Conceptual Balance Mod (and readme file) 1.00

[quantum_mechani]

After a lot of tinkering and testing, CB finally seems to be approaching the level of polish of it's Dom2 version. Many of the changes from 0.92 and other early beta versions have been reworked, though the only major change people who have been following the recent beta versions will notice is the addition of the readme.

[quantum_mechani]

Here is the mod split into sections (scales, items, etc.).

[Wauthan]

Thanks for sharing this mod Quantum mechani. It has obviously taken a lot of time to create, considering the immense scope and the subtle alterations to balance. I especially like the changes you've made to the spells.

I'm a bit curious about your motivation though. Some of the alterations are so subtle that I wonder why you made them at all? I assume that you've drawn a lot of inspiration from earlier rebalancing mods, since I sort of recognise bits and pieces from dom2 discussions. But what was your own reason for making this mod?

[quantum_mechani]

Wauthan said:
I'm a bit curious about your motivation though. Some of the alterations are so subtle that I wonder why you made them at all? I assume that you've drawn a lot of inspiration from earlier rebalancing mods, since I sort of recognise bits and pieces from dom2 discussions. But what was your own reason for making this mod?

The goal of the mod is very simple, to try and create as wide a variety of viable strategic choices as possible. Some of the changes are indeed so minor it is not clear they will have a very large effect by themselves, but since I believe they are all in the direction of balance my hope is they will have a cumulative impact.

[bgqsl]

Some GE so imbalanced,like Gift of Nature's Bounty,it gives a total income bonus 150%--200%,makes 100 gold become
250-300,a fire gem just worth 15 gold,think about it.I think that kind of GE should have a maximum value of 50%.
Also some spells so nasty,like master enslave,with this spell,AI can never have a chance to win,you can give you
god >15 lvl astral magic to cast it,it just can control
almost all you enemy's army...

[quantum_mechani]

There are so many options that leave the AI with almost no chance to win, I'd have to remove a good percentage of all spells, items, and sacred units just to make a dent. The speels you mention actually rate rather low, they are almost never key MP spells. I can tell you though, the AI does perform a bit better in CB than base game, since things like shades and light cavalry aren't just throwing gold/gems down the drain.

[Sombre]

Edi made an excellent point in another thread that EA ulm warriors are very underpowered - they don't have very good ambi and they're using fairly long weapons so they end up making attacks at about 7 or 8 skill.

I'm going to try out this mod and I might update the modlist to consider whether nations are balanced to work with the CBM.

If I like the changes you've made I'll probably make versions of my own two nations (and maybe more) which fit the general balance scheme. Is there anywhere that I can see a summary of the kind of changes you've made? For example "cavalry generally made more useful, indy commanders made more expensive etc" ?

[KissBlade]

There's a read me that comes with the file. =) Also, there has been some debate and there is a strong chance that the chance to the raising of levels to the magic boosters will come down. Yay!

[Sombre]

I looked in the readme and there's a massive and detailed list of every single change,.. yes,.. which is very useful I'm sure. But what would be even more useful for people who haven't been part of the CBM debate would be a summary of the major sweeping changes and a brief rationale for them.

For example, "Indy commanders have all had their prices raised. This is to encourage use of national commanders" or "The resource costs of a great many types of weapon and armor have been increased making resources and castles more important generally" or whatever (I haven't played the mod yet so I don't know, that's just an example). If there was a summary of the broad changes like that it would certainly help people out. It would also help nation makers balance their mods to fit with CBM (as would a rough guide of balance - such as generally light infantry cost 8, heavies cost 10, elite humans 15 etc, base commanders cost 30 not 40, or whatever).

I just think it would be very useful to know the philosophy behind it all (a little more than just "to improve balance") as well as the specifics.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, I really agree with Sombre here. I downloaded the mod, scanned the readme, and for the moment gave up. I'd still consider playing with it, but it would be really nice to have a general idea of what the mod's changed.