End game diversity mod

[TheConway]

Ember lords seem quite good, though the large model can make it difficult to select nearby commanders in the strat map screen.

The problem with Trants I think is A- their role is somewhat difficult to figure out, and B- they cost N gems, one of the most valuable in the game.

[rdonj]

Well, Treants have high hp, especially in its second shape, a minimum of 20 protection, and a splash of reinvig/regen (more if in a forest), plus it entangles both when attacked and when attacking. They're guaranteed 3n mages, so they can cast personal regen and get a pretty decent benefit from it. Plus easily cast elemental fortitude, so natural 50 resist to cold and lightning damage, effectively. The ones with earth have 2 earth if shifted, so summon earthpower gets them to 3, and they can self buff iron will if desired for additional mr on top of their starting 18. The ones with water randoms can cast personal quickness, breath of winter, or if they like they've got the paths and resistance to make a natural foul vapors caster. A treant with summon earthpower in a forest has a reinvigoration of *ten* which is pretty awesome for buffing and general spellcasting, and can allow them to serve as SCs and mages in the same battle without being completely insane. And with a single gem they can cast things like weapons of sharpness, quickening, army of gold... etc, etc.

Treants seem to be mostly suited for defensive purposes I think. Let's say you have a fort that you want to protect. A treant is pretty much ideal for blocking the gates, or serving as a generic damage sponge. Give it some cheap gear (AMA, fire resist ring, and lead or gold shield seem like no brainers), some enchant and alteration buffs and they should be ready to weather nearly any magical or physical assault. It also turns out they have pretty high strength and attack skill, so should be able to rip most things up in melee. I admit I have absolutely 0 MP experience using the EDM summons, but I can definitely see uses for the treant.

And of course, for additional fun, try prophetizing one with dom 10 and an e8 bless.

I do think that it would be nice if they had recuperation though :P

[Squirrelloid]

I suppose i can give more complete feedback:

Grendelkin - great for army support/anti-SC. I am not comfortable with them as SCs because they lack magic for buffing, and so feel too vulnerable.

Cyclops - I actually get a lot of use out of these guys for AoG/L casters and other army buffs. Don't really SC with them. With CBM 1.7 and a new earth booster, i can see using them as Earth Attack casters.

Wendigos are almost certainly too good relative to Streams from Hades. It doesn't take that long to max one out. The correct solution may well be to make Streams from Hades cheaper...

On Asynja - honestly, if they all had E2 they'd be great =). Maybe just another random? As it is, they're in the weird place of making a good raiding thug (don't need much gear, really), but they cost like an SC - but sometimes you get one with exactly the right randoms to be more useful.

Treants - they use N gems. I never have N gems to use for summons like the Treant.

Ember Lord - nice in Heat dominion. Not very good in cold dominion. So situationally useful, but definitely SC material. And one of the best uses of F gems i know of. (Also, trivially a FftS caster, which has its uses).

Kraken - mostly useless since you made them E1B1 instead of X2 sorceries. I tried using them as bloodhunters one game, since they cost W instead of N (where Lamia Queens were my other option, cost N, and weren't guaranteed B) - but quickly switched over to VLs after I had enough slaves.

[Jarkko]

Regarding Treants.

Nature gems are badly needed for lots of stuff. Treants are summoned with nature gems.

You simply don't get enough bang for the bucks when you summon treants. Nature gems are better spent elsewhere.

Perhaps, just *perhaps*, treants would be worth it if they had recuperation and they did autocast elemental fortitude at the start of battle, or they did autosummon bugs/pixies/whatever at the start of the battle (for some weird reason I see those pixies living in the hair of the treant) so that they would have time to cast the self-buffs, or *something* else that they really truly would make you consider using the nature gems on them. As it is, I for one think it is better not spend the rare N gems on treants.

[Dimaz]

Maybe treants can be used in lategame as tough N bf casters. Especially with E they have access to Gaia Blessing, and Mass regen+Relief are both important for big armies with several SCs, while equipping N boosters on lowhp n2 human mages (national or indy) seems rather risky (taking into account various remotes cast onto such armies and consequences of losing the buffer before the battle). Usually I used N tarts for that role but they are unpredictable and stopping the whole army due to craziness of one key caster makes me sad.

[Numahr]

Regarding your approach of magic diversification,

I understand that you do not want to create new Tartarians, and probably these should be nerfed.

However what about creating some kind of summonable, non-SC random multi-path mage with astral gems? While you created competitors to Tartarians in terms of SC / raiding use, this would create a competitor to their magic diversification use, and making it Astral is logical flavour-wise. An immobile manifestation of the Astral Plans? A Gate, an Enchanted Mirror of the Plans easy to break but with powerful magic? Like 4 S + two or three random paths x2 or x3, maybe with a focus on Sorcery.

Or maybe an Astral-Death summon equivalent of Tart for failed ranbow pretenders? An undead Archmage, Enchanteress, etc. It would need to be balanced against Spectral Mages, but at conj. 9 and with severe limitations like immobile and very weak, or why not immobile + the dominion reduction effect (that is a Godly spirit after all, with a much more powerful spirit than the Tartarians who are combattant pretenders, and thus had less magic when designed) why not? A "Tartarian Mage" somehow.

If you don't like thess concepts anyway, the point is to suggest a magic diversification solution, with no use as raider/SC and severe limitation, based on Astral.

[sansanjuan]

I echo the Mech Giant praise. With modest equipment one took out the indy Vampire lord with nary a scratch. I didn't realize they have magic 10 leadership.

I really like the look of the Ember Lords (think Balrog). No big battles with him yet. Will post.

-ssj

[ExHeretic]

I have never played the game with EDM... I think it would be nice for SP games. Stomping the comp with powerful dudes is fun every now and then. For MP games i'm afraid that the mod would drag the game at direction where i would not like it to go. And that is towards more SC's. I mean this mod could simply be called SCEM (SC Endgame Mod)

I know the next thing that you all will tell me is that the game is already just about SC's in the end. I challenge anyone who thinks that way to build tart SC that i can't take down with commander devils (yes the ones that come with imps) that are equipped with holyscourges/ flamberges and quicknes boots using less gems (gems = gems but slaves = money)

I mean that in vanilla late game everyone uses tarts but they are easy to countter because of that undead tag. Whitout gemgens other SC are rare enought not to dominate the game. And their cost is high enought that they can be killed with many countters using fewer gems.

Changes that i would like to see in game is more troop summons. Like spell that would give me group of non commander sleeppers or ether knights (Ether warriors on etherial unicorns with grazy stats). Maybe also changing some of the current spells to give more troops. Like legion of wights. And changing the hidden in sand spell to use fire magic/gems

Anyway im probaply wrong person to talk anything about the late game. I usually play smaller games where the vanilla game works quite well anyway. I like the strategy side of the game and i like theorycrafting. I also like to see all my nice theories crumble to dust in the harsh reality of MP games

When players have reseached everything in the game the strategy is pretty much used allready and all that is left is grinding the resource war.

Maybe im just bit over pessimistic and should still give this one a try someday

[Korwin]

I'm a little confused here:

Originally Posted by ExHeretic

I mean that in vanilla late game everyone uses tarts but they are easy to countter because of that undead tag. Whitout gemgens other SC are rare enought not to dominate the game. And their cost is high enought that they can be killed with many countters using fewer gems.

I read a contradiction here

[Finalgenesis]

1.7 makes Zmey better I think, since it's a low equip out the box chaff eater, its cost effectiveness has improved against other thug/SC requiring more gears to be effective. I haven't otherwise ran into them in MP much to say more...

I think Shishis are okay. As is they are cheap low equip out the box mini-thug and air caster for 30A, the mobility, anti-chaffness (mistform), native weaponry, native-armor and a bit of anti-demon power gives them a very good value. One of them can even add to a wall def a bit. I've even gotten 3A ones sometime...

I think the low att is a good touch (and its not as if 12 is "low", like gargoyle, golems and the like...), and gives them the weakness of high def troops / thugs with magic weapons. Compare 15A per to 12D bane lord for their different utility and I think it's mostly balanced. I also like the choice of picking at most 3 out of some standard: AMA, Luck, burning pearls, warrior ring and girdle.

Cyclops are nice, as is mech giant with their balance of great advantages and weaknesses. What's said has been said before on them.

Great kraken, Asynja and Ettin I think is meh. I'll just go into Ettin ...

After looking at it some, Ettin suffers from costing N gems and not having enough base SC attributes. No fear, no paths, little innate prot, has incumb, no resist, imperfect MR (the golden 18), no flight, naked (compare it to say bane lord, single digit hammer gems worth of gear is enough to make it effective)...etc, its almost like a naked giant 3 handed human with a lot of hp. Basically it's something requiring more gear to reach effectiveness then many others. It's 3 hand slots allow interesting things, but losing misc kind of equals it in my eyes (I don't even count the extra head, its a trap for overspending!).

Treant I don't have much experience on. They look pretty good actually, I think its the N cost that's cramping their usage. God knows there's never enough N for the globals, fairy queens, GoRs, staple gears...etc.