Mod compatibility question

[N8tronic]

So after taking a look at the “20 best mod list” i decided to try some of the top mods.
Pbem balance mod and its empire mod compatable
Racial units
Empire mod
hero wardrobes
Variant heroes and its empire compatable

Im just wondering if all these mods can work together or will there be conflicts that stop some from functioning correctly?

[glythe]

PBEM changes a ton of crap. Personally I think that mod is broken as it 100% guts the only viable strategy some classes have going for them.

Also most of the better mods tell you what they edit. Post in the threads and ask?

Or try them yourself.

[N8tronic]

Originally posted by glythe:

PBEM changes a ton of crap. Personally I think that mod is broken as it 100% guts the only viable strategy some classes have going for them.

Also most of the better mods tell you what they edit. Post in the threads and ask?

Or try them yourself.

Sorry i wasent asking if the mods were good or not. Im asking if the mods work together and dont overlap or break features of the others when combined.

What exactly does the balance patch gut?

[pipo.p]

You can look at the changelogs here[forum.paradoxplaza.com].

Basically and as far as I understand, it tends to trim down what are reported as cheap or non challenging tactics when you play against a human. Such "exploits" are converting/charming/turning to ghouls any foe you encounter, then flooding the map with these fast produced troops, short-circuiting the normal production process. Another kill-the-fun concern is apparently the way early stacks of flying/levitating units may rule the map.

Besides this, it adresses several bugs or bad descriptions.

[hiliadan]

Originally posted by N8tronic:

Pbem balance mod and its empire mod compatable
Racial units
Empire mod
hero wardrobes
Variant heroes and its empire compatable

Ok so obviously PBEM & SP balance mod + EBM are compatible through the compatibility mod.
Hero wardrobes is compatible with both because it changes visuals of Leaders and the other mods don't touch that.
Racial Heritage adds new units and buildings so should be compatible with both too.
Then I guess you mean the 2 hero mods from Eomolch? These ones modify partly the same thing as the balance mod, so there will be come overrides of them over the balance mod. But you can still play with all activated.

See this post for a description of what "incompatibility" means: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discussions/0/1742220359692010217/#c1742220359694232855 It won't cause any crash or anything, so no big worries to have.

[N8tronic]

Originally posted by hiliadan:

Originally posted by N8tronic:

Pbem balance mod and its empire mod compatable
Racial units
Empire mod
hero wardrobes
Variant heroes and its empire compatable

Ok so obviously PBEM & SP balance mod + EBM are compatible through the compatibility mod.
Hero wardrobes is compatible with both because it changes visuals of Leaders and the other mods don't touch that.
Racial Heritage adds new units and buildings so should be compatible with both too.
Then I guess you mean the 2 hero mods from Eomolch? These ones modify partly the same thing as the balance mod, so there will be come overrides of them over the balance mod. But you can still play with all activated.

See this post for a description of what "incompatibility" means: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discussions/0/1742220359692010217/#c1742220359694232855 It won't cause any crash or anything, so no big worries to have.

updated list of mods:
Balance mod PBEM
empire building(and compatibility versions for PBEM)
racial heritage
coat of arms colors
wardrobes
empire building mod additional heroes

any suggestions?

[glythe]

Originally posted by N8tronic:

What exactly does the balance patch gut?

Specifically it makes necromancer unplayable.

People were abusing some aspects of necro to win very quickly and easily in tournaments. There is a problem with ghouling or resurrecting high tier monsters pretty early on. There is a 100% easy fix to this problem: turn off treasure sites/wandering monsters/dwellings.

In a away I can hardly believe they would leave those elements on for tournaments because it only encourages the player to milk more exp from npcs. Plus it adds more RNG. If you get building X/Y/Z in your native area it can be an "I win" button.

The Sfitten limb spell is one of the most important early necro spells and they completely ruin it. Instead of lasting the entire fight it now lasts 3 turns. The necro hero is in a very stupid spot at the start of the game because he is alive and his army is dead. Somewhere into mid game your heroes become undead and they can make use of their heal ability on themselves and have allies do the same. This spell when you play legitimately helps keep your hero keep a safe distance and not get hosed. You're kind of an idiot if you take a magic specialization for early game when your hero is alive. If they gave the nerco class compensation by making the leader undead from the start that might balance things out (but they don't).

Overall this change to the mod seems like sour grapes because it can be incredibly annoying to fight a necromancer and have him cast stiffen limbs on all your units. Yes it gives the necro an advantage when dealing with more difficult treasure sites.... that's kind of the point.

The problem with looking at elements like this in isolation is that overall the necromancer is good at snowballing (even without abusive tactics). Overall from a raw power level necro does not stack very well vs say warlord when you look at everything the two classes have to offer.

Because most people are playing shorter pvp games in tournaments (a problem overall with tournaments not representing real games) it can skew the game because more time is spent early/mid vs late game. To put this into perspecttive imagine that after picking your race/class you learned the game was taking place on an only subterranean map. You might win or lose automatically based on that fact.

The bottom line is that taking away the necro's ability to do well early without giving the class a boost to end game power is not balanced.

[hiliadan]

Originally posted by N8tronic:

Balance mod PBEM
empire building(and compatibility versions for PBEM)
racial heritage
coat of arms colors
wardrobes
empire building mod additional heroes

Coats of Arms is like Wardrobes, no compatibility issue.

EMB additional heroes, I guess you mean this one?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956473040

It is actually a compatibility mod for the 2 hero mods (and other hero mods) of Eomolch. I forgot in my previous post that EBM also modifies heroes and thus can overwrite things from Eomolch's Hero Profession and Hero Development mods (or vice-versa).
It should NOT be used at the same time as the main EBM mod. It's basically a replacement without the hero edits of EBM.

Or did you mean another mod?

[hiliadan]

Originally posted by glythe:

In a away I can hardly believe they would leave those elements on for tournaments because it only encourages the player to milk more exp from npcs. Plus it adds more RNG. If you get building X/Y/Z in your native area it can be an "I win" button.

The Sfitten limb spell is one of the most important early necro spells and they completely ruin it. Instead of lasting the entire fight it now lasts 3 turns. The necro hero is in a very stupid spot at the start of the game because he is alive and his army is dead. [...]

The bottom line is that taking away the necro's ability to do well early without giving the class a boost to end game power is not balanced.

You're very welcome to join the balance discussions we have on the forum or on the Battlefield community website.
The balance mod is designed to balance also larger maps, not just tournament maps. As an example, a game with the top 8 best players as ranked by the BF (https://www.the-battlefield.com/aow3/index.php?page=ranking) on a Large map. It has a Necro player and he's doing quite well.

Stiffen Limbs is still very strong lasting 3 rounds and in most combats, 3 rounds is more than enough to kill all opposition or do what you need to do to be able to deal with the last unit with Stiffen Limbs.

Necro is still very powerful, probably too much, and does not really require any boost to end games, since it already has a very strong end game (Age of Death? Dread Reapers?). Besides, we did boost Necro's mid-late game with better economic boosts from its economic buildings.

[N8tronic]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=845812328
this mod.

The game can be kinda confusing for a new player (me) is there anything i can watch that has basic and advanced tutorials? or is it better to just learn by playing

Also i only play against the AI. Will the balance mod make that harder for me to win? I usually just play to relax most of the time im not really the greatest strategy gamer

[hiliadan]

Ok so this one only adds new heroes so should be mostly fine.
However, the balance mod changes the costs of hero upgrades and that can cause some issues with heroes' starting skills: they can disappear if they become too costly or heroes can start with free upgrade points if their abilities become cheaper.

Yes, there are good videos to learn:
- beginner: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discussions/0/352792037327413737/ (it says "advanced strategy" but it's actually really beginner stuff
- advanced: check out the video library http://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Hiliadan/Videos You have full matches commented and clearing explained by site and by attacking army

[N8tronic]

Originally posted by hiliadan:

Ok so this one only adds new heroes so should be mostly fine.
However, the balance mod changes the costs of hero upgrades and that can cause some issues with heroes' starting skills: they can disappear if they become too costly or heroes can start with free upgrade points if their abilities become cheaper.

Yes, there are good videos to learn:
- beginner: https://steamcommunity.com/app/226840/discussions/0/352792037327413737/ (it says "advanced strategy" but it's actually really beginner stuff
- advanced: check out the video library http://age-of-wonders-3.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Hiliadan/Videos You have full matches commented and clearing explained by site and by attacking army

I only play against the AI so would you still recommend the balance mod?

[hiliadan]

Yes I would definitely still recommend it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=661597466

It fixes a number of non-critical bugs from the base game that devs no long fix (they focus on critical bugs), it improves more than 30 descriptions (and soon 60+ in v1.26) to make them clearer (e.g. Giants have +2 Vision Range on the surface but not UG) or correct errors, it improves visuals, and it improves the fun of playing Halfling and Dreadnought, on top of all the balance it brings.
You can see the details in the changelog: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jgwAg70dwNm8i3nFJqt8hrnwpNmxudn2aSXuvDet-5w/edit

If you enjoy exploiting breaches in the game to win though, it's probably better not to use it as it removes several such breaches, like the possibility to get 100% spirit weakness on enemies and mind-control them with 100% success chances.

[RandomGuy]

I exclusively play against the AI and I highly recommend the PBEM balance mod. I won't ever consider playing without this mod it since it makes winning against the AI significantly more difficult by removing tons of exploits. Playing without this mod against the AI (even 7 allied AI emperors vs. you) is like taking candy from a baby. As a side benefit, there are more variety in the strategies that you can use since there are many buffs to weak specializations \ spells \ units and nerfs to stuff that is overpowered (tigrans, necro, items, etc)

[N8tronic]

Originally posted by RandomGuy:

I exclusively play against the AI and I highly recommend the PBEM balance mod. I won't ever consider playing without this mod it since it makes winning against the AI significantly more difficult by removing tons of exploits. Playing without this mod against the AI (even 7 allied AI emperors vs. you) is like taking candy from a baby. As a side benefit, there are more variety in the strategies that you can use since there are many buffs to weak specializations \ spells \ units and nerfs to stuff that is overpowered (tigrans, necro, items, etc)

Ok thats good to know, im not one for handicapping myself esspecially in this kinda game!