As we are getting an increasing number units/buildings/abilities we have to balance them very well. Up to now we tried, when creating new objects to balance them from the beginning.
But often through interaction of per se balanced parts, major unbalances can be created. For this reason i thought we might wan't to collect all those probably unbalaced things that we find during playing at one place.

I did not want to start that thread within the gameplay discussion for each version, as these threads mostly deal with errors or simple to solve problems. Otherwise its not about new features either...

So here is the first problem that i think should be discussed and possibly adressed:
With the introduction of conjurers a weapon is created that allows unlimited attackabilities without risking the loss of an unit. As we do not have defensive summonings i think we have a problem here. Meaning whoever attacks gets an huge advantage in the game.
For this reason I believe that we should try to strenghten the defending side. One possibility that comes to mind is of course enhancing the cultural defense modifier for cities with the second or higher expansion. A second one would be a defensive building that gives +xx% against summoned units.

Of course, if the AI knows not only to use the spells, but to move their Spellcasters to the best location to use them, it might solve parts of the problem, but nevertheless there is no efficent way to defend agains a stack of summoners combined with at least a small number of descent units protecting them. (I don't know how far talchas looked into that/implemented it so this might really already be an obolete comment - i myself would introduce three new UnitAIs for the spellcasters (Mage-Worker, Mage-Counter, Mage-Cityattack). But i have not looked into detail how easily those AIs could be assigned on the fly and how complex introducing them/or similar ones really would be.)

I like the 2nd option. A promotion/defensive bonus against summoned units would be better than a blanket defensive modifier for the entire city.

I actually like both, because an enhanced city defense would bring the - at the moment quite obsolete - catapults back.

In general I want attacking to be prefered, it keeps players from turtling up and creating stagnant games. But summoning could definitly use some balancing.

I'll brainstorm a few ways we could deal with this, we can pick and choose what we think is best:

1. We could decrease the strength of summoned units.

2. We could even out the amount of xp gained for attacking and defending (vanilla civ gives double the xp for attacking and we havent changed that to this point).

3. We could make the marksman ability learnable by recon units and require combat 3 or some such (Marksman is the best anti-mage ability in the game).

4. We could have summons stick around for an extra turn if they havent attacked.

5. Increase the production cost of conjurers.

6. We could add a spell which keeps spellcasters form being able to cast next turn (Feeblemind? Power Drain?)

7. Wonders like Lokis Soul Forge that adds production to the city whenever a unit is killed within 1 tile.

I actually like both, because an enhanced city defense would bring the - at the moment quite obsolete - catapults back.

They need a higher pow. I love them, but they are worthless at their current strength. Make them cheaper and more powerful.

In general I want attacking to be prefered, it keeps players from turtling up and creating stagnant games. But summoning could definitly use some balancing.

Attaking should of course be Stronger at all but ususally it is the player who is doing the major aggresive warmongering, with well coordinated Mages. And the attacker usually brings a big force, whereas the defender has to split in most cases (especially the AI does often split).


2. We could even out the amount of xp gained for attacking and defending (vanilla civ gives double the xp for attacking and we havent changed that to this point).

I don't like that to much, as ususally its a good strategy to begin a war with fortifying some of your units on a forested hill within the enemys territory, to let the AIs Counter Units kill themselves. This strategy would be pronounced by giving additional XPs. But how about introducing a chance to deal out a Anti Magic(SUmmoned) Promotion to guys that survived an attack by an Summoned Creature.


3. We could make the marksman ability learnable by recon units and require combat 3 or some such (Marksman is the best anti-mage ability in the game).


I like that one. Should require Combat 3 or 4 through.


4. We could have summons stick around for an extra turn if they havent attacked.


A good idea, too summoned Defenders. When doing this we have to tell the AI that those guys are no high priority target, through.


5. Increase the production cost of conjurers.

As they are upgrade anyway i don't think that would solve something.


6. We could add a spell which keeps spellcasters form being able to cast next turn (Feeblemind? Power Drain?)

Will not turn the tide, but its a good idea anyway to add such a spell.

One more Idea: How about reducing the terrain defence modifier, maybe by 50% or even skipping it completly (that will make the code simpler), when you are attacking within your own land? Its your Land you know where the waek spots are... So no more, i fortify in that forest next to his city, wait until he has suicided most of his troops and attack afterward. (Thats what i usually do, and then sending summoned beasts at him).

They need a higher pow. I love them, but they are worthless at their current strength. Make them cheaper and more powerful.

We have 5 main variables to play with on catapults:

1. Combat Strength (3)
2. Withdrawal Chance (25)
3. Collaterral damage max- max damage it can inflict (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets- max units it can hit with collaterral damage (6)
5. Bombard Rate- how much defence it removes from a city (15)

We have 4 flavors of catapults to play with, the standard, Doviello (Skull Catapult), Clan of Embers (Pitch Wagon), Balseraph and the Dwarven. So we can tweak them differently if we want.

He could make catapults into withdrawal units, it would easily mimic the strike from afar nature of civ3's catapults. we could leave a minor chance in that the catapult is lost in the attack as follows:

Standard:
1. Combat Strength (3)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (15)

Doviello:
1. Combat Strength (5)
2. Withdrawal Chance (70)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (8)
5. Bombard Rate (25)

Clan of Embers:
1. Combat Strength (5)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (40)
4. Collaterral damage targets (8)
5. Bombard Rate (15)

Dwarven:
1. Combat Strength (4)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (60)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (25)

Balseraph:
1. Combat Strength (3)
2. Withdrawal Chance (90)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (15)

I haven't used them since Vanilla, but from memory the biggest problem is that they simply cost too much to throw away on a single kamikaze rush into a city, that they always lose anyway.

Looking at your numbers it looks like you've tweaked how they work, which is good. Now they withdrawal way more often and damage a lot of units (if I'm reading it correctly). But, they still must get severely damaged in order to withdrawal, yes? That limits how useful they are next turn, but that's a core issue I think.

I need to play a game long enough to construct one (without CTDs). Right now I never get the Siege Workshop built.

Catapults have two uses:
1. Bombard the City to remove the Defense Modifier
2. Weaken a Stack of enemy units so that they are more easy to kill (including in citys)

ad 2) is unneeded in FfH as this is where Summoned creatures and Spells are good for. I think we do not need to improve the Catapults ability therefor.
ad 1) is unneeded as you can send in so many creatures that you do no longer need to bombard a city. A change here will make catapult worth building.

So i would still prefer incresing the cultural defense value of the citys. then you would need to bring catapults. You would not really strengthen the defender in numbers of combatchance (as the defense can be bombarded, and the AI understands how to do this well) but you will give the defender one more turn, where the attacker has to bring his catapults. And catapults will again be worth building.

So i actually would even reduce the collateral damage of catapults (or completely take away - then the AI won't suicide them anymore) and make end to those suicide catapults (that's where spells are for). Maybe leave it only for the firecatapults.

Edit: Oh and about the colatteral attack on enemys: If we want to keep this why not solve it via the Spell-mechanism. Than its exactly like in Civ3 - (but i think the bombarding could be enough to make a catapult worth building)?

In traditional RPG-games, one weakness to using summoned creatures usually is that these summons are dependant on their summoner to exist, and disappears when he dies. This can probably not be transferred to FFH-mechanics, as no-one would attack with a summoner, and a defending summoner has no summon to lose anyway.
Another weakness, however, is that there are often certain ways to deal with summoned creatures included in the games, often entailing spells and abilities that can dismiss or unsummon such creatures. This could not be included as conventional spells, as hostile summons usually only exists in the opponents turn, but perhaps a certain city improvement - The Circle of Banishment - would grant a chance that an attacking summoned unit would be banished to oblivion, disappearing immediately. The Circle might also produce unhealthiness, due to the frequent connections made with Oblivion, to make it really suitable only if you were being specifically threatened by someone abusing summoners. The Circle should be visible on the map, so a player will be forewarned about the risk involved in attacking with summons.

A possible counter against The Circle of Banishment could be a new spell from the dimensional school: Dimensional Barrier - Oblivion Gates and Circles of Banishment in target city ceases to function for 1 turn. No units can be gated to target city for 1 turn.

Catapults have two uses:
1. Bombard the City to remove the Defense Modifier
2. Weaken a Stack of enemy units so that they are more easy to kill (including in citys)

ad 2) is unneeded in FfH as this is where Summoned creatures and Spells are good for. I think we do not need to improve the Catapults ability therefor.
ad 1) is unneeded as you can send in so many creatures that you do no longer need to bombard a city. A change here will make catapult worth building.

So i would still prefer incresing the cultural defense value of the citys. then you would need to bring catapults. You would not really strengthen the defender in numbers of combatchance (as the defense can be bombarded, and the AI understands how to do this well) but you will give the defender one more turn, where the attacker has to bring his catapults. And catapults will again be worth building.

So i actually would even reduce the collateral damage of catapults (or completely take away - then the AI won't suicide them anymore) and make end to those suicide catapults (that's where spells are for). Maybe leave it only for the firecatapults.

Edit: Oh and about the colatteral attack on enemys: If we want to keep this why not solve it via the Spell-mechanism. Than its exactly like in Civ3 - (but i think the bombarding could be enough to make a catapult worth building)?

Catapults are much more valuable in Phase 2 because most players won't have fireballs as they do today, so they become the defacto collateral damage for non-fire mana players. Which makes it all the more important that we fix them.

Since I never want catapults to have a range greater than 1 its easier to just give them a withdrawal chance (even it thats 100%) then to give them a special ability.

I have no problem boosting the culture defence. That is going to make the culture heavy civs (Elohim, Balseraph) more defensive, which is okay.

I think we need a natural summoned creature counter. When wouldn't you want to use summoned creatures?

A possible counter against The Circle of Banishment could be a new spell from the dimensional school: Dimensional Barrier - Oblivion Gates and Circles of Banishment in target city ceases to function for 1 turn. No units can be gated to target city for 1 turn.
The Idea of the anti Summoning building, i like very much (as i even have proposend something similar, but not so well explained). Such a building could force the player in the endgame back to some more mundan means, and therefore (it greatly alters the way in which wars will progress) it has my full support.

But the problem the spell has the following major flaw: To have it is deciding for later wars: So the Human Player will promote one of his mages/archmages to this spell for sure if the enemy has this circle of banishment - and wont be hindered by ist, the AI most probably won't do.

But the problem the spell has the following major flaw: To have it is deciding for later wars: So the Human Player will promote one of his mages/archmages to this spell for sure if the enemy has this circle of banishment - and wont be hindered by ist, the AI most probably won't do.

Yes, I've also thought a bit of this possibility. My concern, and argument for introducing the spell, was that the anti-summoning building as a stand-alone feature would limit civilizations relying on summoning too much, but that would of course depend on the odds of banishment. Perhaps casting the spell would have a catch, such as causing the caster to disappear for 5 turns(connection to the other planes can only be severed from the other side?), while the effect still lasted only for 1.

Catapults are much more valuable in Phase 2 because most players won't have fireballs as they do today, so they become the defacto collateral damage for non-fire mana players. Which makes it all the more important that we fix them.

I have no problem boosting the culture defence. That is going to make the culture heavy civs (Elohim, Balseraph) more defensive, which is okay.


Thats not entirely true as you do not need colatteral damage any more. You can send in some summoned creatures and it works as well, as they wear the defender down quite good. Thats why increasing cultural defenses will further add to the use of catapults, as then sending in summoned creatures will not work until the defenses are bombed down.


Since I never want catapults to have a range greater than 1 its easier to just give them a withdrawal chance (even it thats 100%) then to give them a special ability.
You are of course right with this one. So retreat chances of up to 40 it should be. You can promote them to times on retreation can't you? And the final chance should not be higher then 90% i think. If you cant promote them on withdrawal up to 90% is good for me.

I think we need a natural summoned creature counter. When wouldn't you want to use summoned creatures?

I can not think of any situation when i would not like to use them, except when the enemy gets a big advantage when he kills them (10XP or something) or when they cost gold in summoning (so that you have to think before stupidly sending them in every turn.) SO Maybe making summoning cost 5-25 coins (you know some candles, the summoning grimore, incenses...) will solve all problems based on summoners?

Based on this thread I've gathered the following ideas for changes:

1. Allow the marskman promotion to be learned by recon and archer units with combat 4 as a counter to arcane units.

2. Increase the Cultural Defence of cities by 25%

[tab]None 0 -> 0
[tab]Poor 0 -> 0
[tab]Fledgling 20 -> 25
[tab]Developing 40 -> 50
[tab]Refined 60 -> 75
[tab]Influential 80 -> 100
[tab]Legendary 100 -> 125

3. Decrease the attack strength of rank 2 summons. Rank 3 will remain high because Summoners are national units and don't stack as well.

4. Increase the withdrawal chance of catapults and look to make them generally better (especially for certain civs).

5. Provide a building that allows a city to resist summons. Magic Resistant Trait leaders will get an additional bonus to this effect.

What do you guys think?

Looks good to me. Now to playtest the changes. ;)

I must be the only one who thought that defense was still quite a bit higher than in vanilla. High level flurries or marksmen with garrison III in cities with a high priest and infirmary are almost invincible, healing all damage between turns, even from mass summons attacks, and usually taking no damage. Cultural defense is irrelevant, since any decent seige will eliminate that first.

I must be the only one who thought that defense was still quite a bit higher than in vanilla. High level flurries or marksmen with garrison III in cities with a high priest and infirmary are almost invincible, healing all damage between turns, even from mass summons attacks, and usually taking no damage. Cultural defense is irrelevant, since any decent seige will eliminate that first.

I think Chalids point was that cultural defence was irrelevant even if they didnt lay in a decent siege. Im okay with the defence being mitigated by a good siege, but i do want to reward players that siege.

The real problem, of course, is that the AI does not use summoned units correctly- that is, it is loathe to suicide them en masse as a good player would do to weaken the enemy. It uses them as it would any other unit. This affects player defense as well- the enemy army is usually already weakened before they've touched a single one of my units.

Perhaps there is some way to trick the AI into thinking that a summoned unit has a really high strength-say 200-so that it will always use them to attack and weaken enemy units, without actually making them stronger.

This would stop the AI from holding back weaker fireballs and other such units that would be best suicided against any and all targets.

I agree with the idea to add a building that adds defense against summons though, it only makes sense to have such defenses evolve in a magical battlefeild.

Of course, if the AI knows not only to use the spells, but to move their Spellcasters to the best location to use them, it might solve parts of the problem, but nevertheless there is no efficent way to defend agains a stack of summoners combined with at least a small number of descent units protecting them. (I don't know how far talchas looked into that/implemented it so this might really already be an obolete comment - i myself would introduce three new UnitAIs for the spellcasters (Mage-Worker, Mage-Counter, Mage-Cityattack). But i have not looked into detail how easily those AIs could be assigned on the fly and how complex introducing them/or similar ones really would be.)
Unfortunately, the AI currently doesn't realize spellcasters are any different from any other unit except right before it decides to attack, or if it decides to cast at the end of AI update. I should probably add new UnitAIs (and probably then weight different spells (+ therefore promotions) for different unitais) that embody a unit that needs to be near the front lines, but protected. I haven't mostly because it would be a pain (especially having the AI defend them well).

We have 5 main variables to play with on catapults:

1. Combat Strength (3)
2. Withdrawal Chance (25)
3. Collaterral damage max- max damage it can inflict (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets- max units it can hit with collaterral damage (6)
5. Bombard Rate- how much defence it removes from a city (15)

Standard:
1. Combat Strength (3)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (15)

Basic so i haven't changed anything.

Doviello:
1. Combat Strength (6)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (100)
4. Collaterral damage targets (3)
5. Bombard Rate (10)

My idea of this is a catapult that is really powerful but can only kill a few enemies at once. Also low bombard rate.

Clan of Embers:
1. Combat Strength (5)
2. Withdrawal Chance (50)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (10)
5. Bombard Rate (10)

I think of these guys as suicide catapults. Just 50% withdrawal. High strength and able to hit many at once but able to take away more than half of their hp. Low bombard rate, but attacking normally reduces city's defense by 30.

Dwarven:
1. Combat Strength (5)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (70)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (25)

Just uber catapults. Those dwarves.

Balseraph:
1. Combat Strength (2)
2. Withdrawal Chance (95)
3. Collaterral damage max (90)
4. Collaterral damage targets (15)
5. Bombard Rate (20)

I think of these guys as an evil carnival that fires evil spirits at the city. Low strength but very high withdrawal and can hit an entire city at once. Can't kill enemies totally but can reduce much of their hp. Medium Bombard rate. In a word--Pesky.

Standard:
1. Combat Strength (3)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (15)

Basic so i haven't changed anything.

Doviello:
1. Combat Strength (6)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (100)
4. Collaterral damage targets (3)
5. Bombard Rate (10)

My idea of this is a catapult that is really powerful but can only kill a few enemies at once. Also low bombard rate.

Clan of Embers:
1. Combat Strength (5)
2. Withdrawal Chance (50)
3. Collaterral damage max (50)
4. Collaterral damage targets (10)
5. Bombard Rate (10)

I think of these guys as suicide catapults. Just 50% withdrawal. High strength and able to hit many at once but able to take away more than half of their hp. Low bombard rate, but attacking normally reduces city's defense by 30.

Dwarven:
1. Combat Strength (5)
2. Withdrawal Chance (80)
3. Collaterral damage max (70)
4. Collaterral damage targets (6)
5. Bombard Rate (25)

Just uber catapults. Those dwarves.

Balseraph:
1. Combat Strength (2)
2. Withdrawal Chance (95)
3. Collaterral damage max (90)
4. Collaterral damage targets (15)
5. Bombard Rate (20)

I think of these guys as an evil carnival that fires evil spirits at the city. Low strength but very high withdrawal and can hit an entire city at once. Can't kill enemies totally but can reduce much of their hp. Medium Bombard rate. In a word--Pesky.

I agree with you. cept the Balseraph dont fire evil spirits at cities, they fire cows. Im adding the following as the strategy tag for the Dwarven catapult: "Just uber catapults. Those dwarves." - Loki

I agree with you. cept the Balseraph dont fire evil spirits at cities, they fire cows. Im adding the following as the strategy tag for the Dwarven catapult: "Just uber catapults. Those dwarves." - Loki

;)

Are you serious about the Balseraphs? If so that's quite cool but I'm not sure how to modify the catapult to reflect that unless we give them the Bovine sphere spells.

;)

Are you serious about the Balseraphs? If so that's quite cool but I'm not sure how to modify the catapult to reflect that unless we give them the Bovine sphere spells.

yeap, thank Chalid. He sent me a catapult that fires cows. Its awesome! It doesnt moo or say 'fetcha la vue' (or whatever the line is) yet though, we gotta get that in.

yeap, thank Chalid. He sent me a catapult that fires cows. Its awesome! It doesnt moo or say 'fetcha la vue' (or whatever the line is) yet though, we gotta get that in.

Its fechez le vacez or something and that is awesome.

Based on this thread I've gathered the following ideas for changes:

1. Allow the marskman promotion to be learned by recon and archer units with combat 4 as a counter to arcane units.

2. Increase the Cultural Defence of cities by 25%

*****None 0 -> 0
*****Poor 0 -> 0
*****Fledgling 20 -> 25
*****Developing 40 -> 50
*****Refined 60 -> 75
*****Influential 80 -> 100
*****Legendary 100 -> 125

3. Decrease the attack strength of rank 2 summons. Rank 3 will remain high because Summoners are national units and don't stack as well.

4. Increase the withdrawal chance of catapults and look to make them generally better (especially for certain civs).

5. Provide a building that allows a city to resist summons. Magic Resistant Trait leaders will get an additional bonus to this effect.

What do you guys think?

Chalid, I never heard your impressions of this. What do you think?

Did i not reply?:confused:

I like the changes, maybe even increase the kultural defense even more above level 3 (so that established cities need the siege even more)! - Oh what do you think about changing the bombard of catapults from relative bombart to absolute? So that a city with defense 15 can be bombarded with one attack while a city with defense 120 will need 8 attacks (at bombard power 15). right know both need 6 attacks to be down to zero.
But the final balancing (as well as for the defence as for the strenght of units an catapults) will of course need to be a result of gameplay experience. So i think we should try and decide afterwards what is an improvement and what isn't


Additionaly we could create an unsummoner (+50% vs summoned units or something with the new anti promotion promotions as soon as they are provided by me and in. Btw i will post the code as soon as we have a running FfH110e and I have made sure that they will integrate without problems)

I love this marching idea of that guy. I think it would make the city defending AI much stronger as it can - with this change - really intercept attacking forces without suiciding all its counterunits.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169621

I found a strategy that I think needs some rebalancing. I was playing on Monarch as Hippus with the aggressive and raider personality. In the early-mid game I built up an army of 14 raiders. They have 4 movement and 4 attack plus with the aggresive trait they have commando so they can use enemy roads. And with the raider trait when I raided cottages, hamlets, villages, and towns I got massive amounts of money.

The strategy that is unbalanced is when I sent them all out to attack the weak civ to my north I could raid almost all of their cottage-type improvements next to their capital in 1 turn. This got me nearly 500 gold in just one turn, by just raiding the hamlets and villages and towns by one capitol city. After about 4 turns I had gone through their whole empire raizing all of their cottage improvements getting me around 1000 gold. I repeated this with many other civs.

It was a really fun game because I didnt even have to take any cities I just went around raiding all improvements and taking workers in the feilds gaining tons of money. But it was really unbalanced.

One thing that you could try to do to balance it is lower the Raiders movement points to 2 or 3.

I found a strategy that I think needs some rebalancing. I was playing on Monarch as Hippus with the aggressive and raider personality. In the early-mid game I built up an army of 14 raiders. They have 4 movement and 4 attack plus with the aggresive trait they have commando so they can use enemy roads. And with the raider trait when I raided cottages, hamlets, villages, and towns I got massive amounts of money.

The strategy that is unbalanced is when I sent them all out to attack the weak civ to my north I could raid almost all of their cottage-type improvements next to their capital in 1 turn. This got me nearly 500 gold in just one turn, by just raiding the hamlets and villages and towns by one capitol city. After about 4 turns I had gone through their whole empire raizing all of their cottage improvements getting me around 1000 gold. I repeated this with many other civs.

It was a really fun game because I didnt even have to take any cities I just went around raiding all improvements and taking workers in the feilds gaining tons of money. But it was really unbalanced.

One thing that you could try to do to balance it is lower the Raiders movement points to 2 or 3.

Yeah, im pretty sure the raider will come a little later in the new tech tree than it comes now and the raider promotion will give double the gold instead of 3 times the gold.

If that isnt enough we may increase the raider cost too, I really dont want to take away the 4/4 horse unit.

Kael i've written something about that in the "Things i need feedback on" thread. It got lost under the 5000th post of woodelf congratulations. Maybe you want to check my considerations.

I think we need to keep the 4/4 as well, but the pillaging can be toned down a bit. The AI does pillage with stacks quite well I've found. :)

Thats from the other thread from me:

Here i have something concerning the raider ability. I think its free commando is to strong especially for horses. A raider(commando) can move 8 tiles in enemy territory, 12 after engeneering. Thats jut insane!

Giving a free mobility I or another special raider mobility promotion to horses (for foot troops commando is evil but still ok) seems much more balanced (and of course hiding a army of horses from enemy patrols - thats how i imagine commando, guys sneaking through the woods whenever somethingis near them on the road - seems not very likely).

Thats from the otehr thread from me:

This is where forts would be nice. The commando option is cool, but at least with checkpoints or forts you could control it from happening to you. I agree with the stuff in the "other" thread.

Why not have them start with the '-1 terrain movement cost' promotion instead of commando?

I still think that siege weapons as a unit that is built in cities should be discarded in favor of a 'summoned' siege weapon. It's just too tedious building hordes of catapults and dragging them all over creation and then losing most of them to "softening" attacks.

I miss the old bombard abilities from civ 3. That was a solid system.

Also, while im on the subject of Siege Engineers as a unit type, (yeah this part of the post should be in the unit design post) why not also give them a promotion to build forts outside of city borders. Possibly even lookout towers too?

I think that Lichs are to powerful - they effectly double your archmage count so it becomes stupid not to max them out every game... Maybe it would be more ballanced if you are limited to a total amount of 3 for archmages and liches.

Maybe lichs should also switch the "You use Death Magic" Attribute Modifier..

I still think that siege weapons as a unit that is built in cities should be discarded in favor of a 'summoned' siege weapon. It's just too tedious building hordes of catapults and dragging them all over creation and then losing most of them to "softening" attacks.

I miss the old bombard abilities from civ 3. That was a solid system.



I disagree. The catapult is a much needed unit. One problem we currently have is the fact that the AI is not building any right now.

Also, specialized unit like catapult should be cheaper than versatile unit like mages. Mage are currently overpowered IMO since the human player uses the magic system way better than the AI.

Removing catapult all together would not improve anything. It would probably have the opposite effect.

Also, moving catapult around isn't more tedious than moving a stack of mages. Mages can have the +1 movement promotion and you can cast haste on them, making them extremelly mobile. Another reason why mages are very effective units right now.

The Nexus semms undercosted (costs the same as 2 obsidian gates but in my current game it granted over 20). I would suggest dynamic cost depending on your number of cities (if it is possible) and make it work like a spell (as genesis) so newly conquered cities don't get a gate.

I suppose this is the place to comment on the Luchuirp and a balance issue with them. I feel the wood golem and sculptors studio should be avilable at the bronze working level.

The reason for this is that because the unit cannot gain experience, it is really no better than a basic axeman with 2 promotions, which is very easy to get via training yard/apprenticeship/conquest. At present it requires that the player research construction to develop what is, ultimately, an inferior unit to the one that everyone else is building with bronze working.

Yes, i realize it does not require copper, but this hardly feels like a handicap with the prevalance of it on most maps. It also leaves them stuck with warriors for a very long time in the early game, resulting in no real offensive options.

I suppose this is the place to comment on the Luchuirp and a balance issue with them. I feel the wood golem and sculptors studio should be avilable at the bronze working level.

The reason for this is that because the unit cannot gain experience, it is really no better than a basic axeman with 2 promotions, which is very easy to get via training yard/apprenticeship/conquest. At present it requires that the player research construction to develop what is, ultimately, an inferior unit to the one that everyone else is building with bronze working.

Yes, i realize it does not require copper, but this hardly feels like a handicap with the prevalance of it on most maps. It also leaves them stuck with warriors for a very long time in the early game, resulting in no real offensive options.

Construction is equal to bronze working in the new tech tree. The wood golem is iCombat 6 and an Axeman with 2 combat promotions is 5.6. Plus the Luchuirp can make Barnaxus (in 0.13) at construction and he can grant combat promotions to all golems in the owning empire.

So I'll be interested to hear what you think after 0.13. But I think we have addressed these issues.

Construction is equal to bronze working in the new tech tree. The wood golem is iCombat 6 and an Axeman with 2 combat promotions is 5.6. Plus the Luchuirp can make Barnaxus (in 0.13) at construction and he can grant combat promotions to all golems in the owning empire.

So I'll be interested to hear what you think after 0.13. But I think we have addressed these issues.


oooh... glad to hear this.... now I'm jiggling in my seat in anticipation of getting my hands on 0.13.....

Better late than never, but what about a massive boost to XP for killing a summoned unit? This would make attacking with summons with risky since if you don't succeed all those units in the city will now get a lot of promotions.

In my opinion dragons should be immun to diseases (don't know if this is the right tread to suggest this...)