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[IronyOwl]

I mainly thought to ask from evilcherry's leader bonus long ago- it was something about being able to use multiple luxuries.

[Cheddarius]

I have 4.8 clothes and 2.7 jewelry when I think I think I should have 2.5 and 2.4, respectively... is that right?

[Knight Otu]

Luxury goods of the same type beyond the needed amount provide no benefit, so you can only get a +1 morale bonus from a single type of luxury good; different types are needed to get further bonuses.

It's less clear than intended I must admit. I have some thoughts regarding the questions surrounding luxuries, but if you all have your own ideas, I would like to hear them.

Chedd, I'll get back to you, I have some things to do first.

Edits: Repairs should be complete.

[abculatter_2]

I really think you made the Black Sludge spell far too expensive by causing it to sacrifice the caster. All it does is do a bit of extra damage when the unit dies, and if it doesn't die it dies anyway, with a cost of 2 blessed obsidian (which cost 1 labor each) and 3 labor. That's a total cost of 5 labor and 2 stone (which would cost 2/3 labor to work my stone tile) to give one unit the ability.

PSUEDOEDIT: Just noticed you added the "powerful" adjective to the first strikes in the description. Was this always there or did you notice the expense too?

[Vanigo]

Well, I wrote that sentence before the luxury point thing was suggested (and I jumped on it). The way I see things, you can use luxuries in any combination you want, as long as no one luxury provides more than one luxury point per base labor. Then you dump all the luxury points into one big undifferentiated pot, and divide by base labor to get the final morale bonus.

(Really, I've been thinking the entire morale/population growth system needs to be reworked for balance reasons, although, admittedly, what I've been pondering is more complex than what we have.)

[IronyOwl]

(Really, I've been thinking the entire morale/population growth system needs to be reworked for balance reasons, although, admittedly, what I've been pondering is more complex than what we have.)

Personally, I'd have preferred a Civilization-type thing where increasing your population is harder the more people you have, rather than vice versa. Crowding penalties do this, but in turn make luxuries and crowding-reducers a major, major part of the game. I don't think that last part is necessarily a bad thing, but it does raise certain balance questions. abculatter's population growth penalty is exasperated by this system, for instance, rather than being lessened, while Vanigo's bonus has a somewhat exponential effect.

I really think you made the Black Sludge spell far too expensive by causing it to sacrifice the caster. All it does is do a bit of extra damage when the unit dies, and if it doesn't die it dies anyway, with a cost of 2 blessed obsidian (which cost 1 labor each) and 3 labor. That's a total cost of 5 labor and 2 stone (which would cost 2/3 labor to work my stone tile) to give one unit the ability.

PSUEDOEDIT: Just noticed you added the "powerful" adjective to the first strikes in the description. Was this always there or did you notice the expense too?

The caster sacrifice does sound overly expensive to me, but it's a suicide spell on your first magical tech; you can't really expect it to be all that powerful. At eight potential points of damage after they're already dead, it has the strong potential to take a superior unit with it, which isn't anything to sneer at. I'd personally be in favor of reducing the damage and removing the caster sacrifice, but that's prone to its own problems- since your unit must die, weakening the effect has the potential to make it worthless.

[Cheddarius]

exasperated

Unless you mean that the growth penalty looks upon the system and sighs, mildly upset by it, I think the word you mean is "exacerbated".

The caster sacrifice does sound overly expensive to me, but it's a suicide spell on your first magical tech; you can't really expect it to be all that powerful. At eight potential points of damage after they're already dead

Very true. Get an academy, crank out two units of no-equipment Kamikaze a turn, and you're set.
Wait no, that strategy sucks balls. I forgot you needed blessed obsidian for it. And I thought it gave 8 damage, not two strikes. So I'll have to think of a new one... but it's still good, let me do the calculations.

Okay, 1 labor, 1 iron, and 2 wood makes strong iron. 1 strong iron, 1 labor, and 1 wood makes steel. 0.5 labor and steel makes steel armor. So all in all I have 2.5 labor, 1 iron, and 3 wood, which makes 2.5+0.5+1.5=4.5 labor per steel armor. For a similar quantity of labor, you cast Black Sludge on your units. We each start with, say, 7 attack and 7 health. I get boosted up to 21 health by my armor. We attack and my unit kills yours on the first turn, but then gets attacked twice and dies. So really, steel and Black Sludge are about the same. Sure it's a bit worse, costs a bit more labor. It is also a bit situational (though not really); if you have 300 attack and 1 health, Black Sludge won't help much. But that's to be expected for an early tech; I had to go through a massive tech chain to get Steel.

[abculatter_2]

How about this:

Shallow of the Unknown allows the expense of labor to gather a special resource (need a name... how about Sludge Vine?) which can be processed with Blessed Obsidian at the expense of labor and 4mp, which yields 1 unit of Sludge Powder which can be attached to a unit to enable the ability.

Let me see how this'll work out with labor costs... 1 for the sludge vine + 1.3 for blessed obsidian + 2 for the spell, maybe? That's 4.3 labor to allow one unit to carry the ability. If this doesn't seem costly enough, we could make the Sludge Vine require a special Herbalist-type building, which allows the cultivation of special plants.

[IronyOwl]

Waaaaaaaaay too powerful. It dispenses with the need for a caster to even be present at the battle, and changes the number and power of your casters from how often you can do it to how much time it takes you to equip your troops. Getting your entire army equipped with the stuff and ordering them to trigger it only when they're losing would be an easy way to make your army incredibly powerful.

EDIT: Though to be fair the fact that they're attacks and not guaranteed damage does mean absolute cannon fodder isn't very effective, but your unarmored wooden-stick soldiers are pretty effective for their cost. The population hit is probably a bigger problem than the wood and labor.

exasperated

Unless you mean that the growth penalty looks upon the system and sighs, mildly upset by it, I think the word you mean is "exacerbated".

KHAAAAAAAAN!

[Vanigo]

Are the special attacks linked to the sacrificed unit's strength, though? That wouldn't make much sense, really. I'd say give the attacks a fixed attack strength, then balance it assuming it'll only be used on unarmed units. The sacrifice of the caster would probably be necessary if the attack is going to be any good, since unarmed units are extremely cheap.

[IronyOwl]

He said they were attacks, and listed the damage on a hit and miss. I assume they're based on the unit's attack strength for lack of a better idea, but I'm really not sure.

[Knight Otu]

I must have had by balancing ability in my spare brain when I wrote the turn. Caster sacrifice is a good thematic fit, but overboard on the particular spell. The damage potential does make me want to increase the obsidian cost to 2, but I'll think it over, and maybe reduce the damage potential. 8 damage is quite a bit of damage. I doesn't quite kill an unarmored unit at full health, but it certainly won't be targeted at units in full health, and rather at wounded ones (as such, it probably is better to give the ability to armed units rather than unarmed ones, to make sure the enemy is wounded enough). Anyway, I'll think about the power level of the ability some more.

[abculatter_2]

MOAR POSTS

[Cheddarius]

So what about the luxuries? Can one luxury be used in two different morale boosts? If I need 30 points to boost, and I have 3 that give 20 each, can I use all three to get +2 morale?

[Knight Otu]

If I need 3.0 luxury for a morale boost, and I have three separate sources of 2.0 luxury each, could I split the third luxury and use 1.0 to supplement each of the other two, resulting in +2 Morale, or can each type only be involved in one morale boost?

Each type can only be involved in one morale boost.

But I think I need to do something about luxury goods and morale boosts. They seem to be the most consistent source of rules questions.

The answer hasn't changed yet since I haven't decided yet. I'm considering a possibility where all luxuries accumulate over turns. So, if you need 1.5 luxury, and get 1 spirituality luxury each turn, you get no morale from spirituality the first turn, but save the 1 spirituality, the next turn you have 2 spirituality, get +1 morale, and are left with .5 spirituality, and in the third turn, you have 1.5 spirituality, get +1 morale, and are back at 0 spirituality. That could be coupled with not being able to combine luxuries anymore, a nerf for the high priest leader type, but I need to consider the implications.