patch 2.06 out

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

- CotS costs 25 more points

True, Fires of Faith costs 50 Points and Diabolical Faith costs 0. Diabolical Faith has forced Turmoil.

- CotS lost most of its ability to generate extra early income through alchemy

1/4 the Ability to be exact. And Fire gems are worth what 15 gold? (Without items that is). So a net loss of 45 Gold per turn (if you always alchemize.

What you get is 2 Air, +1 Astral for that 45 Gold. Air has quite a few uses with summons/spells. And astral is good for forging, but yes probably an overall 'weaker'. Which is fine.

- Lost the wonderful flaming crossbows (Wind Guide is not nearly as effective, besides it's easier for the other Marignon themes to find air-1 mages to cast Wind Guide, it's much harder for CotS to find fire-2 mages for Flaming Arrows)

Uh, Royal Navigators have 1 random, getting 1 Earth is fairly easy and then you can make a Crystal Matrix, throw that on a High (or normal) Inquisitor ... You don't lose anything. Most of the time you are running a communion anyway and throwing in an Inquisitor isn't alot of work. It doesn't have the 'instant' access. But I use Flaming Xbows just as much as before. What you do lose is the ability to cast very many rituals like Fires from Afar or Summer Lions (if you wished.

- Diabolical Faith has access to Mind Duel-proof communion.

Yes, which is one good thing it has in it's favor. It has quite a bit against it though (while still being fun, I admit).

- (minor point, but still) Air/astral is a bit redundant: Teleport/Cloud Trapeze on the same unit. Can't really see a synergy in air+astral. At least fire+astral gave Astral Fires.

I enjoy the synergy between Air and Astral for the fact of Orb Lightning, Paralyze, Astral Healing, Antimagic, Stellar Cascades, etc.

With the Chartmaker being 90 gold vs a Witch Hunter 150 gold he's a cheap communion slave. Also base Marignon it costs 270 to try to get a Random pick while 200 with CotS.

Combine that with the fact they can quickstrike over water and IMO I feel they are much more versatile and adaptable than Base, Fires of Faith, and unless the Harliquin or Turmoil is tweaked with Diabolic Faith.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

- (minor point, but still) Air/astral is a bit redundant: Teleport/Cloud Trapeze on the same unit. Can't really see a synergy in air+astral. At least fire+astral gave Astral Fires.

Air and astral magic is necessary in navigation.

[Keir Maxwell]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
>Originally posted by Keir Maxwell:
>1. Is there any plan to change the way orders work allowing some sort of fire and attack, or firing on the hold part of "hold and attack" or while not otherwise engaged on guard commander?

Plans exist.

Yay!!! Double Yay!!!

And the best bit of this is that if you had come through with this change in the patch I doubt I could have resisted trying it out where as now I have no desire to play Tien Chi again until patched so I can concentrate on the modding I should be doing.

cheers

Keir

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Pocus:

What bother me more is the previous themes which were not tweaked despite hundred if not dozen of billions (what, I exagerate?) Posts about them. Desert Tombs, Blood of Humans, Return of the Raptor...

Sloppyness on my part. Haven't thought much on Blood of Humans lately.

I do not get the impression that Desert tombs is considered a major problem. True, there has been some discussions and it is possibly strong, but I havn't heard very much complaints compared to the BoH theme.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by apoger:
>What bother me more is the previous themes which were not tweaked despite hundred if not dozen of billions (what, I exagerate?) Posts about them. Desert Tombs, Blood of Humans, Return of the Raptor...


Would be less of an issue if the mod tools allowed access to themes...

You never give up, do you

[ January 13, 2004, 20:32: Message edited by: Kristoffer O ]

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

- (minor point, but still) Air/astral is a bit redundant: Teleport/Cloud Trapeze on the same unit. Can't really see a synergy in air+astral. At least fire+astral gave Astral Fires.

Air and astral magic is necessary in navigation.

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Oh, I didn't complain at all - just wanted to point out the reasons that make me think Conquerors of the Sea isn't _drastically_ superior to the Marignon main theme.

Kristoffer,

I think he main reason you don't hear much about Desert Tombs is it is still semi-decent because of the base strength of the entire Nation (C'tis).

With the new change of having fire instead of nature for the Desert Tombs Sauromancers who knows. I personally like Nature quite a bit for them, but this way they are assured to be able to cast Banefire (which is nice but high on the research chain). Though you still do have Shamans.

[apoger]

>You never give up, do you

Nope, and while I'm at it, how about taking a poke at some questions from earlier that have been buried by other Posts...


Three questions involving luck and modding.

#1 Luck scale changes the frequency of events. Right now by 5% per level of scale. I have seen people state that this means that misfortune raises the chances of events and luck supresses. Is this correct? Or is this 5% a positive modifier in both directions? If it isn't a positive modifier in both directions, is there anyway to mod the scale so it can be?


#2 Luck scales currently affect quantity and quality of events. Some players have suggested adding economic modifiers to luck. I'd like to do some experimenting with such ideas (and other scale effects that are non-standard). Is there anyway to do this? Or are we locked into what the scales affect, and only have the ability to wiggle the percentages?


#3 The mod tools seems to allow the adjustment of scales via overall numbers that get applied across the board. It has been suggested that it might be good to have the scales ramp up in effect, I.E. instead of Order being a 7% adjustment per level of scale, possibly make it +7% for +1, +12% for +2, and +17 for +3. I am totally unsure if this is a balanced approach, however I want to know if it's even possible to experiment with.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:

quote:

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Originally posted by Pocus:

What bother me more is the previous themes which were not tweaked despite hundred if not dozen of billions (what, I exagerate?) Posts about them. Desert Tombs, Blood of Humans, Return of the Raptor...

Sloppyness on my part. Haven't thought much on Blood of Humans lately.

I do not get the impression that Desert tombs is considered a major problem. True, there has been some discussions and it is possibly strong, but I havn't heard very much complaints compared to the BoH theme.

---

its difficult to reach a concensus, even on blatant issues like Mister W. (you know the guy in head of the tiny country)

Perhaps a poll is in order, to know what people think of the themes. Thats true that DT didnt appears weak in the eye of many players, but it is mainly because themes are still fresh, and few people really tried to compares exhaustively advantages and weakness of them (it doesnt matter that much if you play SP, and few MP games have been completed also). If was done with BoH, because its a theme very easy to compare to standard Abysia. Its harder to do for themes which stray far from the standard nation.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Zen:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

- CotS costs 25 more points

True, Fires of Faith costs 50 Points and Diabolical Faith costs 0. Diabolical Faith has forced Turmoil.

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Both of them are weaker than standard and CotS. Wanted to point out the difference between those two here.

quote:

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- CotS lost most of its ability to generate extra early income through alchemy

1/4 the Ability to be exact.

---

Nope, it lost 3/4 (produces only 1 fire gem instead of 4). That's why I wrote 'most'.

And Fire gems are worth what 15 gold? (Without items that is). So a net loss of 45 Gold per turn (if you always alchemize.

I wrote 'lost the option to...', not 'lost 45 gold'. Early it may give you an edge, typically claiming mercs for yourself.

What you get is 2 Air, +1 Astral for that 45 Gold. Air has quite a few uses with summons/spells. And astral is good for forging, but yes probably an overall 'weaker'. Which is fine.

Fine yes - except it won't help you getting those early mercs.

quote:

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- Lost the wonderful flaming crossbows (Wind Guide is not nearly as effective, besides it's easier for the other Marignon themes to find air-1 mages to cast Wind Guide, it's much harder for CotS to find fire-2 mages for Flaming Arrows)

Uh, Royal Navigators have 1 random, getting 1 Earth is fairly easy and then you can make a Crystal Matrix, throw that on a High (or normal) Inquisitor ... You don't lose anything. Most of the time you are running a communion anyway and throwing in an Inquisitor isn't alot of work. It doesn't have the 'instant' access. But I use Flaming Xbows just as much as before. What you do lose is the ability to cast very many rituals like Fires from Afar or Summer Lions (if you wished.

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With Marignon my early expansion relies on mass crossbows. Thus I beeline for Enchantment 4, period. No time to lose researching construction to get these matrices, and wait for the right Navigator to forge them. I want Flaming Arrows by turn 10 or close. Later than that is too late for me.

quote:

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- Diabolical Faith has access to Mind Duel-proof communion.

Yes, which is one good thing it has in it's favor. It has quite a bit against it though (while still being fun, I admit).

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Fun yes. And thanks to alchemy, can up its initial from ~160 to ~220, and remain competitive in the first 10 turns with the Order+3 nations - losing 4 gems in the process but with the benefits of Luck+3.

quote:

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- (minor point, but still) Air/astral is a bit redundant: Teleport/Cloud Trapeze on the same unit. Can't really see a synergy in air+astral. At least fire+astral gave Astral Fires.

I enjoy the synergy between Air and Astral for the fact of Orb Lightning, Paralyze, Astral Healing, Antimagic, Stellar Cascades, etc.

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All of them but Orb Lightning are accessible to the standard theme. Orb Lightning doesn't require astral, so where's the synergy? Orb Lightning can be totally negated. Orb Lighning is Evocation 5 and requires only 1 air, by the time you get it it's often available by other means than expensive Navigator or Grand Masters who have better things to than cast level-1 spells. The list of independent mages who can give your air-1 for less than 200 gold is quite impressive. Astral Fires OTOH is hard to resist and not as readily available as Orb Lightning on independent mages, and with Marignon I like to have this spell readily available to deal with certains threats.

With the Chartmaker being 90 gold vs a Witch Hunter 150 gold he's a cheap communion slave. Also base Marignon it costs 270 to try to get a Random pick while 200 with CotS.

Combine that with the fact they can quickstrike over water and IMO I feel they are much more versatile and adaptable than Base, Fires of Faith, and unless the Harliquin or Turmoil is tweaked with Diabolic Faith.

Yep, communion and seafaring are nice to have, but I doubt they'll help you expand as fast as Flaming Arrows. Conqueror is a good theme, as good as the main theme. But you failed to convince me it's _DRASTICALLY_ superior to the main theme - and that's all I wanted to point out.

[Edit: typos]

[ January 13, 2004, 21:28: Message edited by: Nagot Gick Fel ]