Cohen Mod 0.2

[Cohen]

Thinking to switch Moloch on Marignon.

For human pretenders, I can assure they're damn frail.
I tried a Great Warlock (and with 24 HP it isn't an SC chassis, he has great risks to get crushed by any indep, considering his combat stats aren't great and he's precision 9 by default!) with A5, F5, B3, W3 (A5 = +5 Precision, and able to cast Aim to help more, F5 to cast some more flares with quickness, A5 and F5 as base for Air Queens and Fire Kings, B3W3 needed for Ice Devils), it got crushed by a Blue Dragon with ease (even if the aimed flare hit the dragon the 2nd turn - quickness, aim, flare, flare, flare were the script - and set it aflame, the huge amount of HP of the dragon, combined with quickness and BoW allowed it to smash both infantry and pretender).

Personally I've liked more to give them some special skill (like the Great Warlock with Imps in battle, or a Blood Magic bonus, since we're talking about this. Or like an Arch Mages with a general spellcasting bonus of 10% in gem/fatigue discount to talk of something else ... but I can't do that via modding.).
Don't forget Rainbow Humans are frail, and they'll lose the most points of magic by getting killed.

The base HP of a pretender are heavily modfied by your own dominion (or enemy).
Playing in MP means if your Pretender is spotted by enemy, that he gets arrowed or something else (seeking arrows or wind ride, fires from afar, or anything you could throw at, especially if it's frail). Having 1 slot occupied with an Amulet of Missile Protection, and some immunities instead of some boosters isn't so nice.

[Edi]

Alneyan, it's no typo. I intentionally use the term "multislayer" to refer to MP games more often than not. Because, as you said, that's what they are.

Cohen, you can get Missile prot from Silver Hauberk as well, or from Shield of Valor. Your GW is no high end SC, but a more than adequate low end one when you kit it out and use it in conjunction with support troops. The fact that it got stomped by a high end SC means absolutely squat because its greatest impact will be against indeps in early game expansion. Last I checked, you don't get anything like that with indeps.

Zen's mod takes care of the rainbow pretender frailty issue, and many of your modifications are ridiculous, there is no end run around that fact.

Edi

[Cohen]

Zen Mod take care only of their frailty issue.

With almost no starting pathes or 1 as starting path, they can't be great mages ... they pay a lot of points to even get for a 0 lvl to a 4 lvl in a path! (10+16+24+32=82 pts).
They're so not suited for heavy spellcasting, nor for heavy blessing, nor for combat, and they don't provide combat skills to take out province in solo.
They're good to mixed forging and site searching (and it's damn slow, and if someone rushes you with any SC pretender type you're so dead...) so probably their usefullness reveals in a long term game ... but I'm not so sure if you take 1 province/turn (with your army) meanwhile the enemy start taking 2 provinces/turn (1 with army, 1 with pretender) thus having potentially twice of your gold and gem income, thus having more stuff/items/castles/temples and supplying his lack of magery with probably amazons, druids or good magic sites that he've found in his superior number of provinces.

Frailty here is the same in Zen mod, but they at least could excel in spellcasting or blessing (even a human pretender should be better to rely on good blessed troops/army than a powerful pretender that is strong on his own).

Don't forget the Scale change, that usually will lessen the points you can sink in your pretender magic.

[Peter Ebbesen]

While I, too, am staggered by the highpowered Moloch with his inherent fireshield 18 and his Fire 4, which makes getting a L9 Fire blessing cost only 120 instead of 168 (minimum for a L9 blessing for all other pretenders, i.e. equivalent to an entire extra scale), there is another pretender I am even more stumped by..

MASTER ALCHEMIST: Named "Arcane Blacksmith", Forge Bonus 40, Fire 2 Earth 2, HP 19, Enc 1, Prec 12, Cost 60.

Forge Bonus 40?? Add a hammer and you have 65, work at the steel ovens (if you find them) and you have 85. Forge the Hammer of the Forge Lord or kill the Cyclops (if you can get them) and you have 90. Pretty neat considering the maximum applied is 80. Time to mass produce incinerating rods, robes of invulnerability, or other quality stuff. (If, against all odds, you get FoA up, your pretender can make 80 gem items for 24 gems barehanded, 14 gems with a dwarven hammer, and 8 gems with the Hammer of the Forge Lord.)

...Of course, you would probably be better off playing a blood nation (blood Ulm or ordinary Ulm blooded) and have been forging blood contracts for (1-0.65)*80 slaves = 28 slaves per round since round 10-15 or so. A not insubstantial saving in cost. No dedicated blood nation can compete.

...Please believe me. Giving a pretender a forge bonus is giving him a massive boost in power. If done for thematic reasons (though it is not obvious why an alchemist should get such a bonus. A smith, yes, but an alchemist?), might I suggest a smaller one of 10%?

Anyhow, good luck with your mod. It is always nice to see somebody being creative, even when it appears to be of the dangerously unstable kind of creativity. Remember, so long as you have fun with your work, the more power to you: That is what is most important.

Considering other peoples criticism is only necessary if you expect to find players who will agree to play your mod in MP.

[Huzurdaddi]

Considering other peoples criticism is only necessary if you expect to find players who will agree to play your mod in MP.

How bang on is that? Nicely done.

[Cohen]

Sadly in fact I'd put that pretender to Ulm Default or Iron Faith only, but this is not feasible.
Perhaps 40 is too much, and should be down to 25 (to a master smith level), but I aimed to give Ulm a boost in forging.
True, if used by BF theme, it could be an exploit because they don't lack of the magic inflexibility of common Ulm.

This is a good statement Peter, but I'd ever doubt if I put a "house condition" that this pretender could be taken only by IF and Default Ulm will be applied.
I'll consider to reduce that forge bonus.

And yes, I aim to use my mod in MP.

[Cheezeninja]

Cohen said:
And yes, I aim to use my mod in MP.

If you aim to use your mod in mp you seriously need to rethink the massive empowering you are giving Abysia. I dont understand how you can say you don't think your boosting Abysia when you are lowering the costs of every mage, boosting their non humanbred infantrys stats and making the apprentice non capitol only...what else would you call this? If you are seeking to do a overall balance mod you should consider which races are more powerful overall, and not just from your point of view. A good way to do that would be to look at the power rankings poll: Post#297066 where nearly everybody but you ranked Abysia in the top 5. A top 5 nation does not need any boosting in a global balance mod, the nations like Tien Chi and BE Ermor need boosting. When you give massive boosts to a nation thats already generally viewed as one of the most powerful in the game it appears to be nothing but blatant favoritism, compounded by the fact that you are known for playing this nation more than any other. Abysia is one of my favorite nations, but if you include these outrageous changes in your mod, don't expect me to join any games with your mod in it.

[Kel]

Peter Ebbesen said:
...Please believe me. Giving a pretender a forge bonus is giving him a massive boost in power. If done for thematic reasons (though it is not obvious why an alchemist should get such a bonus. A smith, yes, but an alchemist?), might I suggest a smaller one of 10%?

Not agreeing or disagreeing with the balance of a forge bonus but, to be fair, the Conceptual Pretenders mod that Cohen used as a basis has a 25% forge bonus on the cyclops, a viable SC with built in 3E hammer building. I haven't even looked at Cohen's mod but if a 25% forge bonus on an SC is ok, a 40% forge bonus on a human wouldn't seem that much of a stretch (though it should definitely be taken into account in pretender cost).

- Kel

[Cainehill]

Peter Ebbesen said:
... there is another pretender I am even more stumped by..

MASTER ALCHEMIST: Named "Arcane Blacksmith", Forge Bonus 40, Fire 2 Earth 2, HP 19, Enc 1, Prec 12, Cost 60.

Forge Bonus 40?? Add a hammer and you have 65, work at the steel ovens (if you find them) and you have 85. Forge the Hammer of the Forge Lord or kill the Cyclops (if you can get them) and you have 90.

How ... nifty. Cost 60? So you could take this Big Cheeze and for just 360 points forge _everything_ that didn't require Astral at obscene discounts. This is with taking Fire and Earth to 4 each, and everything else to level 3 except for Astral, to avoid Magic Duel. 360 pretender points for great magic paths, and then .... Points level over for a castle and for scales. Or toss the Astral magic on as well - you probably have Astral 7 or 9 before anyone tries to Magic Duel you. (Ring of Wizardry, Tome of Power or the Forbidden Light, Starshine Skullcap, Robe of the Magi - takes 3 to 7 or 8 in the end game. Early to Mid-game, Starshine, Crystal Coin, ring of sorcery, takes 3 to 6, and you can actually afford to start with S4 or S5 with this guy, _PLUS_ all the other paths.)

Safe bet Ulm can have the Hammer of the Forge Lord before anyone else, if they try for it. Likewise the Forge of the Ancients. This "Blacksmith" is ... nuts.

Putting a forge bonus on something like the Cyclops, with his 50 point paths, isn't in the same league. The Cyclops will never have all magic paths - more likely just 2, maybe 3, making the forge bonus nice, but hardly heavensent, especially since it's so likely to also be getting used for an SC or for summonings, rather than forgings.

And a druid with Nature-4??? Higher than any of the beings that actually have elemental / mystical ties to nature. Nifty.

Cohen - did you really say you were planning to play this mod MP?

[Zen]

I would seem that a SC with high path costs would benefit less from a forge bonus because he is limited to one action a turn can either forge or kill armies single handedly.

But of course, that might just be my preference to use SC's for the duty of killing things and not being intimidating and forging items.

There is no doubt that early in the game, or with certain strategies a forge bonus has a high impact (Forging cheaply your first Indy stomping equipment, or later in the game).

But a Forge bonus benefits the ones who can forge a variety of items more than it does one that is limited by it's paths.