PoD vs. VQ vs. Liches (was: Blood Arco mod)

[Scott Hebert]

In an attempt to empirically value the Elemental Demons (i.e., Frost Fiend, Storm Demon, Demon Knight, and Devil), I created an Arco mod that gives it Blood magic. Specifically, it changes the Mystic to a Blood-2 Element-2, with the Element chosen randomly. I also switched the Priestess's Nature pick to Blood (to give a relatively cheap Blood hunter).

The results were quite gratifying. Due to still having Astrologers (see below), I researched to Construction-4 (for the SDR), then Conjuration-5 (for Acashic), and then blitzed Blood. I was quite lucky in that I had a Library in each of two adjoining provinces, but by turn 20 certainly, I was producing one of each type of Elemental Demon per turn, and generally seeing a slight increase in Blood Slaves on top of that.

For balance's sake, I really do think that the Astrologer and Heart Companion should be removed (basically, lose the Tower). Perhaps they should receive 1 of each type of Elemental gem, plus a Blood slave each turn. That puts them QUITE close to Mictlan, and CERTAINLY better troops, but they lose access to both Astral and Nature magic. I'll have to do more tests.

Another issue is that they have no way to innately increase their Blood magic (meaning, no national level-3 Blood mage, nor chance of one). If they choose to use their Pretender for this (as I did), Arco has a VERY poor selection of Pretenders to use for Blood magic.

Finally, an issue about the Prince of Death. I think, with the changes to the VQ, that the PoD is going to emerge as a new contender for her crown. While he's neither ethereal nor immortal, he has twice the base hit points, a much better Fear effect, a good base protection, a much less base cost (100 points goes a long way), and no superfluous magic (I've never heard of anyone using a SC VQ for her Blood magic).

Anyway, just some thoughts. If anyone is interested in the mod, please LMK.

Scott

[ June 11, 2004, 18:41: Message edited by: Bayushi Tasogare ]

[Taqwus]

If memory serves, the Prince of Death already had some notoriety as an early expansion weapon for Ulm as a zero-enc commander with good combat stats. PoD + full plate is good early, could add a better weapon (Rod of Death was strength-not-added, not too impressive; even a Sword of Sharpness would arguably be better for a physically strong pretender against ordinary troops) if you like.

Without native astral, nature, or death, but with the usual dominion rules; hm. Note that you'd only need to empower -one- blood-2 mage to blood-3 and then give him a dwarven hammer to crank out brazen vessels, athames, even armor of souls if need be, and you wouldn't need to divert slaves to maintain or expand dominion. Mictlan would have easier Crossbreeding, 'tho, for rapid reinforcement. Intriguing. If I wanted a Blood nation, I'd probably prefer this Version for the drastically reduced micromanagement (until Illwinter adds a 'sacrificers don't pool slaves' or equivalent rule, that is).

Heroes might need tweaking, but I can't remember them except for Orokestes.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Taqwus:
If memory serves, the Prince of Death already had some notoriety as an early expansion weapon for Ulm as a zero-enc commander with good combat stats. PoD + full plate is good early, could add a better weapon (Rod of Death was strength-not-added, not too impressive; even a Sword of Sharpness would arguably be better for a physically strong pretender against ordinary troops) if you like.

True. However, before this the PoD has been completely overshadowed by the VQ. I'm simply concerned that the balance tipped too far the other way.

Without native astral, nature, or death, but with the usual dominion rules; hm. Note that you'd only need to empower -one- blood-2 mage to blood-3 and then give him a dwarven hammer to crank out brazen vessels, athames, even armor of souls if need be, and you wouldn't need to divert slaves to maintain or expand dominion.

If you have the Earth gems. Granted, this mod would have Bloodstones, but every Bloodstone could be a Vessel/Knife. You're also just tantalizingly out of reach of Earth-5 for Forge.

Mictlan would have easier Crossbreeding, 'tho, for rapid reinforcement. Intriguing. If I wanted a Blood nation, I'd probably prefer this Version for the drastically reduced micromanagement

s/easier// The funniest thing about the various Elemental Demons is that they generally don't work very together. The Storm Demons can easily kill the others with friendly fire, the Frost Fiends and the Devils don't work well together... the best combination are Demon Knights and Devils, but then you miss out on missile troops...

I sort of made this to test out various things, but I guess it does cut down on the micromanagement.

Heroes might need tweaking, but I can't remember them except for Orokestes.

Orokestes would be even better for the mod than he would for the base. As a general rule, I simply remove Heroes from mods, just to avoid confusion.

Scott

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
True. However, before this the PoD has been completely overshadowed by the VQ. I'm simply concerned that the balance tipped too far the other way.

That's usually the case when a knee-jerk reaction occurs as a result of a public outcry of whining. This is why I feel that whenever somebody calls for a nerfing of anything, that somebody should generally be ignored. Now the VQ is a more or less completely unusable chassis by any nation that doesn't have a huge number of points to burn...and isn't available to the most noteworthy, and perhaps appropriate, of them: Ermor. Meanwhile, other options are no more attractive than they were before. Instead of more and better options, we have less. To top that off, the new patch didn't really give us anything new, contentwise. Bleh.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Now the VQ is a more or less completely unusable chassis by any nation that doesn't have a huge number of points to burn...

She is still a perfectly useful combat pretender. She can't be easily turned into both a rainbow mage and a SC anymore, but that's not a bad thing.

and isn't available to the most noteworthy, and perhaps appropriate, of them: Ermor.

I'm sure you must have meant to say the least appropriate here. She might be undead, but vampires don't fit in a land with no living humans.

[QB]To top that off, the new patch didn't really give us anything new, contentwise. Bleh.

We got three very nice new units for desert tombs and a very nice boost to existing ones for Pangaea. Carrion woods got a good boost as well.

[Scott Hebert]

On the VQ issue, I fall more in line with Norfleet: there's actually very little reason to use the VQ now. And trying to argue that an Undead Pretender is non-thematic for Ermor is really pushing it. After all, you DO have Broken Empire as the base. (OTOH, BF Ulm is the most thematic for a VQ, not Ermor.) What irritates me about the VQ is that it was ONLY removed from Ermor, and that's too much a silver bullet.

Basically, the VQ changes, in the main, were aimed at the way Norfleet (and only Norfleet) plays. With all of the changes that were made to the VQ, it was totally unnecessary to remove it from Ermor as well.

Now, having said that, I disagree with Norfleet's comment that 'no useful content' was added in the patch. Desert Tombs became much more viable with this, and Pangaea is much more robust with their Revelers. I think this is a situation where both sides are overstating their cases.

I'm going to be trying to find a 'better balance' with everything through the modding. If I find anything that seems to lead to better games in the main, I'll be sure to post it. Since I play SP, my mods will be balanced for SP... which IMO should be the focus for modding, anyway, since MP is more complex to do, requires the acquiescence of the players involved, and is the focus for the developers anyway.

Scott

[PvK]

Seems to me that VQ doesn't make much sense for Ermor to have thematically (as well as for balance reasons) because with a killer dominion, the prospects for good blood drinking are few.

VQ seemed to have too little cost for all the abilities she had, compared to other gods. The patch increased her costs, without reducing her abilities. So she wasn't nerfed, so much as given an appropriate price tag.

Seems all good to me.

Other changes also include new abilities and tweaked values. Pangaea and Desert Tombs players got some new goodies.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
On the VQ issue, I fall more in line with Norfleet: there's actually very little reason to use the VQ now.

Is there any reason why we shouldn't read that an overstatement from the perspective of a narrow selection process? She's still a good immortal fighting chassis with a huge list of build-in abilities. Looks good to me.

And trying to argue that an Undead Pretender is non-thematic for Ermor is really pushing it. After all, you DO have Broken Empire as the base.

Good point about Broken Empire, but they'd have to change the god selection UI to eliminate it only from the Ashen and SG themes. Seems to me there are good thematic and logical reasons from taking from them, and the perhaps unnecessary hit to Broken Empire doesn't seem to me like a big deal.

Personally, I'd rather have an unclear reason for an omitted pretender choice, than a couple of pretender choices that don't make a lot of sense (vampire queen with murderous dominion exterminating her blood sources).

Basically, the VQ changes, in the main, were aimed at the way Norfleet (and only Norfleet) plays.

Oh? What about the chorus of whines that everyone was copying Norfleet's strategy?

I'm going to be trying to find a 'better balance' with everything through the modding. If I find anything that seems to lead to better games in the main, I'll be sure to post it. ...

Cool - looking forward to it!

PvK

[Yossar]

Originally posted by Bayushi Tasogare:
Finally, an issue about the Prince of Death. I think, with the changes to the VQ, that the PoD is going to emerge as a new contender for her crown. While he's neither ethereal nor immortal, he has twice the base hit points, a much better Fear effect, a good base protection, a much less base cost (100 points goes a long way), and no superfluous magic (I've never heard of anyone using a SC VQ for her Blood magic).

Prince of Death is good, but a poor choice for Arco (if you leave them with priestesses). They're going to pick up afflictions and the only way to fix that is with Gift of Health or a Chalice. Pick any living commander and you don't have to worry about that.

[Yossar]

Originally posted by PvK:

quote:

---

Basically, the VQ changes, in the main, were aimed at the way Norfleet (and only Norfleet) plays.

Oh? What about the chorus of whines that everyone was copying Norfleet's strategy?

---

I've still never heard of anyone besides Norfleet successfully using his strategies.

[ June 11, 2004, 03:47: Message edited by: Yossar ]