Blood of humans theme

[Pocus]

I made a full game with Abysia - Blood of Humans, and another one with the standard theme. Here is my opinion. Yours is very welcome.

First, a disclaimer : I know that themes are not supposed to be stronger, unless perhaps if you pay a lot of points (Desert Tombs for Ctis perhaps). They are supposed to play differently the race. BUT they are supposed to be as balanced in interest in power. So far, my conclusion is that the Blood of Human theme is weaker than standard Abysia : it needs a small boost.

So, about BoH theme (cost zero) versus standard Abysia :

You get 2 more humanbreds. The pro attached to humanbreds is that they cost 2 gold less than before (from 15 to 13). Also, you get 2 which are rather heavy on prot, namely 18 prot, and they move at 2 strategically.
The move 2 is rather interesting, because in standard Abysia, your only troops moving at 2 is the light Humanbreds which are prot 9 (and the salamander beast, but you wont have many!).
This is the main advantage of the theme, IMO. But I made some testbeds, letting Abysian armies face group of hypaspsysts (because their high morale ensure you have a fight to the end, and not from morale break, and because they are rather tough opponent for their cost). For the same price, an army of pure Abysian always perform better than an army of Humanbreds, even at 13 gp. This is why I think that Humanbreds should even cost less in BoH theme, to keep thing in pace. Perhaps something like 12 or even 11 (lets say 12 for the 2 heavy HB, and 11 for the light ones).

What other advantage, aside from reduced cost and heavier HB we get in Blood of Human?

We loose demonbred, but gain the Newt. The Newt is a fire 1 / priest 2 human priest for 90 gold. What can you do with him? Well, as a battle mage not much (blindness perhaps?). As a researcher, he is somehow equal to a warlock apprentice (newt : 3 RP for 90 gold, apprentice 5 RP for 150 gold, A. salamander, 4 RP for 200 gold). True, the Newt is blessed, so cost less in upkeep. True, he can be produced anywhere, and not the apprentice. But with the reduced gold income, seldomly you will be able to recruit at full speed in your capital, AND recruit mages elsewhere. The downside is that anathemant salamanders/dragons can only be produced in capital, so compete for slot usage with the apprentice or warlock.

Another downside, and I think the reduction is too drastic here too, is that you cant take a magical dominions in the BoH theme. I think the restriction is too hard. At least with a magical dominions, you could have tried to get the most of newts as researcher, but even this strategy is not allowed.

So in essence, the Newt is somehow better in research, but not by much, from standard Abysia.

What do we get next : we exchange the Lava Warrior and replace him with Guardian of Pyre. I think they are rather equal, some advantages of one being compensated by other advantages of the other. So here, no difference in interest (they are used differently on the other hand).

And thats all. BoH superiorities over standard Abysia are really minors, in my opinion. Humanbred costing less, but still inferior, fighting value wise, compared to pure blood Abysian, gold price being equal.
A light advantage in research, perhaps...

now the cons... they are more numerous !

first BoH cost you 40 design points. Yes, you can only take heat +2, versus heat +3. So it costs you 40 DP.

You loose the demonbred, which is rather interesting (priest, fire mage, blood mage, can fly, good HP, blessed).

You can only recruit anathemant (dragon or salamander) in your capital. Problematic, as you can also only recruit your blood mages here. You have a big bottleneck here.

You only have 4 fires gem a turn, compared to 5. Minor, but its something less anyway.

my conclusion : Not that weak, but several minor reductions and weaknesses, and no clear superiority in a domain compared to standard Abysia. They could benefit from a small boost.

my suggestions, choose some, not necessarly all :
- allow magical scale, so that Newt can be used as good researcher.
- add an astral gem to the 4 fires.
- reduce by 1 or 2 gold the humanbred cost
- give 40 additional DP, or let heat 3 possible.
- give a new unit, a level 1 blood human mage, recruitable everywhere.
- give 1-2 free slaves a turn (the human virgins are more available now)

thank you for your attention. Discussion welcome (but please test the 2 themes before!).

[johan osterman]

Blood of humans might very well be weaker, most themes are on the cautious side, the idea being that it hurts balance less if an alternative to a nation is weaker then the orginal than it does if it is stronger.

Another point that strengthens you case is that themes that requires a scale setting of the optimum will still recieve income penalties for the scale. So blood of humans are stuck with a -5% income. As is Niefelheim. The idea being that they do not live under optimum conditions for most of the inhabitants, most Jotuns are uncomfortable under the cold preferred by the Niefel Giants etc.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
Blood of humans might very well be weaker, most themes are on the cautious side, the idea being that it hurts balance less if an alternative to a nation is weaker then the orginal than it does if it is stronger.

yes I know you said that it was safer to start theme tweaking with this approach. I just put a small contrib so you can start to check if something ought to be done or not for Blood of Human (I hope other players will try to compare themes of other nations). Nothing too drastic should be done, but I think it is safe to say that they are somehow weaker, and it would be better if they were differents, but not weaker than standard Abysia => I'm attracted by novelty, and will play them in SP, but in MP I'm unsure

The idea I like the most to give them a little boost while remaining on topic is the +2 slaves a turn because of more numerous humans. (IMHO anyway)

Another point that strengthens you case is that themes that requires a scale setting of the optimum will still recieve income penalties for the scale. So blood of humans are stuck with a -5% income. As is Niefelheim. The idea being that they do not live under optimum conditions for most of the inhabitants, most Jotuns are uncomfortable under the cold preferred by the Niefel Giants etc.

Didnt knew that. Make sense, but yes it weaken them with an additional little touch of feebleness

[apoger]

However Joutunhiem gains 40 design points for making the +3 cold/niefelheim choice while the human abysians lose 40 points.

The Niefelheim theme adds very distincive and potent stuff to Jotunheim for an effective cost of 10. The blood of humans adds little, at an effective cost of 40. I must concur with Pocus in that Abysia got a weak theme. Unless there is some hidden potency we have yet to discover...

[Saber Cherry]

What hasn't been mentioned is that +2 heat rather than +3 heat also weakens Abyssia, and not just in design points and income. Abyssia relies on heat for these things:

Weaken/fatigue opponents in battle
Strengthen heat auras
Strengthen fire magic
Weaken water magic
Weaken cold auras
Weaken cold-based units (e.g. Caelians)
Strengthen magic summons (summer lions, probably some demons)
Combat cold domains
Combat cold from winter
Combat cold from ritual spells
Create fire gems from luck
Reduce supply to make attacks more difficult (I think heat/cold reduce supply)

Choosing +2 heat instead of +3 heat vastly weakens Abyssia, due to these factors. Blood of Hunams allow a max of +2 heat, since that makes sense for the theme. But I also think that there have to be fairly major perks for going +2 heat as Abyssia. Possibly a new, powerful multipath mage, possibly a new site that generates free humanbred soldiers every turn, and possibly the theme costing -50 design points.

-1 fire gem per turn is also -15 gold per turn, which is the difference in price between 7 default humanbreds and 7 BoH humanbreds.

Jotun's +3 cold theme is the exact opposite - every disadvantage I mentioned above for Blood of Humans is an advantage for Niefelheim. So they aren't really comparable... I always go +3 cold as Jotunheim with the default theme, just for those reasons...

-Cherry

[ November 04, 2003, 17:09: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

[Keir Maxwell]

I would concur with Saber, Alex and Pocus. Particularily on the issue of heat 3.As an Abyssian player giving up heat three is big and Sabers spelt that out well. I also would voluntarily take cold 3 for the giants so the Niefelheim theme is pretty tight.

Cool to read that Niefelheim get an income loss due to the discomfort of the Jotun with the cold - this fits my Back to the Ice Age theme so perfectly. By creating the precondition for the return to the Ice Age the Jotuns will destroy their own civilisation and lay the basis for the coming thaw.

I found the Blood of Humans theme expanded slower as the Abyssian infantry may cost more but you can build the same amount due to resource restrictions. Abyssia produces deadly early armies, who in my experiance, can achieve all the gains an early SC can. This has always been the basis of my abyssia play and I think alot of people underestimate the power and efficiency of killer HI armies lead by fanatacism. If you play them right you don't lose a battle vs an independant, take few casualties, and you conquer at an excellent rate. Battle afflications becomes one of the major concerns your guys live so long.

I agree with Pocus that it would nice if you could at least have a magic scale for the newts or else improve them.

Don't worry, be happy . . .

Keir

[Pocus]

Just saw another thing : Abysian Slayer are also only recruitable in the capital.

So you have to choose between : assassin, high priest or blood mage each time. The bottleneck is even bigger than I thought!

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:

my suggestions, choose some, not necessarly all :
- allow magical scale, so that Newt can be used as good researcher.
- add an astral gem to the 4 fires.
- reduce by 1 or 2 gold the humanbred cost
- give 40 additional DP, or let heat 3 possible.
- give a new unit, a level 1 blood human mage, recruitable everywhere.
- give 1-2 free slaves a turn (the human virgins are more available now)

thank you for your attention. Discussion welcome (but please test the 2 themes before!).

Hmm, I agree. Blood of humans was the Last added and least tested theme. Thus it has not been tweaked to compensate for the thematic losses of the theme.

Of your suggestions I am more in favor of the changes that goes with the theme (more humans, diluted essence of the fire magic). DP i find less attractive as it is a mechanical tweak, the same goes for the HB cost, although this is a more thematic change. Greater focus on blood magic is not bad, as this could be a way to compensate for lost fire magic, but a cheap blood mage is a very powerful thing to add if it is recruitable everywhere.

It takes some pondering.

[Pocus]

Thanks for listening.

About the blood mage, I think Chris Byler suggested he can be blood1/fire1, thus rising his cost to perhaps 110 gp. That would be then more problematic to recruit him en masse (though still possible if the focus of the player is blood at all cost).

Also I think forbbiding the taking of a magic scale (perhaps not to 3, but 1 or 2 would be cool) is not necessary, as it closes the strategy to use newts as fast researchers (the goblin them of Jotun is rather powerful with this setting by the way).

[Pocus]

thinking a bit more on the theme, I think this would not be sufficient to equilibrate it. The problem of assassin only in capital (and thus the only sneak unit with scouting capacity) is also a bit problematic.

some suggestion again :

the aforementioned humanbred blood mage transformed into a 'Blood Cultist', blood 1 with assassination power. Now that would give a very strong distinct flavor to the BoH theme, as this assassin would be rather powerful.

powerful => not cheap, so could fix the problem of having a cheap blood mage too (thinking of the starpawn with some increase in gold cost)