Poll: How much will the new bless effects affect your pretender design? - Page 7

Teleolurian · #61 October 29th, 2003, 07:27 PM

Wow, simultaneous post about the exact same thing. Somebody's been eating their telepathic Wheaties...

ywl · #62 October 29th, 2003, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Having designed a few gods and struggled to get any worthwhile bless bonuses at all... hmm.

Going from 8 to 9 is insanely expensive, even for gods that start at level 2 in something. It makes strong blessings only accessible to nations that get free design points (Caelum, Jotun, Abyssia, Ermor), or cripple themselves. I think setting the big bonus at level 8 and starting the incremental bonus at level 3 would be more interesting... plus... it would make rainbow mages much more fun.

-Cherry

I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects.

Nerfix · #63 October 29th, 2003, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:

quote:
Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
Having designed a few gods and struggled to get any worthwhile bless bonuses at all... hmm.

Going from 8 to 9 is insanely expensive, even for gods that start at level 2 in something. It makes strong blessings only accessible to nations that get free design points (Caelum, Jotun, Abyssia, Ermor), or cripple themselves. I think setting the big bonus at level 8 and starting the incremental bonus at level 3 would be more interesting... plus... it would make rainbow mages much more fun.

-Cherry

I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects.

I agree that you should get the second tier blessing at 8 and i think its best to keep the first tier at 4. Every time i try to make a god with 9 in one path and 4 in another, i keep thinking how could the betas afford them?

Saber Cherry · #64 October 29th, 2003, 07:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ywl:
I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects.

The main problem with 4 and 8 is that then, at level 8, you get two big bonuses, and nobody would EVER want level 9. Also, all the odd levels are worthless.

Not to mention, you're just saying that because you Ph3@r my 1337 all-level-3 rainbow mage=)

-Cherry

P.S. As it stands now, I doubt anyone would ever, under any circumstance, pick level 10 in anything, even though you get an increment there. But if the big bonus was dropped to level 8, and increments were made even, you might increase the big bonus again at level 10... and still nobody would ever use it, but at least they would gaze at it wistfully.

-Cherry

[ October 29, 2003, 17:57: Message edited by: Saber Cherry ]

st.patrik · #65 October 29th, 2003, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:
As it stands now, I doubt anyone would ever, under any circumstance, pick level 10 in anything, even though you get an increment there. But if the big bonus was dropped to level 8, and increments were made even, you might increase the big bonus again at level 10... and still nobody would ever use it, but at least they would gaze at it wistfully.

-Cherry

Maybe instead of changing incrementally the abilities should change exponentially! So with Fire at lvl 4 you get +1 att, lvl 6: +2, lvl 8: +4, lvl 10: +8. There would be some motivation to get really high levels - I mean, +8 anything is pretty impressive.

LordArioch · #66 October 29th, 2003, 08:42 PM

I think 3 and 8 would be good, so 5 blood/fire is old bless (much more reasonable). Generally if i go for magic i get 3 at most in any given Category...and at 8 the powerful effects would still be expensive but not quite so bad. As it is it takes ALL your spare points almost to get a lvl 9 magic, and with sacred troops dependent on your dominion strength you'd need to take negative scales to get enough dominion to build many.

EDIT: Oooh....+8 str. Now that would be a worthy blessing indeed.

[ October 29, 2003, 18:43: Message edited by: LordArioch ]

ywl · #67 October 29th, 2003, 08:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:
Originally posted by ywl:
I agree - though I think 4 and 8 will be the better levels to start the effects.

The main problem with 4 and 8 is that then, at level 8, you get two big bonuses, and nobody would EVER want level 9. Also, all the odd levels are worthless.

Not to mention, you're just saying that because you Ph3@r my 1337 all-level-3 rainbow mage=)

-Cherry

>snipped<

-Cherry

Noby would EVER want level 9 - that's the point

. Level 9 is too expensive even for magic-loving players.

Lowering the first bonus level to 3 would make it very easy to get bonus. Some pretenders have their basic magic start at 3! It could be good but it will change the game balance a lot though it's not necessarily bad.

Jasper · #68 October 29th, 2003, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by apoger:
It would be nice if IW could have an option to start with a "nation". Perhaps 7-10 provinces circling the capital. Force balance so all nations start will about the same gold/resources. Possibly have all starting provinces pre-searched as if the pretender had searched there.

What would be really cool is the traditional board game "province draft". I've thought about doing this by editing a map, and then having the players draft on IRC or something, and get a certain amount of resources, income, and gems to purchase a small amount of starting stuff.

There are a couple of downsides however to doing this manually via scenario creation: Capitol locations are public knowledge, and the super randomization of province income/resources means some of the players will almost certainly get screwed badly. Plus it's a pain in the *** to get everything setup and make sure you avoid typos.

It would be really cool if the game could handle this... The mechanics behind it is fairly simple, although the GUI would take some work.

I'm imagining something like this: Players log onto the game host, and then draft a given number of provinces in random order, with the order reversting each time through. Players then secretly select one of their provinces as their capitol, and spend a given amount of gold and resources on troops and leaders, with a settable max number of starting leaders. A settable amount of research points could then be distributed as desired, and a settable number of turns of gem income could be used for rituals and forging.

A game would then be created based upon all of these values, with the sum value of each players provinces roughly balanced within a settable range.

Jasper · #69 October 29th, 2003, 10:17 PM

[On the topic of varrying bless effects]

I suggest bonuses starting at +1 for level 3, and then increasing by one ever level after that. The special bonus effects would kick in at level 6.

This would be a more convincing incentive to have higher magic skill levels.

geo981010 · #70 October 29th, 2003, 11:32 PM

I think they (update:they = the bless bonuses) are too expensive, but can be a lot of fun for single player.

Maybe in special cases they could be worthwhile - Jotun's Niefelhem special and Nature 9 is expensive but potent. 150 gold gives you a monstrous Niefel Giant who when blessed gets Beserk +3 (+3 attack and protection, 99 morale, -3 defense), 50% poison resistant (nice if you have a Green Dragon pretender) and regenerates 15+ points a round. Almost like a supercombatant from the start, so you can get a pretty quick start. But your economy or magic will take a beating getting this, so for a longer game you may get outproduced.

Why doesn't the dominion candles in a province affect the blessing affect? If a god's power is so strong in a province that it is altering the weather and such, you'd think that his followers there would get increased power.

Maybe the effective starting magic skills could be modified by dominion strength in that location. So a 9 Nature god has his troop blessed in a neutral province, and they get bonuses like he was a 9 Nature pretender. But for each candle, they get a 10% effective starting magic bonus - so the same 9 Nature would count as a 14 Nature in a 5 candle province, and whooping 18 in a 10 candle. A 10 candle dominion with a 9 magic pretender is not very likely until very end game, and even then, only effective in your lands so not too overpowering (especially since in the late game, you probably had to seriously hurt your economy to get the 9 magic pretender). Makes the bonuses at least be an endgame perk, and creates another reason to maintain your dominion in your lands (which a lot of the time is not very important as long as your neighbor isn't Ermor).

[ October 29, 2003, 21:33: Message edited by: geo981010 ]