Conceptual Balance Mod 1.84

[llamabeast]

Just a very small update (with quantum mechani's permission of course). Here's the changelog:

Fixed bug where attacking an Ember Lord could cause blindness
Tweaked EDM stuff to reduce chance of mod clashes
Tir Na n'Og's spell Song of Power was Enchantment 0 instead of 6
Tweaked Machaka's Tiny Spider poison (much weaker but not MR-resists)
Increased fatigue cost of Machaka's "Cursed Shards" spell to 30 to discourage excessive casting into midgame
Increased strength of Machaka's spiders (previous low strength looked like a bug as the fangs got weaker when the rider died)
Tiny buff to Machaka spear damage
Awaken Tarrasque reduced to research level 7
Iassacharite Sybils were missing female tag
Incorporated kianduatha's Jomon mod (http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=191)
Gift of Reason not castable underwater, fixed

[Squirrelloid]

Hey Llama:
No fix for Song of Power being level 0 instead of higher like its supposed to be?

Son of Fenrir still misspelled? Seriously - how many versions do we have to go through before this gets fixed! (that's CBM versions and Dom3 versions, this is appalling from a game made by mythology buffs and played by geeks)

[llamabeast]

Heh, in fact the error was in the changelog. Both of those are in fact fixed.

I don't understand why the "Son of Fenrer" error bothered you though, as the error was only in a comment in the mod! So in-game it was completely correct.

Incidentally I am a keen hunter of typos, so if you find any more let me know.

[Valerius]

Llama, is it too late to change Van encumbrance to 3 instead of 2 (assuming 2 was a typo and not intentional).

[Squirrelloid]

Heh, in fact the error was in the changelog. Both of those are in fact fixed.

I don't understand why the "Son of Fenrer" error bothered you though, as the error was only in a comment in the mod! So in-game it was completely correct.

Incidentally I am a keen hunter of typos, so if you find any more let me know.

Really? I'm sure the game was still showing 'Son of Fenrer'. Maybe that was a CBM 1.6 game and it got fixed in the meantime. (No changelog makes me a sad monkey)

[kianduatha]

Spider Poison is not #armornegating and therefore never does any damage.

Also <3 you're awesome llama!

[llamabeast]

Valerius - I believe Van enc 2 was deliberate - didn't qm change all the van-like races (Vans, Sidhe, Tuatha) to enc 2 and all the giants to enc 3?

kianduatha - on the contrary I just tested it and the poor knights were all knocked out by the poison in seconds!

Also I initially forgot one of the main intended things which was to incorporate kianduatha's Jomon mod - now done.

[SirMu]

This is something I noticed back in 1.83, but Gift of Reason is castable on normal undead, just not on tarts.

[Valerius]

Valerius - I believe Van enc 2 was deliberate - didn't qm change all the van-like races (Vans, Sidhe, Tuatha) to enc 2 and all the giants to enc 3?

He did for the infantry, but they then have armor added to their melee encumbrance value. The mounted units he assigned an encumbrance of 3 (checked and this is the case for all the glamoured commanders as well as EA Van's Mounted Hirdman). I can't say for sure that he didn't intend for the commanders to have base encumbrance 3 and Vans 2 but the fact that the Mounted Hirdman has 3 makes me think this is just a typo.

[Soyweiser]

This is something I noticed back in 1.83, but Gift of Reason is castable on normal undead, just not on tarts.

Are you sure? Because you can still select undead, but the spell simple isn't triggered. (So you commander goes to the default 'defend' command).

[llamabeast]

Valerius - possibly, think this will have to wait for the next version as I have now run out of steam.

Posting a new version seems to prompt a lot of bug reports! I will be more likely to fix them if they come earlier (I am careful to check through the previous thread before releasing a new fix version).

[SirMu]

This is something I noticed back in 1.83, but Gift of Reason is castable on normal undead, just not on tarts.

Are you sure? Because you can still select undead, but the spell simple isn't triggered. (So you commander goes to the default 'defend' command).

Ah, I did not know that. Well, at the very least, they should be removed as a selection option. But I suppose it's not of immediate concern.

[llamabeast]

This is something I noticed back in 1.83, but Gift of Reason is castable on normal undead, just not on tarts.

Are you sure? Because you can still select undead, but the spell simple isn't triggered. (So you commander goes to the default 'defend' command).

Ah, I did not know that. Well, at the very least, they should be removed as a selection option. But I suppose it's not of immediate concern.

Can't be done unfortunately.

[Valerius]

When hammers were removed from CBM there was some discussion as to the impact on thugs of increased forging costs. This is of particular interest to me since thugging is my favorite part of the game. Now that there's been some time to play post-CBM 1.6 games I thought it would be worth talking about this.

My feeling was that removing hammers would really hurt thugs because they need to be equipped affordably, unlike SCs (if I summon an ember lord I'm not going to get cheap on equipping him). Of course if your opponent is using his own thugs to counter yours then his cost has increased as well - but if he's using magic or summons to counter then your position has gotten relatively worse. IMO this is undesirable because thugs were never unbalanced the way you could argue that SCs were/are (and of course because I really like this aspect of the game ;)).

Another factor that has come into play is that there seems to be an increasing number of powerful secondary effects on weapons. I realize weapon modding is more limited than, say, monster modding and that one of the goals of CBM is to make everything somewhat useful (though personally I don't mind some things being "useless" as long as what is useful is fun) but I'm worried that these changes make life even more difficult for thugs. It's a tough thing to balance in that you can use similar tactics against thugs and SCs but an attack that is damaging to an SC can outright kill a thug. Of course I realize they have different roles and I'm not trying to force a thug into an SC role - I'm talking about using them in their traditional raiding role and the threats they face there.

In my opinion the thugging aspect of the game has taken a hit post 1.6. This isn't good or bad, it's just a change. For me, it's bad because that's my favorite aspect of the game. But many others might not care and for people who don't enjoy that aspect of the game it's a good change. But this is just my impressions. I'm curious as to people's experiences. Are you using thugs as frequently as before? Are you seeing your opponents use them as frequently as before?

[Valerius]

A few comments about my experiences playing TNN under CBM 1.83. I used the traditional E9N6 bless because I find it fun. But I planned on reducing my use of thugs because of the increased forging costs. Note however that TNN received some boosts in this release as well (lower encumbrance, better N battle magic, awe on Ri) so these comments are directed not towards them being nerfed but towards a change in emphasis and feedback on which units I used and which I didn't use.

Generally speaking, I thought Ri having awe balanced out the increased forging costs and I used them for thug duties. Of course it depends on the opponent - if your opposition doesn't care about awe then you're in the same boat as Sidhe Lords. And I think Sidhe Lords suffer most. I didn't recruit one the entire game and I can't think why I would. Bean Sidhe cost less, are better researchers and have better magic paths. I suppose if I wanted to send out a thug without equipment or maybe with just a frost brand I might recruit one. But these used to be a mainstay so the fact that I didn't recruit any really stood out to me.

I lean towards removing the awe on Ri/Tuatha and giving TNN/Eriu a forge bonus to help them with thugging. It could even be on a handful of unique summons in order to limit its use. And it's not unthematic if you look at the descriptive text on Lugh and how he had a variety of skills (including forging) that were already present in TNN (just not in one person).

I also recruited fewer Tuatha Sorceresses than usual since I was recruiting more Ri.

I also still don't find Cu Sidhe worthwhile. I want to use these because I like thematic national summons but they just don't seem worth it. Maybe reduce the cost a bit more?

[llamabeast]

Thanks for the comments Valerius, I will go through them carefully.

CB1.9 includes a comprehensive review of items, with many being gently buffed. I think this will somewhat help thugs, and may partially counter the nerf you describe as a result of the hammer loss.

Do you think awe on the Ri is overpowered? I think I read a suggestion somewhere else that it might be.

[Valerius]

Thanks for the comments Valerius, I will go through them carefully.

Thanks for taking the time to read through it! :)

Do you think awe on the Ri is overpowered? I think I read a suggestion somewhere else that it might be.

Hmm, I don't know that I'd go so far as to say it's OP. The EA is a tough neighborhood and in that context I don't think it's off the charts. I can see how some nations could have trouble dealing with it early on and that it would be frustrating but I don't know that it's any more frustrating than being attacked early by Niefel, Mictlan, etc. And I think it's an advantage early and fades as the game goes on and the counters are not fazed by awe. It's also worth noting that (at least with the E9N6 bless I used) it results in a turbo charged expansion. I pulled back because I didn't want to put a "dogpile me" sign on my back but in test games my province count in the first year was as high as any other nation I've played and much higher than I've gotten with TNN previously.

Overall I think the awe is a fair trade for increased forging costs - my concern is the sidelining of Sidhe Lords. So, while it might be for different reasons than those who think it's OP, I also wouldn't be sad to see it go. Where I might differ is that I'd like to see something that keeps thugging a viable option for both Ri and Sidhe Lords (a forge bonus being an easy solution but perhaps there's something else that would work).

I also want to add that as much as I like the thugging aspect of the game having options is very fun and I really do like the changes such as lower encumbrance and better N battlefield magic - things that promote areas besides thugging.

And on a completely different topic, just a reminder about our discussion earlier in the thread regarding the encumbrance on MA Vans.

[LDiCesare]

I found the Ri's lance false fetters much more of an issue than the awe myself. Ris don't get hit even if they are attacked. But the fetters prevent even high morale high attack units from striking them.

[rdonj]

I'm not really sure that sidhe lords should be sidelined though due to them being able to solo PD without any gear, and tuatha sorceresses being somewhat necessary for magic levels. If you're building mostly ri then you'll have a strong force for raiding anyway, but I'm really not sure you actually need to put any gear on your sidhe for just light raiding.

[Valerius]

I'm not really sure that sidhe lords should be sidelined though due to them being able to solo PD without any gear, and tuatha sorceresses being somewhat necessary for magic levels. If you're building mostly ri then you'll have a strong force for raiding anyway, but I'm really not sure you actually need to put any gear on your sidhe for just light raiding.

I'd agree that they can solo a few points of PD without gear but I've found that things get iffy with even middling level PD. The problem being that even with an abbreviated script their post-buff fatigue makes them vulnerable (and I'm assuming an E9Nx bless for reinvigoration and some extra protection as well as regeneration). And without a vine shield to keep attackers off them they end up taking a lot of hits. Without a brand they also can't kill things quickly so the battle goes longer and they take more hits. Even if mistform holds, those 1 HP hits add up.


CB1.9 includes a comprehensive review of items, with many being gently buffed. I think this will somewhat help thugs, and may partially counter the nerf you describe as a result of the hammer loss.

I thought my previous comment about secondary effects on weapons was kind of vague so I thought I'd explain in more detail what worries me about some of the items and perhaps about some of the other intended changes.

I ran some tests on just man's cross under the current release. In one of my previous games playing TNN I had a back-and-forth with TC. One of (many) measures he used against my thugs was equipping cheap mages with black bows of botulf and having them fire away. He ended up feebleminding some thugs with this method and effectively removed them from action. But at least in this case a hit was required for the effect to trigger. With just man's cross the secondary effect is aoe 1 so all that is needed is to hit the opponent's square. And the weapon actually has good precision so the chances of doing that are improved. And the damage is brutal at 15 AN. On average, one hit will kill a glamoured thug. If they've gotten up mistform they can take the first hit, but without mistform they'll be much more likely to die to just PD anyway. Since mistform is so important even 1 AN damage would be tough since it would dispel it - but 15 means that even adding a magic item to boost protection or regeneration to recover from a second hit likely won't matter. Also, this would be great at killing any human level HP elite/sacred troops that are used for raiding. Even raiding units with more HP like the lower end angels would be very much at risk. And this is on an item that only costs 5 gems...

It's the combination of cheap cost, high damage, armor negating damage, good precision, and always taking effect aoe 1, that seems too much to me. If it's an anti-thug/raiding weapon then it seems like it should be less powerful. If it's an anti-SC weapon then it seems like it should be more expensive.

Btw, just for fun I gave one to an NW mage (precision 10) and scripted: eagle eyes, personal quickness, attack one turn, fire. This actually worked very nicely as the mage was able to fire every turn and move forward a bit due to extra action points to continuously get closer to the target, but was still behind the PD as a buffer. The kill rate with this method was 100%.

[llamabeast]

I agree that Just Man's Cross is definitely bugged - kianduatha had already pointed out the crazy AN damage, but I hadn't noticed the AOE1. I think I will remove that as it negates the best counters to missile weapons (shields and air shield). Also the damage is changed to AP. Hopefully it is still a pretty nasty weapon against shieldless undead. Thanks for the report!

[kianduatha]

Oh, yeah. The AN damage was scary because it ignored shields and was AOE, hence the reference to it being a more damaging, aoe Piercer. For the record the Holy Scourge is also AOE-1 and ends up being basically a 2-handed better Fire Brand(which might be okay if the #nostr thing helps it to not do crazy damage)

[Valerius]

I agree that Just Man's Cross is definitely bugged - kianduatha had already pointed out the crazy AN damage, but I hadn't noticed the AOE1. I think I will remove that as it negates the best counters to missile weapons (shields and air shield). Also the damage is changed to AP. Hopefully it is still a pretty nasty weapon against shieldless undead. Thanks for the report!

Thanks again for taking the time to read through the comments and for taking on CBM in the first place after all the other stuff you've already done. :)

Changing the damage to AP helps a lot. 15 AP damage is nothing to laugh at but at least you could equip a thug to maximize protection. You may to give up something else but having to make such decisions is part of the fun and challenge of the game. Removing AOE 1 would of course also help a lot though shields may block it more often than you intend?

Oh, yeah. The AN damage was scary because it ignored shields and was AOE, hence the reference to it being a more damaging, aoe Piercer. For the record the Holy Scourge is also AOE-1 and ends up being basically a 2-handed better Fire Brand(which might be okay if the #nostr thing helps it to not do crazy damage)

I agree; AN damage and AOE 1 are a scary combination. At least the Holy Scourge requires closing to melee range and also requires two hands, but I think it would also lend itself to a similar approach as llama mentioned with just man's cross.


Llama, for both these effects was your intention that this be a dangerous weapon for undead troops, both with and without shields? If that is the case could you change the secondary effect to fire damage and leave the AOE? Relatively few undead have any fire resistance so even if they were buffed to FR 50 they'd still take damage (tripled because of #dt_holy) - however thugs (including undead ones) would be able to invest in FR gear to protect themselves.



I also wanted to mention a different magic item: master/slave matrices. Since I rarely play S nations I've sometimes found these useful to form communions. But items with a 5/5 forging cost take a big jump without hammers, from 6 gems to 10. I don't know if you've gotten other feedback but it's hard for me to see it being worth forging them at that cost. OTOH I like the whole ES crystal magic theme that has magic items as well as a site where you can recruit the mages that invented those items. It occured to me that pricing the slave matrix at 5 S gems and the master matrix at 5E5S would lower the overall price to about the same level as before but also keep the theme somewhat intact.



Also a comment about hammers. I was wary of removing them, especially because I think their removal hit thugging nations hard (nope, I never get tired of lobbying for glamour nations or thugs :p). In one of my current modified rules games I used CBM 1.6 as the basis since I'm most familiar with it and it's the easiest for me to balance when I start changing rules. And after playing several post 1.6 games I realized that I've come to view hammers the same way I viewed gem gens - as a hassle that I just didn't want to bother with. I was reading Calahan's comments in the Tempest thread. He makes some good points and one that applies to me is regarding "casual" players. I'll do my best to win and I'm quite willing to fight to the last province but the most important thing to me is to have fun. And for me, hammers aren't fun. But I can see why people would prefer keeping hammers in the game. One option is to keep playing 1.6. It's a good, stable release. But if you'd like to take advantage of some of the new content then you'll have to modify the current CBM release. Of course anyone can modify CBM as they see fit and start a game but there is an advantage to having a "standard" version that incorporates hammers (for one thing, it makes it easier to recruit players for those games). But, especially with 1.9, making those changes won't be as simple as adding in hammers. You'll also have to restore item pricing (and presumably effects) to account for the existence of hammers. And what about nations that were hit especially hard by their loss and compensated for it? Those changes should probably be removed as well (though perhaps you could avoid this part since I'm guessing most of the compensated nations were low-mid range in power and not the top level). My point being, that it's not reasonable to expect you to maintain branching versions of CBM so I think one or more people would have to take on that task. Well, I ended up rambling when all I was going to say was that I've come to like not having hammers. Sure, balancing items will probably take some time but for me it's a good change.



Ok, one last thing. Vanheim lobbying! TNN/Eriu got some boosts to balance out the removal of hammers but Vanheim has been hit even harder with recent changes. So FWIW here's a list of ideas (only presenting stuff I think thematic): forge bonus for dwarves or maybe forge bonus on dwarven elder heroes (perhaps a reason to take luck with Vanheim?), reduce Van cost at least to original pre-glamour nerf cost of 75 gold, reduce cost on mounted hirdman (maybe 45 gold?), Vanjarl B1 is a lot less useful without SDRs - give dousing bonus or perhaps reduce cost and/or remove B1 and change to something like 25-40% chance of AEDB. Also, I think EA Van probably needs more help than MA given that they've got tougher competition and MA has better sacreds as well as recruit everywhere skinshifters and einheres.

[rdonj]

I could see sidhe lords/vans/etc just take a lower gold cost so they're easier to recruit, and use numbers to help make up for the nerf to effectiveness. Or they could possibly just get slightly better default equipment instead.

While we're on the subject of TNN, what can we do to the mother of tuathas to make anyone ever think to use her as a pretender?

[kasnavada]

On the subject of CBM "changes" and following my comment on the tempest thread...

On a personnal note, I'm not fond of reducing possibilities of a game. Which is what has been done with gem gen and hammers : as Callahan explains, and which I will not repeat. On the tartarian changes, the whole "GoR undead" aspect have been lost just for the sake of ONE unbalanced spell. I do not think that a game should be balanced by removing stuff, it should be done by adding stuff so that other avenues can be explored (much like EDM tried to do). But that's only what I feel, if most others think otherwise I'll bend.

The main thing I dislike about CBM though is that most of it is just undocumented. Which is another reason that makes me feel that CBM is as unbalanced as vanilla, since with so many changes and no documentation but "try every stuff" (and even then, some things can be missed...) it's rather easy to overlook stuff, which makes the game feel unbalanced whether you're doing better than your opponent(s) or the opposite. Not to mention the amount of knowledge needed to play this game well... Some of it was before you took on the project though.

Not that I don't respect the amount of work that has been done. It's just that when I look at what has been done, I'm unable to assess if any work has been done, and when I do look for information, it feels like a lot of reworking of some issues and overlooking of others. And when I play the game, it feels unbalanced. In SP games I crash AIs with "stupid" strategies on some nations while other need finer stuff, and the rather low amount of MP I did start show me mostly the same, with the main difference that diplomacy even things up a lot.

I'm not delusional enough to think "Balance" is universal. There are dozens of solutions to any problem. The problem I'm seeing in your (hard) work is that I can't see a path leading to some idea of balance defined anywhere, and that from my point of view, the work done done on CBM looks "reworking the same stuff again and again" while a lot is just overlooked.

My perspective may be flawed of whatever, but since my last comment was either badly explained or not well understood, I'm trying to get the points I wanted to make here :D.

[Valerius]

While we're on the subject of TNN, what can we do to the mother of tuathas to make anyone ever think to use her as a pretender?

That's a good question. She's the most thematic pretender the nation has but in everything you'd want a pretender to do there's better options. I guess the easiest choice would be to make her more appealing by adding a magic path, reducing path cost, etc.

But what about a different approach of giving her #onebattlespell? Fog Warriors would be OP. Wind Guide, or even Arrow Fend, not appealing enough. What about Antimagic, Relief or maybe even Mass Regeneration? Relief in particular synergizes nicely with the reduced encumbrance on glamour troops and firbolg. I don't know if this by itself would be enough to get me to choose her but maybe combined with another boost (path cost 30?) it would be a viable option.

[rdonj]

On the subject of CBM "changes" and following my comment on the tempest thread...

On a personnal note, I'm not fond of reducing possibilities of a game. Which is what has been done with gem gen and hammers : as Callahan explains, and which I will not repeat. On the tartarian changes, the whole "GoR undead" aspect have been lost just for the sake of ONE unbalanced spell. I do not think that a game should be balanced by removing stuff, it should be done by adding stuff so that other avenues can be explored (much like EDM tried to do). But that's only what I feel, if most others think otherwise I'll bend.

GoR undead is coming back. Also some people have started making an effort to list changes CBM makes. Of course, some have argued that CBM IS the changelog itself, and if you can speak mod it really is all right there listed right out in the open.

[Deathblob]

There's also Larz's cool dom3editor app (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=47490) that lets you open mod files and view the changes. So you don't need to be able to read .dm files.

[llamabeast]

The difficulty with a changelog is that CBM makes thousands of tiny changes, so if such a log is made it is unreadable. CBM is now ~22000 lines long. Lots of stuff, and even if you can "read mod" it is hard to be sure exactly what's been done.

Having said that I will aspire to make a short list of general changes contained within CBM, so that people can understand the general ideas even if the details are not listed. I think that would be helpful. For example:

- Pretenders extensively rebalanced, with many given extra special abilities (always mentioned in the in-game descriptions). Special abilities include spawning of troops, generating gems and automatic in-battle spells (e.g. Phoenix Pyre for the Phoenix).
- Cavalry made more usable - all have a "hoof" attack, with heavy cavalry upgrading to "warhorse hoof". Almost all cavalry made cheaper.
- Gem generators (clam of pearls, blood stone, fever fetish) made into unique artifacts, to reduce micromanagement, turtling and the necessity of focussing strategies around forging them.
- Armor stats rebalanced, with a general reduction in encumbrance for heavy armor. Heavy armor still has higher encumbrance, but now it is at least a net advantage for most battles (consider base-game MA Ulm for a clear demonstration that heavy armour was previously a hindrance).
- New content added for a number of nations, especially weaker nations. Most of the new content takes the form of national spells. Marverni, Agartha, Tir na n'Og, Machaka and MA Ulm are examples of nations which have received quite a few new spells.

... etc.

[Soyweiser]

A lot of the summoning spells have also been rebalanced. So that you now have a reason to summon fire snakes and the different drakes. In vanilla they are just to expensive, it is easier to wait for the higher tier spells that give more bang for your gem.

[Valerius]

I have an idea that I think might address llama's comments regarding feedback that awe on Ri/Tuatha was OP, rdonj's preference for adding something to the units to make them better/cheaper thugs out of the box, and my concern that the current changes sideline Sidhe Lords. What about removing awe on Ri/Tuatha and giving both those units and *also* Sidhe Lords #onebattlespell of personal luck? Before you say "that's completely OP" hear me out. :)

The thing that's so useful about awe in the early-mid game (against certain opponents) is that initially it adds a layer of defense you didn't have before (for expansion) and later on it adds an extra layer of defense while not forcing you to give up another one (once you reach constr. 2-4 to forge a shield). You get the effects of a shield of gleaming gold while still being able to use your vine shield. This is a significant change. Luck with a vine shield on the other hand is a well tested combination. Basically, even if you fully equipped a thug it would amount to having an extra misc slot - not nearly as much of a problem as having the extra hand slot that awe basically amounts to. It's also worth noting that #onebattlespell of personal luck isn't actually as good as having a pendant of luck since it doesn't protect you outside of combat. I was lucky in that I didn't face mind hunts during my game because the increase in forging costs from 6 to 10 gems for rainbow armor and 3 to 5 gems for pendant of luck or AoMR makes that even more of an issue than before. Which is also an argument in favor of rdonj's idea of making them good enough out of the box and/or cheap enough that they don't need much equipment and the increased attrition rate doesn't hurt as much.

The other thing that luck does is equalize the effects of the bonus. During the early game luck will be equally effective vs all opponents while awe will be disproportionately effective against some opponents (which could account for some of the frustration with it).

I would think there are two objections to awe: that it results in an extremely fast expansion and that it can be difficult for some nations to counter early on. Based on my tests, this solution addresses the former issue - which makes me think it would also address the latter (if you can no longer expand reliably against indies I can't imagine you would do well against a player).

In case anyone is interested in running their own tests I've attached a couple of modified versions of CBM 1.84. The first removes awe but adds a #onebattlespell of personal luck on Ri, Tuatha and Sidhe Lords. The second makes the additional change of removing False Fetters as a secondary effect on the golden lance.


Here are my test results (using luck instead of awe but keeping false fetters):

TNN (E9N6 bless, Ri scripted to: Bless, Air Shield, hold, hold, hold, attack closest)

4 elephants (w/ infantry & slingers) - Ri wins (false fetters stops enough elephants)
4 elephants (w/ infantry & slingers) - Ri loses (false fetters doesn't stop enough elephants)
6 elephants (w/ infantry & slingers) - Ri loses
6 elephants (w/ infantry & slingers) - Ri wins
jade maidens/amazons - Ri loses repeatedly
wolf tribe warriors (2 daggers) - Ri loses
heavy infantry/archers - Ri wins (gets affliction though)
bear tribe warriors (hatchets & spears) - Ri loses
deer tribe warriors (spears, archers) - Ri loses
light infantry/archers (only a few of them) - Ri wins
jaguar tribe (sword, spear sling) - Ri wins
light infantry/archers (medium number) - Ri loses


Eriu (E9N6 bless, Tuatha scripted to: Bless, Air Shield, hold, hold, hold, attack closest)

small number heavy cav/infantry - Tuatha wins
small number knights/longbowmen - Tuatha loses (knights kill)
small number deer tribe (spear, dagger) - Tuatha wins
medium number barbarians - Tuatha loses repeatedly (couldn't get a win - note that with awe won repeatedly against barbarians)
medium number bear tribe (hatchet, spear) - Tuatha loses
small number of knights & archers - Tuatha loses


A few thoughts here. First off, Mirror Image from glamour contributes greatly to victory - once that is gone hits add up quickly and if there's still decent opposition it will probably result in a loss. Also, even when the thugs won they took more damage and had greater risk of losing than with awe. False fetters is responsible for the wins in elephant fights as it removed enough of them from battle - when not enough were removed the thug lost.

Based on viewing the results of the first test and LDiCesare's comment earlier I ran some quick tests with luck and no false fetters and the failure rate went up even more. In particular, the chance of winning against elephants is poor.

I think either of these changes (no awe or no awe as well as no false fetters in exchange for personal luck) would solve the early game issues. I guess the main worry would be could this abused in some way. But I don't really see it - it's the equivalent of a free piece of gear to make up for the increase in forging costs for a thug focused nation.

Thematically I think this change would also be ok. TNN/Eriu to me are more focused on individual champions whereas Van, while also having thuggable commanders, is more focused on troops. And heroes are supposed to have uncanny luck (you can see this too in the personal luck #onebattlespells granted to CBM heroes).

If you think this is too much for a recruit everywhere unit then you could just make the change on Ri/Tuatha and come up with another boost or cost reduction for Sidhe Lords.

[llamabeast]

Hello everyone! :)

I have had almost no time at home recently and it will be the same for the coming week, but just thought I would let you know that I am reading this thread (far too often!) on my phone and keeping track. Lots of interesting thoughts.

I was considering giving the Ri 10% forge bonus. Thoughts?

[Valerius]

I was considering giving the Ri 10% forge bonus. Thoughts?

You won't be surprised to hear I like the idea. ;)

But I think that would help with making thugging more affordable and I think it's a safe amount for a forge bonus. It would help because with exception of vine/eye shields all the gear I regularly forge for glamoured thugs costs 5 gems (technically rainbow armor is 10 gems but it's a 5/5 split). Reducing the cost to 4 (compared to 3 with hammers) definitely helps restore affordable thugging. I also think it's a safe discount in the sense that the discount isn't large enough that you could try to develop an Ulm-style forge economy - which I don't think TNN/Eriu should be able to do (btw, I assume this would apply to Eriu's Tuatha as well?). I wouldn't mind a 15% discount because while it wouldn't change the cost of 5 gem items it would help get 10 gem items like vine shields down to 8 gems (compared to 7 with hammers) - but that also allows a larger discount on items that cost more than 10 gems than you may want.

I also wanted to throw another idea out there, also intended to address the early game issues with awe. What about doing something like you did for Machaka with Foul Sacrifice? Only instead of summoning a troop, the ritual would "transform" the caster into a unit that had awe (or personal luck, or whatever bonus you wanted). It would be a fairly low level spell but wouldn't be available from turn 1 for expansion purposes. I guess the main issue would be to avoid loopholes where you could use a cheap indie mage and get a thug out of it. I think casting requirements of A2H2 would serve that purpose. I don't think there are any indies with those paths and of your national mages only Ri, Tuatha Sorceresses, Tuatha and Sidhe Lords would be able to cast it. In terms of magic paths, I was thinking the Sidhe Lords' A2N1H2 would be best. That means Ri would lose magic by casting this spell but if they receive a forge bonus they'd have a useful niche right there, while Tuatha Sorceresses would have the strongest magic.

You could even have a couple of versions of it, one of them being a high level late game spell that would perhaps give a HP boost as well so that the thug can be more survivable in a late game setting. Even if it were more cost effective to go for an EDM summon I'd get some of these just for the fun factor. :)

[LDiCesare]

There are defeinitely other nations which need a forge bonus more than the tuatha. And the Ri is supposed to be a fighter, not a forger.

[AnimateDream]

Missing quotation mark deletes yomi bandit's jinsaga.

line 3429 in cbm 1.84
3460 in llama's 3.27 updated cbm 1.84

[earcaraxe]

Hello everyone! :)

I have had almost no time at home recently and it will be the same for the coming week, but just thought I would let you know that I am reading this thread (far too often!) on my phone and keeping track. Lots of interesting thoughts.

I was considering giving the Ri 10% forge bonus. Thoughts?

the question arise in me about that. what is the problem that ought to be fixed by that?

its aim is to:

-make TNN's thug strategy more powerful?
-make TNN's lategame more powerful?

im curious what peolpe think about TNN's needs. i understand, that from a historicaly viewpoint ("losing" hammers) TNN "has less gems now". But lets forget that, and suppose hammers never were in the game. what are the reasons for making changes to TNN?

[LDiCesare]

TNN has an extremely strong early game with Ris as is, and then very bad lategame. A strategy to counter this issue is to pick a pretender that provides diversity an magic paths for late game. I'm not sure what needs be changed. Did someone actually try to play TNN decently, with a pretender that would give some good path-searching options and access to late game summons? (Ris just don't need a bless to let you expand like crazy as they are).

[Valerius]

I'm not really looking to boost TNN/Eriu but preserve a style of play. I thought it would be nice if Eriu in particular could have gotten a boost (despite the fact that EA has tougher competition I thought Eriu was worse off than TNN) but if it didn't happen I could live with it.

If you look at these nations as of CBM 1.6 (and vanilla for that matter) they are thug centered and, in a broader sense, focused on commanders rather than troops. I like this emphasis - if I want more of a thug/troop combined focus I play Van. This focus on thugs certainly isn't the most powerful strategy in the game (and in the late game raiding becomes very difficult and the focus of these units changes to being part of anti-SC squads) but it was the dominant theme of the nations and I find it a lot of fun to play.

If you gave me a choice between a version of the nations that was weaker but had the same emphasis on thugging and one that deemphasized thugging but was stronger overall I would choose the former. As far as options go, I was always pretty happy with my options with TNN, largely because of recruit everywhere bean sidhe. It's Eriu that seems really limited.

But the thing is, if the nation is focused on thugging it has to be done cheaply. In the end these are low HP units and there is constant attrition. So removing hammers hits them hard. Since most of the items I forged cost 5 gems using a hammer was effectively more like a 40% discount than 25%.

You can deal with the impact of removing hammers in different ways. One is to do nothing and say they just have to deal with it. It's one thing to do that with a top ranking nation but it doesn't seem fair to do that to nations that are in the bottom half of their respective eras. Thankfully, llama (and/or qm - not sure when things switched over) decided to compensate them for the loss of cheap forging. They went with a hybrid approach - a considerable boost to a cap only thug chassis and some non-thug boosts to the nation. My reaction to this was that awe added enough utility to Ri that it made up for the increased forging cost. However an unfortunate side effect is that I didn't find Sidhe Lords worth equipping at full cost and didn't recruit one the entire game.

It's a bit strange to hear talk that TNN is OP. I'm guessing it's due to the impact of the boosts to Ri (though even with that they hardly seem like more of a threat than being rushed by one of the EA powerhouses). So let's say you eliminated the boosts to Ri/Tuatha. Now they no longer have a clear advantage over Sidhe Lords as thugs, which is good. The bad part is that now they are both not worth equipping, which really kills thugging. So llama mentioned giving them a forge bonus. Personally I'd be happy removing everything that has resulted in complaints and give them a 25% forge bonus and be done with it. Sure, they won't be able to forge fire/astral gear at a discount like they could with hammers but otoh having a 25% forge discount when most others don't is a relative advantage. The relative importance of thugging to the nation would stay the same. But that's probably not in the cards so if the Ri/Tuatha boosts are removed maybe a 10% forge bonus with some better built-in gear or reduced cost like rdonj mentions could would keep them viable (though if Ri lose their improvements I really think the forge bonus should be 15% to get another gem of savings on shields). What I wouldn't like to see is compensating them by improving their troops (the reduced encumbrance was already a nice bonus) - I think the commander level focus of the nation is fine. Again, if I want a combo thug/troop focus I'll play Van.

As far as the late game goes, yes, they don't have a great late game. So what. That means they have to get something done earlier in the game to position themselves for a strong late game. I think it's interesting if nations have different areas of strength. Some might have great troops but middling commanders or vice versa. Some might have a great early game but fade later, etc.

[llamabeast]

I'm away on holiday so haven't seen dom3 for a bit and am getting a bit confused between this thread and the dom3mods thread.

Somewhere someone mentioned giving Ris (a chance at?) earth access. I think maybe that's quite interesting, it would give them different strengths as thugs and as army buffers.

So as changes how about:

- Remove Awe from Ris
- Add some chance of an extra earth pick for Ris
- Give female mages 10-15% forge bonus

[Valerius]

If you go with those changes please make the forge bonus 15%. It may seem like a small thing but being able to forge shields for 8 gems rather than the 9 gems of a 10% bonus will help.

A 15% forge bonus would let you equip a thug with weapon and shield for 12 gems vs. 10 with hammers. Not too bad of an increase. More fully equipped thugs, such as I prefer, don't fare as well since fire/astral gear won't be forged at a discount, but it's worth giving these proposed changes a try.

Thugging takes a hit with the elimination of hammers. As I mentioned above, I'd be happy to give back any boosts TNN/Eriu have received in exchange for a 25% forge bonus but I realize that I'm probably in the minority and that isn't likely to happen. But thanks for trying to keep thugs a viable option. Removing awe from Ris/Tuatha and replacing it with a non-thug focused buff would have been depressing.

So I think it's a reasonable compromise. And I can't imagine anyone will think it's OP.

Btw, since Eriu doesn't have both Ris and Tuatha Sorceresses but just Tuatha (as well as making Bean Sidhe cap only) will the forge bonus and chance of an extra earth pick all go on the Tuatha or will you move the forge bonus to Bean Sidhe (making a new unit since EA and MA use the same one)?

[Stretch]

The updated CBM 1.84 is found here http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=47550

If you don't use this, and use patch 3.27 to Dominions 3, you'll have weird inconsistencies like losing 10 soldiers when you view a battle and then seeing that your army only lost 4. Or seeing one side win when you view it, and then look at the map and the other side's army is sitting in the province.

[Psycho]

What is the logic behind the removal of SDRs? I know that blood is overpowered, but wouldn't just changing them to B2 or B3 suffice? Forging brazen vessels for each B1 hunter seems overkill. Making certain blood summons more expensive is a harder path, but should be the preferred solution for balancing blood.

[rdonj]

Changing SDRs to blood 2 or 3 heavily favors nations that have strong national blood mages already, and is a nerf relatively to nations that only have b1s, etc, forcing them to spend a lot more time and slaves to get the same slaves. They're also like hammers, an item that basically you spam because there's no reason ever not to, as they will make their price up ridiculously quickly even at those prices. Whether those are the actual reasons for the removal I couldn't say.

[thejeff]

Not really. At least compared to not having SDRs at all.

If you put SDRs at B2B2, they'd cost 20 Blood, that's only 5 less than an actual booster. Do people really spam 25 slave boosters just to hunt with?
If you only have B1 mages then you'd have to empower to forge them, but if you only have B1 mages, you're going to empower anyway since you can't do anything with just B1s.
You'll start off slower than nations with B2s, but once you've got a B2 or two you'll start keeping up.

The nations with cheap B1's still won't forge much. It's cheaper to just spam Mictlan priests than to equip them all. The nations with recruit anywhere B2+s will use them. It's the nations with expensive, random or capital only B1s who'll make use of expensive SDRs.

[VedalkenBear]

I had a question. I'm running CBM (the latest version, I am aware), and apparently many many troops have 'doubled' equipment. Is there a way to avoid this?

[rdonj]

Llamabeast released a fixed version of CBM that fixes that problem. I believe it's on the first page of this forum still.

[Psycho]

Changing SDRs to blood 2 or 3 heavily favors nations that have strong national blood mages already, and is a nerf relatively to nations that only have b1s, etc, forcing them to spend a lot more time and slaves to get the same slaves.

Not having them at all also favors nations with strong national blood mages. These nations will be able to hunt with these B2/B3 mages initially, later adding B1s with boosters, vampire lords or some national summons. However, empowering one mage to B2 or B3 to do the forging for weak blood nations is a negligible expense. And as thejeff said, you will need to empower eventually anyway.

They're also like hammers, an item that basically you spam because there's no reason ever not to, as they will make their price up ridiculously quickly even at those prices.

Using blood boosters for the same purpose will also pay off eventually, so there is no reason not to do it. You cannot prevent this behavior and frankly I don't see a reason why you would want to. Why is it bad to have an item that is so to say required, like hammers and SRDs are?

[thejeff]

One difference between hammers and SDRs is that hammers were necessary for everyone, so many nations needed Earth on their pretender. SDRs were only necessary if you intended to go into blood. And if you were going into blood, you'd have blood mages and wouldn't need to go to any special lengths to get one who could make SDRs.

[rdonj]

Psycho - Actually shortly after I posted that I realized exactly why I was wrong. Having actually thought about it more I'm feeling that there really was no purpose in getting rid of rods, since you can do the exact same thing with boosters. The question then becomes, how badly do we want to nerf the ability to build slave pools. If it's severe enough I guess we could leave them out and just keep using boosters to do it instead (which is totally worth it even at 25 slaves), or do we bring back SDRs at a bit lower price? I'm inclined to think that we should bring back SDRs, probably at something like 10+5 per rod so they can be forged at lower blood level, but still have a fairly appreciable cost compared to blood boosters. It would be better to just increase the price of blood magic across the board so that it's not just a one time thing that easily pays itself back over time, but I really question the sanity of trying to do an across the board increase to blood prices due to potential errors in judgement/bugs (along with just being a lot of work), so for the moment my vote will lean towards increased expense on the SDR.

[Valerius]

I'm ok with nerfing blood. The problem with eliminating SDRs (or even increasing their cost for that matter) is that it impacts some blood nations greatly and others not much at all. A solution that barely impacts Niefel and actually improves their position relative to other blood nations seems flawed to me.

Now you could fix that by, say, making Skratti 1B1W 100% random but that would probably cause an uproar so I agree with you that the proper way to nerf blood is increase the costs of the spells. I don't know that it's all that much work to do since CBM has already adjusted many of the costs so you just change the value. It's a judgement call, but you could take a conservative approach and increase costs by a modest amount. If blood is still a problem just increase the costs a little more next version.

And as far as blood magic goes, I kind of think the main problems with it are with a few summons (autospawning, immortal) and some absurd situations like Jotun having recruit everywhere Claws of Kokytos casters.

[Deathblob]

If it's severe enough I guess we could leave them out and just keep using boosters to do it instead (which is totally worth it even at 25 slaves)

Thanks. Initially it seemed to me like it wouldn't be worth it.

For a B3 or higher, your booster will give just 1 extra slave per turn, so 25 turns to payback.

For a B2, your avg slave income goes from:
8(x+2)/10 to 10(x+3)/10,
So you get .2x + 1.4 more slaves per turn.

x is supposedly a d6 according to the manual, but since I've had a b0 hunter pull 11 slaves in one month, I think that's full of crap. It's got to be open-ended, so it's 4.2 not 3.5, on average.

B2 to B3 is then 2.24 better per month, payback in 11 turns with a 25B cost booster.

For a B1, your avg slave income goes from:
4(x+1)/10 to 8(x+2)/10,
So you get .4x + 1.2 more slaves per turn, @x=4.2 = 2.88, payback in 8.7 turns.

For a B0, your avg slave income goes from:
x/10 to 4(x+1)/10,
So you get 1.66 more slaves per turn, but booster cost is 50B (empowerment), payback is 30 turns.

For comparison, summoning a B3 Vamp Lord for 66 slaves has full payback @ 7.2 per turn in about 9.1 turns.

So, if I'm right about x == 4.2:

A 25B booster is worth it for a B1 hunter. (Unless you get national B2 hunter summons like Mictlan for 25B).

But if you can make Vampire Lords, it's more cost effective to spend your blood on them instead of boosters for B2+'s. Since Vamp Lords are actually useful in combat, I'd make them, instead of boosters for B1s to hunt with.

Payback is really slow for empowering to B1, so don't do that unless you're going to take the extra step of making a 25B booster. (And definitely don't do it if you can make Vamp Lords).

[thejeff]

Well, I don't think you'd empower to B1, unless you don't have any Blood access. Why would anyone who has enough blood to summon & afford Vampire Lords need to empower someone to B1 to hunt?

The only other factor is that Vamp Lords are Blood 7. If you're not a full on Blood nation, you'll likely have Construction4 before you have Blood 7. You may also have blood, but no Blood Death combination.

[Executor]

I'm also in favor of rebalanced blood prices and bringing back SDRs. These last few posts sum up perfectly why removing them was a bad idea.

As for the blood prices, I think the main problems are vampire lords. Frankly, any blood summon compared to them is hardly worth it. I find them completely OP, I'd increase their price by say 1/3, to 99.
With enough vampires lords you sort of become unconquerable, and with the current price of 66 you can very easily summon 2 to 3 of them a turn meaning that I pity the fool trying to go up against a few dozen vampire lords, probably backed up by a few hundred vampires as well on top of anything that nation might have besides blood.
Also, bone fiends are still OP even with 7 for 3 slaves. It's not really hard to completely trample a nations with them early unless they have powerful archers. Instead of lowering their number I'd suggest an increase in price, say 5.
With their current price you can mass hundreds of them pretty fast even in early game.

[Psycho]

Vampire lords are terribly overpowered at 66 blood slaves. I should know, I've been using them in almost every of my games. The completely useless succubus costs 66 blood slaves FFS.

All devils, both lesser and greater are underpriced as well. The greater ones at least all have limited numbers, so they're not as overpowered as vampire lords. Bone fiends are especially OP among devils with nations with non-capital-only BD mages.

The remaining blood spells are pretty much ok. Maybe dark vines and disease demons could be a bit more expensive, but that's about it.

[Deathblob]

National blood summons (Tlahuelpuchi, Vampire counts) are undercosted too, the Tlahuelpuchi more so than the count.

[kianduatha]

Don't forget Dakini. Ugh.

[Samhain]

I'm having an odd issue with Ember Lords. For at least three turns, two in the same province have refused to move. I've tried for three turns to get them to budge, the last turn attempting to a new location. I've looked at the log file with three levels of debug and nothing jumps out at me. Though, I don't really know what I am looking for. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do here?

[llamabeast]

I think this is a generic dominions bug rather than anything to do with Ember Lords. Occasionally units refuse to move like this. It can be extremely frustrating.

[Executor]

Hmm, that explains some pretty strange moments for me...

[Samhain]

This issue, Ember Lords failing to move, has only happed with Ember Lords and only when moving two provinces the same turn. They always succeed when moving 1 province. It has happened several times now including two occasions when the Ember Lords were moving along with other units. In those instances, the other units succeeded to move, only the Ember Lords failed. I have experienced the failure to move issue Llamabeast mentioned in the past. But, when I have, it has always affected all the units in that province making the same move. So, it seems different here to me.

I have also experienced another bit of strangeness, at least to me. A Zmey equipped with a Lycantropos Amulet, Girdle of Might, and Amulet of Antimagic has dropped afflictions during combat. It started the conflict with a chest wound. It then was also blinded. It next dropped the chest wound. Then, blindness changed to lost an eye. Furthermore, it was either regenerating health at much too high a rate or occasionally receiving negative damage. I'm not sure which.

I can provide the log.txt of the Zmey fight along with the trn and 2h files if you are interested.

[rdonj]

Okay, to explain this I should start by saying that zmey have three shapes, and you have to kill all of them in order for the zmey to die. The reason that the afflictions kept changing is because a unit that changes shape has a chance to heal its afflictions by changing to the new form. So this is not unexpected. The way the health was changing on the zmey is also easily explained by this mechanic. When a unit with multiple shapes dies and changes to the new form, its health bar is refilled. The negative damage numbers that you see popping up are just a side effect of the transformation, and also are expected to be there. So while it may look a little funny, that's how it's supposed to work.

[llamabeast]

It's like rdonj says. Each set of hitpoints is associated with one of the heads. It's something like 70hp to chop the first head off, another 70hp to chop the second head off, and finally 80hp to chop off the final head. Those probably aren't the actual values any more.

As for the Ember Lord, there was a version of CBM where he had lost flying. Maybe there is a client/server mod version mismatch, where your copy of the mod thinks the Ember Lord can fly but the server doesn't. What exact mod filename are you using in the problem game?

[Soyweiser]

I'm having an odd issue with Ember Lords. For at least three turns, two in the same province have refused to move. I've tried for three turns to get them to budge, the last turn attempting to a new location. I've looked at the log file with three levels of debug and nothing jumps out at me. Though, I don't really know what I am looking for. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do here?

I have had this for meny times also (In the one game I used them). If I tried to use the flying part of the ember lords it didn't work. They only moved if I moved one province at a time.

[Samhain]

rdonj, thank you for that explanation. That now makes perfect sense.

llamabeast, I'm not sure if I am answering your question correctly. But, the llamaserver page for our game shows "CBM 1.84" which is itself a link to http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=774519

The game in question is
Tiny Crowded World (http://www.llamaserver.net/admin.cgi?game=Tiny_crowded_world).

The good news is that I have a good workaround for both problems in this game, spend my fire gems on Zmeys instead of Ember Lords :)