Mod: New Nation: Dragons, Magic Incarnate V1.01

[konming]

First, I would like to clarify that I like the mod and especially those fantastic graphics.

Nonetheless, I find it almost futile to balance a dragon nation against others. Dragons are physically and magically powerful, how do you balance dragons with human?

And just like pretty much all mods, this mods, while great, went overboard with super powerful units and summons.

Case in point:

Vine dragon: conj 6, 25 nature gems. 2E5N?! How many mages, summoned and recruitable combined, have 5N? Now let's look at its other attributes. 125HP, 20 prot, 17 MR, 17 MRL, 15 atk/def, 13 prec, 3/20 move. Dark vision 50, heal, fly, regen, fear+2, and holy among other things.

Even without any magic, I would easily pay 25 gems for such an SC out of the box. Lack body and hand is hardly a problem as you have 20 nature protection and regen as well as fear.

Comparing to Yakasha, also at 25 nature gems, you get a puny mage 3E1N+110%WESN. And it has 28 HP, 4 prot and other uninspiring attributes.

Now tell me how this thing even remotely resemble balance?

And the most expensive summon is 45 gems, which single summon is above 45?

As for start, I have not fully tested it, but those admantine claw dragon surely can handle many indies. Worst case, you take an awake SC pretender. There should be no problem expanding.

[konming]

As for mage expense, you get a research 6 mage for 200 gold. Even not considering how powerful he is physically and all the added bonus abilities, this is a pretty decent price. Man has a research 6 mage for 250 gold. Arco's is 240 (sacred), Ulm does not have research 6 and has research 5 for 160. You get the picture.

[Aezeal]

Let me first clarify that all suggestions are very much apreciated and wanted.
I actually was thinking you meant the dragon summons where to expensive (when you where talking about the 45 gems ones in compared to the "best summon) I agree they are pretty powerfull and might need to be more expensive..
I can't really check the game so I don't know which recruitable dragon has which research score so I'll have to get back on that unless you can tell me more about it. I would also like to mention the fact someone else told me a page back that their research is slow to get of the ground and that it's also been said that the nation would be to weak for MP.

The idea IS to make a MP balanced nation though (I'd love them to be between the 3th strongest nation from the top and the bottom) yes they are dragon and should be very strong, but most of them die before they are old so you are using mostly younger and weaker ones (as in my explanation) the real powerhouses are the summons as you have seen.

The whole idea of dragon is to have a nation with lots of thuggish/sc chassis and all flying, older ones resistances and fear etc etc. If the vie dragon is too powerfull I might need to tone his magic down a bit (but 7 combined magic isn't that rare is it, no randoms to increase his usefull ness etc.. ps I also think you forgot his best attribute I think he also has a sort of vineshield effect at least that was the intention though I've not played with this one yet.) Also most of the summons are not summonable out of the box for the mages so that makes them harder to reach and thus an investment is needed to get them.

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by konming

And the most expensive summon is 45 gems, which single summon is above 45?

Look at the Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath national summon series for some expensive (but uber) summons.

Not sure what the angelic summons that Marignon gets cost.

Keep in mind, however, that straight gem cost alone isn't the only factor; the opportunity cost to acquire/hoard those gems and provide a suitable caster must be factored in as well.

Originally Posted by Aezeal

If the vie dragon is too powerfull I might need to tone his magic down a bit (but 7 combined magic isn't that rare is it, no randoms to increase his usefull ness etc..

Well, having some magical diversity might help in some regards, but low level diversity in nature is especially common (available via *tons* of independent shamans, enchantresses, witches, etc.) However, a high single path nature score (or any path, really) is extremely uncommon, and immediately opens up lots of rituals that normally require either the pretender, lots of bootstrapping, or empowerment.

I haven't really looked at your mod to see what the casting path requirements to get this summon are, however; for instance, if it already costs 5 nature to summon this guy, some of the above is kind of moot (just have the summoner cast the ritual, etc.)

WRT summonable dragon supercombatants, might want to compare costs vs. the Tarrasque and Iron Dragon (possibly w/GOR cost factored in) and then increase from there because of additional features.

BTW, cool sprites Aezeal :-)

[Aezeal]

Hey Stavis, thansk for the comments, ifyou could play the mod and give more feedback that would be great.

Well I think the summon costs are not that high maybe but as you said the nation can't cast most of these summons without boosters etc and they have no handslots for those boosters so IMHO you'll often need to either invest in the pretender or in empowerment.

I think it's really hard to balance things like this just based on the numbers that are seen which is why I'd love to get more feedback of pplz who actually played it a bit in SP.. and of those who did I get mixed feedback: some say the nation is weak, others overpowered.... kind of hard to change much based on that . I guess I might lower the vinedragons nature with 1 and maybe increase summon cost a bit.

PS the sprites aren't mine... ... ... but they are in my mod and that is all that counts in the end

[Gregstrom]

Quick bug report:

Summon Death Wraith Dragon is summoning unit 3022 (Wave Dragon) rather than unit 3027.

Nice mod, but I think that all these thug/battle mages summonable at 25 gems each might be a little high on the power scale.

As regards access to the summons: at Con 6, you can empower one of your S2 dragons once each in E and S, then you can build rings of sorc/wiz. They let you get Wave Dragons, and therefore Storm Dragons. The Ivy Dragon pretender (chassis of choice, surely), if you build him as N4D4 (cheap, and regen is a useful bless), lets you get Vine and Death Wraith summons. It seems you can get Magma Dragons as heroes if you take a luck scale, and they can summon more of the same.

The top end are definitely tougher to get, though.

[Aezeal]

hmm to be honest empowering isn't that hard since once you have the first summons they can get you the most powerfulls with about one empowerment I think.

I'm going to up the cost of all summons a bit in addition to all changes I wanted to do before and then I hope it's balanced..

I don't mind the higher summons to be a bit hard to reach since they are pretty powerfull anyway... for most situations they are probably a bit overkill anyway

you can get 3 of the first "level" of summons as multihero's

This nation can basicly use a good bless for the endgame summons but will have a harder early game then since they'll need good scales too (prod and order) and luck can be very usefull with these relatively powerfull hero's

[Aezeal]

new version is up

[Gregstrom]

As far as empowering goes, the summons I don't think need any more empowerment than 1S and 1E for one of your Stargazer Dragons.

Rings of Sorc/Wiz do the rest. For Wave Dragons it's even cheaper - you just make a Water Bracelet and your Ice Dragons can summon it straight off. I think it's not unfair to assume that you'd normally have Con 6 by the time you start looking at mid-high level summons. For the top tier, I don't think you need any empowers - if I read things correctly and the Gold Dragon has F4S1, then a RoW does the read. The Astral Dragon is an easy summon for your empowered Stargazer - no further preparation needed there either.

I only see getting a Gold Dragon as a potential sticking point, as I think you'd need to spend another 30 gems empowering your Starshine Dragon to E2.

In race design I don't think you need too much production scale, really. With the cost of units, gold is a more limiting factor in the early game. Later on, you can always buy extra forts to increase unit output.

I'd rate order and luck highly, though, for the reasons you gave.

Looking at pretender design, the Ivy Dragon pretender seems a cut above the rest. New paths cost 20 points instead of 40-50, and it starts with Nature so you can easily get a cheap N4 bless your sacred summons will love.

[Aezeal]

Greg, last update pretenders where worsened a bit too... and they summons got more expensive..

Could you maybe try the latest version (only 1 day old I'll admit) and see if you find it balanced?