Zitro 'Balspeed' / 'one' / 'mod of mod' Removed

[kyrub]

Actually, Valana 8 + 4X (lowest I can possibly give), maxing out at 44. So far, all champion mages have 8 + 12X, which max out at 120 (near the maximum limit).

It seems it was a misunderstanding. I thought you wanted all lower heroes to have 8 + 8X and all champions 8 + 12X.

[zitro1987]

By changing the mana-multiplier from 5 to 2, I can allow myself many more possibilities among mages, warrior/mages, and those heroes that are supposed to have small mana reserves (Valana).

*10 starting mana among all heroes with mana reserves.
*Heroes with the lowest mana would then have 10 + 2X (maxing out at a puny 28)
*Your typical mage heroes would have 10 plus 7-9X, maxing out at 73 to 91 mana
*Differences between 0-5-10-20 fame heroes not as major - Your originally feeble heroes like B'Shan and Theria clearly better. However, the lower probability of hiring heroes early on balances this element out.
*Your mage champions would have 10 plus 11-13X, maxing out at 109 to 127 mana (referenced maximum) - most at 10+13X
*Torin is currently at 10 + 6X

[zitro1987]

The current book/retort setup is overall very good but I'm concerned about a new unbalanced exploit:

a specific wizard setup of:
10 books and conjurer.
9 books, conjurer and chaos/nature mastery

With a cumulative 55-60% cost reduction a 50% upkeep reduction, you already have guaranteed access to a good uncommon summon. You can recruit 'uncommons' and maintain a few. If you have a 'mastery' and have the luck of a nearby easy node of your realm - you'll be unstoppable early on.

The issue is probably that conjurer's bonus is cumulative as a number rather than as a portion (30+25% = 55% reduction) instead of (0.7 * 0.75 = 47.5% reduction). While uncommon summons are not significantly (or any) better than original's powerful 30hp basilisks, it's a really nice combination that could turn into an exploit under most conditions.

[Anthony]

To preserve the value of extra mana as a pick, you might change from '10 + level*x' to '(level+2)*x'; thus, a pick on more spell points would be +3 at mp at level 1 and +1/level after that; the smallest mana pool would be 6 at level 1.

[zitro1987]

I made two 'potentially controversial' proposals on front page.

One about books, one about mountains.

[kyrub]

Terrain: Very good proposal, I believe we had a similar theme in Ziky. The lack of production buildings will make mountain terrain even more important.

Books: I really dislike the idea. The revolution on a bad place, to take something favourable out of the game...
I suggest a combination of
(1) one of these...
a) bonus cummulative as a portion (your suggestion). It should be doable.
b) lower conjurer bonus?
c) start the cost bonus from 6+ books, which makes only 20% discount on 9 books.
d) make cost bonus smaller, like 1/2 of the research one (3-5-8-10-13-15-18-20). (Though I dislike small portion bonuses.)

(2) 9 or 10 books also can be slightly weakened by lowering the common number of spells as well. Actually, this was my preferred idea from the beginning. 11 books should feel special.
Example:
7books => 6 common
8books => 7 common
9books => 7 common + 1 uncommon
10books => 7 common + 2 uncommons
11 books => 10 commons + 2 uncommons + 1 rare

(3) If necessary, I'd remove the uncommon spell from 9 books and give only 1 uncommon to 10 books.

Note: To create a strong setup is possibly good for the game, 11 books strategies were favoured in 1.31. What we need to do is ensure that other strategies can be strong as well and stop the preferred.

[zitro1987]

Mountains: would you think the following terrains are generally similar in worth? That's my intention.
_1.5 food (plains).
_+7% production and chance of minerals (mountains).

(rivers should still be the best terrain, as the rare terrain you can't create with 'change terrain')


Books: Thanks for bouncing back my flawed idea, we can surely come up with something good in here:

Your capping 'starting common' at 7 is great. It allows some lesser spell research at the beginning of the game. It simply looks more balanced for 8-10 books. Can we replace the 'rare' at 11 books with '3 uncommon' ? Starting with a 'rare' spell can be too much, including for AI (it's too crazy to see enemies with a few gorgons or storm giants). A +3 common on top of it (and book bonuses) make the 10 to 11 upgrade too significant.

As for cost/research reduction - we could keep the bonuses starting from 4 books and applying to both cost and research, but maybe it could favor research:
Cost bonus: 3-6-9-12-16-20-24-28 (instead of 5 - ... - 40)
Research bonus: 8-16-24-32-40-48-56-64 (instead of 5 - ... - 40)

I can also agree with a more moderated combo of
cost bonus of 4-8- ... - 32
research bonus of 7-14 - ... - 56

I believe that by limiting the cost reduction of books, conjurer becomes slightly less attractive for 9-10 book users. Using the product (multiplication) of cost reductions is another attractive idea, not just for conjurer and 9+ books but especially for artificer and runemaster.

[kyrub]

Mountains: would you think the following terrains are generally similar in worth? That's my intention.
_1.5 food (plains).
_+7% production and chance of minerals (mountains).

I remember having searched the right ratio for mountains in Ziky. My main focus at the time was to create terrain for different type of cities, one with big population bonuses, other with quick production but lacking economics. The main concern is that in MoM
a) mountains often appear in bigger chains, so you have scarcely only 1-2 mountains near a city
b) low population equals pretty much always low production (not enough workers),
so the production montain bonuses should be more eggaterated to let them work. I think I inclined to 8%. Sometimes I think only 10% would start to work...


Now, the problems with the books. Sadly, we are not in the same boat.
- First, great that we agree on capping 7 starting common spells. I share your reasons. I can imagine doing 3 uncommons + all commons for 11 books. It's not easy but I know the job already.
- I am not a fan of research bonus being the highlight discount and becoming big. First, research bonus lacks any feeling of importance, it's nice to have, but you don't feel it will make the difference between winning and losing. Also, the big research bonus comes for books that already have a good starting spells advantage, the gap will become even bigger with double bonus. The design is not straight bad, but it seems to add weight on wrong side of the scales.
- Although I suggested it, I am in fact really annoyed by not-round discounts like: 7%, 13%, 21% or 42%. I think a game should always allow the player with basic mathematic skill to have an idea of what discount he gets. Try to tell me quickly, how much is 13% (or 28%) of 150 mana, rounded down? What advantage does that cost bonus give me, that's an important question. Games that ignore representation, are often called "plastic" or "spreadsheet" by its players (Galactic Civilizations suffered from it), because they lose contact with their imagination. Everybody know how much is 10%, or that 5% saves you every 20th point of mana. 13% is hard to imagine without a calculator (that is why I suggested that cost bonus starts from 6 books but still increases by 5%..).

New suggestion - a simple one:
A) keep our old model, +5% from 4th book.
B) use multiplication of cost reductions.

Comparing this to your radical model for 9 books gives me:
1) Old model = 30% (9 books) + 25% (conjurer) = 55% discount
2) Radical model price = 20% (9 books) + 25% (conjurer) = 45% discount
3) Old model combined with mulitplicative price = 0,7 (30%..9 books) * 0.75 (conjurer bonus) = 0,525 => 47,5% discount

The difference between 2) and 3) is only 2,5% which I find not important.

[zitro1987]

Terrain - cities can be strategically built covering a piece of mountain chains and misc terrains. Nevertheless, +9% might be a good starting point for favorable terrain. I was initially afraid that proposing +8% or above for mountains may seem excessive to a player.

Old model combined with multiplication = best choice as it fixes balancing problems of not just conjurer, but also artificer/runemaster combo. I realized I agreed with you - multi-colored wizards get ahead with research by trading while one-colored wizards by starting spells (including uncommons) and a modest book research bonus. A 10 book wizard with sagemaster (a +85% combo) can get really far ahead.

Sometimes I feel the cost reduction of spells make you focus too much on your main realm spell for spell effectiveness. Making realms distinct with strengths and weaknesses remain a key and a reason why I'm not a big fan of 'ice bolt'

What if we keep the rare and cap to 7 commons for 11 books? It may be somewhat more balanced this way. The spells are research-able anyways.

We can keep the rare and 2 uncommon for 11 books. Having a 'rare' summon (angel) may not be much better than having a starting uncommon (unicorn) plus conjurer. Rare summons get a bit expensive.

[kyrub]

+9% might be a good starting point for favorable terrain. I was initially afraid that proposing +8% or above for mountains may seem excessive to a player.

Just wanted to warn you. I'll leave the final % to your testing and estimate. I have no strong opinion on exact percent.

Old model combined with multiplication = best choice
Making realms distinct with strengths and weaknesses remain a key and a reason why I'm not a big fan of 'ice bolt'

Happy we can agree on this, for now! The problem may be revisited if persists.
Distinct realms, I'm all for, but it is hard to do it well without making revolution. A compromise is probably necessary (no problem with ditching Ice bolt if another, preferably combat spell comes there).

What if we keep the rare and cap to 7 commons for 11 books?

Anything that makes the early game more open to decisions is welcome.