. They are still good. Just lower crazy factor and up price a bit.
If they could be made unhealable then it would be perfect.

[Calahan]

Wraith is asleep today I see :)

I'm not sure I'm following you.
I still maintain the fundamental problem with Tartarians is the afflictions. More specifically, that at most two nations can heal the afflictions.

Which nations?- AFAIK only GoH and chalice can heal undead.

The nation who has GoH up = 1 nation
The nation that has the Chalice = 1 nation

Hence, "at most two nations can heal the afflictions" :)

[WraithLord]

GoH up => Overwrite it.
Chalice forged => Wish it.
(So the two nations claim is based on false base assumption - that they are immutable and can exclusively abuse said mechanism)

:)

That said, chalice is still too cheap and GoH as well probably.

Edit:
Oh, and I ain't asleep, just a long day at work and still haven't had a good evenings pampering of hot bath, cool beer etc :-)

[thejeff]

If you price them for those nations, then they're too expensive for everyone else. If you price them for everyone else, those two get hordes of cheap SCs. Removing the afflictions would be the best solution, but I don't think that's possible.

The afflictions are not that bad. Even feeblemind are comparable and better than say Ettin.
Those that have full slots, maybe. Feeblemind also cuts mr. I'm not sure offhand what Ettin mr is.



I actually think the GoR change makes it worse. Previously boosting the cost of GoR allowed you to change the cost of only the useful tarts. Whoever had GoR or the Chalice could heal them all and GoR as many as they could afford, but other nations could summon them, but only GoR the non-feebleminded ones, lowering their cost per useful tart.

I disagree. GoR gave you much much more ROI in terms of diversity even w/o chalice. In-fact I made it a habit not to rush for chalice and not squabble over GoH. In two games that I won I summoned many tarts and just GoRed some to get lots of good stuff.

I think we may be agreeing here. I've used much the same strategy. Summon many tarts, GoR those w/o feeblemind. With the new changes that doesn't work: You summon a lot of tarts, but only a fraction are commanders, and only a fraction of those aren't feebleminded. GoR doesn't work on them, so you don't get to pick which ones you put the rest of the investment into.



Now the cost is the same, but without Chalice/GoH you get roughly a quarter as many useful ones.
My point. They are still good. Just lower crazy factor and up price a bit.
If they could be made unhealable then it would be perfect.

They can be made unhealable. Remove Chalice and GoH from the game.

Making them better and more expensive doesn't help, nor does making them worse and cheaper, because neither changes the balance between those who can heal them and those who can't. Before you could pay roughly half the cost upfront (Gate) and then only pay the rest (GoR) on those that were worth it. Now you have to pay the whole cost upfront. That changes the balance. Without Chalice/GoH you now pay just as much for roughly 1/4 the SCs, before you only paid the GoR cost for the SC ones.

[WraithLord]

*one hot bath later ;) *

Yeap. We do actually partly (fully?) agree. I see that :D

Let's break it down to three discordant factors:
A. GoR. check. 1.8 nailed that.
B. GoH. Yes. Too good Synergy, too cheap. But - at risk of overwrite and total loss of (GoH) investment. In your avg MP game you'd see GoH change hands precisely for that reason.
C. Chalice. Yes. Too good, way too cheap. Should be much more pricey. But- can be wished. Have you ever participated in a chalice wish war?- I have - It's for real.

So, A is overnerf of tarts. Some sort of compensation is needed for such supposedly bad-*** monsters. I mean dom would be poorer w/o them and at 1.8 settings they may become a rare sight.
B+C should be addressed as well by CBM though IMHO are less acute than A.

Now comes D into play: namely EDM and it's summons, by light of which death centric nations are, as of 1.8, at a disadvantage in the high end SC/Diversity summons section.

[kianduatha]

*one hot bath later ;) *

Yeap. We do actually partly (fully?) agree. I see that :D

Let's break it down to three discordant factors:
A. GoR. check. 1.8 nailed that.
B. GoH. Yes. Too good Synergy, too cheap. But - at risk of overwrite and total loss of (GoH) investment. In your avg MP game you'd see GoH change hands precisely for that reason.
C. Chalice. Yes. Too good, way too cheap. Should be much more pricey. But- can be wished. Have you ever participated in a chalice wish war?- I have - It's for real.

So, A is overnerf of tarts. Some sort of compensation is needed for such supposedly bad-*** monsters. I mean dom would be poorer w/o them and at 1.8 settings they may become a rare sight.
B+C should be addressed as well by CBM though IMHO are less acute than A.

Now comes D into play: namely EDM and it's summons, by light of which death centric nations are, as of 1.8, at a disadvantage in the high end SC/Diversity summons section.

But...you're saying in the same breath that Chalice/GoH are 'too good' for their effects on Tartarians and that EDM makes Tartarians an inferior choice. You can't have everyone simultaneously rushing to the Chalice/GoH for Tartarians *and* not even bother with Tartarians. If the majority of nations don't particularly care about Tartarians because they have other options, then there won't be such a rush to the Chalice...it'll just be a race among the Death-centric nations, most of which have other options as well. Right?

[Jarkko]

I am starting to think Possession might be slightly broken.

If you use Possess with a mage that is on the hero chart, then you can also mummify the hero back. Slightly schizo situation, the hero is both a mummy and the possessed unit, at the same time. Although techincally you see the hero with both the new name (the possesseds name) and the old name (the mummy). I suppose that is ok, although it sure feels odd when you think about it (perhaps not worth thinking too much :p ).

The best thing: If the unit you possess has seen many fights (like tough units tend to do, and incidently it will be a tough unit you want to possess), it instantly rockets to hero status. Again that is technically ok I guess, but I sure felt my jaw drop when I saw that :eek:

[WraithLord]

"If the majority of nations don't particularly care about Tartarians because they have other options, then there won't be such a rush to the Chalice...it'll just be a race among the Death-centric nations, most of which have other options as well. Right?"
That is a big if and remains to be seen. That said, I tend to think this is exactly what will happen, but here there's something much better than speculation: just wait a bit for real MP feedback re. post 1.8 Tarts.

[iRFNA]

I am starting to think Possession might be slightly broken.

If you use Possess with a mage that is on the hero chart, then you can also mummify the hero back. Slightly schizo situation, the hero is both a mummy and the possessed unit, at the same time. Although techincally you see the hero with both the new name (the possesseds name) and the old name (the mummy). I suppose that is ok, although it sure feels odd when you think about it (perhaps not worth thinking too much :p ).

The best thing: If the unit you possess has seen many fights (like tough units tend to do, and incidently it will be a tough unit you want to possess), it instantly rockets to hero status. Again that is technically ok I guess, but I sure felt my jaw drop when I saw that :eek:

This makes me want to create some sort of possession mummy chain. Like possess a unit, get in the HoF, empower it 1 astral, possess a new unit, mummify the HoF unit, repeat. I'm not sure if it'd be very practical but it would amuse me greatly.

Actually, wait.. Don't the mummies come back with magic? Or is that only twiceborn? Which leads me to my next question: can an undead mage possess something?

[Corinthian]

Also, the race for the artifacts kinda got well much less important.
Even if you manage to hit construction 8 first it doesn't matter as you certainly won't have enough gems to make proper boosters and than the important stuff you need/want, even with very high site frequency which coshes more problems that it solves.

The thing about rushing to const 8 was that you had to sacrifice a lot to get there first. If you rush construction and get attacked in the meantime there's a good chance you won't ever make it there as you'll be dead since you wasted research on construction rather than summons and battle spells to defend or attack.

And even if you hit construction 8 first, ok, you managed to get a few good artifacts before you blew all your gems away, so now what?


Yea. This is what happened to C'tis in the game we are in BTW. They had awesome research. Highest of any nation by a good margin. But terrible everything else. And when I attacked them the best thing they could put up against me was skelly spam, witch I was prepared for and could counter. They must have bet it all on the artifact/Tart race and spent all that research on construction/conjuration.

And yea. I think I was the third guy to get const 8 and there were still many useful artifacts left by then.

If the majority of nations don't particularly care about Tartarians because they have other options, then there won't be such a rush to the Chalice...it'll just be a race among the Death-centric nations, most of which have other options as well. Right?"
That is a big if and remains to be seen. That said, I tend to think this is exactly what will happen, but here there's something much better than speculation: just wait a bit for real MP feedback re. post 1.8 Tarts.

Tartarians are actually kind of meh right now unless you have the chalice or GoH up.
In the same game I have actually had both the research and the mages to summon tartarians for a couple of turns now. But because I have neither of the above ways of healing them, I have felt that my mages and boosters time were more usefully spent doing other things.

Like sending ghost riders at people. I never quite understood why they halved the cost of it. Those things are nasty!

[Jarkko]

Actually, wait.. Don't the mummies come back with magic? Or is that only twiceborn? Which leads me to my next question: can an undead mage possess something?

Yes, mummies have all magic paths. Yes, undead mages can possess. Yes, dead mummy heroes can be re-mummified.

[Makinus]

The possession "bug" can be fixed by simply changing the name/description of the spell to "Mind Clone" or something other and changing the description that the mage clones his mind in the target unit, making it a commander, but the original body dies in the process... so the "cloned" commander would not be the original unit, only a copy, and the original could be mummyfied to bring it back....

[WraithLord]

Any suggestions on good use for possession as LA Man?

[NooBliss]

Abominations?

[Jarkko]

Some more things on Possession, so that they do not come as suprise.

You can possess mercenaries. For example, yes, it means a nation who can possess and grabs the Eternal Knigts will absolutely 100% certainly possess the knights (who doesn't love super-knigts who also are H2 priestsm, for the cost of one astral pearl each?).

You can possess indies, of course. In case you didn't know, a Shark Knight thug is pretty nasty (give him a shield of gleaming gold, lucky amulet, some AoE weapon and watch the carnage; for giggles I tried a Shark Knight (admittedly with Holy Scourge (and a lucky amulet)) against a Fire-brand equipped Bane Lord, and to my amazement the Shark Knight won without a scratch).

Anyway, Possession will give Man and Bogarus all new possibilities for thugs. For Ulm Possession does feel slightly too good, what with their cheap astral mages and strong bloodeconomy (demon and devil thugs are pretty darn good).

[Jarkko]

Any suggestions on good use for possession as LA Man?
Gargoyle of course. Any mercs with good units (I mentioned Eternal Knights above), LA Man should have the money to grab any of the good mercs. Crusher, maybe even living statues. If you find cheap astral mages (like the sage guild) you could possess a couple Longbowmen -> give the other Black Bow of Botulf and the other Ethereal Crossbow, and send them SC hunting (they'll always hit the target, with a few exp stars their precission will be ridiculous), the enemy will see just "Longbowmen" in the scouting report and won't see the trap.

[Soyweiser]

I like that you are on a possession/GoR high. But I don't totally agree with all your conclusions, some sound a bit, inefficient. I would rather get a Sleeper to fire the crossbow. Prec 15. Good thug chassis, great leadership, only 8 gems, and your mage lives. :)

Did you find any other units that have hidden magical paths? (These I have found so far: http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Gift_of_Reason )

And you can confirm that the mercenary doesn't disappear when you stop hiring them? (Aka, you tested this?).

And what was the disease demon bug?

And while I keep asking questions, could I have a water gem?

[Makinus]

I´m having fun with LA Ulm and possession.... using Illuminated Ones to possess experienced Black Guards is cool... they go straight to the Hall of Fame and get a heroic ability... excelent thugs....

[kianduatha]

QM put out 1.82 for the brave of heart, mostly bugfixes(and cheaper Tarts!) http://www.llamaserver.net/quantum/

Log:

Proofreading (only some bits in the end)
Added spell "Drain Magic" for MA Ulm
Added spell "Blessing of Iron" for MA Ulm
Carrion dragon gained vine shield-like ability
Carrion Woods for EA and MA Pangaea is now Enchantment 6, costs 90 gems
Carrion Woods for LA Pangaea is now Enchantment 0, costs 50 gems
Mass Polymorph gained an AOE (10)
Blowpipe removed from Sapper (has Pickaxe and Crossbow again)
Niklatu bug fixed (id 266 -> 379)
Flood of Life bug fixed (was accidentally Astral)
Fire Bola now a fire item again (was Astral)
Duskdagger bug fixed (was not changed by mod because of typo)
Lord of the Wild given spreaddom 2 like other titans
Fixed MANY typos and minor bugs spotted by Stavis_L (from CBM 1.7 thread)
Fixed Shura upkeep bug
Restored iceprot and ressize 2 to some Caelum units which had lost them
Manticore given new "Tail Spines" ranged attack (pioneered by the AwesomeGods mod but independently suggested)
Manticore prot increased to 10 (from 7)
Fixed Wayward Star (missing ")
Commented spells which were meant to be commented out
Iron Walls cost up to 3 gems
Tartarian Gate reduced to 8 gems
Phantasmal Attack actually 4 gems
Phantasmal Army 1 gem (was 2)
Greater Augury also requires 1s (was bugged)

1.81 changelog errors:

Robe of invulnerability made e4
Golden lance (not golden spear) given false fetters

[Jarkko]

And you can confirm that the mercenary doesn't disappear when you stop hiring them? (Aka, you tested this?).
Yes, tested and confirmed. I tried with several different mercs (not just the eternal knights).

And what was the disease demon bug?
The more troops there are present in the province, the less relatively get diseased. I thought it was a percentage, but anecdotal evidence proves it is not (at least after some critical point). The disease demon is one of those things that sound wonderful when you read the description, then you wonder why you went and wasted the resources on the thing...

And while I keep asking questions, could I have a water gem?
Sorry, just ice-crystals around here at this time of the year.


A Sleeper of course is better SC hunter than a lowly Longbowman. There are two problems though:
1) LA Man has no mages who could summon a Sleeper, and no indy N mages either can summon a Sleeper. So you need to have a pretender who can do that. Not to mention you desperately need your nature gems elsewhere. Compare that to the price of an astral pearl and a mage worth less than 100 gold (like I said, only worth it if you have access to some cheap astral mages).
2) Enemy will see the Sleepers in scouting reports. Anybody with half a brain might suspect something if all of the sudden they see Sleepers in a province next to a SC; meanwhile Longbowmen are what you are *supposed* to see in a scouting report in a Man province :)

[Jarkko]

Excellent to see the 1.82 released. My pet-peeves seem to have been fixed too, yay :)

[Soyweiser]

And what was the disease demon bug?
The more troops there are present in the province, the less relatively get diseased. I thought it was a percentage, but anecdotal evidence proves it is not (at least after some critical point). The disease demon is one of those things that sound wonderful when you read the description, then you wonder why you went and wasted the resources on the thing...

Methinks you are confusing http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Harvester_of_Sorrows with http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Infernal_Disease

The hiding the special longbowmen is a nice trick. Still don't like to permanently lose a mage for that btw. As you also lose all their RP potential for the rest of the game.

[kianduatha]

But...you could just recruit a Forester who has the same precision and doesn't require killing an astral mage to get. And is stealthy.

[Peter Ebbesen]

But...you could just recruit a Forester who has the same precision and doesn't require killing an astral mage to get. And is stealthy.
True, but if a forester is set as part of a trap for SCs he won't be hiding and may show up on the scouting report.

So while the niché for using possessed longbowmen with anti-SC weaponry as part of a trap is rather small, the cost is small too - 1s and an astral mage.

But hardly a mainstream strategy. :D

[WraithLord]

CBM 1.82 "forest of a thousand eyes" descr:
"The sorceror reaches makes a connection through the spiders of the forest he occupies to the spiders of a distant forest."

Is the bold part a valid English phrase?

[WraithLord]

Hey, I'm all for giving Machaka power since it was seriously UP but, isn't foul sacrifice too much?

It costs as little as 4N, 80 gold and one turn of mage recruitment to get 5 hunter spiders. Combine that with F9 or W9 or both bless and the fact that it's pre researched (lvl 0).

Is there something I'm missing since them hunters are solid all around unit with only possible weakness of size and mediocre+ MR.

On the good side: I love the nice touch of extra power to the sorceress.

I'm really curious how will Machaka do in MP post 1.82. I have a feeling that players expecting the old weakling nation are in for a nasty surprise :)

[Jarkko]

Oh, it summons black spiders? Oooh. I thought from the description is the grey ones, and thought the spells is pretty meh.

Hmm. Interesting :)

[WraithLord]

You get a small ver. of them hunters, then on the next turn they grow to full size. It's pretty amazing and I'd really like to hear accounts of how 1.8 Machake fares in MP.

I tried it in SP and IMO it's seriously more powerful than before as a result of a number of additions and small touches.

[WraithLord]

Yucks, I failed MR resist check for the spell "possession by greater pedantic spirit" :shock:

Some more typos (bold):

"The Divine Emperor is the ruler of the Empire. He is the son of the previous Emperor, who was deified upon death. As the Son of God, he has great power. With power comes arrogance and now the Son of God claims godhood himself. The Divine Emperor is not a warrior and travels only by palanquin. In battle, the Emperor's presence inspires fananticism and bravery."

"The Bandar are large, black apes who tower over their fellow apes and monkeys. The colour of their caste is red, the colour of blood and war. The Bandar are the warrior caste and although few in number command great influence. The Rakshasas allow lesser Bandar kings to rule the monkey people. The axe is a weapon used only by the Rajas. Unlike the sword it is not a noble weapon in and of itself, but it comes with the power to execute, a power of the king. Fear of retribution inspires brave deeds from the Raja's troops in battle."

"
The Father of Winter likes it cold and his physical power increases in cold provinces. He is constantly surrounded by a large whirlwind of snow that will freeze anyone nearby. He is a master of the magics of Winter, and the freezing wind of the north.
"

"
The Lord of the Summer Plague is a titan claiming dominion over the summer heat. With the heat comes drought and famine, plague and pestilence. The lion-headed Lord is a god of death, while his bow strikes men with sure and deadly illness.
" (double space)

"
Cave Drakes are huge reptiles that are almost imprevious to damage. This Cave Drake has been trained to warfare by some Agarthan master trainer with the aid of a magical whip. They are scarred, fierce and quite ill-tempered from the constant whippings, becoming enraged at slightest provocation.
"

"
Daidalos is a genius who crafts automatons and strange devices. His engineering skills earned him his place as head of Lykeion. He perfected the winged harness, which he named after his unfortunate son, that the soldiers use in battle. He built the great maze that protected Asterios during his early years. Daidalos is very good at crafting Mechanical Men and Clockwork Horrors, which he builds in his spare time.
" I actually don't get what this sentence was supposed to mean and not sure it's syntactically valid :)

"
The Coral King is the oldest living reef dweller, rivalling the age of many of the Basalt Kings. His magical skill and respect among the reef dwellers are sources of great suspicion for the Basalt Kings, but he has proved too useful to be done away with. Coral crafting is his invention, and he has gained great skill in it over the years.
"

"
The Future Queen is the most influential of the Basalt Queens. She is able to see the future in her dreams and prevent bad events in the province where she resides. She is a strong-willed leader of the atlantean race and very resistant to all forms of magical coercion. Recently she has seem some disturbing dreams of an alien race and unreal horrors dominating the seas. The Future Queen has now stopped dreaming and has come to serve the Awakening God to prevent the vision.
" seen?

IIRC from english classes, shouldn't all "atlantean" be changed to "Atlantean"?
There are many such mistakes and I could post them here as well.

"
Uru'gallu is a lizard of few friends. He has served as a mercenary in several kingdoms and never cared abut the politics of the lizard kings. Recently, Uru'gallu became aware of the rise of Pretenders and decided that if he was to live under the yoke of godhood it would not be the yoke of a pink human god with xenophobic priests. Uru'gallu is tremendously strong and his scales are thicker than any known in C'tis. It is said that his mother mated with an alligator, but few actually believe it. He fights with his jaws and morningstar of black iron, and always wears black scale mail.
"

Unfortunately, there seem to be more such glitches. QM/llama, would you like me to post them?

[Festin]

The colour of their caste is red, the colour of blood
It is British spelling, as opposed to American "color". Both are correct. Or is there some other mistake I fail to see?

[WraithLord]

Nope. I'm used to American spelling and wasn't aware of British spelling :)

[llamabeast]

WraithLord (and others) - please do post any typos you find, I will hunt them down! (Already fixed the ones you listed and am about to submit them to qm.)

[WraithLord]

Cool.

BTW, I gave the foul sacrifice some thought and I guess it's ok.

Yes. It costs as 4N + 80 gold and you get 5 hunters after three turns (a- recruit mage, b- cast, c- wait a turn for them to grow).
Compare to just recruit them which costs 400g and one turn and not losing a turn for mage recruitment.

Now, imagine the surprise when the enemy beseiges your research center and then all of a sudden you sacrifice your researchers to get an army of W9/F9 hunters :D

More typos:
"
This warrior belongs to a group of C'tissian mercenaries serving under the hero Uru'gallu. They are tough elite slave warriors who have survived many combats alongside their commander. Although Uru'gallu is not an especially charismatic leader, he does not care for the social status of his fighters and treats them better than most commanders of C'tis. They have tough scales like their master and are better equipped with shields and helmets. They call themselves 'The Sons of the Alligator' as a crude joke towards the ill rumor concerning Uru'gallu's mother.
"
double space

"
The tribe of Levi are known for their fanaticism and religious fervor. It is the only tribe allowed to train priests. Sometimes a particularly pious Levite emerges to claim prophethood and lead other Levites. These Nabi'im are not trained in the temple and are regarded with some suspicion by the Gittites. To secure faith and loyalty, they are given the outfit of a Kohen Gadol. The Nabi'im's fervor is such they spread dominion wherever they tread, and bands of Levite zealots follow them to the ends of the earth.
" is

"
The Goliath of Gath is the greatest warrior in the realm. He is the champion of the Gibborim, the mighty men, and stands taller than even the Serens of the Palace of the Sage King. The Goliath loves to pound lesser foes to the ground as he mocks their gods. He is utterly ungodly, sprouting heresies and desecrating icons of false faiths whenever possible. It is rumoured that he has some blood of the Nephilim flowing in his veins and that he was fathered by one of the three Sons of Anak. The Goliath is a skilled and strong warrior that has not lost a single battle, and in his arrogance refuses to wear a helmet.
"

"
The mysterious Trickster is an ancient half-giant, birthed in a time long past when the Jotuns and Vanir married one another. He took part in the war against Aesir and fathered three monstrous children with Angerbodå. The Trickster is gifted with cunning and is skilled in crafting illusions. He loves to play seemingly random tricks and pranks on those around him. But beneath his trickery lies a sinister plan, for he has been prophesied to play a great part in the war of gods. Pantokrator imprisoned him by poison, but now he has escaped and come to serve the awakening god to fulfil his destiny. The Trickster is a skilled sorcerer and a master of illusions. He can spread chaos and confusion amongst the enemy ranks. However, his mischievous pranks will cause unrest in the province where he resides.
"

"
Hashi Saburo is the legendary leader of the Aka-Oni Samurai company. Saburo and his companions painted their armors red and tricked their enemies to believe that they were Red Devils of the night. His bravery and cunning is widely known and his company is almost fanatically loyal. Hashi Saburo wears a red demon mask that has been enchanted by a powerful Shugenja to induce fear in enemy troops.
" Should it start capital?

"
The Kharahasara is a Rakshasa, a demon-ogre of Lanka. Smaller than other Rakshasa, Kharahasara are men with the features of rabbits, strong, hardy and swift of foot. Though smaller than other Rakshasa, they are quick and defeat their opponents through cunning and skill rather than brute force. They are sneaky and mischievous creatures and they do not eat flesh, preferring grasses, shoots and flowers. However, they eagerly seek young human girls, but do not devour them. Instead, they spirit them away for a time, after which the girls are permitted to wander home, dazed, dishevelled and often pregnant. They are also skilled in the magics of nature and air to play their mischievous tricks. They are considered sacred to the monkey people.
"

"
Angelique was a simple peasant girl who witnessed the destruction of her home village at the hands of the Inquisition. Before the blazing flames, she swore to avenge her family. For years she fought the Inquisition as best she could, be it alone or with brigands. But a horrible incident changed her utterly; after witnessing her brigand friends feasting upon the flesh of a slain Friar, she abandoned them and went to the Inquisition to confess her sins. She was tested in the House of Just Fires and was deemed righteous and given absolution. Angelique now serves the Inquisition with a burning hatred of Ermorian heretics. She has killed dozens upon dozens of Ghouls and has slowly become immune to their poisoneus claws.
"

[Jarkko]

WraithLord, Dominions 3 uses British spelling in the game. You seem to list british spelling as typos, while I believe it is actually the american spelling that should be considered typos in this case for the sake of consistency :)

[WraithLord]

Fair enough.Currently I am knowledgeable to the fact that "colour" is British spelling of color. cool. What else that I listed?- Surely not all typos are due to British spelling unless you want to imply that hunting poisoneus snakes are a fulfiling activity for the average British ;)

[Jarkko]

Fair enough.Currently I am knowledgeable to the fact that "colour" is British spelling of color. cool. What else that I listed?- Surely not all typos are due to British spelling unless you want to imply that hunting poisoneus snakes are a fulfiling activity for the average British ;)
Rumoured, fulfil, company and dishevelled are all proper words and grammatically correct.

You might also want to check out online dictionaries, or for example even the Wiki article on the matter :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

I hope that fulfils your needs :)

[llamabeast]

I thought dominions used American spelling?

[WraithLord]

:lol Maybe it uses Klingon spelling ;)

Jarrko, thanks for the spelling tip. I can now consult with a British spelling dictionary when fishing for typos.
However, the decision which spelling to use belongs to CBM gods (who hopefully be inline with IW gods intentions).

llamabeast, by which spelling net would you like typos to be fished?

[Jarkko]

I thought dominions used American spelling?
Now that you mention it, it has always bugged me why colour is color half the time in Dom3... The Sword of Many Colors, national color etc. Then again, colour is used for stuff like skin colour (C'tis Desert rangers), chosen colour (like the apes of Bandar Log, or the tribes of Gath).

Maybe even the devs are not sure wether to use American or British spelling?

[Makinus]

just an update on the new "Possession" spell: it is useless with mercenaries...

You get the mercenary troop as a commander and it remains with you after the mercenary contract ends, but you cannot assign any unit for it to command (so leadership status is useless) and it will disappear the first time it enters combat (it does not show up on the combat, it just disappears)...

I do not see it as a bug, as non-mercenary units got using "Possession" work normally, more as a "feature" so you cannot abuse the spell to get all Eternal Knight for example....

[Soyweiser]

Wait, but who said that it did work?

[Jarkko]

Errr, what? I definitively used Possession on mercs and they didn't disappear anywhere. Which merc did you test with to get that result?

[Makinus]

Eternal Knights, with LA Ulm, using Loemedor map... They only disappear when they enter a battle...

Attached is the savegame, only CBM mod enabled with the Loemedor map...