Conceptual Balance Mod v1.92

[GFSnl]

You haven't convinced me.

I still like the idea and I think you're exaggerating.

Against cold 3 it's a problem. But how many gems cost Wolven winter? Where is the Zmey gonna raid? Against pd the Zmey wins easily even with +10 enc. With it's AoE 3 fire attack most battle against pd take 2 or 3 turns.

So he's not a good raider in all circumstances, this is called strategic thinking. When your fighting cold, summon a Wendigo.

[Soyweiser]

So zmeys stop being usefull against any cold1 or higher nation. Or a neutral nation with good pd.

Also, now unkitted zmeys can killed by ghost rider spam and retreat route removal, about 1/3 of the time. With cold blood, you can ALWAYS kill them with one ghost rider and casting woven winter twice. No exception. cold blooded means + 12 encumberance each attack round. (10 for the cold blooded, +2 for extreme cold).

Sure, ghost riders is a end game spell. (and way to cheap at 5 dgems, CBM should up that a bit 7-8 perhaps), and you need a lot of gems to prepare for ghost rider spam (lich + 35dgems in death boosters). But it works great against most foes.

I think it would be better just to give them a cold resistance malus. Cold blooded seems a bit broken anyway.

And against PD with 13 enc the zmey does not win. Perhaps if you give the zmey equipment. But I doubt it.

[Executor]

Zmey is unusable in cold. I've had the privilage to fight Neif as Abysia and kitted Zmeys died to jotun PD, and that really says something.

GR's are the bane of zmey btw. 2 GR's will usually kill just about any Zmey, kitted of course.

[Soyweiser]

Wraith crown and a berzerker amulet work pretty well. Eth means the lances don't hit, gives regen, and gives berserk. Sprinkle in MR and resistances as needed

[shatner]

Really, I don't think anyone is arguing that giving the Zmey cold-blooded would make it's defeat likely in a cold province. I think the larger question is whether the Zmey having that weakness is too much.

The point is the Zmey is an extraordinary raiding unit which skirts the line between heavy thug and SC. It flies, has three lives, very high protection, does AoE fire damage on top of 4 high strength attacks (so one is likely to connect even when the foe is ethereal AND fire immune). The Zmey being a poor choice to invade a cold nation is fine. After all, you know not to rely on body ethereal to protect your SC against Caelum when even their PD has magical ice weaponry. That's the tactics of the game. And having the correct response to a Zmey be Wolven Winter combined with a remote attack spell sounds like a gem and research-appropriate counter.

Finally, fire gems suffer from fewer viable outlets than other gem-types. The main uses for fire gems are forging fire-spam items, lightless lanterns or used as an ingredient for non-fire gear (firebrands, gold shields, rune breakers, etc.). That makes saving up for an awesome summon like the Zmey a very easy decision to make. If the Zmey cost death gems or earth gems instead, I'd be more hesitant to weaken it, but not fire gems.

I think the change is both thematically appropriate and mechanically balanced.

[earcaraxe]

i back up shatner's opinion to the fullest.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by shatner

Really, I don't think anyone is arguing that giving the Zmey cold-blooded would make it's defeat likely in a cold province. I think the larger question is whether the Zmey having that weakness is too much.

The point is the Zmey is an extraordinary raiding unit which skirts the line between heavy thug and SC. It flies, has three lives, very high protection, does AoE fire damage on top of 4 high strength attacks (so one is likely to connect even when the foe is ethereal AND fire immune). The Zmey being a poor choice to invade a cold nation is fine. After all, you know not to rely on body ethereal to protect your SC against Caelum when even their PD has magical ice weaponry. That's the tactics of the game. And having the correct response to a Zmey be Wolven Winter combined with a remote attack spell sounds like a gem and research-appropriate counter.

Finally, fire gems suffer from fewer viable outlets than other gem-types. The main uses for fire gems are forging fire-spam items, lightless lanterns or used as an ingredient for non-fire gear (firebrands, gold shields, rune breakers, etc.). That makes saving up for an awesome summon like the Zmey a very easy decision to make. If the Zmey cost death gems or earth gems instead, I'd be more hesitant to weaken it, but not fire gems.

I think the change is both thematically appropriate and mechanically balanced.

Its not just raiding cold-based nations. Wolven Winter means that Cold-3 can be applied to any province during the magic phase, say preceeding assault by a thug/SC with teleport or ct. At that point Zmey become so many wasted gems. Heat scales cannot be applied so easily, and Cold-3 can be generated predictably and on-demand with Wolven Winter.

Cold-blooded is not mechanically balanced. Nations who have cold-blooded mages are amongst the weakest nations in the game, and cold-blooded troops rarely get used as anything more than arrow stoppers if it can be helped. The idea of a thug or SC which is cold-blooded is laughable, and it will not be used, since a single naked zmey more than justifies the cost of a Wolven Winter, and chances are its carrying 15-25 gems worth of gear too. At that point the entire map should be treated as Cold-3, because wherever the zmey goes it *will* be cold-3 for the relevant follow-up combat.

This is totally ignoring that Cold-3 is the single most common temperature extreme in dom3. (In addition to nations with a cold preference, lots of people use X3 temperatures for the points because its one of the easiest places to get them, and C3 is favored by default for anyone without cold-blooded unless they have specific reason to prefer H3, since there are more summons with a cold aura than a heat aura (offensive benefit), and more units with firepower than cold power (defensive benefit as most of these are nationals - if you expect to see lots of enemy coldpower units you might choose otherwise)). The only people who choose H3 are people with a specific heat preference, people with a cold-blooded unit they plan on using regardless of heat preference, or people who specifically are planning to use firepower or fire aura units (generally B/F nations because Devils have a heat aura). Cold also has an advantage over Heat because the game starts in spring, which means you'll suffer less economy hit early because summer will knock that C3 down to C1-2 in the early turns, reducing the effect of the negative scales.

tl;dr Zmeys costing more than ~5f are useless if they're cold-blooded, because that's the break-even point in gem expenditure on both sides. Cold-blooded means instant 2x chest-wound-equivalents whenever your opponents wants - and a single chest-wound is enough to end the career of most thugs.

[shatner]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

tl;dr Zmeys costing more than ~5f are useless if they're cold-blooded, because that's the break-even point in gem expenditure on both sides. Cold-blooded means instant 2x chest-wound-equivalents whenever your opponents wants - and a single chest-wound is enough to end the career of most thugs.

You are absolutely right that cold scales are more common than heat scales. I myself favor them for precisely the reasons you laid out. Where we disagree is in whether Cold Blooded is really the nail in the Zmey's coffin.

First off, a Zmey doesn't need 15-25 gems worth of equipment. Sure, it's got three misc slots and three heads so you could decorate it like a christmas tree, but the main points of the Zmey are first rampant raiding and second for ruining commanders by attacking rear. And for that all you really need is a 5N Lyncathrope Amulet. Face it, the Zmey comes with fear (10D helm), flying (10A boots), flame AoE (5E5F fire brand...x3), 22 protection (10E fullplate), fire immunity (5F ring) and 50% poison resistance just for laughs. Those 30 fire gems summon a big scary monster that's the equivalent of more than 45 gems worth of equipment attached to a really good chassis (high hp, three lives, high moral, excellent MR, high attack, etc., etc.).

Second off, when your opponent does cast Wolven Winter on you (possibly twice if the province had heat scales) they still need to teleport, cloud trapeze or remote attack with something that can kill a Zmey. And sure, in a Cold-3 province, that really just means surviving 7+ rounds of combat after which the creature will be crit to death. But even then you are talking about employing a high moral, fire immune, ethereal/high hp monster with A2 or S3. That requires gems and mage-turns of preparation to ready. At that point, your opponent is reacting to you tearing up his backfield, teleporting his thugs into his own former provinces instead of doing something proactive like raiding you.

As in all wars, a worthy opponent will respond to your tactics. It's not a question of if your weapon will fail you, but when... and for how long/savagely you can beat them with it. Zmey are only conjuration 6 so they can pop out and raise hell early enough to make a huge difference in a mid-game war. And even once they are eclipsed by late game summons (angels, elemental royalty, etc.) and late game spells, they are still cheap enough to be used as a bolstering force in a late game army. And once that foe commits their three tricked out golems (or whatever) to some province that doesn't contain a lab, well that's when the Zmey can once again take wing and burninate the countryside.

And if worst comes to worst, you can always give them an amulet of reinvigoration and a heart of life. At that point you're likely not paying much more than your opponent who has to bring the stubborn thing down.

[earcaraxe]

Originally Posted by shatner

Second off, when your opponent does cast Wolven Winter on you (possibly twice if the province had heat scales) they still need to teleport, cloud trapeze or remote attack with something that can kill a Zmey. And sure, in a Cold-3 province, that really just means surviving 7+ rounds of combat after which the creature will be crit to death. But even then you are talking about employing a high moral, fire immune, ethereal/high hp monster with A2 or S3. That requires gems and mage-turns of preparation to ready. At that point, your opponent is reacting to you tearing up his backfield, teleporting his thugs into his own former provinces instead of doing something proactive like raiding you.

i'd like to add, that the player with the zmey also can counter the counter: "my zmey is here, so next turn there will be wolven winter and his cloud trapezing something, so i teleport my anti SC there", etc etc. What i state is, that its not an automatic loss of a zmey to send him raiding, even the opponent has the aforementioned tools.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Its not just raiding cold-based nations. Wolven Winter means that Cold-3 can be applied to any province during the magic phase, say preceeding assault by a thug/SC with teleport or ct. At that point Zmey become so many wasted gems. Heat scales cannot be applied so easily, and Cold-3 can be generated predictably and on-demand with Wolven Winter.

I don't think this is true. I ran some tests with two wolven winter casters at the top of the order and two at the bottom with a cloud trapezing angel in the middle and the battle that was fought in the magic phase did not reflect the shift in temperature.

Originally Posted by shatner

The point is the Zmey is an extraordinary raiding unit which skirts the line between heavy thug and SC. It flies, has three lives, very high protection, does AoE fire damage on top of 4 high strength attacks (so one is likely to connect even when the foe is ethereal AND fire immune).

No question it has a nice set of abilities and is a good raiding unit. But in addition to the things it has, it is also missing some important things like full slots (in particular hand slots) and any kind of magic (aside from the 10% chance of F1). The lack of magic does have one benefit in that you don't have a buffing phase and can go right to the attack but overall having magic would be helpful as you might be able to use spells rather than magic items to cover some vulnerabilities. The lack of hand slots is very significant in that it means you don't have magic, armor piercing weapons (aside from the fire breath which is easy for an opposing thug to counter) and you don't have a shield and just in general can't swap out weapons depending on the opposition.

Originally Posted by shatner

Finally, fire gems suffer from fewer viable outlets than other gem-types. The main uses for fire gems are forging fire-spam items, lightless lanterns or used as an ingredient for non-fire gear (firebrands, gold shields, rune breakers, etc.). That makes saving up for an awesome summon like the Zmey a very easy decision to make. If the Zmey cost death gems or earth gems instead, I'd be more hesitant to weaken it, but not fire gems.

I've never bought into this line of reasoning. It seems too much like saying if a path has powerful things it can have more powerful things but if a path has weak things you can't add something powerful because it might get used too much. Seems to me it would be better to add a bit more to the weak path to provide more options. And as regards fire, if you have a strong F income and reach late game you'll switch to ember lords anyway.

Originally Posted by shatner

Second off, when your opponent does cast Wolven Winter on you (possibly twice if the province had heat scales) they still need to teleport, cloud trapeze or remote attack with something that can kill a Zmey. And sure, in a Cold-3 province, that really just means surviving 7+ rounds of combat after which the creature will be crit to death. But even then you are talking about employing a high moral, fire immune, ethereal/high hp monster with A2 or S3. That requires gems and mage-turns of preparation to ready. At that point, your opponent is reacting to you tearing up his backfield, teleporting his thugs into his own former provinces instead of doing something proactive like raiding you.

In cold-3 I'd say all you need is enough chaff to do the job. Skelly spam should work nicely. And you don't have to teleport someone in to deal with him. Use conventional movement: a force to retake the province and another couple randomly moving about to fight him - eventually he should run into them. And of course you can try the traditional mind hunts. You'll need three successful hunts to get a kill but if the zmey doesn't have an AoMR that's feasible. And even if you don't get three successes you can knock off one or more heads, weakening the zmey. Also, while they have good MR if they don't have an AoMR or luck pendant they are very vulnerable to spammed MR resist spells on the battlefield.

Originally Posted by earcaraxe

i'd like to add, that the player with the zmey also can counter the counter: "my zmey is here, so next turn there will be wolven winter and his cloud trapezing something, so i teleport my anti SC there", etc etc. What i state is, that its not an automatic loss of a zmey to send him raiding, even the opponent has the aforementioned tools.

Sure, you can always up the ante by sending in reinforcements to try to destroy the expected counterattack but this is no different than with any other raider/SC that doesn't have an escape route planned (stealth, returning).

Originally Posted by shatner

I think the change is both thematically appropriate and mechanically balanced.

Really, if zmey are too powerful for the cost/research level (and I'd like to see more evidence of this first) it seems like this could be easily solved by bumping up their cost a bit (and it just went up 5 gems in any case). To me this is preferable to crippling them in cold dominion. I agree with Squirrelloid that the game's cold-blooded penalties are just too harsh and not in any way balanced.