Summon pricing proposal (ignoring blood summons)

[Demonsthenes]

I really like the changes to summons pricing in Dominions 6; so many interesting units now have a good story for when you might decide to dump a bunch of gems into them.

I spent some time today reviewing the list of summons with a view towards making a summons balance mod... And while I found there's a few summons whose price feels like a real balance problem, I found I didn't actually identify a lot of things I'd change. So I figured I'd post them here for discussion and Illwinter visibility. While mods are great, I think especially underpriced units are much better addressed in the base game than addressed via mods. Here's what I'm thinking I'd put in my mod (explanations are below).

## Increases in price

These changes are 20x as important as the rest, because things that are too cheap have a big impact on the multiplayer game experience, whereas things that are too expensive have a pretty minimal impact on it -- there's always something else that one can do.

- Contact Draconians: 30 + Chief for 20A => 20 + Chief for 25A

- Call Anzus: 2 for 4W => 2 for 8W

- God Brood: 6 for 12N => 5 for 15N

- Summon Bears: 15 for 8N => 10 for 8N

- Summon Bargests: 14 for 7D => 10 for 7D

- Summon Cu Sidhe: 10 for 5G => 10 for 7G

- Sloth of Bears: 15 for 6N => 10 for 5N (Non-sacred bear spell for consistency with sacred bears and also comparable animal summons like tigers and lions)

## Reductions in price or gem efficiency.

While I was doing this review, I identified the following overpricing anomalies (E.g., costing 50% more than a comparably capable summon that's comparably difficult to summon):

- Revive Wights: 5 for 20D => 5 for 15D

- Summon Kithaironic Lion: 1 for 5N => 2 for 5N (and pluralize spell name)

- Summon Yetis: 5 for 8W => 5 for 6W

- Summon Cave Crab: 1 for 4E => 2 for 4E

- Behemoth: 1 for 7D => 1 for 5D

- Summon Trolls: 5 for 10E => 5 for 8E

- Celestial Servant: 1 for 1E => 3 for 3E (and pluralize spell name) -- no change in price, just mage turn efficiency. (Changed from original 4 for 3E).

- Summon Ko-Oni: 5 for 4D => 10 for 4D

- Summon Ao-Oni: 5 for 7W => 10 for 7W

- Summon Aka-Oni: 5 for 7F => 10 for 7F

- Summon Oni: 5 for 8E => 10 for 8E

- Summon Kuro-Oni: 5 for 9D => 10 for 9D

Note that I did not attempt to review blood summons in this pass.

## Detailed notes on each choice above.

- Among non-sacred generic summons, everyone is talking about how Draconians are a super amazing deal. Draconians, including the chief freespawning for 10 turns, are something like 0.5A for a giant flyer with excellent siege strength and two attacks, and are extremely mage-turn efficient. It seems like perhaps their price wasn't adjusted when the second attack was added?

- Among national non-sacred summons, Anzu for 2W each is too cheap for one of the most powerful AOE damage units in the game, their dual breath weapons do so much damage that the main problem with massing them is killing each other with friendly fire. They didn't see much play in 5 due to the path difficulty in summoning them with its previous path requirement, but their new path requirement and summoning 2 at a time fixes that. I think the Dominions 5 era 4W each is appropriate.

OK, let's move on to sacred summons.

- God Brood being 2N per sacred gets you very powerful units and seems very much underpriced compared to other summoned elite sacreds (Demons of Heavenly Rivers are 3W each, Yazads and Daevas and Gandarvas are 2.5).

- The Rus bear summon at ~0.5N per sacred is too efficient. These high map mobility and siege strength, high HP, multiple high damage attack sacreds that are available with a very mage turn efficient spell at Conjuration 3 ... the end result is everyone playing in a game with Rus needs to be ready for 200 bears (including the cap-only recruitables) to rush them before turn 15.

- There's only a few sacred summons whose price is materially less than 1 per gem: Rus Bears at 15 for 8N at Conjuration 3 (~0.5N each), Bargests (14 for 7D at Conjuration 4), Cu Sidhe (10 for 5G at Conjuration 4), Jaguars (25 for 20N at Conjuration 3), Great Boars (20 for 15N at Conjuration 3). Of those, the Boars and Jaguars seem fairly priced; they are weak base units with a lot of vulnerabilities. But the others probably shouldn't remain dramatically cheaper than those units.

- Note: Tengus are one of the few other summons below that point, at 2/3 of a Tengu per gem. This is probably fine given the low mage turn efficiency of the spells and cross path requirements.

Price reduction notes:

- Wights at Conjuration 3 at 5 for 20D seem very expensive compared to Banes (only 2 more Death gems for a commander) and Fay Footfolk (60% of the price for a comparable magic weapon infantry; no cold aura but you avoid the negative undead tag).

- Kithaironic Lions seems like it'll rarely get cast at a 5N price; 25 invulnerability and physical resistances are cool, but it's 7x as much as a Leogryph, which has the same attacks. Summon Manticores is significantly more gem and mage turn efficient for a considerably stronger unit with the same cross path.

- Yetis seem very expensive compared with other unarmored humanoid giants.

- Cave Crabs cost twice as much as Scorpion Beasts, which are about as hard to summon and have much better abilities.

- Behemoths don't look to have had their price adjusted; given that a living elephant is 1.5N with the national spell, 7D for the unarmored undead one seems excessive.

- Summon Trolls, at 10 for 5E, seems too expensive, given the vulnerabilities and Forest Trolls being 1 gem each. 7-8 gems seems more appropriate.

- The Oni troop summons for Shinuyama/Jomon seem >50% too expensive to see use; unarmored, undisciplined infantry with a vulnerability (demon) and "causes unrest" seem hard to justify at over 1 gem each.

- Celestial Servants take too many mage turns to see use. Could be a bit cheaper given the awful stats and lack of armor.

- Crushers and Siege Golems seem mispriced, given the siege golems don't provide more siege strength than the much more portable Gate Cleaver, and Crushers aren't good at crushing; but I would prefer to see them and the Iron Dragon tweaked to be cooler (Higher MR for all 3, and better attacks for the two humanoid constructs) than a price change. So I didn't include them in this.

Thanks for reading!

I'll try to find time to do a Blood pass soon, but since that's a very different resource, it seems to me like a totally independent project, even if it would go into the same mod.

[boozermonkey]

Yeah. For an expansion that billed more emphasis on cheaper summons I have to say, it’s exceptionally underwhelming. I really don’t see much change from dom 5 in terms of preference for summons over regular national troops. Given they take mage turns and gems, they are hard to justify any more than they were in dom 5.

I’d say that the lower level summons should be at least twice as cheap per gem with more summons per ritual. Things like ogres should be maybe 20-30 per cast at a set price of gems.

[dfnskjl]

I completely disagree with the statement about how the base game should make everything suck and only mods are allowed to be fun. No, the base game should address overpriced summons more than the actually good ("""underpriced""") ones. Why are there so many lame people in this community who just really want everything in the game to suck? "Oh boy, this spell feels good to use! Guess it must be overpowered!!! You should actually feel terrible about spending any gems on anything, unless maybe it has been good for the past 15 years, then its fine, then its normal!" aaaaagh!

You understand that if there are more good options, then you have more counterplay against "200 (MR 8!!! animals) sacred bears on turn 15" or whatever else. If everything in the game sucks then the "balance" is way more volitile and every buff has a chance of making something too strong. Also why do the even worse non sacred bears with MR 5 and worse stats need to be nerfed "for consistency" when the only consistent thing about those spells is the initial amount summoned (15 vs 15+).

Anzus are conj 7 they better be good at that research level. I really don't see why jaguars are fine but the dogs are not, the dogs have only one attack compared to the jaguars two, and prot 6 with 26-28 HP is not going to last that much longer than prot 4 and 19 HP. Barghests are conj 4 so it should be a better spell than the other two. God Brood is a new spell so i guess it has to suck! You also can't just look at gem efficiency when spells come at different research levels, with different path reqs and summon different units!

More inclined to agree with this one but: Are you sure that Contact Draconians is better than 20 Air Elementals (same research level)? Or casting storm 10 times with your Air 3s, that you have because Contact Draconians requires Air 3. Maybe they are, but it does seem like the more greedy play than keeping gems on mages to cast Storm/Summon Air Elemental.

I mostly think buffs are fine. Though one thing I would like to say is that some spells, like Revive Wights, give you units that are very good for that research level (Conjuration 3). I think it is fine if there are early research spells that are inneficient or require very high paths but give you good things for that level. For Wights in particular I would like to see the spell get (bad?) scaling making it efficient to cast, when you first research it, for high Death pretenders/disciples and no one else, or alternatively having a better version that comes later in the research tree but not at Conjuration 9 like Legion of Wights. This could be an option for stuff like Cave Crabs and Behemoths as well.

[Bumc]

Honestly wights might be overcosted, but they are not feels bad overcosted.

For one button press you're getting 5 mean dudes with big swords ready to annihilate a problem monster. Or to be scripted to support a couple elemental casters or whatever conj-3 start gives for your nation in the first war.

[Demonsthenes]

My concern with specific units being unusually cheap is that they reduce choices; why summon Gryphons when you can get Draconians for 2/3 the price cheaper and get a flying commander who freespawns more Draconians as part of the deal? Whereas the choices end up interesting when there's trade-offs where your situation materially impacts which summon is better for you.

Even without the freespawn, a flying commander is worth several gems for most nations.

For Wights, I guess the Fay Footfolk do have some special requirements for summoning them, and that might argue for Wights being more expensive.

[boozermonkey]

The issue is summons just don’t make sense. There are a lot of them and pretty much nobody summons them and for good reason. The game is all about trade offs and summons just don’t make the cut with some exceptions already mentioned, and those are rediculous cheap for what you get. So, because there doesn’t seem to be much thought put into balancing the game against each summon then you end up in this situation.

Think about each level of conjuration and all the summons that never see the light of day, and there are quite a few - gelatinous cube, ogres, animals, banes, ants, mantis, and on and on. The high level summons are a community joke, like tarrasque. The drakes are one step below pathetic given their cost, undisciplined, and single summon without expensive gear, just like scorpions. Who would dedicate mages to single summons that kinda suck, or single summons at all for that matter except for commanders?

If I am going to dedicate mages to summon instead of research or combat support then it has to be worth it!

However, there are a few that see constant use - flame jelly, flame spirit, elemental kings and queens, faery queen, lamia queens, the githyanki. Troll king, and rarely, eagles. Go figure! Those are summons that pay for themselves such as opening up cross paths or having other unique abilities that keep on giving.

Each and every summon in conjuration needs to have a use and one worth the tradeoff.

Conjuration needs to be rethought as a magic path. I suggest going back to the drawing board with this path because it really does need to be overhauled and each level given a lot of careful thought.

[tech]

yeah, rus bears are actually not really good sacred, worse that elite infantry (i would trade bears for non-sacred upkeep-free berserker chuds for example), They can hold a line for a couple of turns or be used as evo bait and probably take regen bless/buffs well. There is 0 strats/blessed focused on using bears for rus. Their usage is very limited. Even marveni boars were better deal in dom5 (not played marveni in dom6, but assume that boars are still more of meme-strat).

[tech]

rus bears are pretty much same efficiency as cave grubs (10 for 5e, const 1). The ony thing going for them is sacred status. Otherwise no one would ever summon them, unless you want evo bait.

[stun]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

The drakes are one step below pathetic given their cost and single summon, just like scorpions.

Ice and swamp drakes are actually pretty good, especially because, like lictors, they aren't actually single summon.

[Andkat]

My understanding was that cube strategies did see some competitive usage; flying buffed cubes were employed in the tournie finals lucid's been casting for instance.

Also I mean, sacred status is not a small thing for a nation that naturally goes for a solid troop blessing anyway.

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by stun:

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

The drakes are one step below pathetic given their cost and single summon, just like scorpions.

Ice and swamp drakes are actually pretty good, especially because, like lictors, they aren't actually single summon.

Still undisciplined though and too expensive. They tend to kill your own troops and oftentimes don’t really do what you would want. Except for niche use, none of the drakes make sense.

[TheMeInTeam]

Originally posted by i'm wasted:

rus bears are pretty much same efficiency as cave grubs (10 for 5e, const 1). The ony thing going for them is sacred status. Otherwise no one would ever summon them, unless you want evo bait.

Non sacred version at that price tag would see use as early siege chaff and bait for sure. As for Rus version, they don't need that much from bless before they will start to matter in wars.

Too bad for Rus they don't get commanders that let them put undisciplined bears in formation. Sparse line attack rear flanks would be brutal given how many you can produce and how much space they take up...very hard to block a bunch of stuff gumming up the back ranks fairly quickly.

I've seen Rus players try to build bears into tanking with regen and such but I don't think it's worth. It's not that hard to hack past regen quickly through that prot. Instead sprinkle humans into their squares and kill the other stuff first IMO. Perhaps aided by the presence of hundreds of bears. I guess they could also be used similarly to Lucid's "get repelled" build, but they aren't at nearly the numbers that LA Ctis gets their undead guys :p.

[MCreeper]

What? What has changed? Rus was the rushest rush nation of them all, and bears pretty much doomed it's first target to die, unless, perhaps, it was Ubar, which is even more stupid on it's own turf.

[Demonsthenes]

Summon Bears got a 2x reduction in cost compared with Dominions 5; it used to be 7 for 8N, and it's now 15 for 8N; that change is what makes them pretty cancerous. Sample blesses involve Larger plus Blood Vengeance or Unbearable Splendor. So this mod would be reverting that partway to a 1.5x price reduction, still better than the 1.25x or so price reduction that Illwinter did on most sacred summon spells in the 5 to 6 transition.

And yeah I used Wyverns (a Drake) and cubes as a big part of my Lucid's tournament finals army compositions in Dominions 5; so certainly can't say they didn't get use. Cubes in particular are amazing at killing at buffed with Luck and combined with Demon Cleansing, their acid splash damage reflection will just delete Ozelotl and other demons with 0 length attacks.

The Drake spells were buffed in dominions 6 via the addition of a new Dragon Master crown at level 5 research; so if you have a G1E2 mage like the Bluecap, for example, you can be making 5 Cave Drakes per 4E cast late game (with an up front cost of 30G5E15F, so not a crap investment). So while maybe it would be better for them to be better in the early game, they seem competitive, especially with Army of Giants buffing the breath weapon attacks, and the magic damage on many of them being more often useful thanks to bless system changes.

To be concrete, I'm pretty sure Frost Drakes behind your child resistant giants or skellyspam will be a pretty good tactic on Niefel line nations.

[anaris]

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

gelatinous cube, ogres, animals, banes, ants, mantis, and on and on.

Cubes are niche but important. banes are really useful in the right situation too. I do use ogres and animals, but only bc there are mages who can't summon better bodies to block arrows or whatever. Do bear in mind that some stuff in the game is there for unusual situations.

I have tried using mantis as stealth raiders but not with much success

[boozermonkey]

Originally posted by anaris:

Originally posted by boozermonkey:

gelatinous cube, ogres, animals, banes, ants, mantis, and on and on.

Cubes are niche but important. banes are really useful in the right situation too. I do use ogres and animals, but only bc there are mages who can't summon better bodies to block arrows or whatever. Do bear in mind that some stuff in the game is there for unusual situations.

I have tried using mantis as stealth raiders but not with much success

Kinda my point.

A lot of these summons are pretty much useless except in rare niche cases where you try real hard to make them fit into a crazy strategy mostly just for entertainment purposes to see if you can make them work, or like you said, because your fat is in the fryer already and you need stooges to soak hits knowing full well that these are trash. You are just throwing gems at a problem hoping it works in that case along with all your gold spent in recruiting as many warm (or maybe not so warm) bodies as you can because you got nothin.

A lot of these trash summons can be made more relevant simply by increasing the number you get per summon. Go ahead and slightly increase the gem cost and that’s fine. The issue is you only have so many mages and their time comes at a premium.

I like what they did with the leogryphs. You now get 20 per ritual. They totally suck, but I’ll get um if I get 20 per cast just for that alone. They’ll die like flies to poop but they do what I need them to more effectively because I can throw a lot, and hey, sometimes they do manage to kill a slinger, which is more than I can say about summoned animals.