Mod: Conceptual Balance Mod 1.6

[Snowcat]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

It seems weird to make even the baseline samurai 11 str 10 hp. Moreover, I just don't see homogenizing Jomon's troops as actually helping to solve anything.

I can understand reverting the costs on Aka-Oni and Go-Hatamoto, but at the same time making Jomon's only useable troops even more expensive isn't really a solution to the actual problem. Instead, wouldn't it make more thematic sense(given the costs of human troops in previous eras) to just decrease the cost of Ashigaru and Samurai to 7 and 9 gold respectively?

As far as I can tell, the only actually useless recruit is the O-ban. Couldn't that be fixed simply by giving them a different niche? The O-ban's description says they are heavily armed...what about giving them a wakizashi too and just having them dual-wield?

I dunno...it seems like the best fixes for overall balance are cheapening Monks, increasing the scaling on Fear-Not-Sign from 1002 to 2002(so Dai Tengu/a Master Shugenja Prophet can blanket a fair area if you want to), and buffing Jomon's starting army. Even something simple like bumping it up to 15 Samurai Archers would make a big difference.

Thanx for the feedback!

Strength of the samurais reflects their training which focused often on deadly, powerful sword-hits and slashes. The archer has 9 hp and melee samurais 10hp presuming close-combat samurais are overall more athletic and durable than the ones who are more used to shooting. So they've compensated their smaller frame with martial and athletic training.

Because of the changed stats on samurais and heavy samurais, Aka-Oni is not "the only usable troop" any more. And seriosly, adding 1 gold to their price isn't really nerfing them.

I think you're right about the starting army.
Perhaps 12 samurais and 12 archers would be fitting? With this mod, archers are weaker in melee too.

Btw, Does anybody here think giving Jomon access to death magic
would overpower them? Your opinions are higly anticipated

[Jack_Trowell]

Maybe the death access could be even less than 50%. A simple 20~25% would be enough to get the occasional site searcher I think.

[Redeyes]

Randomness is the devil that unbalances game - you should probably give the Kannushi at least one guaranteed path if you want to see them recruited as researchers/site searchers, to avoid scenarios where bad luck delays your death income needlessly. A guaranteed D1 is easily balanced by the extra temple investment you need to recruit them, and the combat applications are extremely minor.

[Festin]

I think this is a very nice mod. If I ever decide to host a LA game, I will probably use it.

Some suggestions:
1)Possibly instead of increasing strength of samurai units(I do not think it is very thematic), a better way to slightly boost them would be to reduce their armor encumberance, which is currently way too high.
2)It would be great to see summons tweaked a bit. Tatsu could use some boost, because they are useless. Dai Oni can be made somewhat cheaper to make them a possible alternative to Tartarians.

[kianduatha]

While we're on encumbrance...did you know that the armor on Shinuyama and Yomi's Bandits(the melee ones) is superior to Samurai Armor, despite the flavor text of the units outright saying they have bad armor swiped from corpses? Heavy Ashigaru Armor is 14 prot -2 def 2 enc. Samurai armor is 14 prot -2 def 3 enc, and costs more resources.

The only other units(that matters) which use Samurai Armor are the Dai Bakemono for Shinuyama, who have 2 encumbrance right now. Bumping their base encumbrance up to 3 would keep them the same.

[Festin]

Interesting and strange. But I do not think this should be solved by nerfing the Bandits - they are rarely used as they are, and, probably, are even in need of slight boost.

[Snowcat]

Originally Posted by kianduatha

While we're on encumbrance...did you know that the armor on Shinuyama and Yomi's Bandits(the melee ones) is superior to Samurai Armor, despite the flavor text of the units outright saying they have bad armor swiped from corpses? Heavy Ashigaru Armor is 14 prot -2 def 2 enc. Samurai armor is 14 prot -2 def 3 enc, and costs more resources.

The only other units(that matters) which use Samurai Armor are the Dai Bakemono for Shinuyama, who have 2 encumbrance right now. Bumping their base encumbrance up to 3 would keep them the same.

Thanks a lot!

I was hesitant to reduce the encumberance of samurai armor, because chain mail cuirass is 14 prot -2 def 2 encumberance and costs 15 resources instead of the 10 that samurai armor costs. So
reducing samurai armor encumberance to 2 seemed a bit unfair.

How much is the resource cost for heavy ashigaru armor?

Either way, it seems reducing samurai armor encumberance makes sense. However perhaps I should increase its resource cost by 1 or 2 to make it more even with other similar armor.

I could also just reduce the base encumberance of LA Jomon samurais, since they're fighting with a single weapon which is a lot less tiring than fighting with a weapon and a shield.

And I agree that the bandits shouldn't be nerfed

PPS.
I will be posting a new summary together with mod files when there are enough changes.

[phoenixgod2000]

Hi, I've never used a mod before and I decided to try out the CBM because it seemed like the most comprehensive. So I downloaded it, but I can't use it. My computer can't find a program to open it.

So my question is, how do I use the CBM? Do I need anything specific?

Thanks,

Jon

[Graeme Dice]

What you need to do is to make sure that there's a "mods" folder inside of your Dominions 3 folder. You then unzip the files into this directory, which will give you at least one other folder and a .dm file. You then go into Dominions, and click on 'Preferences' then 'Mod preferences', then select the mod you want. Any game or pretender you make with that mod selected will then use it automatically whenever it's loaded. Dos that help?

[phoenixgod2000]

That was helpful, but I think I might be doing it wrong. I made a folder for mods in my Dominions3 folder and I put the cbm into it, but when I get to dominions to select my mod preferences it doesn't show up.

Do you do the same thing for maps. You put the new maps into the map folder in the program files and they'll show up?

I appreciate the help.