Conceptual Balance Mod 0.92

[Sorlakind]

I've been playing with the CB mod with Ulm on middle era. I have only SP experience, so bear this in mind in my comments below.

Pretenders:
I usually choose a rainbow pretender. Is there a rationale for the distribution of magic paths/abbilities to the human pretenders? If I recall correctly, the archmage in the CB mod for domII had a level in every magic path and a point cost of 150. I think something like this should be done with the archmage. The word arch is there for something. I suggest one level in every path except blood and a cost of at the very least 50 to cover the 5 additional magic paths. I leave blood out, because blood is a whole different story and does not really mesh well, thematically speaking, with the concept of an archmage, IMHO. A similar change should be done to the water version of the archmage.

And though I have never used the Vampire Queen, from what I have gathered the nerf on her was probably too much, so how about putting ethereality back in?

Units:
I have no great qualms with the changes in the knights and sapper's cost in both gold and resources. But isn't 40 g/1 res too cheap for the siege engineer? Although he has no armour or weapons, the siege bonus should cost something in resources? Just an idea.

From an Ulm user perspective, their master smiths could *really, really* use a boost in their random picks. I do not know if this is moddable, but an increase to 20-50% in their random pick seems reasonable, thematic and balanced.

Spells:
I dislike the national Ulm spell in the thaumaturgy, since thaumaturgy is next to useless to Ulm. Putting it in level 4 makes it a little better. OTOH I do not have any better solution to offer.

Summons:
This is not Ulm specific, but isn't 5N2D excessive as a path requirement for the summon lamia queen ritual?

Oh and before I forget, congrats for the work!
Best regards

[quantum_mechani]

Sorlakind said:
I've been playing with the CB mod with Ulm on middle era. I have only SP experience, so bear this in mind in my comments below.

Pretenders:
I usually choose a rainbow pretender. Is there a rationale for the distribution of magic paths/abbilities to the human pretenders? If I recall correctly, the archmage in the CB mod for domII had a level in every magic path and a point cost of 150. I think something like this should be done with the archmage. The word arch is there for something. I suggest one level in every path except blood and a cost of at the very least 50 to cover the 5 additional magic paths. I leave blood out, because blood is a whole different story and does not really mesh well, thematically speaking, with the concept of an archmage, IMHO. A similar change should be done to the water version of the archmage.

And though I have never used the Vampire Queen, from what I have gathered the nerf on her was probably too much, so how about putting ethereality back in?

Units:
I have no great qualms with the changes in the knights and sapper's cost in both gold and resources. But isn't 40 g/1 res too cheap for the siege engineer? Although he has no armour or weapons, the siege bonus should cost something in resources? Just an idea.

From an Ulm user perspective, their master smiths could *really, really* use a boost in their random picks. I do not know if this is moddable, but an increase to 20-50% in their random pick seems reasonable, thematic and balanced.

Spells:
I dislike the national Ulm spell in the thaumaturgy, since thaumaturgy is next to useless to Ulm. Putting it in level 4 makes it a little better. OTOH I do not have any better solution to offer.

Summons:
This is not Ulm specific, but isn't 5N2D excessive as a path requirement for the summon lamia queen ritual?

Oh and before I forget, congrats for the work!
Best regards

The rationale for the added paths for rainbows is just taking Illwinter's Dom3 boosts to them in and taking it up a level. Mind you, many veteran players still consider them too weak even as they stand in CB. The Archmage change has been requested by others too, so it's pretty likely I will add it back in. Most likely it would include blood though.

I already cut the VQ's price by 25, adding ethereal would mean going against Illwinter's presumably thematic decision.

The siege engineer I cut the resource cost just to be consistent with EA Arco engineers. I should also note that even as they stand I haven't seriously considered wasting a commander slot on them, given that spies are available.

More magic for Ulm is another case of just not seeming thematic. Besides, I'm not so convinced they are as weak as many people are used to from Dom2, they have done quite well in most MP games I've played.

I don't agree the thaumaturgy national spell is useless, and in fact I like that it encourages an alternate research path.

Lamia queens do take a lot of magic in Dom3, but I already made them gem cheaper, and I like that death isn't as amazingly easy to get from nature as it was in Dom2.

Thanks for input, it's always welcome.

[Reverend Zombie]

quantum_mechani said:

I already cut the VQ's price by 25, adding ethereal would mean going against Illwinter's presumably thematic decision.

Removing ethereal always seemed like a good, thematic, nerf for vampires to me.

I wonder, though, if people have been picking VQ in CB games for anything other than LE Ulm? She seems sooo weak to me now, even at 150, and I wonder if her pathcost might be dropped to make her more attractive?

[Sheap]

All vampires lost ethereal in dom3, and I never really liked them having it anyway. But without it, the VQ is much weaker, and I think she's worth maybe 100 now.