some balance questions

[Pocus]

- the master alchemist is still at 100 gp whereas the other rainbow mages decreased quite a lot. I find that (despite his transmute gold) he is now very costly compared to others.

- the blood of human theme for Abysia dont do much for Humanbreds. They are still at 15 gp, whereas I read somewhere that they were cheaper. What his the interest of the theme in fact? (aside for a new humanbred with axe)

- the castles are somehow tweaked, but I think there is perhaps not enough emphasis on the importance of admin (and there is too much emphasis on the importance of defence strength in cost evaluation). The preferred castle of doms I, named 'Castle' in doms II, is still a sure bet.

Perhaps just a minor bug, I have my dragon pretender named after my prophet each time he acts in battle, rather strange. (well his name dont change, but in the 4 lines where the xxx cast yyy spell, he is labelled as my prophet).

Also, I miss the auto center feature of doms I, when you right clicked in a province. You can only scroll with arrows keys now?

back to my tests

[ October 28, 2003, 14:30: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:
- the master alchemist is still at 100 gp whereas the other rainbow mages decreased quite a lot. I find that (despite his transmute gold) he is now very costly compared to others.

- the blood of human theme for Abysia dont do much for Humanbreds. They are still at 15 gp, whereas I read somewhere that they were cheaper. What his the interest of the theme in fact? (aside for a new humanbred with axe)

- the castles are somehow tweaked, but I think there is perhaps not enough emphasis on the importance of admin (and there is too much emphasis on the importance of defence strength in cost evaluation). The preferred castle of doms I, named 'Castle' in doms II, is still a sure bet.

Perhaps just a minor bug, I have my dragon pretender named after my prophet each time he acts in battle, rather strange. (well his name dont change, but in the 4 lines where the xxx cast yyy spell, he is labelled as my prophet).

Also, I miss the auto center feature of doms I, when you right clicked in a province. You can only scroll with arrows keys now?

back to my tests

Hmm, 100p is wrong. Apparently he didn't get the cost decrease when the other arch mages did. Thanks.

I thought they costed 12. I must take a check.

It is not defence as much as the physical design of each castle that is weighted. Have you been besieged yet? Citadels and hill fortresses are devastating to grounded troops.

That dragon prophet thing sounds strange.

F1 nation overview can center things. I can't remember if there is a center key available otherwise.

[Psitticine]

I just double-checked and the humanbred troops cost 13 gold apiece. They range from 11-30 resources in cost, depending (of course) on equipment.

I play with dragons a lot (I just like 'em ) and I haven't seen the weird name thing, or at least didn't spot it if it happened. Could it be related to a demo-specific issue, such as a pointer being out of place due to a shift in content layout?

There's no centering key (it'd be nice if right-click would center though - hint-hint!) unless you count Home centering you on your home province. You can hit # and then type in a province number to center there immediately, but I've only used that to test it. The way I do it is to either use the Center on Province option from the relevent news-of-the-turn entries (i.e. Messages), or use F1 for the super-handy Nation Overview.

Tip on Nation Overview, BTW. You can hit Tab to toggle commmander display. I often turn them on to check orders, turn them off to check provinces, and so forth. You can also hit Tab on the Army Set-up screen to hide Researching commanders. (It'll tell you in a line on the top of the screen how many hidden researchers you have in that province.)

[Nerfix]

I have few, well, issues too:
Is the physical design that makes Mountain Citadel usefull? It has very poor admin value...

If you make an Anathemant Dragon a prophet, you get description of a Warlock.

Ummmm, what is the point of Blood of Humans theme? You get less design points(you can only take Heat 2), troops that don't radiate heat, awfuly restricted commanders and only 4 gems per turn. It felt like i was hurting myself when i played Blood of Humans...

But i must say that the spell AI performs quite good. I just saw an Anathemant Salamander to cast Phoenix Pyre in order to pump up the Holy Pyres he casted! Earlier today i saw a single Niefel Jarl routing 30 Barbarians just by casting the rigth spells(Quickness-2X Sailors Death-2X Frigthen).

[Pocus]

Blood of Human : newbie mistake. It seems I reverted to standard Abysia theme somehow (I think this must be the heat+3 that disabled Blood of human automatically, and I didnt notice).

Alchemist : checked again & confirmed.

prophet and pretender name mess : I dont have kept the save. If I encounter it again, I will zip the files, if not, then it must be newbie illusionary bug syndroma

no I have no stormed fortress, true. Bad habit of doms I in discarding completely the value of sieges towers (because of storm/arrow fend).

I feel all thrilled & strange to be lost again in the complexity of dominions. How enjoyable it is

Centering : the way doms I centered was handy, you would scroll with that easily.

thank for the tip Psi, handy too to filter commanders.

edit : 2 new notes:
1) in windowed mode the keyboard is in qwerty (painful for us french) and no capital letters are available (and you cant type ? for shortcuts). In fullscreen mode, it is in azerty, and all work well. Strange.
2) you can script #commander, dont know if we are supposed to be allowed that. very minor I think.

re-edit : forget about this right click centering. Just saw the thread on moving the map with scroll button.
scroll button dont work for province defence buying btw.

[ October 28, 2003, 15:51: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Kristoffer O]

The Blood of Humans is the first step of the downward path of Abysia

Fire resistant soldiers for 13 gold is not bad.

4 gems is of little importance.

Good point on the 2 heat points loss.

Most mages only at home, but new cheap mage.


We have tried not to make themes more powerful than the default. It is better to tweak up weak ones later than having a overly strong theme that affects MP balances.

[Nerfix]

@K.O
I kinda figured that out
What next, "Age of Pink Skinned People"?

Normal Humanbreds cost only 2 Gp's more.
Ok, 13 Gp Fire Resistant troops aren't bad.
Their sacred unit was also quite decent.

They don't need so much money though, so it migth be balanced. Or not.

Uhhhh, sir! You say there is no real impact on the game when Pythium swims in gems and BoH Abysia is starving from the start?

Yeah, i suppose the Newt is one of the best things you can get with 90 Gp...

[ October 28, 2003, 16:04: Message edited by: Nerfix ]

[Saber Cherry]

I have not tried it, but maybe "Blood of Hunams" should cost -25 or -50 to compensate for the -1 fire gem, -1 heat scale, and fewer Abyssians. Do any themes cost negative points?

[Nerfix]

None i am aware of.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
I have not tried it, but maybe "Blood of Hunams" should cost -25 or -50 to compensate for the -1 fire gem, -1 heat scale, and fewer Abyssians. Do any themes cost negative points?

the 40 pts reduction in design is costly, except if Abysia get a (growth) benefit from growth scale with the theme? That would compensate.