Recruitable Unit Rebalance Version 7.51 Released.

[Saber Cherry]

Arryn said:

From what I recall, someone mentioned the feasibility of doing such a mod, but AFAIK, it's not been released. Or if someone actually went through with making it, I never saw a thread where it was made available. Else I'd be hosting it as I do so many other files.

Haha, I've got one =) I made it for use with the Recruitable Rebalance Test Game, but it uses an older version of Daesthai's Spell Tome (1.15) and thus some of the spells were slightly off (a couple site-search spells had incorrect costs, and a couple spells were the wrong level, and a couple of names were mispelled). So it's good that you're not hosting it because it still has a few errors, though they have not affected the game at all.

Alneyan said:
On a slightly unrelated topic, for Saber Cherry: I was considering hosting a game with limited research, as there were a few players who expressed an interest in "not being able to go beyond level 4 in research", as in the demo. Your null mod would be very useful for the purpose (though there remains the matter of magic items).

Since the Recruitable Rebalance game started, Daesthai has released a new Tome revision, and I've examined every spell in the Tome and compared them to the in-game spellbook, so if there are any errors, they have escaped both Daesthai and myself (and some other people who looked at the Tome). I strongly doubt there are any major errors, or more than 1-2 trivial errors. That data is the basis for the current Magic Null Mod.

I set up an excel file to easily generate mods based on certain parameters... but unfortunately, it only affects spells, not magical artifacts Still, if you give me some rules (like "No spells whatsoever above level 4" or "all spells over level 4 should cost double, and all spells over level 5 should cost triple" or "all blood summons should cost at least 100 slaves" or "all Death-gem summons should be disabled" or "No evocation over level 5") I'll be happy to generate a mod to the specifications. It will take way less time than manually editing every spell in the "null mod," as long as the rules are very general like the examples I gave.

Such a game would really be better with a unit-balancing mod like yours, however. Do you believe your mod is ready enough for this kind of setup, or that it would benefit from this sort of test field, or should I wait for the results of the current "uncontrolled lab experiments"? (That is, the MP game using the mod)

In my opinion, version 7.31 is ready to roll . Boron noted a bug (I intended and claimed to give Jaguar Warriors regeneration, but they do not, in fact, regenerate), which is the only known outstanding issue, and I'll fix it before you start the game. Otherwise... everything seems fine. There will be changes in version 8.0, of course (especially based on the archery thread), but 7.31 does not seem to have any exploits, unbalance any units, or contain any bugs (other than the one I mentioned). So if your group wants to play with it, then please do so! And yes, BTW, it would benefit from this sort of field test, especially since not all nations and themes (notably Ermor, Ryleh, Atlantis, Ctis, and Mictlan) are present in the current test game. No pressure, of course, I'm just very enthusiastic

[Alneyan]

Well, I will likely start that game soon then. If the spell reduction is something like "no spells above level 4", it will be easy enough to do on my own (find #researchlevel 5, replace all with #researchlevel 12, wash, rinse, repeat). Other, harder changes would be interesting too: maybe something like "double cost to all spells", for another kind of game... Hmm.

Now to the big one: compiling all item names on level 6 and 8.

[Saber Cherry]

Alneyan said:
Now to the big one: compiling all item names on level 6 and 8.

Have fun, and be sure to post it when it's finished

[Resok]

Heya, first time poster but long time lurker here.

Unit# 682 isn't actually the ermorian standard.

668 is... at least if I'm not mistaken. I checked a base-theme Ermor and confirmed this (changed the Unit# in your mod to 668 to test).

Also... with the Ryleh land national troops a few suggestions/ideas:

Unit 971 the Hybrid Soldier: Perhaps make them more in line with the Illithid Soldiers in the sense that they get a mind blast? The Hybrid Lords get a mind blast similar to how the Illithid Lords do... it makes alot of sense to me. Otherwise there is really little point to having this unshielded, trident wielding trooper as just more "fodder" as opposed to all the many other choices that Ryleh has for this function. I suggest instead giving them mind blast like their larger and much stronger Illithid cousins and raising their gold cost to about 40(45?) or so. I think this is around reasonable considering they have half the HP of Illithids, 4 less str, 3 less prot, 1 less att, 2 more defense, 2 less size (good/bad - less food/easier trampled).

Also instead adding ambidexterity to all of the tentacled hybrids perhaps adding #bonus to weapon #85 would be the better solution? Unless I'm mistaken and this unbalances some other unit that has tentacles as well as standard limbs. Either way it makes a good degree of sense that a unit will either be humanoid and have tentacles growing out of him/her as an extra benefit... or a creature that only has tentacles as limbs. Both fit being #bonus type weapons.

Also... some of the Ryleh earlier void summons have really low attack ratings for imho no particular reason. This causes some of their special melee abilities to be virtually useless (like paralyze and steal strength) since they never will hit after they use all of their mind blasts.

#752 has a paralyze melee attack... but a 6 att.
Suggestion: Raising to 9 or 10.
#759 It's not bas enough that they're only aquatic... but they have life drain AND paralyze with a whopping 5 att.
Suggestion: raising to 10
#755 and 756 (the Otherness and Lesser Otherness) - They have a crush melee attack but a 5 att. this makes them virtually useless offensively against anything equal size or larger.
Suggestion: Raising att to 8 (reasonable increase without making them uber against same-size or larger creatures)

Also I can't find offhand the monster# of the greater otherness, but perhaps raising their att to 8 as well if you can find the #.

These are just a bunch of things I came accross that seemed rather strange/inconsistent wit the rest of the game. I know that Ryleh is really strong as is... but these are commonly under/unused or really limited unit types before the changes.

Also... may I suggest changing the kick from Chi Shoes (Weapon# 175) to #bonus as well? It seems silly that gore isn't considered into weapon length factors, but a magical kick is.

Thanks for reading all this... hope it's of some use. Thanks for all the hard work on this mod as well, so many of the changes are right in line with what I've wanted for a while now.

Resok

[Resok]

Also the pangaea national hero (Monster #540) - The White Minotaur remains unchanged.

He is now weaker than the standard minotaur lords and I'd suggest increasing his stats to perhaps +1 higher than the standard minotaur lords.

Resok

[Saber Cherry]

Resok,

Thanks a lot for finding and noting these errors and anomalies! As for Ambidextrity versus #bonus, I think #ambidextrous command became available first, which is why I use it. But #bonus would be a better way to deal with it, so I'll make that change. And I'll look into all of your Void Summon suggestions; I never really noticed their low attack ratings before. Void Summons should be good units, and there are other ways to balance Ryleh if their changes end up making the nation substantially more powerful.


I'll put out a new revision within 24 hours or so that corrects all of them.

[Resok]

Excellent

Thanks for reading through my little list, hope that these things helped to improve the mod in the end. I really love this mod and it meshes up with alot of the thoughts and ideas I was having for modding the game. If I come across anything else over time I'll let you know.

Resok

[Saber Cherry]

A new version has been released. See the readme or first post in this thread for details.

Resok, I addressed everything you mentioned, except for the Hybrid Soldier. It would be nice if they had some special advantage... but not mind blasts, which would make them much too strong, IMO, even if the gold cost was increased to 40 or 45... partly because food is one of the few limiting factors on Ryleh mind-blasting ability, and they avoid it. And partly because they should be substantially cheaper than Illithids, as hybrids of lesser races without mental abilities. I see the Hybrid Lords as a very rare "perfect" hybridization result.

Some other sort of enhancement might be OK... or possibly, giving them a mind blast attack with only 1 ammo, if I can think of a way to mod it in. Or a life-drain tentacle with a fairly low attack rating.

Thanks for your help, and I'm glad you're enjoying the mod

[Resok]

Makes a lot of sense balance-wise, I agree. The thing that lead me to suggest this is how I would always recruit a Hybrid Lord from any land-castle that I have due to being so much better than a Illithid Lord: Cost-wise, smaller, has feet slots, same mind-blast, not magical-I.E.: not vulnerable to magic-creature only spells/weapons, only disadvantage is that they have 15 less magical leadership and they have less HP, MR and STR. Though isn't that the point of hybridization? Mixing your race with another's to create a more efficient breed species? Reducing both your own races strengths and weaknesses by creating a hybrid of a lesser race, but still being stronger than the race you're mixing with.

The Hybrid Soldiers also have one other limitation that they have over the usual Illithid's that people recruit (the non-armored/life-draining ones). They're limited by resources... though perhaps raising their resources to 22 to match the Illithid Soldiers would make sense(?), either way they become roughly equivilant to Illithid Soldiers. With your mod though, supplies become virtually a non-issue, even for larger, bigger appetite (what DO Illithid's eat anyway?) Illithid Soldiers compared to Hybrid Soldiers. Also... themeatically the entire purpose of cross-breading in fact IS to become more adaptable to this new world they're attempting to enslave. Thus the advantages of the Hybrid as opposed to the pure-blood.

These were all thoughts that I had when thinking about the Hybrid Soldier conceptually compared to the Illithid Soldier. If we could mod their mind-blast to perhaps be lower-strength than a normal Illithid it would make sense. As it stands now, star children are still a much better investment by far gold-wise, but limited due to only one per turn per keep and needing a lab.

Now... I do agree with you that the change to Hybrid Soldiers would increase the effectiveness of Ryleh land-recruited units since they're currently limited on their land-units to only produce leaders and front-line fodder types. The food limitation however is considerably lessened with this mod, leaving the higher str, higher HP, Illithid's still superior due to their being 60% more food available.

I've been experimenting with a game (single-player) with the Hybrid Soldier changes I mentioned, and it feels pretty good balance-wise so far. Then again, I mostly play single-player so far so it doesn't really factor in as much. Them being better than the under-water recruitables in some ways encourages Ryleh to push out of the water and solidify on land in order to create a cheaper, if weaker, army of hybrids to support/supplement their pure-blooded Illithids. Also, this forces Ryleh to solidify assets on-land (where they can't hide from their land-enemies) in order to get Hybrids (which were of very little use before this mod except for the Hybrid Lords and Star Children).

A quick hypothetical cost-breakdown:

Concept Hybrid Soldier (45 gold, 18-22? resources): 30 gold mind blast weapon, 15 gold 10 morale, +5 hp, +1 str, -1 def, +2 natural prot - non-magic unit. 2/8 move
Eqiupment: Plate Cuirass, Trident (Why aren't ANY Hybrids given helmets anyway? Easier access for Illithids to suck their brains out if they get hungry I suppose)

You get a cheaper mind-blasting unit, that will get cut apart by cross-bow fire (potentially dying in one hit), with lower morale, but is smaller (takes less to feed and fights in tighter formations) and slightly cheaper. Also, takes normal leadership instead of magical.


Illithid Soldier (55 gold, 22 resources): 30 gold mind blast weapon, 25 gold for 11 morale, +5 str, +19 hp, +1 att, -3 def, +5 prot - magic unit. 1/7 move (why are they 1 strat move anyway? Normal Illithid's are 2/8 and Illithid Lords are 2/7)
Eqiupment: Plate Cuirass, Trident, Helment
You get a larger, more powerful mind-blasting combatant who would stand up to cross-bow fire (2 solid hits), and packs more of a punch in melee after all the mindblasts are gone.

So basically what we're looking at is the fact that Illithid Soldiers are so tactically bad to begin with (except for HP/str/prot), that except for the fact they're armored and have a mind-blast, they're not worth their gold/resource cost. This makes the Hybrid Soldier seem glaringly powerful in comparison, but only because the Illithid Soldier is worse in the ways that in practice are bad as opposed to on paper. If the Illithid Soldier was increased to 2/7 moves, and perahps given 1-2 more defense they would become better than a Hybrid Soldier in practice (thus justifying the +10 gold cost for a higher hp/str/mr/morale unit). It's partially the strat move, size and extra resources that makes the Hybrid Soldier looks so much better.

Hmm... perhaps they could be balanced with an extra supply requirement? #supplybonus -1 or -0.5 for example? That would put them closer in line with the rest of the illithids as far as supply limitations.

Anyway, I've babbled long enough... take my opinions with a grain of salt as I'm more expressing myself than anything else. In the end, I understand that Ryleh, out of any nation, needs the least help as far as their units go just because of the mind-blasting attacks, though without this change the Hybrid Soldiers have very little, if any, place in the armies of Ryleh compared to the fixed (non -4 attack) Hybrid Troopers.

P.S.: I appologize for my long post... appreciate you reading it, regardless of whether anyone agrees or disagrees. Feel free to dismiss the ramblings completely but I felt the need to explain my full reasoning for the suggestion.

Resok

[Resok]

Also, quick typo I noticed...

The Hybrid Lord name is assigned to the Hybrid Soldiers. Below is the snip of the text in the mod... the monster# should be 972 for the Hybrid Lord.

#selectmonster 971
#name "Hybrid Lord"
#end
--cost unkn


Resok