Pretender Balance Mod

[Sheap]

I think the issue here is that you are not considering true rainbow mages. You are focusing on high dominion with strong magic in 2 or 3 paths, which just happens to be exactly the greatest strength of the titans. This is not what a human pretender should be trying to do.

If you have 4 points in each path you can find every magic site except holy/unholy. This will allow you to find on average roughly one site per turn, with average site frequency, as long as your army can keep up this pace of conquest (should be doable vs independents even of high strength).

If you have a rainbow mage you don't need so much dominion because you are not using it to boost your own strength in combat.

If you have 4 levels in each path you can forge almost any item. With an easily made magic item or two you can forge literally any item.

If you have a rainbow mage you gain more from your research in the later game because there are not very many spells you will not be able to cast.

During the early game you will not have the ability to send your pretender out busting independents. You also will not have the risk of getting your pretender afflicted. If someone stabs your 4/4/4 titan in the head, perhaps by standing on a tall ladder, and he gets feebleminded, you are toast. This will never happen with a rainbow mage.

In the midgame you can't take as aggressive a stance as a player with a combat oriented pretender. But you will have more gems, more and better summons and you will have them sooner. You could surprise your enemy with a powerful army of summoned units before he thinks you will have them. And you will have fewer gaps and weaknesses in your army because you will be able to conjure up anything.

The only downside to a rainbow mage, IMO, is that he can do only one thing at a time even later in the game, meaning that if he isn't searching or researching he is wasting a significant fraction of his power. But then a combat pretender wastes a significant fraction of his power whenever he is not actually turning the tide of battle. Every affliction suffered, every turn spent in a siege, every battle overwhelmingly won or lost, wastes the power of the combat pretender.

A lot of the decision is based on what your nation's strengths are. If you have a nation with strong troops that can handle independents with the regular army, but has weak mages, then a rainbow mage is an excellent choice for a pretender. If your troops are weak and depend on high dominion or blessing to fight well then the rainbow mage isn't so great. (Even then your blessing is likely to be not hopeless - a bunch of weak powers instead of one or two strong ones).

[ June 17, 2004, 20:38: Message edited by: Sheap ]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
]I knew this would come up. *sigh* Yes, I only play SP. That is because the computer that DomII is installed on cannot go onto the internet, and the computer (that I'm currently on) that can go onto the internet cannot run Dominions II. It is not because I don't want to play MP.

I never said who plays only SP can't have valid balance suggestions, quite the opposite. But when it comes to pretender design for balance more emphasis is on the MP aspect since it is there that it really shines. In SP you can set you opponents to Impossible and have a Wyrm with 9F9E9S show up at your doorstep and still beat them. But it takes alot of MP to see the ramifications of a Rainbow Pretender or the drawbacks (Some people only play Rainbows in SP because they don't need combat pretenders and the opponent doesn't use their own to full effect)

Well, to be honest, I play most often on the settings that are most conducive to Rainbow Mages (Rich, 75% Magic Sites), and I still don't use them.

I'm just curious why not. Obviously Rich would be a limitation since initial combat pretenders with high gold would be more attractive. But in my mind having an immediate gem income from a Rainbow without having to worry about a Comp Pile I would be more like to play Rainbows.

Can you give a reason as to why they should not be on more of a level playing field?

There is no reason they should not be. But Level in what sense of the word? I'm Pro-Upgrade-Humans, have been from the start. I even wouldn't mind if Humans had a minor boost to Dominion (Max of 2), but I don't think Dominion matters to human pretenders as much as other pretenders. I'd be more inclined to level the playing field with abilities that increase their survivability and speciality rather than brute influence over Dominion. But that's my opinion, you are certainly entitled to your own.

As my Virtue/Arch Seraph example points out, I believe that specialization vs. variety should be equally viable. They are not, however. I think I chose the worst possible non-Rainbow Pretender to try to make Rainbow (the Virtue), and it was still better than the Rainbow in 3 or less paths. Under my mod, each _should_ work equally well in a game.

I don't know what kind of impact you're giving gem income or summons. I would rather choose a Virtue over an Arch Seraph, but it's not because of their inital dominion strengths or even cost/path.

Two small quibbles. One, the Wyrm starts with no magic. (The land ArchMage doesn't either, but most Rainbows do.) Two, if mortality is a key component to being "Godlike" (from this I take it you mean that the more immortal you are, the more godlike?), why do the Immortal Pretenders all have low Dominions, and particularly why did the VQ's Dominion _decrease_ in 2.12?

Because Vampires don't exactly exude influence as much as fear. They don't inspire worship, they demand it. There are alot of factors to look at and it can be argued either way. These are just generalities as far as "Humans in my mind with gods that are human, make me think either a.) they are less of a god because they're human or b.) I'm more godly than mortal since a human can be a god. Either way, the underlying perception could mean less influencial, which is the way IW looks at it.

The other option I have is to take the opposite approach, and switch the magic paths of human vs. giant Pretenders. Make the humans the specialists (and let's face it, do they have the time to master 8 different paths of magic?), and make the giants the generalists. Would that be better?

Better? I don't know but I do know that high magical paths are thematically attuned to beasts that are extremely 'elemental'.

I don't think it would be a bad thing to put 3 Path specifics on Human Pretenders with an increased Path cost of 40/path.

[Vynd]

I agree with Sheap. You are handicapping all of the low dominion chasis by assuming that you always have to start with a Dominion of 6. Operating under that premise of course the Titans and such are better. But there's no rule that says you can't start with a low dominion, and use your points on the things that a Frost Father or whatever is actually good at, instead of frittering them away trying to get a really high dominion.

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Zen:
I never said who plays only SP can't have valid balance suggestions, quite the opposite. But when it comes to pretender design for balance more emphasis is on the MP aspect since it is there that it really shines. In SP you can set you opponents to Impossible and have a Wyrm with 9F9E9S show up at your doorstep and still beat them. But it takes alot of MP to see the ramifications of a Rainbow Pretender or the drawbacks (Some people only play Rainbows in SP because they don't need combat pretenders and the opponent doesn't use their own to full effect)

If you say so. I don't see it, personally, but then, I haven't played MP.

Another impact of my mod would have been that the computer would have better Pretenders, since it doesn't operate under the same design criteria as humans.

I'm just curious why not. Obviously Rich would be a limitation since initial combat pretenders with high gold would be more attractive. But in my mind having an immediate gem income from a Rainbow without having to worry about a Comp Pile I would be more like to play Rainbows.

Two things. Rich setting, to me, means that you can have more troops, which devalues SCs. Well, it increases their power while decreasing their utility. More money equals more troops and more forts and more mages. Mages are the SC's bane, and SCs can't take forts. Therefore, a Rich setting is not good for SCs, to me. The other reason is Acashic. It's much more reliable than ANY Rainbow can be, it's faster, and any nation in the game can cast it every 10-11 turns, and it snowballs from the first, for the same reason Clams do. Basically, having a Rainbow search for sites is just too damn slow.

There is no reason they should not be. But Level in what sense of the word? I'm Pro-Upgrade-Humans, have been from the start. I even wouldn't mind if Humans had a minor boost to Dominion (Max of 2), but I don't think Dominion matters to human pretenders as much as other pretenders. I'd be more inclined to level the playing field with abilities that increase their survivability and speciality rather than brute influence over Dominion. But that's my opinion, you are certainly entitled to your own.

Well, maybe it's my lack of experience, but I distinctly recall several people on this forum stating that taking anything less than Dominion 5 in MP is suicide. By increasing the human's base Dominion (especially vis-a-vis the giant's), you are in fact giving the human Pretenders more points to put in magic or scales or fort, since no one plays with just the base dominion of a Pretender.

The main reason I'm suggesting to fiddle with the dominion is because you can't mod in a lot of the 'special abilities' or 'survivability abilities' for them. E.g., how can you give Luck to a Pretender? Simple answer is that you can't. That requires Astral magic on the Pretender, because not even giving them 'hard-coded' equipment will give them the special benefits of that equipment.

I don't know what kind of impact you're giving gem income or summons. I would rather choose a Virtue over an Arch Seraph, but it's not because of their inital dominion strengths or even cost/path.

Why, then? My point was, though, that the Virtue seems to be intended to be a single-path Pretender, while the Arch Seraph is a multi-path Pretender. It doesn't really work out that way.

Because Vampires don't exactly exude influence as much as fear. They don't inspire worship, they demand it.

And yet you _want_ to worship a Prince of Death? This really isn't making sense to me.

Better? I don't know but I do know that high magical paths are thematically attuned to beasts that are extremely 'elemental'.

*sigh* Yes, I know. Just funny how they seem to get everything. They're not of this world, so they're awe-inspiring, so they get high Dominion. They're also very elemental, so they get high magical paths. What _don't_ they get? This doesn't sound like 'balance' to me.

I don't think it would be a bad thing to put 3 Path specifics on Human Pretenders with an increased Path cost of 40/path.

I don't think it would be a bad thing to give them 1 in _every_ Path. I still don't think they'd be played very much. As far as the 3 path thing goes, you have two of them in the game, one Human, one Giant (the Smoking Mirror and the Jade Emperor). I like the Jade Emperor, but that's because I find his 100 points more or less worth the package (he also has very nice paths). The Smoking Mirror, OTOH, should be maybe 30 points, and he costs 70.

I'm trying to work with what you're able to mod, but it's clear no one thinks it's a good idea. I'll just stop working on the mod. Easy enough.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Sheap:

During the early game you will not have the ability to send your pretender out busting independents. You also will not have the risk of getting your pretender afflicted. If someone stabs your 4/4/4 titan in the head, perhaps by standing on a tall ladder, and he gets feebleminded, you are toast. This will never happen with a rainbow mage.

I play a good number of rainbows, and I must agree - your human chassis rainbow won't get feebleminded. Instead, when something manages to get a hit in on your rainbow, he's dead, losing 1 from all those magic paths and possibly causing you to purchase a lot of relatively useless priests to recall him, at a minimum wasting the time of priest mages.

And frankly - sending the rainbow out searching for sites is a -very- good way of having that happen. Random events that bring a monster swarm in, assassins, summonings, etc - all great ways to have a dead rainbow mage.

And dead rainbow mages aren't as much fun as dead puppies.

[Reverend Zombie]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:

I'm trying to work with what you're able to mod, but it's clear no one thinks it's a good idea. I'll just stop working on the mod. Easy enough.

Well thank god THAT was nipped in the bud by the voices of reason.

Let the man mod, dammit!!!

[Sheap]

Everybody's a critic, right? I'm not saying you shouldn't make your mod, just that humanoid pretenders are not necessarily as bad as you say.

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Instead, when something manages to get a hit in on your rainbow, he's dead, losing 1 from all those magic paths and possibly causing you to purchase a lot of relatively useless priests to recall him, at a minimum wasting the time of priest mages.

It is true that death is comparatively worse for a rainbow mage than for one with fewer paths. You lose more magic and your priests might not be as numerous or as well equipped for calling you back. It is best for rainbow mages to not die.

On the other hand, it's not the end of the world. You'll still be able to cast and forge almost as well as before, though you may need an extra item or two to do powerful tasks. Your blessing won't be affected. And by the time your opponent can do this to you, your pretender should no longer be performing a significant fraction of your total research. And if push comes to shove, you can still use empowerment. Plus, rainbow mages can always cast Twiceborn.

Really death is a big nuisance for any pretender. The higher cost of death for a rainbow mage is mitigated by the lower frequency of death.

And frankly - sending the rainbow out searching for sites is a -very- good way of having that happen. Random events that bring a monster swarm in, assassins, summonings, etc - all great ways to have a dead rainbow mage.

Other than assassination, I think these other things can all be retreated from. True, there are some remote summonings that can fly, but they frequently do not attack the pretender first. As for assassination, all humanoid pretenders must have bodyguards at all times

[HJ]

Originally posted by Scott Hebert:
I'm trying to work with what you're able to mod, but it's clear no one thinks it's a good idea. I'll just stop working on the mod. Easy enough.

I usually never play modded games, but what you're suggesting sounds fun. I find myself playing the same things over and over again, and while I don't dispute the intention and reasoning that the devs made it the way it is, I would be interested to try this mod to see where it would lead the game, both for me and the AI. After all, it's going to be a mod, therefore we can switch it on and off - it's not like suggesting that the core game should be changed. The good thing about mods is that you can in fact have it both ways - if the game is mod-friendly and allows for easy switching.

Cheers,

[ June 18, 2004, 00:35: Message edited by: HJ ]

[Scott Hebert]

Originally posted by Reverend Zombie:
Well thank god THAT was nipped in the bud by the voices of reason.

Let the man mod, dammit!!!

Please don't say that. The reason I posted the mod rubric before I made the mod was for precisely the feedback I have received. People more experienced and more intelligent than I have made it plain that my mod was against the intentions of the designers, and made a cogent argument as to why the game is set up the way it is. I no longer see a reason to modify it.

I don't think anyone was saying not to Mod Scott. I tried to put it as just a side-note that is what the thematic intention of Dominion is. You can mod whatever and however you like. IT is no secret that the actual choices of Pretenders vs the Pretenders chosen based on stats is disproportionately low. I just don't think modding the Dominion is suddenly going to change it, since low Dominion is something that Human Pretenders can cope with since they are not combat oriented.