CHAOS Realm

[kjara]

For doombat- another option would be moving it to common, nerfing the stats (but not the speed) and cost/upkeep hard, and making it effectively chaos's scout/harassment unit (its a flier so you can run it into a battle, throw a few spells, then retreat fairly safely due to its high speed). Even if kept at uncommon, could keep it fairly fragile but with reasonable attack, drop the cost and upkeep significantly, and make it a fast glass cannon that dies fairly fast but is good at taking units out with it.

That's a good idea but Immolation is far too strong to appear at common level. Wall of Fire being the exception because you can't use it for offense.

But yeah, +3 attack (Or even +2?) attack would be a nice replacement to fire breath.

I was considering either a larger Fire Breath (4) which can actually damage things that have more then 4 armor, or make it add both fire breath and melee damage, or changing the Fire Breath to Lightning Breath could help by reducing the effect of armor.
Or we can drop the entire thing and have it grant First Strike or something else.

Although..fire breath enabling attacks to flying units is actually quite relevant. I guess not as good as flight itself but almost. Losing this to get normal melee damage would be somewhat poor.

Fire Breath 4 sounds the best solution to me.

Immolation could always be moved to the chimera, since that needed something still (with probably some minor attack nerfs as well?)).


Could always go with Fb1 and +2 melee attack, as this would still enable attacking air units without any real damage expected out of the fire breath.

[zhantul]

I actually like using warp creature instead of shatter. The -5 resistance means it usually works early game on Triremes and galleys where shatter would fail. The low cost allows for recastings if needed.

Chaos channels has an extra unmentioned feature. When using it on ships, you always get the defense bonus. It's always defense as well with Draconians (tested it with bowmen who don't have fire breathing). What I haven't tested, but seems logical, is that all flying units will never receive wings and units with fire breathing or thrown weapons never get fire breath.
The downside of chaos channels is that units are now vulnerable to dispel evil and starfire spells.

As for hell hounds... It depends on your race how good they are. Races with weak spearmen/swordsmen, will find good use for them in early expansion and it's a fast to create unit to quickly fill a garison. I would remove maintenance for them (like with skeletons) as they get outclassed quickly after early game or for emergency defenses. The cost can be increased slightly to compensate.

[Anthony]

Chaos channels has an extra unmentioned feature. When using it on ships, you always get the defense bonus.

Units with a non-null ranged attack byte (fire breath, thrown, bow, sling, boulder, spells) can't get fire breath, units that already fly can't get wings. Ships may have been special cased.

[Seravy]

Ships may have been special cased.

I checked, indeed, sailing units can't get flight from Chaos Channels.
Not sure if we want to keep this limitation?
(flying ships can still carry units now, but even on land!)

[zitro1987]

Hell Hounds - yes, 4 melee with a slight cost increase (45? no more than 50)

Eldritch weapon: seems expensive if cast in combat, but cheap overland (due to 0 upkeep). Suggest lower cost but 1 upkeep

Shatter - seems cheap for neutralizing a normal unit, much better than casting fire bolt. Higher research points for this good spell and 10 cost.

Warp Creature - I think it's powerful enough as it is for just 10 cost. Halving armor or melee are pretty good effects as well.

Fire Bolt - rather underwhelming, especially against multi-figure units (no armor piercing, armor points re-activate after each dead figure) . I though chaos is supposed to excel at direct damage and in most cases i'd prefer to cast shetter/warp creature

Doom Bat - 12 or 13 melee. Too dependent on immolation

Gargoyles - Let's make them look more like uncommon both in power and cost/upkeep, but if cost kept similar, I think 5 melee is more important. 4 melee doesn't cut it. If upkeep increased, increasing health points should be appropriate.

Chimera - you're right, needs 1 more melee and firebreath without changing the cost.
If you decide to change it to 'rare', then 10-11 melee, 6 fire breath, +2 to hit, 7 armor, 10 resistance, 9 hit points (36) maybe ... of course with much higher cost.

Lighting Bolt - suggest 5 more mana and 5 more power. Chaos being exceptional with nuke spells

Flame Blade - it is very powerful as it is, I don't suggest making it even cheaper, especially for overland (I'm surprised a transformational +3 melee to a multi-figure only translates to a mere 1 upkeep ... if anything, I suggest 10/50 and 2upkeep and normal research cost ... it is extremely good, not just for halflings)

Chaos Channels - Does firebreath work on units that already have a ranged attack? it is good mostly based on the indirect bonuses that you just wrote in the description (warp reality in particular) ... but maybe I would boost firebreath to +4 so that I don't get disappointed whenever i get firebreath bonus.

Efreet - actually, it appears above average to me. It attacks MUCH stronger than a catapult (+2 to hit, no range penalties) while comfortably flying. 40 MP is a very powerful benefit when you have multiple efreets, and it has more than twice the health points as the original

Warp Lightning a - again, a slight boost. warp lightning could cost 35-40 and have 11 instead of 10 damage of its type

Metal Fires - extremely powerful, please re-consider on the 'cumulative with flame blade' ... we'd be talking about 10+ 6-figure units for all 9 with a single spell. That can easily win unusually tough battles. (flame blade is accessible and rather cheap).
*Alternative powerful version: +4 melee, +3 ranged but not cumulative with flame blade.

Chaos Spawn - give it a very very high scouting (it's a big eye) as an idea of making it more useful.

Call Chaos seems reasonably powerful to me, much more so than flame strike (there's well over 100+ mana worth of effects in one turn when you have a handful of enemy units)

Doom Mastery - 1100 cost is steep

Hydra and Chaos Surge - seems like they go hand in hand, otherwise I'd feel hydra is a bit on the weak side against other very rare units, despite the 90hp.

[Seravy]

Hell Hounds - yes, 4 melee with a slight cost increase (45? no more than 50)

I prefer to keep the cost, considering this one has a maintenance unlike Skeletons.

Eldritch weapon: seems expensive if cast in combat, but cheap overland (due to 0 upkeep). Suggest lower cost but 1 upkeep

Good idea.

Shatter - seems cheap for neutralizing a normal unit, much better than casting fire bolt. Higher research points for this good spell and 10 cost.

While it is much better, the chance to work is almost never 100%, in fact it'll usually be around 50%.
So the actual cost of a success is more around 16. Still a better deal than Fire Bolt on multi-figure units, but Fire Bolt is mainly good against single-figure targets, like all single-hitting spells. (Yes, I know those are not very frequent in the early game, see my comment of Chaos being a bit on the weak side at commons)
It's noteworthy that it's ineffective against shaman, magicians, and anything fantastic, being far from universal.
I agree on higher research though.

Doom Bat - 12 or 13 melee. Too dependent on immolation

Since I decided on keeping Uncommon Chimeras, this could move to Rare and gain "Doom" damage modifier, although in that case "Doom" has to be changed to apply the 50% damage part to nonweapon attacks as well, otherwise it will be overpowered with buffs. In this case, keeping or not keeping Immolation is the other question, I believe the unit should do 8 doom damage (16 melee if doom is changed to apply the modifier), but not have immolation. This would allow us to add Immolation to Efreet.
I don't know what to make uncommon to replace it though, Fire Storm looks the most reasonable choice.

Chaos Channels - Does firebreath work on units that already have a ranged attack?

Anything that has any attack in the ranged slot cannot gain Fire Breath from Chaos Channels, they'll get another buff.

Metal Fires - extremely powerful, please re-consider on the 'cumulative with flame blade' ... we'd be talking about 10+ 6-figure units for all 9 with a single spell. That can easily win unusually tough battles. (flame blade is accessible and rather cheap).

I played this strategy once and while it was good, it wasn't overly strong. In fact I lost most of my buffed units when I went against the second enemy's fortress, and couldn't do much damage at all, they got neutralized or killed. The bonus damage is great but the units don't get any defensive stats, so they are still vulnerable to pretty much any direct damage spell or curse. Ranged damage kills them, as well. And this game was on medium difficulty, not extreme.
Might work better on stronger units (I used longbowmen) but by the time you have those+metal fires, you could easily have an army of chimeras which are even stronger (even without Flame Blade).

I've been thinking about swapping Chaos Channels and Warp Creature and I'm not sure about it.
Chaos Channels would be far too good for a common, Flight is an uncommon rank ability, 3 armor is superior to Holy Armor, making it also uncommon rank, and fire breath...well that one is the weak link, but the previous two are worth more than 50mp each so there has to be one that is not outstanding to keep the balance. I don't think I want an ability that grants flight at common.

[Seravy]

Warp Lightning a - again, a slight boost. warp lightning could cost 35-40 and have 11 instead of 10 damage of its type

I tried that in earlier versions of the mod but it didn't work out too well.
+1 translates to an equivalent of 11 additional power, with armor piercing, and mitigates the spells weakness too much (high enough armor still reduces it a lot due to many hits of lower power, but it needs to be really high armor.).

Let's see a bit more in-depth.

0 armor enemy, expected strength (strength-shields) :
Lightning Bolt : 35.
Warp Lightning : 55
Doom Bolt : 33.3

4 armor enemy :
Lightning Bolt : 33.
Warp Lightning : 36 = 8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1
Doom Bolt : 33.3

8 armor enemy :
Lightning Bolt : 31.
Warp Lightning : 6+5+4+3+2+1=21
Doom Bolt : 33.3

hmm ok that's doesn't compare as favorably as before due to lightning bolt buff. I wanted it to be at least superior up to 6 armor.
Let's see with 11 hits :

0 armor enemy, expected strength (strength-shields) :
Lightning Bolt : 35.
Warp Lightning : 66
Doom Bolt : 33.3

4 armor enemy :
Lightning Bolt : 33.
Warp Lightning : 45 = 9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1
Doom Bolt : 33.3

6 armor enemy :
Lightning Bolt : 34.
Warp Lightning : 36 = 8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1
Doom Bolt : 33.3

8 armor enemy :
Lightning Bolt : 31.
Warp Lightning : 28 = 7+6+5+4+3+2+1
Doom Bolt : 33.3

Now that's more like it! Okay, 11 strength it is!
One more thing I noticed, Doom Bolt suddenly seems really poor compared to Lightning Bolt now that it's strength 35. It's actually weaker despite having a 20 higher cost. I think I'll return it to 40 mana....wait, that means Efreets will be able to use it. 41 is the lowest we can go.

[zitro1987]

Just a little warning - your calculations are a bit misleading, though not that far off. The damage table below, while it's not very important for high damage spells, it is a great reference for multi-figure damage spells and overall unit vs unit brainstorming and balancing.

Page 452-454
http://www.capitalgstudios.com/MOM/Maste...0Guide.pdf

[zitro1987]

Being playing quite a bit with Chaos magic

Hell Hounds - above average - a must at the beginning of the game due to cheap cost. Favorite usage: reduce city unrest and protect your cities. Not overpowered as they lose their effectiveness later and lose lots of hp against multi-figure melee and ranged units.

Corruption - I rarely used it myself, but the AI is brutal with this!

Eldritch Weapon - I mainly used it for javalineers, halberdiers, and other mid-tier multi-figure units.

Fire Elemental - above average - the 'weapon immunity' grants too much armor in my opinion, though this spell is quite useless otherwise except maybe in chaos nodes

Shatter - above average - I use this very often. Very cheap for neutralizing swordsmen, bowmen, high men, gnolls, barbarian, you get the picture. I feel 10 may be more appropriate cost.

Warp Creature - unpredictable but I use it sometimes. At least it's worth casting now thanks to strong resistance modifier.

Fire Bolt - it does the job yet makes you still crave for lightning bolt. Perfect balance

Wall of Fire - haven't used it enough to determine usefulness but seems like I should.

Warp Wood - above average - still useful situational spell

Disrupt - thanks for the low cost to provide an incentive.

Raise Volcano - I use it on my tundras and sometimes wished I had 'transmute'. Once destroyed an enemy building or two. AI is brutal with it (see corruption)

Fire Storm - massive damage against a certain crowd, but hard to coordinate with low skill. Perfect as is.

Immolation - expensive, but essential for gargoyles.

Fireball - Not that damaging, but with low cost could be used multiple times. I like it better this way.

Gargoyles - with immolation, these cheap units end up with average tier-2 summoning cost and slightly above average effectiveness. Without immolation, I don't care for them much. Must be the intention.

Chimera - their stats fooled me into thinking they were powerhouses ... they're just typical mid-tier units with good hp. They struggle a lot against curses (black sleep for me) and poison for their cost, but they gotta have a weakness. I find the stats well thought out.

Fire Giant - above average - my personal favorite tier-2 chaos summon I think as long as I don't encounter fire-immune units. They are great in groups.

Lightning Bolt - above average - powerful and essential spell for chaos realm, as it should be.

Flame Blade - above average - research cost seems too low. In all games, it was the first research spell I went for after summoning circle. I can be dependent on it.

Chaos Channels - I prefer flame blade over this early on. Haven't gotten to casting doom mastery yet.

Efreet - overpowered - 8 shots, large mana pool and flying? high hp/armor and speed? can even melee well? high resistance to curses? too good against ground units and not weak enough otherwise. Summon a couple and it turns the tide too much sometimes. Suggest 6 shots.

Warp Lightning - above average - my favorite direct damage spell probably so far

Doom Bolt and flame strike - still useful, not as overpowered.

Doom Bat - I struggled with the low armor it has, but can fight very well against the right enemies. Of course you know it does not deal 16hp damage ... more like 8 + immolation.

Blazing March - above average - a bit overpowered it feels at times when using it myself, or being used against me. However, I still struggled with game with it, so it's not as game-changing as I once thought.

Chaos Rift - it finally does substantial damage!

Chaos Spawn - I'd like a 'thematic' large scouting bonus as it's literally a giant eyeball. Good situational summon that can be feared. I'd like to mix it up with black prayer.

haven't reached the most advanced spells yet.

[Seravy]

Gargoyles - with immolation, these cheap units end up with average tier-2 summoning cost and slightly above average effectiveness. Without immolation, I don't care for them much. Must be the intention.

Yes, they're meant to be used with immolation, or as a tank to protect cities with city walls. (as melee units can't attack it, and even if they can, the walls provide bonus defense so the gargoyles won't take much damage if any at all.)

Efreet - overpowered - 8 shots, large mana pool and flying? high hp/armor and speed? can even melee well? high resistance to curses? too good against ground units and not weak enough otherwise. Summon a couple and it turns the tide too much sometimes. Suggest 6 shots.

I haven't had much chance to use this since it was buffed. Need to test.

Doom Bat - I struggled with the low armor it has, but can fight very well against the right enemies. Of course you know it does not deal 16hp damage ... more like 8 + immolation.

Yes, I had to change code to make it do 8 damage, that's the intention.

Chaos Spawn - I'd like a 'thematic' large scouting bonus as it's literally a giant eyeball. Good situational summon that can be feared. I'd like to mix it up with black prayer.

It has the second highest scouting in the game already. (4 tiles)