Conceptual Balance Mod 1.5

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

I was playing about with EA Agartha again. It came to me that a good and reasonably thematic boost would be heat preference 2. That would give them some points to buy a blessing and some heat to push against cold dominions.

With that change they would be good enough I think, and Umbrals could stay at conj 7.

It wouldn't hurt. But taking heat 3 is already a law of playing Agartha anyway, so it doesn't actually give you any more points.

I also doubt giving cave dwellers a heat preference makes sense. What also doesn't make sense is cave dwellers being cold blooded in the first place. (Seriously, you get more than like 10' below ground and air temperature is constant and chilly.) Cold blooded only makes sense for things that are normally out in sunlight...

Edit: Support++ for reducing path requirement for Army of X spells and Weapons of Sharpness, and really, lategame army buff spells in general. The game favors thug/SC play way too much - making these spells accessible to regular mages would go a long way towards making armies actually viable.

[Sombre]

They might spend lots of time huddled around geothermal outlets.

I thought it was fairly warm deep underground, not chilly. I'm no expert though.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Sombre

They might spend lots of time huddled around geothermal outlets.

I thought it was fairly warm deep underground, not chilly. I'm no expert though.

I was just in caves two weeks ago that had ice all summer while the temperature above ground was 90+ (Deg F).

Here's a decent link on the subject: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/env99/env223.htm

Note that since many or most areas have seasonal temperature fluctuations, average temperature can be pretty chilly. In most of the US we're talking <=55 deg F.

(As you get deeper, cave temperature becomes more dependent on geothermal heat and less dependent on surface heating - which could lead to warmer or cooler caves depending on the area's average temperature. You have to go quite deep for geothermal to be 'quite warm' - deeper than any known natural caves and probably deeper than its possible to mine out tunnels.)

[P3D]

As you are getting even deeper in caves, you end up in groundwater eventually, before it could get to any hot. Removing cold blooded might be too much a boost, though.

[Fantomen]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think heat preference would be ok for agartha too, but it isn't really suggested anywhere in their descriptions etc. Though they do summon up fire elementals and earth elementals rather than water elementals, which suggests some ties with lava/geothermal stuff.

They have the "rhuax pact" spell as a national summon, Summoning magma children with heat and fire power. So that sort of implies a connection to heat and volcanic heritage.

Also I think EA agartha absolutely needs to take heat scales anyway to defend against cold, which is a total killer for them. So pretender design wouldn´t change much anyway, you just wouldn´t lose the income.

Taking away cold blooded would be an alternative but I somehow feel that it is a strong part of the Agartha theme.

Why not just imagine that Agarthas caves run deeper than caves known to man, that they are connected with earth itself and it´s burning core?

[vfb]

Oh, you people are just not living close enough to any volcanoes. You can cook eggs in some 5' deep caves in Japan.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

I was playing about with EA Agartha again. It came to me that a good and reasonably thematic boost would be heat preference 2. That would give them some points to buy a blessing and some heat to push against cold dominions.

With that change they would be good enough I think, and Umbrals could stay at conj 7.

In my Balance mods, this is one of the steps I take to make the agarthas more competitive.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Why not just imagine that Agarthas caves run deeper than caves known to man, that they are connected with earth itself and it´s burning core?

Because at some point gravity just crushes the cave? Its not that there are no caves known deeper than that, its that there's a depth beyond which cave formation is *impossible* and supporting a tunnel structurally is *impossible*. The only reason magma pipes don't collapse is they're filled with magma, which is really dense.

Edit: before someone says it - if Agartha has magic powerful enough to achieve such a feat, (1) why are they bothering with the surface world? (2) Shouldn't they be able to move anywhere on the map from any territory? (3) They've already won, their magic is so awesome.

[vfb]

The Agarthan caves are filled with water, didn't you know? And it doesn't get pushed up to the surface because AWDI.

(1) Because they don't want to be near the seal when it breaks
(2) Have you looked at those fat-arsed Agarthan Oracles? They are lucky to have map move 2.
(3) Agartha will never win, because of teh PD.

[Kuritza]

Originally Posted by vfb

(3) Agartha will never win, because of teh PD.

I think you mistake them for monkeys.