Pretender Balance Mod

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Chris Byler:
Acashic Record, IMO, is only effective if you crank the site frequency way up (this both increases the success rate and number of sites found, and decreases the relative costs by giving everyone more gem income). 25 pearls to often find nothing? No thanks, I'll use the path-specific spells for a gem or two each, or send some mages to search the old fashioned way for no gems at all.

The path-specific spells are also nice (I've underestimated them for a long time). 'Manual' searching is too slow.

Granted, a lot of people *do* turn the site frequency way up, but I don't (at least in SP) - magic dominates the endgame enough already, increasing the site frequency only accelerates this.

The most common frequency I've seen here is 50. That would mean in mountains, the chance is 75%. Assuming that I know how the site placement works, that would mean an average of 3 sites in 'good' areas. That's not 'often nothing'. I'm certainly not saying you should spam Acashic all over the place.

You also neglect the awesome research power of rainbows. Titanoids can't match this, partly because of their new path cost and partly because of their chassis cost.

The difference in research isn't that great, and if you're site-searching, you're not researching.

I think the introduction of the bless system did nerf the old "2 or 3 of everything" rainbow, for some nations. But others don't rely on their bless effect (base Ulm comes to mind - they could really use a strong researcher and good site searcher, too).

Possibly. With Ulm, though, I want Forge up ASAP. That requires a 4 Earth for reliability.

Also, you don't need the Elemental Staff/Ring of Sorcery/Ring of Wizardry for high-path-requiring rituals; for rituals you only need to boost one path at a time (or occasionally two for something like Astral Corruption, King of Banefires, Father Illearth etc.) Make some individual path boosting items (which are much cheaper) and swap them around. Humanoids have plenty of item slots to play with (except the archmage on horse or freak, who is handicapped by his inability to wear boots of earth, so don't take him if you want earth). ES/RoS/RoW give research bonuses to a rainbow, and make him stronger on the battlefield, but they aren't really needed for rituals.

Er, okay? What Rituals are you speaking of, here?

Rainbows aren't the best for path 5+ spells like elemental courts, globals, etc - although they can cast them the usually require items to do so. They really excel at research, site searching and forging (few items and even fewer magic sites require more than 3 in a path).

They suffer from severe overwork. If I can only do one thing a turn with my Pretender, I want the most effective return possible. I don't feel I get that with Rainbows.

[quote]I don't think buying every pretender's dominion up to 6 is a fair comparison - not all nations need that high a dominion. /QUOTE]

I used the number that other people told me was most common in MP games. I'll try to get better data from now on.