Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[Valerius]

One of the good things CBM has done is provide counters to rush attempts, whether they be general changes or boosts to specific nations. It's not much fun to get steamrolled by a heavy bless early and not have much you can do about it. But one side effect of this and other changes is that I think the scales + magic diversity and/or light bless build is better than ever.

What about reducing the gold bonus/penalty of each tick of the scales by 1? So order would be +/-5, production +/-3, and growth +/-1. This isn't a huge change and I expect scales builds would still be optimal but if someone wanted to try a heavy bless it would be a bit easier to justify since the discrepancy between poor scales and good scales wouldn't be quite so large.

On another note, I really like the change to the growth/death scale. Changing the percentages there really differentiates it from the other scales and I've been quite happy with the long term benefits of growth 3.

[Knai]

There's what appears to be a minor error I noticed. Late age C'tis starts with a Tomb Priest, which they can't actually recruit. That seems off.

[elmokki]

Originally Posted by Knai

There's what appears to be a minor error I noticed. Late age C'tis starts with a Tomb Priest, which they can't actually recruit. That seems off.

Happens in vanilla game too, so it isn't really a CBM specific thing. Also I don't see it as a so weird thing since it fits the nation theme too and you can summon those rather easily with stock mages anyway too.

[llamabeast]

What about reducing the gold bonus/penalty of each tick of the scales by 1? So order would be +/-5, production +/-3, and growth +/-1. This isn't a huge change and I expect scales builds would still be optimal but if someone wanted to try a heavy bless it would be a bit easier to justify since the discrepancy between poor scales and good scales wouldn't be quite so large.

I think that's a good idea. It's not a small change though - likely to be a bit controversial I think.

[Shangrila00]

I disagree. It's a needlessly complicated and circular means of achieving balance that will inevitably never do so. The original goal was making high bless builds less dominant. If that has succeeded to an excessive extent such that low bless/pure scales are now too good in comparison, the way to balance that is to step back the original changes, not make completely separate changes to nerf scales. The former can achieve balance with just a few tries, the latter never will as the unrelated changes will have knock on effects on everything else, leading to further imbalances that if corrected with the same philosophy will only end in an endless spiral of imbalance.

[Deathjester]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

I disagree. It's a needlessly complicated and circular means of achieving balance that will inevitably never do so. The original goal was making high bless builds less dominant. If that has succeeded to an excessive extent such that low bless/pure scales are now too good in comparison, the way to balance that is to step back the original changes, not make completely separate changes to nerf scales. The former can achieve balance with just a few tries, the latter never will as the unrelated changes will have knock on effects on everything else, leading to further imbalances that if corrected with the same philosophy will only end in an endless spiral of imbalance.

So.. you're saying balance can never be improved?

Close the thread!

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by Deathjester

So.. you're saying balance can never be improved?

Close the thread!

Learn to read.

[Valerius]

This raises the question of why the changes to scales were made. If they were made only to impede bless builds then I can certainly see the logic of going back to the 7/3/3 increments for order/production/growth. With anti-rush counters available I don't think that would be a problem from a balance perspective. But I thought it was also intended to make each scale (especially production) be of value and break the typical pattern of order/sloth builds (even in cases where a heavy bless wasn't involved). And I think the changes were successful in doing this. So regardless of which approach you take (of toning down scales or reverting to the previous setup or a similar one) is the idea of making each scale valuable an idea worth keeping?

[Shangrila00]

Honestly, I don't see how the scale changes from vanilla affect bless builds at all. I assumed you were talking about buffs to particularly weak nations that used to be prime targets for a bless rush, a few spells given lower research requirements, and some regular troops buffed so they were useable giving an alternative to sacreds for more nations.

I think the idea of making each scale valuable is worth keeping, and further has nothing to do with the viability of high bless builds. For that matter, I can't think of any high bless nations that no longer find a high bless attractive, except maybe Ashdod and that's due solely to specific nerfs to that nation's sacreds.

[Valerius]

No, you're right, I was talking about those kinds of changes - but also about how they interact with scales. You pay a price for a strong bless. And that cost has gone up, in particular with the changes to order/production. At the same time there are more counters to rush attempts. Taken together, this decreases the appeal of a strong bless. Long term I think the approach we're talking about (scales + magic diversity and possibly a light bless) is optimal for most nations. If it's also clearly optimal short term then I think you'll start to see a lot of the same builds. Note that I don't think this is a balance issue. I'm thinking only in terms of keeping a variety of approaches viable since it makes things more interesting.

As I mentioned, I think it's good that nation's have a chance against a rush attempt so I wouldn't want those changes undone. But in order to reduce the opportunity cost of taking a heavy bless I thought it might make sense to tone down scales a bit. It's worth noting that I tend to be in favor of making small changes and seeing how they play out and I thought that's what this suggestion was but based on llama's comment perhaps that's not the case.