Paths of Madness (Discussion Phase)

[LoloMo]

Which path is the most powerful?

We will answer this question with the following challenge for experienced players:

8 nations each with only a single available path will battle it out for supremacy. The map will be 12 provinces per nation, no water provinces, Middle Age settings, No indy mages, No heroes, all modded nations. Each Capital will start with 5 gem/slave production in their specific path. Blood nation needs to blood sacrifice to spread dominion.

Pretender selection:
Each nation will have the same Lady of Love Titan pretender with the following modifications to start values:
1. 0 starting magic, new magic paths cost 100. You are expected to select only one magic path appropriate to the path you have selected for your nation.
2. Starting Dominion of 5.
3. Leadership of 160/50/50

Military Units:
1. Each nation will have the same set of unit chassis: Militia, Slinger, Short Bow Archer, Light Infantry, Tower Shield Infantry, Piker, Heavy Cavalry.
2. One unit will be selected as sacred.
3. One unit will be given special abilities according to the following table:
Fire: Fire resistance, Heat 3
Air: Shock resistance, Airshield 80%
Water: Cold resistance, Chill 3
Earth: Protection +4, Reinvig +4
Astral: Magic Resistance +4, Awe 0
Death: Undead, Cold resistance, Poison resistance
Nature: Poison resistance, Regeneration 10%
Blood: Strength +4, Fear 0
4. If you give your sacred unit the special ability, then it becomes capital only. Otherwise, your sacred is recruitable in any fort.
5. Instead of the path specific special abilities set in #3, one of the following may be chosen as replacement: Stealth, Flying, Morale +6, Hitpoints +10, Attack +6, Defense +6, or Precision +3.

Commanders:
1. Each nation will have the following set of commanders: scout, plain commander, mounted commander, and an H3 priest.
2. In addition, there are two sacred (or not) path specific mages each with possible special abilities as in #3, #4, and #5 above. (If your commander has special ability and sacred, then it is capital only).
Warrior Mage: Mounted mage with 1 in selected path and leadership 40/40/40
Mage: 3 magic plus 50%/25%/10% and leadership 40/40/40

Banned spells/exploits:
1. Arcane Nexus, Utter Darkness, Astral Corruption, Burden of Time are banned since they can not be dispelled.
2. Stealing of Bogus Script is banned.
3. If using Wrathful skies and Mists of Deception combo, you can use retreat only as your very last command (6th script).

++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The above rules is the first draft of the Path Challenge. Let's discuss balance, and if there is any interest in this sort of challenge.

Also I have no modding skills, so we will have to ask a kind modder to sponsor us and draw up the modded nations. There will be one Pretender for all, 2 modded units and 2 modded commanders per nation. I hope this will fit within the sprite limitations in a single game.

[Ironhawk]

My money is on Death.

How are the units picked for the abilities/sacredness? Does the player pick or is it random?

[AlgaeNymph]

I call dibs on blood!

By the way, how do you factor dominion scales into this?

[LoloMo]

DryaUnda said:
I call dibs on blood!

By the way, how do you factor dominion scales into this?

If you set your pretender to imprisoned, you could free up more points to put into additional dominion scales. You create your pretender normally, it's just that everyone uses the same pretender type.

The Fear +0 for blood might be too much. I'm thinking of changing it to strength +7 for blood, or maybe berzerker +4 instead and removing the strength bonus too.

[zlefin]

when you say resistance, do you mean resistance or immunity? (i.e. res 100%, or res 50-75%) cuz if it's not immunity, then heat/cold will kill your own guys.

What about empowering mages in other paths? there are some sites you don't need to search for as can give gems.
and anyone could alchemize to get some, most likely to get astral to empower with.
Also, acashic record could give some major diversity.
aside from the normal indy mages, what about the ones that come from sites? those could give cross-path access.
What about summons with access to other paths? (spectres, tartarians)

Mind hunt may be a problem, as most nations will have no astral, so nothing to stop mind hunt spamming.
Empowerment may provide some limited protecrtion from that, but is very expensive, and could get countered by magic duels to kill them.

with such high awe, the ladies have some sc potential, but different paths vary widely in whether they can decently equip an sc on their own. though that may not be too big an issue.

[LoloMo]

zlefin said:
when you say resistance, do you mean resistance or immunity? (i.e. res 100%, or res 50-75%) cuz if it's not immunity, then heat/cold will kill your own guys.

What about empowering mages in other paths? there are some sites you don't need to search for as can give gems.
and anyone could alchemize to get some, most likely to get astral to empower with.
Also, acashic record could give some major diversity.
aside from the normal indy mages, what about the ones that come from sites? those could give cross-path access.
What about summons with access to other paths? (spectres, tartarians)

Mind hunt may be a problem, as most nations will have no astral, so nothing to stop mind hunt spamming.
Empowerment may provide some limited protecrtion from that, but is very expensive, and could get countered by magic duels to kill them.

with such high awe, the ladies have some sc potential, but different paths vary widely in whether they can decently equip an sc on their own. though that may not be too big an issue.

Excellent points! We can fix it this way:

1.I mean immunity or 100% resistance.
2.You can empower your mages in other paths or alchemize gems. This would be quite costly and I don't expect it to become an overiding influence. Luck scales will probably be popular.
3.Mind hunt can definitely become overpowered. We can change it to cost 15 gems, and need level 9 research. It will still be extremely useful, but you will save it for special occasions only.
4.Achastic record can be changed to cost 50 gems.
5.I don't think magic sites that allow mage recruitment can be modded out. We may have to just instate a rule that if you find one, you have to declare it. You can use it to your advantage, but everybody else will know about it, honesty system.
6.Cross path summons are allowed and will be one of the advantages available to those paths that have it. Most of them won't be available until mid to late game.
7. TRADING OF ANY ITEMS OR GEMS/SLAVES WILL BE STRICTLY BANNED.
8. Wish spell cost will be increased to 200.
9. Summon Spectre cost will be increased to 40.

Keep the loophole checks coming!

[AlgaeNymph]

LoloMo said:

If you set your pretender to imprisoned, you could free up more points to put into additional dominion scales. You create your pretender normally, it's just that everyone uses the same pretender type.

So you're not worried about scale settings muddying the data regarding which path is the best?

[AlgaeNymph]

Something else I've thought of; will there be nation-specific spells in this mod?

[LoloMo]

Ironhawk said:
My money is on Death.

How are the units picked for the abilities/sacredness? Does the player pick or is it random?

The player picks which unit he wants to have the special abilities or sacredness (or both)