CBM 1.92 EDM summons cost increase

[Soyweiser]

I thought only the death 4 was a problem. But yeah, that is how magic boost works.

This change also means that the later turn changes of the wendigo only add stats and berserk.

[kianduatha]

We were discussing this more on IRC! Here are some of the results from people who don't/can't post here.

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...#entry22014395

[Valerius]

@Soy: I agree the D4 is a bigger issue but I'm also not a fan of the W4. With a W3 cap he can still perform on the battlefield while not having quite the same strength when it comes to ritual magic. Hmm, actually if I were giving someone W4 it would be the kokythiad since she's probably been overshadowed most by the wendigo.


I think there's two issues.

Calahan's proposal of increasing casting requirements and thus requiring more planning to make use of the various summons (especially the top tier) by having a higher barrier to entry. I think most people would agree with this.

Then there's the matter of increasing the cost of the summons. This has an ongoing effect and alters your gem usage pattern. I see two possibilities here:

1) Changing the balance between thugs/SCs and troop summons. This of course is not a new thing and people have different preferences regarding what balance they prefer between troops and thugs/SCs. Personally I've been pretty happy with how CBM has developed along these lines but if the EDM summons have overshadowed various troop summons I'd be ok with trying to make troop summons more appealing.

2) Changing the balance between SC alternatives. And here I'm talking tarts vs. everyone else. I have nothing against tarts; I'd like them to be a good alternative. But I don't want them to be the optimal one. To draw an extreme example: if you gave me a choice between tarts dominating or the EDM summons dominating I'll take the latter every time. I don't think I'm the only one who got really tired of the chalice/GoH --> tarts routine. And while I was as happy as anyone to see the formal removal of gem gens this made tarts the only game in town if you didn't have national SCs.

So if there's going to be an across-the-board increase in EDM prices (as opposed to targeted increases for some units) to accomplish point 1 then I'd like point 2 to be kept in mind.

And if tarts are currently not appealing, why is that? What can be done to promote them without making them "the best" as opposed to "a" choice? One thing that has occured to me is that I don't think having N gems be a bottleneck for effective tart usage does them any favors. Even if you plan on using tarts as casters as opposed to SCs that's still 15 N gems that could go towards gearing an alternative SC chassis. Sure, the stars like the lightning cyclops and titan are still worth GoRing but the others not nearly so much. What would be the effect of, for instance, increasing tart D cost by 4 gems and decreasing restore soul by 4 gems? With the addition of alternative SC options and combining the magic diversity of the EDM summons with the mage summons already in the game I think tart pricing can safely assume the tart summoner has the chalice/GoH (previously you had to consider that non-chalice/GoH owners would also need tarts since they were the only game in town). If you have one of those two things what price point would make tarts an appealing summon given the current EDM price points?

[WraithLord]

New ver. up:
- Zmey, 30->40, F6
- Shishis, 35->40
- Firebird, same
- Ember Lord, same
- Roc, 18->25
- Aesir, same
- Mechanical Giant, same
- Cyclopes, 35->42
- Kraken, W5
- Grendelkin, 40->50
- Wendigo, 24->30 and reduce the magic to W3D3
- Ettin, 14->20
- Treant, 30->36

[Redeyes]

I don't think adjusting gem costs alone is the best way to balance these summons when looking at gem income and site distribution. If you have a fire income of 8 surplus gems you will currently produce a Zmey in 4 turns, with the mod you get one in 5.

If you instead make 10 surplus gems then you will still have a Zmey in 4 turns - the difference between production rates post-change and pre-change of summons is negligible when compared to the differences in number of summons different individuals will control due to the randomness inherent in special site gem income.

This is true even when looking at the Zmey which percentually sees the largest increase in gem cost.

Instead it would be more appropriate to adjust stats as well, such that stats are balanced around gem cost and the stage of the game the unit comes into play and not the other way around, which is gem costs around stats.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Hey while I'm at it I could have added Sombre's awesome sprites upgrade mode but I think I'll draw the line here.

I think llamabeast is going to do this for the next CBM anyway.

[Valerius]

As regards wendigo, the key thing is nerfing the magic, which you did. My gut instinct is that they are worth 35 gems (another nice thing about this price point is it helps promote the kokythiad - 30 gems for a stealthy mage or 35 gems for an SC). But that would be largest price increase on your list so it may be better to go with the 30 gem cost you chose.

As regards zmey, I also like the idea of making some kind of change to the unit but you don't want to make too many changes at once so for YARG 4 I can see going with the price/casting requirement increase and see how that goes.

Maybe next game I start I'll try Calahan's reduced misc slot idea and see how that works.

[legowarrior]

Take the Zmey, and make it a unit instead of a leader.

[GFSnl]

I still really think Zmey's should have the 'cold blooded' trait.

That way it wouldn't be a good raider in some situations.
This is a good thing. As Dom3 is about strategic thinking and planning ahead. Having access to a good general purpose flying raider makes it a boring unit. The way it is now, it lessens diversity among nations.

This might also be a problem by giving all nations access to all Sombre's Summons. It might reduce diversity too. These summons would preferably have to be powerful niche summons as to not make national units/summons inferior.

[earcaraxe]

the reason i think its better to not make zmey coldblooded is that it would totally neutralize the zmey against cold nations, while non-cold nations would be helped only little (wolven winter).