Invisible Swarm III: over

[CUnknown]

"I am playing in Yarnspinners2, where the main point of the game is writing yarns and not necessarily winning."

Hey Panther, I totally agree with the role-playing aspect and that writing yarns is fun. I agree that lifedrain is, at times, a no-brainer choice (not all the time, however), and that it should be nerfed.

"And I have a feeling Zen carefully considered the changes"

You can carefully consider something and still make a terrible mod. I love Zen's other mods, but the item mod is just awful. While I agree that Lifedrain should be nerfed, Zen nerfed it to an insane degree.

I also agree that variety of options in a strategy game is something positive. Without variety, there is no strategy, is there? But, I actually think that the item mod in some aspects has -removed- options, case in point Lifedrain weapons. Sure, you can say that "Oh, now people will start to use other weapons! That adds variety." But. if people weren't using other weapons in vanilla, I have serious doubts about their ability as a player. I use other weapons all the time, by no means are my SCs solely lifedrain-machines. If I use lifedrain more than other weapons, it's -not- because the lifedrain weapons are more powerful. I much prefer the artifact weapons, for example. But, also I love fire brands, flambeaus (basically anything armor-piercing), herald lances, moon blades, etc. I think that flambeaus are a far superior weapon than a Wraithsword, even. But those wraith and hell swords are just so damn cheap! They need to be twice as expensive, but they sure don't need a damage nerf. They do rather weak damage already. The Blood Thorn, on the other hand, is a dagger, and shouldn't do a lot of damage. Turning it from +4 damage, +2 attack to +0 damage +0 attack sounds like a plan. Even -2 damage, +0 attack if you're feeling froggy.

I am playing a game with the item mod right now (Faerun), and I can tell you my weapon choices have changed very little (except for the obvious no more lifedrain thing). Basically, Fire Brands are the best weapon now and I try to eqiup most people with one of those, or an anti-demon weapon (Flambeau). Although there are admittedly other very good choices (that weakness-causing morning star comes to mind).

As far as Jeffr's concern about shiny-happy-tree huggers summoning demons, I agree that that's a problem. There's no way to solve it in Dom2, though...I'm looking forward to Dom3 for that. Dom2 is just geared for everyone to use the same weapons, troops, etc.

[Cainehill]

But making items (such as wraith swords) more expensive means that the magic path required to forge it goes up; apparently you can't increase the gem cost without increasing the magic path requirements, unlike spells.

So : Let's say wraithswords would now cost 20 death gems. So, a death 3 mage instead of a death 2 mage. Now fewer nations can forge it, exactly what you didn't like about the changes to the flying boots and water bracelets. In fact, bumping the wraithsword cost would tend to mean that those nations and SCs that arguably least need lifedraining weapons are the ones most likely to be able to forge them : death nations that can summon undead champions that don't normally accumlate fatigue anyway.

About the flying shoes : I kind of agree with you there, but only because they're a utility item sorely needed for all those 1-strategic move mages. But, I do like the idea of them not being so easy to outfit all SCs with. So what I've suggested to Quantum Mechanic (who is now working on the mods) is cheaper flying carpets, since they can't be used in combat, and making air boots require construction-6 instead of air 2. Be even better if you could make them require 10 or 15 air gems, but still be forgable by an Air-1 mage, but you can't.

[PashaDawg]

His Luminescence, the Shedu of Arco, agrees that AKU rocks, and for he certainly taught His Luminescence a lesson (and singed his fur).

However, the Council of Philosophers are currently debating vigorously as to the most fitting way to smite-smush the Evil Aku for his misdeeds.

[Jurri]

CU: Would you believe me even if I told you what the nexus produces? Thank you for the compliment, although it's mostly a feature of the undewater nations that they can tenaciously cling to life, rather than any supreme strategy... My greatest asset is selecting the most broken nation for the environment!

I participated in a game with a mod where the life-drain weapons had been significantly raised in cost (like, a blood thorn for 80 slaves); well, that didn't remove them, it only served to limit them to heavy blood nations, which in my opinion only unbalanced the game in their favor. Zen's solution makes them rather unusable for most anyone, which isn't cool either. Perhaps lowering their damage and attack would be a good solution (less than the ~20? points Zen has), since then a good armor or high defense would protect against them. Indeed, wouldn't lowering their attack value or damage by something like 5 points accomplish almost the same thing as Panther's proposition of removing the fatigue-gain? Only, instead of having to fit a reinvigoration item to the mix, attack boosters or strength boosters would need to be considered.

I haven't yet played a game with the item-mod, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have area of effect magical weapons especially with multiple attacks. As I understand it, with an AoE attack the hit is certain; thus these weapons make attack and defense values a non-issue, weakening all sorts of units that don't need any weakening and also strengthening astral weapon that wouldn't really need it. (Assuming astral weapon works with AoE attacks - I don't see a reason why not.) An always hitting, armor-negating ~40 point attack 4 times a turn should shut up most opposition. With a quicknessed golem and the morning star that gives 10 damage you can, assuming the above. (Undoubtedly with so high a damage bonus you wouldn't even need astral weapon, come to think of it, so a regenerating chassis might be preferable.) But this is just conjencture with no testing whatsoever, which I'm more than happy to try out in the next game Chris hosts!

[Turin]

Cainehill said:

Be even better if you could make them require 10 or 15 air gems, but still be forgable by an Air-1 mage, but you can't.

Interesting to read all those things about the item mod. You can make air boots 10 gems, but forgeable by a lvl 1 mage though. Just add air1 as a secondary path again and they cost 2*5 gems.

[jeffr]

Actually, having thought about it for a couple of more seconds, I think I like the idea of making Flying Boots and Boots of Quickness more difficult to obtain (via higher paths and higher cost) even more than I like the nerfing of the Life Draining weapons.

Flying and Quickness are very important (as demonstrated by the fact every SC has them, along with Luck) and should be difficult to obtain. A Life Draining weapon without Quickness isn't as bad. Non-flying commanders would have to slog through the map to reach you.

If it's pissing everyone off so much, maybe some damage could be given back to the LD weapons? I like the idea of having to increase your attack and damage via other items (or spells) in order to compensate for the weakened LD weapons, though.

On the flip side, I don't want to ruin the game for anyone. If someone really enjoys building flying, quickened, lucky, life draining Bane Lord types, then that's cool. Hey, I'll just keep providing a good target

So, hurry up and blast one another to hell so we can start another game and test all of this out

[CUnknown]

Jeffr, this game is going to keep going for a loong time..

There is no end in sight!

[Oversway]

I put some of these suggestions in the mod thread.

As I understand it, with an AoE attack the hit is certain

I know that units with mirror images/glamour arn't always hit by aoe weapon or spells. So I'm not sure if that is true. The firebrands, star of thraldon, and other aoe attacks are pretty nice, but they arn't as good as an unmodded LD weapon

[Jurri]

Hehe, mirror image is whole another can of worms... It would seem that it helps even against precision 100 spells and AoE spells and attacks and everything, really. It's a rare ability, though, and if you only have one mirror image (as with glamour, right?) it's likely that one of the two attacks of a morning star hits - which is likely to be deadly if the wielder has a strength value about the same as your protection.

I'm just saying that in the base game there are no AoE weapons that add strength. What are the implications for Vans, Serpent Dancers, and all other poor troops who rely on defense to survive? Do they need another cheap counter? (Aren't the weapons, like, 10 gems a piece?) I guess I kinda like the element of attack vs. defense, which is lost with AoE weapons. This needs to be tested out to properly assess, I'm sure, so maybe you'll tell us how things work out in Faerun!