Mod: Gem Valley - a SP MA mod

[Edratman]

Glad you figured out the upkeep. That is an inherent side effect of the BI mod. I tried the version with low gold and high resources, but it appeared to me that the computer had lower forces and I suspected that it was trying to recruit the units anyway. Didn't try it long, the gold cost version worked well, although it does pose some issues with upkeep on occasion. Easy enough to deal with and just an additional minor handicap.

I only play the mod for the magic. I love forging and magic. Probably explains why I am such a crappy player.

Have you tried the "Improved Computer Opponents" Mod? There is one for MA and one for EA. Each one toughens up 6 AI nations significently. The mod restricts the number of recruits available using only the best of each nation, eliminates capitol only restrictions and gives the computer a much better starting army. The AI appears smarter because of restricted choices.

[Loren]

Any idea why I'm utterly winning the dominion war? 8 temples and IIRC 6 dominion, yet my dominion is probably 50% of the total dominion in the whole game with a dozen enemies still left. I just got my third dominion kill.

[Edratman]

Originally Posted by Loren

Any idea why I'm utterly winning the dominion war? 8 temples and IIRC 6 dominion, yet my dominion is probably 50% of the total dominion in the whole game with a dozen enemies still left. I just got my third dominion kill.

It is the mines. They have the prophet ability.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by Edratman

It is the mines. They have the prophet ability.

Powerful!

[Edratman]

Yes they are. I have never amassed that many mines myself in 15 to 20 games. I'm usually recruiting mages to lead the cheap demon hordes for expansion and to summon what I consider the primary army, the Giant dwarves. I guess I am kind of a rut player.

Now I know why they have a lot of people as play testers.

I guess I'll have to tone down the prophet ability.

[Loren]

Originally Posted by Edratman

Yes they are. I have never amassed that many mines myself in 15 to 20 games. I'm usually recruiting mages to lead the cheap demon hordes for expansion and to summon what I consider the primary army, the Giant dwarves. I guess I am kind of a rut player.

Now I know why they have a lot of people as play testers.

I guess I'll have to tone down the prophet ability.

I just tried another game. I went against Mighty AI's. The *ONLY* commanders I recruited was gem mines. For most of the first year I also recruited as many speed demons as I had resources for. It didn't take long before I could summon Wraith Lords, I used them for the rest of my expansion--the gem mines were pushing my dominion out fast enough that I was always in friendly dominion so it didn't matter if they died.

When I bumped into my neighbor I put very heavy PD into the border and pretty soon I had my entire border at PD 125. I put wizard's towers on all the spots that would produce maximum resources and kept recruiting gem mines.

Once the expansion was over I started putting some mines on abomination summoning although it never really mattered as I never went to war--one AI did attack but he couldn't get through the PD, I never actually did anything. Research was entirely done in the fall of year 5.

I was at only dominion 4 but got two dominion kills and my dominion was continuing to expand, the outcome was obvious. My only temples were where I needed them for recruitment.

I'm going to try it again against Impossible AI's.

[Loren]

Followup: Game against impossible AI's.

This time I played it slightly differently, I didn't build any fortresses, although I did capture some. Dominion 10. Strangely enough for a magic nation, Drain 3. That destroys the research from fountains but hardly puts a dent in what mines turn out. Until I was facing the final AI I never had more than 30PD on the borders--I was simply expanding too fast to afford any more than that.

Again, nothing forged, no globals.

Again, I went for summons and used wraith lords to conquer lands once I had them. Once I was at abominations I went for astral fountains and soon I had 8 mines turning out a steady stream of them. At the end I had an astral income of 2000/turn.

Again, I never went to war but the AI did. I did launch one remote attack--a huge army was going for the same unowned castle I was seiging and I dropped 8 flames from the sky on it.

Dominion kills in : 2, 3, 4, 4, 5 and the start of 7. The other AI's were eliminated by each other. I completed research in summer of 6. I didn't actually play the game past the start of year 6, I was simply hitting end turn. With more careful play and actually attacking I think I could have won this early in 6. Had that last AI not been Ashod I think I could have won it in late 5.


This mod is *WAY* too powerful. The only way I've ever won against impossibles before is with LA Ermor.

[Edratman]

Loren,

You are 100% correct. Even I win against impossible.

I know what needs to be altered. It will take me about a week or so, life is beating down pretty hard presently.

I've gotten a unique brain fart for the nerf. I will keep this version intact for duffers like myself, and I will issue a balanced version for the general population.

[rdonj]

Having just tried this out today, I think there are a few things I'd change (for a balanced version) that weren't really mentioned.

1. Gem mines are too cheap, gold wise. And while I can imagine them being thought of as sacred, I don't think the miners would be considered sacred. I think they should cost more on the order of 500 gold and be non-sacred.
2. Gem mines are also too powerful, magically. I'm not entirely sure it makes sense for a mine to be able to cast spells at all, really. I would seriously consider removing all magic paths from the gem mines (and probably the research as well).
3. I would also make gem mines immobile, it seems strange to me that a mine can move around at will.
4. Producing 8 gems a turn for each mine also is excessive. I think more than one gem of each type it produces at once is probably excessive. You should probably also reduce the amount of gem crossover per mine. For example, have one mine make 1f 1e 1a, another make 1w 1d 1n, and the other make 3-6 astral. Or perhaps one for elemental gems and one for sorcery.
5. Were you aware that the seductresses are something like 600 years into old age? That's... different.
6. The giant dwarf summons are too cheap for what you get. They should probably be at least 30 gems per summon, maybe as many as 40.
7. The Auger weapons are insane. Did you make the aoe for the fire attack more than one square? Because it seems when they attack that they hit everything around them on all sides, and I wouldn't think it would do that normally.
8. Likewise with gem mines, gem fountains should probably lose research, mobility, spell paths, and should probably have their income lessened. Halving the income would probably reasonably suffice. As it is, gem fountains and mines are less of an investment and more of an insane explosion of magical power.
9. It probably also isn't terribly fair having the 50% enhancement spell discount as it makes it just too easy to dominate globals and ramp up gem production.
10. Ok, onto the PD. There is too much of it, especially the giant dwarves. Those need to be reduced to probably a quarter their current number. The demons can be reduced by less. Maybe not at all if all or most of the other changes I mentioned are implemented.
11. I also noticed a few units with blood magic. One of them was a recruitable commander which I don't recall the name of and the other was an earth fountain. There might possibly have been more but I wasn't looking that closely. Anyway, thematically speaking I'm pretty sure those blood paths are supposed to not exist.

The paths on the gem mines being axed is very important because there honestly is really no reason to ever recruit any other commander at the moment.

I wanted to do a bulleted list but couldn't figure out how. Maybe I should have gone with hyphens.

[Edratman]

Thank you very much. I have started the revisions and my plans are identical to yours. All magic, gem production and research has been curtailed significently. The amount of dwarves per summoning has been reduced instead of raising the cost. The dwarves have also had stat reductions.

PD is reduced. It will still be strong, but it is not as insane as it is.

Your comments about the blood magic is a mystery. I haven't seen any blood magic myself. I'll look into the earth fountain. What other unit has it?

As for the start sites, I inadvertantly included my test version with the enchanting and construction bonuses as start sites. OOPS. They are not intended to be part of the mod.

I'll look at the auger weapon. It was intended to be powerful, but your comments make me think.