Do you use CBM?

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by brxbrx

And the game is sufficiently challenging for me as it is.

I assume you mean in MP, not SP?

[Gandalf Parker]

Even SP can be challenging (unless of course you make statements about SP vanilla compared to MP modded).

And I avoided it before but I will also add +1 to previous comments. I loved CBM under its original creator (Zen, back in Dom2 days) but less and less as time goes on. I know what they want it to be, but I just didnt see it that way. Particularly in shutting down strategies. The "game killer" things they fixed did not seem to really be the automatic-end-of-game they were touted to be except in a particular group of gamers.

And now CBM has come so incredibly far. IIRC no nation is untouched? And almost all answers, guides, wiki pages, etc have to say whether its the CBM or Vanilla version being answered for. It seems difficult for anyone to play in both so they are forced to choose either one type game or the other to become proficient in.

DISCLAIMER: only my humble opinion of course

[Amorphous]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

People who don't like CBM changes - it's hard for me to consider these issues without knowing what they are. What bits aren't you so keen on?

Hmm, well theme is of course an entirely subjective thing so I guess it's inevitable that there will be some disagreement on these issues. But I do hope that people realise that one of qm's strongest principles (which I have tried to maintain) is that theme should always come first. In any question of balance vs theme, theme should always win out. What changes do you consider unthematic?

I don't understand the powergaming comment. I guess I don't even know what that means. CBM tries to make OP strategies not OP, while also making very weak strategies feasible.

It's hard to comment in this thread without appearing defensive, but that's not how I'm intending to write, I'm just interested in people's opinions.

I should also say again that in a sense I'm speak for qm here, since CBM is almost entirely his work. I've inherited the mod so I'm interested in people's opinions, but qm should take all the credit.

I will try to give a sort of general answer here, since you ask. If you want a longer discussion, we should perhaps take it in the latest CBM thread.

If you cannot understand the comments about power, you should try to look at CBM with Vanilla in mind, not an old CBM-version.

Look at it like this:

Scales are more powerful.
Sure, order is down a percentage point, but production is up two and the population growth of the growth-scale, as well as both values of the luck scale, is increased.

Pretenders are more powerful.
Sure some are toned down a bit and a few are the same, but the majority of them are cheaper or better - frequently both. This includes staples such as the master lich and the great enchantress.

Recruits are more powerful.
Sure, there are a few that have increased costs in some form, but the changes across the board are decreased gold cost, decreased resource cost and decreased encumbrance.

While the removal of hammers and gem generators make cost comparisons rather dicey when it comes to forging, it is quite clear that, in general, items in CBM require less research, less paths and are frequently more powerful, too.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

Understand that I am not saying that this is necessarily bad, but CBM is rather clearly a souped up version of the game if we consider power. My own concerns with CBM is not so much a general power-up - as long as relative power stays acceptable in MP I do not really mind that much - but that the particulars of it has created some rather unfortunate effects.

As for theme, it is indeed a question of perspective and it is a term shock-full of preconceptions in a context such as this. Perhaps it is better to talk about the character of nations. The changes to some nations changes how they play and feel rather severely. I think MA Man may serve as a decent example.

In vanilla this is a nation with a very small holy component. There is a h1 priest recruitable everywhere as well as the sacred mother, but otherwise it is mundane recruits all the way. In the capital you have the sacred wardens and their captains in addition to crones and daughters. Note that the even the capital-only top elite troop option is not sacred. Clearly in other than very small and quick games sacred troops and priests form a very small part of Man's arsenal. In CBM on the other hand you suddenly have three priests recruitable everywhere and the recruitment of wardens is similarly extended. Even the Knights of Stone have been rendered sacred.

What I am trying to get across here, is that even though this of course can be considered in keeping with the general thematics of MA Man, it clearly changes the general character of the nation.

For my own part, I also do not quite understand what these particular changes are supposed to fix. If Man has a problem, it is the lack of built in end-game. None of the changes really address that. What I see when I look at the changes to MA Man, is a mod trying to make a square peg fit in a round hole.


I hope this makes some things a bit clearer.


To speak of myself, I try to keep up with what happens in CBM and play it a bit now and then, so I sometimes enjoy discussions concerning it, but things will have to change rather much before I prefer it to vanilla. My play-style and CBM simply do not suit each other particularly well.

[rdonj]

I generally play whatever the latest version of CBM is, or whatever version happens to be used by whatever mp game I may be in. If I'm playing SP, I will also almost always use the latest version of CBM, unless I really want to use some other mod that isn't compatible with it and can't be bothered to fix up the ID conflicts. CBM tends to make pretender choices and the early game especially more interesting, by actually allowing you to spend your early gem income without feeling like you're shooting yourself in the foot by wasting gems. The newest CBM changes leave me a bit confused because I haven't really had the chance to explore them yet, and there have been a lot of content updates recently. This is a good thing for the continuation of the mod, and there were some very desirable changes in there. I am a bit worried though that in the llamabeast era CBM could get swamped with changes and be difficult to keep up with, because the llama is a much more prolific modder than QM, and willing to make bigger and more controversial changes.

As far as "game killers" being fixed, I would argue that CBM hasn't really attempted to kill game killers for the most part. Turning clams into uniques is probably the closest thing to that. Aside from that I would say that it's more CBM making the game more enjoyable for late game play by increasing the number of ways you can attempt to win. Vanilla far too often devolved into the exact same endgame every time, and is a lot more painful to manage later on, especially if you're actually winning.

That said I still do play vanilla mp games from time to time, and various other things that don't necessarily have anything to do with CBM. But I vastly prefer to play CBM games.

[Foodstamp]

CBM, vanilla, whatever... it's all good. Llama has put a lot of work into CBM and I think a lot of people make uninformed assumptions about the changes. When I play SP, I don't use it because I have my own megamod I use. When I play MP, I am as equally happy playing with it as I am vanilla.

[kianduatha]

Originally Posted by Amorphous

Look at it like this:

Scales are more powerful.
Sure, order is down a percentage point, but production is up two and the population growth of the growth-scale, as well as both values of the luck scale, is increased.

Pretenders are more powerful.
Sure some are toned down a bit and a few are the same, but the majority of them are cheaper or better - frequently both. This includes staples such as the master lich and the great enchantress.

Recruits are more powerful.
Sure, there are a few that have increased costs in some form, but the changes across the board are decreased gold cost, decreased resource cost and decreased encumbrance.

While the removal of hammers and gem generators make cost comparisons rather dicey when it comes to forging, it is quite clear that, in general, items in CBM require less research, less paths and are frequently more powerful, too.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture.

I think most of that is accounted for by the style of balancing used--people tend to get bent out of shape by making overtuned strategies/units less powerful, and they get excited when lackluster units/pretenders get enhanced to be in line with the power of other options. A lot of the point of all this is to make it "worth it" to not just go with the default strategies but to allow people to experiment without being unduly punished for it.

Pretenders getting 'extras' might be the most useful to talk about. There are a lot of choices for most nations, pretender-wise. Many of them are rather similar, with only one difference in paths(usually not even paths the nation wants on a pretender, even). Unless the pretenders give you different things, things that are worth it, people will tend to just pick one of the two or so 'good' chassis and ignore the rest. I can't think of a different way to make it so a player feels they have lots of genuinely good pretender options to choose from. They have to serve slightly different purposes or go about doing something in different ways. I'm liking CBM's current balancing of Wyrm/Manticore/Dragon...they're all viable expanders, but with different strengths and weaknesses and magic access. And to make that choice not obvious, the Manticore and Dragons had to get a few advantages they didn't before.

I do definitely understand what you're getting at, though. I'm not sure I would call it power gamey, though.

[Tecnócrata]

Perhaps will try sometime, but for now I'm more than happy with a little personal modding.

[brxbrx]

Originally Posted by JonBrave

I assume you mean in MP, not SP?

Nope. SP, medium AI.

I don't really go so much for strategy, and I will willingly squander gems and resources just to get a thematic army. That sets me back a bit.



Also, I heard that people who use CBM rape puppies, and I don't want to be associated with that.

[Knai]

I don't use CBM. That said, I play hotseat multiplayer, and nobody other than me uses much other than the game itself, and possibly glances at the wiki periodically.

[JonBrave]

Originally Posted by brxbrx

Nope. SP, medium AI.

I don't really go so much for strategy, and I will willingly squander gems and resources just to get a thematic army. That sets me back a bit.



Also, I heard that people who use CBM rape puppies, and I don't want to be associated with that.

@brxbrx
I'm surprised at your answer, and interested. I only play SP, vanilla. Like you I squander a bit and play around, just to have fun/experiment/theme. And I am useless at computer games, not like the experts here! Yet I am up to "Hard" AI now, and never lose --- I don't think I've even ever lost a single castle to the AI. Love the game, but finding the AI lacking (not surprisngly, and no I don't have any time/commitment for MP). Don't do CBM as been told it certainly doesn't help the AI. So, how do your settings/play help make the AI "challenging", I'd actively like to know? (Perhaps a different thread?)