Epic Heroes Mod MA game(finished)

[Tuidjy]

Ok, because I have nothing to do, I did the following. I started a game
with Ulm, and set the hero to summon. Every two turns, I would send a
smith with two turns worth of the summons out. In ten turns, I have
had 18 battles, AND NOT ONE OF THE FREAKING SUMMONS HAS DIED. In the
eighteenth battle, a smith and his eight thugs ran into a pretender -
Cyclops 9EA6N, and ate him for breakfast.

Screw this. I am asking for a restart.

----

Just because I like beating a dead horse, I took that game to the end.
It was played against 3 impossible AIs, on the Silent seas map. By
turn 24, all the enemy capitals are besieged, and the AIs cannot break
the siege. My masterful strategy has consisted of sending summons
on the straightest road to their capitals. A sample battle result:

Ulm - 1 smith (E+, legions of steel x2, cast), 28 black duke soldiers (3 dead)
Tien Chi - 11 commanders (1 dead), 274 troops (142 dead), 20 magic (20 dead)

The only lost battles were those in which the enemy got to my smith. I never
bothered to position anyone properly. Hell, who needs attention to detail when
one gets 4 thugs and a few knights for free every turn. I am not proud of
beating the AIs. I just wonder what a player could do better by the time the
thugs show up at his door. Oh, by the way, by turn 24, I have 4 castles, 7
temples, all pumping out smiths and Ulm infantries. My pretender was a rainbow
(2-3 everything). My gem income is 31, as she did not start searching until the
Summon Earthpower->Legions of steel combo was ready.

And please. I do not need to be told that stuff like mind burn can be available
early, or that area spells can hurt Ulm later on. This has alwasy been true.
I am arguing that fighting Ulm's thugs in the very early game is fruitless and
frustrating.

[Xietor]

I share your concern about Ulm. Turin also said the plate armor, without the enc and def negatives were too unbalancing.
Though chain mail of displacement is better, obviously you have to forge that at a gem cost.

In no way do i share your concern about any epic hero that is tough later in the game. you mention soul vortex and other spells for pangaea, a magically impaired research race(and i took 2 drain on top of the expensive research mages).

By the time the Treant has access to spells that make him into something truly feared, other races will be summoning queens ele air, kings fire etc.

Late in the game no sc whose strength is melee should be too much of a concern to a good player. regardless of mr, 3-4 astrologers casting paralyze, soul slay, horror mark will cripple any pretender, even a gorgon with petrification fears astral mages.

My goal with the mod was to provide tough, by worthy heroes standards, epic heroes. I am assuming you are aware of the worthy heroes that can appear at your gate(if you did not take mis 3) and how powerful they are compared to the heroes that come with the base game?

I would prefer not to restart, despite sharing your concerns about Ulm-to a degree. I was actually thinking of leaving their weapons and stats in place, but reducing slightly the summon to 3 per turn, while adding a small def penalty and some enc to the plate.

As pangaea, I do not fear being next to ulm, as those black order soldiers have no shield and i can mass produce longbows. While they hit insanely hard they can be trampled easily as they are only size 2. So races with ap missile weapons or longbows can hurt them with missile weapons, and races with tramplers can trample them. They are not unbeatable.

They go into ctis domain, they get diseased. etc.

In short, what i was likely going to do, based on turin's criticism(which you mirror) in 1.4, was reduce the summons in number to 3, like man's, increase their enc from 2 to 3, and increase the enc of the Duke Black Plate from 0 to 2, and add -2 def.

testing may require more tweaks to ulm(and other races), but that is the purpose of this game. But I had hoped to make the changes, and others, in 1.4. Please go look on my mod thread at the many changes already planned.

I understand you took 3 misfortune, and maybe you did not understand the significance of that choice with these mods, as it denies you some very powerful worthy heroes. And maybe you want to try Mictlan, since you think they are overpowered now(i do not).

In any event, a restart would allow me to introduce 1.4 which helps vanheim's hero tremendously. It would also allow me to change Tien chis pretender the way dr p wants it changed (and it is his design, so i am being as lenient as possible here).

I am not willing to nerf ulm, before i have matched his black order soldiers against a live opponent, more than outlined. If that is unacceptable to you, then i understand.

But since there appears to be a strong consensus that Ulm is overpowered, most particularly the black order solider,
I am willing to reduce the summons from 4 to 3, increase their enc by 3(1 to their stats, 2 to their armor), and lower their defense by 2.

Again, I had hoped to implement 1.4 AFTER a game has been played, so it might encompass stuff unforeseen by any of us,
but the fact is some of Vanheim's stuff really should be in this game, and it is hard to test Dr. P's hero if it is going to change radically anyway.

So as much as i would hate to restart again, are there any objections? I will implement the changes to Ulm, as well as the changes that can be viewed in the epic hero thread in the mod forum.

Ctis also gets some combat boosts and an extra slot, but loses assassinate/spy ability, and the croaker's melee ability is reduced a bit.

Probably the hero that receives the biggest boost in 1.4 will be shinuyama. I will scrap the treant's extra misc slot that i was going to give him and ctis since their is concern that treant is not killable late game-something i disagree with, but am willing to test.

If we do restart, anyone can chose a new race/pretender. If we restart, we will not do it again.

I had received a complaint about the angel not having "angel magic" from someone in this game not playing pythium, so despite my personal misgivings about boosting an already overpowered race(in my opinion), i will give Pythium's angel back her air magic, and we will see how it goes. With smite, fire, and air magic, and an army of hydras, surely pythium can find some way to defend itself from hostile neighbors.

[Xietor]

I will have 1.4 available for download shortly.

I am extremely sorry, we will have to restart again. And I thank everyone for their patience. But 1.4 contains many changes and tweaks, just a couple that are raised in this thread.

Since the purpose/goal of this game is to test for balance, i decided to make the change. I have already made all the changes, but i am going through each hero and his summons to make sure there are no mistakes.

I will not be playing pangaea upon reroll. After hearing, rightly or wrongly, that its hero is overpowered, and since 1.4 adds 100 percent pr and a 3rd misc slot, i did not want anyone to think i was taking an overpowered race.

Everyone is welcome to keep their original races. Vanheim and Ctis should be pleased with 1.4. Arcos. summoned elephants are now size 6, and their attack was lowered, but arcos is really not affected much, since they trample anyway.

Ulm gets a nerf. there is no way to sugar coat that. They only get 3 insanely tough guys instead of 4, and they have a tad more enc and 2 less defense.

But they are still the cream of the crop, even with the slight adjustment to their enc/def. It is the loss of the extra summoned troop that has the most effect.

Black phoenix has 3 misc slots now, and received 1 more fire(4).

Marignon got some armor.

Caelum had his makemonster increased to 2(winter wolves), but lost his stealth ability, and his yeti slam lost its aoe fear effect. Big nerf there on yeti, but the aoe fear attack stacked with his high natural fear was overpowered.

Tien chi got the changes the dr. asked for, but i decided not add back wings yet.

Man, agartha, machaka and the water races were completely unchanged.

[Xietor]

Everyone will need to download version 1.4 before we restart the game:

http://www.mediafire.com/?e99ud3xxhng

You can just delete the old version before you download the new. As before, you are free to change races/pretenders.

But the people have dibs on the races they already have obviously. And in the case of a change to a new race, the 1st person to post on this thread gets the new race.

I will have to talk to Llamabeast about setting up the game again. Let me know if there are any issues with the download-or your race with version 1.4.

By all means take a long look at your race before making any decisions. You cannot resend your pretenders until llama gets version 1.4 onto his server and gives the green light.

[Dragonninjaakira]

I'd like to stick with C'tis.

[Tuidjy]

The nerf to Ulm's soldiers may or not be enough. What bothers me is that you are
creating free summons that are comparable to Conj4 thugs equipped with Const4
items. I had devised a strategy for dealing with them, and yes, it did involve
poisoning them. It would have been a pointless endeavor though, because when
you are spending money on special purpose units to fight free summons, you are
losing the game.

I did not choose misfortune 3 because I was unaware of the consequences. I
thought I made that clear earlier.

Oh and for Pangaea's treant, you still do not get it. You keep talking about
a melee SC or defense. Once someone is capable of Soul Vortex, paralizis does
not matter. In one of my latest games, I was insanely lucky to roll a EDB
tartarian naga. The B is worthless, by the way. I gave her a charcoal shield,
an S cap, ring of regeneration and a ring of tamed lightning. She took on an
army of 20 astral/air mages and 400 assorted bowmen, but she managed to get
invulnerability and soul vortex off before she was paralized. After that, it was
all over. The chafe died easy, the (cross)bow guys ran out of arrows, got into
hand to hand, got broiled/drained and routed. But that was on turn 64 with a
VERY lucky magic roll. All Pangaea needs is Alt/Const 6... and once again, you
have created a creature that is grossly more powerful than unique conj 8 summons,
and which does not have the restrictions traditionally associated with treants.

As for making Pythium angel's 3a3f3h, yes, that would make her quite powerful.
Not powerful enough to deal with 18 free thugs on turn 8-9 though. I am tempted
to actually run your thugs against other nations' troops and see the results. If
I get 30 minutes, I will do it.

And you should call your Heroes mod a balance mod, so that people know what they
are getting into. You have admitted that you originally shafted Pythium and
Vanheim because you believed they were overpowered, and that you gave Ulm the
insane summons because you think it is underpowered. And hey, I agree about
Ulm and Vanheim, and may agree about Pythium after I try them in Dom III.
Not that I agree with the way you solved the issue, but it is your mod.

Still you need to tell people that. I expect most people to assume that heroes
are in similar power categories. This is absolutely not the case.

[Xietor]

Sorry for the misunderstanding, but if you read the mod forum under Epic heroes, it makes that fact crystal clear in the very first post.

I understand that it is a huge thread though, and i am not faulting anyone for not taking an hour to read the whole thing. But I do state the mod's intent early on.

While I have done very well in my multiplayer games, I know that better players than me exist-and maybe you are one of them. I certainly invite you to play overpowered pangaea, and show us why it is overpowered if you like playing that race.

I will wait until everyone else has selected a race, and maybe even play one of the "underpowered" ones like marignon or Pythium. But now that doubt has been cast on Pangaea, i will not be playing that race.

[Xietor]

I would be interested to see 18 of ulms fight 18 of mans summons if you get the opportunity.

Also, I do appreciate the input, it is only through challenge, discourse, and argument that the mod can be improved.

If everyone is politely silent, nothing will get changed. This upcoming game will be fun. Play any race that you think you will enjoy. There are some capable players in this game, as well as some newer players.

I designed all the heroes so that no race should be susceptible to a bum rush by Ulm or anyone else-if the players are equal in ability.

Out of curiousity, if the treant is so overpowered, why could the same result not be achieved with a titan pretender taking the same magic, and having all the slots to equip(treant has no hands, body, or feet).

[Tuidjy]

Oh, it is very much achievable :-) I do not remember the last time that I
played a pretender that did not have Water, Death and Nature and at least
one of Air or Earth :-) The problem is that it cost tons in scales. When
you receive the monster SC for free, you are allowed to get better scales
and let the pretender sleep a bit.

As for Man's summons, they are quite tough. But they are perfectly plausible
lore-wise. They have human stats, and well crafted equipment. Ulm's soldiers
have the stats of thugs and about 35 gems worth of equipment each.

---------

Results of testing. Ten times Ulm attacks, Man defends, no PD, Man gets to fire
twice before the squads are engaged. The commanders are on HOLDx5, stay behind.

10 battles, 10 victories for Ulm.
In six cases, no casualties for Ulm, full casualties for Man.
In two cases, no casualties for Ulm, three Man survivors.
In one case, one casualty for Ulm (lucky shot), no Man survivors.
In one case, Man got a lucky militia event. No casualties for Ulm, 59 dead Men.

The results speak for themselves. This was before the nerf. I'll test it
with v1.4 in a second...

---------------

With v1.4

casualties
4x 20 / 0
4x 20 / 1
1x 20 / 2
1x 19 / 1

What can I say? These guys have divine attack/defense/encumbrance.
Don't you think that you may want to nerf them a bit more, and buff the hero?

[Xietor]

Appreciate the feedback once again. I did actually expect Ulm would win, but I did expect Man to fare a tad better. Of course in a real showdown, even early, between Ulm and Man, Man would be bolstered by lighting casting mages, and Ulm by flying shards. Man would also have longbows, and i think they could dent even 21 protection.

And Beowulf is no slouch himself, though even your Treant likely would likely not survive 10 of Ulm's Black Order Soldiers. And to be quite frank, most prudent players would not risk an sc against Ulm's Black Order Soldiers unless their back was against the wall.

But I have done what i can for now, with respect to Ulm and other nations. If Ulm swallows the world in our game, then you will be proved correct. While i have yet to pick a race,
it is my belief that i can slow those babies down somehow!