Abashi/Eurabatres + Flesh Golem + Life III results in absurdly powerful flesh golems... as in 30+ base strength.

Keep adding the dragon to the golem and resurrecting until the golem reaches the same strength as the dragon, then add in a warrior (Bronze), a longbowman (Iron, Flaming Arrows), Chariot (Mithril, possibly Nightmare), and Recon (Poisoned Blade).

That's 21 base strength (Abashi), +7 for weapons upgrades, +1 fire, +1 poison for 30 base strength. Then, if you've got Nightmares and Sheut stones that's another +1 and +1 Death, then toss in a mutant with Strong for another +1. That's 33 base strength, which is higher than every other unit in the game. Using Eurabatres for the basis of your dragon golem results in one that's even stronger.

What I'm saying is... Resurrection is WAY overpowered right now, since it costs nothing to cast. Perhaps it should cost the Life III promotion so you can't repeat it quite so often?

Doing it as the Calabim might take a bit of work but an army of immortal fleshies would be fun.

That sounds like a godlike unit or something, I wonder if it's possible to merge the avatars like Meshabber or Mithril Golem into the Flesh golem?

If the borg were in the game, they would definetly be flesh golems, with thier ability to assimilate things.

That sounds like a godlike unit or something, I wonder if it's possible to merge the avatars like Meshabber or Mithril Golem into the Flesh golem?

If the borg were in the game, they would definetly be flesh golems, with thier ability to assimilate things.
Meshabber is a Demon and the Mithril Golem is a well, golem, so they can't be added in due to not being alive.

And yes, they are insanely godlike. I had a pair built on Abashi, each at 33 strength (as described above), Combat V, Empower V (from Tigers), Flanking III, Mobility II, Waterwalking, March, Drill IV, and eventually got Heroic Strength/Defense I, from mutations to toss in too. I checked out a few of the combat logs, and my uber-golems were killing enemies with their first strikes alone.

Oh and another note, you also get to build the Shrine of the Champion too since you 'lost' your civ hero :D. The Shrine of the Champion, Ride of the Nine Kings, and any other XP-boosting things helped a lot with the higher-end promos (Combat, Flanking, Drill).

Seems a simple enough exploit to fix, just block anything with the Hero promotion from being turned into a flesh golem.

Seems a simple enough exploit to fix, just block anything with the Hero promotion from being turned into a flesh golem.
Neither Abashi nor Eurabatres have the Hero promotion anyway.

Seems a simple enough exploit to fix, just block anything with the Hero promotion from being turned into a flesh golem.

Awww. Well do they still have alimit?
Edit: Wait, if the dragon is the first unit addid, does the golem gain dragon?

All of those promotions he mentioned could be easily obtained through non-hero units, arcane and disciple units for example. While the golem can't use the magic promotions, the combat promotions gained can be used.

It would be especially easy if you use vampires, I don't think the vampire promotion can actually be used by the flesh golem though.

Nah, Dragon is a Racial promotion, so Golem blocks it. They still do get Magic Immune though.

Also, the dragon-based flesh golems aren't insanely powerful because of the promotions, those are just icing. They're absurdly powerful due to the fact that when you graft in a unit, if its strength is higher than the golem's it raises it. Therefore, by repeatedly adding in a dragon you keep boosting the golem's strength until it's the same, THEN add in the weapons promotions and other strength-boosters since those are a fixed amount to get the remaining dozen points or so.

Vampire just gives the golem the benefits of the increased heal rate, which is actually pretty useful.

Magic promotions actually now CAN be used, since the spells are now granted by the Sphere promotions. The golem only gets Channeling and Divine stripped from it, so it retains the ability to cast any arcane spells.

A vampire flesh golem can use Feast and get XP, but it can't spend the XP. I'm not sure if it can use Feed or Gift Vampirism...my guess would be yes.

A vampire flesh golem can use Feast and get XP, but it can't spend the XP. I'm not sure if it can use Feed or Gift Vampirism...my guess would be yes.
Rather, a Calabim vampire flesh golem can use Feast. Also not sure on Feed but probably yes, but they can use Gift Vampirism regardless of who owns them.

My little Fleshgolemexploid was massproduction of Archmages with the Amburites. 30 Fleshgolems with spells like a Archmage, move 4 and flying realy is no problem. Of course, if I had a very strong Monster and life 3 with those Fleshgolems...
Hmmm how many times can you resurrect a Monster (or Hero?) with life 3 during one turn?
:mischief:

Nah, Dragon is a Racial promotion, so Golem blocks it. They still do get Magic Immune though.

Also, the dragon-based flesh golems aren't insanely powerful because of the promotions, those are just icing. They're absurdly powerful due to the fact that when you graft in a unit, if its strength is higher than the golem's it raises it. Therefore, by repeatedly adding in a dragon you keep boosting the golem's strength until it's the same, THEN add in the weapons promotions and other strength-boosters since those are a fixed amount to get the remaining dozen points or so.

Vampire just gives the golem the benefits of the increased heal rate, which is actually pretty useful.

Magic promotions actually now CAN be used, since the spells are now granted by the Sphere promotions. The golem only gets Channeling and Divine stripped from it, so it retains the ability to cast any arcane spells.

lol, I can picture someone going nuts with the adepts and mages, getting various branches, then assimilating them into the flesh golem. The same effect could work with Mobius Witches.

It'd be nice if it was possible for a unit to be neither alive nor dead, so if you golemed a hero you couldn't bring it back with ressurection.

It'd be nice if it was possible for a unit to be neither alive nor dead, so if you golemed a hero you couldn't bring it back with ressurection.

wouldn't that just make it an UNdead unit? I think there is already an undead racial promotion.

Undead: A being brought back to life after death.
Not Dead: Not dead yet
Lich: Died in special ritual, so as to not really died.
Sidar: Never Died, kept in-between by feading on their own soul
Vampire: Never Died, kept in-between by feading on blood
That Which is not Dead: can eternal lie, even after death it's self has perished.
Shade (as in Fancy named ghost): Incaporeal undead
Edit: At least, this is as I see it.

most all heroes have the hero promotion. it should be easy enough to not allow units with the dragon or hero promotion to be added to a flesh golem. that would cover all resurrectable living heros.

My little Fleshgolemexploid was massproduction of Archmages with the Amburites. 30 Fleshgolems with spells like a Archmage, move 4 and flying realy is no problem. Of course, if I had a very strong Monster and life 3 with those Fleshgolems...
Hmmm how many times can you resurrect a Monster (or Hero?) with life 3 during one turn?
:mischief:
As many times as you have casters :D. I only had 2 Mobius Witches that had Life, which became my dragon-resurrecters. Resurrection only resurrects your civ-hero, so only Sheaim and Kuriotates really can create insanely-high-strength Flesh Golems using it. Everyone else just has to settle for 20-odd strength.

I noticed something else while Goleming Abashi: you can only sacrifice her once via the Demons' Altar. Is it possible to make Graft Flesh only castable once per unit? It would only affect civ-heroes, but would serve the purpose of preventing you from repeatedly Goleming them.

I don't like the idea of not being able to graft Heroes or Dragons. I've grafted Acheron before just to get the Magic Immunity and get some use out of him (stupid slow dragon).

Shades are the same as the Sidar, and they are not incorporeal (or incaporeal) or undead.



I'm thinking that units with World Limits should be blocked from grafting.

I'm not checking things, so could be wrong. But I think that the Altar requires that the unit has some XP, that is why you couldn't re-sac Abashi.

Sacrificing a unit at a Demons Altar requires the unit have at least a Level of 2.

(It gives 10 +level^2 research.)

Sacrificing a unit at a Demons Altar requires the unit have at least a Level of 2.

(It gives 10 +level^2 research.)
Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Anyway, is it possible to make Graft Flesh castable only once per unit? Doing so would prevent the exploitation of Resurrection + Graft Flesh.

wouldn't that just make it an UNdead unit? I think there is already an undead racial promotion.

I don't mean thematically/conceptually, I mean for the program to recognize that it was created but never killed, rather eliminated another way without being eligible for resurection. But this is the only case where it is an issue, so there could be checks other ways.
Really, though, I think it falls under the category of, by the time you're doing that, you probably could have just won, so go ahead and have fun.

Dragons take forever to build. If you've got one, the game should be over anyway. Is there really a problem here?

Dragons take forever to build. If you've got one, the game should be over anyway. Is there really a problem here?

I agree, if you've got your dragon and a bunch of life III units (archmages, probably) to sacrifice just so you can make an even cooler unit, the exact details of how you're going to win that game are just that... details. You should pretty much be able to walk over anything that's still alive (or undead or whatever) at the time, so the dragon golem is just eye candy :)

By the way, the best defense I know against those uber units is to just spawn a lot of weak units as fast as you can, and keep them swamped. Particularly if they don't have blitz, that works like a charm.

By the way, the best defense I know against those uber units is to just spawn a lot of weak units as fast as you can, and keep them swamped. Particularly if they don't have blitz, that works like a charm.

Exept that you dont deal a single point of damage if they have drill promotions.

If you've got a unit at that power level you've probably already won the game...

Is "werewolf" a racial promotion?

When did you stop having to sacrifice a life mana node to cast resurect? It seems like there would be plenty of other reasons why a costless resurection spell is overowered.

Is "werewolf" a racial promotion?
I believe so, since I don't recall ever getting an Elven Baron Duin Halfmorn. No Vampire werewolf dragon flesh golems for you ;)

And yes, having both a dragon and archmages would pretty much mean you've won, but the problem is Life III is still overpowered due to being costless. I personally still think there should be at least a loss of the Life III promotion, to prevent ridiculous Resurrecting. An interesting alternative might be to make it only castable in the city with the Shrine of the Champion, and destroy the Shrine when cast. This would prevent most of the abuse, as well as taking care of the issue of being able to build the shrine then getting your hero back.

Agree with Nikis-Knights last take on the matter here.

And Resurection hardly seems overpowered compared to other Archmage-Level spells (which whould boil down to: Life is an automatic pick that devalues basically all other archmage-level spells.) Compare most heroes with Tier 3 Summons for example and you'll see that its average to good at best.

The new version at least makes it an viable option to use (before it was a nonoption exept for 2 or 3 civs. And those civs are not exactely the strongest so the stronger power-boost for them doesn't hurt. Especially Elhoim which get clearly the biggest boost out of that change / Synergy with the new resurection.). Not everything that is good is overpowered.
Don't forget that the only spell that was really overpowered so much that the team cut it was Meteor Swarm (other spells were cut for simplification not for beeing overpowered). So if you are about to call something overpowered consider pausing and comparing something to other features especially in its own field.

Even while playing Kuoritates or Sheaim its hard enough to reach and build the dragons (most games end before that point is reached for those civs) and Flesh Golem is another Archmage Spell which is arguably stronger than even the new resurection (and a very fun one too even if that spell creates some real if rather minor issues. At least if compared to Meteor Swarm).


That may not change that Dragon-Golems boosted up via Life 3 are indeed absurdly powerful. But its a good thing given the time they appear.
Something to break up / end the very late game with a big bang seems very much allright.

Comparing things isolated of their cost and time to reach doesn't yield any real insight into balancing (which is done at macro-level in FFH2 anyways as opposed to feature level balancing.).

Should someone come up with a really nasty combination that really brakes the balance of Magic Tier 1-3 (and Tier 1 and 2 of life-magic are not the best of all as well) / civ-balance even more than Corlindale + Life 3 there are still many options other than the absurdly high cost of sacrificing a node (having to give up the Life 3-Promotion seems much more resonable if a cost is necessary at all. As seen in Mind 3 where this limitation does work without rendereing the spell to costly as the old limitation did.).
Since the introduction of Metamagic Nodes have become even much more valuable than before. Another reason why sacrificing a node to be able to cast a spell seems unreasonable.

The word overpowered is overused alot in regards to many features here imo.

Agree with Nikis-Knights last take on the matter here.

And Resurection hardly seems overpowered compared to other Archmage-Level spells

I think I must be missing something. Can you really now just cast Resurrection and get your civ's hero back (with old xp?) with no cost to the caster? Do you get to keep the Shrine of the Champion? Does this mean you could keep casting Peace with Corindale? That seems notably better than a summon spell, particularly considering that you really need a bunch of other promotions to make summons effective (combats, extends).

Obviously I haven't played with it so I'm not going to say it's "overpowered," I'm just supprised.

The word overpowered is overused alot in regards to many features here imo.

That seems a bit sophomoric, if you’re talking about balance the term "overpowered" could very reasonably be used quite frequently. Now maybe it's a goofy term, but that's just the internet for you.

No, its a problem here because people refer to things beeing overpowered on feature level rather often (if you look at it from that angle many things in FFH2 are blatantly overpowered.).

But Kael (and if i remember correctly other members of the team as well) more than once clearly stated that FFH 2 is mainly designed to be fun first and foremost as well as designed with an high emphasis on replayability + that balance is to be done on macro / civ or field level. Not on Feature level. So calling something overpowered without refering to the broader context (like beaker cost / time in the game and alternatives you have to pass on to use a given feature) is misleading and rather valuless to help balance FFH 2 and make it more fun.

And since the team has to put work into it calling things overpowered with impunity at worst will hamper the games development and make it less fun.

Like it has arguably been the case with slave-trade from Undercouncil (where arguably a higher cost for buying and selling might have been another option instead of making slave-rushing weaker) and to a much larger degree with the Grigori civ (which has been hit with multiple serious nerfs and powerups for their nonoptions at the same time which has made Grigori a rather dull and streamlined civ. Not necessarily poor in raw power but much less fun.)
Which are 2 good examples where feature-level balancing has gone a bit / quite considerably over the top due to extreme lobbying of feature-level-balancing enthusiasts which the team has heeded.


Many people here seem to get the word "balance" wrong in the context of FFH 2, with those 2 non-compatible approaches to balance possible. (one more suitable for multiplayer / e-sports oriented games, the other one for well rounded and fun single player games with a high emphasis on replayability)


And im rather sure you can keep the shrine. Don't see any problem with that (sure this point is arguable. But at least lends more power to very early heroes and makes it an option for civs with a very useful hero which is not necessarily bad imo.
I also can't really spot any problems with it flavorwise / backgroundwise. The hero has to die at least once for you to build it after all.).

I belive the hero is resurected at 0 XP though. (which could be more powerful or less. Depending on the situation / hero / civ. But i don't know that one for sure. Perhaps someone will come along here who knows for sure.)

Yes especially for the Elhoim which also have very easy / early acess to Life 3 thanks to devouts
(and maybe other civ heroes that start with equipment if above assumption of them starting fresh is right.) is stronger than a summon if viewed isolated.
But if you consider that it works only for the Elhoim (which are a rather weak civ on its own and could well use to have spiritual back for making them more rounded as well as more fitting flavorwise) with just that focus of having peace and keeping AC down.

That said its not impossible that with one civ / wild combination i haven't considered its indeed overpowered even from my point of view.
Still even if that whould be the case, sacrificing a node seems to steep of a cost anyways. By far. There are enough other options.

I kinda like the Peace-Spam Corlindale idea :)


An alternative to destruction of the Shrine of the Champion to cast the spell is to leave it as requiring a Life Node to cast it, and have it reset the node instead of destroying it. Then you have to take the time to rebuild your life node before you can Resurrect again. A complete non-issue unless you are attempting to abuse the spell. And to cast it more than once in a single turn you would need to have multiple Archmages stationed on seperate Life Nodes, which by default means spaced quite a distance apart.

You do keep the Shrine, which is somewhat broken IMO. I feel like it should be either you get the Shrine or the Hero, not both.

You get the Hero back with no XP and only the default promotions (ones mentioned in the Civilopedia), so you'd lose out on things like Stigmata.

As for balance... Life III right now is far more powerful than any other tier 3 spell, with the possible exceptions of Domination, Wonder, and Graft Flesh. Domination can be lost or failed, while Wonder is too random for consistent usage. Life III right now is basically a permanent summon without the turn of immobility, with the added benefit of allowing you to get the Shrine. Oh and also, you can keep mutating your hero until you get a good one. Graft Flesh... yeah, Flesh Golems are overpowered if you take the time to build them up.

For all civs? I have to disagree.
Do you really think that safely having Gilden, Loki and Rantine (just to name some examples) are more powerful than summoning elementals with spellstaff and Empower 5 (another hot Tier 3 Sphere since the overhaul of how nodes work) or the likes? And it never gets to be more than one at a time all advantages aside.
Id rather have 2 Empower 5, Mobiltiy 2,
Air, Fire or Water Elementals over an early-midgame hero any day of the week.

Imo what you say is only right for a handful of civs at best. (with solid mid-lategame heroes. With Dragons being to late for me to agree with your statement regarding to their civs.)
Its a solid spell. Given. But overall im sure its not the best and you have to live with rather weak / situational tier 1 and 2 spells as opposed to many other spheres.
If its not valid for all civs you have to look at overall civ-balance if those civs are to powerful or rather weak and deserving of this boost.

And it improves the importance of civ heroes as opposed to other ones which might also be a good thing.

Also you should definately add Death 3 to the list imo. One Civ Hero is not worth 4 Liches for anyone i can think of save Elhoim and Civ-Heroes starting with equipment (perhaps) and you get Wraiths in addition to it without any further cost or limitation (Wraith themselves beeing a very solid summon.).


Haven't got down to cast Wonder yet, due to my comp beeing down sadly. Nice to hear it could be a good spell. Had fears that chaos whould suffer quite considerably from that change because Kyleen really had some serious use for Pit-Beasts.


And where is written that the choice is to be hero or shrine? Can't see any nonartificial reason of non-micro-balancing.

Flavorwise it makes sense that the people still revere the site of the heroic sacrifice of their savior.
(All the more so if he is there in flesh and blood to tell the story first-hand. ;) And even with beeing resurected, beeing killed in a violent way still hurts for sure... So its still heroic.)
Also its a high-magic-background and resurection is even in the leader-pedia (Mahla) so nothing completely unheard of let alone a reason to raze the shrine of the champion.



@ Xienwolf: Resetting a Life-Node whould be another very solid option imo to limit the Spell somewhat. Greath idea. :) Still not sure if thats needed.
Disagree on the shrine as explained above.

Blackmantle,
I may regret asking this, but what do you think the “macro-balancing” analysis is here vs. “micro-balancing”? I understand this principle when it comes to, say, religions or civilizations: you don’t balance civilization heroes against each other, but rather civ/religions as a whole. This makes sense because the strategic choice is between civilizations or religions rather than heroes.

There are a number of strategic choices regarding a level three spell: what research path to pursue, what civ and religion to pick (palace/shrine mana, arcane heroes), what mana nodes to build, etc. Assuming that one of the primary choices is which promotion path to take, it would seem that at least some balancing needs to take place between individual spell paths (which is apparently what you consider "micro balance," and inappropriate to consider).

I could go on determining what needs to be balanced against what, but my point is that I don’t think you can dismiss concerns about individual features by saying “FFH2 is balanced on a macro, not micro level,” because there are both macro and micro strategic choices that need to be preserved through balancing. I think when Kael says that he balances on a macro level he means something rather different than "small choices don’t need to be balanced against each other so long as the primary strategic options are balanced." I think he means that the full implication of a feature/choice throughout the game need to be considered, therefore "mirco-balancing" is in fact a necesary aspect of balance, it just isn't the end of the conversation. A good strategic experience involves making choices between “balanced” options at many levels.

This is a very interesting discussion. I haven't gotten a chance to use resurrect so I don't know some of the fine details that might affect how OP certain wacky strats might become. For instance, could you resurrect Rauthus or Hyborem with their equipment intact AFTER they die and someone else has taken the equipment? If so, and if you could reliably recapture the equipment after the hero dies, you could theoretically equip half your army with Gelas.

Also, if you resurrect Hyborem or Basium, does your civ get its traits back?

No return of traits if you resurrect Basium/Hyborem. But the equipment thing should be quite easy to do. Just delete the Hero as soon as you rez him and he'll drop the equipment right on your archmage.

to put things simply ...

in its current state life 3 is broken

to fix it ....

please make an item called "bones of the fallen" and you need bones of the fallen to cast life 3.

IMO that would just make things worse/more complicated.

I would agree it is overpowered, but fun :)

Lets see what Kael has in version .33.

You guys are all cheaters. ;)

Seriously Im checking out Graft Flesh and Ressurection now to balance them out.

LOL, let us have some fun with the bugs once in a while will ya :)

Off topic but after reading kaels comment about us being cheaters I had a flashback to the game Decent. When you typed in a cheat code they game would call you a cheater and keep flashing it in on the top of the screen. ahh the memories =)

most all heroes have the hero promotion. it should be easy enough to not allow units with the dragon or hero promotion to be added to a flesh golem. that would cover all resurrectable living heros.

Wrong, abashi does not get the hero promotion, neither does govannon or eurabates.

Civ-Heroes starting with equipmentOhh, forgot about equipment. Empty Biers for everyone!

Be sure to try wonder, Blackmantle. It's verging on overpowered, but not quite reliable enough to be called so. Much fun, though.

Why would you want to give everyone empty beers? Full beers for everyone is so much better :D

Yeah, I haven't tried resurrecting a Hero with equipment, but if it works, then that's way way broken. I wonder... does Resurrection work on Barnaxus? If so, then, could you have an army of Barnaxus clones?

I don't think it does, since you can revive him just by getting his pieces. If you can, then that should probable be removed.

@ Randolph: First lets get whats clear about what i mean with microbalancing and macrobalancing.


Life 3 + Body 3 + Abishai / Eruberates if only viewed / valued only by its result (which is a nigh unstopable flying civroasting monster which seems! gamebreaking + Shrine of the Champion in one of your cities) = clearly is Micro Balancing not useful for desning because it is usually (extremely unusual circumstances like domitaing one of the two excluded) only possible for:


Sheaim / Kuoritates (limited to only very few civs), Archmage Level Casters (not available easiely, especially in sufficient abundance to pick many Spheres to Level 3) + requires Body Mana and Life Mana (Either from Palace or Techs) + Requires Divine Essence (Which is a very costly tech.) + a considerable number of hammers and time to hatch said Tier 3 Casters.
Ignoring these factors seems a bit overeager.


A macro balancing evaluation whould (among other nonlisted factors i haven't thought about at the moment) also take into consideration time to achive it (in turns), cost (in hammers / beakers / opportunity cost and the likes), limitations (like only one civ hero at a time for Life 3 in comparison to many Summons running around from law / entropy or multiple elementals with full enhancements), alternatives (what other spheres may have a simmilar better result for the same promotions at a given time).
And yes its possible to do even with above example compared to other alternatives.
(For example by comparing that with an early hero and a civ that has life mana (or other easy acess to Life 3 like Elhoim from devouts) from palace for example.
Very likely making Rathus Dremora + Divination +1 Life Node/ KotE + Tomb of Sucellus + Gibbon with Life 3 (giving unlimited access to nether blades + regular Shades + Shrine of the Champion)
or Corlindale with a Life 3 Priest upgraded from a devout / a liched corlindale (giving unlimited casts of peace + Shrine of the champion) a much larger issue even if the above result looks much more impressive with Sheim / Kuoritates + Body 3 + Life 3.
In fact i belive if evalued by macrobalancing approach Dragons + Life 3 is one of the wakest applications of life 3 for beeing an utter nonfactor in most games for inability to achive it in time for victory the first place. I reach divine Essence in perhaps 5 of a hundred games. And im a builder who likes fancy / whaky tools to play with and regularly playes into lategame.


Basically Life 3 now is clearcut part of the civ vs. civ balance (depending on existence of a civ-hero which grigori and Luchirp lack for example, as well as time of the hero and available mana from palace + hero starting with/out equipment / sacrificial abilities like peace or lichdom and the likes.
Add to that anything else a given civ has to offer.) which is clear macrobalancing.



Like whould be comparing the power of Immortals / War Chariots to a hippus Horsemen Rush / Copper/enchanted Bladed Warrior Rush / Svartalfar Reconrush over an whole map.
The former seeming much more powerful by result (microbalancing) the later beeing a much bigger problem?/factor for macrobalance.
(Both seem more or less ok if looked at it overall.
But the example is a good way to explain the difference in short.)



And i don't say that its completely unessesarry to do anything in design by looking at microbalance (otherwise Meteor Swarm whouldn't have needed a cut which it indeed badly did).
But its overused! in respect to reporting (and thus takes away some considerable time on behalf of the team to sort out and read) in comparison to macrobalancing which kael has said to be the main way to balance FFH 2 (which in turn means more energy goes into it but doesn't mean its the only part of balancing).

And while serious problems with macrobalance by default are a problem for the game as a whole (in case of a dull and underpowered civ it might lead to that civ beeing nonplayed and nonsetup which might be a big hit if you consider how much time the dev-team has put into a given civ) even considerable problems with microbalance might not do harm or even add to the experience of the game (by delivering fun tools to play with even if they look a bit geeky.)

In fact i belive the outlined possibility of Life 3 + Body 3 + Dragon Civ Hero seems just like a very good example of a very fun tool that breaks microbalancing while beeing not even a bit of a deterent from the fun of playing the game / of good macrobalance.



PS: Everyone who is using Fleshgolems is a cheater anyways. :p
At least of the nature / evolution of Erebus and to asthetics.
For the game as a whole maybe (dont' se a gross violation though even if some aspects of flesh golems might seem over the top but those are possible to balance). :)
But thats "all kaels fault" aka "bad game design" if it is. :D :p


The equippment-resurection seems off though because of gross violation of flavor / background.

Ok that's certainly reasonable enough, I guess I'm just supprised that there's anyone who's not doing that. I mean, if you're not weighing the total costs and benefits of a feature against each other, you're really not balancing. I suppose the OP of this thread is a counter example to my gut, but even when I read stuff like that I generally assume that the poster just doesn't have enough experience playing the game on a challenging difficulty level to effectlively balance the costs and benefits of a feature, not that they don't see the value in doing so.

Regardless, thank you for the clarification!

Hello, my name is cyther and I haven't used a flesh golem in 3 days!

Must break the addiction, ahhhhh!

Just take a small peak at the "balaning-issues" threads and you'll see what i mean. ;) (I had a long argument there about the nexus and my stance on it beeing not completely overpowered by macrobalaning view for example.
Given i build + use + like the nexus alot. So you could consider me a bit biased in that regards. It just speeds the lategame up so much its really helpful in finishing a game allready won on paper so imo it whould be a real loss if it went.)

I guess that about half if not more of the balancing-issues brought up by players there are of that kind. (or far worse stating something without taking the time to post even one word on why.)

And even if you take some of the things into consideration some things still stay microbalancing factors which might not be a problem for the game overall. (like saying Life 3 + corlindale is a problem without looking at the other strengths / lackings of the elhoim civ)

@ Nikis-Knight: I sure will when i get my desktop back up and running which might be soon luckily. Especially since a new version of Marnoks Modmod is there to be tested.

Wrong, abashi does not get the hero promotion, neither does govannon or eurabates.

Nor Barnaxus or some of the barb heroes. But it would be reasonably easy to program those to be unGraftable, too.

whouldn't really help to solve the problem in full still since equippment is the much larger issue and it whouldn't fix that (there are still a ton of other ways to get your hero killed). And it whould be counter-intuitive. As in: Why?

Maximum Number of things grafted on a single golem (like 5 or 10) might be a better fix for Body 3 (+ fix combination of Life 3 + Body 3 as well since time to level your hero after resurection whould be another factor) and also put a bigger value in grafting better units in as opposed to cheap things hurled onto the golem by mass production.
Question whould be if thats easy to code.

In fact i belive the outlined possibility of Life 3 + Body 3 + Dragon Civ Hero seems just like a very good example of a very fun tool that breaks microbalancing while beeing not even a bit of a deterent from the fun of playing the game / of good macrobalance.
Agreed, the main thing I was pointing out was how overpowered Life III seemed. I actually got the Golems around 100 turns earlier when I took and lost the Mokka's Cauldron city several times in a massive war. The Dragon Flesh Golem of Doom was just a very specific example of just how ridiculous things can get when you take an abusable spell and combine it with an abusable unit :D

I suppose the OP of this thread is a counter example to my gut, but even when I read stuff like that I generally assume that the poster just doesn't have enough experience playing the game on a challenging difficulty level to effectlively balance the costs and benefits of a feature, not that they don't see the value in doing so.
I mostly play at Monarch, which admittedly is rather low. I have played maybe a dozen games at uh... whatever the next highest difficulty is (Immortal?) but found that while I could win most of the time, it forced me into certain strategies which detracted from the experience. Monarch tends to be enough of a challenge to keep me interested while still allowing me the freedom to mess around a little bit. Anyway, I suppose that I don't have enough experience with the highest difficulty settings, where the late game is almost never reached.

Now that the Equipment and Corlindale issues have been brought up, those sound as if they are much more serious issues than the ability to create the dragon golem of doom.

Equipment cloning is an obvious problem, while Corlindale would mean that the Elohim would literally be invincible, since no civ could ever manage to be at war with them unless the Elohim wished it to be so. They could perform single-turn mass landgrabs without bothering to defend, then keep the peace with Corlindale until they were ready for another big push. No need for garrisons when nobody can attack anyway. Keep in mind that Sphener also can get Life III.

@Blackmantle, last post:
Even a low limit like 5 would still allow a fair bit of abuse, but would improve the use of Flesh Golems I think. Mokka's Cauldron could still be a source of issues though, since it's fairly easy to create a golem-farm out of the Cauldron city.

Indeed if you use fun tools with other fun tools they get even more fun. :D

Try Sidar + Baron (or more importantly his offspring) + scouts with subdue animal. Now thats fun up to deity.


All average to good Tier 3 spells are Tools for abuse really (Even some of the good Tier 2 ones like Maelstorm or Specters which seem a bit more of an isse on macro if any.). But they are supposed to be. Like most things from lategame techs. Otherwise Lategame might seem to be boring / repeatative.
And don't get me started on Druids which are perhaps one of the strongest units in the game. (Without any other tools added.)

Exploits aside, it would be useful for when you lose your hero to some event.

Maybe if the peace ability that corlindale has is a one shot spell (like the worldspells) which he cannot get again? That would solve the problem you're explaining while keeping corlindale as he has other uses besides peacemaking.

One turn of Anarchy for using peace (even the first use) might be another possibility (and perhaps a bit better in line of Flavor and easier to code). Just to toss another idea into the mix.

yea, we already know that the world spells are coded to be one shot spells, so it should be possible to make Corlindales spell a one shot deal.

Also maybe have it not kill corlindale.

I think having him loose a lump of Exp like Patriarchs used to would be better then killing him. That is, if he could only cast it ether once, or need like fifty turns to use it again.

World spells use the Feat mechanism (like circumnavigating the globe) and could not be easily extended to add more one time use spells. Well, you can add as many as you want, but casting one world spell would block your civ from casting any other.



In my version Peace is not unit specific, but rather requires both Spirit 3 and Life 3. (I felt both of these were very weak/situational/not repeatable (especially true of Trust), and so could use a boost.) It still kills the caster.


I'm thinking the best fix for the graft flesh/resurrection exploit is to block world units from being grafted.

Mokka's Caldron should also create undead units (again) with modified strength rather than Flesh Golems. The current way is unthematic, unbalanced, and weakens the Body III spell.

*shrug* everything is overpowered in FFH2, it's not like this new exploit will change the tides of balance.

Mokka's Caldron should also create undead units (again) with modified strength rather than Flesh Golems. The current way is unthematic, unbalanced, and weakens the Body III spell.

I agree whole heartedly. It's really quite odd that pot that raises the dead raises them as sculpted flesh.

It would be realy cool if the cauldron raises the dead unit with a special undead Promotion (perhaps with additional downgrades) , that pervents raising this unit.

Well, Mokka did seam to have a habit of raising people he killed as his toys.

Just a much better fix for peace dawned on me:
Just give it a casting delay of 2, 3, 4 or 5 Turns (or whatever else seems to be the most fitting). Makes sense flavorwise as well since i disbelive that Corlindale does his diplomacy at the blink of an eye and whould prevent massresurection / repediately chaincasting peace multiple times in one Turn.

No undue diminishing of Life 3 for other civs and no unresonable cost attached that makes the ability less apealing.

Single (or other limit) time castable spells would be VERY easy to add. The World Spells use the Feat system because it was there and it served the purpose. Should it be decided that it is useful to limit the number of times other spells can be cast, it is child's play to add a variable which controls how many times a spell may be cast (and you could even set it up so that it is a certain number of times cast in a span of turns by adding a decay function).

Honestly, a limit put to low (as suggested in that thread) whould make peace / the elhoim civ even weaker than it was before the change to Life 3 where the elhoim where one of very few civs with a real incentive to cast Resurection to get their hero back and not much (not any?) ranting was heard about that combination here.

So this should be taken into consideration before just putting the possible time to cast it to a measly 1 (And the Elhoim aren't really one of the stronger civs).
A more reasonable limit sounds more or less fine but the question is if a sufficient decay time whouldn't serve that purpose better.

A decay function whould be another interesting way to limit that combination and whould perhaps make a good mix with a small delay of one or two turns. If that is really that easy and without any other serious implications on performance and the likes.

Thinking about the Decay function I am liking the idea more and more. I'll have to add it to my "to do" list. I'd even think it is worth replacing the concept of "Has Casted" on the majority of the spells in the game and instead setting up a limit for how many times you can cast it per X number of turns. You can set it as 1 Cast per 5 Turns, and it would work much like the Spell Delay, but with an instant action and allowing you to use the Caster during the next 5 turns for other functions. You could also set it for 3 casts per 3 turns (and does nto trigger "Has Casted") for things like Spring, allowing a mage to spring multiple tiles along a road in a single turn, then have to wait a while or do something else until he can Spring again.

Might be useful to define a limit globally and individually though. I had initially been thinking global limits, but then some things are far too tricky to balance, and there is little reward for building large quantities of Magic users.

I'm thinking that units with World Limits should be blocked from grafting.

That would stop the archmages from being golem'd. It would also stop me from goleming religious heroes (before switching religions).

Btw, I have golem'd Acheron the Red a couple times when I managed to capture him but I wasn't able to give him movement. Actually, what was odd was that during the last game I played Perpentach had managed to gain Acheron.

That would stop the archmages from being golem'd.
No, it wouldn't. Those have National limits, not World limits. Graft them to golems as much as you like.

Of course, I personally still think that Flesh Golems should be unable to cast spells, so you might not care about grafting them anymore.



It would also stop me from goleming religious heroes (before switching religions).
True, but getting rid of that exploit is probably a good thing. Especially now that Religious heroes that abandon you become available to be built again.

Thinking about the Decay function I am liking the idea more and more. I'll have to add it to my "to do" list. I'd even think it is worth replacing the concept of "Has Casted" on the majority of the spells in the game and instead setting up a limit for how many times you can cast it per X number of turns. You can set it as 1 Cast per 5 Turns, and it would work much like the Spell Delay, but with an instant action and allowing you to use the Caster during the next 5 turns for other functions. You could also set it for 3 casts per 3 turns (and does nto trigger "Has Casted") for things like Spring, allowing a mage to spring multiple tiles along a road in a single turn, then have to wait a while or do something else until he can Spring again.

Might be useful to define a limit globally and individually though. I had initially been thinking global limits, but then some things are far too tricky to balance, and there is little reward for building large quantities of Magic users.

Your moving the toward a spell point system. Mages gain x amount per turn (modified by promotions, etc), spells cost y amount to cast (depending on the spell), mages can store up z amount of spell points max (modified by promotions, etc).

There are some people that would love this system and its really easy to code. But:

1. Its to complex for where the focus of the game should be (at the empire level). It would be great for a game or modmod that focuses more on the units level (like lutefisk's dungeon mod). Otherwise its unnessesary detail for the game.

2. Its nearly impossible to teach the AI how to efficiently deal with a spell point system. Its hard enough to get him to make good decisions within one turn, but when it comes to the choice of should I cast enchant weapons now or save the mana so that i can cast fireball twice in 3 turns is crazy hard. Humans would deal well with it and drive us back into an ai abyss we are trying to crawl out of.

I never liked the whole "Its to complex for where the focus of the game should be (at the empire level)" argument.

Go ahead and implement the system xienwolf! Maybe not actually require it to be used for all spells, but it would be very nice to have the option.

Itwould be really nice (and complex) if the spell points were tracked separately for each mana type, and spells could require points of multiple sphere. Letting Metamagic at as a substitute for any other type might be cool too.

Well, the main difference between this and a spellpoint system would be that each spell is still considered individually. In fact this makes the spells more individual than the current system as it would allow you to cast Enchant Weapons, Summon Air Elemental AND Fireball all in the same turn. Just now you'd have to wait another 3 turns to cast Fireball again, and another 5 to cast Summon Air Elemental (where Enchant Weapons you could cast another 2 times this turn if you really wanted to, but what's the point? No valid targets anymore since the first cast).

By giving each spell an individual timer you can ditch the "has cast" function on all but the strongest spells. I don't know that any of them are strong enough I would bother so far, and quite a few in the game now I would probably grant an IgnoreHasCasted attribute, because it doesn't really matter too much how many times you cast Haste IMO.

Not sure how hard it'd be to get the AI to use it, but for a first attempt I would just stick with having the AI cast anything which makes sense to cast as soon as it is allowed to cast it again. I'd only fret over the logic heavily for spells which have a player limit or no Decay Function for number of casts allowed.


But by and large, the majority of the ideas I have are far more Unit-centric than the main mod would aim for. I'm hoping to eventually bring the game down to the point of being more about city building and hero/army movements. Then each player would only have a small handfull of units out at a time, each one representing either: a Hero Buys Equipment, Hires Underlings. Can occasionally find one or the other Spends XP on Skills, which rely on having the right Equipment or Underling Special Force Squad Buys Assignments (well, you Contract them out Technically) Spends XP on Specialists' Talents a General Buys Regiments (Most have an ongoing Salary as well) Spends XP on Formations & Tactics, which rely on having the right RegimentsRather than the current Civ Model of Crapload of various units Can't really buy Squat Spends XP on Promotions[/list]

The Civ model works decently well in general. But you wind up with really silly things, like using the same promotion for a single tank as for a regiment of Machine Gunners, and having the classic Spearman Beats Tank issues. I think it'd be fun the way I plan, but there is a LOT of groundwork to lay first, as well as just getting accustomed to the code (mostly there now).

EDIT: In case anyone notices the disparity between me still having the chance of Armies vs Individuals (Heroes), it'll actually be set up such that the 3 categories need to meet special requirements to interact with enemies of another category. Like a spellscroll for a VERY powerful area effect spell for a Hero to attack an entire Army)

I never liked the whole "Its to complex for where the focus of the game should be (at the empire level)" argument.

This I knew. ;)

People generally want to feel like they know all the main features of a game and want another layer of new detail to learn and play with. So at your level of knowledge about the game (ie: great sage) you want much more detail, but we cant expect that many people will be willing to learn the mod to the same level you have.

The art of game design isnt adding endlessly. We could have a spell point system, rpg level stats on all the units, multi-sphere spells, new features on all units, a full class system for your units, full equipment, turn based combat resolution, etc. That game would be loved by some people, and very intimidating to new players.

There isnt really a right answer here, its personal preference. I tend to thinkt hat all the above are really fun systems to design, but not nessisarily that fun to play. If your a modder they sound great, we could spend months talking about ideas and tinkering with systems like these. But in the end I dont know if the game is really all that better (and perhaps even worse).

But it is just personal opinion so I fear we may just not agree on this one. If Civ4 complexity is a 5 and I like FfH to be an 8, you may be in the 12 range. They are all valid options.

Couldn't we just make Life III have a casting delay, like Bloom does? It would be somewhat of a stopgap measure, but it should work well enough. That, and it makes sense that it would take some time to resurrect a hero who was say, incinerated by a dragon on the other side of the world.

Couldn't we just make Life III have a casting delay, like Bloom does? It would be somewhat of a stopgap measure, but it should work well enough. That, and it makes sense that it would take some time to resurrect a hero who was say, incinerated by a dragon on the other side of the world.

This is the way Ressurection is currently set in 0.33 (a 7 turn spell delay), Ive been testing it out and it seems to work pretty well. Also, Add to Flesh Golem no long works on magic immune creatures, like dragons. Though thats mostly for flavor, the spell delay pretty much kills all recursion exploits.

make spells on a certain level of power destroy the node and change the mana to "drained" mana
10% chance per turn of returning to normal mana
"edit"
or that works too

Still quite possible to replicate equipment. Ought to be easily fixed by setting the ressurection spell to check for any Promotion on the UnitInfo which is flagged bEquipment and removing it immediately after unit creation.

Still quite possible to replicate equipment. Ought to be easily fixed by setting the ressurection spell to check for any Promotion on the UnitInfo which is flagged bEquipment and removing it immediately after unit creation.

Well, thats not all we changed. ;)

I tried to go through this thread and hit all the exploits you guys mentioned. The only one Im still scratching my head over is the Corlindale exploit (declare peace every 7 turns). I don't know if thats a huge deal, but I may need to work out something for that as well.

7 Turn delay sounds like a decent enough fix and is very much in line with flavor. :goodjob:

I for one dont think that (perhaps beyond a small delay) for peace further fixing is needed. (again: otherwise the outcry whould allready have been there and it was possible before some 3 or 4 times on average without the delay with peace beeing one of the few things perhaps worth the price of a node. And should it really still be a big problem you will hear of the issue again for sure.)

Now you just need a mechanics to add the traits back to basium and hyborem on resurection and its a very well-rounded spell... :D :p

Quickest answer which comes to mind would be to add a requirement to the Peace Spell that the War must have been running for a certain number of turns already. Or add a Gold cost to the spell. The ideal balance would be a small Gold Per Turn loss for a decently long period of time. Then it won't hurt you much if you use the spell as intended (sparingly), but cripples you if you manage to exploit the spell somehow.

Well, thats not all we changed. ;)

I tried to go through this thread and hit all the exploits you guys mentioned. The only one Im still scratching my head over is the Corlindale exploit (declare peace every 7 turns). I don't know if thats a huge deal, but I may need to work out something for that as well.

Well you could have another Corlindale to spawn that does not have the peace spell. That would make 2 units in the files. I probably am wrong about this, but this could be the easiest way to do it and I am all about being easy. (Edit: umm you know what I mean :blush: )

You could make it require a promotion too, say, spirit III. That way you could still use it, but would need time to get enough xp to use it again.

(I think that Spirit III would still need some other boost, as its effect can only be once per civ per game.)

I would make the case that if you're able to create a golem dragon that powerful you've already won anyway...

@westamastaflash: Yeah, we went over that somewhere on the first or second page :rolleyes:. This is more a discussion of how to fix Life III exploits.

As an alternative to a promotion requirement, wouldn't a level requirement work? Not sure if free spell spheres apply on promotion, but if they do then making it linked to Spirit III wouldn't work too well. Perhaps just a straight-up level requirement?

Little question about fleshgolems:
When creating one with an illusionist (dark elves), it appears that the golem can't use spells of the (arch-)mages put into it.
Is that intention? Is there a workaround except building this wonder, which can create fleshgolems?

Make it fight twice and you should get the option when it levels up to upgrade it to a normal golem that should resolve it the casting problems. My vamp golem created by Gibbon Goetia was casting haste for my stack so I know it works after it's been upgraded to normal.

Re Life 3 exploits, how about making it so you have to build the shrine of the champion first, then cast resurrection on the city with the shrine (which then goes away)?