Mod: Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze - NEW VERSION 1.4

[Sombre]

I'll reply to this in a little more depth later, but one thing I think you've missed is that the Haimgrot has a base dousing bonus of 1, so he bloodhunts like a B2 mage. I tried to imply this in the description.

[Humakty]

Amhazair, I played with this nation big SP games, and, for the moment, they don't seem balanced for MP. It's true the AI almost never uses battle magic in a systematic way, and it is almost impossible to stop them without (tramplers are quite efficient, like always against small elite troops).

[Sombre]

Humakt: What about the nation isn't balanced? Can you go into a bit more detail? People have been telling me the nation is underpowered for the most part, so if you think they are overpowered then I'd like to hear your reasoning.

Their infantry are very good, but expensive. Their sacreds are ok, but not exactly great. Their fear causing cavalry is powerful, but is expensive and isn't heavily armoured.



Amhazair: Thankyou for your detailed feedback, it's much appreciated and exactly the sort of thing I'm after.

The speed of the hoplites is set to 7 across the board pretty much because despite having only light armour (that's why they have mapmove 2 not 1) when they're in battle they advance carefully and protect each other. It's supposed to represent that they're fighting in a phalanx-esque formation.

The PD seems pretty poor to me to. It hasn't changed a huge amount, but I did weaken it. It isn't supposed to be very good, just a way to get more bodies onto the field really.

About the Haimgrot, as I said in my earlier post, they have a douse bonus of one, so hunt at a level of B2. You still might be able to build solely misborn and use random B1 and B2 ones for hunting though, so maybe they need to be a touch cheaper.

I agree with making the Misborn 120 gold or so. Not a huge change but maybe they're a touch too good right now. Arga Dis is supposed to have relatively weak magic, but obviously be strong in blood and have a superior military.

Gilgans can have higher MR - I'll make it the same as an quivalent MA big mage/thug. It's not supposed to be a weakness. Being cap only I don't want to make them more expensive though and they are a major feature of the race. I might change my mind later.

And yes, I prefer to have a below average power mod than an above average one. People have the general impression that mod nations are hugely overpowered and they're happier when you boost rather than nerf stuff, so I prefer to try and shoot just under the bar and then slowly raise it according to feedback.

Glad you enjoyed them - as others will probably tell you, I keep updating and supporting my mods whenever feedback is available. I'm striving for good quality across the board here.

[Humakty]

I tested Arga on Glory of the Gods, so I had to fight really big battles against the AI.

The experience told me that an elite army is almost never too expensive, as they tend to survive and fight many battles, whereas less elite troops tend to die quickly.

The AI finds it almost impossible to vainquish elite armies because she almost never makes a systematical use of her good mages.

i.e.:abysia armies almost never have a suficent number of mages to compensate for their poor OB (only heavy infantry)

This behaviour makes Arga really powerfull, because the AI tries to crush you with hordes of chaff archers (inefficient because of Arga big shields)and light infantry.

Even if the AI adapts a little ( I spotted that on a big map, when you often have time to build another army if the first gets crushed, the AI tries to change the composition of its army, though I don't know if it is a random process or an intended reaction) Arga OB is sufficently varied to adapt.

On a MP game, human players take in account the weakness and strength of their civs, and I suppose they often decide to systematically put one or more battle mages in their armies, a technique which can ruin the day of an elite army like Arga.

None the less, I think that some of Arga troops could be tuned down (I'm at work, so I can't check the names).

For example, I think the armored guys (the ones who bath in blood)are a bit too well protected,lowering greatly the problems their army could have had because of being all unarmored. In facts, if you put them at the front of your battle line, ennemy archers will continuously fire on them, making your army almost impervious to missile fire.

All in all, I don't say I do not like this mod, in fact I love it, I think Arga OB is a little bit too complete for an early age nation,can you really imagine marverni winning against these guys ? But this problem will be solved if you put them in MA (crossbows will be a big problem).

PS : when I say a nation mod is overpowered, it is compared to an average civ, not compared to the heims

[Sombre]

They are in MA. Are you playing with the latest version?

I think the elites beating AI problem is something which comes up with virtually every nation - try massing ermor/pythium elite infantry or even just lots of indy heavy cavalry and see how the AI does against that. I believe you'll find it falls apart in much the same way, because it just throws chaff at them piecemeal and they all end up with lots of experience and virtually no casualties. Other nations are actually far better at this because they have more powerful sacreds, generally speaking. The AI has no answer for basically any sacred with say F9W9 on it.

Marverni are pretty much the absolute worst nation (in EA), so while I can imagine them winning against any other given nation (with difficulty, especially in early game), they aren't especially useful as a balance measuring stick.

The real issue for me is that a lot (if not all) of these problems vanish in mp.

Btw I'm 99% sure the AI doesn't adapt and basically builds at random.

[Kristoffer O]

I like it. It has a nice flavor. But I think they are quite powerful. I have not analyzed them, but I came across some things I remember.

Recruitable fear-causing troops. Say 5 of these guys can rout 1000 militias. Size doesn't matter when faced with fear. Rout checs are not dependent on losses, so the squad will be subject to rout checks regardless of losses (with a bonus due to squad size, but in the case of militia it might not help). Thus only highly magical units has fear. The nightmares of the onyx amazons are the only recruitable ones i know of, and they have 20 enc to compensate.

Hoplite shields. Parry 8 is high (I was about to write insane, but that sounded a bit offensive ). A towertshield is pary 6, and is supposed to be the largest shield in use. I doubt few magical shields has parry 8. With parry 8 no missiles will ever hit the unit.

The Hoplite shield bash is also quite powerful. Second bonus attacks are good. I think the bash might come from another mod, but it is still powerful.

Gilgans can get 5 in blood magic (6 if 10% lucky). This is higher than all MA nations, with the exception of R'lyeh IIRC. This might not be a problem, but you should consider if you want them to be: 'A race of bloodmages of unequalled powers. No other nation have so immersed themselves in bloodmagic as the Gilgans. Their skills in bloodmagic is legendary and can almost rival the powers of the gods.' Something like that

As I said it is not a problem in it self (especially since blood magic don't benefit as much from increased skill levels as other paths), but you should be aware that you are making the most powerful blood nation there is.

I didn't play the nation, just checked around, so I cannot say if they are unbalanced on a grander scale. Low MR etc might well compensate for other strengths. THe two things I would be concerned about is the fear and the hoplite shields. The Gilgans go nice with the flavour of the nation, even though they are more powerful than other MA mages.

[Sombre]

The shields don't have parry 8 in the new version, they have 6.

Them having 8 was a sort of bug - the code was #enc 2 #def 6, which I thought would give them parry 6, but it actually gave them parry 8.

The high blood magic level of the gilgans doesn't IMHO make them the most powerful blood nation, because I believe they currently don't have blood hunters to the standard of Lanka or Mictlan. The blood hunter is the cornerstone of a powerful blood nation, not so much the high levels of blood magic (to a point). I might need to tone down the Gilgan's magic levels somewhat, this is true, though when I looked around they didn't seem much more powerful than other high priced cap only MA mages. I could have that wrong, I admit.

The chance of getting 6 blood with a gilgan is very very remote. They start with blood 3 so they'd need to pass a 25% chance, a 25% chance and a 2.5% chance in a row. Less than one in ten will have blood 5. They are expensive cap only units, so it's safe to say you won't have /that/ many of them.

[Sombre]

I just looked over some expensive 'archmages' from the MA period such as the Arch Theurg, Grand Thaumaturg, Grand Master one from Marignon etc - they seem more or as powerful as Gilgans, though obviously less beefy.

Is the chance of high levels of the blood with the gilgans even as powerful as the high levels they can have with some conventional stuff like astral or the elements? Blood can be empowered far more easily and isn't really very hard to boost 2 levels or so.

[Shovah32]

So if im correct here 1 in 16 capitol only, 390 gold mages will have blood 5 and 1 in 640(dosn't sound right but...) will have blood 6 and of course, those with higher blood have fewer other paths and as already mentioned high blood is not as powerful as certain other paths.
Their blood hunters arent bad but they either have higher upkeep than other nations due to the lack of sacred status or, in the case of the misborn, are not too reliable to get blood and those that dont often have few jobs to preform due to their odd/low paths.

[Sombre]

We were just talking about it over the IRC channel. Various numbers are flying around, but yes, the chance of B5 is less than 1/10 (roughly 1/15) and the chance of B6 is 0.15625% or 1/640.