Blood of humans theme

[Keir Maxwell]

I would concur with Saber, Alex and Pocus. Particularily on the issue of heat 3.As an Abyssian player giving up heat three is big and Sabers spelt that out well. I also would voluntarily take cold 3 for the giants so the Niefelheim theme is pretty tight.

Cool to read that Niefelheim get an income loss due to the discomfort of the Jotun with the cold - this fits my Back to the Ice Age theme so perfectly. By creating the precondition for the return to the Ice Age the Jotuns will destroy their own civilisation and lay the basis for the coming thaw.

I found the Blood of Humans theme expanded slower as the Abyssian infantry may cost more but you can build the same amount due to resource restrictions. Abyssia produces deadly early armies, who in my experiance, can achieve all the gains an early SC can. This has always been the basis of my abyssia play and I think alot of people underestimate the power and efficiency of killer HI armies lead by fanatacism. If you play them right you don't lose a battle vs an independant, take few casualties, and you conquer at an excellent rate. Battle afflications becomes one of the major concerns your guys live so long.

I agree with Pocus that it would nice if you could at least have a magic scale for the newts or else improve them.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

[Pocus]

Just saw another thing : Abysian Slayer are also only recruitable in the capital.

So you have to choose between : assassin, high priest or blood mage each time. The bottleneck is even bigger than I thought!

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:

my suggestions, choose some, not necessarly all :
- allow magical scale, so that Newt can be used as good researcher.
- add an astral gem to the 4 fires.
- reduce by 1 or 2 gold the humanbred cost
- give 40 additional DP, or let heat 3 possible.
- give a new unit, a level 1 blood human mage, recruitable everywhere.
- give 1-2 free slaves a turn (the human virgins are more available now)

thank you for your attention. Discussion welcome (but please test the 2 themes before!).

Hmm, I agree. Blood of humans was the Last added and least tested theme. Thus it has not been tweaked to compensate for the thematic losses of the theme.

Of your suggestions I am more in favor of the changes that goes with the theme (more humans, diluted essence of the fire magic). DP i find less attractive as it is a mechanical tweak, the same goes for the HB cost, although this is a more thematic change. Greater focus on blood magic is not bad, as this could be a way to compensate for lost fire magic, but a cheap blood mage is a very powerful thing to add if it is recruitable everywhere.

It takes some pondering.

[Pocus]

Thanks for listening.

About the blood mage, I think Chris Byler suggested he can be blood1/fire1, thus rising his cost to perhaps 110 gp. That would be then more problematic to recruit him en masse (though still possible if the focus of the player is blood at all cost).

Also I think forbbiding the taking of a magic scale (perhaps not to 3, but 1 or 2 would be cool) is not necessary, as it closes the strategy to use newts as fast researchers (the goblin them of Jotun is rather powerful with this setting by the way).

[Pocus]

thinking a bit more on the theme, I think this would not be sufficient to equilibrate it. The problem of assassin only in capital (and thus the only sneak unit with scouting capacity) is also a bit problematic.

some suggestion again :

the aforementioned humanbred blood mage transformed into a 'Blood Cultist', blood 1 with assassination power. Now that would give a very strong distinct flavor to the BoH theme, as this assassin would be rather powerful.

powerful => not cheap, so could fix the problem of having a cheap blood mage too (thinking of the starpawn with some increase in gold cost)

[Mortifer]

BoH is a weak theme, there are lot better themes for various nations.
I guess themes are fun, but sometime the original setup is better.

[johan osterman]

Originally posted by Pocus:
thinking a bit more on the theme, I think this would not be sufficient to equilibrate it. The problem of assassin only in capital (and thus the only sneak unit with scouting capacity) is also a bit problematic.

some suggestion again :

the aforementioned humanbred blood mage transformed into a 'Blood Cultist', blood 1 with assassination power. Now that would give a very strong distinct flavor to the BoH theme, as this assassin would be rather powerful.

powerful => not cheap, so could fix the problem of having a cheap blood mage too (thinking of the starpawn with some increase in gold cost)

Isn't really much of an issue with just having a sneak unit in capital, since indep scouts are plentiful, and if it were an expenisve sneaking mage wouldn't answer the problem anyway.

Not that I am against the idea as such, but for the assasin/bloodmage to use his magic in battle he requires bloodslaves, and it would look a little funny when the assasin mage performs his assasination with his harem of nubile young bloodslaves tagging along.

[ November 07, 2003, 15:01: Message edited by: johan osterman ]