Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

This version is coming out a little early (some games are waiting for it) so an up to date readme and a split version of the mod will be along later. The change log posted here is fairly complete though, so combined with the old readme there shouldn't be any problems.

General changes:

*Clams, Blood stones and Fever Fetishes Unique items.

*Lord of Corruption stealth boosted.

*Midget Masher revamped: now does AOE 1 damage but needs lots of strength to work at all.

*Dancing trident 2a to forge -> 1a.

*Serpent king given more dominion.

*Great warlock given astral magic.

*Vampire queen got another -10 to new path cost.

*Gorgon 150 points.

*Herald lance cheaper.

*Tartarians -25% hp.

*The Sharpest Tooth, Percival the Pocket Knight, Holger the Head, Fenris' Pelt, Trident From Beyond, Carcator the Pocket Lich, Jade Mask all cheaper/easier to forge.

*Claymen 5 gems -> 3 gems.

*Hidden in Sand, Hidden in Snow cheaper again (this is partly due to trying to give water gems better value, and make earth help earth summons having trouble even with bloodstones involved).

*Naiad Warriors cheaper (this is also related to the clam change, the aim is to make them not just an OK deal but a great deal to help fill the void).

*Burnsaber's underwater mod water breathing item changes adopted (breathing items drastically cheaper).

*Juggernauts got awe.

*Many heroes given special weapons (either named after the hero or called hero's spear/morningstar/etc.), which are magic and most also have a bonus vs larger beings.

*Many heroes improved by autocasting personal luck in battle, you can tell they get the luck in battle if they have one of the weapons mentioned above.

*New forgable item added: Hero's Blade, 2e, const level 2 to forge. Mostly similar to sword of sharpness except on hit it does 15 extra ap damage to most enemies, and 45 ap to larger enemies.

*Treelords generate vine men instead of nature gems.

*Bell of Cleansing takes 2w, research 6.

*Umbrals cost 3 gems and are back at research level 5.

*Dragons and dragon scale mail got +2 protection value.

National Balance:

*Sounder of Boars, Sloth of Bears, Pack of Wolves, and Ambush of Tigers (one of the spells, the other one can't be accessed with mod commands) all research 0.

*MA Agartha got crossbows, capital only stone hurlers, a 10% random on golemcrafters, and lower research level on enchantment summons.

*EA and MA Agartha oracles 50 gold cheaper.

*Pans, Pandemonics, Panic Apostles and Capricorns all cheaper.

*Centaur archers 25 gold -> 22 gold.

*MA Oceania now gets mermages in coastal forts, and Capricorns only lose 1w when out of water.

*EA Atlantis coral priests now have a chance at magic, mages of the deep are cheaper, basalt pillars improved, and given a starting fort with more admin.

*Sauromatia poison archers increased to 20 gold (given the bug with them is unlikely to be fixed).

*MA man crones got improved randoms, cheaper knights of avalon, wardens and lord wardens everywhere.

*LA Bogarus Khlysts and Skopets cheaper.

*LA C'tis tomb wyrms got fear, grave consort slightly cheaper.

*Marverni druids 40 gold cheaper and cheaper boar warriors, board lord got 1 holy level.

*C'tis priest kings cheaper.'

*Tiger Riders, Wind Riders and Black Hunters cheaper.

*Kailasa capital only mages cheaper, and all sacred troops -5 gold.

*EA Arco engineer recruitable everywhere, mage engineer better at sieging.

*Niefel Jarl, Baal, Adon, Talmai Elder and Melquart increased prices.

Bug fixes:

*Chi shoes attack now a bonus weapon.

*Ry'leh hybrid trooper with -4 from two weapons got ambidex.

*Shade beast price fixed.

*Farm of plenty removed from game (it is bugged and has no effect).

*Thrown boulders have 5 ammo (it was an unintended nerf that they were 2 ammo last version).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Now MA Man will be interesting to play with for sure. Sacred recruitable everywhere stealth troops, ouchie.

Kailasa now have more affordable sacreds. Less Ghandarvas, and reason to recruit monkeys at all.

MA Agartha Golem Crafters should get the random at 25-50% not at 10%.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Very nice, many thanks to qm!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Very nice job. I'm kinda terrified by the MA Agartha changes though, just because there were so many. I know the blood stone change nerfed them a fair amount, but there's so much going on here I can't help but think it's an overcompensation.

Mostly I'm afraid of the Golem Crafter random--giving them critical mass in fire and water is pretty good. You get even better sitesearching, rune smashers with a water bracelet, and staffs of corrosion, as well as the standard evocations. Native astral access is another beast entirely. One booster and your astral forging is self sustaining; You get Gift of the Heavens, ethereal crossbows, and mind hunt immunity. Even better, you don't have to desperately rush for specters/hidden in sand to defend yourself.

Add on top of that the reduced level and cost of your statues, plus umbrals down to level 5 again, and it seems like you have an absolute powerhouse.

All that being said, the earthstone nerf is pretty major; we'll see how things pan out. And if all those buffs turn out to be justified...what about Ulm? What does it get to compensate?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I just can't wait to mass LA C'tis tomb wyrms now :D

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

wow, a sacred serpent chassis (admittedly undead) that might actually be playable as a sacred? Inconceivable!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

No compensatory earth booster? Interesting. Earth as a path just got a bit weaker. So did astral, arguably.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

These lines in LA Pan seem to be a typo as it makes them cost 330g (more then MA version):
-Panii
#selectmonster 706
%gcost 300
#end

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Looks awesome, thanks QM!

I don't suppose you squeezed Mark of the Champion in there did you?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Did you fix/add stuff you forgot in beta version? As it's surely not in the readme.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Sigh. Bye, CM, hello again, vanilla. :(

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I'm still a bit wary of the clams being made unique items. I'd rather just see them made more expensive so that the return on investment is slower.

Otherwise a good update.

Could you provide a version were the clams aren't completely removed from the game and just nerfed instead?

Jazzepi

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

changing the clams itself is trivial jazz.. but it begs a lot of other questions.

Bloodstones were nerfed - do you want them fixed too?
Naiad warriors were made dirt cheap as compensation... include the compensation or no....

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Thats too bad, but if you still want to use it in SP you could always take out the gemgen part. Though MP might be more difficult, you can still start a game with your rules!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Heck, I dont even know.
Vanilla - back to useless Titans and overpriced rainbows. CBM - 'bang them hard with lotsa troops' as the only endgame strategy; nations with weak troops start weak and end up even weaker. Grim choice. I really hope this change will be undone in future updates, as boosters price hike before.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Its not like you can't use summons? You just don't get to have ridiculous numbers of rituals/forging/whatever.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

@Kuritza: Wait and see a few games with this mod. I dont think the endgame will turn out that way, rather that we´ll see some new interesting strategies rise from the gutter.

Sure, I´m worried about balance too. Mostly that blood nations will get more dominant now as they are the other way to get obscene levels of "gems", but we´ll see.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Yea, you will be able to summon and forge. Just not enough to make difference, if you play as an underdog against a powerhouse.
Oh, and Astral Nexus will be even more imbalanced than it is now, because with your tiny gem income you will never ever come close to dispelling / replacing it.

New strategies wont arise out of *lack* of something. Heavy nerf of summons will make national troops more powerful and controlling territories with magic sites more important. This is the goal of this nerf, as far as I understand.

But then, your neighbour you just defeated in a decisive battle will turtle in his castles, sending black minions with bane venom charms everywhere (calling it 'fighting till the bitter end'), while somebody else will just go AI letting others claim their lands easily. I bet it sounds all-too-familiar. That other lucky dude, having suffered much less casualties and reaping much tastier reward, will continue to grow, while you will fall behind - and there will be no other resources to draw upon, just land and magic sites.

Or take LA Ermor and LA Rlyeh, for example. They get thousands of troops for free; at the moment you can try to use summons and SCs against them. Remove gemgens, and its your laughable recruitable troops against their endless hordes. Right, you might have one or two SCs, but so will they. Game over?

As for 'compensation'... Naiad warriors made cheaper? Oh please.

But in the end, its not my decision to make. I just stated my point - perhaps enough people will agree, and some consensus will be made (like two separate mods, which I'd love). Perhaps not - then I'm just wrong and should join vanilla games instead.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Their tiny gem income put it up, and they had to pass 150s benchmark to do so. Certainly your similarly tiny gem income can afford the 30s for dispelling + whatever boost you feel is appropriate - that's like a 1:5 advantage in your favor!

and... what stops that from happening now? I mean, even now with gemgens the same stuff happens, and your opposite is surely clamming/bloodstoning/fetishing just as hard as you are. There's no difference in comparative advantage here.

Troops which are just so much chaff... Surely any LA nation can do something about those with national recruits. Strategic and tactical use of your mages may also be more important in such a scenario.

How did they not end up with just as many SCs as you before, as well? I mean, Rlyeh gets a great clamming mage on an N random, so its not like they're going to lack for clams. Ermor has great access to death magic for all that crazy death thugging/SCing without alchemizing. I'm just not seeing how lack of gem gens means you no longer have an SC advantage against them.

---------

Its not that I necessarily agree with removal of gem gens, but I don't think it has the consequences you do, because everyone is affected equally. This means equal reduction in the number of SCs on both sides, assuming the two sides are actually evenly matched. (Otherwise, the stronger side should still tend to defeat the weaker side if they fight straight-up).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Even if you have stored 100+ astral to dispel Nexus immediately, which doesnt happen all the time, he will just cast it again next turn. Did you ever cast Nexus in an intense MP game? Its 200+ astral pearls per turn.

Of course there is a huge difference. No gemgens rule makes land much more important, which makes any gap wider. I think its too obvious to explain in detail.
Also, there's a fat chance that other dude didnt even start clamming yet. Imagine that its Mictlan. He can rush like no tomorrow, but he cant start clamming out of the box.

Say again? Ermor troops are useless chaff? With natonal unholy blessing? Really? Thousand of longdead legionaires with 16+ attack and high MR anyone? With darkness? Knights of the Unholy Sepulchre, anyone?
Rlyeh spawn is useless chaff? Void creatures, tramplers, huh? Not to mention that Rlyeh also has recriutable troops to support this chaff, which happen to be identical to MA RLyeh troops. And MA RLyeh is a very solid nation.

So yes, surely and LA nation can do something about these with just national recruits, which is why even with gemgens these two nations won most games so far.

Ermor's got a weak research, so its gonna take a while before he can get SCs and clammers of his own.
Rlyeh... Well, in my opinion LA RLyeh is just crazy, in all meanings. But when X > Y, X/Y < X + a / Y + a.
In other words, when national troops dont matter as much as SCs and summons do, advantage in national troops also doesnt matter as much.


Affected equally doesnt mean equally hurt. Reduction in the number of SCs will strengthen some nations and weaken others. Also, see above about widening all gaps.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think Machaka got the short straw with this version.

With Flaming Arrows being so difficult to cast in CBM the only hope for Machaka has been to burn gems for evocations (or to get Flaming Arrows up), craft items and summon stuff early on in the game, and expand rapidly, because their late game *sucks*. Except now there are too few gems available (this is *good*, it just hurts Machaka mid game a lot, and they already do suck in early game and late game...).

Everybody and their dog can enter the seas now, which is good. Well, except of course Machaka. Their troops are useful only to slow down the opponents before the fire evocations save the day; except of course the fire evocations can't be used under the waves.


Machaka desperately needs some help now.

Maybe a national version of flaming arrows with a lot less demanding requirements would be nice. Don't know if it would be possible have a flaming arrows with limited duration (like say one turn, so that the caster would have to recast it each round) or limited area (like AoE 10 or 20 or something), but it sure would help Machaka a lot.

Or perhaps the Black Sorceror could have Dragon Master as innate ability (to be able to summon fire drakes early on to bolster the lines in the early moments).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

If the Blood Stone now is a unique item, then the Earth Boots are the only reasonable earth boster remaining. Maybe just removing gem generating effect from the Blood Stone was enough? Or perhabs creating an alternative booster?

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Can't remove just gem generating.

The topic of an alternative booster has been much discussed. It basically comes down to either pebble skin suit or tome of gaia.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

You are not the first one to come up with this idea. It's a good idea, but not possible to implement with the current modding tools. We can't change any special properties of magic items (expect for the weapon and armor stats alonside with cost and researchlevel).

The closest "replacing" earth booster would likely be the artifact "Pebble Skin Suit", moved to construction 6 for example, but it has a lot of other effects, like being cursed and giving stoneskin, +2 str and regeneration. It also has a chance to turn the wearer into a troll each month.

The early Days game is currently testing the Pebble Skin Suit as an con6 item with a cost of E4B1. After giving it some tought, I think that it would have been better to make it E5. With a whopping cost of 40 earth gems, you would only use it as a booster when you really need it (seriosuly, how many Treelord staves have you forged?), so there won't be any "troll" spam happening. Also the "Troll" transformation is more useful for human nations than to giants.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Nice changes!

Please consider to change the global gem generation spells too. They were strong before but now even stronger to cast them early on (usual nobody dispels until lategame).

This would balance the globals somehow because we already have a very strong focus on gem generation globals and only few others like gift of health.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Half measures. Just get rid of gems! Well mabye leave these from your capitol, for minor forging, but no magic sites.
Then national troops wont get obsolete till the very late game :)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Are you talking about Forge of Godhood? I'm finding it very enjoyable! :)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

And we all know that astral corruption and utterdark are so weak:).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Thanks, I missed that typo.

Zeldor and llamabeast: Quite a few things that I wanted to put I didn't make it in this version, but the gem changes are pretty major so I'll let that issue settle before doing more changes I think.

Kuritza: I understand the change to gem gens is probably the most radical single thing CB has attempted. However, the suggestions and feedback I have gotten back on it has been overall very positive. It is of course possible that after some games with it people will come to find it has more drawbacks than anticipated, but I hope you will at least consider trying game or two with it.

As far as LA Ermor and Ryleh are concerned I think it is mostly matter of an already existing problem that gem gens just obscured a bit. It's possible other changes might be undertaken to work on them.

And yes I realize naiad warriors is a fairly token boost in comparison, but I think it goes to show a bit how broken clams were.

On mackaka: They did get something of boost for their hunter spiders in this version. Also, they can get underwater just fine with the new manual of water breathing (1n). And their death, nature and earth magic is actually not band under there.

Boosting their PD is one thing I meant to do and didn't get around to though.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I would love to one day see spider riders either not yield permanent spider units upon death, or regrow their riders if you don't kill the entire unit (because it feels very silly to buy the riders and get them killed in order to get the spiders, upkeep free). Of course this would require cost balancing as the units would then be very different. I'd just prefer if they mechanically fit in with other mounts like wolves, horses, serpents etc.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

machaka pd is the worst in the game. their unarmored warriors rush you, and are then decimated by the slingers, which often causes their whole army to then break :D

also, make pebbleskin const6 already :judge:

it uses the right paths, and any extra benefits it provides are easily balanced out by the lack of transferability due to being cursed :)

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I like the changes to gem gens but I think Fantomen brings up a good point that reducing the supply of gems in the late game while not making any changes to blood gives blood magic a boost. Probably worth keeping an eye on to see how that plays out.

On a completely biased note: thanks for making Cu Sidhe more affordable. They are a cool unit but hard to justify summoning. They're still hard to justify but not as much so.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Great update to CBM. I like all of it. I think MA machaka is the most heavily nerfed by this, improvements to the Hunter spider isn´t really helping unless good enough to warrant a bless strategy. Perhaps make the spider warriors more useful and recruit everywhere? The suggestion of innate dragon master for black sorcerors seem unthematic to me.

I beleive the Naiad warriors may have gotten too cheap even, we´ll see. But 15 such formidable units for 10 gems seem very good. Good boost for Oceania though...

I agree to make pebble skin suit construction 6, keep it Earth/blood and it should be quite expensive.

I wouldn´t worry *at all* about earth nations getting weaker actually. Look at it this way: What is the other way to multiply your gems apart from gemgens? Thats right, hammers. And without the blood stones hammers are going to be even more valuable and harder to forge. Strong earth evocations and buffs will be rarer, which is a great and well needed boost to EA Agartha, Kailasa and Bandar log.

Btw a stronger chance of high earth (means 3) for Machaka might be the right boost for balance.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I still think that CBM should reduce the paths required to cast a number of the high level E spells. I mean, how many nations get 4E out of the box? With only boots, E attack is going to be ludicrously tough to cast. So will petrify, army of lead, riches of beneath, melancholia, even father illearth and the kings. Petrify and the armies you might communion, and some of the others could be boosted w/staves or rings, but it still seems ridiculous to have your only options be ridiculously expensive and requiring paths that a lot of E nations don't have.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I'd much rather favor Tome of Gaia as the replacement booster. Its only really going to matter if for some bizarre reason you need to squeak an extra misc booster for N out of a fountain, since there are already 3 misc slot N boosters available (moonvine, rings). And it doesn't have the crazy downside of turning into a troll.


Also second the call for lower path reqs on high earth spells. Petrify might as well not exist at E5, and the army of spells are pretty inaccessible barring a few rather specific nations (most of whom probably won't survive long enough to ever cast it).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Downside? Well, it is for Abysia I guess. I'd think most nations would call it a perk though.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Inaccessible?
For combat spells everything is fine, E1+boots+Earthpower+crystal shield = E4, then throw in a few more gems.
For rituals and summons, there's still like 4 nonunique E boosters around (Robe, Staffs, RoW), even if a bit on expensive side.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

P3D: One of Army of Lead or Gold is E5, as is Petrify, as is Weapons of Sharpness. Not everyone has easy access to crystal shields, and gems are going to be rare enough as it is. And *excess* earth to keep fatigue down to sane levels might be necessary (I'd have to actually look at the specific spells again to confirm).

Considering these are also spells which can let armies compete in the endgame, and people are already complaining about lack of gemgens = fewer SCs, this could go a long way to filling the power void for those nations who can't straight up compete with nationals.

Also, virtually every other path is easier to boost, and by more, than earth is. And then it is in the running for highest average path level of its combat spells... not a well-balanced combination.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Army of Gold and Weapons of Sharpness are E4. Weapons of Sharpness in particular is arguably too low. An E1 mage with earth boots and summon earthpower can just burn a gem to cast a powerful AOE 25 spell. That's the thing with these high end earth spells - they have a large/battlefield-wide AOE so you don't need many of them. That also means fatigue is not an issue the way it is when you want to spam a spell. Petrify has a high requirement and you would want to spam it but I'm not sure why it has to be easy for non-E nations to cast.

The problem with Tome of Gaia is ideally you want to keep the same forging paths as for the blood stone. If you do that you are giving nations access to an N booster they wouldn't otherwise have.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

If I wanted to edit out all of the troops and heroes abilities to freely spawn troops in CBM how would I do this? Also the units that have no movement make them be able to move? I have found the pretenders and this is easy but having a hard time with others. Such as the Niefel Jotun hero that spawns troops. I dont see anything to edit that out of his stats in there? I want to make all of the EA Rhley troops and heroes be able to move but I cannot find these either. Such as the commanders and heros. Any tips would be appreciated!

Or in other words how would I edit every pretender, unit, hero, etc. that can spawn stuff and/or that cannot move to not be able to spawn and to be able to move...


Sorry a total newb at modding this game!

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Valerius: its not a matter of non-E nations casting petrify, its that even nations that are supposed to be good in E can't with any effectiveness. You could more easily build a soulslay communion out of indy lizard shamans than get a decent petrify spam going. Besides, its not like a lot of non-E don't cast a bunch of E spells already, so there's not exactly a lot of change.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

You can find out the ID number of a unit from Edi's database (found in his sig) or by pressing shift I on the right click screen of a unit.

You can then use mod commands found in the modding manual to alter the unit.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I've updated the online Forging Reference to include CBM 1.6

In the process, I found 2 small errors:

- Lycanthropos' Amulet not implemented as intended due to a spelling error.
- Dragon Scale Mails not implemented as intended due to coding oversight.

Correct code should be:

#selectitem "Lycanthropos' Amulet"
#mainlevel 1
#end

#selectarmor "Green Dragon Scale Mail"
#prot 17
#end

#selectarmor "Red Dragon Scale Mail"
#prot 17
#end

#selectarmor "Blue Dragon Scale Mail"
#prot 17
#end

Enjoy!
cleveland

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

QM, would you please make the dragon mails constr 2? They're not very good at constr 6, and all those magic types could really use a passible armor at construction 2 rather than having nothing until construction 6, with the sole exception of fire. (I think i've seen a dragon scale armor made all of once).

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Ah, my mistake...the Dragon Scale Mails are just fine as-is. Kindly ignore.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

New Conceptual Balance, *drool*...

I'm starting to consider getting out of my hibernation.


While Blood Stones were very nice, and were required for reaching better Earth spells, they were too good. ANY Earth nation should consider taking up Blood, just to get the Blood Stones, even if they never use it for anything else... and they might not, since Blood Stones were so great.

The change hurts some nations more, and I'm worried about MA Ulm especially. E2 Smith + boots + stone + earthpower could reach E5 in a fight, giving Ulm access to Petrify, which would give them a counter to SCs. A Crystal Shield is a poor alternative, even with 50% forging bonus. Their Iron Angels might be a bit better under the new CB though, since they're relatively cheap and the competition was slightly nerfed.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think the gem generator removal is a good idea most of the time. It forces a more active role on everyone and does remove some emphasis from massively boosted globals and huge hordes of summoned armies that are not in any way tied to actual gem income.

It does make the position of underdog more challenging, but there must be other ways to compensate for that, such as diplomatic efforts.

Of course, that depends on what you like, but I have no objection to less gem gens, especially less clams.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

Thanks! How would I get the Son of Niefel to stop spawning wolves? He is not in CBM mod but in game.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

You would select his monster number, #clearspec, then add back in all of his other abilities (like cold res, etc).

Also note the Vampire Queen, Ghost King, and Prince of Death spawn a few troops. Not to mention a bunch of summons with spawn.

Re: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6
 

I think not having the gems to spam Iron Angels nerfs them in comparison far more than, say, Tartarians(who are comparable price-wise).