Mod: StaticGemGens 1.1

[Makinus]

I found you mod interesting and i´m tinkering with it... i find some modifications that make it more fun without becoming too unbalanced:

- reduced all static gem gens to 1 HP to make them extremely fragile.
- Reduced research levels to 3 for the astral and fire gemgens and 5 for the earth one.
- Astral gen now does not have a gold cost (no maint) but consumes supplies (20 supplies) and can be destroyed by starvation (lack of supplies).
- Fire gen does not have unrest/disease effect anymore but consumes 20 gold/turn (just increased the gcost to 300).
- Earth gen has no maint (no gcost) but increases unrest (5) and kills population (10).

Now the astral gen is limited by supplies, so the player cannot create a limitless number of them in each province and will need to spread them in several provinces.

The fire gen costs considerable maintenance and should not be an atractive option early on when gold is needed, but is interesting in the med-late game when gold is plentiful.

The earth gen now kills pop and causes unrest so it should not be too atractive to blood nations that already have unrest and lost pop from blood hunting.

[Memento]

Originally Posted by Makinus

Now the astral gen is limited by supplies, so the player cannot create a limitless number of them in each province and will need to spread them in several provinces.

I guess 20 supply is not a problem - Farmland + Sity + Grows = ~1000 - 1500 supplies

Originally Posted by Makinus

The fire gen costs considerable maintenance and should not be an atractive option early on when gold is needed, but is interesting in the med-late game when gold is plentiful.

20g = 1F??? easy

Originally Posted by Makinus

The earth gen now kills pop and causes unrest so it should not be too atractive to blood nations that already have unrest and lost pop from blood hunting.

stuck them in one province with gold mine and patrol it like there is no tomorrow - misson accomplished

[llamabeast]

You could just get astral pearls, alchemise them to nature gems and make supply items. Tada, infinite pearls!

[Soyweiser]

Well the idea of the mod was to make the gemgens be linked to provinces once again. Adding a lot of malusses to the commanders was not part of the plan.

With this mod you can simply see where your enemies have the highest concentration of gem generators, and eliminate them. (Previously, you could just put them on hidden scouts, making them hard to detect and even harder to get rid of).

Of course, I have no problem with anybody tinkering with the mod. Feel free to release your own variants etc.

[Makinus]

after some playtesting i concluded that Memento is right in some of his observations...

First, only 20 supplies for the astral gengen is too litle... i´m trying now 50 and 100 to see wich is better... i´m not too worried with supply itens as they would also increase the starting gem cost for the gengens and farm provinces would be the first place where you would seek astral gemgens.

Second, fire generators 20 gold/turn cost is considerable at the start of the game, when gold is still needed for troops... however, after gold becomes plentiful it becomes nearly irrelevant, so maybe a higher turn cost would be better... any ideas on a reasonable gold cost/turn?

Third, the earth gemgen appears to be more balanced than the other 2, and the patrolling scheme Memento mentioned would increase the cost for the generator...

Finally, any idea to better balance these generators? I really like Soyweiser idea and want to make it work in a balanced way...

Now the gemgens have the following costs:
- Mage time (all/once)
- Gems/Slaves (all/once)
- Extremely fragile (all) - 1hp
- Supplies (astral/monthly) - 50 or 100?
- Gold (fire/monthly) 20? 25? more?
- Unrest/Popkill (earth/monthly) - 5 unrest/10 popkill?

I will not release a variant until i have a version that is at least barely balanced, and, with Soyweiser permission, i would like to release it here, in his thread...