Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[Graeme Dice]

I'd like to make the suggestion that you might want to take another look at the pretenders available to the aquatic nations and see if you couldn't figure out something to make them a bit more interesting. They really seem to be lacking an effective monster type, as the Kraken is nowhere near as fearsome as the new dragons. The wyrm is a possibility, but he's not that unique.

[Zen]

There are new Versions of the Pretender and Spell Mods availiable here:

www.techno-mage.com/~zen/

Pretender Changes:

Lord of Fertility +100 PR
Lord of the Gates +5 Fear
Saurolich -1 Death, +1 Fire
Dracolich Basecost: 125, -Recuperation, +Immortality, +5 Prot
Dracolich (Bog Mummy) -Recuperation, +Immortality
Asynja -Recuperation
Lord of the Desert Sun +3 Berserk, Basecost: 110
Father of Serpents Basecost: 110, +Venomous Fangs (Deadly Poison)
Jade Emperor +7 Prot
Son of the Sea Basecost: 100, -1 Water, +1 Earth
Neried Basecost: 50


Spellmod Changes:

Too numerous list. I'll be sending the changes to Edi to modify the Readme that will be included more than likely on the webpage as well.

Also. I have a beta of the Scalemod, without the proper graphics to make it complete. If anyone would like to offer to make a few graphics for the Luck units, I would appreciate it since I haven't had alot of time to make sprites (mostly attack sprites).

[Edi]

Zen, is this list for pretenders complete? I don't see recuperation for Asynja or either Dracolich form in 1.81, and I'm not sure if the poison cloud was removed from the father of serpents, but I think I saw something to that effect earlier.

Could you confirm that? I'd like the 1.9 readme to be as complete and accurate as possible.

Edi

[Edi]

I just went through the mod file with a fine tooth comb, which answered my questions, so no need to bother with that.

You have, however, made one mistake: You say the Nerid's cost should be 50, but it has in fact been changed to 75 in v1.9. Which one do you intend? I don't think adding the mounted status justifies a 50% increase in cost (Nerid's unmodded base cost is 50), so you should just leave it as is.

You should also add the word "Mod" into the mod description so that it will say "This is a Conceptual Balance Mod for..." instead of "This is a Conceptual Balance for...". And add the second dash into the comment line which identifies the pretender being modified as the Great Sage (the normal one, not the dragon alternate form).

If you email me a list of the spell changes, I can do the readme for that one, or I can just go through the mod files and see what has changed and go from there. I won't be able to produce the readme until tomorrow, and it might not be ready before Tuesday.

Edi

[Alneyan]

While speaking of typos:

- In Pretenders/Spells mod descriptions, independently is spelt "independantly", and its is spelt "it's" in "its own particular niche use".
- In the description for the Son of the Sun, its is spelt "it's" in "The sun has gifted its heir". The same goes for the Oracle: "in its Dominion [...] Within its sacred waters"
- I do not know whether this bothers you or not, as Illwinter's descriptions do the same, but season is used to describe a turn, while a season Lasts three turns (Early Summer, Summer, and Late Summer for example).

I like the changes you have made to Pretenders, but do not have any actual comment (I have not delved much into the Spell mod yet).

[Foom]

The new fanatics are much more useful than the militia you used to get in special events, but I noticed that they also replace independent militia and Pythium's PD troops. Not sure if this makes a big difference balance wise, but it probably wasn't intended.

Wish I could give some feedback on the balancing, but I'm not enough of an authority to do so.

[archaeolept]

they also replace one of the types of indy militia, which can make for an exciting battle

the pyth pd effect should proably be changed. hastati would improve the crappiness of their pd w/out going overboard.

also, zen if you wouldn't mind could you edit the first post of the thread so that the link goes to the mod page? (at the moment it attempts to download the no longer available original Version).

and it should be in the links sticky as well.

thanks.

[Cainehill]

Foom said:
The new fanatics are much more useful than the militia you used to get in special events, but I noticed that they also replace independent militia and Pythium's PD troops. Not sure if this makes a big difference balance wise, but it probably wasn't intended.

And it also replaces one of Man's recruitable militia units, giving Man somewhat of a boost (since the resource cost is high) but really boosting Pythium's PD pretty massively.

I'm guessing this is caused by the militia event having a hard-coded unit type/ID, so the only way to modify it was to change that specific unit type, with the ensuing ramifications to indies, Man, and Pythium.