Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[Dimaz]

The thing is, while Bane Lords and HiS commanders are pretty good thugs, Sea King is a proper SC.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Dimaz

The thing is, while Bane Lords and HiS commanders are pretty good thugs, Sea King is a proper SC.

That I don't believe. In large part because i don't believe in 'proper SCs' at all anymore.

Any army fielded these days that a SK could take down, 2 banelords could do so as well.

There's no such thing as a proper SC anymore. Competent players don't lose armies to SCs. The primacy of mage-backed armies is a huge meta change, and it really changes how certain units need to be valued.

Edit: I'd say the unwarranted nerf to Rain of Stones was a cause, but really it just helped a trend that was already in motion in late 1.6.

[Dimaz]

I don't know about post-1.6 changes, but IMO SCs weren't supposed to kill heavily mage-supported armies alone from the beginning, by proper SC I mean the guy who can easily kill ordinary thugs like mentioned banelords, deal with medium armies (low magic support) alone and survive in big battles.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

So.. if you're Abysia with a very focused research strategy you could have early Zmeys? With no gear? I'm... not really that impressed.

Doesn't have to be that heavily focused, and why would you deploy them naked unless it's appropriate to do so. It takes a whole extra 1-2 turns to research construction 2 for some basic gear.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

You do realize Zmeys lose to skellie spam without a RoR and some sort of reinvigoration, right?

Fire shield works pretty well to, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that.

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Being able to pull something awesome out early is the whole point of an early research strategy. I don't think a turn 20 naked zmey is really all that more awesome than kitted Eriu thugs by turn 10...

I agree that the awe on Sidhe Lords (Was that Eriu as well or just TNN?) was also a ridiculously bad call, but that's not relevant to the discussion at hand.

Also while Zmeys are certainly the most blatant issue at Conjuration 6, I intentionally didn't limit it to them.

I'm starting to think that a big part of llamabeast's problem is the fact that some people are more invested in finding and using the exploits to notch up a win or two than giving him good feedback.

[Nightfall]

Originally Posted by Dimaz

I don't know about post-1.6 changes, but IMO SCs weren't supposed to kill heavily mage-supported armies alone from the beginning, by proper SC I mean the guy who can easily kill ordinary thugs like mentioned banelords, deal with medium armies (low magic support) alone and survive in big battles.

I agree that in general they don't and never have.

I guess they can, in some situations, if they are specifically equipped to nail a force with known tactics and scripting.

[llamabeast]

How would you go about giving Zmeys fire shield?

Squirrel wasn't referring to the awe on Ris (Tir na n'Og), which was indeed OP. Eriu didn't have that, but Eriu's thugs are indeed available early and very powerful.

I think the problem is that dom3 is basically a game made up of "OP" things. If you have just been hit by a rush of E9N9 Niefel Giants, or well blessed Jaguar Warriors, or anyone using Fog Warriors, or a massive Eriu stealth / cloud trapeze attack, you could say quite legitimately that these strategies seem "overpowered". Luckily there are many opportunities to create overpowered strategies so a good player can generally create their own with any nation.

So, turn 20 zmeys would be really powerful, I agree. I don't really agree that it's more powerful than many other strategies. It does succeed in increasing the diversity of options available to Abysia, which I consider a success. I would be concerned if the Zmey strategy was difficult to counter, even by a skilled player.

Balancing for EDM can be difficult, because the whole point was to correct the lack of viable powerful summons for many of the paths. So if the Zmey, for example, stands out as an exceptional Fire summon, that's because there weren't any before, and that was the problem that EDM was trying to solve.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

Doesn't have to be that heavily focused, and why would you deploy them naked unless it's appropriate to do so. It takes a whole extra 1-2 turns to research construction 2 for some basic gear.

Const 2 does not get you RoR, iirc. Nor does a research blitz get you the necessary gems to build the gear you need. How many nations can you name that can have 30+f by turn 20 and also enough n and probably e,s to forge the necessary gear to make it really good *while* doing a research rush. And the mages to forge that gear.

Fire shield works pretty well to, but I'm pretty sure you already knew that.

We were talking about Zmeys, right? Fireshield? (honestly confused, my 1.92 Zmeys don't have that).

Zmey are also weak to archers, especially xbows.

I agree that the awe on Sidhe Lords (Was that Eriu as well or just TNN?) was also a ridiculously bad call, but that's not relevant to the discussion at hand.

Also while Zmeys are certainly the most blatant issue at Conjuration 6, I intentionally didn't limit it to them.

I'm starting to think that a big part of llamabeast's problem is the fact that some people are more invested in finding and using the exploits to notch up a win or two than giving him good feedback.

I wasn't referring to Ri with awe. Vanilla sidhe lords with brand and vine shield.

What else at research level 6 would you like to talk about?

Wendigo? Needs at least 14? turns to mature, 7 if its in battles every turn (although its going to have to piggy back your army for much of those).

Roc? Not a very effective solo thug. I mean, sure, it can raid light PD... but what can't?

Shishi? Honestly not that good and very easy to counter. People had a big hardon for them when they were first released, and now you don't see that many of them - they just don't actually perform against any real opposition. They have one real use - anti-thug/SC against people using demon/undead thugs and SCs.

Krakens? lolz. If you wasted your time beelining enchantment over conjuration underwater, be prepared to lose. (And I don't mean to conjuration UW EDM summons - since i don't think there are any - I mean to Shark Attack, a vanilla spell.)

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Squirrel wasn't referring to the awe on Ris (Tir na n'Og), which was indeed OP. Eriu didn't have that...

Yes, we did! It was just more expensive to do the one thug = expansion party strategy than it was for TNN since Tuatha cost more than Ri. The funny thing is in my one game with them I ended up with a horrible start position surrounded by undead, lizardmen and (as an "easy" province) knights. And got attacked early by apostacizing, smiting Ermor. So sometimes even OP things don't work out as planned.

I've heard good things about Sea Kings as thugs but since I usually play thug nations this isn't something I'm looking for. I do like using sea trolls as durable units that can draw enemy fire but it's cheaper to just summon some individual trolls for that purpose. So I think part of the problem is you're paying a high price and may only have need of either the troops or the commander. You could of course have a spell to just summon a Sea King and price it competitively but that might detract from the theme of the original spell. Something that I think would cause this spell to see a lot more use is increasing the Sea King's gem gen from one to two gems per turn. Even if you use him as a thug and he gets killed in a half a dozen turns you've still defrayed the cost of the spell significantly. The main drawback would be creating a gem gen mentality but I don't think 2 gems/turn is enough to cause that.

Zmeys are an interesting unit. I like the idea of monsters without full slots being feasible combatants. They are challenging because with flight and without any need to buff they can attack immediately. And of course they can dish out a lot of attacks. But the lack of slots really is a significant drawback. Actually, the main thing that frustrates me about them is that they often have lychantropos' amulets. Please change the cost of those things to 25 gems - not because they are that great but because it's maddening to keep losing mages to them.

As regards the elemental royalty, rather than make them cheaper I would prefer to keep the price as-is and make them significantly better. Generally speaking, I think unique summons that are available to all nations should be better than the non-unique options as a reward for getting them. As to how they are better, well it could be through combat abilities for some of them (ex. earth king have a large AOE attack like the zmey), useful #onebattlespells for others (ex. AQ autocasts fog warriors), and improving the summoning abilities for others (instead of summoning one unit per turn, summon five, etc.).

Speaking of the cost of summons, what do people think of the cost of angelic summons? Perhaps I'm underestimating them since I never play these nations but it seems like these are kind of pricy in comparison to other options.

[Executor]

I kinda like your idea for ERoys Valerius. I'll second this.

As for angelic summons, I remember Harbingers were the only ones I found cost effective in the end. Angels of Vengeance, I think?, were nice but too expensive for me.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Valerius

Yes, we did! It was just more expensive to do the one thug = expansion party strategy than it was for TNN since Tuatha cost more than Ri. The funny thing is in my one game with them I ended up with a horrible start position surrounded by undead, lizardmen and (as an "easy" province) knights. And got attacked early by apostacizing, smiting Ermor. So sometimes even OP things don't work out as planned.

I've heard good things about Sea Kings as thugs but since I usually play thug nations this isn't something I'm looking for. I do like using sea trolls as durable units that can draw enemy fire but it's cheaper to just summon some individual trolls for that purpose. So I think part of the problem is you're paying a high price and may only have need of either the troops or the commander. You could of course have a spell to just summon a Sea King and price it competitively but that might detract from the theme of the original spell. Something that I think would cause this spell to see a lot more use is increasing the Sea King's gem gen from one to two gems per turn. Even if you use him as a thug and he gets killed in a half a dozen turns you've still defrayed the cost of the spell significantly. The main drawback would be creating a gem gen mentality but I don't think 2 gems/turn is enough to cause that.

Zmeys are an interesting unit. I like the idea of monsters without full slots being feasible combatants. They are challenging because with flight and without any need to buff they can attack immediately. And of course they can dish out a lot of attacks. But the lack of slots really is a significant drawback. Actually, the main thing that frustrates me about them is that they often have lychantropos' amulets. Please change the cost of those things to 25 gems - not because they are that great but because it's maddening to keep losing mages to them.

As regards the elemental royalty, rather than make them cheaper I would prefer to keep the price as-is and make them significantly better. Generally speaking, I think unique summons that are available to all nations should be better than the non-unique options as a reward for getting them. As to how they are better, well it could be through combat abilities for some of them (ex. earth king have a large AOE attack like the zmey), useful #onebattlespells for others (ex. AQ autocasts fog warriors), and improving the summoning abilities for others (instead of summoning one unit per turn, summon five, etc.).

Speaking of the cost of summons, what do people think of the cost of angelic summons? Perhaps I'm underestimating them since I never play these nations but it seems like these are kind of pricy in comparison to other options.

Tend to be grossly overpriced, but I'd have to go through each of them individually =P

One battle at a time...