Mirror image (and glamour) does not protect units

[MaxWilson]

I think it makse sense for both missiles and magic, and therefore I'm happy with it. Verisimilitude is at least as important as game balance, because game balance can be tweaked by adjusting costs. A good change.

It's certainly not crippling to Helheim. Helhirdlings have shields and good protection, and have access to spells like Legions of Steel that boost that protection further. This change will roughly double the amount of glamour that a given archer volley dispels, but Legions of Steel should roughly halve it again. (It's not as effective against longbows, but those are pretty rare EA.)

The change to Svartalfs is much more important IMO, because it limits Helheim's access to army buffs (Legions of Steel and Strength of Giants, Weapons of Sharpness) AND it slows down their research. Best recruitable-anywhere researcher is now the Vanjarl/Helkarl at 3/turn for an initial 160 gold, instead of the Svartalf at 7/turn for an initial 180 gold. The difference is fairly dramatic, and encourages taking positive Magic scales. (IIRC after ten turns of researching they'll gain 1 star and go up to 4/turn and 8/turn respectively, but it's still dramatic. Because the Varjarl is sacred, maintenance costs don't really suffer, but purchases cost more and you also need twice as many forts for maximum research.) This is offset by Helheim's death magic (helped along by the new site searching spell fix) which lets them get skull mentors, but in a long game Helheim now has real incentive to spend points on something besides a huge bless.

I haven't yet installed the patch, but I would expect the change to Sloth + increased resource cost for lightweight scale mail make Sloth-3 less attractive to Helheim, likewise giving Helheim less free points to throw into a bless.

In my SP games I think I'll mod Helheim back to Svartalfheim (220 gcost recruitable-anywhere Svartalfs) but leave the other changes intact.

-Max

[lch]

Yes, limiting the Svartalfs to the capital only was harsh. Although others argued that it was necessary, too.

[MaxWilson]

Yeah, it probably was necessary. Thematically, it's supposed to be a nation of Vanir, not a nation of little black dwarves with Vanir slave-warriors to do the dirty work.

-Max

P.S. Also keep in mind that those 160 gp researchers can each forge an owl quill for 3 air gems (once the Svartalfs start passing around the Dwarven hammers) as well having access as skull mentors and lightless lanterns forged by Svartalfs. The actual effect might be that Helheim becomes reliant on gem income for research, which is not necessarily all that bad a thing, but it does take some time to kick-start (time which the face-hugging can purchase).

[Micah]

Nice Max, as I said, it's going to change from a nation of dwarves to one of totemic shaman now. They're 50 gold cheaper as researchers than the Helkarls and you can pump em out without the 800 gold investment for a fort.

I guess it remains to be seen if the change will encourage people to play Helheim differently or if it will just shove them further down the double-bless path, hurting their income scales even more. I haven't seen how severe the resource hit is yet, so it's hard to say...forcing both magic and production scales on them might do away with double blessings, but just magic 3 is possible with tolerable scales. Anyone have the new Helhirding resource costs handy?

[MaxWilson]

Micah said:
Nice Max, as I said, it's going to change from a nation of dwarves to one of totemic shaman now. They're 50 gold cheaper as researchers than the Helkarls and you can pump em out without the 800 gold investment for a fort.

Yes, but they're not the awesome recruitable-anywhere battlemages that Svartalfs are. It's easier to view shaman as vassal researchers, since they're 1.) native to conquered provinces, 2.) sitting at home researching instead of leading armies into battle, 3.) relatively scarce. (Though not if you were counting ALL indy mages when you said "shamans.") Plus, they'll be wearing Owl Quills and Skull Mentors that they received from their gods (who were actually Hangadrotts under a glamour illusion), and that will do most of the real research.

Also, because indys aren't usually good battlemages, Vanjarls will be recruited instead of the superior Svartalfs, which helps keep the Vanir flavor.

-Max