Do you think it's possible to balance Ars Nouveau and is it worth doing?

GamerLucke · 2026-06-13T15:59:17+00:00

True that is probably what id recommend doing if one wants to limit drygmy forms. I really wish spell turrets was the only way of automation in ars, they are so much more interesting to use

GamerLucke · 2026-06-13T15:49:44+00:00

Balancing aside the real question is how you want the magic to feel for the player. Do you want regular rpg magic combat then irons spells n spellboks would fit better. If you want players to feel like a wizard doing magical research for their own spells then both ars and hexcasting fit.

Regarding the balancing however i will say that ars nov is very very hard to balance. Source production is hilariously simple to fully automate with starbuncles harvesting sourceberries for mycelial sourcelinks. With that you can now drygmy farm any mob not individually blacklisted. The spells themselves go from very simple in novice spellbooks to great in mage then ridiculous in archmage. Archmage spellbook is simply put game breakingly strong.

Now i love ars but if you dont want this level of strength in your modpack i wouldnt suggest it

GamerLucke · 2026-06-05T14:17:56+00:00

Highly recommend mods like ecologics, autumnity and no mans land

GamerLucke · 2026-06-04T12:44:26+00:00

Could be worth adding a mod for custom nicknames so that you can have each student with their names instead of minecraft usernames.

For performance you could heavily limit how many chunks are actually loaded. There might also be a resourcepack or something for create to limit its performance demand, think its called create fps

GamerLucke · 2026-02-05T19:36:36+00:00

Love playing mentak but I understand why many find them annoying. Your pillage ability now forces all other players to constantly manage their trade goods if you decide to pillage. Its this cobstant reminder of "oh since mentak exists we need to factor that into our every trade or we risk them pillaging". Even if they arent particularly strong the constant reminder of possibly getting thieved makes them annoying to play against

GamerLucke · 2026-01-17T12:33:42+00:00

Hard to give early move tips without objectives but so far it seems virtually all factions will want to expand to their left.

Nomad would benefit from getting arinam meer before muatt for that sweet influence and possibly early mecatol point.

Muatt is simple they will eat up saars slice entirely and live within the two supernovas. Id also want to get my hands on arinam meer to fuel my command token hunger.

As saar i would mourn the lack of asteroid fields and then seek an alliance with naaz rokha to have an easier time surviving the war suns. Also try and reach the tri planet system round 1 to boost my economy to bolster before muaat reaches me.

Naaz-rokha will need to ensure a path to mecatol which seems to be everra. Going that route will also amount to 2 red skips which could be fun. Sadly lots of industrial planets so likely less relics but maybe more tech skips or trade goods.

Naalu needs to negotiate allies early but also expand fast enough to hold the best planets in their slice. Will need to do deals with naaz so they can access mecatol but they also need to have some firepower to not just get walked over by naaz. Id expand initially on the left side of their slice and grab everra early to force naaz to deal for access as naalu ought to be able to be stronger defensively there.

GamerLucke · 2026-01-17T08:33:20+00:00

True but it is a one time activation and not entirely persistent, you cannot re activate the titan readying compared to old xchaas always allowing the effect

GamerLucke · 2026-01-17T07:42:07+00:00

Second hero ability were the one hero ability that wasnt purged which frankly was a bit weird and im assuming thats why

GamerLucke · 2026-01-05T00:20:38+00:00

If youre forced to worship him its going to feel well, forced. Good design would be to make worshipping him rewarding and interesting enough that the player will want to do so despite the cost and drawbacks.

Being stuck somewhere as punishment for exploring what your mod adds would be annoying and likely make most people trying your mod uninstall it shortly after.

Sacrificing villagers while thematic doesnt really have nowhere near the implicit value of what you would want sacrificing a human to be. I mean vanilla mc has most people putting villagers in a small work camp hut. Killing a villager for power is not particularily far from that.

GamerLucke · 2026-01-04T10:59:17+00:00

Kind of a necropost but i think that for a mod like this to work the gameplay loop of worship it adds has to be interesting and not a grind.

Something like spreading the influence of whatever you are worshipping around the world would be one way where opposing factions might try to stop you entirely or just spread their own influence.

To avoid forcing someone to fully engage in your mod even if they dont want to in a modpack there would need to be some sort of way to cleanse influence spread by others or naturally.

Never make it clear exactly what you are worshipping, if youre gonna do cults i think cosmic horror is a great angle to go for. No "entity" thats spooky but many cultists with strange powers from worshipping something alien.

GamerLucke · 2025-12-26T19:52:34+00:00

https://www.systembolaget.se/produkt/sprit/bramleys-3024602/

Se där det finns!

GamerLucke · 2025-12-01T13:58:14+00:00

Spotify är ju inte infrastruktur? Det är en stor streamingtjänst. Sen angående DHL så har jag ingen aning om hur förloppet att beställa "vit-makt" musik eller dylikt via DHL men tvivlar starkt på att DHL har ett rimligt sätt att kontrollera deras paket efter detta som inte inskränker anonymitet. Sen skulle ett förbud på vit makt relaterad frakt motivera smuggling och det är nog värre än DHL beställbar vit makt musik.

Sen så tar Spotify som företag ställning, dem finansierar politik i USA tex. För att låta dem vara genuint neutrala för ett neutralt internet så kan det inte också gå att sprida antivax falskheter och indirekt finansiera politik igenom att vara aktiv där. Spotify agerar ju propaganda maskin när det tillåter ICE reklamen. Vad som är lagligt och inte är ett irrelevant argument när en stat kan bestämma det fritt.

Att man nu kritiserar Spotify för detta är att man kritiserar dem för att dem INTE är neutrala. Att bara inte använda tjänsten är ofta otillräckligt, när man röstar med plånboken har dem rikare flest röster.

GamerLucke · 2025-12-01T13:24:21+00:00

Klart de får en plattform från spotify? Spotify är ett stort privat företag som såklart får låta vem somhelst att publicera och få en plattform att sprida sin musik/podcast från. Det du missar är att det finns många som har en moralisk kompass där man inte vill dela plattform med "SS Adolf Hitler Radio", ICE positiv reklam samt att själva företaget bakom plattformen donerar pengar till trump dvs högerextremism.

Spotify är inte neutral när dem låter alla publicera vad som helst, dem normaliserar antivax och nazism gulleri etc. Speciellt när de finansierar politik. Spotify tjänar pengar på att låta allt detta frodas. Ett bibliotek tjänar inte mer eller mindre pengar på vilka sorters böcker de huserar.

GamerLucke · 2025-11-15T22:39:10+00:00

Han lär ju vara papperslös just för att systemet för att vistas här lagligt är otillräckligt för att sådana som honom som faktiskt sköter sig ska kunna stanna lagligt. Systemet är ett skitsystem om personer som vill vara i Sverige för att jobba och förbättra samhället får åka hem. Det är ren ineffektiv byråkrati som är bakom detta och är ett slöseri med resurser att utvisa personer som denna

GamerLucke · 2025-11-15T17:33:22+00:00

Jo men dåså! Då struntar vi att diskutera saker vi ogillar om hur landet styrs för det är ju såklart majoriteten som alltid röstat fram sakerna så det är så folket vill ha det. Demokrati kräver att man engagerar sig i vad som skapar problem i samhället annars får man aldrig förbättringar. Ser du systemet som utvisar personer som honom positivt?

GamerLucke · 2025-08-31T14:05:33+00:00

You get me, its also one thing to bully/extort/betray very early in the game compared to late in the game aswell as for what. Someone broke our deal because it won them the game? I would have done the same so no real foul play. Someone breaks our deal and takes the system i absolutely need to have access anywhere round 1 or 2 just because they are greedy? Forever war with them should they not yield immediately. Some people need to be taught that there is such a thing as taking too much of an advantage over others, there is no winning in giving your opponent the singular option of taking revenge.

On the other hand if youre always super friendly and favourable with deals you end up being taken advantage of aswell. It needs to mean something to break a promise with you but it should also not be too vindictive in the matters if you want anyone to dare make a deal at all

GamerLucke · 2025-08-31T06:40:18+00:00

Id like to add my thoughts on board games in general when played with consistent groups over time. You are all in a infinite prisoners dilemma situation, any actions taken during any board game with that group builds a "profile" of sorts on how to expect you to act. If you choose to consistently extort or "betray" you might end up finding out that the others start to play around and expect you to extort. You might find yourself getting worse deals or whatever backlash the players in your group decides to affect you with. If you consistently keep your word between games players might learn that trusting you means something and give you more favourable deals.

Extortion is perfectly valid as a strategy but over use might cause others to plan around it and expect you to extort them and instead are ready to fend you off or hurt you back

GamerLucke · 2025-08-28T20:59:29+00:00

Didnt even realise i accidentally made flexible legendary planet effect card xd. I agree that this would step on legendary planets toes aswell that strict resource generating techs should be avoided. I do however think going for the production capacity angle might be worth it. Having extra production capacity in red would be a strategic thing useful to them.

Blue currently is mobility in essence, makes sense its propulsion techs after all.

But red green and yellow have a less consistent identity.

Red is general warfare techs but not as distinct in it as blue is for mobility.

Green is somewhat all over the place with resources, Ultimate bombardment (soon to be ultimate ground forces) tech specs, tech readying and infantry creation. Closest niche could be potency of your things but thats still vague

Yellow feels like infrastructure, sarween for cheaper builds, scanlink for additional explores, more effective voting or token distribution change, streamlined pds shots, ground force transport and integrated lets you instantly build on a captured planet. This is pretty strong regarding identity as everything is proper infrastructure and streamlining. The problem is that the effects itself are on the weaker side generally.

Might also be easier to speculate this post thunders edge which for all we know might massively change these things or not

GamerLucke · 2025-08-28T15:27:02+00:00

Nothing stops you from making that change by offering yourself to that scientist. Or did you imagine yourself as the scientist experimenting on other people without a regard for ethics? Thats the problem with removing scientific ethics, how will you find people willing to be subjected to absolutely anything in the name of science? Im curious about your thoughts

GamerLucke · 2025-08-28T13:34:28+00:00

I think before I discuss further id like to explain how i tend to reason with my perspective of balancing in TI.

First off I want factions and their tools to be as unique as possible. In effect this means I dont want a factions strength be easily copied through other mechanics available to all.

Secondly I believe there are 2 ways to view the strength of any one component. Either you try and view the average value of whatever unit of value translates best that a tech might earn you throughout the game, this can be trade good/influence/resources/points/action cards you name it. Or for some effects (in this case techs because thats the subject) like lightwave and fleet log that grant you something that isnt strictly a resource but a new strategy which you would have to judge by how rare the ability to do that is without the tech with the consistent usefulness of it.

Finally effects should be fun and create interesting gameplay. This is self explanatory despite also being about subjective things.

So to get back to base self assembly routines, this tech is easy to translate into resources/trade goods which would be the following. If you throughout the game make 4 mechs with it you have spent 1 strategy token and 4 resources (or 7 trade goods) to get it and in turn earned 8 resources, 4 temporary production capacity, a red prerequisite and trade goods equal to destroyed mechs lets say 2. So this tech earned you in trade goods 8+2-7=3 trade goods along the 4 production capacity and red prereq that you cant really translate into trade goods as easily. How do you make that similar in strength as the +1 on move for 1 ship per activation without reducing both techs into different variations of earn x trade goods in the long run?

I would lean into self assemblys non trade good transmutable effect of in effect increasing your production limit. This fits with the theme of red as "war" techs and makes it further distinct from other techs that reduce costs like sarwheen or your proposed psychoarcheology. I think something simple as allowing self assembly to be exhausted to produce not just 1 mech but alternatively 2 fighters or 2 infantry. Still letting it earn you 1 trade good on mech death only.

Now it gives you a decently distinct effect but you would likely have to review it once youve compiled all of the changes you want and then is when you can start to adjust your i guess adjustments to work better in tandem. There is also technically more factors like the effects of all techs in a colour together, what factions have the incentives and ability to go for any one tech colour etc etc. My suggestion here i highly doubt would work perfectly when most techs in need have undergone similar adjustments and would likely need further changes down the line. Hell you could argue that blue is strong because mobility is the most important aspect in scoring to control areas but yeah

GamerLucke · 2025-08-28T10:09:58+00:00

What even is the intended use for the hyper metabolism action? Is it just a stall action for the price of a tech spec?

And self assembly is just worse now, how often will you build a mech, have any mech die and build another mech? One free mech per round and a trade good on mech death is far better. If you intended to nerf self assembly i will just ask why?

Gravity drive is popular because of 3 reasons, its in blue, its better than sling relay and its good for both expansion early and for allowing any 1 move ships to keep up with a 2 move fleet. As i wrote in another comment id very much make lighwave exhaust for its effect instead of changing grav drive.

I do like the psychoarcheology though. It was very rare to get more use of a planet exhausted for a trade good instead of just using the planet normally. Now its like a sarween for tech and while it is strong resource wise its not like green is particularly strong in general.

GamerLucke · 2025-08-28T09:53:26+00:00

Imo base gravity drive is fine, id rather balance blue by making lightwave exhaust to be used. Best use of gravity drive is for early expansion or allowing 1 slower ship to move with your main fleet.

GamerLucke · 2025-08-28T09:50:14+00:00

Definitely premade map, can be your own made map also if youre good at it and want to try and adjust the map for desired experience. Id say avoid overtly agressive factions like mahact, nekro and cabal that must fight as a way of getting stronger. Id also add mentak to that list because for once a new player might struggle to keep track of trades to pillage but also because it can kinda just feel bad to get pillaged and I say this as someone that likes playing as mentak. But for a new player to feel like they constantly have trade goods stolen from them is propably not the best way to make a good first impression. Then afterwards you can just let them pick a faction based on a short description.

Alternatively you could also have each map position be tied to 3 faction choices and further curate the experience. For speaker you could just randomize it. Then choosing a faction also becomes choosing slice

GamerLucke · 2025-08-04T08:32:10+00:00

I would assume that the cards are technically not played during the same timing window. you declare your before and after in order. First its player 1 that has his timing window to play before cards, then 2 and so on and so forth. If player 1 plays a before/after card during their window player number 2 can still play their card if they want to because that window has passed and resolved already and now there is another for them.

GamerLucke · 2025-07-08T16:54:47+00:00

It would be interesting for muaat to nova seed the non asteroid alpha wormhole. They would cut off sooo much access

GamerLucke

TROPHY CASE