Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by 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.

See that's the problem. How has the cost of a strong bless gone up scale wise? The cost of tanking order and the short-run (and thus most relevant for very heavy blesses intended to win quickly) cost of tanking growth have gone down. The cost of tanking production has gone up. That hurts Mictlan, but is anyone going to argue that high bless is no longer attractive for Mictlan? Lots of Bless nations have sacreds sufficiently resource intensive that they never could tank production: for them the cost of a strong bless has actually gone down.

[kianduatha]

Okay, there are two problems; One is that growth is too powerful at the moment. Granted. There are two ways to make that disappear: revert the changes and make it 3% income/0.2% growth, or make it 1% income/0.3% growth. The second is that scales in general are too powerful it seems, particularly Turmoil/Prod/Growth/Luck. How much of that is due to Growth being too awesome? If Growth is taken down a notch, will that still be overpowering Order/Misfortune?

In addition, pretender changes are on the horizon, which may affect the scales/bless/awake SC balance a bit. I have to say, awake SCs are looking mighty fine with some of the level 0 item buffs.

[Shardphoenix]

Originally Posted by Nightfall

On a completely unrelated note, I don't think I've seen anyone ever use a vampire queen...

Has anyone suggested upping her base dominion to 3. It's a small change that might make her a little more viable?

Wouldn`t this make her a "default" pretender for LA Ulm?
Immortal, thuggable, with vamp freespawn and both needed paths... Maybe, a domscore of 2 would be enough?

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Shangrila00

See that's the problem. How has the cost of a strong bless gone up scale wise? The cost of tanking order and the short-run (and thus most relevant for very heavy blesses intended to win quickly) cost of tanking growth have gone down. The cost of tanking production has gone up. That hurts Mictlan, but is anyone going to argue that high bless is no longer attractive for Mictlan? Lots of Bless nations have sacreds sufficiently resource intensive that they never could tank production: for them the cost of a strong bless has actually gone down.

The point about growth is very good - short term it costs less to take death but you'll pay for it long term. A good trade-off.

As regards order/production, if turmoil was taken as frequently as sloth in order to get points then I'd be inclined to agree but that hasn't been my impression. If you're not offsetting turmoil's hit to income by taking luck that's a very high price to pay. Previously the easiest way to get points (not just for a bless but for an awake pretender) was sloth. The same hit to income as death but without the long term effects. The price is a slower start until you grab a province or two to boost your resources. While sloth 3 can be pushing it, I think a lot of nations can get away with sloth 2 (a few examples from MA would be Van, Pan and Jotun). Now, none of the nations I mentioned have first class sacreds and I'm not claiming a heavy bless was ever an optimal strategy for any of them - but it was a viable one. And for those nations (all of whom happen to be blood nations and don't really want death) paying for a bless has become more expensive. It's worth keeping mind that if you are taking the bless primarily for commanders (as is certainly the case with Van) then as long as you can get through initial expansion you won't be too worried about dealing with sloth. A different example is playing MA Aby with an awake PoD and using sloth to help pay for it (the idea being to basically ignore my high resource troops and jump directly to blood magic).

But again, I like the changes to scales. My idea was just to reduce the gap between good and bad scales.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

Okay, there are two problems; One is that growth is too powerful at the moment. Granted. There are two ways to make that disappear: revert the changes and make it 3% income/0.2% growth, or make it 1% income/0.3% growth.

I definitely prefer the latter. Makes growth different from order/prod as a scale you take for long term benefit.

Originally Posted by kianduatha

The second is that scales in general are too powerful it seems, particularly Turmoil/Prod/Growth/Luck. How much of that is due to Growth being too awesome? If Growth is taken down a notch, will that still be overpowering Order/Misfortune?

My guess is that it will, because it strikes me that the key thing is that prod offsets most of the income hit from turmoil while luck keeps generating the same boosts as always (I think someone ran some tests at one point comparing the long term results of order vs luck - and that may have been vanilla where luck isn't as good as CBM).

Originally Posted by kianduatha

In addition, pretender changes are on the horizon, which may affect the scales/bless/awake SC balance a bit. I have to say, awake SCs are looking mighty fine with some of the level 0 item buffs.

Good point; might be best to leave scales as-is and see how they interact with the pretender changes. After all, it's not like the current scales are causing huge problems. My main concern was that it will get a bit dull if we start seeing mainly scales builds.

[Shardphoenix]

Looks like I`ve found a bug in Worthy Heroes.
Member of the Third Tier, LA Ulm`s multihero has only one chance at showing up in his WH form (2F 3S 3B not old), and sometimes even this doesn`t happen, so even the first one comes as non-WH (2F 2S 2B old), and any subsequent Members of the Third Tier will be non-WH too.

[Legendary League]

Originally Posted by Shardphoenix

Looks like I`ve found a bug in Worthy Heroes.
Member of the Third Tier, LA Ulm`s multihero has only one chance at showing up in his WH form (2F 3S 3B not old), and sometimes even this doesn`t happen, so even the first one comes as non-WH (2F 2S 2B old), and any subsequent Members of the Third Tier will be non-WH too.

I've had this happen to me in a game. Is this intended?

[Valerius]

Not sure if I've mentioned this before but I'd like to lobby for EA C'tis to get a scout. Indie scouts can be difficult to come by in EA and it's kind of tough having to rely on black servants for scouting or ferrying gems...

[earcaraxe]

i find the call selkie spell for ma oceania a fantastic idea, a balanced and thematic buff, but i wonder if its intentional that she can only be summoned above water. I would change that.

[Shangrila00]

Okay, this is not really a CBM issue, but I figure CBM might as well fix it. Why does Mictlan's starting army have map move 1 but otherwise identical versions of its armored warriors that it can't even recruit? Is it supposed to be that way for some obscure reason of balance? I didn't see it on the bug list, but surely someone must have noticed before.

[Shangrila00]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

Okay, there are two problems; One is that growth is too powerful at the moment. Granted. There are two ways to make that disappear: revert the changes and make it 3% income/0.2% growth, or make it 1% income/0.3% growth. The second is that scales in general are too powerful it seems, particularly Turmoil/Prod/Growth/Luck. How much of that is due to Growth being too awesome? If Growth is taken down a notch, will that still be overpowering Order/Misfortune?

Okay, this is coming a little late since I didn't watch this thread, but...

I disagree strongly. The shift of growth from direct income boost to later income boost is only a positive thing in the absense of popkilling effects, which is only reasonably certain in single player. As it is, CBM growth only breaks even with vanilla growth on turn 20. Income early is better than income later, not only for reasons of expansion and the increasing obsolescence of recruitable troops, but because the later the income comes, the more likely it ends up never coming due to war, poploss events, or various means of attacking population. CBM has made Volcanic Eruption only cost 5 gems, btw. Certainly, your suggested turmoil/production/growth build is not conducive to actually benefiting from the new growth thanks to all the popkill events opened up by turmoil, which will hit even with luck 3.

Taking growth is a gamble, that you'll be able to keep your population long enough to benefit, as it should be. But it shouldn't be a terrible gamble. With your suggested nerf of growth to only 1% income per tick, it won't break even with vanilla growth until turn 38. I suggest that makes growth a terrible gamble. And it nerfs those nations with no choice but to take growth thanks to old mages.