Shattered Soul for tartarians. Do tell !

[Zeldor]

I want patch! I will wish for that Hinnom summon in MP

I am afraid that we have to wait till dom4 for proper amount of national spells/summons and balanced end-game.

[Twan]

I agree about artefacts (or expensive level 6 items for some spells). As items are the only way to use something before the defender cast, new items with defensive spells would solve the attack/defense balance problem.

The most powerful defensive buffs (army of lead, fog warriors) don't have to be available on items, but mid-power ones (ie : mass protection, antimagic, protection or resists spells with limited AE like marble warriors, legions of steel, and ward spells) should, and would be sufficient to avoid sure victories.

[Endoperez]

I slightly disagree with Edi. IMO, Wish should be strong enough to call nation-spesific summons. My problem is with the fact that an angel is the number-one choice for a wished-for SC, while he seems to be more concerned about the fact that a nation-spesific creature is willing to serve any nation.

I wouldn't even mind it that much if angels were still summonable, but handled differently. As I said before, I'd like to see a random, powerful angel summoned whenever a spesific angel is wished for, because they aren't directly under the control of the Wish-caster; this would make angels different while still making them a safe bet for something powerful.



Area buffs from items are an interesting idea, but there are some problems. First, it'd be very easy to make SCs immune to everyhing by having him start at 50% resist and then give him a few squires with resistance items. Second, all items are Construction, and getting Mass Protection, Antimagic and wards from the same school could be too powerful.

[kasnavada]

Area buffs from items are an interesting idea, but there are some problems. First, it'd be very easy to make SCs immune to everyhing by having him start at 50% resist and then give him a few squires with resistance items. Second, all items are Construction, and getting Mass Protection, Antimagic and wards from the same school could be too powerful.

These can be circumvented. Create just a single item called "spell holder". Then, as a special action, a mage can put the spell in the "spell holder" (so he needs to have the spell to cast it in the spell holder).

Another idea would be to unlock items with another criteria (a spell school). I always found quite dumb that you could make a robe of invulnerability without having the invulnerability spell in the first place.

Making them work only on a squad (EDIT because I meant : not the commander) of 25, 40, 100 person max can also solve the problem (instead of the entire field), as well as limiting the number of spells that are auto-casted at the start of a battle.

I agree though, making everything available from a single school is too powerful.

A bit more on topic, I'd love to have spells that could make a squad of elite troops strong enough to beat "minor" SC reliably. Especially since the "nerf-stick" to tartarian is nearly negligible.

[Endoperez]

kasnavada said:

These can be circumvented. Create just a single item called "spell holder". Then, as a special action, a mage can put the spell in the "spell holder".

Another idea would be to unlock items with another criteria (a spell school). I always found quite dumb that you could make a robe of invulnerability without having the invulnerability spell in the first place.

"Spell Holders" - too complex. Way, way too complex. There's nothing like them in the game.

As for the second one, there was a bug that caused similar results with items and ritual spells. Gate Stone only worked if you had researched Astral Travel, etc. It was a bug, and a very annoying one at that because it made several items utterly useless.
Just imagine what Construction would be like if it didn't actually give you anything but Sword of Sharpness? No Luck, no regen, no Air Shield, no Fire Shield, no Barkskin, no Quickness...

[Twan]

Edi said:
That's a nice strawman argument there. Nobody is talking about restricting SCs in general. We are talking about restricting ONE specific SC chassis that also happens to be a nation specific summon. Though I would not at all mind restricting the Mandaha in addition to the Seraph and the new powerful Hinnom summons.

Hum this thread started about nerfing tartarians then the subject became making seraph (or other national summons) non wishable. The common point looks like the desire to limit the number of good SCs available (or how viable they are in the tartarians case).

A+B result is : the reliable (non insane) non-uniques endgame SCs will cost 120 gems instead of 30 (GoR counted), and would be pretender chassis with about level 3 in one path, instead of tartarians who often have 7 levels or seraphs with 4/4/4.

IMO the question of mages using endgame spells Vs SC balance is very relevant here.

So unless everyone has precisely the same options, it's unbalanced? That's what your argument boils down to and I think we smacked that down in a couple of other threads quite handily.

"Precisely" no. But "globally" in endgame yes.

In early to midgame the rock-paper-scissor balance is good, because the clever player chose his foes, and use diplomacy to avoid wars his nation has too small chances to win.

In endgame it's different business, any nation must have the tools to defeat any other nation remaining. There would be no interest to continue to play with a rock-paper national balance at this stage. The two last nations, at equal power and player skill should have 50% to win, so only player skill makes a difference.

Graphics may be different, with non-wishable national summons for all nations instead of generic SCs if you want, but most abilities, counters, interesting path combos on SCs chassis, etc... have to be available for anyone (once magic diversification is achieved) and for about the same cost.

[kasnavada]

Just imagine what Construction would be like if it didn't actually give you anything but Sword of Sharpness? No Luck, no regen, no Air Shield, no Fire Shield, no Barkskin, no Quickness...

Yeah, it would make sense and be great. Most buffs have a low level anyway. But people are used to the current system, which doesn't make sense, and since it's essentially a nerf to construction-rushers (which is the main strategy in many games because SC and thugs are more powerful than most spells and armies), it won't be implemented. It would also make armies more useful during mid-game compared to thugs.

For your example, just tying the gate stone to a spell with lower requirements like teleport would also have solved the problem... I suppose the rest of "problems" would have been the same. What was annoying was that the game changed and people refused to adapt, that's all.

Besides, if you like the idea, why don't you try to find an change to the game that pleases you ? I dont undertand that category of people that comment only to say "that won't work" and don't propose a solution that would work for them.

[Endoperez]

It'd be better to actually limit the items to just units. As an example, the item affects all units controlled by the commander it is equipped to. Problems with this approach:

* new, unprecedented spell effect is not likely to be added (if it was, it MIGHT go into #spec field, which would make it easy to add the effect to existing spells)
* undead are numerous, and it's much, much easier to get undead leadership in the hundreds than it's to increase normal leadership. Undead already have good immunities, and making few hundred soulless (already immune to cold, poison and fatigue) immune or resistant to fire and/or lightning as well would be very annoying. Boosting their magres would also suddenly be much easier for everyone.


It would make national commanders with high ldrship values better, because one item on them would affect double or triple the number of units indy commanders could protect.

EDIT: Heh, you made a good post there. I didn't have any ideas when I posted the above message. I got one. I posted it. I can only do as much as I can, and no more.

[thejeff]

I like the idea of effects limited to non-commanders. Probably better for balance if it was just an area effect, that didn't work on commanders, than having it work on units under one commanders command.

Re: Gate Stone
What was annoying was that it was broken and for quite awhile no one knew why. In one game you'd forge it and it would work, in another it wouldn't. It's not that people refused to adapt, but that no one could figure out how, other than just not relying on it. If it had been an announced change, there would have been some grumbling, but then people could adjust. Once it was realized that the bug was tied to researching the spell, it was quickly fixed. No need to adjust.

[Meglobob]

I think its lack of choice in the endgame thats the problem really. When it comes to SC's, you currently have the following choices:-

1) Tartarians.

By a long and clear margin. Nothing else compares really. You will often see a dozen+ tartarians in the endgame. Abominations, poison golems, iron dragons and tarrasque are just not on the same playing field in terms of power.

2) Beyond Tartarians you have wish + GoR, as a second rate hugely expensive option. The Seraph is the most popular choice for the wish but again thats only through lack of choice because nothing comes close to it in terms of power. Even then, its rare, very rare to see a seraph in the endgame.

The best solution would be more endgame choice, the introduction of some new SC chasis that rival the power of tartarians/Seraphs, preferably in other schools of magic, other than death/astral. Those should be normal summons castable (with the required paths in magic of course) by any nation.

This would make the endgame more diverse and fun.